Work Text:
Prince Jacaerys Velaryon had faced down lords twice his age, stood before councils thick with suspicion, and learned young how to keep his voice even when men searched his face for weakness.
He could sit at a table carved from old stone, with maps of the Narrow Sea unfurled beneath his hands and ravens arriving by the hour, and look every inch the prince his mother had raised him to be. He could speak of alliances, garrisons, harvests, and dragons without so much as blinking.
He could not, however, survive his daughter saying, “Papa,” with both arms lifted toward him.
The meeting stopped as if someone had cut the thread of it. At the far end of the chamber, his little girl stood unsteadily in the open doorway, one hand curled in the skirts of her nurse and the other reaching for him. Dark curls framed her round cheeks, and her small mouth had already begun to tremble with offense that he had dared to be more than three steps away.
Jace was on his feet before any lord could pretend not to notice.
“My Prince,” the nurse began, breathless with apology, “forgive me, she slipped away when she heard your voice.”
Jace did not look remotely offended. In fact, the stern prince who had been discussing patrol routes along the coast vanished so quickly that his wife, seated near the hearth with her embroidery forgotten in her lap, had to press her lips together to keep from laughing.
“Come here, little dragon,” Jace murmured, and crossed the chamber as though no council, no lord, no matter of state could possibly be more urgent than the small person reaching for him. Their daughter gave a delighted gasp when he lifted her, both tiny hands immediately finding his face. She patted his cheek once, twice, with all the gravity of a queen bestowing favor.
“Papa,” she said again, softer this time, satisfied now that the world had been corrected.
“Yes,” Jace said solemnly, as if answering a command from the Iron Throne itself. “Papa is here.”
His wife bit the inside of her cheek. She had seen Jacaerys Velaryon look brave. She had seen him look furious, proud, uncertain, and burdened by duties no boy should have been asked to carry. But nothing in the world softened him like the weight of their daughter against his chest.
It should not have surprised her. Jace had always loved as though love itself were something to guard with both hands.
She had first learned it when she came to court, still new enough to mistake every smile for kindness and every silence for judgment. Jace had noticed before she admitted she was overwhelmed. He had stepped to her side when lords stared too long, answered with smooth courtesy when ladies sharpened their words, and guided her away from conversations that left her shoulders tight and her smile brittle.
After they were married, that quiet vigilance became something warmer and nearer. His hand found the small of her back in crowded halls. He walked close enough that her sleeve brushed his. If a lord spoke too boldly, Jace’s prince voice appeared, mild on the surface and edged like Valyrian steel beneath.
She had thought him impossible then.
Then she had carried their child, and Jace had become unbearable in the most tender way. He hovered when she crossed rooms, glared at anyone who startled her, fussed over whether she was warm, tired, hungry, or safe, and once looked personally betrayed by a flight of stairs.
She had truly believed there could be no height of protectiveness beyond that.
Then their daughter had been born, furious and tiny and red-faced in the midwife’s arms, and Jacaerys Velaryon had looked at her as though the gods had placed his own beating heart into the world and expected him not to panic.
Since then, his wife had watched his good sense abandon him in stages.
He inspected nursery windows as if assassins might arrive disguised as sea wind. He questioned maids about blankets, cup sizes, and the temperature of bathwater. He refused to let their daughter near Vermax without him present, despite the fact that Vermax had shown more patience with the child than most men showed with kings. And if their daughter so much as sniffled, Jace behaved as though the Stranger himself had been spotted lurking in the nursery.
By the time the meeting ended and the household spilled into the gardens for the afternoon meal, the little princess had forgotten whatever offense had driven her to invade the council chamber. She toddled over the grass in a pale blue gown, clutching a stuffed dragon by one limp wing and pausing every few steps to show Jace a stone, a leaf, or nothing at all. Each time, Jace crouched as if receiving treasure from a distant kingdom.
“Ah,” he said gravely when she placed a wrinkled leaf in his palm. “A fine prize. Did you win this in battle?”
“Mine,” she declared.
“Naturally,” Jace said. “A conquered leaf.”
His wife watched from beneath the shade of a stone arch, warmth spreading through her chest despite herself. There were lords nearby, ladies in bright silks, children darting between benches, and servants pouring cups of watered wine, but Jace’s attention had narrowed wholly to the little girl wobbling before him.
That was when the danger appeared.
It came in the form of Lord Bracken’s youngest son, a round-cheeked boy no older than two, who toddled across the grass with a yellow flower clutched in one fist and jam smeared proudly across his chin.
Jace noticed him at once. His shoulders did not move. His face did not change. To anyone else, he might have looked perfectly calm. His wife, unfortunately for him, had been married to him long enough to recognize the precise moment Prince Jacaerys Velaryon began preparing for war.
The little boy wobbled forward with admirable determination, his flower held out before him. Their daughter watched him approach with wide, solemn eyes, her stuffed dragon dragging behind her in the grass.
“For her?” the boy mumbled, though the words came out soft and sticky around his jam-covered mouth.
The princess blinked at the flower. Then, with great care, she reached for it.
Jace took one step forward. His wife caught his sleeve without looking at him. “Jacaerys,” she said under her breath.
“He is touching her hand.”
“He is giving her a flower.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive things.”
She looked up at him then and nearly lost the battle with her laughter. His jaw was set. His eyes were fixed on the boy as though Lord Bracken’s heir had arrived beneath a peace banner with a dagger in his boot, rather than with pollen on his fingers and jam on his chin.
“He is two,” she whispered.
Jace did not look away from the children. “Old enough to have intentions.”
A sound escaped her before she could stop it, something between a laugh and a scandalized gasp. “Intentions? Jace, he can barely stand without swaying.”
She turned her face into his shoulder, laughing soundlessly now, because one of the nearby ladies had begun to glance their way and Jace still looked as though he were moments from demanding the boy’s lineage, holdings, and long-term prospects.
Across the grass, the little boy placed the flower into their daughter’s hand. Their daughter stared down at it, then at him, and gave the smallest, proudest smile.
Jace inhaled sharply.
“Do not,” his wife warned.
“I did not say anything.”
“Your face said several things, most of them treasonous toward House Bracken.”
Jace finally looked at her. “You think I am being unreasonable.”
“I think you are preparing to challenge a child who still believes flowers are food.”
As if summoned by her words, Lord Bracken’s son promptly sat down in the grass, took another flower from his fist, and put the stem directly into his mouth.
His wife raised her brows.
Jace watched the boy chew thoughtfully. “That proves nothing.”
She could not hold back after that. Taking pity on their company, and perhaps on Lord Bracken’s entirely innocent son, she hooked her fingers around Jace’s wrist and drew him beneath the archway where the vines climbed thick over the stone.
“Were you truly about to intervene?” she asked, laughter already bright in her voice.
Jace folded his arms. “I was observing.”
“You looked as though you were deciding whether it would be poor diplomacy to unsheathe your sword at a garden meal.”
“It would have been poor diplomacy,” he admitted.
She stared at him. “That is not the reassurance you think it is.”
His mouth twitched, which only made it worse. “I did not unsheathe anything.”
“How noble of you. Shall I send word to the maester? Prince Jacaerys has shown mercy to a boy with jam on his chin.”
“Mock me if you must,” Jace said, though the corners of his mouth had betrayed him entirely. “But he approached her unchaperoned.”
“He approached her with a flower.”
“Exactly.”
She laughed outright then, helpless and warm, and pressed a hand to his chest. “Gods help me, I did not think you could become more protective than you already were.”
Jace’s expression softened at that, all the mock severity easing from his face. “I was reasonable before.”
“You threatened a guard because he opened a door too quickly when I was carrying her.”
“The door startled you.”
“You argued with a flight of stairs.”
“They were too steep.”
“And now you are prepared to duel toddlers.”
“Only suspicious ones.”
His wife smiled, but her teasing gentled when she saw the way his gaze had drifted past her shoulder again. Their daughter had wandered a few steps away from Lord Bracken’s son now, wholly unconcerned with the political crisis she had caused. She clutched the yellow flower in one hand and her stuffed dragon in the other, babbling softly to herself as she tried to tuck the flower behind the dragon’s lopsided ear. Jace looked at her as though he could not decide whether to laugh or be wounded.
“She is so small,” he said at last. The words were quiet enough that they belonged only to her. Jace swallowed, his arms unfolding as though he had forgotten he was meant to be pretending at offense. “And the world is not.”
For a moment, the garden noise seemed to soften around them: the clink of cups, the murmur of conversation, the windy rush of the sea beyond the walls. His wife followed his gaze and saw what he saw. Not a princess. Not a name in a line of succession. Not a future bargain for some house to covet. Only their little girl, unsteady on her feet, delighted by a flower, trusting the world to be kind because no one had yet taught her otherwise.
His wife’s heart softened until it ached. “I know,” she said, reaching up to smooth her thumb over the line between his brows. “But you cannot stand between her and every flower, my love.”
“I could try.”
She gave him a look.
“I know,” he amended, with a sigh that was almost a laugh. “I know.”
Their daughter chose that moment to settle the matter herself by stumbling back toward them, flower still in hand and stuffed dragon now dragging behind her like a fallen banner. “Papa,” she said, lifting both arms once more.
Jace bent immediately, all lingering tension vanishing as he gathered her against him. She tucked her face into the hollow of his neck with a sigh so heavy and dramatic that his wife wondered where, exactly, the child had learned such theatrics. Then she remembered whom the child belonged to and decided the mystery solved itself.
The yellow flower remained trapped in her small fist, pressed between them like some solemn token of victory.
Jace glanced down at it.
His wife noticed. “Do not glare at the flower.”
“I was not glaring.”
Their daughter, unaware that her father was still privately at war with a blossom, yawned against his shoulder. Her fingers loosened around the stem, and Jace shifted at once to keep it from falling, because apparently even enemy flowers were precious if she had chosen them.
His wife stepped closer and brushed a curl away from their daughter’s cheek. “You know,” she said lightly, “one day she may actually like boys.”
Jace went utterly still. “Do not say such things while she is sleeping.”
“She is not asleep.”
“Then all the more reason not to fill her head with treachery.”
She laughed softly and rose onto her toes to kiss his cheek. Jace leaned into it without looking away from their daughter, as if the whole garden might vanish if he stopped watching over her for even a breath.
But when the little girl finally did drift off, warm and heavy against him, his hold gentled. His palm spread over her back, careful and sure, and the fierce line of his mouth eased into something quieter.
His wife watched them together—the prince and his little dragon, the heir to Dragonstone undone by a child with sticky fingers and a stolen flower—and thought that perhaps love had always made Jace brave, but fatherhood had made him tender in a way even bravery could not explain.
He would have fought the whole realm for her. That, his wife knew, was the easy part.
The harder, better thing was this: learning to build her a world soft enough that she might never need to know why.