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Valarr is, frankly, embarrassed that he likes you. It wasn't as if it was unexpected. The opposite, really. It was exactly because of how expected it was of him that embarrassed him. Everyone acted like it was only a matter of time before one of the Targaryens slipped back into their old, strange incestuous ways.
Well, he'd show them—was what he thought when he was young. And stupid. Even then he was already too far gone for you, but his head was stuck firmly in the ground and he was too stubborn to admit it.
This would continue for many years.
That was what made him so stubborn about admitting it, even to himself.
He didn't want his father to think him weak in matters of the heart. He didn't want his subjects to think him another incestuous heretic. He didn't want to be the one who tarnished his grandfather's legacy.
Your other cousins might have indulged in it, but Valarr prided himself on being different. Raised better than that. He knew what the smallfolk thought of their old ways, had heard the same stories his father must have heard as a boy, the same judgments. He wanted, badly, to be the third generation in their line to marry outward—to prove that his grandfather's choice hadn't been an exception, but a beginning.
He had modeled himself after his father in every way he knew how. He wanted, more than almost anything, to be spoken of the way his father was spoken of: fair, wise, just. A worthy prince for the crown.
But.
But there was you. Gods. You. You were always unruly, never following plans. He didn't know why he expected you wouldn't upend this one.
When you first met Valarr, your parents were both excited. You were around the same age, and Maekar and Baelor were always on good terms, so it was natural to want their children to be close. He had stayed beside his father while you walked forward and hugged him. Your mothers let out simultaneous coos. Valarr was about to put his arms around you when you shoved a spider—that you had somehow both successfully caught and hidden in your hand—down his collar. He let out a shrill squeak while you burst out in laughter, and your father and mother dragged you away to admonish you. When he turned around, his mother wiping a tear from her eye and his father placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, you were looking at him with a grin, and, mortifyingly, he could feel a blush creeping up his neck.
Not even because you embarrassed him. It was because you looked really, really pretty while doing it.
He should have known. He really should have known you only spelled trouble for him from that point on. He should have cut ties then and there, put his foot down, and stopped any form of communication with you. But it would have been quite difficult for him to accomplish as he was just a few years off from being a toddler, so unfortunately, the meetings continued and your torment was allowed to persist.
At nine, you cut the straps of his practice harness the morning of an inspection, and he came apart piece by piece in the yard in front of the master-at-arms. He pointed to you, as who else would be doing this to him, but you swore on the Seven you knew nothing about it. You had, it turned out, a real talent for swearing on the Seven.
At two and ten, you kept vigil with him in the sept because he had volunteered for it, and you spent the whole night whispering worse and worse prayers at the candles until he laughed. Out loud. In a sept. He apologized to the Mother for a week. You told him he should laugh more as it was the best sound you'd ever heard, and with ears burning, he pretended to ignore you because he was upset, and not because what you said made him so stupidly giddy that it distracted him from his prayers again.
At six and ten, you went swimming in the lake below Summerhall, and he came looking for you because supper was nearly called—and definitely not because he was looking for you. Your septa was on the bank with two of your maids, all three of them dozing in the sun with your gown folded over a rock. He was grateful, later, that he had waved off the knights who had offered to ride down with him. At the time he wasn't thinking about it at all, but when you stood up out of the water, with your shift stuck to you and your hair loose and dripping down your face, he could hardly think of anything. You asked, perfectly pleasant, whether you were to be scolded, not even acknowledging that he was standing there like an oaf. That made it more embarrassing for some reason.
He turned around so fast he nearly went in himself. He yelled something about supper. He was fairly sure he said supper more than once. He stood facing the treeline until he heard you laughing and your septa waking up to scold you herself. He didn't turn back around until you were dressed, and he didn't look at you once through the whole meal.
⚜
Baelor was quite pleased when your father arranged for you to come to the Keep to be his ward. Seven kids in one castle proved to be a little too much. You would provide good company for Valarr, your uncle Baelor said, as his son tended toward solemnness and solitude, and it was a chance for you to be mentored by the Hand while your own father managed matters at Summerhall, too annoyed at the courtly bullshit of King's Landing—his words—to stay. It seemed a fitting arrangement to everyone involved. Valarr wanted to honor his father and give you another chance, so he took to it easily, walking you through the gardens, correcting your footing the handful of times you asked him to teach you the sword, and standing near you at feasts out of some duty he told himself he had.
But you were incorrigible. Absolutely infuriating.
You always teased him, tested him and his composure. Like you made a game out of it. You knew exactly how to fluster him, somehow, and you made it look so casual. Like you weren't even trying to do it. A hand lingering on his arm, praise for something he'd done delivered a little too warmly, a salacious comment dropped just quietly enough that only he would hear it. He'd go red to the tips of his ears and you'd laugh, delighted, and turn back to whoever you had been talking to like nothing had happened at all.
He didn't like the idea that you weren't trying to do it, to fluster him. He turned it over more in his head, worried at it like a sore tooth: whether any man standing where he stood would get the same hand on the arm, the same laugh, simply because he happened to be close and convenient and easy to fluster. You were so, so annoying. But the idea of you doing this to someone else was worse than annoying.
It was upsetting.
You were both nearing the age when your parents start speaking of betrothals in earnest.
He couldn't imagine it. You, married off to some lord somewhere, sour about your antics, unimpressed by them, and irritated at the laugh he had come, against his better judgment, to think of as one of the most pleasant sounds in the Seven Kingdoms. Would a husband like that let you bully him the way you bullied Valarr? He doubted it. He had seen more than one woman go quiet over the years, the fire gone out of her, like a candle snuffed out forever. He couldn't stomach the idea of it happening to you. Couldn't picture you becoming someone smaller and more agreeable, someone who didn't fight back.
He had to do something.
He won the tourney.
The joust itself was fine. Most of the fights, he knew, were pre-planned. It did not do well to put the future king to the threat of death for some random knight. But he kept winning and winning, and eventually triumphed as the champion. The real problem came when he was done riding his victory lap across the field and had to face half the realm's assembled lords to present the crown for the Queen of Love and Beauty.
He knew how to do it. The correct bow, the correct words. He had done this before, at other tourneys, other years. Before, he would just give it to his mother; it had never once given him trouble then.
It gave him trouble now.
You were smiling at him as he approached, that particular smile that had been undoing him in private for months, except now it was doing it in public, in front of his father, in front of half the court, and he felt his rehearsed words scatter completely the moment he came to stand before you.
"My lady," he managed, which wasn't even how he had meant to start.
"My lord," you said back, amused, clearly noting the slip.
He held out the crown using his lance. His hand, he realized with shame and horror, was not entirely steady, making the end of the lance shake. He willed it to stop. It did not stop. It wasn't shaking because his arm was tired—Gods, he was nervous.
"For your—" He cleared his throat. "For your favor, which I—that is, I hope I did it justice."
"You always do."
You reached out, lifting the crown off the lance. You put the crown on your head and you were beaming, a flush high on your cheeks. You looked so happy, hands clasped in front of you, like you were trying to suppress your reaction too but couldn't.
He could swear the way you looked at him was deliberate, twisting his stomach in knots and making his heart beat so wildly in his chest that he could feel it in his throat. You knew how you made him feel. The way you had given your favor too intimately, too close to his wrist that morning, the way you always seemed to know exactly how much of his composure you could dismantle with the smallest, most plausibly innocent touch.
Or perhaps... your smile wasn't a game, now. Perhaps you were just happy. And he had done that. He had put that brilliant, breathless smile on your face—his troublesome, scheming cousin, looking so radiant and innocent and undone by simple joy.
Perhaps you actually cared for him, too.
Heat flooded his cheeks at the thought. He was aware, distantly, of Daeron somewhere in the stands failing to suppress a grin, of his father watching with faint confusion and then, after a few moments, quiet realization.
"Valarr?" you prompted, when he simply stood there a moment too long, crown on your head now, nothing left to do but step back and let the ceremony conclude the way it always did.
"Yes. Forgive me." He said it too quickly, too stiffly, and turned his horse to leave the field with far more urgency than victory usually required of him, ears burning the entire trot back, uncomfortably aware that you were watching him go.
He didn't speak to you again until well past supper, once his face had finally cooled and his voice had found its footing again. When he did, it was only to say, low, cornering you in a quiet corridor, "You did that on purpose."
"Did what?" You were smiling again. You were always smiling around him.
Gods, you really were quite pretty. He shook his head, both as a response to you and to remember he was here to confront you. "You know precisely what."
"I have no idea what you mean, cousin," you said, and reached up to straighten his collar with maddening, deliberate slowness, brushing your fingers against his neck and jaw before leaving, and he thought, not for the first time, that he was entirely, hopelessly undone. "The better question would be if you know what you have done."
His father sent for him a couple of mornings after they arrived at King's Landing. The silence in Baelor’s solar was absolute, broken only by the scratching of a quill.
Valarr stood near the heavy oak doors, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The dull ache of his muscles was nothing compared to the mortification burning hot beneath his skin. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor, tracing the intricate pattern of the carpet, waiting for the lecture he knew was coming.
Finally, Baelor leaned back, fiddling with his rings as he tilted his head toward the chair in front of him. "Sit down, Valarr."
Valarr crossed the room and sat, stiff as a post, his hands resting tightly on his knees. "Father. If this is about the tourney—"
"Of course it is about the tourney," Baelor said gently, though there was a weight to his voice that made Valarr’s chest tighten. "You rode well. I was proud to watch you."
Valarr blinked, taken aback. "Thank you, Father. But... I know I acted strangely at the dais."
"Strangely?" A faint, amused twitch caught the corner of Baelor’s mouth. "Pardon my words, my son, but you acted like a green boy."
Valarr swallowed hard, his throat dry. "I... the heat of the armor. The exertion—"
"Do not insult my intelligence, and do not pretend with yourself," Baelor said, lifting a hand to stop him. He rested his forearms on the desk, his dark eyes fixed intently upon his son. "When were you going to ask your Uncle Maekar for her hand? Do not tell me you have not yet planned to do so. You practically proclaimed to the realm that you are in love with her."
The word hung in the air, heavy and undeniable. Love. Valarr felt the blood rush to his ears again, hot and humiliating.
Baelor watched him closely, letting the silence settle between them before speaking again. "If this was merely a foolish moment, tell me now, my son. We can laugh it off as young affection and find her a suitable match elsewhere."
Valarr’s stomach plummeted at the thought. A match elsewhere. The image of you sitting in some stranger's hall, your irritating, beautiful laugh dimmed by a husband who wanted a quiet wife—it physically sickened him.
"I don't want her married to someone else," Valarr said, the words coming out rougher and more desperate than he intended. He took a breath, trying to steady his voice. "I don't want anyone else to have her."
Baelor held his gaze for a long moment. Slowly, his shoulders relaxed, and a wry smile touched his lips.
"Gods help me, I suppose I should have seen this coming years ago," Baelor murmured, shaking his head.
Valarr blinked, startled by the shift in tone. "What do you mean?"
"My dear son," Baelor said, leaning back with a quiet chuckle, "you've fought knights twice your size. You stand up against the councilors, even when they are of more age and experience. You have never, ever had a problem holding your ground. And I am proud of you for doing so. But with your cousin, you just... let it happen. Like a dog exposing its soft belly."
He found you on the high terrace overlooking Blackwater Bay because that was where you went when you were bored, which was always.
You were sitting on the broad stone parapet with your boots off, dangling your feet over the drop to the sea far below. You looked up, and you smiled, and he had the sudden conviction that if you said anything at all first he would lose his nerve entirely, so he said, quickly, "I like you."
You blinked.
"I've—I've loved you for some time," he went on, because apparently he was doing this. "I don't know precisely how long. Since the lake, perhaps. Possibly before. I've been extremely—I've handled it badly, I'm aware."
The wind off the bay was cold, but the longer the quiet went on, the warmer he became.
"Valarr," you said.
"Yes."
"I've known."
"Since when?"
You stared at him, incredulous. "Do you think you've ever not been in love with me? You might be slower than I thought."
He stared at you. "Then why—"
"Because it was funny," you said, "and because you'd have denied it, and because you get this look." You made a gesture at his whole face. "That one. That's the one."
He tried to school his face into something neutral, avoiding whatever look it was you meant. "You are the worst person I have ever met."
"I know." You were smiling, but not the way you usually smiled. It had gone slightly crooked at one edge, like it wasn't entirely under your control anymore, and he found that he liked that better than anything you had ever done to him on purpose. You slid off the wall, coming closer to him. "Say it again."
"Absolutely not."
You were so close now. He gulped. You were so beautiful he could hardly stand it. "Say it again."
He said it again. "I love you."
"I love you too." You reached up and tugged on his collar, and his knees went weak at the idea that he would get to kiss you here, in the salt of the bay and the warmth of the sun, but you only straightened his collar, slow and deliberate, exactly as you had the night before. He exhaled in frustration, though he couldn't deny he was unbearably fond of your games, and decided to try something new.
He caught your wrist and held it there, nuzzling your palm while staring at you through his lashes. You stopped, and for once—for once in the whole history of the two of you—you didn't have anything clever to say or do, only flushing red like a ripe apple while your mouth gaped.
He is still embarrassed, for the record. He expects he always will be a little.
He doesn't much mind, if he can turn the tables sometimes.