Chapter Text
It was like a sudden shift, which Aerion would later liken the feeling to being thrown from his horse. A jolt of his whole body, followed by instant clarity and hyper awareness. H manages to orient himself upright, slamming his hands onto the table in front of him. It temporarily grounds him.
The whole of his weight and frame was being supported on shaky arms. His legs were weak as a colt’s, face unbearably flush, and a woozy sensation sent him swaying where he stood. His ears and head hurt. It sounded as though the bells of Baelor’s Sept were being rung inches away from his skull.
What unsettled him the most were the overwhelming smells.
The smell of fire, smoke, and coals poured into his nose and lungs. The air was thick with it, and smell sat in Aerion’s mouth like ashes on his tongue. Fire drowned out the other more subtle smells of amber, parchment, and other indeterminable scents that shifted through the winds of the chamber.
"Prince Aerion, are you well?” Someone to the right of him asks.
The voice was one he recognized vaguely. Raising his head, Aerion eyes widened when he looked up at the man.
Ronnel Penrose had been his grandfather’s Master of Coin until Aerion was five and ten. That year, the man had fallen from his horse and broke his back. Ronnel Penrose, by all manners of logic and reasoning, should not be speaking to Aerion right now because Ronnel Penrose should be fifteen years dead.
Aerion eyes roam around the room in shock as he sees the face of many a ghost. His grandfather Daeron, his brother Daeron, cousin Valarr and, somehow, most shocking of all his Uncle Baelor.
"I’m drunk,” he announces in a voice that almost does not sound like his own.
"Seven hells, Aerion. This is exactly what we were talking about.” Aerion turns to face his father who is seated to the left of him. Back upright in his chair, face scowling with exasperation. Not an usual state to find Maekar in.
"I know the feeling,” Daeron says under his breath. Taking a moment to really look at the his brother, Aerion makes the startling realization that he’s face to face with a boy. Not the man dead from pox and drink that haunted Aerion’s dreams among fire and dragons.
"I’m drunk or dreaming,” he proclaims once more. His voice sounds higher in pitch than usual. He clears his throat. Perhaps he’s hoarse?
As if seeing dead relatives come to life wasn’t bad enough, Aerion slowly came to the realization that the seat of his pants was sodden with gods knows what. Had he soiled himself? In his drunken state of madness had he lost control of his bladder, his bowels, or both? Nostrils flaring, Aerion tries to sift through all the other odors of the room to find what his body is soaked in. His nostrils can only pick up the smell of smoke and vanilla.
Spilled perfume?
"What the fuck?” He reaches a shaky hand to touch his forehead, and it comes away drenched in sweat. A pulsating sensation races across his temple, and he waivers on his feet once more before regaining balance.
Back hunched over the table, spit and salt pool in his mouth and threaten to fall from his lips, as Aerion is overcome with another current of combating aromas. Soot and ash, more acrid and bitter than before, muddle together in Aerion’s nose. The other men in the room seem to be teetering between anxiety and frustration and Aerion is unnerved by his own ability to discern the fact from smell.
"Can someone remove my grandson from the chambers?” His grandfather spoke in a frustrated tone, brow furrowed and mouth tight. Despite this, no one makes a move to head the man’s instructions. Daeron practically shouts when he gives the order again. “Now, before I send him off to Tyrosh!”
Maekar heaves a deep sigh and rises from his seat to move towards him. But Aerion is not having it. Whenever his father makes a step in his direction, Aerion moves to do the opposite. Where Maekar goes left, Aerion goes right. The other men at the table do not make any attempts at assisting Maekar in his pursuit.
"Stop your games and come here,” Maekar hisses. As their game of cat and mouse continued, the other members of his grandfather’s council had all gotten up from their chairs. Each men had taken a step back from the small council table, to give Aerion and Maekar the space to dart around fruitlessly. His steps are failing him as he’s stumbling around to keep away with his father.
He’s being a burden, but that has never mattered to Aerion before and it damn sure does not matter now. Aerion feels like he’s being boiled alive and the eyes of everyone in the room only intensify that feeling.
"Baelor!” Maekar screams angrily. A sigh is heard from where his uncle is standing. The man takes a step that places Aerion between the paths of both men. To escape, he’d have to vault across the table.
Baelor must be able to read his thoughts, because he makes a quick dash to grab a hold of Aerion before the boy manages to pull himself up and over the table.
Baelor digs his hands and fingers into Aerion’s arm, to the point that it hurts. Body flailing, Aerion struggles to remove himself from his uncle’s capture.
"Fucks sake! Let me go you ghoul,” he shouts. The hands clutch even tighter and he’s pulled snug against his uncle’s chest, back pressed to the man’s front. Using his legs, Aerion brings them both up to kick against the edge of the table, leveraging enough force. for his uncle to stumble back. Like a wolf in a trap, Aerion then gnashes his teeth to try and bite at the hands latched onto him. The effort only has Aerion straining his neck.
"Aerion, stop this madness,” Baelor says firmly and the man’s grip does not loosen.
Aerion growls out, “Fuck you! fuck you! fuck you!”
He thrust his head back to try and catch his uncle’s face or chin, but the difference in height leaves him uselessly knocking his skull against Baelor’s sternum.
"Maekar,” his grandfather Daeron says in a warning tone. Aerion’s father’s eyes grow wide, and he rushes over to where Baelor is fighting to keep Aerion contained.
"Aerion, be calm,” Maekar says gently. Perhaps gentler than he’s ever spoken to any of his children in Aerion’s 30 years of memory. Hands come to cup his face which proves to be a mistake when Aerion takes the opportunity to bite at him.
His father’s hand jerks back quickly, and for a moment Aerion thinks he’s going to be struck in retaliation. Maekar takes a centering breath before looking into his eyes.
"Aerion, please I beg of you,” the words are said no less gentle than he spoke before.
His brother Daeron has appeared by his side as well and it’s in that moment that Aerion’s sense of smell flares up again. Smoke and ash are replaced with the subtle notes of wine and burnt sugar. Aerion lets out an involuntary whine as his head begins to lull. The agitation inside him remains but the urge to fight starts to slip away. The smells are flooding his nose and making him grow dizzy and limp, seemingly having the same effect on Baelor who loosens his grasps on Aerion’s arms for just a second. It's enough for Aerion to gain the upper hand. He pitches his whole body forward, wrenching himself from Baelor’s arms until he drops to the stone floor.
Aerion’s brother and father are unprepared as he scrambles across the marble to the door of the chamber. The Kingsguard look anxiously at one another before holding their arms out to stop him.
From somewhere deep within him Aerion hisses like a feral animal. The guards startle and Aerion slips underneath their arms and out the chamber.
Flying down the stairwell, he's desperate to get away. He's in the red keep, that much is clear and that makes sense to him. Where he should run next is another matter. Everywhere he turns his head his path is cutoff by men and women flitting through the halls.
This wasn’t supposed to happen, was it? He should be a dragon now. He’d felt the flames lick away at his face and upper body. Was this a part of the transformation? Is that why his body is so hot, why everything smells of smoke?
The Kingsguard suddenly grab hold of him by his biceps and Aerion swings his arm back in the hopes of catching someone in its wake. His arm is intercepted, and his next attempt to stomp at the feet of the knight proves useless as his foot strikes steel.
"Fucking fuck,” he exclaims. His boots are no match for the steel of the knight’s armor. Lilac eyes flit across the hallway as Aerion looks for a new course of action.
He’s aware of the looks from servants and other courtiers on him in that moment. They’re whispering. He can’t make out what they are saying, but he knows it’s about him. A maester comes up from behind, racing down the steps so quickly that he almost trips on his robes.
"Tilt his head back,” the maester instructs. The guard grips Aerion’s chin between armored fingers. Aerion tries to move away but he's exhausted and the knight is massive in comparison.
His jaw is pushed open and a vial of bittersweet liquid is poured down his throat. Only a moment passes before his limbs start to fall and he succumbs to darkness and silence.
"Hello Aerion,” a woman greets him.
She’s standing before him in what looks to be an endless void of inky black. The only source of light is emanating from her body. The woman's hair is long and coppery in color, flowing over her shoulders in thick ringlets. Cheek bones high and rosy, Aerion can tell even at a distance that she’s taller than he is. Her velvet dress was a deep blue, almost purple or black in appearance and pooled around her feet in a long train. The sleeves of the gown covered most of her hand, leaving nothing but her long pale fingers exposed. She was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women he had ever laid eyes on.
"Who the fuck are you?” He was not in the mood for pleasantries, no matter the appearance of the young woman.
“I have many names,” she says with a frown. The tenor of her voice was unnerving. It echoed as if two people were speaking from the same mouth.
“And I only ask for one,” Aerion snarks in spite of his own nervousness. Everything feels like shit, but he was not in the mood for games.
The young woman moves her hands to fold them together in front of her. Her eyes are blue as sapphires as they fix a glare in Aerion’s direction.
“Who I am does not matter,” she replies. Aerion rolls his eyes. Like the flicker of a candle flame, the woman’s hair shifts from copper to a teal blue, growing brighter in appearance in what is certainly a trick of the light.
“Do you know why you are here?”
“No,” he responds truthfully.
“Penance,” she says. Her face twist up into a self-satisfied smile as she crosses her arms over her dress.
“For what?”
“Don’t act like you do not know, Aerion Brightflame.”
Aerion truly does not know. Or rather, he cannot narrow down what this woman may feel he needs to take penance for. The man has done many unsavory things in his life, many of which were not confined to his time as a sellsword. The woman and him look at one another in uncomfortable silence. She puffs up her chest before speaking, voice irritated and full of authority.
“You leave bastard children and miserable women in your wake. You torture your siblings and revel in the suffering of others.”
Did Aerion have bastard children? It would be news to him.
“Many a man do what I’ve done and worse,” he says honestly. Siring bastards and taunting his siblings rank low on his own personal list of misdeeds.
“But not many men think themselves to be a dragon and that is perhaps your greatest folly,” she growls, voice rumbling. A flicker of blue light seems to roll across the length of her hair.
“I am a dragon.”
“You are a child,” The woman tilts her chin haughtily, looking down on him with contempt. “A simple and unimpressive one at that. No real man would act the way you do.” The woman unfolds her hands and looks at him with a scowl.
“I have watched you peacock around unworthy of your blood and your name,” she says.
Unworthy? It is because he is worthy of both his blood and his name that he has spent his life peacocking around. A grand-swordsman, handsome, intelligent, fearsome. More capable at statesmanship and espionage than even Bloodraven and a warrior on par with his own father. A dragon in the body of a man. A very worthy man to be sure.
“I have come to give you penance and I have come to give you purpose. You died Aerion, an embarrassment to yourself, your father, and your son.” The son part barely stings. The boy wasn’t even old enough to walk let alone feel shame.
“And who are you again? To deign to give me purpose? To seek penance for my perceived wrongdoings?”
The woman's hair flares to life and she is engulfed in flames. The coppery fire of her hair takes on a blue hue, and the flames lick at her brow and shoulder. Aerion could feel the heat radiating from her even as they stood a distance apart. She is not afraid, making no indication that she even notices the blaze.
“Fire cannot kill a dragon,” she says in explanation. “And I am a real dragon, little pretender.”
“See you in your dreams,” she gives him a smile, more bitter than sweet.
It’s still unfathomably dark when he wakes. His eyes are slow to adjust, and at first, he can only visualize blurry shapes in the moonlit room. The bed he finds himself in is plush, but dusty, smelling of stale air and dirt. Aerion himself reeks of vanilla, slowly overpowering the scent of smoke from earlier.
“Good to see you awake brother,” a voice lazily greets him.
A few slow blinks of his eyes clear his vision enough to glean Daeron seated in the darkness. The man, no boy, is sipping a cup of wine, legs lazily crossed. He briefly wonders why his mind would send Daeron to him in a form so young.
“Where am I?” Aerion pushes himself up to sit in bed, the weight of the duvet falling from his chest into his lap. He runs a shaky hand through his sweat soaked curls with a groan. His head hurts, and he presses the palms of his hand into the orbits of his eyes.
“Oh my. You don’t know where you are?” Daeron’s voice is condescending and cruel rather than sincere and questioning. He supposes ghosts have no reason to be kind to the people who’ve wronged them. “No,” he replies. Replying at all is mad, though it wouldn’t be the first time Aerion has encountered the dead in his waking hours. This specter is the realest one yet.
“Well perhaps you’d be more acquainted if you bothered to visit me once in a while,” Daeron hisses before taking a gulp of wine.
That makes sense for the ghost to say. While Aemon had gone to visit Daeron in his final days, providing him with hospice care, Aerion had kept his distance. Not out of cruelty, mostly out of indifference. Daeron had spent the last few years of his life withering away on Dragonstone. His wife and child living apart from him as he succumbed to whores, drink, and dreams. If anyone should be seeking penance in life, it should be his brother.
“A graveyard?” Aerion spits the question out sarcastically.
“Of sorts,” Daeron answers. He takes a moment to swirl the cup around in his hands. Some of the liquid spills out the top of with the force of it, and Daeron grumbles as the wine wets the sleeves of his tunic. Aerion looks at him blankly and Daeron realizes that Aerion still has no clue what he’s talking about.
“Gods above Aerion. We’re in the Maidenvault you idiot.”
“Why the fuck would we be here?”
“It’s where I have lived for the past two years and where you will live until your betrothal I wager,” Daeron explains.
“I’m not a fucking maiden.”
“Have you hit your head?” Daeron is mean and sharp when he says it. “Don’t say things like that so loudly, voice lowering into a conspiratorial whisper.
“I’m a man,” he asserts. Daeron looks at him like he’s grown another head.
“Yes?” His brother raises his eyebrows with the question.
Aerion is now compelled to ask the obvious. “How can a man be a maiden?”
Daeron's expression goes through many changes before arriving at one that Aerion recognizes is suspicion. Daeron's legs cross and his arms fold across his chest, leaning back in his chair as if to create distance.
“Who are you?”
“Aerion,” he supplies. The headache and heat from earlier are building up again.
“Are you certain?” And what the hell is Daeron even asking. Of course, he’s sure.
“I tire of your games ghost,” he growls. The duvet is shoved down his legs and to his feet. Aerion realizes he’s only wearing a night shirt and small clothes. A shiver runs through him at the thought of someone changing him while he was incapacitated.
“Ghost?” Daeron asks with a quirk of his eyebrow.
“You’re dead.”
“I am very much alive brother.”
Daeron relaxes for a bit, uncrossing his legs and unfolding his arms. He leans back casually in his chair.
“No, you died last spring. Of the pox,” Aerion explains. Would talking to the ghosts get it to recognize its own demise or invite it to drive Aerion further into madness?
Daeron strides across the room to sit beside him on the bed.
“Where did you see this?”
The man’s expression is serious, shaggy blond hair shadowing his face. He's leaning so close to Aerion he can smell the tannins from the wine on Daeron's breath.
“I didn’t see. Father and I got the raven from Aemon. “
“You lived this?”
“Yes.”
“Not dreamt it?”
“No!" Aerion never wasted his time discussing dreams with Daeron whose interpretations rendered them useless rather than prophetic. As the years went on, being in his brother’s presence grew frustrating, as he tried to seek commiseration with whoever was dumb enough to listen to his tales.
The heat is rising up again, drenching his back with perspiration. It’s more than unbearable, and he hopes no one had given him a bath before putting him to bed. Lifting his arms, he takes a whiff of his underarms, smelling vanilla where he expects musk.
“Why am I so hot?”
“You’re in heat,” Daeron says it like it means something.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Heat Aerion. Your fertile cycle.”
“Fertile,” Aerion scoffs. “I’m a man.”
“So you keep saying, as though that precludes you from maidenhood and fertility.”
Aerion shakes his head in confusion before speaking.
“What are you saying?”
“Aerion what are you saying? You’re scaring me.” Daeron places a hand to Aerion’s sweat soaked back. The sensation was scarily real.“You understand how your own body works? Someone must have explained it to you at some point.”
“This conversation is going nowhere you drunk fool,” he grumbles wearily. Aerion jerks away and Daeron removes his hand in defeat.
“You’re the one who’s making this difficult! Why do you seem so confused?”
“I—” his voice crackles around his yell. He closes his eyes to regain his composure, bracing himself as he finds the words to explain. “I drank wildfire.” Daeron’s eyes widen but he remains silent. “I felt the heat of it burning me away.”
Daeron nods his head, urging him to continue.
“And then I was in council chambers.”
“Do you recall how you got into the council chambers?” Daeron asks. A pulsating throb makes Aerion rock forward as he tries to think through the events that brought him to this place.
“No,“ Aerion replies.
“I can tell you.”
“Then tell me.”
“Father and Uncle Baelor called us both into the chambers so that grandsire could announce your betrothal to Valarr.” The words are tender, Daeron speaking to him as if he were a babe. But they do not soften the blow or repair the confusion.
“Why would I marry Valarr?”
Daeron makes several hard blinks of his eyes as if he should be the one in disbelief. “I am unsure what it is you’re asking. What aspects of the betrothal confuses you?”
“Marrying a man.”
“When that man is an alpha it makes perfect sense.” Alpha?
“What?” Aerion’s voice raises in pitch to an embarrassing degree.
“What?” Daeron echoes.
“What’s an alpha?”
Daeron is silent for a while. He leans back and looks at Aerion’s face, hoping to find a tell that would reveal that Aerion is speaking in jest.
"An alpha is a person who,” he stumbles to find his words. Daeron's mouth pinches into a thin line, forehead wrinkling with the strain of collecting his thoughts. “An alpha is someone who—” he trails off unproductively.
"You’re not explaining anything!”
"I don’t know how to explain it!” Daeron’s voice is taught with frustration.
"An alpha is a person who’s socially and physically dominant towards the people around them.” He barrels forward through the explanation, no longer bothering with finding the exact right words.
"How’s that any different from any other man?”
"Not all men are alphas Aerion,” his brother supplies.
"And Valarr is one?” Daeron nods his head in affirmation. “And I’m marrying him because, I assume, am not one.”
"No.”
A shudder courses through him though the room remains stifling hot. Fear of not knowing is what motivates him to speak up again.
"Then what am I?”
"An omega, like me.”
"That still doesn't make sense.” What is the difference between the two when both he and Valarr are men first and foremost?
"What aren’t you getting still?”
"Why wouldn’t he just marry a woman? Someone who can bare him children.”
"Fuck.” Daeron gets off the bed and goes over to his discarded chalice. It must have fallen to the floor when the man had made his move towards Aerion. Daeron bends over to pick it up before finding a pitcher of wine on the bedside table.
"Where you are from,” the man begins, pausing only to fill his cup. “In the time and place where you lived before the wildfire” Daeron thinks for a moment. “Who was it that gave birth to you?”
"Is Dyanna not my mother?” The questions confuses him. Even if that were the case it would have no relevance to the strange situation he finds himself in now.
"Dyanna is our mother Aerion, but it is Maekar who birthed us.”
"Surely you jest,” he says in disbelief. A cruel sick perverted jest, the purpose of which unnerves Aerion in its aimlessness.
"I do not.” Daeron takes deep gulps of his wine before affixing himself to his bedside once more.
"This isn’t funny Daeron. Our father is a man. And men do not give birth.”
"Where I sit and where I breath they can and do,” his voice is light and airy, but still gentle. The budding anxiety is not quelled by his brother’s attempts at comfort and nausea rolls over him.
As if he did not have any other things to deal, the nausea is then accompanied by a sharp pain that ripples through his guts. His hands fly to his stomach at the sensation, falling forward in the bed from the force of the pain.
“What is happening to me?”
"I said it before. It’s your heat.”
His fertility cycle. Bile rises in his throat, and the ripple runs through him once more.
"This can’t be real,” he whispers in disbelief. He has to be dreaming. Everything he’s experienced can be chalked up to a very weird and strange dream. The results of too much wine and a consequence of indulging in wildifre.
"Well, it is.” Daeron leans over to the bedside table and picks something up. He dangles a vial in front of Aerion’s face between the tips of his fingers.
"Milk of the poppy,” Daeron explains.
"I don’t want it,” he protests.
"You need it. Otherwise, I don’t know what you’d end up doing in your state.”
"Why do I feel like this?”
"Your body wants an alpha.”
"That's disgusting. I don’t like men.” Daeron scoffs at that.
"Not all men are alphas, and not all alphas are men you twat. Though alpha or man would likely satisfy you in this state,” his brother explains. Aerion knew his brother was queer in many ways just had not suspected him to be queer in this way as well.
"Then bring a female alpha here.” He assumes that’s a thing.
"You’re in the Maidenvault for a reason. To remain a maiden.” Daeron places the vial in the palms of his hands. “Brother, and I’m choosing to believe you are still my brother; it is best that you take my advice before you find yourself in more discomfort and distress.”
" I won’t,” he refuses. Being more uncomfortable and distressed than he already is seems incomprehensible, and Aerion does not wish to be drugged twice.
"Then suffer your heat.” Daeron gets up to leave before placing the vial back on the table.
Aerion watches his as he exits the room. When the door opens, all sorts of smells filter in. There’s a guard at his door, and Aerion can smell that the man is not worthy of his attention.
Not that any man should be.
His body tenses with another aching cramp in his stomach and he finds himself removing his night shirt. He needs to remove all the bedding from the bed, due in part to his overheating as well as the uncomfortable feeling of wrongness that comes over him when he catches another waft of the sheets.
Daeron returns a moment later with a bundle of clothing and blankets in his arms. He deposits them onto the bed before pivoting out of the room once more. Aerion can smell one of the shirts at the top of the pile and shudders at the knowledge that it smells like his father. Another tunic among the batch smells like Daeron. Mixed in the amalgamation of ash and ember and coal are other scents he's unable to tie to a specific person, but he knows they bring him comfort. It does not soothe the burning sensation or the wave of pulsating pain, but it does quiet the dizzying sensation in his head.
Suddenly, he gags dry heaves, the mortifying sensation of something leaking out of him from back there sending him into another panic.
"Gods! Daeron? Why am I wet?”
His brother does not reappear to give him an answer. He feels disgusting, and grimaces as he removes his small clothes. Bracing himself, he closes his eyes before looking down to see what mess had become of his undergarments.
He's shocked to see nothing. No shit nor piss by the look and the smell of it. Just a patch of dampness making the white garment practically translucent. His fingers tentatively touch the wet spot, and he brings his hand close to his face. Despite his own repulsion, he sniffs the wetness on his fingertip. Vanilla and smoke, the same smell he identified in the small council and the same smell he finds filling every crevice of the room in a cloying manner.
To make matters worse, a rush of more fluid comes out of him. Aerion takes a deep breath before reaching down between his legs. He moves his member aside, grazing his taint on his way. And there he finds the source of the fluid. It’s thick and viscous and warm and Aerion brings his hand back to his face. He’s unsure of what he’s staring at as he rubs the fingers together. The liquid is tacky and mostly clear, and he's reminded of his time tumbling around with maids and whores.
He’s wet like a woman. Afraid to explore his body any more than he already has, he grabs the vial. Aerion downs the bitter tonic in one go.
Darkness overwhelms him again.