Archive of Our Own

Lady Ellen Reyne, lensman to the aristocracy and literati alike, lorded over her studio with discipline and fearsome rigor. She took great care in pruning her reputation. She certainly did not appreciate the unexpected.

No doubt the Crown Prince thought himself an exception. Little did he know that not even royalty had the privilege of simply Dropping In, of being fawned over and whisked quickly upstairs.

Then again, little did Lyanna know of the twisty turns that led one into Lennie’s innermost sanctum— her private dark rooms, or her (allegedly) crocus-filled office which looked imperiously down on the street below— and Lyanna had been a junior photographer two years already. Such was the design of Hell’s mistress: her studio a ruthless hierarchy where mentors were rare as fairy godmothers, and misery was omnipresent, though it invariably flowed downwards. Nothing had made that more clear than when Lyanna (upon graduating up from intern) was bestowed the right to keep a private workspace on premise. Buzzing like a bee, she was promptly led to two ‘rooms’ hardly more than closets. Together, they ran hotter than Satan’s asshole.

It was within those sweating walls that Lyanna, returning from a venting lollapalooza/Chinese lunch with her work wife Howland, discovered a most shocking guest.

She knew who he was. That was a given. It had hardly been three weeks since she’d last seen him— in the impersonal sense. He’d been getting married and she’d been breaking out in hives, trying desperately to make the most of the sudden opportunity which had fallen in her lap. 

It was because Lyanna knew who he was that she knew he’d somehow gotten turned around. Yes, Prince Rhaegar Targaryen might be here, in Lennie’s studio, but he was not meant to be here, in Lyanna’s. 

“Your Grace!” she managed, her voice three octaves too high. Honestly, she was just grateful she wasn’t standing frozen with her mouth gaping. “Oh, gosh, I’m terribly sorry about the mess. I’m, well, one of Lennie’s juniors anyway. Hence this shoebox. I’d be happy to take you to Lennie— er, Lady Ellen. Her Ladyship.”

Any further words died in her throat when the Prince turned his head towards her. His eyes had been on the various notes, calendar reminders, and experiments with her own work that Lyanna pinned up on cork. When they met hers, though? 

It was worse than pity. It was disappointment— bloomed from a harsher soil than hope. Exhaustion, with none of the joy of it.

Three hundred years ago, she’d have been chained to an oar. Just after a look like that.

Horror dawned as Lyanna remembered what she’d last stuck up. There was too much movement in the shot for it to be technically excellent— it wasn’t even the best she’d managed on that final day of the hotly-reported royal wedding. Yet Lyanna hadn’t been so thrilled about a picture she’d captured in centuries. Lyanna herself didn’t follow much of anything royal, but even she knew that the sword Blackfyre mounted above a conspicuously empty chair was something worth documenting.

It was the only photo she’d taken that day which mattered. Only when the bride, a princess by custom, was doing a ceremonial dance with her family did Lyanna find her window, everyone’s eyes engaged elsewhere so she’d had a flash of freedom with which to burgle her way up the dais. 

‘Freedom’ was a very different thing from ‘license,’ though. Because the Crown Prince was not merely looking at the shot: he was in it. The sole body turned towards the camera, nothing Lyanna had staged, but of the entire crowd he alone had not been watching his new bride dance with her father. Rather he was staring with some unanswered plea towards the place where his own father was absent.

Lyanna’s jaw had dropped when she realized what she’d caught. For a Prince who was typically perfectly coiffed... he looked so small. Crooked and blisteringly human.

Well, Lyanna had been a sneak. Now she was caught. The Crown Prince loomed large as a king in her narrow rooms. Lyanna had to look up to meet his hard gaze, but she met it all the same. (Naughty child that she was, she’d been in trouble enough to know Setting the Tone was her best option.)

“Your storybooks are coming together beautifully, if you don’t mind me saying, sir.” That was even true. The whole studio from top to bottom was focused like a laser on the royal deliverables. “We’ve got thousands of outtakes, you can hardly see the cutting room floor these days. You’re even looking at one now! Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just…”

Lyanna tried to maneuver around the man, preferably without touching him. It was impossible in such cramped quarters. She couldn’t get by him to hide the evidence— or at least remove it from sight. 

“An outtake,” he repeated. He sounded unimpressed. Then again, posh people always did. “One you affixed with your watermark and printed, and hung on your wall.”

“The computer watermarks everything automatically for in-house use,” Lyanna breezed. “It helps Lady Reyne sort what’s what and who’s who, when she’s looking over everything.”

“Does it?”

She groped around for a sufficiently abasing answer to the Prince’s pointed question. If I end the day sacked, I’ll have no one to blame but myself, Lyanna knew with terrible certainty. It took her a beat too long to regroup: he found her portfolio book in the silence, and held it.

Threateningly.

“Are you one of those protagonist-photographers, then? The type who is all about perspective?”

It hit a sore spot, how ‘perspective’ sounded a dirty word in his mouth. Lennie held that dismissive attitude towards even the possibility of the photographer being complicit in an image as well. Rebel without a cause, she’d ridiculed Lyanna more than once— in front of anyone who cared to hear. 

Relaxed as rigor mortis, Lyanna smiled. “Well, see, the bit with perspective is that cameras don’t point themselves. Not yet, anyway. And I don’t consider myself a protagonist, your Grace. Just a focalizer on the emotional loci of a moment. Like a fire reveals priorities.”

The corner of his lip curled. When he flipped open her lookbook, being unceremoniously fired suddenly didn’t seem quite so bad.

“Moments are where all the complexity of emotion is distilled, then? Convenient. Given that a camera can only capture moments.” Pausing, he gave Lyanna a glance she could only describe as the eggshell white of condescension. “Art forms all have limits. There are no mothers-in-law in ballet.”

Lyanna tried to remind herself that this princely Prince, if motivated, could neatly end her fledgling career. Ergo she should not get shirty, absolutely not... an internal war he noticed her waging. He gave her the universal gesture for ‘go on’— which, from a prince, didn’t strike her as a request.

She weighed her words. “With all due respect, there are surgeries less niche than ballet. With good reason. Uniformity is their starting point.”

“Whereas photography is diverse and democratic,” he elaborated. “The camera, in its majestic equality, allows the landed gentry and trade unionists alike to own thousands of dragons worth of equipment, and keep a studio in Mayfair.”

Gosh, didn’t he have a pint up his ass? And not in the fun way. Lyanna could see why he got on with Lennie. Both snobbish and statuesque, they had the same push/pull style, though Lyanna only ever seemed to get the push. Which was likely why the same urge that Lennie inspired in Lyanna (to defend herself and all her compatriots in idealism) was currently squawking like a bird trapped in her mane of hair. Lyanna hated to think it, but the Prince cut such an intimidating figure with his stature and high features (not to mention his forearms, shiny like jade walnuts) that she was considering simply making a run for it, lest she be unable to hold her tongue. 

“You have nothing to say?” he asked, as if reading her mind.

“Metaphors mix it all up,” she admitted. Maybe he was a human being. She hoped he was. “No, photography isn’t open heart surgery, but you don’t need to be a surgeon to find the heart, do you?”

“When you’re on the operating table, you appreciate precision.” The Prince spun Lyanna’s portfolio around to face her— a disgustingly elegant turn of the wrist. “Shall I hazard the scalpel? A thought experiment.” He flipped open the embossed leather cover, passing the artist statement in minimalist typeface to reveal the first glossy page. “This one. You’re lonely, or you were. Not an acute case but you do think about it.” Another page made a slow rip in the air. “I enjoy this one, actually. The excitement of feeling desire... which isn’t the feeling itself.” Lyanna was already pink, yet Prince Rhaegar was merciless and flipped one more page. “And of course, the inevitable heartbreak. Hardly unique.”

He closed the book soundlessly, looking hard into her eyes. “Perspective? I know nothing about you, or your ideology, that I couldn’t guess about any person walking the street.”

Lyanna didn’t need to force the smile that came then. “Yes, yes, and no. Your Grace.” Taking the book, she opened back up to the shot of pink carnations, dappled with ambient red light filtering in from a glowing window. “My ex had these delivered. Not only did they not fix the relationship, they sent me into anaphylactic shock. See, I’d told him before that I was allergic, that blue roses are my flower, but he wasn’t a big listener. Shut me up quite soundly in the end. The red light is from the ambulance flash.” Lyanna shut the book, tossing it onto a narrow table. “Not my best shot, not by far, but in my defense I was purple as a bruise. The story is a fan favorite, anyway.”

Clients usually laughed when she told it. Lyanna was biting her lip not to laugh.

The Prince wasn’t immune. After a bit of silence, one pretty little huff escaped from his chest— prompting an incredulous noise from Lyanna.

He noticed that too. “Yes, I have a sense of humor. Strange as it may seem.”

“I look forward to meeting it,” Lyanna said wryly.

The joke was enough to turn him serious again, though it was not a return to his earlier severity. “My wedding... was dripping in carnations. They’re the national flower of the Princess’s homeland.”

“And they were lovely as the sun. It’s alright when I know before,” she assured him, hungry to keep the fraction of goodwill she’d won. It hadn’t been ‘alright,’ not really, but Lyanna was a cat that way. She lived life even when it killed her.

“I’m relieved to hear it. You understood, I am sure, that it was the time and place for carnations. The moment invited them. There are all sorts of moments like that, which open their arms to a specific thing. Experimentations with your craft included.” As if his point wasn’t clear, he plucked the offending photo from the wall and folded it with knife slice sharpness. “My nuptials were a matter of national security. You were among the select few entrusted with documenting it. It wasn’t the time for personal whimsies.” 

Lyanna had no argument. Hadn’t Lennie impressed that on all of them? Don’t be a hero. 

“My apologies, your Grace.” Boy Scout brave, she couldn’t resist pushing her luck to see how much give there was. “It was a stolen moment. Even the most important days of our lives have little gaps in them.”

“Where the cleansing fire of truth might creep in?” he asked, tone indecipherable. “You seem to consider yourself an expert. Have you ever been married?”

“Not personally, no, but my parents are serving a life sentence, and they raised me.”

“Another joke. I presume that’s something you do to placate a situation. It’s hardly placating to me. Attitudes towards monogamy and monarchy tend to be tethered, in my experience.” The Prince stood up then, imposing himself in her sight line from the floor to the ceiling. “I think I’ll see your raw images of my wedding now, as it’s not out of our way. I’m curious what other isolated moments of metaphor you captured.”

The artist knew, on some level, that art belonged not to her but to all. Yet Lyanna hesitated, sensing that the trap door had swung shut behind her. That she was beholden to this inescapable moment. As if that wasn’t enough to make her feel the prisoner, the damn warden walked in.

“Prince Rhaegar!” a frazzled Lennie greeted loudly, forcing herself into an already tight space, something harried in her tone. Something indignant, too. A shade of accusation.

No need to guess who it was directed at: the only person in the room Lennie could take her anger and confusion out on. And maybe Lyanna wasn’t entirely innocent because she actually jumped back. Which made no sense, really. Lennie didn’t know about The Picture because it was stored away in the Prince’s pocket (perhaps the universe loved Lyanna a little), and it wasn’t as if Lyanna had been flirting with him— or, if she had, he’d started it. In some serpentine fashion.

Why was Lyanna even thinking about flirting? She turned abruptly away… only to meet Lennie, who was wrapping up the pleasantries. 

Really? Lennie mouthed, frowning thinly. Tits?

Lyanna, only remembering at that precise moment what she was wearing, crossed her arms over herself and flushed absurdly. Prince Rhaegar hadn’t once looked, she realized. It’s Vivienne Westwood, she thought defensively. The monochrome tits printed in a faux cut-out weren’t even Lyanna’s— also, said tits shirt was tucked into a skirt that flowed respectably down to Lyanna’s knees. Lennie was in overalls! 

The woman adjusted her glasses (no doubt some sort of nonverbal threat), smiling once more at the intruder. “You’ve spooked one of our junior members, I see. Miss Stark joined us recently, you’ll not have met her before.” Her beady eyes scanned the cork wall: a faceless handshake in one print. A woman fixing her lipstick as the man to her side started in on her slice of cake in another. “She’s not a wedding photographer, I needn’t tell you. Not much good at taking instruction either, I’m afraid.”

“I’ve done a number of weddings, Lennie,” Lyanna semi-automatically reminded her.

“And monkeys write Shakespeare, given a typewriter and some years,” Lennie said with her customary acid (customary towards Lyanna, at least). It was gone just as fast, replaced with a gingery grin that colluded with the Prince’s scent filling the space. Androgynous and rich, he smelled of seed and tree and tea all at once, yet somehow they were fighting the permanent August of Lyanna’s studio, and bearing down on her. “For a girl who loves her trite flower pictures, you’d think it would come more naturally to you.”

“That’s hardly…”

“Equal?” Lennie asked— clearly annoyed that Lyanna had responded instead of obediently melting into the concrete floor. “Because flowers are the purer beauty, while weddings are all money and sex?”

Sex? The sound of the word surprised Lyanna, she wasn’t a prude but sex seemed… not a topic one could bring up, in the company. At the same time, Lyanna could hear the Prince’s silence. Not a word, or a prissy gasp, or a defense— sure, he didn’t owe Lyanna that. She simply resented the lack.

“There’s flowers at funerals too, you know. And no, I haven’t said they’re all money and sex, but those are involved. They’re symbols of power. Art always has a relationship to power.”

“You call that a relationship?” Lennie said, laughing. “Not a romantic, our girl.”

“S’ not what I meant, Lennie,” Lyanna said in frustration— ignoring the ‘our.’ The only other person in the room was the Prince, and he was hardly lowering himself to the conversation. “Just that weddings themselves are symbols, of romance. In the absence of something meaningful at their core, they’re pure spectacle. I like pretty pictures too, but I hardly think we should worship them.”

For a moment, Lyanna wasn’t sure if she’d had the last word... or gone too far. Lennie’s face broke into a smile, though. A real one. Her head leaned towards the intruder in the room. “Wonderful, isn’t she? Those bygone semiotics of youth.” She winked at Lyanna. “Thank you for reminding us to read our bedtime Baudrillard, sweetling. We’ll take our leave now, before you start saying the F-word to us.”

Fascist bitch, Lyanna thought defiantly. Staring resolutely away, she felt the Prince’s eyes follow her— she’d felt them on her the whole fascist time fascist Lennie had been at her. She didn’t look back, though. Wouldn’t give him that. Not even Lennie’s final insult (“You might do something about the temperature, love.”) broke her resolve.

Fascist, fascist, fascist, she fumed to no one once alone and red-cheeked. Lyanna stewed in her humiliation for about five minutes, burning and balling her fists... 

Until she slammed her hands flat on the worktable. Her mind a burning wheel, the anger not leaving her but rather fueling her. She might be going crackers, but—

Isolated moments of metaphor, Prince Rhaegar had called her work? Which, fuck him. The stupid shiny posh bastard. And yet. He’d seen the metaphor loud and clear. Jumped down my throat anyway. Why? He was nothing more than a better pedigreed and male version of Lennie, Lyanna had judged and dismissed earlier, Lennie who hated hearing anything other than yes, or, as you requested ma’am. Lyanna only ever said yes to Lennie in the beginning, culminating on That Night in Barcelona where Lyanna was sauced and horny, stupendously ready to say yes, Lennie, yes!

Except... Lennie had let her down easy that night. Lyanna figured she just didn’t fuck interns. Until Lyanna said no, Lennie for the first time. There was nothing easy about that. Power was sex to Lady Lennie Reyne, Lyanna had learned. The flirting was only to test her willingness.

The Prince been flirting with Lyanna too— she knew it in her bones even though she was never usually sure about that stuff.

Lyanna attacked her computer in her (even hotter) second room, dark but for one red bulb. After projecting the forbidden image onto the only bare wall, Lyanna stared at it. Intently. Blown up and in monochrome, there was nowhere for anything to hide: not the ceremonial bracelets weighing down the groom’s wrists. Nor the sword Blackfyre hanging significantly from its high perch, tickling the top of his silver head. And certainly not the delicate twist of his jawbone, his face…

Which culminated in the direction of his sight. Spring broke out in furious song above Lyanna’s head. It stabbed and poked at her brain with twigs, trying to make a nest.

God, how could she be so blind? Hadn’t some fortune cookie one hundred years ago told her to ‘look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them,’ words she’d liked so much she’d taped them to her mirror? And yet she’d missed the forest for the sympathy which had sprouted inside her. Honestly, the truth was so utterly obvious that by the time the innermost door hinges creaked (after what felt like minutes, though it might have been ages), Lyanna didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.

Nonetheless, Lyanna was ready to meet it this time. He’d lost the ability to surprise her.

“Am I intruding? You left the door open,” Prince bloody Rhaegar said, the same iron voice from before.

“And you’ve closed it,” she snapped back. She left the projection up. He stood in it, blinking against the bright light— bringing the image to life.

It only inflamed her more.

“You know, sir, you were right about one thing. See here, how you’re in the frame? I didn’t even notice you, frankly. I was half-blind from all the ropes of carnations, might’ve hung myself with one if it’d gone on much longer. And you’re looking just to my left— my left, your right— but that was only one moment, wasn’t it? What happened next?”

He volunteered no answer, though by then Lyanna hardly needed one. The black and white of the projection painted him in shapes and shades, but his eyes were directly in the light: wide and purple as they were wet and blue. The way they blinked, Lyanna knew she had him. “You turned, if I can guess. You saw me. It isn’t Lennie you’re here for at all, is it? This whole song and dance is for my benefit. To kindly relieve me of an image which might, oh, I don’t know— kickstart my career?”

Still the Prince stared. His mouth did a strange wobble. Did Princes know how to apologize? The least he could do was say yes. The humidity of the room felt staggering, even to Lyanna, who thought herself accustomed to the heat. 

“It’s hardly a secret that Merry Aery wasn’t in attendance, by the way. People did realize.”

“Of course they realized,” he said abruptly. Darkly, though it was more misery than murder. “They realized it then and they’ve realized it every day since. They’ll never stop realizing it.” Predictably, he tried turning it around on her. “You weren’t meant to be looking at me. Nobody was. The Princess’s traditional dance was of no small ceremonial significance.”

“You were the one marrying her, mate, not me. I hardly think I’m the chief offender.”

“Be that as it may.” What a fucking aside that was! “I know when I’m being looked at. I can smell a photographer an ocean away. So why did I not see you until it was too late?”

“Might I point out that it was your wedding day? I could’ve just as much taken that picture if I was doing my job like some robot.”

“No. I don’t believe you could have. And you didn’t.” He stabbed his breast pocket with a finger. “This. Is a bull charging at a red flag. Provoked, perhaps, yet we ignore that so as to make assumptions about the bull’s very nature. Unfair, isn’t it?”

“With all due respect, sir, who doesn’t have a father like that?” Lyanna said, resenting the sympathy she still felt. “Lennie would’ve never let that see the light of day, by the way. She’s so up the arse of politics, she’d melt down her own tripod if it’d magically become a knighthood.” When he went to respond, Lyanna threw up a hand before some ameliorating bullshit could spill from his clever mouth. “Whatever it is, spare me.”

“I would if I could, Lyanna. Please understand that,” he said. It was the first thing he’d said all day which Lyanna felt certain was honest— though it wasn’t his honesty which jolted her. 

“Now who’s being unfair? You’re not even meant to know I have a name, much less use it. I can’t use yours.”

“Why, don’t you know it?” he asked. Which could only be his sense of humor arriving. “Prince and Your Grace might turn my head, but my mother did name me Rhaegar once. You, on the other hand… you were a nameless mystery. Led me on a merry chase.”

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to,” Lyanna simpered, missing mockery by some distance. Silly. Given that he’d all but dared her to call him Rhaegar. Why couldn’t she rise to the challenge? She wasn’t a coward, was mostly a socialist, she knew now she held the prize in this slithering man’s secret mission— where was the hesitance coming from? Didn’t familiarity breed contempt, or truth lend itself to intimacy, or whatever?

“It hardly matters what you meant. You’re guilty nonetheless.”

“Guilty?” she gaped. “Like this is my contrivance somehow? I suppose you think it’s some massive secret you’ve got to protect, nobody has eyes and can see all that’s rotten in Denmark—”

“—can see that the emperor’s wearing no clothes,” he agreed.

“Exactly!” Her eyebrows slammed into each other. “Wait.”

“No, you’ve sliced it between the ribs. You’re terrifically sharp so I can hardly claim surprise. It was more a surprise to find someone with your interests was photo’ing my wedding.” Fucking hell if he wasn’t single-minded par excellence. “I confess it was riveting, chasing you down with so few clues. When I did find you, still I doubted. Your work was, what? A calendar? For some transgender children’s charity? A series on the fishermen of Nova Scotia? The wolf in the lot of a homeless shelter, that one was punchy. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why you were there.” 

“I wasn’t meant to be. The others... fell sick.” Lennie’s trusted senior generals. Haigh, Frey. Blount.

“Food poisoning. Yes, Ellen fed me that same party line.” Pausing, the Prince raked her over. Lyanna bit her cheek. “Whatever the case, I had to see for myself. Lo and behold, here you are.”

“I. Wasn’t. Hiding. Stop involving me in your subterfuge, honestly, you could’ve just asked and Lennie would’ve fallen over herself to appease you. Don’t you know that? You’re the Crown Prince, for fuck’s sake!”

The look he gave her was bright blue. Sweet summer child, it said. All that came from his mouth was a wispy and pitying Lyanna.

Spoken like he wished he lived in the world that she did.

“Oh eat me already,” she spat, armored in self-righteousness. Finding her screen again, she typed furiously, logging her credentials and pulling the image which only the two of them had seen. Her arm was an arrow when she pointed him to it. “Go on then, your Grace. If you want it gone, how can I stand in your way? I’m just the staff. I’d die before I offended you. Delete it and I’ll forever hold my peace.” 

He didn’t move. Did he think it a trick? Perhaps it was, because she knew better than to think she could make him do anything... unless he wanted it so much he’d freely debase himself. Lyanna wanted to throw a bucket of mud on him, really. This was all the power she had, though, and it would evaporate soon enough. 

The royal face— unreadable, pale as the moon and distant as that too— didn’t even turn to the computer. Would he expect her to do this part too? So as to not dirty the royal fingertip? Huffing, Lyanna gave him her back. “I’ll even look away, sir, so there’s no chance of you being seen at all.”

She’d have told him to do it and be done with it, if she could get it out of her mouth. Lyanna heard him shuffle. Her blood rushed in her ears. The longer he lingered, the less she knew what she wanted from him.

When he spoke, it still wasn’t to prove her right or wrong.

“I know that given the position I’ve put you in, this means little. It’s simply something I want you to know. That for the briefest time while I was looking for you, trying to understand you, this thankless task of mine was... fun. For lack of a better word.”

“So what? I don’t care,” she responded petulantly.

“I’m sure,” he said. “There is much and more I might do for you, you should realize. I want to. To help your career—”

Though the words reeked of perfunctory noblesse oblige, Lyanna was nonetheless already whirling when don’t you fucking dare flew from her mouth— preceding by milliseconds her slap ringing across his stupid, perfect cheek. The impact forced his face sideways. She hadn’t meant for it to land so hard, hadn’t even really meant to slap him… he was talking such shite, though.

“Don’t you dare! I’ll be making my own damn career, not some fascist meddling bastard who— ach!” Lyanna pushed him again, growling out her anger and frustration. Somehow her pushes did nothing but bring them closer together, until she was in his face and telling him in no uncertain terms that she didn’t respect his blood offer, stupid empty gesture, just as hollow as his pathetic farce of a wedding—

He pulled her to him. And they were kissing then, swallowing each other’s wrongs, meeting the heat of the room, her hisses not gone but morphed into angry little moans against his mouth. He’d been smelling wonderful the whole afternoon (Lyanna had tried desperately not to notice) and she stole gulps of it, winding her fist into his feathery hair as his strong arms wrapped around her body. God, she should have hit him all over again for his audacity, only his mouth was the softest mouth she’d ever bit to breaking. 

It was too good to stop. It was all her rage and want and need... which she could never hope to find words for.

Everything she’d been feeling the entire afternoon found a physical outlet on the body standing between her parted thighs, the one which she had to push against lest it flatten her to the table. The heat of his hands had moved to her neck so their delicious war was playing out in multiple theaters of her body, proxy battles over all the limbs, Lyanna having to squirm and twist and adjust to gain new ground. 

When his palms slid up the back of her shirt, though, she was forced to surrender in order to help divest herself of the controversial tits shirt. Irony being, she wasn’t wearing a bra. All the removal did was reveal her tits.

The Prince hadn’t once looked at her shirt. He was looking now, though. Red lips parted for heaving. 

Lyanna couldn’t catch the breathless laugh that ripped from her chest, causing his eyes to meet hers. “I keep my promises,” she mumbled, half a joke; she was hardly thinking straight.

It was only funny for the flash before his large hand moved up to fondle a bare breast. The Prince— Rhaegar— licked up a bead of sweat without breaking the lock of their gazes. Those eyes see everything, she thought, shivering the whole time his mouth was slowly lowering to her collar. Whatever he was asking, he could damn well keep asking. She pushed him down to level with the breasts he was clearly gagging to get his mouth on, and she was gagging for it too: a graze of his lips and she was moaning right away, her head falling back. How long had it been? A few weeks? A month?

It hardly mattered how long it was since her last fumble, though. No random hookup had prepared her for this.

Every touch sizzled. Five hundred electrocutions were running through the meat and muscle of her; in jolts, Lyanna realized that inhuman as he seemed, he was still a man. Maybe even her first man, infinitely more capable and experienced than she’d wrangled before. If he kept kissing down his dangerous path… she’d soon be laid on her back and taking it. From his mouth, his pistoning hips, whatever. And what kind of fuck was that? Him on top, her whimpering girlishly. Boring. Like playing with a doll for him, probably.

“Wait—”

“Is it—”

“Just—”

Lyanna was frustrated enough to shove him again, twisting and turning, wrestling with the dark/her position/her hurricane of hair while his hands fruitlessly searched for another anchorage on her body. It was only when her back was to him that he was able to force her still against the table. Slip a hand over her throat so his thumb was pressing on her lower lip. She grabbed for his other hand resting hot on her hip— curling her fist over his until their fingerprints were branded into her skin. That helped, at any rate.

“Lyanna,” he murmured into her ear. She could smell his breath. “What are you saying no to?”

“You’ll know when I’m saying no.”

Lyanna gave up talking to move against him, testing all the ways her body worked to drive her lovers wild. She knew the dance. Already it felt better: him nuzzling against the wolf tattoo on her shoulder blade, in tune with the soft gasps puffing out from both of their mouths. It felt better, yes.

Somehow, it still didn’t feel right. 

Cracking her neck once, she reached to pull up her skirt. The Prince helped— such a perfect little squire he was— until he could snap her elastic against her skin. Exploring her thighs with his hands while Lyanna pushed her panties down, his licks and nips began resembling bites. Lyanna didn’t discourage him. She rubbed her firm ass against the seat of his trousers.

“The horses in your photos. You ride them, don’t you?”

She laughed, distracted from wondering about how to get his cock out. “Where’d you see those? My fucking instagram?”

“Maybe, yes.” Licking the shell of her ear before blowing on it, “maybe not.”

He moved away— his desired destination functionally obvious. Lyanna didn’t let him, not even when his confused expression tugged at a heart string. If licking cunt was his opening move? Then he was probably fantastic at it. She’d melt and die. The thought of giving up that much control (even if it felt galactic) was rancid just then. She was possessed by the need to keep charge. To emboss herself onto his brain, flashes of this unexpected passion seizing him by the throat for decades to come.

“Come here,” she whispered sultrily, stealing another kiss… and promptly shoved him onto the tiny sofa behind. A glorified chair really, yet it served her purposes. The whole of his tall solid frame landed with an oof. When she straddled him, her skirt up around her thighs and breasts level with his nose, everything clicked into place.

Prince Rhaegar was still trying to bare her, get at her. It was almost adorable. All this plotting just so his tongue could play Mozart on her clit.

“You’re not eating my pussy today,” she said— with no small delight. Saying no and making him squirm was such a joy.

“Why not?” the prince of the shimmering eyes demanded, voice plaintive. “I assure you, I had an excellent instructor. Whatever particular you’re thinking of won’t daunt me.”

Red hell. “Oh, I just don’t think you deserve it,” she quipped. Lyanna pinned his hands to the backrest as if to punctuate her statement. Stay, she warned— he did, despite clearly itching otherwise.

“Good boy.”

Running her hand up his shirt, she kissed him again while making quick work of the buttons. She got the feeling he liked kissing very much. She did, too. They both liked it when she pressed her breasts to the newly bared skin of his smooth chest, moans ringing out as one. She could have gone on for hours, kissing and touching him all over, using his body to soothe her pebbled nipples, rubbing against his clothed erection… they didn’t have that kind of time, though. Someone would surely be noticing his absence. And Lyanna needed it fast and furious or else she’d be blowing up the building.

“In me, in me, in me,” she mumbled-sang to herself, groping his cock as she shuffled to get him good and lined up. They were both already wet enough.

“For you,” he breathed softly. Sweet.

If unnecessary. 

Lyanna caught the tip once, twice, before bearing down. The head popped in easy enough— enough to touch the one shallow spot that drove her wild— such that she could rock on it while considering how to proceed. It wasn’t the most perfect angle in the world.

“Let me help,” he urged her. 

Should she? Bathed in soft red, Lyanna eyed his tempting Adam’s Apple. Not yet, she decided with a shake of her head, playing and stimulating the both of them in that position for a minute. Really she just wanted to see how soon he’d get grabby. If he was an impatient brat beneath the impenetrable exterior. His submission seemed earnest enough, though, all his strength vibrating in wait for her to be ready. It had the terrifying effect of endearing him to Lyanna.

“Go, go,” she said, directing his hand. With her head thrown back, all she could do was feel how his palm pressed up the curve of her spine, helping her arch and spread the way she needed to… by the time his grip cradled her neck, she was sunk down. Full to the brim with him.

Lyanna pinned her hands on his knees behind her and dug her nails in. Hard. She rode him sightless, all the moans and soft curses and squelches amplified by the loss of one sense. Her body was unbearably sensitive even with the limited stimuli: his smell choked her, the empty air around her nipples pinched her, the stroke of his cock against the walls of her swollen cunt touched everywhere. His hips worked against hers too well— Lyanna couldn’t do that squeeze-release trick she usually did when sex felt good, rarely was penetration orgasm-good, but sometimes it was good enough that she wanted to play sex kitten/life ruiner. With him… she was lost.

“Oh!” she cried out when his mouth found a nipple to gently roll between his teeth. She seized him by the hair in hopes hurting him would ground her. But how could it, when rubbing her clit against him had suddenly become so easy? “Don’t stop, don’t stop!”

Rhaegar was holding her up by then. Supporting her by bouncing her up and down with a vigor that shocked all the sex hormones in her body, flooding her with goodness. Oh, she’d feel her arch in the morning but for the moment she could only throw herself to it, trust the hands on her ass and neck. Could only mush his face to her skin as pleasure zapped through her. 

They were half sideways by the time Lyanna even realized he was moving them. Her knee hiked up practically to his shoulder. The indecent slapping was louder, too— it turned her on immeasurably, not that she needed the help. She might’ve stooped to begging if he hadn’t kissed her then. Her hands were such greedy little shits, they were manhandling him and digging into him and touching him wherever they reached. Rhaegar seemed to like it at any rate. He was saying her name (as if throbbing inside of her wasn’t enough!) and imploring her to come, which was about when she realized two things: one, that he was holding himself back. The salt she sucked from his face not simply sweat after all. Two, that she was going to come. Immediately, even. The wave was cresting— Lyanna was only quiet because she couldn’t get any damn air.

It hit her like a hundred sun-baked lances. There was nothing to do but feel it all around. Probably it was cruel, how tight she was gripping him inside of her. She couldn’t stop; she was strung like a bow. Rooted to him like two trees with their tops exploding. The movements of his hips told Lyanna that he was trapped in it too, the asymmetric rhythm chaotic and delicious.

When even his instinctual thrusts ended, Lyanna was left clinging to him. Baby chimpanzee on her mummy. She huffed— not any real annoyance, it simply wasn’t sustainable— and maneuvered so she was lumped on him once more. Straddling him as he softened inside of her. Which, finishing inside was certainly a liberty. Well she might’ve clobbered him if he hadn’t... so she didn’t say anything.

Lyanna wasn’t ready to get off of him yet. Nothing in the world felt clever enough to be worth rousing.

Prince Rhaegar was of a similar mind. He was a lazy painter whose kisses and stroking fingers painted a jelly-Lyanna in all sorts of flowers and vines. She wasn’t minding that, though. Lyanna found herself content to wrap her arms around his shoulders, nibble on his ear, and be his canvas. Indeed, she let loose the breath she’d been holding since he’d stepped into her darkness. His noisiness lulled her.

“Sunshine,” Rhaegar rumbled against her ear eventually. It was a sweetness… and a reminder to return to Earth.

He’s got places to go, Lyanna reasoned with herself. Still, she couldn’t resist being a thorn. “Weren’t saying nice things like that before I fucked you. Interesting.”

His laugh was warm. “You know, I think I might have been having a reaction to your photograph. Of everything I could have found... that was just the worst case scenario.”

“S’not a bad thing. You’re meant to react to art.” Satisfied with that, Lyanna made to fetch a tissue. Prince Rhaegar cheated her of the stretch by pulling out a handkerchief— she could only assume it was monogrammed— and pressing it to her cunt, where his cum was beginning to drip out. Gave her a boyish little smile, too. Ugh. 

“And what will you be doing with that?” she asked. “Making some poor servant handwash it?”

“Hardly. I thought I’d autograph it and leave it with you. Token of our encounter.”

“Bit Monica Lewinsky, isn’t it? I mean, you don’t even trust me with a photo.” He hummed but made no other reply. Lyanna squeezed to help the matter along. “I’m on birth control, by the way.”

“I know.” His nose nudged where the implant sat in her arm. “Either that, or someone is tracking your every move.”

“Something like that would’ve been convenient for you.”

“I wouldn’t have refused it. This other bit was convenient as well, I’d say.”

“What if I wasn’t, though? Hypothetically. Curious minds wish to know the protocol, your Grace.”

Lyanna was being a bit antagonistic, admittedly. The moment of separation had never been her finest— and this was no ordinary one. Pulling her shirt on allowed her to ignore the slight twist of his face, though the heat of his dark eyes still burned her skin like cigarette butts.

“Darling,” he said tenderly. As if the word were her name. “This shoebox couldn’t begin to fit all the paperwork we’d need to do.”

Lyanna mock-laughed while shimmying back into her panties. She ran useless fingers through her hair in a bid to shake herself from his orbit. There was nothing to be done about the thrumming of her hips and thighs. That was too tasty to wish away; in a bed on the edge of time, her body knew instinctively, she’d be having him again. To numbness.

The moment was done, though. The time for living in it was over, and the time for remembering had begun. 

The Prince was adjusting his shirtsleeves into that handsome forearm-revealing arrangement again, when he noticed Lyanna looking. He stopped. Asked, “do you know the Kierkegaard bit, where he says that if you have a secret— a secret you can’t imagine not keeping— then you should never get married?”

Lyanna gave him a questioning look. “Is that sage advice for me?”

“Might be. It’s too late for anyone else in this room to take it.” It wasn’t exactly a bouquet of flowers, but it gave Lyanna permission to feel the feelings she’d been trying to tamp down: inappropriate intimacy, guilt. Joy. Vindication too, for the hours she’d spent itching among the upper crust, misanthroping magnificently, thinking with great prejudice that the whole affair was torture for any idiot (like her) who cared about stupid shit like Truth or Beauty.

“Then again,” he mused, “I might have married you, and saved everyone this moaning.”

“Perfect moment to pull a ‘to be or not to be,’” she said lightly, miming holding up a skull. “Though it’s nice to know you can indulge in a personal whimsy from time to time.”

When he slid his hand over his face to hide a smile/blush situation, she thought: cute (readily ignoring any other emotions the gesture stirred up). Lyanna was feeling half insane herself, which should have worried her more… but it felt right. Or just, alright.

Sliding back next to him on the sofa was as tight a fit as the entire afternoon had been; the space was constricting, if not exactly right. His hand was rubbing from her bare calf to her bare foot immediately. Touchy-touchy, this man. In more ways than one.

“I want to tell you something,” she blurted out. 

“Then you must tell me.”

A knock on the door rang out then— tight, sharp, it sounded military— but Prince Rhaegar barked some harsh words in a foreign language before giving her a gentle touch. “Say, please.”

“Well, I want you to know what will happen if I receive an invitation to shoot the royal baby shower, or whatever. If that happens— if— then I plan to go to the tabloids and tell them how the royal cock curves just so much to the right. My right, your left. So. Fair warning on that.”

The dim light couldn’t obscure the slow, sexy smile which stretched across his open face. Or the sparkle of his stupid ocean eyes. “Lyanna… my darling. Why not threaten me with the photo? Rather than something so easy to deny? Which, in honesty, I might not even have to.”

“Because monarchists are strict monogamists, as nobody should ever question?” 

“The appearance of monogamy is meaningful. Yes.”

“So nobody would believe me.”

“I haven’t said that. Certain people will believe anything salacious.”

“They will, won’t they? But you know who would believe me?” Leaning in closer with her teeth bared, Lyanna wondered if she looked the wolf in the light. “Your Princess, sir. She’d know the truth. And then all three of us would share a secret.” 

Would you appreciate that? Lyanna almost asked— but the look on his face, which said he’d rather swim through fire, was enough. Lyanna couldn’t resist rubbing herself against him one last time. Gods, but she loved the way he smelled.

The Prince was on the verge of leaving when he turned around in the doorway. Light framed him. He seemed to weigh his words before speaking. 

“I’ve known Ellen since I was a boy. She’s been the family’s official portraitist for ages. And Lyanna, she would never speak to you the way she does if she didn’t think you an absolute miracle.”

“She’s an odd way of showing it,” Lyanna said coolly— not truly thinking she was hiding anything from this incisive, all-seeing bastard.

He smiled sadly. “They do, don’t they? When they know you’ll replace them.”

Returning from another ‘life sucks less at our favourite Chinese restaurant’ luncheon for two, Lyanna and Howland were huddled like mischievous twins when they stepped into the weekly all-staff meeting. Two years of submitting themselves to Lennie’s elaborate humiliation ritual had lessened the psychic damage. They were even giggling when they walked in, splitting the extra fortune cookie— their usual waitress always gave them an extra, and it was Lyanna’s turn to get the fortune. ‘Have a great day!’ it read. Lyanna crumpled it in her palm. Thus far, her day had been perfectly average.

All of which was to say: Lyanna was a beat late to gauging the temperature of the room. 

A frisson of something was running through the crowd. Usually that meant a particularly sadistic remark had been made by one of Lennie’s upper brass… but when Howl elbowed a sometimes-ally in question, she met them not with her usual half-sympathy half-schadenfreude, but rather a vaguely childlike excitement. 

“The Prince sent flowers,” she whispered. Loudly.

A confused beat passed. Lyanna swallowed, blinking away an annoying lump. “The nerve of him,” she offered up.

The waifish girl rolled her eyes. “Honestly, why do I bother? You two were raised in barns by wolves.”

“Those wolves ate the kids who didn’t say their pleases and thank-yous, I’ll have you know.”

She huffed, turning away dramatically. Indeed, Lyanna was about to make a funny for Howland’s pleasure when the sea parted. The room was familiar as ever with its greys and greens, steel and eau de envy— until suddenly, it was blue.

Not the yellow of Lennie’s favored crocuses. The blue of winter roses, arranged tastefully, expensively, beautifully, in a riotous bouquet. Lennie was hunched like a surgeon over a heart transplant, fretting with the envelope.

The scent of the flowers had just reached Lyanna’s nostrils when Lennie’s eyes followed the trail... and seized on Lyanna. Everyone in the room followed suit.

Oh.

Silence sucked up any empty space. There was no time to seek refuge in a squeeze of Howland’s hand: Lennie’s crooked fingers brought forth a ghost, Lyanna, (who was even wearing white) having no choice but to float over.

“They’re for you,” Lennie said, her skinny wrist dangling. Deceptively casual, but Lyanna couldn’t care. Her hand was already reaching out.

She took it numbly. She traced with her eyes the fine black ink pressed into thick cardstock:

Miss Stark,

I look greatly forward to following your career. 

With Compliments, HRH Prince Rhaegar

Tits and holes, Lyanna absolutely hated him. Not for the first time since their encounter she wanted with tremendous force to see him again. So she could smack him, of course. If he were in front of her, she’d shove her panties in his mouth and suck him off til he was curled into a baby ball. Those feelings only grew when she realized that the card smelled like him. Combined with the scent of roses? Part of her wanted to crumple the cardstock in her palm, as she had the fortune. Another (larger) part of her wanted to stick it up to her nose and inhale it.

“What’d you do to get those, girlie?” Lennie asked. Lyanna couldn’t begrudge her curiosity. It was a totally suspicious gesture. At the same time, it stank of the aristocracy’s stiff empyreal manners, and was therefore beyond reproach. In this room, anyway.

She didn’t look up from the card. “I went and fucked him, didn’t I?”

“Cheeky lass,” Lennie grunted, dismissing Lyanna for a brat. Certain people would believe anything... and certain people clung to their old religions. Lennie’s voice rang loud when she barked, “pardon, but do I employ you leeches to mill around? Back to bloody work, the lot of you!”

Lyanna didn’t need to be told twice. She moved to gather her items— only to be promptly called back.

“Where are you going?”

“To… take the bouquet back to my quarters?” Lyanna answered, suddenly unsure. 

Lennie sighed loudly. “Surely someone is enterprising enough to do that for you. You’re needed in my office, aren’t you? We’ve the annual equestrian issue to plan.”

Frey (the worst of the slugs who slimed about the studio) stepped in, saying, “Lennie, is she really rea—”

“I don’t know, Walter, is she ready?” Lennie snapped. “She managed to do your bloody job. Tell you what, why don’t you try a hand at doing hers? Go fetch those flowers back to her rooms. And pick me up a tea, if you think you can manage it.”

What a glorious day it was shaping up to be! Lyanna felt tall as any tree. She did her best flower-girl simper when she protested, saying, “oh, Lennie, don’t ask that of him. He wouldn’t know where to take them. He never bothers with the studios of us lowly juniors.” He sent his evil minions for that. “And it’s so easy to miss my little corner of Hell.”

The three witches— Frey, Haigh, Blount— all aimed sour looks at Lyanna, which she met with a grin smarmier than grape jam.

“I’ll take them, Lya,” a low voice offered. And Lyanna always loved Howland’s mossy tongue-tie, but for once she wasn’t the only one pleased to hear it.

“Much appreciated, Reed. Never thought I’d see the day when someone was actually useful around here,” Lennie said tartly. “Following me, Stark?”

Lyanna laughed. “Lead the way, Lennie. I’m breathing down your neck.”