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Chapter Text

( 𝖂𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯'𝔰 𝕾𝔬𝔫𝔤 ! )
❛ i fear that i may love you more
than i will ever be allowed to. ❜

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( 𝕾𝔶𝔫𝔬𝔭𝔰𝔦𝔰... ! )
DRAGONS AMONG WOLVES
FIRE & ICE, WINGS & FANGS
❛ i think i've loved you since i met
you. i just mistook it for curiosity. ❜
— solitaire, alice oseman

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𝕿𝔬 𝖇𝔢 𝖆 𝖜𝔬𝔪𝔞𝔫 𝖔𝔣 𝕳𝔬𝔲𝔰𝔢 𝕿𝔞𝔯𝔤𝔞𝔯𝔶𝔢𝔫 𝖜𝔞𝔰 𝖙𝔬 𝖇𝔢 𝖈𝔲𝔯𝔰𝔢𝔡. Or perhaps even as just a child of House Targaryen, regardless of gender. That's what Gael always thought. As monarchs, King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne had shinning legacies and were much beloved by both the smallfolk and the nobles- at court and throughout the realm. Of course, there would always be those who were displeased with their rule, that would always be true no matter how good or bad one was. It was quite notable, though, that they had brought House Targaryen into the light of grandeur and prestige that it enjoyed today. But with all greatness, the shadow cast from such heights was long and dark.

Many think it starts with Saera, but Gael has half a mind to think it starts much before that, with the death of their forever youthful sister Princess Daenerys, or maybe even with the death of Aegon the firstborn who had never made it passed the cradle, both of whom were born much earlier than Gael and therefore she would never know them more than the sparse stories from her aggrieved mother and the official portraits. Though Queen Alysanne was blessed to have a fertile womb, the children that came from her union with the King Jaehaerys— her own royal brother— seemed to be doomed by whatever hubris they held or was it a curse on their house?

It continues on with Daella, gentle dull Daella, who smiled sweetly and was always so gentle and obedient and kind, who had died when Gael herself was still in her infancy, but whom mother had many stories of with this sad fondness. Daella had married Rodrik Arryn as his second wife and had birthed but the once with Aemma before passing into the next life. Aemma hadn't lived very long either, though she had lasted much longer than many of Gael's own siblings; Aemma had been married to her cousin Viserys young and dying in 105 AC in Viserys' endless endeavor for a son.

Then it was brother Aemon and their cousin, his bride, Jocelyn, who only had one daughter, Rhaenys, and died in 92 AC— one from a crossbow bolt during an insurrection from Myrish exiles on Tarth, the other from her broken heart at the loss of her lover.

Then there was Saera, dubbed the Scandalous, but who Gael vaguely remembered as her fiery older sister, a headstrong girl who had only ever dreamed, truly, of flying free in the skies on a dragon like their brothers, who snuck her candies, and had as venomous and explosive a temper as the rest of her family, and one who had just as sharp a wit as their brother Vaegon, who had detested the lot of them and far preferred his books and studies at the Citadel then anything else; a young woman who Gael barely knew let alone one she could remember as not only had she been but a small child when the scandal had ensued, but none were allowed to speak of her around the King after her escape into Essos in exile, either.

Alyssa was around the same time, full of life and fire and free, had died trying to birth a third son who never lived more than a year, and Baelon was never truly the same after her death, though he had gone on to live for quite some time after her. Until he too died of a burst belly, in 101 AC. Then there was Gaemon and Valerion, babes who never left infancy, and who Gael rarely knew more than the fact they had made her mother cry, as they had been born before Gael.

Viserra was one of the last, vain and petty and impulsive, flighty and so angry at the world, often spitting venom at whoever had earned her ire, who had only wanted a noble prince pr gallant knight like the songs and stories from the bards. Who had hoped to wed their elder brother Baelon, passionate and beautiful and brave Baelon, only to be embarrassed and humiliated when he had dismissed his drunken naked sister from his rooms. Viserra the Pretty, who had died, at age the age of five and ten namedays, drunkenly racing her horse in the streets of Kings Landing after the news of her impending nuptials to some older lord who she knew she would never love. Thrown from her horse, cracking her head open, and breaking her neck on the cobble stones at the foot of Aegon's Hill. Viserra who had warned Gael that one day she would be next, and that she should prey the man she would be sold to was at least kind and gentle, for the man she was to marry was certainly not attractive, if the rumors were to be deemed true— for Lord Theomore Manderly had already cycled through four wives and was said to be quite stout. And it was no surprise they had grown up with tales of Northerner's savage barbarity and their wilding adjacent culture from their Septas, as they prayed to and worshiped trees as the Old Gods.

Maegelle had taken to the Faith of the Seven, rumoured to be an offer of truce to the faith by Queen and King. She'd been left into their order at a very young age to become a Septa herself, and they had rarely ever heard from her after that, and had died 96 AC, from greyscale after a surprising outbreak had popped up and she'd nursed dying children who had been infected by the disease.

Of the children of Jaehaerys and Alysanne, only Vaegon and Gael remained. Vaegon, who became an Archmaester of Economics at the Citadel of Oldtown, and Gael, a princess who married afar, a Northern Lord of Winterfell, the second son of Lord Benjen Stark. Henrik Stark was known as the Quiet Wolf, a noble man who had treated Gael with nothing but gentle kindness since they were introduced. Gael was lucky, she knew that, as her father and mother had been trying to gain a union of alliance with the North for years. They had tried with Viserra and a Manderly Lord, and Lady Alarra Stark had once been a favoured ward of the Good Queen, who had been married at the behest and blessing of Alysanne to the Lord Royce of Runestone; but to get in with the ruling family House Stark of Winterfell. That was a boon. Gael may not have married into the ruling line, as she had married the second son rather than the heir, but all of it mattered not. She would want none other than her intended, who she would come to know as a gentle, passionate, considerate man. Nothing like the other vipers at court, nothing like the other southern men she had come to know. A good man, one that she had grown to love with all of her heart. The North itself was nothing like her Septa's and other ladies at court had told her it was like, they were not savages or barbarians, they were a people who lived in hard unforgiving climates and often dealt with dangerous threats. They were a hard people, and their culture was different, but there was often an honesty to them that was quite refreshing, and their honor to their word was of an upmost inportance. Not to mention their attitudes towards women and their roles in society was much different than what it had been like in the South.

In the North, Gael Targaryen, a princess of the blood of the dragon, was not just a simple brood mare, or a trophy to be paraded on the arm of her husband. She was a partner to her husband, an equal who shored up her own personal strengths in compensation for his weaknesses, just as he did for her. She was a dragon in the cold North, and she was valued for her differences and her capabilities that she may have had to hide had she been wed to a man of the South. She would eventually give birth to two beautiful princesses of the blood of both the dragon and the direwolf, two little ladies who would inhabit both of their strengths, all of their positives, only the best aspects of each other. Blessed would they be by both of their historical and ancient families, but would they be able to break the curse as children of the blood of the dragon? Only time would tell.

❛ he looked like a corrupt angel - almost preternaturally handsome but with a louche quality that hinted at unspoken depravity. he was an unforgettable, if unnerving, face that lent itself to being cast as sadists, cannibals and, indeed, lucifer. ❜
— the daily telegraph, on pierre clementi, january 12, 2000

❛ no, we're not soulmates. this is not divine intervention. and this is most certainly not chance. i willed this. i knit the threads of fate myself until they spelled your name. i love you intentionally. i love you with every bit of conscience i was born with. ❜

❛ what is honor compared to a woman's love? what is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms... or the memory of a brother's smile? wind and words. wind and words. we are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. that is our great tragedy. ❜

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( 𝕱𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤... ! )
BLOOD OF THE DRAGON
BLOOD OF THE DIREWOLF
❛ fire & blood; winter is coming. ❜

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winter child; princess of winter
( princess gael targaryen ! )
born 80 ac, kings landing
last daughter of king jaehaerys
and queen alysanne targaryen.

the quiet direwolf
( lord henrik stark ! )
born 78 ac, winterfell
second son of lord benjen
stark and lady lysa locke.

the northern dragon
( lady haera stark ! )
born 108 ac, winterfell

the valyrian direwolf
( lady vaera stark ! )
born 108 ac, winterfell

respective actors as the
house of the dragon cast

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Chapter Text

❛ a union to change history. ❜

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THE RED KEEP, 96 AC
GAEL TARGARYEN.

The arrival of the Northern Host from Winterfell to the Red Keep of Kings Landing was a grande affair. The entire castle and city were bustling in anticipation, for their arrival would be the start of the festivities incorporated into a royal wedding. The week after their arrival would be the wedding, not just the ceremony and feast, but also the gift-giving ceremony for the wedded couple as well as the tourney. It would be at least three weeks after their arrival wedding itself that Gael would have in Kings Landing before she was to be shipped away to the homeland of her husband, the Northern highlands of Winterfell. Though it would likely be another moon or so after the start of their journey from the capital of Westeros that she would actually arrive at the Northern fortress.

Her mother had cried in her private chambers when the betrothal had been announced a year ago. Gael had only happened upon it as she had used the secret tunnels within the keep to find her mother, having wanted comfort over the prospect of an impending marriage only a year away. Gael had not entered her mother's rooms at the sight of her cries, as the Queen mourned another child she would soon be losing. Though not in death, but in a faraway marriage— yet, a dark voice that sounded much too alike to her deceased older sister Viserra sneered in her mind that had her shuddering at the time.

As it was now, Gael stood on the dias in her room for a final fitting of her wedding gown. Her mother, ever the calm and elegant Queen dressed in gold and blue, smiled warmly at her as the seamstresses did their work, the last touch-ups for a very fine and handsome dress. Her blue eyes, however, betrayed her as there was a glossy wetness accumulating in them with unshed tears. Eyes that Gael shared with her mother. Rhaenys stood beside her, cutting a proud figure in her dark red dress. Her dark Baratheon hair a major contrast to the honey-gold of her mother's hair, of her own pale imitation of her mother's warm honey-gold hair, a pale honey-gold, or of Aemma's own platinum hair, as the young Princess Consort strands to the left of the Queen in her lavender dress.

"It's beautiful, sweetling," Alysanne says in the Common Tongue lovingly, resisting the urge to reach out and caress her cheek like Gael knows she wants to do in this moment. It was as much a compliment to her in the dress as it was to the seamstresses working on the dress, who had made the dress.

Gael shyly looks down at the dress, just barely able to avoid fidgeting lest she be stabbed by the tiny needles in her dress or in the hands of the seamstresses. She also had to strongly resist smoothing her hands down the length of the satin outer skirt, or twisting the twisting diamond and pearl bejeweled sleeves in her fingers. Looking like pearlescent flames dancing on her inner skirt and sleeves.

"Indeed, quite beautiful," Aemma says, her voice ever gentle like a songbird. "Sweet Gael will be the picture of the maiden in the Sept."

Gael swallows down the faintest of urgers towards nausea at the sight of her niece, the daughter of her deceased elder sister Daella, who had been married already in 93 AC to Viserys. A child bride at just twelve namedays, and with a babe in the next year, 94 AC. Aemma was only a year younger than her, the same age as Daemon! Speaking of Aemma's two-year-old daughter, Rhaenyra is held in the fifteen-nameday-old girl's arms, gurgling and babbling happily, wide lavender eyes alight with wonder at the sparkling dress Gael wears.

"You've done a fine job, Cressa," Rhaenys hummed in approval, and Gael tried to ignore the heat that rose to her face from the validation from the older woman. Rhaenys may technically be her niece, too, but she was much older than her. Rhaenys was a woman who cut a fine, intimidating figure. Beautiful, and married to an adventurer much older than her, Rhaenys had always been whom Gael had imagined a Queen would be. And yet the Crown would not pass to her, but to Baelon, and after him, Viserys...

Viserys was kind, and always had friendly smiles. He loved reading histories and always told great stories. There was no doubt that he was well-liked in court, Gael knew, and as a Targaryen he was handsome young man, with the silver-gold hair and violet eyes, but she couldn't really imagine him in the same vein as father or Rhaenys. Viserys was indecisive and rather meek in leadership compared to Rhaenys or even his brother Daemon. Not that Daemon would be a better king, as the teenager just a year younger than Gael herself was quite impulsive and crass. He was the titular second-son of a second son turned heir.

Not to mention it still made her feel sick knowing that Viserys and Aemma had wed when she was barely flowered. (That could have been me! A voice cried out in her head, screaming with hot tears and grieving for the loss that hung around her family, most of which she was not present to see or even at an age to remember clearly, in these very red halls, haunted by the blood shed in the birthing bed of her sisters, aunts, grandparents...) The cruel words of Viserra echo in her head when she's around Aemma and Viserys (you're next, little sister!) or the vague flashes of memories of Saera, screaming and crying and denouncing their parents, when her lover Ser Beesbury had been killed, or of the news that she had run away from the Sept of Oldtown to Essos... to the thundering row her parents had when Alysanne had wished to visit her, of her mother's cries after Jaehaerys had called Saera a whore and forbid their mother from going to see her.

"Thank you, My Princess," Cressa bows her head, and yet her eyes narrow on the girl who was fixing something at the hem of Gael's wedding dress. The poor girl flinched at the mere feeling of the older woman's gaze on her, and began to sew differently. Cressa had been a seamstress in their service for many years, a favorite of her mother's, who had always done their gowns for very important events. She was a tall, lean woman with a stern demeanor, and yet her fingers were so very careful and nimble. A true master at her craft.

Gael had to admit, it was a beautiful dress. It was pure white, unlike the dresses of her other family members in their weddings. Alysanne had worn a gown of red, black, and gold. Rhaenys, for all that she had eloped rather than suffer through the grande affair that were royal weddings, had worn a gown of black and red in their house colors. Alyssa, too, had worn a gown of red and black. Aemma, who was younger than Gael by a year and yet already wed with a toddler babe, had worn a gown of Arryn blue and lavender for her wedding dress, which matched the color of her eyes as they were a pale lavender-blue color. Even Jocelyn, Rhaenys' mother, had worn a gown of black and gold in her wedding for the colors of House Baratheon. Perhaps the lack of any other coloring was to make her appear like the glittering snows of the North? Paired with the red and black cloak of House Targaryen that would be replaced with the sleet-grey cloak of the Starks, however, this dress would most likely fit much better for both than any other would. The dress was too fine, though, in Gael's mind, to be worn only once. Especially to a Stark of the North. From what she knew, the Houses of the North were a simpler lot, besides of course the rich Manderly's who were actually former exiled Reach lords from a distant time long before the Conquest. If her own lessons on the Northern histories were to be correct, that is. Knowing that, then, it made her wonder if perhaps a simpler gown may have been better serviced in this union.

Then again, as her mother had once explained to her, as a Princess of the Realm and a member of the House of the Dragon, of the Crown, they had a duty to maintain a very specific image of opulence and dignity. It had been during a lesson for both Aemma and Gael not long after Aemma had entered their household as Viserys' intended bride. After all, the words ring in her mind, it's just as well to be good, but it's much more important to look good. Whether that be in maintaining the current fashions of the court around the other lords and ladies (and yet, in her mind, Gael vaguely remembers Saera sneering at the thought of court, a viper's pit, the likeness was uncanny at times), or heading charities among the commonfolk. A very important lesson that was— a well-cared for populace of smallfolk who respected you were less likely to overthrow you. Public image was everything, and in an instance like this, looking every bit the Targaryen Princess was much more important than showing a knowledge of the Stark's more simple and less extravagant ways.

This was more than a union of a lady to a house with a very different, simpler culture. This was a union of a Princess of the Blood to a son of a house that had an ancient eight-millennia-old history. These were conquered kings who had once been successful conquerors themselves, with a dynasty that had lasted for eight-millennia before the Three Conquerors of House Targaryen had descended with their dragons onto the greater realm from their small isolated fortress Dragonstone.

"Ah. There you all are," In comes Baelon with Viserys in tow. "We were wondering where you took the Realm's Delight." Baelon teased merrily, shooting a look to his eldest son Viserys, who at the very least appeared bashful at the moniker of his only child.

"Good morrow, Baelon," Alysanne kisses his cheek as he greets her with the same, before he moves to Aemma and takes Rhaenyra from his good-daughter, to which Rhaenyra squeals in gaiety. "Viserys." Viserys passes quickly with a kiss to Alysanne's cheek as well as Aemma's, taking his place beside his wife.

"You look like a jewel, Gael," Viserys smiles cheerily at her, and she offers him a small weak smile. For all that the union between Viserys and Aemma had had her hyperventilating in the privacy of her own chambers on the night of their consummation— the very consummation that had conceived Rhaenyra— Viserys was always so good-natured and kind to her. He and Daemon had always been like the older siblings she'd never really gotten to have a childhood growing up with. Viserys had always humored her timid nature, indulging her with stories and books, while Daemon had always made her smile and laugh and stole her away for mischievous adventures away from the shadow of her mother.

"Where's Daemon?" Gael asks, looking around for the boy.

Viserys shrugs, a posture the earns him some exasperated ire from Queen Alysanne. "Sleeping in, most likely," Viserys guesses. "He was out late in the city last night."

Gael liked Daemon, though at times his intensity scared her. He was gentle with her and the other women of their family, though. If a bit crass at times, but sometimes it made her laugh. He was near to her in age, just a year younger, and he was an accomplished warrior already. He rode Caraxes the Blood Wym, who had once been the mount of her older brother Aemon, Rhaenys' father, which had been a small point of contention between them as Rhaenys was the rider of Meleys, Alyssa's dragon. At the time of Rhaenys' bonding to Meleys, Daemon had been cross at her because he had tried to bond with his mother's dragon, only to nearly die in failure. So he had been quite smug about his recent bonding to Caraxes ever since.

"Have the Starks been sighted?" Rhaenys continues to ask.

Baelon pauses from playing with Rhaenyra, and nods, "They should be at the city gates in two hours." Then, most likely, the Northern host would arrive at the Red Keep in two and a half hours for the Welcoming and Guest Rites ceremony.

Finished with the dress, the men are ushered out by Rhaenys and Aemma into the outer sitting area of her chambers, while her mother and the seamstresses help her out of her dress. Her handmaid Merianne helps her to the changing screen and into a different dress. This one is still quite opulent, decorated with pearls and rubies, but in the black and red colors of House Targaryen. And yet, still white for she was the virgin bride given the moniker the Winter Child of the King and Queen, as she was the youngest and born not just in the Winter but also in the winter-years of her mother's fertility.

Fire & Blood, the thought of her house words brings a shiver down her spine. For all that she wasn't quite a Targaryen like some of her family, as she was without a dragon. Disallowed from having a dragon like all of her sisters, aside from Alyssa who had wed Baelon and Rhaenys, who had once been on track to wed Viserys before she had eloped with the Sea Snake, Lord Corlys Velaryon.

Gael would never know what it feels like to fly freely in the skies, just as Saera had wished to. Much like Vaegon, she would be dragonless, and soon, marry into another house. Another separation from House Targaryen that would make her other among her siblings and nieces and nephews.

Ushered into the throne room hours later, Gael watched in a daze as the Northern party entered. It all passed in a long, enduring blur. Gael tried to keep her mind present and focus on the Starks as they were introduced and offered their bridal party presents to her family after the bread and salt had been consumed for Guest Rites. Alas, her mind was in a whirlwind of nerves as she beheld her betrothed.

He was a handsome young man, two years her senior— much less than it could have been, and as it was it was a relief. He was dressed much like the rest of the Northern party, in formal traveling attire. Most likely they had changed into nicer traveling clothes when they had gotten closer to the gates of the city. They were dark, minimal firs for it was a warm spring that would never get quite as cold as it did in the North, and their armour was leather rather than steel or chain mail. His face was handsome, and his eyes shined like grey steel under the light from the stained-glass windows, though his expression was set in the same solemn seriousness as the others around him.

The court had been dismissed soon after, as the Starks and other important members of their party were led to their rooms in the guest wing of the keep. Gael had wandered into her favorite spot of the sprawling gardens of the castle. A small alcove beside the Godswood, but not inside of it, where she was surrounded by the comforting smell of gardenias, their white flowers a joy to behold on a day such as this.

Gael was unsure how long she had sat there, gazing at the flowers and inhaling their scent which masked the stench of the city below the hill where the castle sat. The sounds of the Blackwater Bay could faintly be heard, as this corner of the gardens were situated on a small cliff that overlooked the ocean. But it must have been some time, as she was soon interrupted.

That's when she met him.

He had turned a corner, when he came upon her form seated on the grass by the Gardenia bushes. They both blinked as they stared upon each other, surprised to have run into each other like this. His eyes lingered on the disheveled skirt of her magnificently expensive gown for a lingering second, before his eyes met hers.

"Princess," Henrik Stark bowed politely. He seemed to have freshened up from his journey, and was now in a less formal traveling attire as well. He wore a dark navy blue doublet that was so dark it almost assuredly would have appeared black in the dark. The Stark's grey wolves were stitched onto the fringe of his sleeves, as well as on the collars. His sword was strapped at his side, and his dark hair was cropped shorter than most of the men in her family.

Gael scrambled to stand up and curtsied to reciprocate the polite greeting, "Hello, my Lord. It's a pleasure to meet you." Truly, it was. They had been sending letters to each other by raven over the course of the last year since their betrothal was announced. She had been nervous to meet him, wondering if his words were as true to his character as hers had been on the paper. His voice was smooth and pleasing to her ears, and his face was handsome. In a different way from her Valyrian male relatives or even the other nobles at court.

He took her hand and placed upon it a chaste, gentle kiss, looking up into her eyes from his bowed posture, "Truly, my Princess, the pleasure is all mine." His shy bashful smile after was all she needed as confirmation to the thoughtful young man she had been exchanging correspondence with all this year. Apparently, he was a soft speaker, too.

Gael smiled, tentatively at first, but it was growing as he straightened up and looked sheepish at the sound of her Septa's throat clearing as the older woman seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He took a bashful step back, hand rubbing the back of his neck as his ears reddened.

"I was wondering if you would show me a tour of the Red Keep's Godswood?" He asked politely, and she nodded, glancing over to her Septa, who seemed to begrudgingly nod.

"It would be my honor, my lord."

"Please, Henrik." Henrik insisted gently, as he offered his arm for her to take as they walked together. The Septa set herself at a few paces behind them. Enough to preserve both propriety and privacy. "If that is okay. I wish us to become accustomed to each other. We are, after all, to be married soon."

Gael's small smile was shy as she nodded, her cheeks reddening. "Of course, Lord Henrik, but only if you call me by name as well."

"Princess Gael..." He murmured the words as a sounding test on his tongue, and the gentle call of her name on his lips sent her heart pounding in her chest. She awaited the day he would call her simply by her name and not her title.

The began their walk to the nearby Godswood, when she asked about the last topics they had discussed in his letters before the Starks had left Winterfell for the Kingsroad to the capital three weeks ago.

Gael stood with her Septa off to the side near a sitting pavilion as Lord Henrik Stark knelt before the thick, red sap-weeping face of the sole weirwood tree. His prayers lasted only a few minutes, before he was standing and turning back towards her with a charming smile and an outstretched arm. Once again, she met him halfway and placed her hand into the crook of his elbow to allow him to guide her out of the sacred enclosure.

They continued to chat amicably as her tour of the Godswood turned into a tour of the entire Royal Gardens of the Red Keep. Her smile was ever present, and was maintained even hours after they had parted ways, with a promise to see each other not only at the welcoming feast that night, but also the next day for another chaperoned walk through the gardens.

On their wedding day, she was positively beaming.