Turning slowly on the damp grass, I squinted into the dark canopy of the garden.
A silhouette was gliding through the gloom beneath the weirwood-carved archway.
Man, at this point I should really just get a blade strapped to my belt at all times.
Who knew how many stealthy assassins, political rivals, or unhinged zealots were going to be creeping around me at all hours of the night, itching to put six inches of steel into my five-year-old spine?
Please don’t do that, folks, I thoroughly enjoy being alive.
Still, as the stranger paused beneath the fluttering leaves of an old oak tree, they seemed just as startled as I was.
Their figure remained completely frozen in the ink-black shade.
I frowned, my modern tactical brain assessing the security situation.
Where the hell were the guards?
Shouldn’t there have been at least two armed men posted at the garden entrance when I came in here?
That lapse in royal security led me to believe the intruder wasn’t here to slit my throat.
Besides, based on their outline against the moonlit fountain, we were roughly the same height and build, which meant if things came down to a brawl in the dirt, I could easily beat them to a pulp with my freakishly dense toddler muscles.
“Who goes there?” I demanded, pitching my voice low and firm.
My sudden call out startled the shadow even further.
The figure flinched, stepping backward before halting entirely.
For an agonizing second, nobody moved.
Then, the intruder stepped out of the tree’s dark shade, letting the soft silver light of the full moon bathe her face.
It was a girl.
And not just any random kitchen servant, either.
She had pale silver-gold hair that fell in silky waves down her back, catching the moonlight like liquid starlight.
Her eyes were deep, striking amethysts, set above high, aristocratic cheekbones.
Her face was sharp, noble, and distinctly feminine.
For one bizarre, horrifying second, I almost wondered if my brother Aenys had suddenly thrown on a gown to go prancing through the garden at midnight, but a second look dispelled that hilarious nightmare.
There were clear, obvious differences between them.
Her jaw was delicate, her nose fine-drawn, her demeanor far more composed.
Still, if it wasn’t Aenys, who the hell was she?
I wracked my brain, searching through my mental encyclopedia of A Song of Ice and Fire lore for every highborn silver-haired lady who should be hanging around King’s Landing during this exact period of time.
“…It is Alyssa.
Alyssa Velaryon,” the girl answered, her voice soft and melodious, carrying a subtle, nervous tremble as she stood under the moonlight.
A beat passed, and then she dipped into a flawless, graceful curtsy, smoothing the skirts of her fine sea-green silk dress.
Yet beneath her aristocratic posture, there was a clear air of hesitation, her dark purple eyes watching me with cautious curiosity.
I hummed softly, rubbing my chin in deep thought while my hand remained resting on the fat black cat sleeping in my lap.
Alyssa Velaryon.
Daughter of Lord Aethan Velaryon, future wife of my weakling brother Aenys, future Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and the exact woman who would work directly against me in the future, bearing the children who would eventually usurp my throne and cause me a world of political headaches.
To be entirely honest, the thought of pulling a preemptive strike and eliminating everyone standing in my path to total royal ascension had crossed my mind more than once.
Clean, efficient, no civil wars later.
But for now, I hadn’t taken any of those dark thoughts too seriously.
I wasn’t a cartoonish villain, after all.
Still, seeing the future mother of my rival house standing five feet away from me in a moonlit garden made me realize I probably needed to start formulating serious contingency plans.
“Are you…
Prince Aenys?” Alyssa asked, drawing me out of my dark, scheming thoughts.
A sudden, uncontrollable burst of laughter escaped my throat.
The sheer irony of someone comparing me, to my frail, sickly brother was just too damn funny.
I caught myself quickly, seeing the young Velaryon girl flinch and turn visibly awkward at my sudden outburst.
“No,” I replied, smoothing my face into a friendly smile as I gestured to the empty space on the damp grass beside me.
“I am his younger brother, Maegor.
Come, take a seat.” An uncertain, hesitant look flickered across her pale face, but she slowly walked over, gathering her fine silk skirts and sinking gracefully down onto the lawn next to me.
“Prince Maegor?” Alyssa tilted her head, her deep amethyst eyes scanning my broad shoulders, thick arms, and heavy frame with genuine bewilderment.
“Forgive me, my prince, but…
shouldn’t you be a lot smaller?” The moment the words left her lips, she winced hard, realizing her breach of royal etiquette.
Her hands flew up in a frantic, apologetic gesture, her cheeks flushing a pale rose in the moonlight.
“I did not mean any offense, my prince!
Please, forgive my foolish tongue, I only meant…” I waved off her frantic worries with a light hand, watching her let out a long, audible sigh of relief.
Leaning back against the stone bench, I let the rough granite dig comfortably into my back.
“Do not fret, Lady Alyssa.
I do not mind such small offenses,” I said smoothly.
Truthfully, my tolerance for disrespect usually depended on whether the person was an annoying, snobbish courtier or a pretty girl.
Since she fell squarely into the latter category, and since I had zero interest in making a ten-year-old child cry in a dark garden, I decided to be an absolute gentleman.
“Tell me, what brings a daughter of Driftmark out near the middle of the night?” I asked.
Beside us, the colossal black tomcat in my lap decided to wake up.
It let out a low, gravelly groan, rolled onto its side, and attempted to lick its own massive, fat belly.
It reached for two seconds, realized its belly was far too rotund for its tongue to reach, gave up completely, and flopped back onto the grass with an embarrassed grunt.
The hilarious display instantly caught Alyssa’s attention.
Her eyes widened with warm recognition as she looked at the cat.
“I arrived at the fort only this evening with my lord father,” she explained, her voice softening as she held out a pale hand toward the lazy feline, trying to coax it closer.
The cat ignored her completely.
“After supper, I went to explore the lower courtyards.
I spotted this cat wandering near the kitchens earlier, and I thought…
well, I was hoping I might find him again so I could feed him.” “Feed him?!” I exclaimed, staring down at the absolute sphere of black fur in utter disbelief.
“This fat bastard does not need to be fed another bite for the rest of the leap year!
He is already built like a siege engine!” Alyssa folded her small, delicate hands over her silken lap, a deep crimson blush dusting her cheeks as she looked down at the grass, muttering in a quiet, adorable voice.
“I had nothing better to do, my prince.” I scratched my cheek, watching the fat cat finally push its heavy body off the ground.
It stretched its front legs, shook its thick fur, and began pacing in a slow circle, inspecting its surroundings like an emperor reviewing his troops.
For a brief second, I pondered the idea of picking up the fat unit and taking him back to my personal bedchambers.
But I quickly shut that idea down.
My daily schedule was already packed with heavy weapons training, military strategy, modern engineering concepts, and dodging religious lectures.
Taking care of a high-maintenance, overweight feline sounded like an unnecessary administrative headache.
Though, now that I thought about it, wasn’t it absurdly weird for a five-year-old toddler to have a packed executive calendar?
Whatever.
I wasn’t a real five-year-old anyway.
“My lord father told me that the King is searching for potential brides for his eldest son,” Alyssa shared quietly, her fingers wringing the silk of her dress in her lap as she stared up at the vast, starry sky.
I rubbed my jaw, wondering why she was dumping such heavy political marriage talk on a five-year-old boy.
Modern child psychology probably had an answer for it.
The poor girl was ten years old, shipped off from her island home of Driftmark to a chaotic royal fort full of strangers, terrifying dragons, and stoic guards.
She was anxious, lonely, and looking for a friend.
I just happened to be the first approachable person she ran into who didn’t talk down to her like an infant or treat her like a political bargaining chip.
I looked up at the glowing silver moon hanging above the towers of the Aegonfort.
If my mental timeline was accurate, Alyssa was around ten years of age, making her the exact same age as my brother Aenys.
Her father, Lord Aethan Velaryon, was the current Master of Ships and Lord of the Tides.
Aethan was a damn cool name, honestly.
It was a shame history didn’t feature more lords named Aethan.
“How…
what is Prince Aenys like?” Alyssa finally asked, turning her head to look directly into my eyes.
Her purple gaze was filled with genuine vulnerability and a silent plea for honesty.
“You are his brother, you should know him well, right?” Before I could answer, the fat black cat finished its perimeter sweep.
It trotted over to where I sat, its thick tail sticking straight up in the air like a ship’s mast, staring at my lap with demanding golden eyes.
Without an ounce of shame, the fat, unemployed freeloading beast leaped up, landing with a heavy, thudding impact right across my thighs, settling its dense, meaty bulk into my lap once again.
Now, if this were any other wild animal in the kingswood, a majestic stag or a royal falcon, I would have been bragging to myself about being a male Disney princess with magical beast-master powers.
But looking down at this manipulative, overweight stray, I knew with absolute certainty that this affection was a cold, calculated strategy to extort food out of me.
Even now, as it rested its heavy chin on my knee, its wide golden eyes stared up at me with fake, weaponized innocence.
“Aenys?” I said, stroking the cat’s thick fur while looking back into Alyssa’s eyes.
As I spoke, I noticed she had leaned in quite close to me, close enough that I could catch the faint, lovely scent of crushed sea-pinks and sweet lavender wafting off her silk dress.
“To be completely honest with you, I do not know him all that well,” I admitted candidly.
“We rarely speak at length.
I spend a decent amount of my time at Dragonstone training with my mother, and when I am here at the Aegonfort, he is usually off riding in royal processions alongside our father.” The fat cat in my lap pawed aggressively at my wool trousers, letting out a pitiful, heartbreaking meow as if it hadn’t eaten in three weeks.
Nice try, buddy.
Not happening.
“He is a good person, I suppose,” I continued, giving Alyssa a fair, objective assessment.
“He gets along far better with ladies and court singers than he does with boys his own age.
The courtiers and lords love him because he is gentle, polite, obedient, and never causes a scene.
He admires me to a certain extent, though he mostly tries to copy my training routines and fails because his constitution is delicate.
That is about the sum of him.” Alyssa pulled back slightly, the soft curve of her pink lips turning downward into a contemplative frown as she absorbed my words.
She fell into a quiet, thoughtful silence, her eyes tracking the movement of my hand on the cat’s back.
“Right,” she murmured softly, shaking her head as if clearing her mind.
“It almost slipped my mind entirely.” Reaching into a small leather satchel resting on the grass beside her, she pulled out a carefully wrapped linen napkin.
Unfolding it, she revealed three thick, juicy scraps of roasted capon and salt beef saved directly from the royal feast.
She placed the napkin on the flat stone in front of us.
The moment the scent of roasted meat hit the cat’s nose, the fat bastard abandoned my lap without an ounce of loyalty.
He leaped down so fast he nearly tripped over his own paws, burying his face into the napkin and devouring the capon with frantic, noisy gulps.
I shook my head in utter disgust at his shameless antics.
“Unbelievable.
How many noble ladies is this feline tricking on a daily basis just to secure free meat?
What a manipulative bastard.” Alyssa let out a sudden, musical giggle, covering her mouth with her delicate hand as her purple eyes sparkled with genuine amusement.
“How about you take this cat with you to your guest quarters?” I suggested, raising an eyebrow at her.
Alyssa looked up with a surprised look on her face before looking back at the cat, who had devoured the food in a matter of seconds.
“I…
I don’t see why not,” she said, her eyes shining with subtle excitement.
Standing up from the damp grass, I bent down and scooped the satisfied, heavy tomcat into my arms.
The fat beast tried to struggle for a brief second before realizing it was entirely useless against my grip, giving up completely and hanging limply over my forearm like a heavy sack of grain.
“I’ll drop him off for you,” I said, gesturing toward the archway.
Alyssa paused for a second, biting her lower lip in worry as she looked at me.
“Will it be alright for you to do so, being a prince?” I responded with a simple shrug, stepping onto the gravel path.
“No one really cares that much, and if they do, let me know.” Truthfully, I hadn’t beaten someone with my bare fists for quite a while now that I thought about it, and my knuckles were practically itching for an excuse.
We stepped out of the moonlit garden and entered the high, torch-lit corridors of the Aegonfort.
The contrast between the cool, quiet garden and the interior of the fortress was stark.
Pitch-pine torches sputtered in iron sconces every twenty paces, casting long, dancing shadows across the heavy timber beams and rough stone walls.
The air inside smelled of woodsmoke, roasted meats, hot tallow candles, and old wool.
We walked side by side in a comfortable, easy silence.
Alyssa adjusted her pace to match mine, my heavy leather boots echoed with rhythmic, solid thuds.
Every so often, a pair of household guards dressed in the dragon-embellished leather coats of House Targaryen would round a corridor corner.
The moment their eyes fell upon us, they would freeze, snap to rigid attention, and press their backs against the wall, their eyes wide with awe and confusion as they watched Prince Maegor strolling casually past, carrying a massive fat cat like a lord carrying a sack of gold.
Yes world!
Behold my majestic black cat!
“You are very different from what I expected, Prince Maegor,” Alyssa said softly, breaking the silence as we climbed a wide wooden staircase leading toward the upper guest apartments.
“Oh?” I murmured, shifting the fat cat’s weight in my arm.
“And what did the grand stories on Driftmark say about me?
That I eat raw iron for breakfast and crush skull-caps for fun?” To be honest, I doubted there were any of such rumours going around for now, because I tried not to annoy people whenever I could.
Unless it involved beating someone up.
That’s a different case entirely.
Alyssa let out another soft, melodic laugh, her cheeks dimpling pleasantly in the flickering torchlight.
“No, nothing so terrifying!
But my father’s sailors did say that Queen Visenya’s youngest son was born with the spirit of an ancient Valyrian warlord.
They said you were quiet, stern, and hated everyone at court.” “Well, sailors are notorious liars,” I chuckled, turning down the eastern gallery corridor.
“I do not hate everyone at court.
Only about ninety percent of them.
The remaining ten percent are tolerable enough.” She looked at me sideways, a bright, playful sparkle dancing in her dark purple eyes.
“And which category do I fall into, my prince?” “You brought roast capon to a hungry cat and did not bore me with three hours of religious doctrine,” I said, offering her a wide, confident grin.
“That easily puts you in the top tier of human beings I have met this week, Lady Alyssa.” Her smile widened, genuine and radiant, lighting up her sharp, noble features.
Man, history books really didn’t do her justice.
She wasn’t just a political pawn or a future queen; she was sharp, charming, sweet, and possessed a quiet, resilient grace that made her stand out like a solitary gem among the political vultures of King’s Landing.
Absolute best girl material, no contest.
If my idiot brother Aenys ended up messing this up in the future, I was going to throw him off the Red Keep wall myself.
We stopped outside a heavy oak door near the end of the guest wing, where two Velaryon guardsmen wearing pale green surcoats over mail stood watch.
The guards snapped to attention, bowing deeply as I approached.
“Here we are,” I declared, stepping forward and carefully handing the fat, purring black cat over to Alyssa.
She took the heavy feline into her arms, hugging his thick black body against her silk gown.
The cat let out a content, lazy squeak, resting its fat head against her shoulder.
Alyssa looked up at me, her cheeks flushing a deep, radiant crimson under the golden light of the hallway sconce.
Her purple eyes shone with warmth and genuine gratitude as she looked down at me.
“Thank you, Prince Maegor,” she murmured softly, her voice sweet and sincere.
“For the conversation, the escort…
and for the cat.” “Think nothing of it, Lady Alyssa,” I replied, giving her a smooth, gentlemanly bow of my head.
“If you ever find yourself bored by court politics again, you know where the garden is.” She bit her lip, a shy, adorable smile playing on her lips before she offered me a final, elegant nod.
“Goodnight, my prince.” She turned, stepped into her guest room, and the heavy oak door clicked shut behind her, leaving me alone in the quiet corridor with her guards.
Hmmm what a productive day that had been.
Time for some much desired sleepy sleepy time.
Ah!
How I missed my bed already.
…
After some contemplation, I have decided to try to speed blitz to chapter 20 where the time skip is because some people were annoying me in the comments.
…
Word Count: 3155