Chapter Text
Aerion Targaryens early morning ritual had not changed in eight years. Four pills every morning and night, at the same time, to keep him from being a prisoner of the whitewashed walls of Summerhall.
After presenting as an omega at barely thirteen, he was usher into home schooling far away from the capital, the backwards ways of Summerhall kept him hidden from view, kept his secret hidden from those who didn’t need to know. Papers were signed by those who had witnessed it all and not a soul had uttered a word once the ink was dry. Usually, servants gossiped amongst one another but this was different. This could’ve been the ruin of House Targaryen, and no one wanted to be blamed for it.
There hadn’t been a Targaryen omega since Aegon the Usurper, many had seen it as a blessing - until that day in the middle of the July heat.
The scent, or rather, stench of juicy oranges, bitter and sweet, had flooded the Red Keep like a pyroclastic flow. It clung to every surface, brick, fabric and metal fastening. The smell took no prisoners and answered to no man. Bodyguards had to leave before their restraint broke, women had to seek fresh air before they suffocated. Maesters came in their droves, from the inner city, to the lands far north, and none of them knew what had occurred.
Until someone went to check on the second son of the fourth born.
It should’ve been caught earlier, before a full blown heat had been triggered due to stress - exam season had just since passed and Aerion didn’t like getting anything less than perfect. It was what his mother would’ve wanted and it was what he craved more than anything.
Until what he craved was something so cold, it snuffed out the fire within.
Maekar had been the one to stand guard at his son’s door. He remembered doing the very same for his late wife as she died but instead of protecting her sons from seeing such things occurred, he protected her son from being ridiculed. Many had whispered that it was careless for an unmated Alpha to guard someone so vulnerable, but Maekar was mated. Just because his beloved had long since passed, didn’t mean his soul was searching for another to bond with.
One red pill to stop the scent, one green pill to mimic alphanisms, one yellow pill to delay the heat and finally the white pill to stabilise his mind and body from all of the chemical changes happening. Twice daily he would open his pill pot and swallow them with barely enough water to create a moat beneath his tongue. The maesters had warned about having regular breaks from all of the artificial hormones, but when did Aerion ever truly listen to what anyone else had to say?
The pills only started at fifteen when Aerion declared he had finished with homeschooling and wished to join his brothers in the city once more.
He had remembered so vividly, being blinded by the heat of the pressure building in his lower abdomen, blinded by the smell flowing freely from his body, suffocated by the breath that would not cool down and he had no reprieve. The only woman who would’ve known what to do had left him, and the staff couldn’t help even if they wanted to. Aerion had hissed whenever someone approached, curled himself into a ball when voices were raised - he hated that reaction, the one so natural and unnatural at the same time, he vowed to never go through it again.
And he didn’t. Not to the same degree.
Both wishes had been granted, he was accepted into Kingsbridge University after the few years of high school and college he had left to complete and he hadn’t been made to be a fool in front of strangers. A freshly nineteen year old Aerion was more than ready to show the world that just because he was hidden away for some time, he wasn’t any different from the rest.
Accounting, and fine arts, one to satisfy the need for someone to take over the books once Rhaegel retired and the arts to satisfy Aerions need to be the centre of attention, it was the only way he had even agreed on doing accounting too.
It should’ve been obvious, the bratty, highly hysterical Aerion Targaryen was an omega from birth, but sometimes things like that simply just… slipped through the cracks.
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“Have you heard?” Daerons voice cut through the chatter of the somewhat busy luncheon hall, his dinner plate clattering against the wooden table with such force that a handful of stray peas found their way beneath the table.
Aerion didn’t bother to look up, he knew someone else sat at the table would voice the question on everyone’s minds.
“Either you tell us or I find a first year,” Kiera started, hands placed either side of the chair in a mock show of getting up to leave. “I’m sure Jace is full of gossip.”
Daeron wafted his hands, placing one atop his girlfriend’s hand to prevent her from leaving. Of course, such an act would’ve done absolutely nothing in the ways of preventing her from actually getting up but he thought it was the show of warmth that counted.
“Just, bloody out with it you wretch,” Aerion snapped, causing a few surrounding heads to jolt in his direction.
He cared very little for others opinions about him - he heard the rumours, of the hotheaded alpha who did what he wanted, when he wanted and that was all he needed. He needed them to feed into the rumours and solidify them into a false reality. Instead of answering Aerion directly, Daeron began a tirade of not wanting to answer a little bitch having a temper tantrum, which - in part, just made the anger bubble up more violently, his once light lavender eyes turning a dark shade of indigo.
“Please just put the poor sod out of his mystery!”
The addition of Raymun Fossoway to the table wasn’t wanted, there was barely enough room for big Duncan and his unnecessarily broad shoulders - but he found away. The little weasel always found a way.
“Theatrics are doing A Knight of the Round Table this year.”
Now that had caught Aerions attention. He could’ve sworn he’d asked for, no, demanded they redo a Willem Spearshaker play - A Midsummer Nights Dream. He had everything prepared for it. He had his costume, rehearsed lines for the auditions and had even gone as far as making a mock playbook for the graphics team to look at. He hadn’t prepared for a play based off of old tales, written about in faded scrolls across the citadel. What was there to dramatise?
Good Lady Guinevere running away with Lancelot? The Principal wouldn’t have it. Any signs of even a flicker of recklessness and he’d shoot it down!
Or, perhaps, King Arthur and his love for the lesser.
Aerion hated those he deemed beneath him, but — he did want the title page to have his beautiful face on it. He couldn’t imagine anyone else up there, not even pretty - no, beautiful Valarr.
For a moment Aerion allowed himself to imagine the feeling of cold chainmail against his skin, the way the doublet would fasten, how the heaviness of a cloak would make him stand straighter, stand like a king he was made to be, until the daydream was abruptly ended with the thought of him having to befriend whoever was good enough to become Lady Guin.
A hand waved in front of his eyes, drawing himself back out of his head and into the world of the living… he’d much prefer to be back inside his head, it was less noisy in there.
“You gonna sign up?”
Not even a second had passed before Aerion replied.
”That is the dumbest thing anyone’s ever said, and Duncan asked if water is wet the other day.”
The whole table laughed at that, only a few of them had been there during the chemistry lesson. Duncan had a habit of breaking silences only he thought of as uncomfortable with questions that had been nagging at him for months. It was a good thing he was a warrior on the rugby pitch, it was his only saving grace.
But if you asked Aerion, he was also handy as a stage hand, lugging heavy equipment back and forth without so much as an argument or a huff of disapproval.
“You could’ve forewarned me, brother.” Aerion started, shovelling a few more bites of his pasta into his mouth before abruptly pushing his chair back. “I have to go to the library.” And read some old scrolls.
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Aerions legs carried him towards the library on autopilot. He wished he’d given more attention to his tutors as a child whenever the old tales of King Arthur were mentioned. He thought them as silly tales that wouldn’t have any use to him in the future. Camelot had long since joined Westeros and had been renamed, King Arthur long since dead and his father long since forgotten.
The Gods must’ve really disliked him to choose the tale as the next theatrical production. They must’ve really disliked his halfhearted offering of an already bitten into muffin and a few loose coin he’d found in his trouser pocket.
“I’m cursed, surely, I must be cursed.”
Though those around him didn’t think his words held much meaning, to the ones who knew - the four people in the whole world that could’ve possibly been able to join the dots, were not there to dismiss his thoughts of curses so the thought was allowed to fester.
And fester it did, until he found the door to the library to be a pull one… instead of a push.
“You great bloody pile of fucking—-“ his words were cut off as another student pushed the door from the other side, using a long arm to keep it open for the Targaryen.
Aerion said nothing, tilting his chin up higher to dissuade the thoughts of idiocy from sinking in and mixing with the festers of curses. It was all he could do, ignore the kind soul who’d done a great service to him without making a deal out of it. But that was just who he was. Arrogant, and an ass.
As the door thunked softly behind him, he took two rather large strides in and saw that… well, saw not much of anything.
No aisle had labels, no shelf had numbers… it was like a maze and he did not enjoy being the lost little soul in the middle. Was there a librarian in sight? No, of course not. The Gods didn’t like to make anything easy for him, why should they!
Something pulled him out of his train of thought, a hand placed so delicately onto his shoulder he would’ve missed it if it wasn’t followed by the smells of smoke and spices.
Aerion allowed his head to turn to the side, and then slightly upwards to see the face of the person who dare get this close to him —
Holy crap, Valarr.
Aerion hadn’t had the fortune of running into his cousin in close to three years. He was always like an illusive trail of smoke, left behind after the fire had eaten itself out, he waltzed in and out without so much as a noise and it disturbed him so much.
Never to the point of revulsion, though - it should have… but it didn’t.
“What’re you looking for, cousin?”
Even his voice sounded nice, gentle — the opposite to Aerions own. For a moment his brain had cleared of all thoughts, both positive and negative until he noticed the mismatched eyes focusing more on his face.
Annoyingly, his cheeks betrayed him, flushing a pale pink that stood out against his alabaster skin.
Was the flush from the proximity, the way he could feel Valarrs scent clinging to his clothes, was it from his voice and how it sounded so husky when whispered so gently, or … was it simply because Valarr had called Aerion cousin?
“I need to find the old scrolls of King Arthur.”