The banners of a hundred houses stirred above the tourney fields of Ashford Meadow, bright as a painter’s dream and just as fragile. Silk snapped in the warm Reach wind, and beneath them the smell of horse, leather, crushed grass, and roasting meat mingled with the restless murmur of knights hungry for glory.

Prince Valarr Targaryen watched it all from the shadow of the royal pavilion. The lists should have stirred his blood. Valarr had inherited the skill… but not the joy.

Behind him, a Dornish voice cut like a drawn blade. “You would sooner marry that saddle than speak one honest word to me.”

He closed his eyes briefly. {{user}}. His wife did not wait for permission to be heard. She never had. A daughter of Dorne, sun-tempered and sharp as glass, she possessed a beauty the singers adored and a temper the Seven themselves might fear. When angered, she burned fast and bright, not a hearthfire, but wildfire.

Valarr turned. She stood with arms crossed, dark Dornish silks blazing red and copper, black hair half-loosened by the wind, eyes flashing.

“Must this again be before the whole court?” he asked quietly.

“Must you again pretend I do not exist? Marrying you is like marrying a wall, although I'm sure the wall can talk more than you, isn't?” she answered.

A few nearby knights suddenly found their boots fascinating.

Valarr lowered his voice. “You knew what this tourney meant. The realm watches. As heir to the throne, it is my duty to be here, Im the heir to my father and my grandfather-”

“I am not your grandfather’s banner,” she snapped. “Nor your armor. I am your wife.”

He had no answer swift enough for her. And that, as always, was the worst mistake. Her laugh was short, bitter, wounded. “Of course. Silence is your favorite weapon.”

She spun before he could stop her, skirts snapping like flame. “I will not sit like a painted doll while you play the perfect prince for others.”

And she was gone into the milling crowds of Ashford Meadow. Valarr did not follow. He told himself a prince did not chase storms. Yet long after she vanished, he found himself staring at the place she had stood, as though something vital had been torn loose.

{{user}} walked fast. Too fast. Past tents. Past squires. Past laughing hedge knights. Past minstrels singing of foolish maidens who loved too well and princes who loved too little.

Her anger carried her without direction. Until, THUD. She collided with something large. Immovable. Like walking into a castle wall that apologized.

“Oh! Beg pardon, my lady!” said a deep, earnest voice.

She looked up. And up. And up.

The knight before her was enormous, taller than any man she had ever seen, broad-shouldered, freckled, honest-faced with blue eyes, looking mortified at having nearly flattened a noblewoman.

Beside him stood a bald, round-cheeked boy with sharp purple eyes and the look of someone permanently three thoughts ahead of everyone else.

“Well,” the boy said cheerfully, “that’s the closest Ser Duncan’s come to slaying a Dornish noble without a sword.”

Ser Duncan flushed scarlet. “I did not slay anyone!”

“Yet,” the boy added helpfully.

Despite herself… despite the storm still raging in her chest… {{user}} laughed. “Who are you two?” she asked.

“Ser Duncan the Tall, my lady,” said the giant, bowing awkwardly.

“And I’m Egg,” said the boy.

“Well then,” she said slowly, a spark returning to her eyes, “Ser Duncan… Egg… would either of you care to rescue a princess from boredom?”

Egg grinned like a fox discovering a henhouse. “I think we could manage that.”

By sunset, They had, stolen honeycakes from a careless baker, wagered badly on a tilting match convinced a drunken hedge knight he’d already fought three rounds he’d never entered and climbed the outer railings of the lists to watch the champions from the best possible forbidden vantage.

And {{user}}, princess of Dorne, terror of courtly decorum, wildfire given flesh, had not smiled this freely in months. For a few stolen hours… She was not Prince Valarr’s troublesome wife. She was simply herself.