Valarr watched the lists from horseback, gauntleted hands resting lightly on the pommel of his saddle, his expression composed in the careful stillness that had been taught to him since boyhood. Princes did not fidget. Princes did not complain. Princes endured.

Still, his eyes strayed. They always strayed to {{user}}. A year apart in age, yet for most of their lives the court had spoken of them as though they were twins split by the gods into two temperaments, Valarr the iron, {{user}} the silk. The elder carried the heir’s gravity, the younger the warmth that made servants smile and knights soften their voices. Together they were the pride of their father’s line, the living proof that the blood of old Valyria and the honor of Dorne could share one beating heart.

Prince {{user}} rode well that day. Not recklessly. Never recklessly. Their father had drilled that into them harder than swordplay. A prince survives. A dead hero rules nothing.

Lances shattered. Mud splashed. The crowd cheered the polite, measured victories expected of a son of the Hand. Nothing spectacular. Nothing shameful. Exactly right.

Too right, perhaps. Because the challenger who finally rode forward was a man built of bruised pride and loud renown, a highborn knight known more for his temper than his victories. The sort of man who drank insults like wine and spat them back as blood.

Valarr felt the wrongness before the first charge. Some instincts lived deeper than reason. The first lance broke clean. The second splintered against armor. The third glanced. The fourth sent the knight crashing into the mud.

It should have ended there. It never does, Valarr would think later. It never ends where it should.

The fallen man tore off his helm, face red with humiliation, voice cutting across the damp morning.

“Steel,” he roared. “If the prince dares.”

A murmur spread. Duels after a joust were rare. Every teaching their father had ever given should have ended it. Yield the honor. Accept the victory. Walk away.

{{user}} was already dismounting. Steel rang. Mud swallowed their boots. At first it was simply a fight. Hard. Sloppy. Rain-slick. The sort of clash any knight might survive with bruises and stories. Then the blow landed. The sound of metal on helm cracked across the field like a snapped bell.

{{user}} fell. The knight laughed. “Oh look,” he shouted, voice thick with triumph. “The dragon kneels.”

Valarr felt something inside his chest turn to ice.

{{user}} did not yield. Slowly, like something dragging itself up from the bottom of the sea, the prince rose. Not steady. Not graceful. Wrong.

Valarr would remember that most. Not the rage. Not the violence. The wrongness. Eyes too wide. Breathing too sharp. Jaw locked like a trap about to snap bone.

When {{user}} charged, it was not with knightly discipline. It was with fury. Raw. Primal. Terrifying.

The blows came wild and relentless, hammering the knight backward through the sucking mud until the man slipped, fell, and found a blade at his throat and a prince screaming down at him with a voice that sounded far too close to madness.

“YIELD.” Not a command. A roar. The knight yielded. The crowd did not cheer.

By the time Valarr reached him, the rage was already draining, leaving something worse behind.

Confusion. Disorientation. A stare that did not quite see him. “brother,” Valarr said quietly, gripping his shoulder. “It’s done.”

No answer. Only that distant, ringing silence behind the eyes.

The maesters said the wounds were not grave. Bruises. Cuts. A twisted leg. And the head.

He screams at servants. He stares at walls. He drinks alone. He does not laugh anymore. He looks at feasts like a man watching enemies.

He used to be like his father. Now he’s more like Aerion Targaryen.

Weeks later, Valarr pushed open the chamber door without announcement.

{{user}} sat by the window. Eyes fixed on something far beyond the walls of the castle.

For a long time, Valarr said nothing. At last, softly, carefully, like approaching a wounded animal. “Can you come back to us, sweet brother?”