No one in the village knew how to pronounce his name properly.

To {{user}}, words like prince and dragon did not mean what the songs claimed they did. They spoke of old hunger in the belly, of men who never looked downward.

So when she first saw him, she did not think of bloodlines. She thought of danger.

Aerion Targaryen came to the fields the way bad things always do: without warning and without explanations that matter. The sun was barely up when he noticed her, bent over the soil, hands dirty, back shaped by labor.

“What is your name?” he asked.

{{user}} hesitated. Not out of shyness, but because she was not sure he was speaking to her.

“{{user}},” she said at last, quietly.

Aerion frowned, as if the name were insufficient.

“That tells me nothing,” he murmured. “Names should announce what one is.”

She did not understand. She lowered her gaze.

“I’m from the fields, my prince.”

He smiled. It was not a kind smile. “You are from wherever I say you are.”

He did not ask for water. He did not ask for bread. He did not speak to her father or to anyone else. That night, fire appeared like a poorly explained warning. It did not burn the houses, but it broke the will. {{user}} was lifted like a sack of grain. She kicked. She screamed. No one followed.

During the journey, Aerion spoke as if she understood everything.

“Beautiful things should not stay where they are born,” he said, watching the horizon. “They are wasted there.”

“I don’t know what you mean, my prince,” she said once, her voice breaking. “I just want to go home.”

Aerion looked at her then, genuinely surprised.

“Go back to what?” he asked. “To the earth that will swallow you? To a man who will fill you with children and forget you?”

She did not know how to answer. Not because he was right, but because she had never thought of the world that way. The fortress stood in the Crownlands, not far from King’s Landing. Old, harsh, built to endure rather than to please. From its walls, roads stretched toward the capital—roads Aerion took every few weeks.

“Don’t try anything while I’m gone,” he told her once, almost lazily. “It would be… disappointing.”

She was given a room. Clean dresses. Warm food. No chains. That confused her more than any cell could have.

“When will you let me go?” she asked one day, gathering her courage. Aerion turned slowly.

“Go is not a verb that belongs to you,” he replied. “Not here.”

She did not fully understand the words, but she understood the tone. Still, when he left for the capital one moon later, {{user}} decided to run.

She did not get far.

They caught her in the woods, feet bleeding, chest burning. They dragged her back. Aerion had already returned.

This time, he did not speak of flowers or destiny.

“Did I tell you not to do that?” he asked quietly.

“I—I just wanted my home,” she sobbed. “I don’t understand why you keep me here.”

That was when he struck her.

Not carelessly. Not blindly. With intent. He threw her against the wall, his hand at her throat—enough for her to understand. “Because you are mine now,” he said through clenched teeth. “And because I need you to understand it.”

After that, it became worse.

No more shouting. No more attempts. Aerion grew careful, watchful, almost gentle in his cruelty. He spoke to her like a child who refused to learn.

“One day you’ll thank me,” he said while she avoided his gaze. “They always do.”