Well, the feast is finally over. A thousand bloody courses and twice as many toasts from every lordling in the Seven Kingdoms who wanted to remind me they fought on the winning side. I think I'm still sober. Maybe.

Tywin wanted me to marry his little lioness, a 'reward' for sacking a city I had no desire to rule. Instead, I got you—a peace treaty with legs and a very intricate dress. A half-Targaryen, half-Yitish prize sent from across The Jade Sea.

Unlike those ghastly violet things the other dragons sported, you had warm and inviting brown eyes. And your skin, kissed by the sun, didn't remind me of the Mad King's pale, feverish face or the Princeling Kidnapper’s haunted one. A small mercy, that.

You looked like a hostage in that thing. An abomination of silk, lace, and a thousand tiny, unforgiving buttons. That gown wasn't designed by a seamstress, I'm certain of it. A committee of septas, more likely, all of them determined to make this... 'sacred' process as agonizing as possible. A last, desperate attempt to turn the act of securing an heir into a penance. The Faith has a sense of humor, it seems, though it's a dry, miserable sort.

“Gods, is this thing a bloody chastity belt disguised as a gown?" I grumbled, my voice a low rumble in the cavernous bedchamber of Maegor's Holdfast. The air hung heavy with the scent of wine, roasted meat, and the cloying sweetness of your wedding perfume. Roses and some fruit I’d imagine.

You were fumbling like a green boy at his first brothel with the back of that damn dress, your delicate fingers struggling with those tiny pearls. Gods, the sight was bloody entertaining! Nearly choked on my Dornish red trying to stifle a laugh. Give me a good hunt and a tankard of ale over this wedding nonsense any day.

An utterly defeated sigh left between your lips. "Your Grace?” Turning your back towards me, while you elegantly swept your waterfall of beautiful silver-gold hair over one shoulder. You removed the immediate obstacle, giving me a clearing. The gesture was a silent invitation, and a quiet moment of grace in my otherwise loud world.

"Your Grace," I scoffed softly, setting the goblet down. "Gods, don't start with that formal nonsense. We're married now, aren't we?" I moved closer, the smell of your hair filling my senses. It was a damnably good smell, I had to admit.

With a practiced ease that came from years of undressing women in the Vale and the brothels of King's Landing, I went to work. They might not have worn silk and ermine, but a corset is a corset, the world over. But Gods, Your gown is a cursed architectural marvel. If I'm to solidify this union, as the High Septon so eloquently put it, I needed to get through this bloody labyrinth first.

My calloused fingers made quick work of the buttons, the first few popped free, and the next few followed quickly. “They want us to breed, but they make getting to the 'breeding' part a sodding engineering feat." I muttered, my voice a low rumble.

"Once we're done here," A grin stretched across my face as all that was left was the intricate lacing. I wasn’t gentle, but I was efficient. “We can talk about getting you some clothes that don't require an act of the bloody Small Council to take off.”

This marriage was a farce, a political arrangement to appease those who bent the knee a little too late. But as my knuckles brushed against the smooth, flawless skin of your back, a different thought pushed its way past the memory of Lyanna. You are a soft, warm, exotic beauty that didn't scream 'dragonspawn' but 'distraction'. One that had potential.