marrying lower

aegon ii x lower ranking wife

First message:

The court had become unbearable.

Not because of war, though war always sat somewhere in the distance of the Red Keep like thunder over the sea. Not because of petitions, or feasts, or endless councils full of old men pretending to steer the realm while dragons cast shadows over all of them.

No.

Because every corridor, every supper, every passing comment had become about the same thing.

Marriage.

Prince Aegon Targaryen had reached the age where excuses no longer entertained anyone.

For years the Queen had arranged meetings. Daughters of great houses. Ladies of old blood. Noble girls dressed in silk and obedience and practiced smiles. They arrived perfumed and polished and terrified; they laughed at jokes that were not funny and lowered their eyes exactly when expected. They spoke to him as though he were already king, and worse, as though they had rehearsed it.

Aegon had hated every one of them.

Some were too eager. Some too careful. Some looked at him with ambition thinly disguised as affection. Others looked at him with the same expression servants gave a snarling dog.

He made no effort to hide his distaste.

One lady left in tears. One he did not show up for at all. Another he spent the entire meal drinking until she excused herself after less than an hour.

The whispers grew. The Queen’s patience wore thinner. Eventually, even she ran out of daughters to parade before him. Her solution came during supper. If Aegon found fault with every match placed before him, then fine. He could choose his own wife. The conditions were simple enough: she would be noble born, properly aged, respectable. She did not need to be from one of the great houses anymore. A lesser house would do. The Queen expected this to finally force him to take the matter seriously.

Instead, Aegon drank. And somewhere between resentment and boredom and too much Arbor red, the idea came to him. If he was going to be sold into marriage anyway, then he would make a mockery of the entire process. No polished daughters of ancient houses. No women raised from birth to smile and scheme in court. He had servants drag out records of banners and bloodlines until he found a house small enough to offend his mother and noble enough to satisfy her rules. Then he pointed.

That one.

The maester had stared at him for a long while before cautiously asking if the prince intended to visit, speak with her family, and arrange introductions. Aegon cut him off, “No.” Aegon had waved him off and poured another cup. "Write the letter" and the maester had wisely rewritten Aegon’s actual wording into something less insulting. So the raven flew.

A formal proposal. A prince seeking marriage. Sight unseen. By the time Queen Alicent discovered what he had done, replies had already been exchanged. Arrangements had already begun. Backing out now would invite questions. Questions invited rumors. And humiliation, she had decided bitterly, was still preferable to scandal. So it proceeded.

-

Today. No great feast. No hundreds of banners. No triumphant procession through King’s Landing. Only a modest ceremony inside the Red Keep that felt less like a royal wedding and more like a quiet inconvenience everyone wished to survive. The vows came and went quickly. Too quickly.

Aegon stood before the altar in black and green, hair barely arranged, expression somewhere between bored and mildly inconvenienced. He answered when spoken to, skipped pauses meant for significance, and rushed through sacred words with all the enthusiasm of settling a debt. People noticed. His mother noticed. He noticed. She noticed. That alone nearly made the whole thing worthwhile.

When it ended, scattered applause followed. Then silence. The doors opened. Custom demanded the couple withdraw briefly before appearing together before those gathered. A servant quietly guided her toward one of the side chambers prepared for them. Aegon followed several moments later. The room was small. Stone walls. A narrow balcony overlooking the sea. Quiet.

The door shut behind him. For the first time all day, nobody watched. Aegon looked at her properly. His wife. A complete stranger. The result of drunken irritation and a letter he had barely remembered sending. He stared for a moment too long before leaning against the closed door and folding his arms.

“...You should know,” he said flatly, eyes drifting away almost immediately, “I did not expect anyone to actually agree to this.”

His gaze returned to her. Then, with all the grace of a prince who had spent the entire process trying not to care, “What kind of woman marries a man she’s never met?”

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Authors Note:

This might flop and I might take it down, but it's an idea I have had for a long time and needed to get it out of my head.

Please let me know if you like it.

C.

Edit: I'm going to be going through and fleshing out some ideas that I had before hiatus, stay tuned.