The Wedding Day

For a while, he had thought that he had been spared – when Lord Baratheon and his lady wife failed to find him a Valyrian bride in Essos. How he had prayed every night for this! Not the end of their journey, of course. Just the failing part.

He had been spared, in a way – he might have ended up having to take a wife who did not even speak the common tongue. Would they have communicated through gestures until she learned the language? Rhaegar Targaryen shook his head. There was no use to ponder over a disaster avoided. Not when he had a disaster waiting for him in Baelor's Sept.

Elia Martell. A Dornishwoman. It was a matter of time before she started exhibiting the Dornish style of wearing… well, wearing almost nothing at all. He supposed he should be grateful that this far, she had managed not to scandalize court. Somehow. Not for long, though – the retinue that she had brought along would take care of this. Rhaegar wondered just how much time would pass before they all returned to their true selves. Headed by his betrothed, of course. By then, she would be his new bride. He shuddered, remembering the way her eyes went to his crotch whenever he entered a room. The worst thing was, it was not specifically his. She did the same thing to any reasonably good-looking man she encountered. Thank the Seven that at least this excluded his father!

In whose bed should he look for her maidenhead, should he feel curiosity? A stable boy's at Sunspear? A trader? The Warrior help him, Arthur's? By the way his friend blushed whenever his eyes fell on his princess – present princess, future princess, always a walking piece of barely disguised sexuality – Rhaegar would not exclude this possibility. Poor Arthur had tried so hard to warn him off the marriage – without sullying Elia of House Martell's repute, of course. As if it mattered! His father had decided to saddle him with the Dornishwoman. Rhaegar had always known that Aerys hated him but he had never thought his father hated him quite this much. A Dornishwoman, of all women in Westeros! Tears of anger and helplessness came to his eyes. He had only had one wish and Aerys knew it. Rhaegar was ready to do anything for the realm, in exchange of just one tiny thing: be allowed to choose his own bride. Given this right, he would have never chosen an older, sickly, well-used woman like Elia Martell. He had been preserving himself for the lady of his dreams and instead he got… this. A woman of no virtue and no dignity but instead a huge desire to be Queen.

The anticipation of the wedding night rose in his head… It was not a good one. Without thinking, he ran for the door, threw it open… and found himself facing a castle wall of man.

"I'm sorry, Your Grace," the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard said softly. "But I cannot let you run away to Essos or wherever you thought to go. One way or another, you will come with me. Kicking and screaming or not." He looked apologetic. "This is the King's command."

Rhaegar glared at him but kept his head enough to appraise the situation, so when he entered Baelor's sept, it was unaided. He passed between two lines of people who were bowing and headed for the statues of the Father and the Mother where Elia Martell waited, all in white which did not suit her at all.

Her eyes immediately went down to his crotch.

The End