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The Bracken and the Blackwood’s have hated each other for over 1000 years, the true meaning behind their long-standing feud has been lost to the sands of time. Hundreds of bloodied clashes have only fueled this burning hatred, death as familiar as the caress of a lover to both houses. Neither were willing to make peace with the other.
Aeron shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was, they both knew they were doomed to fall into the same cycle their ancestors have felled to. Their obsession with each other was a burning, damning, thing. They fought as much as they fucked.
And yet, by the Gods yet, Aeron had actually dared to hope there would be more to them beyond the fucking border stones between the Bracken and Blackwood’s.
There was always the teasing promise of more when they locked eyes, words they would never dare say otherwise breathed into the other when they fucked. Aeron had let himself dream of the freedom he could never have otherwise hoped for, the thought of taking Davos and running a tempting thing. He was sure that the man would follow wherever he desired.
And yet-
“Your false Queen Rhaenyra is a kinslayer!” Aeron hissed, staring Davos and the other Blackwood men down.
“Your Uncle declared for Aegon, did he.” Davos stated, merely laying out the words in a knowing truth. Aeron could almost feel the disgust and disappointment.
“Well then, let me tell you-” Davos sneered, walking towards Aeron with surefire steps. “Aegon Targaryen is no true king, just as you are no true knight.”
Aeron barely had a moment to breathe once they were face to face, conflicting feelings and emotions broiled within as he stared at the man who had tenderly held him only days before. Now the man seemed to barely stand the sight of him, a betrayal at his own declaration for siding with King Aegon creating a swift and brutal divide between them. It felt like everything they had once been burned as swiftly as dragon fire, and now Aeron felt as if he lost something integral to him, his soul drowning in a torrent of flames.
“You’re both craven-” Davos lashed out, pushing Aeron a step back, “little-” and another, “cunts!” With another brutal push, Aeron stumbled into one of the other Bracken men behind him, causing the man to be knocked from his feet.
Aeron, lost in the sea of emotion, could only instinctively draw his sword and point the blade right at Davos.
The action seemed to briefly catch Davos off guard, unnamed something flashing in his eyes, but as quick as it appeared it was gone, and all Aeron was left to see was the bloodlust and hatred the Blackwood’s were known for.
Davos began to laugh in wry amusement as he stared Aeron down, his tongue flicking against his teeth as he maliciously grinned. There was no hesitation as he stalked right towards the tip of Aeron’s blade, a dark promise seething in his eyes. A biting hunger that Aeron never thought he would be on the receiving end of.
“You wouldn’t dare.” Davos spat, and despite everything that has already spiraled to where they stood now, he could hear the inherent belief of the history they shared ring through.
Maybe in a different life, another time, if they weren’t who they were, Aeron wouldn’t have dared.
Yet, at the end of the day, he was Aeron Bracken, and the man he had come to love was Davos Blackwood. They were of rival houses with a history as old as time, drenched in blood that continued to spill, and as a result it was followed with pain they both continuously inflicted upon each other. Two damned individuals fighting against a fate that couldn’t hope to be rewritten.
So, he dared.
Aeron hardened his heart, swallowed back words longed to be spoken, and swung his blade.
In a different life, Aeron Bracken and Davos Blackwood fled under the cover of night. They made their way across the seas to Essos, and lived the lives of free men without fear of prejudice. They built a life amongst the people of the land, had a family, and died peacefully in their sleep holding eachothers hands.
But, that was a different life.
In this life, surrounded by the battles of dying men, two lone figures lay together. Each bearing the sigils of Bracken and Blackwood, war torn and bloodied, they seemingly held each other in a lovers embrace. If one looked upon them, they could easily be mistaken for such, if only it wasn’t for the blades that they each pierced the other with.
Aeron Bracken and Davos Blackwood were dead, as quick as their existence came to be it had been snuffed out. They had never got to live beyond the lands they were born to, to love as they should have been allowed to. They were two lost souls, born to die.