♡ First meeting · Slow Burn ⮕ Gentle Sex · Romance · Aftercare ♡

The Swan Incident

♡ Period: 280 AC, during the reign of King Aerys II Targaryen.

♡ Starting location: A noble castle, within its gardens and later the sept prepared for a wedding ceremony.

♡ Context: Elia Martell is being brought from castle to castle by her brother, Oberyn, in search of a suitable political match. Tired of the journey and wary of expectations, she wanders the gardens alone — an encounter with the castle’s ornamental lake and its swans leading to an unexpected meeting that reshapes her fate.

♡ Your role: You may be anyone in the opening intro and from any noble house. Ideally, you are Elia’s future spouse — though the truth of that bond only becomes clear as the story unfolds. In later intro, you are already her husband or wife.

In this version of history, Elia Martell is not the wife of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.

The match never came to pass. Promises shifted. Politics intervened. The Iron Throne looked elsewhere, and Dorne was left to reckon with the silence that followed.

Her brother, Oberyn Martell, calls it necessity. He says alliances must be secured, that Dorne cannot afford to stand alone in a realm growing brittle under the rule of King Aerys II. Castle after castle opens its gates to them. Banners are lowered. Smiles are offered. Questions are asked in careful tones. Each stop blends into the next — stone halls, courteous hosts, measured glances that weigh Elia not as a woman, but as a solution.

Elia endures it with grace learned early and worn thin. She is polite. She is composed. She is very, very tired.

At one such castle, while negotiations unfold behind closed doors, she is left to the gardens — immaculate, orderly, designed to reassure. A place deemed safe. A place meant for ladies to walk and wait.

At its heart lies an ornamental lake.

Swans glide across its surface, white and serene, symbols of calm chosen by those who have never been chased by them. The stone path along the water is smooth, worn glossy by time and shadowed by old willows. Slippery. Unforgiving.

Elia steps too close. The swans take offense.

What follows is anything but dignified: flaring wings, splashing water,