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bohemian-nights · 7 months

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What We May Mend (Chapter 3)

Word Count: ~13,009

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Daemon Targaryen × Laena Velaryon

Warnings⚠️: None(Besides of course Daemon himself).

Description: In the year 126 AC Lady Laena Velaryon survives her difficult in a foreign land surrounded by strangers. With a second chance to mend their fractured marriage she and her husband Prince Daemon Targaryen return to Westeros with their children in tow as chaos unfolds around them🐉

AN: A day late, but it is a big chapter. House Velaryon for the win 🌊

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6,

Lady Laena Velaryon had thought she had known pain. Even with as privileged a life that a girl born of a princess and a lord had lived she like all mortals was well acquainted with its terrors. Where death, including her own thankfully, was a stranger, pain was an old friend.

Pain has worn many cloaks over the years, from her moon tides that came since she was two and ten to the pinch of her stays when they were tied too tightly those pains she hardly gave any thought. The pang that rang through her chest every time Daemon closed the door to the magistrates' study she pushed into a dark corner of her mind that kept overflowing. The birthing bed, which was its own battle, but nothing, not even the bloody birth of Aemon that had nearly killed her, could compare to the pain of losing a most beloved brother. It had nearly caused her to lose what was left of her sanity for only it only served to add a new set of complications in a life full of complications and misery.

She had hoped she had already been dreaming when he had whispered those loathsome words into her curls. She prayed to whatever God old, new, or Valyrian would hear her that it was all a figment of a dreamwine-addled imagination. A woman sick with fright. The stress over the last ten years of her life and the past half moon which felt as if another had passed sunk its claws deep. Piercing the dermis of her skin and leaving her with a gash that would heal, but would never completely fade in this lifetime. The marks were permanently etched in scars that would riddle her body.

She had not remembered when she had awakened in the wee hours of the next morn. Her chamber bathed in a pale glow the color of salmon scales. At some point after the hour of the wolf, Baela must have crept back into their bed chambers and planted herself between her and Daemon.

“Please kepa. I shall be as quiet as a mouse.” She had more than likely told her father poking a little silver head in from the doorway of their chambers to pleading with doe brown eyes that no man could resist. Daemon would naturally have relented with a sigh and a very well. Beckoning her in with a wave of his hand too tired from the day himself to order her back to her own bed. With no time wasted Baela would run to kiss her kepa goodnight and glue herself into her mother's side where she had remained for her to find in those hours.

However, Baela had arrived back and managed to bargain her way into the warmth, safety, and comfort of her parent's bed, both she and her father were in the throes of sleep, with the tiny girl having flung her left arm across Daemon though he had not seemed to mind or had accepted his fate as an armrest as he himself was snoring lightly, a hand holding her wrist to his heart. It was an otherwise pleasant view to greet Laena to, but she was too preoccupied with her dreamwine-laced nightmares of Laenor's demise.

His death had played in the madness maze of her mind a hundred times throughout the night. Each worse than the last. Some he was stabbed and left in a pool of his lifeblood by some faceless hooded creature. Once twice thrice and so on til he resembled a block of cheese more so than a man. Others he was drowned in the sea, his body washing up from the bay on Driftmark’s shores at their mother's feet. The last he had gone up to Seasmoke and shouted dracarys over and over until all that was left of him was a pile of ash carried away by the howling wind.

It was at the sight of the letter framed by a pale ray of light with her family’s crest placed neatly upon her writing desk that she could no longer deny that he had met his end. It called to her like a siren to a sailor who had spent many moons at sea and longed for the land he knew.

She could not resist going to it. Laena sprung out from her bed on a pair of shaky legs. Gripping the wall as she left her daughter and husband to their slumber when she ought to have leaned over and waked Daemon. Ask for the truth. Demand it.

How had he died? When? Where? Was it on Dragonstone? Driftmark? Kings Landing? Was he alone? Had he died alone? Who had done it? Was it an accident? What had happened to her brother?

Daemon would not have minded being awakened by her anxious queries. It would have been much kinder. He could have held her as she cried her heart out. Could have wiped her tears away. Could have rocked her to sleep like she was a babe. It was the least he could do. It is what she should allow him to do, but she did not

Three words. Three words in the sea of her father's messy scrawl as she scanned the parchment pierced straight into her soul. Laenor. Killed. Funeral.

She screamed. She must have screamed. Only the sound did not reach her ears. No sound did apart from an ear-splitting ring that sent her deaf.

She did not hear when Daemon came rushing in at the sound of her shrieks. Dark Sister drawn in his pale hand. Pointing at a phantom foe, finding only a distraught wife alone clawing at any patch of bronze skin she could get to and pulling at her sleep-mused ringlets.

Not when Baela and Rhaena, who had come to, stood clutching at each other in the doorway as they too began to cry at their mother's distress. Or Aemon’s cries from the nursery who could not help but join in the confusion at being awakened by the chaos. Not knowing what was going on, but like all babes, he was moved by the tide of emotion of those around him.

“Take them back to bed Beth. Now!” He must have shouted over her shrieks as the girls were carted off by the half-stunned northern girl. The ringing abated somewhat to let the panic in her husband's voice shone through as he held her down. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He repeated into her silver curls. Rocking her gently as the healer with the help of his attendant forced another vial of dreamwine down her throat. He had tried to get her to calm down, had gotten scratches down his arms leaving the marble skin lined with red lines and small cuts in return for his efforts when he enveloped her in the that looked as if a feral cat had gotten at him, but nothing except the appearance of Laenor himself could do so and that was “I’m so sorry sweet girl.” The nightmares stretched on endlessly. Coming back with a vengeance during the hour of the bat each night for a week. Her days were hardly better in that span of eternity

She felt like she was in hell. Laena had torn her stitches out from her outburst, rendering her progress mote, confining her to the four walls of her chamber. The healer came by once daily to administer her a vial or dreamwine just before she retired to bed, not that she was let out of it, her condition deemed too dire to allow her to do so.

The dreamwine made her slow and sluggish for half the day. Riddled with bouts of pain throughout her abdomen and her head at odd intervals. A sharp ache. As if she were being poked and stabbed at. Her mind was in a haze. Barely lucid. Barely able to control her thoughts. Her own body. Barely able to sit up let alone stand. The other half she spent sleeping if one could call being plagued by terrors of her brother's death one way and then another sleeping.

Daemon refused to leave her side that week. He had moved most of the things he kept in the magistrate's library, books, ancient texts, the last remnants of old Valyrian that he mused over for hours, and correspondences from Westeros and whoever else to their sitting room. Scribbling away. Keeping the door wide open as he went about his daily routine.

Always within eye and earshot in case she was to do something rash. Something he deemed dangerous, or something that might hurt her delicate constitution even if it was as simple as reading the dozen or so letters a day that came from Driftmark and beyond. He’d be there. Always listening. Always watching her. She needed watching.

Laena had never seen him stay in one place let alone cooped up inside for so long. Even Baela’s lessons were conducted just in sight. The sound of Daemon correcting their eldest daughter’s pronunciation of the high Valyrian words came in every so often, though admittedly her mistakes were minimal to Laena’s ears.

Beth and Rhaena would come in every evening with Aemon in one or the other's arms. She was too weak to feed him. To hold her son. So they held him for her. Supporting his head on her lap and resting it on her chest that way she could kiss dote upon. They were her entertainment. Her sole entertainment.

A brief interlude from her cruel imagination. Otherwise, she might have gone mad left with the company of what her mind could conjure. He kept her in a cage for her safety, but it was an age all the same. One with a ghost and past regrets as her cellmate

He haunted her. His very image haunted her. Picturing his tan face, his smile when she told him a secret that was just between them, his laugh, it was easy to make him laugh even their eldest cousin Daeron who, unlike his father before him, the unintentionally humorous Ser Vaemond, did not have a humerus bone in his entire body, could make him laugh. It was light, pure light and it made Laenor’s entire being glow. Laena would never get to go hear that laugh again.

“I shall miss his funeral.” She had voiced one night as Daemon stroked her hair. He had pulled her into his lap. Petting her like she was made of glass as they waited for the dreamwine to send her into oblivion. “I will never forgive you for that.” She meant it. With every word she meant it. If she was not allowed to say a proper goodbye to her brother she would be lost and she would blame him for it.

“If you should ever need me sister, hell if you should ever want me, one raven from wherever you are to wherever I am, and Seasmoke and I will be there before you can miss me.” Those were the last words he spoke to her. Whispering it softly into her cheek wearing a sad smile as he kissed her goodbye before she climbed on Vhagar's back and took to the skies with Daemon at her side. The first last and last time they were separated. She was so young then. They both were.

Children, they were children when he had made his promise to her. A promise he would’ve gladly kept only she had never taken him up on it. Never sent him that raven even though she wanted and needed him too many times to count over the years. He would’ve taken her away, her, and her children. Far away from here and it’s loneliness.

There had been a part of her that was too prideful to write to him. A part that loved Daemon too much to call for him no matter how much his actions had hurt her. She could never take away their children from him. She could never deny him herself either.

He took her hand in his, but he did not bring it to his lips as she thought he would. No, instead he brought it to her heat. Plunging her fingers inside of her with one thrust. She still bleed from her womanhood. Still not yet recovered from her outburst or Aemon’s birth. He filled her with her own fingers to the hilt. Thrusting in and out. It hurt. It brought tears to hers and she wondered for a brief moment. if she would have to beg him to stop, but then he pulled them from her. Holding the evidence of her pain up for her to see as he brought his lips to her ear.

“And I shall never forgive myself if I have to explain to our son, explain to our daughters that their mother chose a dead man over them when they ask why you are at the bottom of the sea.” He let go of her wrist then. Letting her hand fall to the bed. Crimson stained the linen sheets as he placed a kiss on her temple. Never once had he ceased his petting.

Laena wanted to claw at him at the sight of the blood. Wanted to claw at the bandages that covered his own pale wrists to reopen the wounds hidden beneath. His words and his actions boarded on sadism. Even for him, they were cruel. She wanted to spit fire at him, but she could not even turn her head to glare at him. She could only sit there and stare at the blood as the dreamwine finally broke through. Her eyes fluttered close. He must have known she would not be able to do anything. To say anything. She drifted off to sleep that night with unspoken curses resting upon full lips that could not utter a single word.

As your father had to tell you. It was unkind. She knew his mother's death at the hands of a babe who had not lived had stuck with him, she did not think he had ever gotten over it. How could one get over something like that? The first person that he had known who had loved him was gone before he had fully mastered speech. He was but three when she was taken away from this mortal plane. He had no time to know of her.

Laena wondered what manner of man he would be if she had lived. Certainly not the merciless man who took without giving any thought to the other's soul. No thought to the one who ran herself mad trying to prove herself worthy of his devotion with her own.

The man made of dragon fire, a Valyrian God come to life undone by a mere woman. It would be a callous thing to taunt him with, but he deserved it for his own barbarity. If only she could speak it. If only she could hurt him in the way he did her.

Could she hurt him in that way? Laena liked to think so. That she knew him better than anyone alive. She was his wife. She had borne him three children. She loved him even when he had turned from her. She had spent ten years breathing through him. Living in his shadow.

She had seemingly given him the fright of his life with brush with death which is why he practically suffocated her now with all his hovering, scared that whatever power he held over her, whatever commanded her blind obedience and worship of him had cracked. He was truly frightened, but could one truly know a man who only let the door open a crack? Leaving hardly room for one to peer into and know the parts of him hidden away in dark corners out of sight. He remained untouched while he touched everyone.

Still, some part of him must have been touched by her. For he told the maester to dispense with the dreamwine. “I do not believe that we will require anymore.” His hand was upon her shoulder as his jaw ticked. Laena tried not to look too pleased as she kept her eyes down. Trying to hold back the grin that wished to light up her brown face. A small victory and she had not had to open her mouth.

An emphasis on the small must be placed. Her freedom was certainly a small thing. One could liken Laena to a dragon in chains. Kept at bay while her keeper had her well in hand.

Daemon's watch over her had certainly not ended. It seemed to only worsen for now that she was allowed out of her chambers and control over her own mind and body again. It was now he who had become her shadow.

Wherever she wished to go he would be there not ten paces behind if that. If she wished to go for a turn about the gardens he would follow. She took her hand in his as they watched the children play. If she wished to visit the library to procure a book he would find something which he needed as an excuse to join. If she went to the nursery he would be there as she fed Aemon.

She was allowed to do that at least, but he would be there. Making sure she did not tire herself too much. Calling for his wetnurse to take the babe away if he judged her to be remotely fatigued. Even if she stated she was fine, it was he who was the judge. He who commanded every move. Her every action.

Daemon would not even allow her to climb down the stairs unassisted. Picking her up to carry her like a bride when they came to the main staircase of the manse. It was utterly humiliating, but he would not budge on that matter.

“If I put you down and let you walk down these stairs you would trip.” He smiled amusingly at her as he murmured the words into her temple when she told him she was perfectly capable of walking down the stairs unassisted. He held her close as he took each step down with a dilatory gait so as not to jostle her too much.

To anyone who observed him they may think he had, but there was something behind that amusement that told the falsity of it. You would trip on purpose just to spite me, dear wife, that smile told her. It was just the thing she would do. She was ever so spiteful of late.

It was not like Laena hadn’t a reason to. It was not as if that small act of defiance, that reclamation of her personhood, even if it were to hurt herself, would not be warranted. After all he had done to her, a few weeks of attentiveness, a prettier cage, wouldn’t make up for it and he was starting to learn that.

She supposed she should be grateful for the attention that he paid to her. She knew he wanted her to be. To take notice of it. That there were no more locked doors. No more wandering hands, tittering serving girls, messengers who stayed by his side longer than need be, or green eyes staring across the hall as they ate.

He talked no maid apart from Beth who Laena was sure would stick Daemon with the pointy end of a hot poker if he so much as looked her way with less than his usual curtly disinterest, and Aemon’s wetnurse. A rather buxom woman bordering on her mother's age, who the Gods above forgive her, reminded one of a hoary ox. He would not invite either to his bed. He knew her stormy mood was in part caused by the loss of her brother. Even, but she need not be so ornery with him.

She should be grateful for his newfound devotion and yet Laena could not take it anymore. She could barely breathe under his eye. Could barely think for herself. Speak for herself. They walked on eggshells around each other. That strange orbit they were in. Straddling a rather thin line. All held together by their children whatever feelings behind the misery, contempt, and confusion they held for one another. Her growing resentment and him worrying over what she might do in that resentment. Under the weight of it all air was hard to come by and she desperately needed to breathe it.

Laena needed to float up. To be above all her problems if only for a moment. She needed out. She needed the sky. She was the child of the sky and sea and she needed it. She needed to feel the wind wiping across her face. To see her curls fraying under the Pentosi air’s humidity. Needed to gaze down at the bay below, going faster than any horse could take her. Higher too. Over the horizon.

She needed to look past that. To see that she would be okay. That she could survive this. Her spirit and her body. That her resentment, her anger, her misery, would fade and she would be Lady Laena Velaryon again, but first she needed to breathe. She needed a reminder that she was alive and not just some creature trapped in a cage. She was at her wit's end once more when the door to her cage opened.

There was a restlessness in all Targaryens when they were muzzled no matter their temperament. A caged dragon did not do well. One could only hold back their nature for so long before one felt their fire.

The Rogue Prince had quite the temperament and he was most used to being muzzled in the way Laena had been. He needed out too or at least out from behind the stone walls of the manse where he had locked them. However, Unlike his dear wife who existed at his mercy, he had the keys to his cage.

Daemon was to take Baela for a ride upon Caraxes a full fortnight since Laena had been informed or more accurately learned of her brother's passing, and while the girl having copied the worst of her father’s hawk-like vigilance over her, may have been more reluctant to leave her mother's side when she was yet to fully recover from her melancholy and illness alike, who would turn down a dragon ride?

“Baela needs her practice. Rhaena shall keep you and Aemon company.” He explained to them from where he stood in front of a mirror. Practically buzzing with elation as a servant helped him make the final adjustments on his riding leathers.

Beckoning Rhaena to him when the last of the straps to his armor. He picked her up and swayed her, making her giggle as he rained down kisses upon her. She was still small enough for him to do that, though Laena supposed that if he was capable of carrying her down a flight of stairs, picking up a little girl who was half her size was an easy feat.

“Won’t you look after your mother and brother for your poor old father?” Rhaena nodded. Ever polite she nodded and replied sweetly with a, of course father. She smiled just as sweetly as that reply when Daemon placed another kiss on her temple. Murmuring a good girl before setting her down at Laena’s side with that smile set firmly in place. He was good at that. Making people forget why they were cross with him to begin with or if not that, making them forgive him for it when his focus was upon you. Only leaving a dull ache behind.

“We shall be back before dusk dear wife,” he bent down to place a kiss on her forehead and then one on Aemon's little head. Grinning as the baby let out a yawn. He left without truly looking either in the eye. Without seeing that look on Rhaena’s brown face he left.

Laena could have no would have stood it if it was just her, but not Rhaena. She looked positively crestfallen. That she could not stand. Their daughter did not deserve that just because she had no dragon to speak of.

She turned to Rhaena just as soon as her husband’s footsteps faded down the hall. Wrapping the arm that was not holding Aemon around her youngest girl to pull her closer. She kissed her temple where Daemon had and gifted her a smile as she began stroking down the back of her locks. “You, your brother, and I shall make our own fun.” Rhaena returned her grin with a beam and that gave her all the courage needed.

“My lady,” Beth huffed as she struggled to keep up with the brisk pace Laena had set out of the manse and into the field where Vhagar rested. Her northern lit, which had lightened over the years since she had been in their employment, became stronger with each breathless stride. “I don’t think this is wise.”

“You need not worry, we shall be fine Beth.” They had been. They had been fine. Laena would have not admitted to a single soul that she herself had been worried. Worried that the bond between her and Vhagar had been broken somehow. That her stunt had opened a way out of it. That silly as it was, the old she-dragon who had been ridden by the likes of Queen Visenya, would no longer want such a weak-willed rider, but her fears remained unfulfilled. They had been fine.

Fine when Vhagar knelt to let her climb on with Aemon strapped to her chest Fine when they had taken to the skies and looped round and round the magistrates manse. Fine when Rhaena laughed and laughed as the wind whipped around them and they had the perfect view of a rather perfect day of the bay which the manse sat by. Fine when she handed a relieved Beth a gurgling almost smiling Aemon. Fine until she caught her foot in her saddle as a red-faced Daemon took to thundering across the field shouting at her with Baela trailing after him.

“Get down from there now Laena!” He barked at her as if she were an errant child who had gotten into something she shouldn’t have, but she was not a child. She was a woman grown. She was his wife, a mother, and more importantly a dragonrider and she was managing perfectly fine until his yelling had made her forget where to place her foot.

It was quite a tumble. She somehow managed to tear through her riding leathers and skin her thigh on a rock sat by Vhagar's hind legs. While nothing had been broken, the children were fine, and she was otherwise, Laena was once again confined to her blasted chambers just to be sure that the bleeding did not worsen and she was chastised like a child for it. Reckless. Her husband called her reckless. Need she remind him that it was his oversight that caused her to be so reckless?

“You should have brought Rhaena with you.” Laena snapped at the silver-haired man who paced back and forth at the foot of their bed with the maids dressing her wounds. She had been cooped up behind stone walls the same as her sister. She could hardly be considered a woman grown. She had not even bleed for Gods sake! She was a girl of eight and yet she treated Aemon as if he were her own babe. Always fretting about him and reminding her how to mind him. Watch his head mother. He does not like when you do that. The poor girl!

She was a child. That was no way for a child to live. She deserved some respite and Laena would not apologize for giving it to her. She had done what any mother would do. She had been right to do so and Daemon could not say a word against her for doing it.

She held her head high. She looked him straight in the eye so he would not write off her words for madness. “You treat her as an afterthought. You do not even notice what it does to her. She sees how you treat her Daemon. She might not be like Baela or Aemon, but she is as you have so kindly reminded me, your daughter. She is your flesh and blood. She is half you and me. Do not treat her as if she were a stranger not worth your time or concern.” Laena had made a promise to him that she would not goad or speak ill of him when it came to their children, but she had also made a promise to herself as well. There shall be no differences made. Twas a promise she intended to keep.

“Get some rest, dear wife. We shall speak in the morning.” His reply was spoken with gritted teeth. Clipped. Daemon’s way of shutting her up. He did not bother making a show of fusing over her that night. She did not think he was capable of doing such with the way he looked like he wished to shake her. No, instead he left, closing the door to their sitting room as he left the magistrate's servants to fuss over her while he stewed, pouring over his books or whatever it was he did to abate his displeasure with her.

The morning came, but it was not Daemon’s pale face standing in the doorway or laying there at her side that Laena awakened to. It was a messenger's painfully familiar olive one. Her husband's personal messenger with a letter in hand.This one bearing the seal of her house.

He almost skidded out the door which had been left open by one of the maids, but Laena stopped him, commanding him to give her the letter in her husband's absence. It did not take much for him to relent. “You owe me.” She had told him. Brown hand outstretched as she gazed at him with a dark set of eyes that had grown cold. He handed her the letter without a word, eyes taking interest in the pattern of the rug by the bed.

It was then that Laena froze. The letter in her hands felt heavier than a bit of parchment should.

You owe me. He had done as she asked because he agreed with her. He felt he thought that whatever he had done was enough to warrant her this favor. He had done something which to apologize for. Something which he owed her. Her heart cracked. Sagging a bit under the weight of that apology. She did not think her heart could sink any lower, but it did. Mayhaps it was time that she stopped thinking it was incapable of doing so in the case of her husbands

Laena cleared her throat. Trying to push it down that new crack with all the rest. Her voice came out shakier and quieter than she would have liked even to her own ears, but this was her one chance to get the most out of this apology. “And the letter on the desk.” It was a gamble, she knew she was pushing her luck, that Daemon could walk in at any moment, but she had been eyeing it for days now. A permanent fixture in her view. A not so lovely decoration. Always tempting her, but she had never had the courage to act on it

Out of all the letters he kept from her, this one called to her the most. Standing out from the rest of the lot from Driftmark and one from the Dragonkeepers upon Dragonstones detailing the number of eggs in their possession that Rhaena had read a half dozen times, her joy never waning. However, this letter had a sigil on its seal that made it so alluring. What was written on its pages? Who had written it?

She could see that it had already been opened. Its seal broken. The three-headed dragon, the seal of her mother's house among others, but Laena had not once seen her use it. No, it was from another.

The servant once again did as instructed and departed from her chambers with a bow. Never once did his eyes meet hers again.

Laena swallowed the growing pit in her throat to open the letter with her father's seal. It was penned in her mother's neat hand. We shall hold off for a week more, but under no circumstance are you to bring my daughter here if she is unable to make the journey. If anything should happen to her dear cousin I shall personally see that join our late grandsire in whatever part of the seven hells he landed in.

Her words sent a smile to her face. She could practically picture her sitting at her writing desk perhaps she should have saved them for last because the other sent her heart to her stomach.

I need you uncle. The vipers in my father's court are closing in on me. They are everywhere I turn. I can even feel them here on Dragonstone. Otto Hightower has been reinstated as hand and Alicent will not see reason. I have tried with her. Against my better judgment, I offered her daughter a place at my son's side that should go to yours, that should be our bloodline, but she has refused the match. They wish to swallow me and my boys whole now that Laenor is gone. I can not see a way out. If only you were— Laena let the letter drift inelegantly onto her lap. Not caring if she crumpled it if she were to move or if a tear stray tear from dust happened to land upon the parchment smudging the ink. She could not read it any longer. Not those words.

Words that were inked in black the same as any other, but it was not any other letter. Laena had never seen that hand before, but she knew who it belonged.

Who else would write to him in that way? Who else would be so informal and call upon such kinship and feeling? A bond being called upon. A bond she felt she could depend upon. It was not difficult to guess who penned it. Her husband only had two nieces after all and she doubted Helaena would ever write such a letter or ever turn to him with such need.

“I have not written back to her,” Daemon spoke from the doorway. His eyes upon the letter in her lap. How he had managed to creep into the room without making a sound Laena would not know, likely she had been too engrossed in the contents of those passages. She hadn’t the time to hide either correspondence.

“There is no need to not write to her on my account husband. I know how fond you are of her.” Laena shut her eyes not needing to explain her meaning. She could not look at him. She did not wish to look at him. If she looked at him she would know. If her eyes landed upon his she would know the truth before he could scramble to make up some lie and it would indeed be a lie. Why else had he kept it? Why else had he kept that letter just sitting there? Why hadn’t he gotten rid of it or placed it out of sight as he had down the rest?

“I have had more pressing matters to worry about than the mess your cousin finds herself in Laena.” She heard his footsteps draw nearer in the darkness. Taking the letter from her lap and tossed it into her chamber's fire. She only knew so because she heard the crackling of the flames intensify from the parchment turning to soot. She opened her eyes to see the remnants of those words in embers. “That letter reached me long before you awakened. Truthfully, I have not looked at it since.”

That did not make her feel any better. He may not have looked at it, but he had kept it. Kept it where anyone could see it. Where she had seen it and could have opened it and read it as she had done now half a dozen times before. He wanted to taunt her. For how spiteful she’d been to him since she’d awakened he wanted to taunt her. Wanted her to find it and read it.

Someone needs me Laena. Someone who would not do as you have. Someone who I would gladly do as she asked. Did he not think she did not already know that? She knew what it was like to live in her shadow just as well as Daemon’s. The woman he did not wish to talk about. The woman he ran away from. Seeking the comfort of a consolation prize. The woman she could never quite live up to. She knew that. Had it imprinted into her head with every lover he took so what was the reason for the lie now?

Mayhaps she had truly scared him once more yesternoon and he wished to soothe her. She had brought his heir with her on this stunt. He could watch her yes, but if he did not try to make her content who knows what damage she could do. Laena frowned. Dred creeping up from the cracks in her chest. Did he think she would hurt their children to spite him?

He cupped her chin. Stroking the skin there as he raised her head so that their eyes met. Brown upon green. Fire met remorse.

“You wish for me to be honest with you,” He sighed, closing his eyes for half a heartbeat, before “You do not know what it is like to watch someone you love choose death over you.” Her heart stilled. Fire snuffed out with one breath.

They had never spoken of it. They should have. Should have talked about what had happened that night. What she had done was unspeakable. It was so very wrong considering she had the children to think of. Laena was half convinced that Baela had seen something that no child should see.

She still refused to pay Aemon more than a gleam of adulation. Most of the time she would just stare at him with a blank look on her small brown face as Laena, Beth, Rhaena, and the maids would preen over him, but that was nothing compared to how her face would become a mask of horror at the mere mention of Vhagar. Or how she had never been a particularly affectionate child when it came to her mother. Definitely not in the way that Rhaena had and was. Always preferring her father's company to that of her mother’s, but now she would scarcely leave her side.

“When I saw you with Vhagar—I kept thinking what I might do if she listened to you” He took a moment to brush his thumb over the apple of his cheeks. Looking right through to “Then the healer pulled Aemon from you. He was blue, you know.” His eyes found her again with that lost boy look in those green orbs that he hid from the world. “It took them a minute and a half for them to get enough air in him. I thought you would awaken at that. I thought you would hear him and ask to hold him,” Daemon let out a laugh that almost sounded like a sob gaze flicking to an empty spot on the bed,” but you sat lying here hardly moving for a fortnight Laena and I kept thinking what I would tell the children if you never woke. How Aemon would not know you. I still think of that some nights.”

What would you have done? Our children would’ve grieved, Aemon would have wished to know me, mayhaps used Rhaena as a substitute of sorts, but what about you? Would you grieve for me dear husband? Laena pushed that thought down. It was cruel to think that when she could see the glint in his eyes. “I do this for you. I want you to be happy, my sweet girl.” Sweet girl. He called her that more this past moon than he ever had in the span of their marriage.

She wanted to be angry at him. Yes, he was frightened and his worry was sincere. That much she could see, but she could not help but remember all the times that she had been scared out of her mind of what he might do over the years. She should chastise him as he had chastised her and yet her mind was at war with itself. Wanting to comfort him. Wanting to tell him that she would never do what she had done again. She hadn’t meant it. Laena was incapable of such.

Incapable of anything apart from letting him rest his head onto her bosom, closing his eyes, and breathing him in as she wrapped her arms around him and stroked the back of his silver head. Incapable of anything hoping and praying that his sincerity would keep. Incapable of anything apart from loving him even when she wanted to make him crawl upon his knees and beg.

She was capable of it all apart from living in his shadow. Waiting for his judgment because she needed him in ways he had never appeared to need her. He had always had her. All of her, but she wanted all of him too. Wants one can live without so she took what he would give instead. What else was she to do? He would never choose her over what he wanted. What he truly wanted so she took what he gave and hoped and yet again it was fair to herself to think so.

Laena could not go on like this. Bending herself to suit him. She would not chastise him, but she did want more than his honesty. She deserved more than that. Laena lifted his head to cradle it in her hands. “I shall be happy if I can say goodbye to my brother one last time Daemon.” He nodded and then buried himself back into her breasts as she resumed her petting. Waiting.

He kept to his word to her relief. The maids had packed up their belongings that night and one of her father's ships waited for them in the morn. She, Beth, Rhaena, Aemon, and his midwife along with her swarthy healer and his attendant who had agreed to accompany them on such short notice boarded it. Setting sail as Daemon and Baela on his blood wyrm with Vhagar trailing after them taking to the skies with a flap of a very large set of wings. Up and away. Away from Pentos. Away from the life that they had grown in the span of the years that made up their stay.

Mountains had sprouted up around them. They were covered in the flowers of millions of silences and words never spoken. The days that stretched on endlessly lived out in their shade. The moments of joy in between each heartache faded away with the Essosi shore as the sea surrounded them. The world spinning on its axis with no sign of stopping though Laena waited to see where it would land.

She was waiting for them. Perched on the edge of the dock where they would wait for her father's return from his voyages. She and Laenor would stand at her sides trying to catch sight of the returning ship on the horizon. Now it was her mother who stood there on the dock with her father's guards and one of her cousins, Daemion, Laena thought judging by his height, and she was on the returning ship. Baela and Daemon, having no doubt arrived hours earlier on Caraxes ahead of them.

Her mother sprinted to them. No, Rhaenys Targaryen, the queen who never was, actually rushed to her. Lifting her black skirts in her hand as she made her down the dock. Laena would’ve teased her at the sight. Ladies never run Laena, her mother would often say to her with an arched brow when she became too excitable as a girl and would dart down this very same dock, but she at six and twenty had begun to run to her as well. Meeting her halfway. Not stopping until she was enveloped in her mother's warm embrace. With tears of joy and small bouts of laughter neither would let go of the other until Rhaena’s small voice cut through.

“Careful of Aemon.” Her hand was still in Lena’s as her dark brow creased slightly with worry for her baby brother who was currently pressed between his mother and grandmother as the two women who had become misty-eyed clung to each other.

“Of course sweetling.” Her mother pulled away with a little laugh. She gazed down at the babe in her daughter's arms. A pale hand reached out to stroke his cheeks and when he gave out a coo leaning into her touch she smiled. She turned to look down at her granddaughter with a soft smile.

Almost shy as she brought her hands to her side. Laena had never seen her mother shy let alone unsure of herself. “Might I hug you too?” Rihanna nodded her head and then it was she who was enveloped in her embrace. Swaying the girl as she buried her face into the top of her locks, but she did not mind the attention.

Shushing a fussy Aemon in her arms Laena took the time to scan her mother's person. Not knowing when else she’d be preoccupied for her not to notice. Her face was pale. Not gaunt, but her cheeks were drawn in. Once bright hazel eyes were rimmed with red which was to be seen how she had begun to cry tears of happiness at the sight of her daughter and grandchildren, but there were dark circles surrounding the red.

New lines sprouted where there were none. She looked all around too lean. One could imagine she hardly ate and had not gotten much sleep since Laenor died. She was not even able to comfort herself with Laena’s well-being when she stood on the Stranger's doorstep with the sea separating them.

“Well, your brother certainly looks like your father.” Her mother had finally stopped smothering Rhaena but kept her tucked under her shoulder as she went to wipe away the tears clouding her vision. “You look like her when she was your age.” Rhaena beamed up at her grandmother. Adding to her namesake's delight.

“Does she not look like your cousin Daemion?” Laena’s mother asked, turning herself and Rhaena to the tall Velaryon man at her side who stood as a silent sentry though his dark eyes twinkled with affection seeing the reunion between his uncle's family.

“Indeed aunt,” he said in agreement. Regarding Rhaena with a small smile.

“I know that your father wants Baela for your nephew, but I believe this one would have made a lovely bride.” It was those words said in mock conspiration that Laena balked at, while her daughter giggled at the prospect. While her mother's boldness in that regard, always one for proprietary and order, was a surprise Rhaena’s reaction to it was not.

Boys or rather her future lord husband was her youngest's newest obsession. Apart from her cooing over Aemond or talking of a new dragon egg which would soon be in her possession it was all she talked about much to Laena’s amusement and the utter aggravation of Daemon.

“My lord husband will crown me the queen of love and beauty,” she had said once while they made flower crowns in the magistrate's garden. Another time when Daemon had sequestered Baela off for her lessons she had told with the most uncharacteristically determined look in her eye, “My lord husband shall know our history better than father and he will recite all in the tongue of our ancestors.”

“She might still be, Gods willing Vaemond can get the image of my husband's throne out of his eyes though I suppose he has to make other arrangements for that now,” She went on. Some color found its way back into her cheeks and what Laena was sure was the first real smile to grace her face in weeks when she looked back down at Aemon.

“Your cousin is your grandfather’s cupbearer and in a few years he shall be a sea captain and sea captains do make rather dashing husbands. Though he is a bit of a dullard, but that may change. He is still young. One can only hope he gets some of your sense, Daemion.” That earned a laugh from her cousin who was by all accounts a quiet contemplative man in comparison to his proud father and his deafeningly garish elder brother.

Rhaenys motioned towards their wheelhouse that would take them to Hide Tide squeezing Rhaena’s hand. Reminding them that other reunions awaited them. “Come, your father and sister are waiting for us with your grandfather.” Home.

Oh, they had landed on Driftmark's shores, but it had been years since Laena had seen the white stone walls of her childhood. Since she had seen the robust figure of her father seated upon the Driftwood throne. Since she had seen Laenor flying around a sight she would never see again, but she was home.

Rhaena had climbed into the wheelhouse with the help of Daemion and Laena had handed Aemon to Beth who went in after her when her mother had turned around to face the remaining members of their party with a puzzled expression as if she had forgotten something. That expression held til brightened in clarity, landing on the healer they had been forced to take with them from Pentos.

Singling her father's guards with a wisp of a smile she began with a grace that would have eluded Laena if she tried any manner of politeness at the oily man who had nearly killed her, “You have served my daughter and grandson well these past weeks. It does not escape my gratitude that they would not be alive if and for that I and my husband owe you our deepest thanks, but we have our own maester here and I am sure your services are needed elsewhere. A ship shall take you back to Pentos or whichever port you prefer.”

With that the queen who never was took her daughter's hand in hers, the other Laena used to cover the smile erupting across her bronze face and spun them on their heels. Leaving the stunted Pentosi healer and his attendant scrambling to understand what had happened while the door to the wheelhouse closed behind mother and daughter. They were off for Hide Tide without a backward glance.

“My lord,” her mother began when they arrived. A smile on her face as she glided with Aemon in her hands towards her father standing at the center of the Great Hall with Daemon and her uncle and eldest cousin. The rest of the family that made up their welcome party were scattered about the chamber. “Meet your grandson. Aemon Targaryen.” She wasted no time for him or any others to marvel and coo over the babe as she placed him sea-worn arms of the older Velaryon lord.

“Handsome lad,” He smiled down at his grandson. His somber face lightening he bounced Aemon who had quieted considerably. Settling down from their journey and the ride in the wheelhouse. Content enough to entertain himself by grabbing hold of one of his grandsires fingers. “And a strong one too. He'll make an excellent swordsman.” He nodded towards Daemon who replied in kind before turning to Laena with a tinkle of pride in his onyx eyes.

“Well done my girl.” She felt her cheeks warm extending to her heart under that tinkle. Her father had always been affectionate with her. Doting upon her in ways he never did Laenor. She was his daughter. His only girl, his only child now. The great sea snake grew soft in his old age and played on enjoying the remaining fruits of his labor.

“So it has come to a Targaryen on the throne of my ancestors,” Ser Vaemond sneered under his breath to his eldest son to which the younger man replied rather oafishly and all too sure of himself.

“Gods be good he looks exactly like him,” it did not need saying who that he was when father and son resided in the same room, “but I suppose the babe is the better choice than one of the bastard's father. All hope is not lost.” The hall quieted. One could hear a needle drop.

Even the children who sat by the fire with Daeron’s mother, a vain woman and the first cousin of Laena’s father and uncle who remained every bit the dark Valyrian beauty of her long past youth, along with his wife had stopped their play.

Why her uncle and cousin even bothered to utter such words Laena would not know given the fact that her husband stood not two feet to their left and had his green eyes narrowed in their direction long before she and her mother had arrived.

“Do you wish to hold my son Daeron?” The question was directed, but his eyes remained on her uncle. Laena placed her hand on his chest. the action would make no difference. Daemon would still do as he pleased, but she would like to think that her touch could calm him and stop the worst of his behavior inside her father's halls.

She knew that her husband loved their son. That he saw him as more than just a political tool. That he had wanted the same bond that she had with their girls, but the fact remained that on account of his birth, he was a babe of great importance, and at that moment his father was relishing in it.

It was Ser Vaemond who replied and not her cousin. Mimicking his niece as he placed a hand on his son's chest to stop him from making more of a fool of himself. “I am content to admire my nephew from here as is my son, my prince,” The sneer upon his chestnut face did not go away though he did not rise to the bate.

Keeping a semblance of composure and swagger alike. Too proud even when his sentiments that should have gone unsaid given the circumstances of their presence there had been overheard. “I have always found children to be more admirable from afar when they are at this stage as I am sure you have yourself so we shall leave the boy be.”

Composure be damned, in fact, Laena’s uncle's cool reply might have irritated her husband more for he had begun to grow red in the face. Thumbing the hilt of Dark Sister at his side as those green irises of his lit a fire.

“The children must be exhausted from their journey,” spoke Hazel Harte, steering the men away from whatever little quarrel would come about from the two men with narrowed eyes and sharp tongues.

Her cousin's lady wife rose from her seat next to her babbling son and Baela whose irritation with said son, much like her father with his elders, was reaching its boiling point. She was a slim dark-haired woman with a sweet umber face that looked like it belonged on a doll, scarcely older than three and twenty, but she unlike her husband and his family, save her good-brother, she was a lady of some perception and modesty. “As I am sure you are your cousin.”

Cousin, it was a very informal way of address, especially considering she had only met her once briefly at her wedding before she and Daemon left for Pentos, but Laena did not mind the familiarity from her. One did not have to be in the lady from house Hartes barred company for long to surmise that she was a kind woman.

“I know I am. I shall—” She shall join them in retiring for the evening. That was what she was to say, but she was interrupted by her good-sire who like Daemon, like all second sons Laena supposed, had to always have the last word if nothing else.

“Yes, you need rest more than anyone I imagine.” His words were directed at his good-daughter, but his dark eyes were purposely on her belly. One would have to be a child or a halfwit to not decipher why. Especially given how his son had practically shouted it from the raptors not minutes before. In that not flat for long belly of hers lay the seedlings of their hope for their line seated on the Driftwood throne.

There was something of resignation in the way that Hazels made no reply and instead kissed her husband good night and threw a curtsy Ser Vaemond’s way without looking at the man before leading the children to the nursery with Beth which made Laena’s heart feel heavy. Something that made her look at the men before her with concern.

Seeing just cold her husband and uncle's smiles, Laena hesitated to leave them to themselves uneasiness.

A mockery of pleasantries to hide what was not spoken. Only aiding to add to the tension of an already solemn occasion, but she shook off that feeling. Ignored the chill which ran up her spine and decided that her fears were foolish. It was unlikely the men would come to blows, with her father and it being the eve of her brother's funeral. Cooler heads would prevail that night.

Laena bade them goodnight placing a kiss both on her father's cheek when she collected Aemon from him, and Daemon who himself seemed as if he did not want her out of his sight as he pulled her in for a proper goodnight kiss, and let her mother lead her to what would be their chambers.

They were placed in their own tower facing the sea. Providing them with much-needed privacy from the rest of the family. “There are empty chambers down the hall which I can place Daemon in if you should like sweetling.” Her mother whispered in her ear as the servants carried on around them. Setting their belongings up where Laena hoped they would stay for a while Gods willing.

“If that is how you two did things when you were away.” She caught how her daughter scanned her bedchamber. Eyes landed wide upon the bed, but Laena shook her head.

“No mother, Daemon and I have always shared chambers.” It was a tempting offer. She still was cross with him and they had barely time to talk on the voyage here with him sending most of it in the sky, but as cross as they may get with each other she had never once thrown him out of her bed. She could hardly do so now. Not when so many different matters old and yet to arrive swarmed them. Best to leave this matter how it was. Rhaenys nodded and began to walk round the room. Inspecting the servants as they made light conversation.

“The king and his party will be arriving tomorrow and the Dragonstone party as well.” Laena was not surprised that said Dragonstone party was not here even though they were the

chief mourners, but she would rather not think of who headed that party.

“The Baratheon’s?” Laena had not seen her late grandmother's family in ages. Not since Boremund was alive and apart from him, they were a distant stormy bunch. Her mother's maternal cousin had not even bothered to show up at her wedding. Giving out some flighty excuse that was not worth remembering.

“My cousin does not know the meaning of family. If it is one thing we can guarantee it is that. Lord Borros Baratheon and his daughters will not come to pay their respects.” Her eyes hardened, but they softened when Aemon let out a small coo from his cot. It was past time that he would be put to rest for the night, or at least half the night, Beth would no doubt come in any moment to take him to the nursery, but Laena had half a mind to tell her to leave him here.

Her mother let out a hum as she reached a hand down to stroke his ruby cheeks. “Baela would have made an excellent lady of Driftmark, but this one shall make a fine lord even if he has his fathers face.” Laena could not help the laugh she let out at the position her son found himself in. A babe of scarcely a moon old and he had captured the attention of all those around him. A babe of great importance indeed. “We just have to convince your grandsire of that and then we shall find your sisters some dashing princes.”

“Father wishes to keep Lucerys as his heir?” She frowned, ignoring the last bit of what her mother had said to focus on the more pressing matters at hand. Marriage could wait. The issue of succession could not.

Laena knew that her father loved her, that he would try to wrangle the stars for her, but he would never place her on the Driftwood throne even though by all rights it was her birthright. Not without a male heir that would sit on it after her. She had given him that now with Laenor dead and no one apart from base-born boys with no Velaryon blood and her uncle to inherit the lordship he could not deny his true-born grandson.

“I believe he is not quite sure how to broach the subject with my cousin, but your brother's death has opened up the opportunity.” Her eyes had grown misty again and it broke Laena. He should be here. There was no good reason for him not to be here with them. Meeting his nieces and nephew. Making them smile. Telling them all about what they had missed, even introducing them to the boys he claimed as his own. The only sons he would ever know. He should be here.

“I am sorry I was not here if I had known—” Laena felt the sob in her chest more than she heard it and as she was broken by the sight of tears in her mother's eyes so was the older woman. She moved away from Aemon’s cot to where her daughter sat. Pulling her into her arms as she would when she was a girl.

“It is not your fault. You are here now. Safe and whole.” She shushed her. Cupping her face in her hands. “That is all that matters Laena. You and the children being here” Rhaenys leaned bringing them together for a moment before she pulled her away to stroke her curls with a mother's care. “Your father will see to the rest. No one shall question him making you his heir and this one after that yours.”

They went on that way for a time. Comforting each other in companionable silence with only an occasional whimper coming from Aemon who had now fallen asleep or the sound of the crackle from the freshly lit fire to break the lull until Laena recalled what else her mother had said. Lifting from her head from where her mother had tucked it under her chin in bewilderment. “You wish for us to find princes for the girls to marry?”

“For Baela at least, yes. She is your eldest, she deserves that.” Yes that much was a given, but she explained it like it was the simplest thing. With a quirk of her lips as if she were ordering a fire to be lit, but it was not a simple thing.

Of course, the girls would soon be at an age where a betrothal would be in order, but to a prince? That was a tall order given the scarcity of them. Lords were easy enough to come by. Knights could be found by the dozen, but princes, especially in Westeros, were not so easy to find, and when one did find them, well one could not be too picky no matter what their character was.

“Are we to marry her into Dorne?” Or to some Essosi prince. Laena felt a chill go through her at the thought she would not voice. She did not know how her mother had borne being a sea away from her for ten years. Granted Daemon was not a foreigner and it was not her fault he had chosen to take, but that is how things went. Prince or no prince she could not risk the same with Baela. She would rather marry her eldest off to some Dornish brute that loved home and kept her right over the Dornish marches than ever see her leave for across the Narrow Sea.

“My dear we have princes right on these shores.” These shores? Somehow that might have been worse than marrying her off to a foreigner in a distant land. For that decreased the number to a handful. An unfavorable handful for so many reasons.

“Mother, we have only three princes that belong to these shores.” She did not even wish to name them. Those boys. Three princes who belonged to her father's house in name, in truth they were three bastard princes. One of which was a newborn babe a few days Aemon’s elder. He was of little concern, but the others—they might have had the name Velaryon and carried the title of prince, but they were not suitable for marriage.

A bastard would never be and yet she could see that Daemon would agree to it. Just as her uncle wished to see his blood on the throne of their ancestors, her husband wished the same. He would not care if they were bastards, he would overlook that fact because they were her bastards, bastards that would inherit a throne, but Laena would not. She would not stand for that and she would not have her mother pressure her into it.

“I will not marry her to one of them.” Baela’s life and whatever children she had would always be in danger. No one wished to see a bastard upon the throne, not when there were others who had a better claim to the throne. She would not allow it.

“Laena, those are not the princes I am referring to.” Laena looked at her mother’s alarmingly serene face as if trying to decipher a puzzle. Not the princes she was referring to? Somehow the younger woman had forgotten the other princes in that count of a handful, but clarity came like lightning.

She shook her head in disbelief. Swaying her body as she moved slightly away from her mother

to wrap her arms around herself. “Daemon would never agree to it.”

Her husband had his limits. He may find Ser Vaemond quarrelsome and irritating, he may even hate him to a degree, but he would accept the babe that Hazel Hearte would bring forth if she were a girl and marry her to Aemon. Mercurial man as he was he would see the merit in keeping her uncle and her pig-headed cousin content. If they wished to see their blood on the Driftwood throne he would let them, but he would never marry Rhaena let alone his most cherished Baela to one of Otto Hightower's grandsons.

“Daemon is not the only one with a say.” He was even if her mother would like to think otherwise. It was his right as Baela’s father to betroth her and marry her off to whoever he saw fit. The same right that prevented her mother from objecting to her match many moons ago.

Even if Laena could by some miracle succeed where her mother had failed, calling on this newfound affection he showed to her, and convincing him to betroth the girls to whom she wished him to, there were other obstacles that were at play that would prevent such a match from taking place.

“The queen would object.” She had objected to Helaena marrying Jace according to that letter she would very much like to forget. True-born as Baela was and shaping up to be quite the dark beauty of old Valyria, neither Alicent Hightower nor her father who was once again hand and surely had a great deal of influence over her would ever agree to the match.

Otto Hightower was the same man after all who convinced her good-brother to name a girl as heir breaking with tradition that had put the king he served on throne so as to keep her husband from the Iron Throne. No matter what advantages he would come from this union he would more than likely set the realm on fire than see any of his grandchildren married off to a child of her husbands.

“You may find her more keen on the idea than you would imagine.” Laena must have looked at her like she had grown two heads and spoke in perfect Dothraki for she sighed and took her hand to turn her so that they faced again. Dropping all pretenses at vagueness. “If you must know, she is the one who suggested it.” Then and there Laena felt all her breath leave her body. She would’ve thought her mother was lying if she hadn’t turned her so that their eyes met with that calm expression. “Aegon for Baela and if you should wish Rhaena for Aemond or her youngest.”

“Have you both gone mad? She wishes to usurp Rhaenyra’s claim.” And now she wished to involve them in this plot. To tie their fate to a house that neither trusted nor liked her husband.

“When I accepted your father's proposal,” Her mother began, seemingly ignoring her panic. “I knew he loved me. It wasn’t just about my title or the fact that I was my father's only heir.” She had a far-off look in her eyes and a hint of a smile on her thin lips. One that made it difficult to truly be frustrated with her. A world from a lifetime ago was let out in a breathy chortle.

“My mother wished for me to marry my oaf of a cousin, but your father made me feel as if I was the only one in a room full of lords with my grandfather sitting upon that monstrosity of a throne whose opinion truly mattered. I know not many can say that in my position, but there has never been a day I have doubted his love for me Laena.” Her gaze turned to the fire. Hazel orbs licked by flames. “I always knew he chose me over anyone else living, but when I gave him you and your brother I knew would do anything for me. He wanted to start a war for me.”

Laena turned her gaze toward the floor. The smile that was beginning to form on the corner of her lips faded. That look in her mother's eyes. The look of such strong conviction, it was too much, too much to bear witness when she knew she lived without it and was likely to go on living as so. “He doesn't love me like that.” She whispered. Almost hoping the older woman did not hear her. Never like that. He would of course start a war. He was a man bred for it. Forged in fire and chaos, he lived for it, it was his lifeblood, but Daemon would not start one simply for her. Never in her name. He would not do anything solely for her benefit.

Oh, he had taken her back home, he could say he had done it for her, she had asked him, but that was as much for him as it was for her. He had made his mind up to leave for Pentos long before she was made aware.

“And yet he saved you.” She jerked her head back in her mother’s direction, meeting her eye. The soft look in her eyes was gone. In its stead, something fierce had grown there. “You have given him an heir. You have done your duty to him. He could have let you succumb to the birthing bed. It would be a clean break for him. Your father would not even question it. I would have accepted, but he did not.”

Laena shifted uncomfortably under the weight of that thought. It was what she had wanted when she had gone to Vhagar with Aemon still in her belly. To end her husband's misery so that he would be free of her, but now it made her feel hollow. A dark pit had formed in her stomach which she did not want to look inside. “You have more power over him than you think.” Her mother grabbed her hand. Leaning in closer she began to whisper. They were alone. No one apart from the children, Beth, and Aemon’s wetnurse were inside the tower, but she acted as if the walls might hear them. “You do not have to start a war, Laena. You just have to prevent one. Rhaenyra can not take the throne.”

Laena felt a shiver go up her spine seeping into her bones at that name. Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra. It sounded like a curse to her ears. If she should never hear it again she would die a happy woman.

For it was the name of the woman who had been her silent tormentor for a decade. The woman who stood between her husband and herself. The woman whom she could never measure up to. Why did it always come down to her cousin? “Mother, Rhaenyra is not an enemy.” Rhaenyra Targaryen may be many things, spoiled, consisted, arrogant, with a blatant disregard for the feelings of others, but she was far from a tyrant.

She was just a woman who, unlike the rest of the women in her station, no, there were no other women in her station. Unlike all the women below her, she did not have a cage, but still, she had done nothing to warrant such fear. She could not even blame her for her husband's obsession with her. “I would hardly call her my enemy—”

“Do you wish to know what my grandfather told me when my mother asked him why,” her mother interrupted. A stony look in her eyes. Brokering no room for argument. Laena closed her mouth. Pressing her lips together in a narrow line and let mother go on. “The realm will never bend to a woman.” Her voice was steel turned to iron. The flames that once licked her irises now raged within them. Turning them as dark as her own.

“Everything we have built. The defeat of my uncle. He said. Every battle my grandfather the conqueror fought to win us this realm, they will all be for naught if you take the Iron Throne Rhaenys. Our house, our dynasty, this very realm will cease to exist if you sit upon my chair. That is what he told me.” She laughed, but Laena could hear the bitterness in it.

“I could’ve started a war, your father would’ve started a war for me, but I did not because I thought I was protecting this dynasty.” She muttered her next words. Laena wondered if they were more meant for herself than her. Musings that she had never, but nonetheless found their way out. “If only he could see us now.” her eyes and Laena thought she hadn’t anything more to say. Lost in the memories of yesteryear that haunted her still, but then she spoke. “Your husband loves you. Reckless cold-hearted man my cousin is, but he loves you.” She opened her eyes with such speed that it almost startled her. “ Do not underestimate your own power and do not underestimate Rhaenyra’s either. You may not see her as a threat, but she sees you as so.”

“Your son has a better claim than any and she knows that.” She knew that. Oh, how she knew that. It was the second thing on her mind after seeing that Aemon was healthy and that is what worried her. “You have what she wants Laena and if you do not cease your own power you’ll make the same mistake as I. You have a choice Laena. I am your mother. I will support you no matter what choice you make, but it is yours to make.”

When her mother had finally left her, taking Aemon to his wetnurse for he had begun to cry for his supper, she felt nothing but dread. She knew that she had meant to make her feel at ease. That she was in fact safe now. That she had told her all of what she had been planning with Alicent Hightower to make her feel like she was not trapped after years of living alone in a cage, but all the older woman had managed to bring forth was a war in her daughter's mind.

No matter how Daemon, who was a bit drunk though in an agreeable mood, brought her close when had crawled into their bed, how he petted and caressed her and tucked her under him as he whispered a goodnight my sweet girl into her curls so sweetly that made her own want to get lost in him, she could not rest. Laena did not sleep a single wink that night. She could not forget that the world was crashing around her. Fears taking on new faces. Coming to life and she could not stop it.

Ao3 Link:

#laena valeryon #daemon targaryen #hotd #house of the dragon #laena x daemon #daemon x laena #daemon targaryen x laena velaryon #daela #hotd fanfic #hotd fic #l cut this chapter in half and it’s still huge 🫠

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