#Daelyra Targaryen | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aboutdragons · 1 year

Text

the thing about dragons - chapter five

in which there’s cats and blood.

Dialogues in quotation marks are in Common Westron, in angle brackets in High Valyrian, in square brackets for other. Thoughts, emotions and emphasis are in italics.

Cross-posted on

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43121373/chapters/108369012

Scribblehub: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/699684/the-thing-about-dragons/

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/331546036-the-thing-about-dragons

◄○○○►

Read the Summary, Tags & Warnings as linked on the page to know what to expect.

warnings: war, blood, bad life decision, Otto Hightower, Daemon Targaryen, murder, menstrual cycle

wordcount: 9,560

Read the chapter under the cut.

The parchment crinkles under his fingers as Otto reads it, the slightly-lopsided childish scrawl, yet in oddly practiced hand, inked into words on the dried parchment. The crease on his forehead depends as he reads into it.

For a child, Daelyra Targaryen’s written words are surprisingly eloquent, and subtly threatening in a childlike way that everyone would tell him is just excited childhood babble he should not look to deeply into—or Rhaenys Targaryen’s guiding hand. He cannot be sure.

Either way, the letter is barely acceptably polite and very vaguely threatening. Nothing he can hold over the girl or Rhaenys or anyone, really. Just an upset child being upset and at least being kind enough to write him a letter about why before taking off on her massive blasphemous beast in the direction opposite than she was meant to go.

And it took Otto months to convince Viserys that the girl ought to have been sent to her mother in Runestone, where Daemon wouldn’t have wanted her, only for it all to be ruined.

Viserys was sent a letter of his own, too, and it sent him into a morose spiral, cursing the idea under his breath. And yet, just like Otto knew he would, the king had no spine whatsoever, and refused to rescind his order.

○

Otto did not think that Daelyra would want to have anything to do with her lady mother. It’s why he pushed for the girl to be sent there, to be easily monitored and away from Daemon’s heretic teachings of dragon lords and dragon gods. And yet, when barely a fortnight later, a very politely scathing letter came from Runestone, he learned better.

Lady Rhea Royce has written, in official capacity and in no uncertain terms, that Daelyra Targaryen was to remain with her father, or with the guardians appointed by her father at all times. She stated it nowhere in her letter, but the message was very clear; the girl—and her father as well—was not welcome in Runestone. And, Royal Order or no, Daelyra would be sent back.

It was Rhea’s right as her mother to override the will of her uncle, king or no, and Otto knew Daelyra’s meddling for what it was. Rhea Royce would not have known ofher daughter’s planned arrival; unless said daughter informed her in advance.

Viserys had a sour look on his face when he read the letter that effectively rendered his order moot. King or no, he couldn’t actually tell Lady Royce to keep the girl if she didn’t want her there. That was the power the lords had, after all.

“She went to the Stepstones,” Viserys says. “A girlchild of eight. Otto, she’s eight. I will rescind the order after all. She was much safer with the Velaryons—”

Otto grimaces. Daelyra and Daemon are cut from the same cloth, he thinks but doesn’t say. Daelyra will stay in Stepstones out of spite, and Daemon will let her.

Then he grimaces harder. He spent months convincing Viserys to have the girl sent to Runestone, only for the brat to do whatever she wanted anyway; and Viserys did not see the problem with her blatant disregard of royal orders at all!

He hates this family. But with Alicent for a Queen, he very well won’t have to suffer them much longer. As soon as she births and heir and pushes Daemon and his spawn further down the inheritance line, he will sleep easier.

○

“How,” Corlys says. It’s not even a question, as he looks at Lyra grinning her best grin at him as she stands next to Daemon.

“Big dragon,” she chirps cheerfully anyway, and his face sours. “And before you ask for why; uncle king was more interested in sucking Cunttower’s dick than using the half-rotted soggy bacon between his ears to make good decisions. Anyway, it was either Runestone or here.”

Corlys looks like he just bit into a lemon. “I can guess which you picked.”

“Not very hard, that.”

Corlys lets out a deep sigh, as if to say ‘this is my life now I guess’. “Very well. What now? This is a warzone, not a daycare.”

“Now, Lyra stays safe behind the back lines, and Ancalagon sometimes flies overhead burning the Triarchy mercenaries down, of course!” Daemon says, entirely too smug.

“Can Ancalagon do that without a rider?” Corlys asks dubiously.

“If I warg into him, he can,” Lyra says with a smile, and he looks down at her. Surely not—

“You can warg into your dragon? The way those with First Men blood can?”

“Yep! Did that before. Royces have a lot of First Men blood, probably got it from there!”

Corlys hides his face in his hands. He hates that this ridiculous situation and its ridiculous explanation actually makes sense in a way, he’s learned, things orbiting those two usually make sense. “Fine. Do whatever. Stay out of trouble. Both of you.”

Lyra and Daemon share twin grins and Corlys regrets.

He’s not even sure what he’s regretting exactly—except his king’s utter stupidity.

“Wait,” Lyra says as she looks up at her father. “Did you get in trouble?”

Daemon looks away. “No?”

“He took an arrow to the shoulder,” Corlys says, entirely unrepentant. “Decided it was fine to go flying without armour.”

Lyra’s dark eyes sharpen.

“Traitor!” Daemon cries as his daughter grabs the sleeve of his shirt. “It was an emergency! I didn’t have time to put armour on!”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Corlys says with a shrug.

“Kepaaaa…”

“Perzītsos, talus jorrāeliarzus—”

Lyra’s eyelid twitches, and Corlys takes his chance to evacuate and leave Daemon at the mercy of his now-irate spawn. Serves him right.

○

At least it’s not infected, and it’s healing properly.

Stupid reckless dad not wearing armour riding his dragon in a warzone.

○

Viserys revokes the order.

<Rhea must’ve sent him a Strongly Worded Letter,> Lyra muses, breaking the wax seal into tiny pieces and throwing them into fire one by one. Daemon scoffs, reading the recall over one more time.

<I’m sensing a but.>

Daemon gets up from his chair, tears the letter in half, then that in half, and again, until he’s holding a handful of parchment. He lets it fall into the open flame.

<Remember, he thinks the world truly works the way he decides it should.>

Daemon sighs. <Do you want to go back? It would be safer.>

<True,> she agrees. <But I’m safe enough here, in the back lines.>

<Gh. Yes, fine, I would want to go back. But I won’t. Because fuck that and fuck him. With a red-hot iron.>

<Careful, he might like that,> he says and cackles. Lyra makes a gagging sound and slaps his shoulder.

<Besides, I prefer being somewhere you are. I know this is no place for a child, but my case is a little special… And I missed you a lot.>

Daemon’s face softens.

<So do I, little flame,> he says and presses his forehead against hers, and everything is alright. <But I’m very serious; no frontlines for you, ever. Not until you’re a woman grown and I can no longer tell you what to do. Understood?>

<Sir, yes sir!>

○

All in all, when one is not in active warzone, the Stepstones War is pretty damn boring. Lyra can only poke at the map and ask questions so much until she knows everything there is to be known about it, and she’s not really a tactician or a general. She does have few good ideas here and there, but her playing a couple of tactical games a whole lifetime over, while it certainly puts her above a typical child in understanding of war, is mostly anecdotal, very situational, and largely useless. It quickly becomes apparent that to wage war effectively one has to either have a knack for it, or be specifically trained for it, and ideally both.

Lyra is neither.

Though, that isn’t to say she’s entirely useless. She did come in with a dragon twice the size of Caraxes that she could relatively easily direct to where Corlys pointed at the map to burn the Triarchy.

And sure, impressing the importance of Not Landing to Ancalagon took a hot minute, but he definitely learned his lesson after he took a catapulted stone to the face. Knocked few of his teeth loose, but they would grow back in soon enough; dragons were crocodilian like that.

Gave the Triarchy something to fear, too. For a bunch of fools claiming descent from Old Valyria themselves, they were awfully dragon-less.

One thing that upset the nightmarish creature (and Lyra, too) was the fact that it was simply safer for her to stay hidden away somewhere mostly safe and out of the way rather than fly him into the battle. Not only did she promise to do that, but even if the chances are low, a talented and stubborn marksman would have been able to snipe at her even on dragonback. It was a constant hassle for Daemon, who in the time they spent there took several arrows. Mostly harmless, but that was because he had a fitted plate mail he could wear on dragonback, and Lyra did not. The one time the arrow actually did damage was the one time he had foregone the armour.

He’s not done that again since, thankfully.

On top of that, Lyra found, Ancalagon minded Caraxes’ presence less and less, and vice versa. The two dragons, as capricious as they each were, were by no means friends—but they could tolerate sharing the aerial space, and even coiling on the opposite ends of the same beach. Given the strength of their respective bonds to their readers, the bond between Lyra and Daemon must have rubbed off on them, at least to a degree. It was certainly helpful, for the lack of the pissing contest between the two.

And Ancalagon, who in his two-centuries-plus of life has never had a rider certainly had a lot to learn from the Blood Wyrm. Even if his already-scarce patience was running thin, constantly tested by Caraxes’ smugness.

○

“Can you please blink?”

“No.”

“Daemon, tell your spawn to blink.”

“No.”

○

Years pass, slowly but surely, and with two dragons rather than one, Corlys and Daemon are seeing moderate to high success against the Triarchy.

Who would’ve thought that flying nuclear lizards capable of breathing superhot fire would be of help in a war effort, right?

Lyra and Ancalagon perfect their bond as she sends him to fight; sharing thoughts and senses and feelings at distances greater than reasonable, able to find one another no matter the location. She can look through his eyes when he soars and breathes green fire on the enemy encampment, and for now, it’s a good enough substitute for flying together. It’s not warging, not really. A bastardized version of it, where they each can see through the other’s eyes and direct them, but cannot direct the other past what they allow. Maybe it’s reasonable, as Lyra is more Valyrian than she’d ever be of First Men, but it’s an inheritance she values.

Corlys is pretty good at hiding his discomfort when he finds her sitting somewhere—usually their war tents, safest and closest to Daemon—eyes wide, bright green and slit-pupiled. Lyra admires this; she’s freaked herself enough that one time she caught a glimpse of it in her reflection. It was really cool, don’t get her wrong—but it was also creepy.

Soon enough, from the girl who barely survived bonding her dragon she turns into a girl who is perfectly attuned to her dragon, and him to her. They have long conversations in the privacy of their own minds, and Lyra thinks she becomes rather good at interpreting the snippets of images and emotions he sends.

There’s news from the capital, too. Of course, they are. Aegon is born and the people rejoice for a prince, and Lyra can’t help a bitter pang at the back of her throat because she knows—she knows that Viserys will neglect this boy, even though he killed Aemma for this.

Is Aegon lesser, for not being Aemma’s? For being born of a girl barely sixteen, forced to replace the woman Viserys claimed he loved but murdered anyway?

Lyra sends a polite congratulatory letter anyway, makes Daemon sign it too even though he doesn’t seem too happy about that. Sends a letter to Rhaenyra, expressing hopes the girl will see her siblings for what they are—innocent victims in all of this, whose crime is being born and nothing more. Hopes that Rhaenyra won’t hate her young siblings.

Hopes it changes things.

She knows it won’t, unless Viserys either actually begins reinforcing Rhaenyra’s position as the heir or names Aegon heir in turn. He does neither, of course, content to set his children on an express road to a civil war; an uneducated entitled daughter for an heir, a discarded wastrel firstborn son barely a spare, and nothing done to change this.

This family is already ripping itself apart, and it will try very hard to drag the country and the dragons down with it; and it’s all Viserys’ fault.

She sends a letter to Alicent, too, and Alicent—replies. So, Lyra replies in turn, and so on, and so forth. They’re each careful to not mention anything upsetting, anything about Alicent’s queendom, and reading those letters, Lyra hopes they can fool each other, however briefly, that they’re just two penpals writing to one another. No wars, no kings, no queens, no unwanted marriages or dragons flying overhead. It feels almost like a friendship; Lyra wonders idly how long it’ll last.

Until Otto learns of the exchanges, most likely.

Rhaenyra doesn’t write back to her at all. After all, how dare she advise her to try being kind to her half-siblings and her former best friend forever. They’re the root cause of all her misfortunes, surely!

Or something like that.

○

<Um, dad.>

<Yeah?>

<Oh, that’s normal.>

<Th—Wait what?>

Daemon puts a finger in his mouth and lifts his lip.

Now, Lyra never looked in his mouth, because that’s rude, but in all honesty, maybe she should have.

His canines are a bit more pronounced than normal, which is fair, some people get that. On upper and lower jaw. But the premolars being pronounced and sharp on upper and lower jaw both is—

<Uh—No? Why would you think that?>

<Because,> she looks him in the eye, <not-Targaryens don’t have teeth this sharp.>

<…they don’t?>

<No. Canines, at most,> she says, and points the teeth in question, <but the upper ones at most, typically. And premolars are never this sharp.>

<Hm.>

<No. My teeth are normal to me! Father had sharp teeth. Cousin Rhaenys does too.>

<No. But he was the odd one out for it. We, ah,> Daemon’s cheeks pinken a little, <we used to pick on him for that, when we were little. Even Aemma had sharper teeth than he. We called him a dullard.>

<Wish that was applicable only to his teeth and not his mind,> Lyra mutters quietly. If Daemon hears, he ignores it. <The more you know!>

Lyra looks at him. Daemon balks.

<True. But Cousin Rhaenys scares me… Hm.>

<Dad. No.>

<Fair.>

○

Lyra keeps up with her training in the meantime. She grows, and keeps growing, and while the growth spurts are paid for in aching bones and awkward movements as she gets used to it, a whole new world opens for her. She no longer has to climb the cupboards and bookshelves much to Daemon’s relief, and she can handle bigger weapons. Finally, proper shortswords, axes, and maces.

She needs to be careful to not overstrain her body—torn ligaments and broken bones would not be very fun to deal with in any way—but agility training is always a good idea. It’s all she can do so far; she still has several years before she can start to reasonably bulk up.

○

So apparently, potatoes grow on Stepstones as weeds. Something-something cargo ship from Essos sunk, potatoes floated up to the island and started growing there.

Lyra didn’t realize just how much she missed this crop until she chanced on some of it growing wild in the sandy soil, and she will admit, she may have fallen on her knees and cried. Baked potatoes, hashbrowns, fries, potato stew, potato starch—she missed them. And now, she will have them back.

Lyra grabs few men who are off-duty and, armed with shovels and baskets, goes to dig for the tubers. They humour her, because she’s Daemon’s daughter, and she frames it like she’s just a kid playing treasure hunt, but she can see them exchange nervous glances as, by sundown, thy have filled four baskets with potatoes.

“Um, my lady… What are you planning to do with these?” one of them asks.

“Eat them,” she tells him, face, knees, and hands covered in dirt as she holds one of the last potatoes of the day. He looks at her weirdly.

“Um. Those are…”

“Potatoes. We need to wash and cook them. They’re delicious with butter and sea-salt.”

They don’t believe her, of course. She delights in proving them wrong scantly an hour later. And potatoes really are delicious with sea-salt which, with dragons capable of evaporating large quantities of water, is abundant here. Baked potato is certainly a hit.

The cook looks at her weird when she puts them in the stew, but is also forced to stand corrected when it turns out good—and helps cut on meat.

The potatoes quickly grow popular with the deployed troops, too; they can take them on the way, raw and fresh, and just throw them in the fire in the evening, and eat them warm.

Her potato propaganda starts spreading like wildfire, and she gets her French fries, too.

Everybody wins. The knights and soldiers will no doubt take potatoes home with them, and spread them further

○

109AC rolls around. Lyra turns eleven, Laenor turns sixteen and week later he’s in Stepstones more than eager to join the war efforts because teenage boys think that war is cool. Laena comes with him, Vhagar in tow. She checks on Lyra, no doubt on Rhaenys’ orders, stays for a little but leaves soon enough. Corlys is barely okay with Laenor being there, and he looks like he’d like nothing more than chase both his children back to Driftmark. Dragons or no, those are his heirs. His legacy.

(Bar the Hull bastards, of which neither has been born yet.)

More importantly, Helaena is born, and Lyra bullies Daemon until he sends a whole congratulatory letter of his own. Helaena, of all, deserves at least this little, and it’s a good enough first step. Maybe Rhaenyra will be more amicable to a little sister? Lyra can hope.

Laena leaves eventually, but for a little while there’s four whole adult dragons in the Stepstones, three of which remain, and that turns heads.

The Triarchy doesn’t like it, of course. But what is much more important is the attention they get from Dorne. And, fuelled by Lyra’s (and subsequently Daemon’s) constant nagging, Corlys reaches out to them with a promise of alliance.

○

“Offer them a big piece in the Stepstones,” Lyra says. Corlys looks at her sharply, takes a breath. “No, no, no, hear me out.”

Daemon is staring at him as he looms behind Lyra. Corlys tries to hold his gaze, but very quickly grows uncomfortable.

“Elaborate,” he says unhappily.

“If we can sweep in and secure a good deal with Dorne, everybody benefits. You get better tariffs, they get better tariffs, Triarchy goes to fuck itself being attacked from both sides. You get half, they get half, you keep it together.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Oh, I know. I’m no diplomat, I don’t even know what exactly would it take to parlay like that. But you need to push for an alliance that’s beneficial enough for Dorne that they don’t turn around and run to the Triarchy. If they do, you’ve automatically lost because they ill chase you out together very fast. Then, you get nothing. I don’t know, maybe I’m weird, but for me half’s better than nothing! My point is; you need to make good with Dorne and cuck Triarchy, or this whole war effort is fucked. Wasted, gone, reduced to atoms!”

Corlys sighs and puts his face in his hands. “Stop making sense, you horrible creature.”

“No,” Lyra chirps cheerfully. “Look, I get it, you hate making concessions, especially after uncle king stood your family up as he has, but concessions will be good in this case. And you’ll be able to hold a semi-alliance with Dorne over uncle king’s head. Wouldn’t that be great? Hells, you might just lay the foundation to bring Dorne into Westeros-the-Kingdom proper. Think of the legacy you’d leave behind, if it all worked out. Corlys Velaryon, the man who laid grounds for proper alliance with Dorne, after the Conquerors themselves failed even that much.”

Corlys’ eyelid twitches, because Lyra hit the nail right on the head, especially with the last one. He knows it, she knows it, Daemon knows it from how he’s smirking above her shoulder.

Corlys looks at her, his bright turquoise eyes shining with exasperation. “I told you to stop making sense, you horrid silver-tongued creature.”

“And I said no. What says you?”

Corlys looks at her, then at Daemon, then back at her. “I say, I wonder where you got your smarts from, because it certainly wasn’t your father.”

“Hey!”

Lyra shrugs. “Kepa’s not stupid. He’s just very hotheaded and forgets to think, is all.”

“Perzītsos, why do you bully your poor old father?” Daemon bemoans dramatically, swooning a little.

“For an old man, you’re awfully under thirty,” she says and pats his shoulder where she can reach. “And that’s not what I meant, Lord Corlys.”

“Fine,” Corlys sighs. “Fine, we’ll go talk with Dorne. But you’re coming with. And Daemon, and you,” he points at Daemon, “will be on your best behaviour. Laenor’s coming too, he needs to learn. Where’s that boy?”

“We should leave the dragons behind,” Lyra tells him as she hops off the chair. “Dorne and Dornish won’t have too good associations with them. It may have been a century ago, but the Conquest was rather traumatic to them.”

“It will put us in danger!” Daemon protests. “It will put you in danger.”

“It will be a show of goodwill,” Lyra argues. “Appreciate one.”

“Are you certain that courtly life isn’t for you?” Corlys asks as he picks up his maps, eyebrow quirked as he looks at her. “When you grow up and train up in diplomacy, you’ll run circles around all those od fools at court.”

“Just because I could be good at it doesn’t mean I want to do it,” Lyra says with a shrug. “Besides, I have a hard limit on how much back-and-forth I’m able to tolerate. Past that, I’ll get a tension headache and if I’m not left the fuck alone when I need solitude, I will bite.”

“Fair enough.”

Bless.

○

Qoren—

Is a hot-headed kid, barely seventeen, having found himself suddenly running his house after his father’s sudden death. Lyra is no doctor, but from the way they describe it, it sounds an awful lot like the late Quentin Martell had a stress-induced aneurysm that led to a haemorrhagic stroke. And Qoren, try as he might to act tough in front of them, isn’t nearly as good at hiding his grief as he tries to make himself be.

He looks a little like she imagined Oberyn to look, with wavy black hair and healthy tanned skin and shining honey-coloured eyes. Has that swagger, too. Overexaggerated, a dash of bravado on an otherwise lost kid. It fools most of them, she sees. Not Corlys, not Daemon, not her. But others.

He looks a lot more like a creature of fire, sun-kissed as he is, than any of the wraith-like Targaryen with their icy silver hair and cold violet eyes and pallid near-sickly skin that doesn’t tan no matter how long Lyra spends in the sun.

(Damned fire resistance strong enough to stand against Planetos’ own star, leaving Lyra looking like she’s some basemen-dwelling goblin.)

She grabs her Daemon’s hand, drags him to lean down. <Be nice to the kid,> she warns her father. <He just lost his father recently. He’s not doing well.>

<But—>

He closes his mouth, recognition shining in his eyes. Empathy is not something he’s equipped with, but they’re working on it. Soon enough, he’ll be able to compare situations others are in with his on his own. Lyra hopes he will, at least.

○

The talks—don’t go bad, in all honesty. Lyra pesters Corlys until he plays nice, mindful of Qoren’s loss, and the lack of dragons also helps. The kid side-eyes all Targaryens present, of course he does, but he’s not hostile. As eager as he is to prove himself, he’s also pretty damn smart, and while allying with Triarchy would let him triumph over Targaryens, he recognizes that allying with the Velaryon Fleet would be just more economically sensible to him, and Dorne as a whole. The Fleet, after all, controls all but two islands, and with three grown dragons, taking the last two isles won’t take much.

Qoren—unaware of the future in which the dragons vacate the isles very soon, though it’s not like Lyra is going to tell—takes the better option. It’s not quite an alliance, but it is a reasonable trade agreement for both Dorne and Driftmark. Lyra, for her part, is just happy it seems to actually be working.

○

Nobody seems to miss Qoren and Laenor’s flirting. It gets them a side-eye or two—they’re from opposing factions and supposed to be having talks of the diplomatic kind, not the pillow one—but the two hit it off quickly and get along well outside of the council tent. Lyra accidentally catches them snogging against a tree and elects to distract the guard walking their way before he notices them.

It may be sneaky and underhanded and dangerously close to a honeypot mission, but—Laenor’s happy with wooing Qoren, Qoren is happy with being wooed, and it’s very likely to net them a better deal with Dorne if Qoren is fond of Laenor. It all works out.

Corlys, of course, ever-so-mindful of his reputation, wants to stop them. Lyra, infinitely wise in her tweenage ways, embarks on a mission to stop him from stopping them.

Laenor’s gonna owe her for that.

○

“Leave Laenor and Qoren alone.”

Corlys Velaryon, the fabled Sea Snake, Master of Tides, the Head of House Velaryon, does not jump or shriek when Daemon’s spawn seems to manifest at his elbow out of thin air.

“Leave Laenor and Qoren alone.”

It’s a near thing, though, and he certainly feels his heart jump uncomfortably to this throat when the little menace sneaks up on him unnoticed like that.

“Laenor is—”

He doesn’t know what Laenor is; for now he’s just trying to breathe as Lyra cranes her head up to look at him with those wide black eyes of hers.

“Laenor’s booty call is about to make the whole deal with Dorne go a whole lot smoother if Qoren likes him,” Lyra tells the man. “Besides, you expect him to carry your house after you. Let him live a little before that.”

He winces. It is a shame on house Velaryon for Laenor to be up to his usual proclivities this openly, but Lyra is right. Corlys knows this; it’s why he’s hesitated to put a stop to it so far.

Lyra keeps looking at him, unblinking.

He thinks, for a moment, that he can see a glimpse of a slit pupil in the darkness of her irises, but it fades as she shifts ever so slightly, along with the sunlit gleam in her eyes.

“Horrid little creature,” he says in exasperation, but can’t stop the fond undertone that she clearly hears, judging by how her face softens into an almost-smile.

“I’m not going to stop making sense,” she chirps smugly, but she knows she’s won, because she turns on her heel without further ado and prances off, beaded braids bouncing off her shoulders and back.

Corlys smiles to himself as his heart calms from the scare.

Daemon is one thing, but Lyra—Lyra will make Otto Hightower’s life living hell if she so chooses.

And Corlys genuinely hopes she so chooses indeed.

○

<Dad, I’m going to need your help wingmanning.>

<What’s wingmanning?>

○

Laenor is furious, and Qoren is fuming. World, it seems, is out to cockblock them.

Lyra will not stand for this.

Their pining is unbearable.

Why can’t he just be a bit more like Daemon, making his way through every interested Dornish soldier regardless of who may walk in on them?

(Unless it’s Lyra. Which is why Daemon is very careful in sending her to the other side of the camp until he sends back for her so that he can have his fun unhindered. She appreciates it quite a bit. There are some things in this world she wants nowhere near, ever.)

○

“I know a spot.”

Laenor yelps and twirls to look at her, takes a half-step back, hand on his chest.

“Sweet Meraxes someone ought to put a bell on you!” he absolutely doesn’t shriek. “W—Wait, what do you mean, you know a spot?”

“Where you can fuck Qoren in peace. Or get fucked by him, I don’t judge.”

“How do you—Nevermind. What’s in it for you?”

“Less annoyance and potentially better agreement terms. Also, your soul.”

“You—You think I’m doing this for the agreement, or something?” he asks, cheeks already colouring in offense. “And what do you mean my soul—"

“No. But it is a side effect we’d all benefit from. Mostly, I’m just tired of your pining.”

“I’m not—!!”

“You are. You very much are.”

“…okay. Fine. So, you know a spot. And?”

“And me and dad set you up a nice picnic getaway half-hour flight from here and you take Qoren there and you’ll have a day of peace together.”

“And what do you want for it?”

“I’ll think of it.”

“Because not knowing is not scary.”

“Relax, I’m ele—one-and-ten. What could I even want?”

“A lot!” Leanor argues. “You’re one of the most sneaky and shady people I know!”

“Who even taught you to use shady to describe people.”

“You did.”

“…I used it to describe Cunttower.”

Laenor has enough sense in him to hastily retreat.

But Lyra keeps her word, and the next day he takes Qoren for a nice getaway. They come back well into the night, still all over each other but way less irritable about it.

Lyra wonders if the historians of centuries from now will write about Laenor Velaryon and his very good friend Qoren Martell, or will they actually be smart about it and avoid straightwashing history.

○

“What the fuck did you mean by my soul, though?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“…how about I do anyway?”

○

Yes, she is having a lot of fun messing with Laenor. Sue her.

○

History, Lyra decides, seems to have a somewhat fucked up way of repeating itself sometimes.

She’s eleven years old. Laenor just came back with Qoren after a whole day they spent elsewhere—both look quite pleased with themselves too—and promptly shoves something small and fuzzy into her hands.

The thing, it appears, is a small ball of fluff, a little dirty, a little wet, but otherwise warm. And it moves; twists and turns a little in her hands, one paw, two paws, tail, ears. Two big blue eyes that are yet to darken into a proper eye colour blink up at her. White-and-tan fur, still somewhat shaggy. There’s a meow.

She’s eleven years old and Laenor just brought her a kitten.

She was eleven years old when she got Rascal.

She may very well be reading into it too deeply, but with gods and magic and dragons, this doesn’t feel like coincidence that much.

Still, she takes the cat.

“Your debt has been paid,” she tells Laenor sagely and he gives her a slightly startled look that morphs into exasperated annoyance as he reaches out and ruffles her hair.

“You’re why I don’t want younger siblings anymore.”

“You’re welcome!”

“That’s not—Ugh.”

Qoren snorts into his fist next to them, and Laenor puffs up. Lyra grins.

○

She makes it a small batch of completely unseasoned fish and egg soup of sorts, and the cat. Thankfully it’s at least a month old—closer to five weeks, if she’s remembering all the cat development videos that she watched a lifetime ago correctly—so keeping it alive is all the much easier.

If it was still eating only milk, and Lyra had no way of finding a feeding mother cat, it would have been kinder to just put it down—alternatives were to starve or, if she tried to feed it cow or goat milk, to die of the diarrhoea it’d cause. She was glad they were past the unsalvageable state.

She scratches the kitten between its ears absent-mindedly as it inhales the cooled food, contemplating.

What does she name the cat? It’s a very important decision. So important that Rascal got his name after stealing her sock on a day one. She hollered ‘you rascal!’ after him and then it just stuck.

It’s how Daemon finds her, a little drunk himself, no doubt having wooed a Dornish soldier or two himself. While Laenor is still trying to pretend to be ashamed of his sexuality, Daemon is at the age where he finally knows better and just embraces himself wholeheartedly.

<What’s this?> he asks, pointing at the crinkled-tissue-shaped creature. Lyra looks at him.

Brief silence as he shuffles about for more alcohol, throws himself onto the padded chair—way too extra for a tent, in Lyra’s opinion—and takes a swing of something that smells like it has high percentile in it.

<Yeah.>

<What’s its name?>

<Haven’t gotten that far,> she admits.

Daemon looks at the kitten. The kitten is none the wiser, too busy licking the plate of and food remnants, and Lyra doesn’t like the glint in her father’s eye.

And she’s right.

Lyra says, aghast. Daemon pouts.

<Because—I’m not naming my cat Vodka!>

<I—Uh—> she jumps to her feet and looks around a little frantically for anything of help, until her gaze falls onto the simple cinnamon-sugar cookies on the table. <Snickerdoodle!>

<How’s that better than Vodka??> he demands. <You’re just naming him after the first next thing you see!>

<Well, at least his colouring matches Snickerdoodles! What reason do I have to name him Vodka?>

He opens his hands and nods sagely. <True that. So, no Vodka the Cat?>

<No. Snickerdoodle it is.>

Snickerdoodle doesn’t much care, too busy pushing the little ceramic plate around. Lyra swipes it up before the cat can push it over the edge.

<But you’re the one taking care of it,> Daemon warns.

<Sure, sure.>

○

Daemon, predictably, likes the cat as much as she does, if not more.

It’s just how that works.

○

Ancalagon seems fine with Snickerdoodle, too. Which is good, because Snickerdoodle ends up loving flying. For now, he has a cat-sized basket affixed on the saddle just for him with a little pillow inset, but the cat keeps growing like a weed and Lyra is waiting for him to reach his maximum size before adding a permanent cat station to her saddle.

But soon.

○

They do secure the alliance. It’s not really a tug of war, since nobody actually owns Stepstones, and they both benefit from it. It really was a matter of goodwill and reaching out first before the Triarchy—and Daemon not pissing off Qoren, and Laenor wooing Qoren, and them not bringing dragons at first as a sign of goodwill. The only dragon that came close to the Dornish delegation was Seasmoke, and that was only for Laenor to take him for a ride to the picnic spot and back.

Corlys looks like he just bit a lemon the entire way to the main camp; h’s not fond of having to share Stepstones with Dorne, even if it is the smarter option, and he especially doesn’t like how pleased Lyra is with herself, and how smug and proud Daemon is. He doesn’t seem to appreciate Laenor’s starstruck mooning either.

Though to be fair, if he continues to pine it may get really tiring really fast for everyone involved.

Soon enough, though, they’re back on their bullshit in Stepstones. Between he Velaryon fleet, the Dornish fleet, and three dragons, they’re done taking over the islands within a year. And between the Velaryon and Dornish fleets, they have a real chance of keeping them, this time.

Then Aemond is born, and it seems like Lyra is the only one who cares about it, because she’s friends with Alicent—or at least she thinks she is.

And then, before Lyra knows it, it’s 111AC.

○

It’s been two years since he had done that in the canon books. Now, it’s been two years later, and here, there’s not so much as an inkling that he would. So, she asks.

<Why?>

<Didn’t you say you’re fine with just your dragon, your sword and clothes on your back?> he asks with a wry grin.

<Exactly,> he sighs and turns to face her.

<Nonsense!>

He chuckles, presses his forehead against hers. <Sense, sense.>

○

“Did you read it, Otto?” Viserys asks, almost vibrating with excitement.

“Yes, I did,” Otto says, even though it feels like he has to force it past a bile in his throat.

The Velaryons—with Daemon’s aid—have managed to secure an alliance with Dorne. Potentially, the first real step towards allying with Dorne since the Conquest.

And it was done by Daemon and Corlys.

Otto tries to be politely happy about it, but inside he seethes. Daemon expanding his influence is never anything good, and this was never meant to happen. This shouldn’t have happened.

But Corlys Velaryon is a man brilliant enough to counter even Daemon’s wild tendencies. But Corlys Velaryon is a creature built from pride that not even his greed can match. It never has.

What changed?

○

Lyra turns thirteen. Daemon throws her a nice little party, brings a shipment of all kinds of things. Even Corlys splurges a little, which admittedly is rare. It’s because she pressed for the trade alliance with Dorne, he tells her, because it’s already started paying off. Predictably, he doesn’t like how smug it makes her.

Qoren visits from Dorne, brings some gifts. He stays for a polite amount of time and then drags Laenor off somewhere more private with a basket of food in hand, and that’s the last Lyra sees them that evening.

It’s fun, in the tents, with her father and a disgruntled Corlys, unpacking gifts others have sent her from wherever they are. With the knights and soldiers that she made friends with. There’s a lot of potato dishes, courtesy of the very same cook who saw her make the potato stew that first time.

Lyra tries to have fun. She really does.

But she can feel a familiar-odd kind of sensation at the bit of her stomach that she knows, and really, truly does not like.

○

She wakes up, just like she predicted, to nausea, fatigue, general discomfort, and a patch of blood between her legs. It’s still dark outside, and Daemon is snoring sprawled on the bed not too far from her. She takes a moment to curse her body, tries to stop herself from throwing something at someone, springs from the bed without a word and goes to find an adult woman, barely bothering to grab a jacket and shoes. People, whoever is up at this our anyway, step out of her way with concern and mild shock; her disgruntlement must be showing on her face, no doubt.

She finds some women in the kitchen tent, going about meal prep. She clears her throat.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” one of them says, “the breakfast isn’t ready yet—”

“I’m bleeding.”

“It’s—Oh. Oh! Yes, um, Tilda, manage for now, I’ll go help her ladyship a bit.”

She mostly just needed to figure out a replacement for pads and tampons. Soon, she’s going to have to stalk around for herbal remedies for pain, but for that her best bet would be a midwife.

The woman—Yvonne—is very helpful. Gives her a linen cloth, tells her how to use it, gives some tips and tricks. Lyra is very grateful, if curt, but Yvonne says nothing, just sends her off on her way and returns to the meal prep.

She comes back to her tent a little lighter, throws herself on the bed with something that’s between a groan and a snarl, and just lays there, face-down on the pillow.

<Little flame, everything okay?> Daemon asks sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

<Oh. Huh. Can I help?>

<Not unless you can find me someone to kill, no,> she says grumpily and makes herself a bit more comfortable. She has no clue if she’ll fall asleep anymore today, disgruntled, uncomfortable, and a little homicidal, but she tries.

<I’ll figure something out,> Daemon tells her, and she makes a sound of agreement, kicking the blanket onto her feet. Ultimately, he has to sit up and tuck her in.

She doesn’t really sleep, but she does rest a bit so there’s that.

○

Now, when Lyra told Daemon that morning to find her someone to kill, she was mostly joking.

And yet, here they are, at noon, on the outskirts of the camp, with Daemon looking entirely too pleased with himself, two nervous soldiers, and a bound triarchy pirate between them. And while Lyra has always felt homicidal on her period, she’s obviously never acted on it before.

But that was in a different world. And this was—

She makes grabby hands at Dark Sister, and Daemon unsheathes the longsword and hands it to her.

It’s quite heavy, and still too big for her, unwieldy in her hands unused to wielding anything bigger than a shortsword and an odd mace, but it’s lighter than it looks. Light enough to wield, and she can almost hear the steel sing a mesmerizing, haunted tune.

The pirate says something; taunts her and Daemon in Low Valyrian, something about children, cowards, and not being man enough to kill him himself. She looks at Daemon, and then back at the man, and takes a step forward. She raises the sword in both hands, presses the tip to the man’s neck. He tries to inch away, but the soldiers keep him in place.

<Meleys, lady of blood, bringer of life,> she says quietly, <accept this humble offering.>

And then she plunges Dark Sister diagonally into the man’s neck using her own weight and gravity to lead the blade, in one side, out the other, right through the heart if it’s where it’s supposed to be. Bright red blood gushes out of the artery offering him a quick but bloody death. Dark Sister goes through flesh and sinew like knife goes through butter, barely stops at bone and she only has to put more on her weight on it to keep going. Blood spurts out of the man’s neck and onto her hands, and an odd jolt runs through her spine, red mist rising from the blood and curling around her fingers before dispersing.

For a second, she feels like something—someone—is looming over her, bright red hair swaying in her periphery, red eyes looking down at her from an ethereal face. It smiles down at her.

[Thank you, child.]

Then, it’s gone.

She shivers, braces herself with a foot on the corpse and pulls Dark Sister free, losing her balance minutely, and only Daemon’s steadying hand across her shoulderblades prevents her from falling on her ass. It takes her good several seconds to process what’s wrong—or rather, what’s right.

The cramps are gone. So is the bloated feeling in her insides, and she catches herself just as the last bits of fatigue vanish. More; she’s starting to feel energized and refreshed.

She looks at her bloodied hands and the bloodied sword with wonder, and then at Daemon.

<Dad.>

<Yeah?>

<…what.>

○

She opens her eyes to an ocean above and star-shaped rocks floating about, and she’s not very surprised. She’s not even surprised that it’s not the typical culprits with her in the in-between this time.

Meleys sits before her, cross-legged and somewhat amused, with bright red hair and a crown of creamy horns, and slit-pupiled red eyes. She’s dressed much more casually than Balerion or Shrykos were, in something middle-class Valryians would wear daily for work rather than any sort of ceremonial robes. Her clothes are still embossed, of course, but not unreasonably so.

[It’s nice to finally meet you, Lyra,] Meleys says with a smile, and Lyra nods. [Congratulations on your first successful bout of blood magic. We can meet partly thanks to it.]

[Because it’s your domain?]

[That, too. I’m mostly just glad I finally get to talk to you. I’ve not been this involved in someone’s life in… Millennia, at this point.]

[How so? Enabling me to be born?]

[Yes. Rhea Royce, for her health, has a weak womb unable to sustain life. I had to be directly involved until you were born. And this is also why I wanted to meet. There are… Alterations, to your body, compared to regular Valyrians.]

Lyra turns to look at Meleys sharply, her full attention on the goddess. [Elaborate?]

[You’re a homunculus,] Meleys tells her simply, as if it’s not some sort of a huge revelation. [Artificial human with more dragon blood than average. In a literal way. This is what allows you to be this attuned to dragons.]

[…I’m assuming there’s drawbacks?]

[Of course,] Meleys agrees. [One of them is a fragile mental state, but that was mostly mitigated with your soul coming in pre-formed. Of course, you pay for that remembering your death, and with all your pre-existing issues carrying over… But it should be more than enough to avoid a repeat of Maegor.]

[Mae—He was artificially made too?!]

[Yes.]

[I fucking knew it! Did Visenya make him in a cauldron or something?]

Meleys chuckles. [As a matter of fact, she did. But we’re not here to talk about Maegor. There are also physical alterations you need to be aware. I’m here mostly to explain them to you. May we get to the point? My time with you is limited.]

[Shit, sorry. Yes, physical changes.]

[Long story short, you will be stronger and bigger than average, just like Maegor was, and effectively infertile. Even if you have your moon blood consistently, it will be incredibly difficult for you to conceive—and when you do, every single child from your womb will be a dragon chimera, and will be stillborn. No exceptions. They are a blood price Valyrians pay for their magic, and you’re more magic than most.]

[That does make a lot of sense,] Lyra agrees, not particularly concerned. She never had any children in her previous life, and she wasn’t really planning on having any in this. Now she at least knew she couldn’t, at all. But… [I’m still hearing a but in there anyway.]

[Women in Old Valyria were often met with this very problem, and so a blood ritual was created to circumvent the blood price—once,] Meleys says, rising a finger. [So if you ever find yourself in the position of needing or wanting an heir, the records of it should be somewhere. In the Lost City.]

[...lovely. With other blood magic, I’m assuming?]

[Yes.]

[Hm. So might as well grab it when I go for it, I guess?]

Meleys smiles and inclines her head. [In the interim, if you feel yourself drawn to the pleasures of flesh, Moon Tea should suffice.]

[Mmkay. And period cramps? Do I have to sacrifice someone every day? Because then I’ll run out of people really quick—]

[No, just one every cycle.]

[Okay good, was worried there for a second. Thanks for checking up on me, I guess?]

[No problem. I apologize for any trouble Shrykos and Balerion may have caused you, and the responsibility they placed on your shoulders.]

[It’s—Mostly fine. Thank you for taking your time to come and tell me all that stuff!]

Meleys shakes her head. [It’s merely something you should be aware of. Be prepared; you will be naturally more inclined to grow taller and stout than women do.]

[Oh. I like that!]

Meleys chuckles. [Typically, women would be aghast about that.]

[What about my situation is typical, really?]

[Very little,] Meleys inclines her head in agreement. The world around them ripples. [I wish you best of luck on your journey. This whole conspiracy… May very well be bigger than you think.]

[I—Wait, what does that mean??]

[I cannot tell you much, for it will know otherwise; it knows whenever we invoke it too closely, even whole reality planes away. And you… You just keep changing the world. Save the dragons. Give us a fighting chance.]

[Because that’s not concerning at all! Meleys—]

The world twists, shatters into a whirlpool.

Lyra’s eyes snap open as she jolts upright on the bed, hides her face in her hands. For a moment, she just breathes.

<Fuck. Thanks for the heads up, I guess.>

<Little flame?> Daemon looks up from some papers he’s been reviewing. She shakes her head.

<Ah. Okay.>

Ah. Okay.

She just told him she spoke with a real god and his reaction is Ah. Okay.

She laughs. <Ah, dad, never change. Love you.>

○

She grips the doorknob, pale fingers wrapped around the embossed metal. She’s shaking a little, she realizes, but—she wants to do this. She has to do this. If for no other reason than to see if she can.

Parchment crinkles under her fingers, and she reads the last passage of the letter one more time.

You can do it. You can do anything, in your position, if you only take that leap. You have power; more than you imagine. Try and find out for yourself. I believe in you, and you should believe in you, too.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Best wishes, Lyra.

She folds the letter, puts it under the cover of her book. Puts her hand back on the knob, and this time, turns it. She enters the room on silent feet, eyes sweeping over the miniature of a city long since lost.

“Husband, I wish to speak with you,” she says, and the pitiful creature that is Viserys lift his eyes up.

“Oh yes, Alicent, come in, come in, I want to show you something—”

She smiles her empty polite smile and sits down as he rants and raves about things that have been lost for centuries and will never be recovered, quiet and obedient, until he tires himself. Then, it’s her turn. Sweet, careful words, the undertone of worry, well-meaning all, on a topic that seems to press him the most these days. She brings him a solution to salvaging a crumbling relationship, magnanimous and regal and well-meaning, and not at all testing her influence over him.

And Viserys folds like a wet napkin.

○

<Lyra!> Daemon calls, running towards her. His eyes are wide and twinkling, and his cheeks are flushed. There’s an official-looking missive with a royal seal in his hand, fluttering as he runs. She can’t help but be confused—what on Fourteen’s good Planetos could have Viserys sent to make Daemon this happy?

<Uhhh… What’s up?>

<Look! Read it!> he says excitedly, pushing the parchment into her hands. It crinkles in her hands, but she reads it enough.

Something, something, by the Grace of King Viserys, First of His Name, the—

<—marriage of Prince Daemon Targaryen and Lady Rhea Royce of Runestone is hereby declared annulled,> she reads, and almost cannot believe the words she reads. She looks up at Daemon, who’s been hopping from foot to foot, hands shaking in excitement. <Holy shit dad. He did it. He actually—>

Lyra rubs her forehead. <This is probably his way of apologizing,> she says once the initial excitement wears off. <Of trying to mend your relationship.>

Daemon sighs. <Maybe.>

<Hm? Something wrong?>

<…and?>

<…fuck. You know what, fine. I owe her at least this much.>

○

“My Lady, your horse is ready for the trip—”

“Get it back to the stables,” Rhea says and sets the royal missive on the table, looking out the window. “And get me some wine.”

“Pardon? My Lady?”

“I’m finally free of those menaces, both of them,” she says, a grin growing on her lips with every word. “Postpone my trip, open the larders, call for a feast—I intend to celebrate.”

○

[Huh.]

[Something wrong, Balerion?]

[No, no, it’s just—Rhea Royce usually dies around this time. But she’s fine, with no indication of impending doom, and I’m a little confused, is all. That… Doesn’t happen. Either an unfortunate accident, Daemon, or one of her jealous relatives will always do the job.]

[Oh. What changed?]

[I don’t know, I’ll go to the tree and look back later. Anyway—you said you got some saplings from Tyraxes, didn’t you? Let me check if she didn’t slip you something poisonous.]

[It’s alright, you don’t have to! She wouldn’t hurt me.]

[Not on purpose, but she has no idea what could be harmful to human souls, past the obvious. I do, however, as I interact with mortal souls daily.]

[Oh. Okay, that does make sense. Thank you.]

[Anytime, Aemma.]

[Now put down those papers and drink your tea. Tallying souls can wait, they’re not going anywhere.]

[Yes, yes.]

#hotd #house of the dragon #hotd fanfic #hotd fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfic #house of the dragon fanfiction #targaryen oc #hotd oc #daemon targaryen #the cannibal dragon #laenor velaryon #corlys velaryon #the thing about dragons #ttad #isekai #reincarnation

14 notes · View notes

aboutdragons · 2 years

Text

the thing about dragons - chapter one

in which Lyra realizes it’s a fucking isekai.

◄○○○►

Dialogues in quotation marks are in Common Westron, in angle brackets in High Valyrian, in square brackets for other. Thoughts, emotions and emphasis are in italics.

Cross-posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43121373/chapters/108369012

◄○○○►

Read the Summary, Tags & Warnings as linked on the page to know what to expect.

warnings: (more) mentions of violent death (of the protagonist), canon-compliant violence, Daemon Targaryen as a POV character, blood, breaking and rearranging of the book-show timeline

wordcount: 10,089

Read the chapter under the cut.

◄○○○►

When they touch down for a rest stop and set up a small camp, it’s almost like just a normal camping trip with nothing pressing happening. They stop fairly away from any settlements, near to a road, by a small river that feeds into equally small lake, and set up a bonfire and a bedroll for the night. The only tent they need is Caraxes’ wing once he settles down.

They have rations, but they go fishing anyway, having discarded their shoes and rolled up their breeches. Daemon is quick enough to catch a nice-sized catfish with his bare hands. He’s a bit lost on what to do with it later—he always had someone else to prepare the game for him, after all—so Daelyra stabs the fish through the head and shows him how to gut it and then filet it.

Daelyra cocks her head. <I’m not sure. Someone taught me, though.>

The Internet.

The fuck’s Internet?

It’s almost as if they’re not on their way to the capital for Viserys’ coronation, and Daemon isn’t to be considered to be an heir in all but name until his brother manages to make a son.

But he won’t, though? All Viserys will do is bring them to easily avoidable ruin.

That man is a fool.

When the night falls, they lay down on the bedroll, Daelyra tucked in her customary spot under Daemon’s right arm, and they trace the constellations on the dark sky until Caraxes coils around their little campsite and puts his wing over them, shielding them from elements.

<Hey, dad.>

<Hmm?>

<…I suppose so? No, wait, I don’t think so. Not if I’m not even the official heir.>

Daelyra scrunches her nose. <Good. That sounds like a bother.>

Daemon laughs. <Don’t you want to be a princess?>

<No. Why would I? I want to be free to do whatever I want. Running a country would be the exact opposite of that.>

<Huh. I never thought of it that way.>

<There’s many things you don’t think about, dad.>

He pokes her in the side and she squeals, moving away. He knows she’s ticklish! He’s ticklish in the exact same spot! She pouts at him, and he laughs and presses his forehead to hers.

<It means that I packed your socks because you forgot,> she says, still pouting. <Again.>

○

They arrive in King’s Landing late afternoon next day; Caraxes caught a wind current that carried them gliding most of the way, greatly reducing the amount of actual flying he had to do past occasional flap of his massive wings to keep the altitude.

Daelyra says unhappily as they near the cesspit of a city. <Why can I smell it from here? The wind is blowing in the other direction!>

<Dad, I was three.>

<And?>

She rolls her eyes and elbows him in the ribs. <And three-year-olds don’t have much opinion on anything.>

<Well, I’m having plenty opinions, aren’t I?>

He laughs. <That you do!>

○

“What are you doing here?”

Daelyra looks up at Rhenyra—damn her age and height advantage—and blinks placidly at the very apparent unhappiness of the princess. Rhaenyra is being flanked by a servant and another girl, one in pretty blue dress with pretty chestnut hair that Daelyra doesn’t know. She’s taller than them both, lanky in a way only tweens really are when their body mass is yet to catch up to their rapidly growing bones; she’s all limbs, and she looks about twelve-ish. Older than both Targaryen girls, at least.

She’s eyeing Daelyra’s riding leathers with a degree of apprehension, in stark contrast to Rhaenyra’s obvious jealousy.

Alicent Hightower, her mind whispers. Must be.

“Why wouldn’t I be here?” she asks back, and where Daelyra didn’t falter, Rhaenyra does, loosing a bit of her bravado. “It’s my uncle’s coronation day, and my father will likely be named heir soon after.”

The girl-that-might-be-Alicent gently grabs Rhaenyra’s elbow. “Princess, that was very rude.”

Daelyra chuckles and turns to the maybe-Alicent, and greets her with a dignified dip. It’s the best she can do, as a noble lady of higher rank than the other girl. “Excuse my manners, I’ve spent last two days on dragonback. I’m Daelyra Targaryen, nice to meet you, my lady.”

Maybe-Alicent smiles at her appreciatively, her apprehension melting away. Daelyra might have grown in bumfuck nowhere, but she always felt like learning manners was important, and it was serving her well now. The older girl also dips down with much more grace, but also lower on her knees than Daelyra did; the lower the rank, the lower the dip, after all.

“Well met, my lady. I’m Alicent Hightower,” she says with a smile.

Ah, so the maybe-Alicent is Alicent. Rhaenyra huffs and rolls her eyes; Alicent elbows her. Knowing what Daelyra knows, the older girl likely has no taste for courtly manners either.

Daemon takes this moment to walk out of the Dragonpit, taking off his riding gloves. “Apologies for the delay, Caraxes wasn’t keen on nesting in this contraption.”

Rhaenyra’s eyes brighten and she runs up to her uncle, and Daelyra takes no small amount of glee in the fact that he looks at her first before interacting with her cousin. She only waves him away; as his daughter, she can spend time with him anytime she pleases. Rhaenyra, despite what she thinks, can’t. Daemon nods and turns to the older girl as she excitedly chitters at him about dragons.

Alicent sighs. “I can’t imagine travelling on a dragon.”

“It’s a lot like riding a horse,” Daelyra says with a shrug. “Just leagues above the ground. It’s windy and cold, but nothing beats the feeling. Or the speed.”

Alicent looks down at her—and it is a long way down, how is she so tall already?—but flinches, like everyone, when she meets her eyes, and looks away. Daelyra blinks and looks at the ground.

“I apologize, I spent two days with just my father and Caraxes,” she says as if it explains anything. To her it does; it’s hard to interact with prey after spending time with only fellow predators. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s alright,” Alicent says with a strained smile. “Rhae—The Princess does that sometimes, too. I was a little surprised, is all.”

Daelyra nods, though she’s not sure how her cousin can compare to a true dragon. Oh well, she was certain people would stop mistaking Rhaenyra’s stubbornness and lack of self-preservation for dragon instincts soon enough. At least Alicent didn’t chance Daemon first; Daelyra fears her heart would’ve stopped then and there. She at least still has the baby charm that makes her look halfway harmless. Daemon does not.

“Did you want to say something before?” she asks Alicent, and she startles a little.

“What—Oh, not really, no. Just, making small talk, is all.”

She nods and leaves it at that, and runs off to save her father from Rhaenyra. The look of utter fury on the older girl’s face when Daemon picks her up and turns his attention to her brings her joy, and she sees more than hears the snort Alicent lets out in the uptick of her lips and rise of her shoulders before the older girl composes herself again. Rhaenyra, bless her indignant nine-year-old self’s complete lack of situational awareness, notices nothing.

<Jealous, little flame?> Daemon teases, and it’s Daelyra’s turn to snort.

<There’s nothing to be jealous of, though?> she says with faux-innocence and he laughs.

he admits, and she shrugs.

<You’re my dad,> she tells him simply, as if it explains everything. To them at least, it does.

○

Daemon realizes that it’s the first time in moons, maybe even over a year, that he’s seeing Daelyra wear a dress. It’s a nice black one with their house crest embroidered at the right collarbone in red thread, the whole thing chased with gold thread. It’s Rhaenyra’s old dress she’s long since grown out of that Aemma found somewhere on the fly when they realized that Daelyra didn’t actually have a proper Targaryen dress for the coronation, and it fits her perfectly.

(Which is why they’re in Rhaenyra’s dressing room. Its opulent and there’s much too many clothes in both Daemon and Daelyra’s taste; all the items barely fit in one garderobe room.)

With the braids coiling about her hair that Daemon braided himself, she looks like a real Targaryen Princess. Though she isn’t one, or even wants to be one, it is nice to fit in with the family. Aemma certainly gave her an appreciative glance and then proceeded to try to wrangle Rhaenyra into a similar official getup.

While Daelyra merely grumbled and made unhappy faces about the dress, Rhaenyra threw a proper fit. She didn’t like this particular dress, the jewellery wasn’t shiny enough, and also why was Daelyra wearing her old dress? Ignore the fact she’d never fit into that dress again, that was hers. Daemon shot Aemma and her maids a commiserating look and the Queen-to-be didn’t even hide her jealousy looking at his well-behaved daughter.

As if to underline her point, Daelyra gives her aunt an absolutely angelic smile from where she’s kicking her legs in the air on a cushioned couch. Daemon snorts.

Privately, though, he’s beyond relieved. Daelyra may scrunch her nose and make noises of complaint, but he simply cannot imagine her throwing a fit like that. Spoiled as he’s raised her, she always knew how and when to behave.

Hells, sometimes she’d be the one to correct him instead.

As he’s thinking it, she hops of the couch and dusts her skirt.

<What’s wrong?>

<Aunt Aemma needs help,> is all she says before she trots over to Rhaenyra, no doubt to taunt her into behaving properly.

Well—as long as it works.

○

She very carefully never mentions anything about what feels like years and years’ worth of memories and mannerisms that guide her through life.

It gives her unfair advantage on top of already being a magical demi-human half-dragon royalty.

At the cost of remembering her—

What was that?

Cold steel in her lungs, blood, so much blood—

She rubs her eyes and goes about her days, and tries to ignore the burning in her lungs and the prickle at her neck.

She’ll be fine.

○

The coronation comes and goes. It drags; first the Septon drones on the blessings they don’t need—not their culture, not their faith, Daemon will never understand why his family bends backwards to accommodate for the Citadel, just raze the thing to the ground and be done with it—and the Lords keep kneeling and swearing fealty.

Daemon thinks back to what Daelyra said, and he can’t help but agree.

The whole performance is bothersome.

But Daemon is a good brother—he tries to be a good brother, for Viserys if no other reason, so he stays and tries not to step from foot to foot. Aemma sends him a commiserating look. She’s visibly pregnant again, so she neds to contend with additional weight.

Daemon can’t imagine it’s remotely pleasant. He lends her an arm when she sways, and she sends him a thankful smile. She’s his family, after all.

○

“Annul my marriage to Rhea Royce.”

Viserys stops, his fingers twitching above his head as he halts in reaching for his crown. He turns to Daemon, looking almost aghast.

“What?”

“You’re king now, so I’m asking you to annul my marriage. Here, I even wrote up an official petition.”

And he has, handing his brother a sheet of parchment. He ensured it looked and was worded officially.

Viserys gives him a look Daemon doesn’t know how to interpret.

“You have a child together.”

“Oh, I’m taking Daelyra.”

“You cannot deny a girl her mother—”

“But she hates Rhea! Rhea can’t even look at her either.”

Viserys takes a deep breath. Then: “no.”

“No?”

“No. It was grandmother’s will that bound you to Rhea, and the Royces are an old and powerful house. They will not be insulted like this, and neither be Good Queen Alysanne’s memory. And don’t bring it up again.”

It leaves sour taste in Daemon’s mouth.

Fuck the Good Queen, senile with age. Fuck Royces, the bane of his existence; they didn’t even have the decency to lean into their First Men roots, embracing the Andal filth wholly.

○

“Annul kepa’s marriage,” Daelyra tells him not even an hour later. Viserys almost trips where he’s walking to his chamber, and looks at the girl who seems to have sprouted from the ground. She’s since changed into clothes boys would wear and her hair was re-twined into two casual braids hanging down her back. She’s looking up at him with those big black eyes.

“What.”

Daelyra blinks up at him, eyes wide. “Kepa said you didn’t listen to him, so I’m trying. I really hate my mother. Pretty please uncle, annul kepa’s marriage?”

Viserys almost says yes on the spot, looking into those big wide eyes—she’s doing that on purpose, entirely on purpose, he’ll realize later—but catches himself last moment.

“Absolutely not! I already told Daemon as much and the matter is closed.” he says instead. “And you shouldn’t listen to your father!”

Daelyra cocks her head in confusion. He really wants to pinch her cheeks, but the downtick to her lip and the displeased crinkle to her eyes tells him that she will bite if he tries.

○

“Daemon, no means no. Don’t send your daughter to convince me.”

“What are you on about this time?”

“Daelyra asked me to annul your marriage.”

“She did? Huh. I need to bring her more treats later.”

“More—Don’t enable her, Daemon! Wait—You didn’t put her up to it?”

“No? I only told her you said no when she asked. I told you; she hates Rhea.”

“I doubt she even knows what annulment means!”

“She knows it means she won’t have to see Rhea ever again. I think that’s quite enough for her, brother. And I’m being serious. We’re both miserable in the Vale.”

“My decision is final, Daemon, and I told you why. Do not push or I’ll send you back off to your lady wife at the earliest convenience.”

“Tsk.”

“And who knows? Maybe you’ll eventually be blessed with another child. Wouldn’t Daelyra like a sibling?”

“I wouldn’t fuck Rhea again if you held me at sword-point. Or gave me all the realms to rule in return.”

“Your loss, Daemon.”

“It really, truly isn’t.”

○

Viserys doesn’t—Daemon isn’t sure what he doesn’t. Value him? Trust him? Want him around?

Point is; after graciously allowing Daemon and Daelyra to remain in King’s Landing, Viserys does little else. Daemon is… He is. He wanders about, doing nothing of consequence. He doesn’t quite mind, exactly, it helps him settle at the new place with Daelyra, and they both complain about the smell because it is horrid. He spends his time with Aemma and Rhaenyra and Rhaenyra’s little Hightower friend who seems afraid of him, he frequents the training grounds and at night when he can’t find any sleep—more and more often—he sneaks out to either Street of Silk or Fleabottom. Most nights he goes, he makes it back before sunrise and catches up on sleep a bit, some nights, he doesn’t.

Every morning he leaves, though, Daelyra has a bath and breakfast waiting for him.

Depending on how sober he is, and how many new cuts and bruises he carries, sometimes also a scolding.

She scolds him often.

He’s not sure how they ended up this way, his daughter effectively parenting him, but it is keeping him afloat and he clings to it. The nights he has no energy to go anywhere, he coils around her like a dragon around a treasure, and waits until her soft breaths lull him to sleep.

But the Viserys issue.

He understands his brother is busy but supposes that is also half the problem.

He should be busy too, with something. Anything. Being Heir, being the Hand—and if that’s asking to much, at least being part of Viserys’ ruling body. Being his brother’s confidant and support and most of all, his protector.

This is what he was born for. This is what their father raised him for, in no uncertain terms told him that. When Baelor would be king and Viserys the heir, Daemon was to be his shield and guard and retainer—

Except Baelor was never king. And Daemon was sold off to the Vale the moment he reached adulthood. And he wasn’t even sure he knew his brother anymore. If he were honest, he hasn’t known his brother for years, now; he was a dragon once, just like Daemon, but—Balerion’s death defanged him, smothered all that fire that Daemon loved his brother for so fiercely, made him soft and round and complacent.

Made him so utterly, uselessly, disgustingly human.

And it was a tragedy, yes, but… But dragons bond to new riders after their old one passes. His mother’s Meleys was with cousin Rhaenys now, Caraxes used to be his uncle Aemon’s dragon. There were dragons available to try to bond, and many eggs turned to stone but some were viable still.

Viserys simply refused to even try.

And now Daemon was listless and angry and hollow because nothing was as it was supposed to be, because he was supposed to be at his brother’s side, helping him with anything that needed help, and he was not.

It left him confused and blindsided

Father said—

Father—

Father’s dead.

○

Instead, Viserys keeps the Hightower cunt as his Hand. Daemon doesn’t like him much.

○

Viserys names him Master of Coin. It’s—something.

Viserys also knows Daemon loathes numbers, especially repetitive and at that scale of calculations. Daemon still tries, does his best, really, because finally, finally his brother entrusted him with something and it almost makes him sob.

He falls asleep at the desk, the numbers blurring together and making his head heavy as the weeks of sleepless nights, alcohol, fights and whores catch up to him.

He wakes up tucked in bed with Daelyra in her customary spot under his right arm.

When he reaches the desk, the accounts are all sorted, labelled, and a spare page of parchment with all the tallied numbers at the top of the stack, with a little note at the bottom.

It reads: ‘I know you hate numbers more than me. You can copy it, or throw it away and do it all over yourself.’

That’s Daelyra’s handwriting, careful big letters written by small hands unused to a quill just yet.

This time, he’s the one to wake her up with breakfast, and takes her to fly on Caraxes after presenting Viserys with the tallied accounts. The Hightower cunt is displeased that there’s no mistakes in the ledgers to complain about.

○

He meets a woman in Flea Bottom, Mysaria. She’s a bit of a special case, he realizes quickly; she catches his attention, which is rather easy to do, because she’s pretty.

She manages to keep it, which, for a whore from Flea Bottom is nearly impossible, because of her shrewdness and wit.

Sometimes he goes to her just to talk but pays for her time all the same.

She seems to know everything that’s going on in the bowels of the city.

○

The elation of having something to do for Viserys is short-lived. Books and keeping of records are not what Daemon was made for; he’s meant for action, not sitting slouched over a desk mulling over numbers for hours. Alas, he bites his teeth and does the work assigned to him.

Daelyra, as always, makes it all the more bearable with her presence and help, but she also stopped him whenever he wanted to use the treasury funds for something more fun. Viserys was fond of his tourneys, balls and feats, and often hosted them, so why couldn’t Daemon have some fun?

He wasn’t even going to spend it all on whores! Just some. Less than half.

More importantly than the whores, though, he was more interested in finding a good blacksmith and pouring some gold in his hands—Daelyra was nearing her sixth name day, and it was about time she got some proper blades of her own, after all.

○

Daelyra never really had a mother from what Aemma gathered from the not-quite-quelled not-quite feud between her husband and her good-brother, with the girl somewhat caught in the middle. After all, if Daelyra was one of the staunchest supporters of annulment of Daemon’s marriage, she couldn’t be too close with Rhea Royce.

Aemma asked her, out of concern. She knew that Daemon largely did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it, so it was not impossible that he merely set his daughter against his wife.

The confession she got from Daelyra instead almost had her march and scream at Viserys for not agreeing to annul the marriage instead. Sadly, she knew her husband, and while he could be decisive and stubborn, he usually was at the worst possible times. She couldn’t free Daelyra (and Daemon) from Rhea, but she could at least offer the girl some motherly guidance. Gods knew Daemon had the girl wearing breeches most of the time and hacking the straw dummies until she couldn’t hold the wooden sword anymore some days. She did seem to quite enjoy it, but young lady needed to know how to behave; especially a lady of this high standing, especially at court.

And when Rhaenyra spent time with Alicent, or kept harassing Viserys or, more often these days, Daemon about all things dragon, Aemma would sit with Daelyra and read fairy stories with her, and remember better times, when Viserys wasn’t king, or this obsessed with having a son, and Rhaenyra wasn’t quite so wilful.

○

It was the second time she chose to give up on having a remotely acceptable mother figure.

But Aemma—Aemma is a near thing, she decides. She fills in where her father simply can’t, ties ribbons in her hair and gives her dresses to try and sits with her in the Godswood weaving flower crowns.

This is a dead woman walking.

○

“A spendthrift?!”

Daemon cannot believe what he’s hearing. Otto—that Hightower cunt—is claiming he’s a spendthrift and cannot be trusted with money, and Viserys is looking at him with disappointment. After Daemon sat for hours every day making sure the money flowed properly through the castle and to all the feasts and balls and the tourney Viserys was organizing—

“You spend the treasure money on whores and dealing with the scum of the lower streets,” the Hightower cunt continues. “They call you Lord Flea Bottom.”

Daemon grits his teeth and clenches his fists.

“I am not blowing through the treasury,” he snarls, looking straight at the man. The cunt starts to look uncomfortable, and nervously looks to Dark Sister where she rests propped against the table. “I am only using what is allotted to me, and nothing more.”

“You’re the one allotting the money,” the cunt says smugly. Daemon considers killing him anyway, then and there.

“Otto brought reports to my attention,” Viserys says and Daemon’s eyes snap to him.

“Reports?”

“Of the finances. There are some worrying trends there.”

“Show me those reports—”

He’ll fucking see for himself what the problem is about, and then he’ll fix it—

“There will be no need,” Viserys says, and looks at him with disappointment. It’s enough to make Daemon still. “They’re proof enough. I’m relieving you of your position as Master of Coin and reinstating Lord Beesbury, effective immediately.”

Daemon slams his fists on the table, and leaves before he does something Viserys will deeply regret. His throat is constricting, a scratching heat clawing at his lungs and the back of his neck and he feels as if he might just breathe fire himself. He notices the self-satisfied smirk on the Hightower cunt, and almost turns around to cut him down, but decides against it.

He never sees those reports in the end.

○

He barges in on Daelyra’s lesson. The septa sends him a nasty look, but his daughter brightens up from her bored-to-tears look when she sees him. It helps that hot-ugly-clawing something settle when she runs into his arms and he picks her up. It’s the warmth, the trust, and the smell that always carries a note of ash and brimstone, he thinks.

<Let’s go flying,> he says when he thinks he can trust his voice, but it still comes out as enough of a snarl for the septa to recoil.

<Okay. But you’re telling me what happened!>

“My Prince, the Lady—”

“This lesson is over,” Daemon tells the woman, and she flinches again. Looking at their books, Daelyra’s been learning about the Faith of the Seven. It puts a bad taste in his mouth, but she insisted she needs to know the enemy, and who was he to deny her?

“I need a different septa,” Daelyra says instead. “Nothing wrong with Bredgit but the way she teaches things is so boring I can’t focus at all and I need to read everything all over anyway if I want to learn anything! Like—all she does is just read things back at me! I can do that myself! And faster!”

Bredgit, who’s still standing by the desk, colours and ugly shade of puce. Daemon laughs.

“I’ll find you a better one.”

○

Viserys makes him the Master of Laws.

But what of it, when Otto Cunttower blocks him every time he tries to do anything on that front?

He’s too bloodthirsty. He’s too vicious, too violent, to cruel with his laws.

How dare he make the same laws that apply to smallfolk apply to the highborn.

This time he quits himself.

Cunttower smirks when he does, and this time Daemon punches him.

○

Feeling my way through the darkness

Guided by a beating heart

I can't tell where the journey will end

But I know where to start

They tell me I'm too young to understand

They say I'm caught up in a dream

Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes

Well that's fine by me

○

She stands on stars and ocean ripples above her, and she can hear a distant yet haunting whalesong.

Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t see. The air presses against her unpleasantly, her lungs burn as if she’s drowning, green flames lick at her feet—

[You—]

She wakes up gasping.

Her lungs burn. It’s a familiar pain.

Cold steel in your chest, blood, so much blood—

This is a curse gift.

Arms wrap around her, and Daemon pulls her into his lap as he sits up, and—

Cold steel in lungs, blood pooling under, the cold, you’re—

Oh, right, she’s hyperventilating.

He speaks to her in a low sleep-laden voice and keeps his hand between her shoulder blades. She doesn’t understand a word he says and doesn’t remember anything she said. It feels important, this dream she keeps chasing. Stars under her feet, ocean above her head, cold steel burning her lungs.

It feels like she shouldn’t.

She feels wrung out when she calms down, too tired to move but unable to fall asleep, and Daemon doesn’t seem in a hurry to sleep either. Instead, he gets them both dressed and takes a horse to the Dragonpit.

She feels cold, like all the blood left her body, and Daemon is shaking ever so slightly when he carries her, but he refuses to let go. His warmth would be enough, but he’s cold to, and his heart has yet to calm as he holds her ever so tighter when they ride on horseback in the middle of the night.

They curl up against Caraxes’ flank bundled in furs and blankets, in silence that’s almost comfortable. By the first light, Lyra’s warm again, and her father’s heart has calmed.

Wait, has she ever shortened her name before—?

○

It stirs in the dark where it made its home, this thing of shadow and bone and violence.

Soon, it thinks. Soon I will be complete.

But not just yet.

No. Not just yet.

It waited so long. This, in comparison, is nothing.

○

<…>

<Don’t make that face.>

<But—>

<I… I don’t know. But I it wasn’t. It feels like… It feels like a memory.>

<That’s even more impossible.>

He holds her close and doesn’t let go, and when his hands grip her and press her tightly against his chest, the dread fails to.

○

[Are you certain she can handle it?]

[She must.]

[With that reaction?]

[It was too early—it still might be. We must believe that she’ll be able to handle it.]

[Again with your faith, Shrykos! I’m starting to get sick of it.]

[…she will remember it all, and it will break or make her. We can only watch, and hope.]

[There’s a reason not even the souls in the Afterworld remember how they died—!]

[And what can we do about it?]

[…if the Freehold hasn’t blown itself up, we could have—]

[If the Freehold didn’t blow itself up, we wouldn’t be desperately grasping at straws to be able to stand against Them. But the Freehold was fundamentally flawed.]

[Valyrians are fundamentally flawed. Both too human and too inhuman at once, and finding that perfect balance is damn near impossible—]

[You know what I mean, Balerion. A civilization built on slavery and blood magic was doomed to fall the moment it was established. No matter how much we artificially extended its lifespan, no matter how much we aided it…]

[We should have just let it die when it first started unravelling, you know. Nobody needs city-sized dragons and legions of artificial beastfolk.]

[But we can only say that with certainty because of hindsight, can’t we?]

[Sadly.]

○

“You were supposed to go see Syrax with me today!” Rhaenyra screeches and stops her foot. She’s already kilted out in her riding leathers, and has found particular offense to Daemon, who only now managed to make his way back to the Red Keep. Daelyra is still in his arms, and she feels smaller than ever, and neither of them is in much of a hurry to let go.

Viserys and Aemma are there too to see her off in the morning, both barely awake, but Aemma notices the absolute state they’re both in first.

“Daemon, what happened?” she asks concerned and takes a step forward.

Danger, Daemon’s mind screams and he takes a step back, a growl bubbling at the back of his throat. Aemma stops and looks at him with confusion and a bit of fear. Viserys looks between the two and ever so slowly, his eyes clear of sleep and widen with the realization. When Rhaenyra, unbothered by the growl, makes to stomp over to Daemon anyway, Viserys grabs her by the shoulder and pulls her back, maybe a tad too harshly.

“Father?!”

Viserys kneels down next to her. “I know your uncle promised to take you flying today, but you’ll need to postpone it.”

“What? No! He promised! We’re going flying, now!”

Aemma and Viserys seem to have a whole conversation over the top of their daughter’s head, and then Aemma puts her hand on Rhaenyra’s shoulder too.

“I’m sorry darling, but Daemon is very tired now,” she says. Rhaenyra looks at her with a grimace, and then at Daemon—no, at Daelyra. She stomps her foot again.

“He promised! Uncle, you promised!”

“Adults break promises,” Daemon tells her curtly. Viserys flinches at the tone, and because Daemon looks right at him, as if he means something else.

Rhaenyra’s lip wobbles and tears well in her eyes. Daemon pushes past them.

Viserys calls after him, maybe in concern, but it falls on deaf ears.

○

So wake me up when it's all over

When I'm wiser and I'm older

All this time I was finding myself, and I

Didn't know I was lost

○

“You haven’t visited here in a long time, my prince,” Mysaria says a bit breathless once he’s done with her. He merely hums, reclining on the bed of the semi-private room.

“My daughter has been having nightmares recently,” he says, and Mysaria looks at him curiously.

“The Lady Daelyra?”

“Mhm.”

“…I never really took you for a family man, you know?” she says and sits up. Daemon scoffs.

“She’s a bit special,” he says. “She’s not as needy as other children her age, she understands that sometimes, I just have to go have some fun before I turn violent.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. Daemon coughs.

“She was very upset I beat up a guard to a pulp once, in Runestone. I had no idea a four-year-old could look this deeply disappointed. She stepped on a stool, grabbed my face and—”

“And?” Mysaria prompts, small indulgent smile on her lips as Daemon collects his words.

“She—She scolded me! She just—I got scolded by a four-year-old child for beating up her mean guard!”

Mysaria laughs at him, well and truly laughs. “Oh, I can’t believe this, the great Rogue Prince bested by his tiny child. I’d pay to see that.”

“I don’t recall paying you to laugh at me,” Daemon bites back, and she only shakes her head and sits up.

“You pay me for my time,” she says with a shrug. “Though I must admit, it’s quite endearing when you talk about your daughter. Your eyes get a lot brighter.”

“Hm.”

“Though I wonder, if you are such a great father and she’s been having bad nights, why are you here tonight?”

“She went to bother Aemma tonight.”

“The queen?”

“Mhm.”

“Oh my. She truly does whatever she pleases, doesn’t she?”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“I think I’d like to meet her.”

“Hmm, maybe someday. And certainly not here.”

○

Third time, as Lyra is fond of saying, is the charm. It seems to hold true. After the fiascos that was putting him in the position of Master of Coin and then Master of Laws, Viserys finally, finally gives Daemon a position that he knows he will do well in.

It’s not as close to his brother as he’d like to be, but it’s something. It’s better than anything so far before, because this time, he can actually make change. He can act, instead of sitting in his chair pooling over papers and ledgers.

Lyra, too, says that being the Commander of the City Watch will suit him just fine.

He’s not sure when her approval started to take precedence over Viserys’. No matter.

The issue is, the City Watch is…

“An utter dumpsterfire,” Lyra says, her tiny hand in his as she looks critically at the sorry state of the barracks, the mess, the damage, the lack of equipment. “Quite disgraceful, at that. Who was the Commander before you again? And where did all the funding go?”

Good questions. Daemon remembers allocating the funding to the Watch himself some scarce moons ago when he was Master of Coin. Initially he really did think they were merely underfunded. The money he allocated them should have been more than enough.

This? This was so much worse than underfunding. Someone was stealing the money, there was no other explaination.

He looks down at Lyra. Lyra looks up at him.

“Good luck,” she says. “You have a lot of work before you.”

“I am aware. But it will be worth it. I will make Gods-forsaken city a safe—er, place.”

She pats his elbow, because it’s about as high as she can reach. “I believe in you.”

He smiles. “I know.”

She kicks him in the shin. “You’re supposed to say ‘thanks’, not ‘I know’!”

“I know,” he says like the menace he is, shit-eating grin on his face. She kicks him again, even though he can’t even feel it. Damn her six-year-old body.

○

He’s tall, a little gangly still in a way still-growing teenage boys usually are, with a mop of fluffy brown hair on his head and dustings of a beard of his chin, dressed in what passes for the City Watch armour.

She almost calls him Jace, but not quite. That’s Luke’s hair.

Wait, who the fuck are Jace and Luke?

“I’m Harwin Strong, princess.”

He gives her an exaggerated bow and she laughs. She likes him, she thinks.

“I’m not a princess,” she corrects him. “Just a lady, and that’s bothersome plenty enough.”

He laughs at that.

○

He finds the morons who were stealing from the City Watch first. He’s swift and merciless; thievery is losing a hand, no matter if they’re lords and knights. Law is law.

But they blew all the money, and all that he managed to get back were measly leftovers, so he persuades Lord Beesbury to give him some more funding to make up for what was stolen.

(“This is harassment,” Lyra says with a sigh and shakes her hand, but still helps him draft the documents and tally up exactly how much capital he’ll need to start. “Make sure you don’t give Beesbury a coronary at least, he’s getting there in years.”

He presses his forehead against hers, and even thanks Lord Beesbury later, when his project gets approved.)

First order of business is new armour and weapons, and before long the City Watch is once more properly outfitted. Now they can actually do their jobs, instead of standing awkwardly at corners, pretending their swords and maces and axes aren’t falling apart in their holsters. Still, something, he feels, is missing.

“Give them cloaks,” Lyra says one day when they’re in the barracks. She has bullied employed one of the younger Watchmen to be her pony and is now comfortably sitting on his shoulders, following Daemon around the place. He’d carry her himself, but he needs his hands at the moment.

“Cloaks?” he asks, and she nods, fingers laced on the top of young man’s head. Harwin, Daemon thinks is his name; he looks a lot like Lord Strong, the new Master of Laws. It might be the son he’s been talking about; Daemon remembers him mention the boy was joining City Guard. Barely a man grown, a gangly still but already tall and fit, and likely still growing. A little goofy but honest, and Daemon had no doubt he’ll soon grow into a very fine man.

He didn’t miss how Lyra zoned in on him either, picking him over all the others, and it was more than enough to get the boy Daemon’s attention in turn.

“Yeah. Dye them gold, maybe darken the armour they wear if you can.”

He blinks at her. This—this is a good idea, actually. He’d probably come up with it himself in few days’ time, but that way the can have a head-start at actually implementing it. The guards need standout uniforms anyway, and addition of the cloaks will easily be that. If he standardizes the colour of the armour, too, it will make for a fine, uniform organization that could be easily told apart from the Red Keep guards, mercenaries, and random lordling knights loitering about.

He reaches up—damn, the Strong boy is tall, almost taller than him—and pats Lyra’s head.

“Good idea.”

She smiles. “I know!”

Daemon makes a face. “Now you’re just being petty.”

Her smile turns into a smirk. “I know.”

He squishes her cheeks. Harwin, bless him, actually bends down on his knees to make it easier for Daemon. He finds he already likes him, even when Lyra cries ‘traitor!’ in offense.

○

I tried carrying the weight of the world

But I only have two hands

Hope I get the chance to travel the world

But I don't have any plans

Wish that I could stay forever this young

Not afraid to close my eyes

Life's a game made for everyone

And love is a prize

○

Static in the darkness, like an old radio you didn’t quite turn off.

[…ra, you mu…ake up—!]

Glint of steel aimed at her, wild bloodshot eyes.

Her own fucking kitchen knife. How dare he.

Pain. Cold. Eventually, nothing.

He ruined his life with it, at the very least.

○

She died, didn’t she.

And yet—

wake up

w̸a̴k̶e̸ ̵u̵p̶

W̵A̴K̴E̴ ̴U̸P̷

—she wakes up.

○

Her name was Lyra Clark, thirty-two years old at the time. She had her own flat, an okay-paying job, and a hobby for music she hoped to eventually turn into a career. Rascal, the cat she had since she was eleven years, passed away two months prior, two weeks after turning twenty-one.

And when she was grieving for her best friend, Warren Slater, her boyfriend of then-eight-months finally crossed the line for the last time, so she broke up with him and kicked him out; he had been shifty about his job and income ever since she let him move in, after all, and she wasn’t willing to support him, especially when his comments started to get unpleasantly snippy.

You’re too tall. Too muscular. I don’t like your piercings.

Why is your makeup so dark.

You should remove your tattoos, not get more.

When will you stop fucking around with that guitar.

Why can’t you be more feminine. Wear a dress for once.

She kept him because he was pretty, but when his mouth turned foul not even his sparkling eyes and pouty lips could stop her from showing him the door.

He kept calling, insisting that it was all am misunderstanding, saying he was sorry and can she please take him back. She didn’t.

One week, two, a month—

And just when the blessed silence finally reigned, she came back from work to find him in her kitchen. There was an argument, a screaming match, really, him trying to guilt her into taking him back. She was just about to grab him by the throat and throw him onto the hallway—

There was a knife on the counter. She didn’t put it there, she always kept tidy, so the only explanation was that he prepared it. Put it within his reach.

Premeditated fucker.

Forty-three stabs, she thinks hysterically. She counted.

Forty-three premeditated stabs, and while she wouldn’t have much problems overpowering him otherwise, a knife to the lungs really does knock the wind out of you.

She dies, not quite upset about it but not quite happy about it either. She just met a nice and interested girl at the club yesterday and got her number and wondered if that’d go anywhere. But with Rascal gone and her not being on speaking terms with her parents, and her lack of closer friends… She wasn’t that upset about it. She was only really upset about not being able to do music anymore.

She found glee in the fact that Warren wouldn’t be getting out of it. Her next-door-neighbour was full-on renovating his flat, he and his workers wouldn’t miss Warren. They probably noticed the yelling and the scuffle, too. Someone might’ve gone to check up on her, and she’s a little sorry for the traumatizing sight.

She died, she figures, the way she lived—not terribly upset about it, but far from happy about it, her energy drained from her by someone else.

○

The world, it seems, wasn’t quite as done with her as she was with it, though.

○

Remembering your death in high definition is a decidedly unpleasant sensation, Lyra decides as she opens her eyes to gaze at—

The ocean?

She sits up startled and looks around frantically, and this is not her room, not her bed, Daemon is nowhere to be found, here is—

She’s standing among konpeitō-shaped glowing pebbles of multiple colours ranging in size from smaller than her nail to as big as her fist, her bare feet on the veritable sea of silky glittering sand the colour of the night sky. Wherever she turns around, she’s met with trees at every side, crystal and bent and far enough away that it would take a longer trek to reach them. Pink glow of the half-hidden sun glows above the trees.

And above her head…

Ocean ripples, water moving naturally as if it weren’t hanging impossibly upside down, taunting her. She thinks she hears a whale sing, but she can’t see any.

Her hands are translucent, so are her feet.

[Hello, Lyra.]

She turns to the side, and then looks up, and up, and up—there, higher than anyone had any business being, two red eyes were peering down at her. Dark eyelashes, cheekbones that could cut glass, glossy black hair, straight and reaching almost to the hips; black-and-red robes, the whole design brought together with silver jewellery in a style that was oddly familiar to her. Vaguely historically East-Asian in cut, but she can’t for shit actually place it geographically—those are ceremonial Valyrian robes, she realizes. Figures; Valyria was on Planetos, not Earth, and it was its own thing.

Human, almost, if not for the black scales on his cheekbones, nose and forehead, vanishing into the hairline or transitioning into black, bony horns curving back, crowning him, and the long, black, ridged tail swishing lazily in the sand. The claws, the slit pupils, black veins on pallid skin, black lips and eyelids.

And the fact that he’s inhumanly tall. Over nine feet, in her estimate. Maybe closer to ten, she has to crane her neck to look at him.

[Do I know you?] she asks though she doesn’t know the language, she doesn’t know if they’re even speaking at all. It feels more like they’re sharing thoughts.

He smiles, his impossible perfect features—doll-like, almost, she’s pretty sure she’s seen a ball-jointed-doll looking like that once, the expensive kind—softening with it.

[I wouldn’t say you know me, exactly,] he allows with a dip of his head. [We never truly met until now.]

She narrows her eyes at him. [You know my name. I don’t know yours, though.]

[You do. I am Balerion,] he says easily. Lyra blinks at him.

And sure, he did carry the exact coloration that Balerion-the-Dragon was said to have, black scales chased with red, glowing red eyes, curving horns of black bone, a perfect mixture of human and dragon, but—but as far as Lyra’s concerned, dragons cannot shapeshift, and Balerion-the-Dragon is dead.

But there is another Balerion, one that her father told her about, back in Runestone, curled under Caraxes’ wing.

[You’re the Valyrian God of Death,] she says, a little awed. [You’re… Tall.]

[Well, maybe you’re just very short?] he asks, and his smile takes on a cocky edge. Lyra grabs the first next konpeitō-shaped glowing rock and chucks it at the god. He merely ducks away with a chuckle.

[I am normal height, thank you very much!]

She’s about to say something more, but there’s a chime and suddenly another dragonoid faceplants into the stary sand, right next to Lyra. This one is mostly pale gold and platinum, their skin a hueless coal-black in stark contrast to Balerion’s creamy porcelain. They get up, dust their white robes off, and look at Lyra; their eyes are glowing orange, like coals aglow in the fireplace, and their skin is littered with golden cracks.

They’re also infuriatingly tall, and with obvious dragon features.

[You actually made it!] they say and brighten up, and Lyra instinctively takes a step back. Their colouring is friendlier than Balerion, but their edges are sharper. Ridged horns, longer claws.

[Um.]

Balerion grabs the newcomer by the scruff and dusts them off. [Peace. I know you’re ecstatic but you’re overwhelming her.]

They blink at him, and sigh. [Right, yes, that’s… Ahem. I am Shrykos, and it’s really nice to finally meet you!]

Lyra blinks up at them, searching her memory. This is definitely one of the fourteen flames, but it takes her few seconds to come up with the domain; beginnings and endings, transitions, doorways. Passages of all kind, really.

[Likewise,] she says a little awkwardly. It’s mostly their height, she realizes, as they loom above her. She’s—

Oh yeah, she’s back in her original form, but her standing at almost six feet is still nothing when she doesn’t even reach Balerion’s elbow.

[Can you guys crouch down,] she asks them as she puts her hands on the hips. They look between themselves and chuckle, but they actually do. Shrykos gets on their knees and sits on the heels of their feet in a proper seiza, and Balerion, the utter fucking madlad, does a slav squat. A proper one, with his feet fully on the ground. It’s surreal. But they are on eye-level with her now.

[Better?] he asks.

[Yes, thank you.]

Awkward silence reigns as they both look at her and she tries to make sense of it all.

And it’s not that hard to make sense of it. She does have all the pieces, after all. She died, and yet she lives, in another world. Balerion is the God of Death, Shrykos is the God of—well, all kinds of transitions, really.

The conclusion writes itself. She died, dimension-hopped, and was born again, and it’s their doing.

[I’m reincarnated as a Targaryen and I don’t even have a dragon,] she says, breaking the silence, and she absolutely does not sulk. [It’s your doing, isn’t it? It makes too much sense for it not to be. Is that why we’re all here now? To—talk it out? My… Well, whyever I’m alive again?]

[Oh thank fuck you can think,] Shrykos says with obvious relief and Lyra startles a little at their wording. [This makes this whole undertaking a whole lot easier.]

[The—uh—Thanks? But also, now that I, you know, remember stuff, it’s a simple conclusion.]

Balerion sighs and pokes Shrykos’ cheek. [Truth to be told, we did not choose you to be reborn. We may be gods, but no power is unlimited, and dragging a whole intact soul through dimensions is no small feat. We could only do it once, and it was impossible to choose. All we could do was cast a net, and hope for the best.]

[That’s… Awfully irresponsible.]

[We know,] Shrykos says with a sigh. [But we were running out of options.]

[Running out of options? Wait, this—Wait. Is this some—That—Is this not your first timeline doing this?]

They exchange looks. Balerion shrugs, Shrykos sighs again, despondently this time.

[No,] Balerion says. [But that is irrelevant. Though your existence disrupted our ability to foresee certain events, as you or anyone like you has existed prior. I am, however, starting to think that it is exactly what we have needed.]

Lyra shrugs and nods. [Fair enough.]

[We did need to ask Meleys for help, though,] Shrykos says with a shudder. [She was very upset with us.]

Meleys. Her domains, Lyra thinks, are motherhood and general reproduction. That does make sense, if they needed a baby to shove a soul into. She’s not very interested in the mechanics of her reincarnation, though; she gets to live again and she doesn’t need to know how.

She would like to know why, though. So, she asks: [Why did you need someone?] She thinks for a moment. The most obvious thing she would be born in time to fuck with would be— [Do you need me to stop the Dance?]

[Close, but no,] Balerion says, and she startles. That is not what she was expecting. [No, we don’t care much for humans and their little civil wars, we don’t even need a Targaryen on the throne, that was all Aegon’s fancy. We don’t care where they are or what are they doing, as long as there are those carrying enough of Valyrian blood still. We need—]

[Dragons,] Lyra breathes, because that’s the next best thing. [You want me to save the dragons from extinction.]

[—precisely,] Balerion agrees, unbothered by the interruption. [We don’t care much for how you will achieve it either, stop the civil war if you feel like it or spearhead it yourself, Hells, grab the crown yourself if you want it; do whatever. It doesn’t matter as long as dragons survive this pivotal moment and thrive after. That is all we need.]

[And if I fail?]

[Two centuries into the future, this world ends.]

[Gee, no pressure, huh?] she groans and rubs her eyes. [You know, for someone set to save dragons, I’m awfully dragonless myself.]

[Yet,] Shrykos chirps. [He’s waiting for you, though.]

She blinks up at them, as Balerion elbows them in the ribs.

[No spoilers?] she asks with a crooked smile.

[No spoilers,] Balerion says with a small smirk. [I want to see your reaction.]

Lyra has a sassy comeback on the tip of her tongue, but the world around them ripples, the konpeitō-stars blinking wildly and the ocean above growing violent as the whole dreamscape bleeds color.

[Our time is almost up,] Shrykos says as their fingertips start fading into gold dust. [We won’t be able to meet anytime soon, between this and bringing you here, what was left of out power is mostly gone.]

[And last important advice before you go, then?]

[Old Valyria,] Balerion says immediately. [Knowledge lost there would be a great boon to you, though it is optional. Be very careful if you do go there, though; that place is an absolute death trap.]

[Don’t trust any gods you haven’t personally met,] Shrykos chirps with a smile. [And trust their followers even less.]

[Organized religion is cancer, I know,] she chuckles as the dreamscape shakes harder. [Tell Meleys I said thank you. Daemon is a pretty good father, really.]

[And trust your judgement!]

[You don’t know me, Shrykos. I may be a dumbass.]

[Yes, but you do have a degree of hindsight, and a much differing outlook on life,] Balerion interjects. [If you want to pull this off, you will need to think outside the box in the way only someone in your situation can. Trust yourself.]

She takes a deep breath, and nods. The dreamscape swims and blurs at the edges, vanishing into glitter.

[Best of luck!] Shrykos says—yells—and it sounds distant, now. They’re almost gone, and so is Balerion.

[We’ll be seeing you sometime in the future,] Balerion says with a nod.

She waves at them as everything turns into static, and then nothing, save for one indignant thought;

It’s a fucking isekai.

○

So wake me up when it's all over

When I'm wiser and I'm older

All this time I was finding myself, and I

Didn't know I was lost

I didn't know I was lost.

○

She wakes up.

That fucker, Warren, stabbed her in the chest forty-three times and she died. She remembers exactly how it felt, cold steel in her lungs, and she will have to live with that knowledge forever. It is a price she will be paying forever, because—

Because she wakes up.

She died and yet she’s here, breathing, alive, warm, though elsewhere. Six years old and impossibly alive, and finally developed enough to recover enough memory to be aware of what actually happened.

There are gaps of course, there are things she doesn’t remember, can’t, maybe won’t. Memories she lost to defence mechanisms that she doesn’t even want back.

But she’s alive all the same, in another world, a Targaryen at the eve of the Dance of Dragons, and—she’s read the books once, and watched the show then it was coming out, and she barely remembers anything from it. Fuck.

She’s always been more of a Tolkien girl to get her fantasy fix, after all.

She rolls onto Daemon’s chest with a groan, using the familiar warmth to ground herself as memories settle, and one conversation she had in a dream stands out. And isn’t that crazy that Daemon Targaryen, the Rogue Prince, is the person she relies on the most? The person she unironically trusts with her life?

He’s an asshole. A villain, chaotic evil, or at least selfish—but she doesn’t for a second, even with the new-old memories, doubt his love for her. That is a bone-deep kind of certainty. He’s the best parent she’s ever had in either life and though the bar isn’t very high, he’s trying his best, and she’s finding that his best is not really bad at all. He’s not, by any means, the best father to ever live, but—he’s good. Attentive, supportive, nurturing, uncharacteristically patient for himself.

He's a good parent, plain and simple, she knows it, especially with hindsight of what her parents used to be a lifetime ago—she cut contact with them for a reason, after all.

Hell, even Rhea was passable in comparison to them, since all she did was severely neglect Lyra out of fear of their Targaryen-ness and dislike for Daemon.

She grabs the book he was reading to her, some tales, and throws it haphazardly on the nightstand. It was on his chest; he must have fallen asleep before putting it down. Daemon startles awake, takes a deep breath, blinks a little, looks at her. His hair is braided loosely and over his shoulder, and he’s wearing that soft cotton shirt she likes to cuddle into.

<What’s wrong, little flame?> he asks her, voice heavily laden with sleep, and she sighs dramatically.

<Oh. Okay.>

And just like that he rolls onto his side and gathers her in his arms and presses her against his chest, the softness of his shirt and the heat of his body and the steady beat of his heart so calming and familiar that she starts dozing off immediately.

The best part, she thinks, is that Daemon is still himself. He’s still violent, vicious, and exceedingly selfish. He still kills for fun and frequents whorehouses and threatens anyone he can get away with threatening, and flies around on Caraxes and occasionally feeds people to him. But he also reads her bedtime stories and braids her hair and carries her around and gives the best hugs and kisses her forehead and spends the whole night awake with her if she’s unwell.

He still, without complaint, cradles her in his arms when the sleep won’t come or dreams haunt her, and runs his hand through her hair as a quiet purr rumbles from his chest, and she doesn’t think she’s ever felt safer, or warmer, or more content.

This side of his, this softness—it’s hers, and hers alone, she knows. It’s her most precious treasure, just like she is his.

<Dad?>

<Yes, little flame?>

She presses her forehead against his collarbone.

And she might be small and six years old, and she might be alive all over again and she might remember her first death and there is and will me trauma there, she just knows it, and this might be a fucking isekai in another world she barely remembers the plot of, but—

His voice is smooth and quiet, barely above a whisper, but there’s a certainty in these words. A promise. A belonging, to somewhere, with someone, freely given. She thinks she should feel bitter that it took her dying to find what she should have always had, but she doesn’t care. Past matters little, save for the knowledge it grants her. Past is the road she’s already walked, a teacher of lessons of life, and this is now, and she’s thankful that she gets to have this in the end.

Enough to be glad to have died for it, even.

Because this, she thinks, this is enough. This is home.

#hotd #house of the dragon #fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfic #original targaryen character #targaryen oc #isekai #reincarnation #daemon targaryen #harwin strong #ttad #the thing about dragons

8 notes · View notes