#writery things

[veloursdor]

so, ao3 is down and i'm back at writing fslseaes

[vivilove-jonsa]

This is the highest praise I could receive as an author imo because no book has ever stopped me from eating😅

[agirlandherquill]

writecamp

welcome one and all to this sunny, summery affair! this post is to hereby invite writers to a not-so-little game commencing June 1st - rules to follow - till the end of Summer, August 31st - i know, this challenge is going to be a LOT and a long one, but i for one absolutely cannot wait!

now you may be asking, what is this game and what are the rules? well, dear writer, the purpose of the game is simple - for writecamp, all you have to do is pick a prompt from a given list and compose something with it, prompts could be a word, a trope, a place, a feeling, anything at all, it all depends on the day (if you took part in writemas, you'll be fairly familiar with how it all works :) ) and as for the rules, well, this author sincerely hopes they are as equally simple to follow: if you accept the challenge, be sure to share your responses, share the game with friends, family, anybody you'd like, and that's it, utilise the prompt from the challenge, share your work, and tag me in your responses!

and now for the important part: how is the game going to work?

each day of summer, starting June 1st, i will post the writecamp daily challenge - containing all sorts or prompts to stir the imagination pot

the game is open to all, and if you join late, no problem! just embrace the writery spirit of summer and play along! (you don't have to complete every day's challenge, but whatever you do, always be proud of yourself!)

bonus part (completely optional, but lovely if you choose to do it) - alongside your challenge entries, make sure to find a blog on writeblr, a writer you admire or one you've only just found, and pay them a compliment! (something so small but so, so important <3)

and since this post is an invitation to everyone out there on writeblr, in order to participate and be notified of the challenge posts when they go live, all you have to do is interact with this post and you're on the tag list!

any questions, let me know, and happy writing!

~ A Girl and Her Quill

~ ~ ~

tag list time! open tag as always too!

@the-ellia-west @willtheweaver @tildeathiwillwrite @drchenquill @365runesofthesystem

@coffin-hopping @godsmostfuckedupgoblin @a-mimsy-borogove @frostedlemonwriter @i-do-anything-but-write

@r-u-living @thatuselesshuman @lead-to-code @sunflowerrosy @theaistired

@phoenixradiant @autism-purgatory @corinneglass @tiredpapergirl @patheticexcuseforawriter

@missmisanthrope @littlestchildofthemoon @morganxduinn @thebrownleathernotebook @rmhashauthor

@lamuradex @fantasy-things-and-such @glasshouses-and-stones @hattonthehatman @humbly-a-doppelganger

@ramwritblr @s-pendragon7 @thelastneuron @heartreactor @ihauntmyhouse

@shiningstars-world @scaewolf @just-emis-blog @joeys-piano @ramitola

@yrndrgn @riveriafalll @lawrencespen1777 @theverumproject @zackprincebooks

@justjariel @orion-lacroix @jupiter---daydreams @vinniehorrible @stars-forever

@thewritingautisticat @whatwewrotepodcast @anaisbebe @appleandsnow @urnumber1star

@chaotictravelerrants @andagii-projects @dragmewithyoutonirvana @a-bi-cat-with-books @fearofahumanplanet

@just-a-domesticated-cryptid @attemptingwriter @kitkins13 @ray-writes-n-shit

@theonewholivesinthemovies @rheas-chaos-motivation @bookwormclover @sunflowerrosy @seastarblue

@aalinaaaaaa

[cowgurrrl]

This Time Around

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader

Author’s note: I wasn’t gonna write anything for Joel’s birthday and then I took a shower and got all writery about it

Summary: “I’ll cry about this earth in heaven too.” — Marina Tsvetaeva, from Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917-1922; “A Hero of Labor” aka a different September 26th [1.2k]

Warnings: grief (what’s new), talks of Outbreak Day, June being way too deep for tumblr dot gov

When your brain is done wading through the skeletons and sparks of rage from your past, Joel's breathing is the first thing you hear. You can tell he's awake. His breaths are just a little too close together for it to result from his circadian rhythm. You stretch to bring real feeling back into your body, replacing the weight of a gun in your hands with Joel's soft skin. When you blink your eyes open, the sun is barely peeking in through the curtains and reflecting off his graying strands. He looks beautiful. You smile and kiss his jaw, your hand resting on his cheek to keep him from scrambling away.

"Hi." He says, his voice fatigued, and rests a hand on your thigh.

"Hey," you say. "D'you get any sleep?"

"No." He swallows thickly, and you nod. He dreads his birthday every year. Seeing the date on the calendar makes him relive his final day with Sarah. He turns the events over and over again in his head like he's looking for an alternate outcome where he, Sarah, and Tommy make it out safely and together. Like if he stares at the anniversary hard enough, he can will it to change. In the few years since you've come to Jackson, he's been open to doing some things to celebrate his birthday, mostly to appease Ellie, but he always picks up a shift to keep his mind off it. However, Ed took over his patrol shift this year without asking him. When Joel interrogated him about it, he said, "Ain't no sense in leavin' your family if you don't have to."

Ed doesn't know the exact details of what you and Joel endured that night, but he can guess. It's probably similar to what he went through with his wife before she died. The rumor is that he was at work, and she was already gone by the time he made it home. Infected broke in the house, and there was nothing she could do to protect herself. It's why he's always taking shifts so others can go be with their families or friends. It's a thoughtful gesture, but the suddenly empty day made Joel anxious and quiet, something Charlie immediately noticed. You told her Daddy's birthday makes him sad sometimes, but can't find the words to explain what happened that night. Twenty years later and there's still no coherent way to talk about everything you lost in the blink of an eye.

It's still early. Charlie is still asleep. Ellie's offer to take care of her for the day still stands. You don't bombard him with questions about what he wants to do or what you should do today. There's no right way to mourn the way of life the world collectively lost and celebrate your husband simultaneously. You play with the messy curls at the nape of his neck and take a deep breath.

"We don't have to do anything. We can just… lay here. Pretend the world's not there. Whatever you want," you mumble. "I just want you to know I'm really happy you were born today." He doesn't say anything, but his jaw flexes, and you catch the tears sparkling in his eyes.

When Charlie wakes up, he puts on a brave face and offers to make her pancakes, pretending like today is just another day. Ellie, Dina, and JJ come over around lunchtime, and Ellie hides the tiny framed picture she drew of Joel holding JJ, yellow sunbeams lighting their faces like cherubs. It's rare that she uses color in her drawings. Then again, it's rare that Joel lets anyone acknowledge his birthday. It's special.

Tommy, Maria, and Camille come over, too, and the kids play in the backyard while the adults sit on the back porch with lemonade and a little bit of celebratory whiskey Tommy brought. You listen to the brothers exchange stories about growing up in Texas and their parents, something they never talk about, and laugh a little too hard at a story of a seventeen-year-old Joel getting caught climbing out of some cheerleader's window by her dad. At one point, Camille and Charlie climb the porch with a toddling JJ not far behind and a bouquet of wildflowers clutched in each tiny fist. Joel takes a shaky breath as he accepts the little beautiful things from the beautiful little girls. You can almost hear his thoughts running wild with accusations of not deserving the flowers, the girls, his family, and his life, and you put a hand on his arm to silence them.

"Thank you, honey." He manages to get out before pressing a kiss to each of their heads. Just like that, the kids are off again to run around and play silly made-up games together. There's a heavy moment of silence on the porch where no one knows exactly what to say. You raise your eyebrows at Joel, wordlessly offering him an out, and he shakes his head.

"Joel?" Dina finally speaks up, and he turns to look at her. "What was it like? Y'know… before?" She asks. Ellie turns her head to mumble something dismissive, but Joel stops her. To pretend like today isn't full of sadness and anger and regret is to strip it of its full meaning. Joel takes a breath as you squeeze his arm. The kids are giggling together in the grass, and the air is cool. You can smell the earth and the last batch of wildflowers pushing through the soil before it gets cold. There's not a cloud in the sky, the endless blue stretching out over the mountains and hills of Jackson. He smiles as the kids fall down after playing an aggressively fast game of Ring Around the Posie and finally looks back at Dina.

"Was a lot like this," he says. "Scary and dangerous and sad but… happy," you smile as he nods like he's just realizing this himself. "Even with all the shit, we were so goddamn happy."

"Sounds nice," Dina says.

"It was," he turns to look at you. "It is."

That night, after everyone has gone home or fallen asleep on your couch (Ellie and Charlie), Joel walks outside and stands under the stars. You don't follow him, but you watch him through the kitchen window. His head is tipped back, and he's searching the night sky for something. You remember looking up at the same sky twenty years ago with blood pouring out of your arm and Jane sleeping on your chest and wondering if life would ever be okay again. You didn't know your future husband was hundreds of miles away, wondering the same thing. You didn't know your second daughter would lose her mother under the same night sky six short years later. You'll never know how the earth keeps spinning despite the grief weighing it down or how the night sky looks the same no matter who was killed or born under it.

What you do know is that when Joel comes in with cold hands and tear-stained cheeks, you'll be there to hold him. You'll cry and grieve together in the kitchen you rebuilt for your family. You'll hold his hand the whole way up the stairs, tell him you love him, and fall asleep once his breathing evens out. You know you'll dance this dance and sing this song for as long as it takes for September 26th to feel a little bit less painful. It may take the rest of your life to achieve, but there are far worse things to fall victim to.

TAGLIST: @abbyhaslongshorts @kiwiharrykiwi @sumsworldz @myloveistoolittle @anavatazes @marantha

[uh-oh-kinky]

I wanted to make an updated introduction post since it's been a hot minute. So here's that, welcome to my blog. Here to make friends and maybe do sessions. My name’s William, I’m amab non-binary (he/they). I’m 26, and I work as a professional writer while I'm studying to become a nurse! Tall dorky alty writery somethingelsery boi. I also have a random assortment of other hobbies like doing nothing with my partner all night reading, d&d, video games, youtube, origami, and just like generally whatever art I find interesting or fun(bigbig horror fan), plants, animals, any and all kinds of art, being outside.  Idk if some of those count as hobbies, moreso “interests” I suppose.   Feel free to reach out and talk to me! I’m generally friendly even to mean people (and that has totally never been a problem in my life hahaha).  I’m happy to chat about things from kinks to random interests we have.  I usually like to get to know people a lil before any flirty/sexual talk and I also am in a committed relationship.  I might not always have the mental energy to respond but I’ll do my best!  Asks are always open too, should you be so inclined. My weird little blog feels a myriad of silly kinks that my silly little brain likes: Tickling(crazy I know) General BDSM nonesense Being a silly little guy Feet I suck at making lists help Body worship CNC Oh and I’ve posted videos of my hands before?  If that counts?? This blog, weird as it may in fact be, is a safe space.  So, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t be a hateful shithead.  Accept all body types, support the lgbtq+ community, don’t be racist--all that good stuff that should really go without saying. Understand that while intense scenarios may be depicted on this blog on occasion, consent is key in all play, and people who don’t respect the boundaries of others are not welcome here.  On that note... Sometimes I follow aesthetic blogs that I like as a buffer between the endless sexualized content on my feed because I am in fact not a robot who is constantly all about his kink lol.  But if you saw a weird blog follow you, that’s why! If you’re uncomfortable with seeing anything on this blog, feel free to remove me!  I won’t be offended whatsoever, prioritize your mental healthy and safety besties <3 even if it’s hard sometimes.  Also minors DNI, obviously. Thank you to @tickle-ghost for the template.

[aibidil]

helping kids not hate math

my kids come from a mathy family (3/4 of their grandparents are math teachers, dad majored in math things, even i—the creative writery one—completed more than half a math major (ahem, adhd)), but they’re also dyslexic and dyslexics often struggle with learning math facts (especially memorization of multiplication facts) and the elementary school math of computation.

My mom (one of the math teachers of the fam) has always complained about parents who commiserate with their kids about hating math (“Oh, I’m bad at math too.” “Oh, there’s no hope for you! Look how bad i am at it!”) because she thinks of it as giving their kids an excuse not to try, and fostering a fixed mindset (i.e. “this is genetic so nothing i do can possibly change the fact that I’m bad at this!”) I think she’s right, but i think there’s another important thing for parents to do when kids are in elementary school, which is to explain that elementary school math is nothing like math once you get through the boring algorithms of computation and get into real math math!

My partner and I would always tell the story of how dad (applied math major and statistician) failed his timed multiplication quizzes and got caught cheating (with a multiplication table) in third grade. “Yep, I hated that part, too. But that’s not really math. That’s just something school makes you do to learn how to do number computations.”

One of our kids absolutely rebelled against all computation algorithms (like how to do long division) because he couldn’t deal with being told what to do and how to do it. He even got a diagnosis of “specific learning disability in math.” He didn’t want to do anything that didn’t make sense to him, and the way elementary teachers teach math often fails to show how the algorithms they’re teaching (“now bring down the 2…”) actually make sense, or why they work.* And this just doesn’t mesh with the way his brain works. So when he was frustrated by this, we’d try to show him why they work, but we’d also just reiterate that this isn’t what math is once you’re in more advanced levels.

I really think this is so important because it allowed him to keep thinking of himself as “good at math” (in terms of number sense and mathematical thinking) even as he struggled with math class and assignments in school! Which means that now, at 14, he’s finally through the elementary school marathon of learning computational math and now he loves math, thinks it’s all “easy,” and everyone in his class knows him as someone who excels at math. It’s amazing, and I keep thinking of how much we could’ve fucked him over when he was young if we had nurtured narratives like “Oh well, you’re just bad at math!” instead of explaining that math is going to change and he should forget about the hard annoying memorization stuff at school and keep learning about number things that interested him.

It’s also worth noting that this is related to why so many bright girls excel in math at young ages and then crash out of it when math stops being about computation and starts being about math math. Bright girls tend to do really well in elementary school math because we are good at (socialized to) following the teacher’s instructions and method. But when that’s all math is in elementary school, bright girls tend not to have the experience of finding math hard, so we don’t build up resilience about it. Then when math gets hard (suddenly it’s no longer enough to be good at computation and following the teacher’s algorithms) at 13 or 14 or 15, we flail and feel completely wrong-footed—we have no practice in struggling with math. And at that point, we look around at our wider culture and see all the messages coming back at us telling us that yeah, math is for nerdy boys. When the reality is, those boys tend to have struggled with math when they were younger, for lots of reasons, so they aren’t as thrown by the change when math gets less computational and more abstract.

Anyway! All this to say: how you talk about math and numbers and math class to kids is really important! And it’s not that hard to get it right, I promise. You can even commiserate about it while also reinforcing the growth mindset (“yeah this part sucks, but don’t worry—it’s going to change! Did you know Albert Einstein struggled in elementary school?”). You can listen to their frustration without denying it (“You aren’t bad at math. You struggle with this part, which is following an algorithm/memorizing facts/etc. Yeah…it’s hard! I didn’t like that part either.”)

(* This is the very thing that the “new math” of the common core is trying to address in the US. Whenever you see a parent frustrated about their kids math homework because they don’t understand it, chances are it’s because of assignments that are trying to nurture number sense and understanding rather than only focusing on computational algorithms. I don’t know enough about the common core curriculum to really judge, but I know that’s at least what it’s trying to do.)

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

Hey merry! I just made the switch to bluesky and was wondering if you’re over there?

I am!! I keep meaning to post about it and then forgetting, actually 😅

I've been using it more as a writery-thing than a nonsense-thing, and you can find me here!!

Also for anyone wanting to keep up with book stuff or my terrible and sort of tragic attempts at marketing, you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok too 💖

[aboutdragons]

the thing about dragons - chapter six

in which Viserys continues being the family disappointment.

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

Now with a Discord server! Come join me at Marq's Assorted Writery: discord.gg/WQ7mNwk

◄○○○►

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

warnings: Daemon Targaryen, Otto Hightower, Viserys Targaryen, allusions to statutory SA, blood magic, small children doing small children things

wordcount: 10,862

Read the chapter under the cut.  

Daemon kills Crabfeeder, as a treat. Just because, really; Viserys doesn’t send any letters about sending reinforcements that send him into a rage, because between three dragons and Dornish allies, Daemon and Corlys are doing fine. More than fine, even. And the last time Viserys tried to interfere more significantly, Lyra did what she did and he didn’t seem to be over it even years after, still reeling from the fact that real world did not, in fact, work the way he expected it to. Of course, Lyra held no illusions that the issue actually taught Viserys anything, but his current careful distance was appreciated, whether it stemmed from genuine understanding or confusion over people not reacting exactly the way he wanted them to.

Still, when Daemon comes back covered head-to-toe in blood infected with grayscale, Lyra all but throws him in a vat of near-boiling soapy water and doesn’t let him out until she deems him acceptably clean of the infected blood, and then has his wounds and nicks disinfected for good measure.

Thanks to their dragon blood, Targaryens were less prone to getting sick than regular people and more prone to recover quickly, but Daemon’s aunt Maegelle died two years before Lyra was born of this very affliction, and Lyra wasn’t taking any chances if she could help it. And sure, Maegelle didn’t have a dragon boosting her physical health through the bond, but Maegelle also caught the disease through simply caring for the sick; Daemon likely got infected blood in open wounds, and with a line this direct Lyra was taking no chances. Even if he bitched about the soap and pure alcohol stinging.

She even saves his hair form the blood and grime taking to staining the white all too eagerly, and sure some of it is beyond saving and has to go, but more than enough is left to weave into Valyrian braids, gold clasps and whalebone pins Lyra carved herself included.

It’s the victory one, and Daemon preens. Both for what it signifies, and because Lyra can braid it exactly the way it’s supposed to be. But then again, she learned from the best.

(Ancalagon liked his diet whale-rich, and Lyra oftentimes had more whalebone than she knew what to do with; she wore no corsets or petticoats, and even if she did, she could only get so many made before it got ridiculous. Instead, she sold the whalebone to Corlys for mostly-cheap, as people on Driftmark could always use some. She liked having pocket money, and the way Corlys looked at her warily impressed was equal parts amusing and insulting. Was the bar really so low?)

But all good things have to come to an end eventually, and the War for the Stepstones does too, a little over three years early. Not with Daemon’s return upon the news of his wife’s death, but with the Triarchy being chased out by the combined might of the Velaryon and Dornish fleets and three grown dragons.

Rhea Royce isn’t even dead, and now that the divorce has taken effect Lyra hopes she lives a good, long life. She has no hard feelings for the woman; she just doesn’t want to see her again, and she knows her sentiments are much returned.

Or maybe she was just used to her first set of parents being openly disdainful of her instead of politely disinterested unless startled. The kind where she actively cut contact the moment she no longer depended on them for basic survival.

○

King’s Landing stinks as it stank when she first arrived here years ago for Viserys’ coronation, with rot of garbage and human waste alike. It’s horrid, and even with Jaehaerys’ work on the waterways they only ever benefitted the rich and privileged in the upper town, leaving the smallfolk to wade in their own filth because the Conqueror couldn’t have gotten a functioning city built to save his life, and his sons were certainly more interested in being an utter failure and a tyrannical fuckup respectively.

They land just outside the city, on the plains, Ancalagon and Caraxes both. Ancalagon would neither fit in the Dragonpit—and Lyra would never make him go there besides, to be chained in a cell too-small even for a dragon half his size instead of being able to at least burrow his own hole in a cliffside somewhere—nor would Lyra want him in such close proximity to other dragons, all of them smaller than him. That was just inviting trouble. Daemon doesn’t want to leave her to wander the city by herself, of course, and there’s little issue leaving Caraxes outside as well. He and Ancalagon at least won’t try to kill each other. They’ll likely roost somewhere on the cliff-face of Blackwater Bay, under the Red Keep.

By the time they get off their dragons and get all their things off their dragons, and it takes several trips on both ends, there’s a simple carriage waiting for them at the gate, flanked by Gold Cloaks. She sees Harwin first, with a well-groomed beard doing nothing to hide his grin, and the last of the baby fat gone since she last seen him. He’s filled out, she can see, lanky gait gone. Corren is a little harder to spot, his ginger mop hidden under the guard helmet, but she knows what to look for. The rest of them are less-familiar faces but she recognizes them still as having seen them in passing at least, and Daemon greets each like an old friend, with a clap on the back and by name.

He made them what they are now, and they are loyal to him even now. Will be still, nearly twenty years from now when Viserys’ short-sighted decisions catch up to everyone but him after he dies and leaves an utter clusterfuck of a succession crisis in his wake that would have been so easy to fix for him either which way, if he wasn’t a fool blinded to reality by the world he wanted to see.

Lyra can already feel the noose tightening around her neck, and it’s shaped an awful lot like her uncle’s hands.

○

They get to Red Keep without all that much fanfare past the excitement Ancalagon’s presence generates, and Daemon doesn’t do the whole song and dance with swearing allegiance to Viserys. He’s no King of the Narrow Sea this time around, and he’s not looking for his brother’s approval that much either. Not anymore, at least.

They reconcile anyway, a hug, a kiss to the cheek, a promise of good behaviour that everyone but Viserys knows Daemon won’t keep for long.

His wilful ignorance is a comfortable one sometimes but it makes Lyra seethe all the same, because this very wilful ignorance that serves them well right now is one of the major causes of the Dance less than twenty years from now.

If only he gave enough a shit to raise Rhaenyra’s popularity; if only he had her educated to rule; if only he put his foot down in the matter of securing a politically useful marriage for her, or at the very least a husband that would somewhat uphold her. If only he opened his fucking eyes and did something, anything, instead of saying a thing and closing his eyes pretending that made it real, no actual elbow grease necessary.

If only she could tell Viserys about the future, if only she could steer him towards a better ending without the very real and very terrifying risk of everything going so much worse through his meddling, and causing new disasters she couldn’t see and prepare for.

If only, if only, if only.

The only thing she can trust Viserys to do is to make everything worse, as always. He has claimed to love Aemma after all, and he had her butchered alive anyway. He doesn’t give half a shit about Alicent in comparison, or her children, and Lyra is certainly not willing to risk whatever Viserys would do with the knowledge she has and his absolute conviction that Rhaenyra will be queen just because he says so, without actually preparing her to rule.

(This can only end in disaster. Even if she assumes rule peacefully, she won’t know what to do if nobody teaches her. And nobody can teach her how to rule the country except the gods-damned king.)

She gives her best close-lipped smile as she claps and congratulates her king of an uncle and his wayward brother of her father on their reconciliation, though she doesn’t mean a word of it.

They only just got back, after all. Give them a few months before they make themselves unpalatable enough to Viserys’ sensibilities to have to leave. Unless Viserys does something so supremely stupid that they have to hoof it before then, of course.

He’s bound to do something stupid enough to piss them off himself sometime; he always does. But until then she smiles and curtsies and pointedly ignores the jabs the courtiers make about her wearing pants and looking like a boy, as if it’s a moral failing on Daemon’s part and she didn’t just spend several years in a warzone where court-appropriate dresses were a little hard to come by.

○

Alicent is awkward when they meet in person; a little startled, a little worried, and barely twenty this year. Thinner, her hair duller and her eyes have aged at least twenty years in the span of the past six; she doesn’t look particularly healthy, though she doesn’t look unhealthy either. There’s little happiness in those aged eyes, and her fingers are scabbed over in places, clearly picked at.

They run into each other half by chance and half by design on the hallway. Lyra has been on her way to do just that.

It’s a little startling to realize that they’re on eye-level now, though, because Lyra is thirteen and in the middle of a growth spurt that’s doing numbers on her bones and rapidly shrinking her clothing selection, and Alicent is now an adult done growing.

Before she left, after Aemma’s death, they were at best passing associates; her cousin’s best friend, exchanging greetings when they ran into each other as was polite, and little else, and Lyra barely reached Alicent’s bony elbows with the top of her head.

“Hi,” Lyra says with a small wave.

“Hello,” Alicent says and takes a breath, straightens her spine, folds her hands daintily in front; a posture more befitting of queen. It suits her. “I see you have returned from Stepstones. It gladdens me to see you well.”

Lyra smiles. “I am glad to see you as well,” she says. “Though you do look tired.”

Alicent sighs, a little self-consciously. “I… Am, somewhat,” she admits. “It is, they tell me, the lot of all mothers of young babes. Scarcely time to rest.”

There’s something in her voice, a tinge of displeasure at having young babes at all, that Lyra catches before it’s gone. She can’t blame Alicent for it at all, even if she knows this resentment will cause issues for her children down the line, too; a vicious cycle of abuse and neglect, begotten from a rape of a child.

No wonder Alicent’s children would turn out fucked up if she’s already like this, and between Viserys who can’t give half a fuck and Otto who does nothing but scheme for power and Rhaenyra who refuses to understand, she doesn’t really have anybody.

“I can’t tell, I’ve not been around small children… At all, really,” Lyra says, a little awkwardly. “They’re hardly the company I keep.”

“You will eventually,” Alicent says with a small smile. “They are tiring, but they are a blessing.”

She’s clearly trying to sell it to Lyra now, as she’s been taught by the society to. To soften the blow to her friend, no doubt; it comes from a kind place.

Still, Lyra wants to say that it’s beyond unlikely to happen. Her manufactured homunculus body is incapable of growing life, after all. Not without copious amounts of blood magic, and only once in its entire lifetime.

Instead she just shrugs. “We shall see,” she says. “First I’ll need to find someone crazy enough to withstand both myself and my father, and comely enough so that my father doesn’t cut him down for sport.”

Alicent gives a startled giggle. “Oh dear. He would, wouldn’t he?”

“He killed for far less.”

Alicent opens her mouth to say something, but they’re interrupted by a maid. Alicent, apparently, was on her way to the nursery; when Lyra held her up, the maids got worried, and came to fetch her.

Lyra catches the minute grimace Alicent makes. Split-second decision later, she’s opening her mouth.

“I can go with you, if you don’t mind,” she says quickly. “I’ve not yet met my younger cousins, after all.”

Alicent smiles. “In that case, let us hurry.”

○

It’s only when Lyra enters the nursery that she realizes she may have miscalculated a little.

Or a lot, actually.

Truth is, Lyra was never overly good with children, or all that comfortable with them, in either life. And so, when tiny Helaena in a puffy yellow dress toddles to her and latches onto her leg with zero warning, all Lyra really knows to do is freeze up, and look around panicked for help.

Alicent, some friend she is, laughs at her and makes no move to help at all, whatever sort of help Lyra hopes for; unlatch the toddler, ideally. Because those things are loud, and slobbery, and fragile, and she has no idea what to do.

Helaena reaches her grubby arms up and hops a little against her leg, and for a moment all Lyra does is just stare. The toddler is entirely undeterred, though; and eventually, slowly and carefully, Lyra bends down, puts her hands under Helaena’s arms, picks up the child, and examines the creature.

She’s not very heavy, for how chubby she looks, but she already has a worrying number of toddler-sharp teeth she’s undoubtedly plotting to put on nearest unidentified object, which just so happens to be Lyra herself right now. Helaena is certainly already making grabby hands at Lyra’s braids, barred from painful tugs by the distance alone.

“That is new,” Alicent says, amazement in her voice.

“What is?” Lyra asks, momentarily distracted. Helaena uses the momentary distraction as Lyra bends her elbows and, finally able to reach, grabs one of her braids and tugs on it as hard as a toddler can. “Fucking ow—! Ow, no, bad toddler, let go—”

Alicent lets out a startled giggle as Lyra grabs under Helaena’s legs with one hand for support and tries to unlatch the grabby hands finger by finger from her braids with the other, with only some success.

“Helaena hates being touched,” Alicent admits. “Will more often than not cry when approached at all. Certainly, she has never approached anyone herself before, not to my knowledge.”

Lyra looks at the giggling menace and narrows her eyes a little. Helaena only beams in answer, violet eyes twinkling, as if grabbing a scowling teenager by the hair is the best thing ever.

For a toddler, it might just be.

“Skill issue,” Lyra says and brings Helaena to her chest, hoisting her up and putting one hand on her back for support, like she does with Snickerdoodle. It doesn’t turn on any waterworks, so she figures it is as good a method as any.

Still, she’d much rather be holding an actual cat right now. A cat wouldn’t hold her hair hostage. Maybe gnaw on it, but not try to rip braids out of her skull.

“Skill—what?”

Lyra only grins at Alicent’s questioning look.

They talk some more after that, about everything and nothing and benign fun little things, and it’s not bad; except Alicent lulls Lyra into a false sense of security, and next thing Lyra knows more small children are being put in her immediate vicinity.

And Aemond, though he has less teeth than Helaena, is significantly keener on using them, much to Aegon’s unrestrained giggles as Lyra yelps and locks her elbow in place as she fights the urge to swing her arm and shake the cause of hurt off it very, very hard.

Getting him off, when he clearly means to bite to blood and refuses to latch off, is more difficult than it should be. Snickerdoodle would never be this problematic.

She takes everything back; she hates it here.

○

Daemon finds them eventually, sometime after. Alicent is serenely embroidering a shirt for Aegon using a moment of peace, and Lyra covered in sleeping toddlers who couldn’t care less at how she stiffened whenever a small human appeared within five feet of her and showed any interest in her, and tugged at her braids, and bit her hands for sport.

At least she managed to put her braids up in a bun, out of reach for too-curious pudgy hands, but soon enough had to resign herself to be climbed, slobbered on, thrice bitten, and eventually napped on by two of three of them when the spawns tired themselves out after using as a glorified jungle gym. She’s not sure if they’re actually asleep or just resting before the next round of chaos, but she takes her peace where she can get it.

She can’t feel her legs, but at least all she has to do now is sit still instead of minding where each spawn is, what it is doing, and if it’s not eating something it really shouldn’t.

Like her hair. Or her hands. Or her shirt. Or the legs of the chair Alicent is sitting on. Aemond made it rather clear he has energy to spare unlike his elders.

Daemon is fair game the moment he enters, too. Fairest game of all, perhaps, as far as Aemond is concerned. He has no fear and teeth to sharpen, and his uncle’s leather boots apparently look tastier than his mother’s chair.

Daemon is having none of this of course. He scoops the toddler up in a well-practiced move, heedless of the way it makes Alicent tense, and looks him in the eyes.

“You sure do remind me of someone, nephew, though your eyes are far brighter,” he muses, eyes sliding to Lyra. Aemond gives him a grin; given that it’s the first time he sees his uncle, it’s a pretty good reaction. Lyra meanwhile bristles.

“I did not bite everything my teeth could reach!”

“No, but you loved to cause trouble,” Daemon says, putting the toddler in the crook of his arm and against his chest comfortably, effortlessly instinctual. Aemond settles almost instantly, as comfortable as one gets. “Not that much has changed since then.”

“I was unaware the Rogue Prince had such a way with children,” Alicent says, a little strained. Daemon looks at her, then back down at Aemond.

“It’s not hard,” he says. “You just pick them up and keep them interested. It worked before, why not now?”

Lyra can almost hear what Alicent wants to say in response to that.

“I suppose it is a gift not all men possess ,” Alicent says instead, and it’s close enough.

“It’s not a gift, it’s a skill,” Deamon says, focused on his mesmerized nephew and either none-the-wiser or wilfully ignoring of the jab hanging between them directed at his brother. “Some men are simply not inclined to learning the simplest of skills.”

Nevermind, he got it. Him talking shit about Viserys in court-speak is a new one, though.

He gives a startled Alicent a cheeky smirk and proceeds to entertain Aemond without making a single move to free Lyra of the rest of the toddlers.

What a menace, that father of hers.

“I thought you’d have gone to spent some time with Rhaenyra,” Alicent says eventually, carefully.

“She’s not my only niece,” Daemon says, half-dismissive. “And young women tend to be cantankerous in ways I’m in no mood to entertain for long besides. Not this soon off the road, anyway.”

“That might well be me in a few years, too,” Lyra reminds him.

“I have my doubts,” Daemon says. “And even if, you’re mine. I made you and I named you, and now you're my responsibility. Rhaenyra isn't.”

“If you say so.”

Alicent looks between them wistfully, with a twinge of jealousy she can't quite hide. She feels it on both fronts, Lyra can tell, as both a daughter of a father who put his greed over her wellbeing, and the wife of an absent, deeply mediocre man hung up on a ghost of the woman he murdered, forcing children upon her but never truly taking responsibility.

What-if s can be an insidious game.

But at least Alicent relaxes and returns to her embroidery, only glancing at them every so often, and less surprised each time.

○

With Lyra as a buffer, Daemon is much more receptive to his newest niblings. He likes them, she thinks. With time, he learns to visit them just by himself, without following her to the nursery. Alicent relaxes in his presence, too.

He’s good with children, after all. Engages them easily, knows what he’s doing. He managed to raise Lyra successfully and in some ways she was worse than a normal toddler, living with a half-remembered life constantly hanging over her that her developing child lizard brain couldn’t compute.

Surprisingly enough, it’s Aegon who latches onto him, almost desperately. It might just be the first time he has something remotely resembling a father figure; and a child of four starts to notice the cracks of a broken home in full. Lyra would know. She had, in her first life.

Helaena clings to Lyra mostly, and Lyra notices all the more how uncomfortable the girl is with literally everybody else. She’ll cry, and run, and if desperate enough, even bite a particularly dedicated nursemaid. Poor woman’s just trying to do her job.

Daemon comes a close enough tolerable second to be of use in an emergency at least, but he's on thin ice. Alicent is barely tolerated, even with Lyra mediating. Lyra isn't exactly sure why it's like this.

Aemond meanwhile is happy to hog his mother’s attention, now that his siblings consistently target other people, and Alicent herself is quite content with this arrangement. For the first time in forever she’s getting actual help with her children; nannies and nursemaids try their best, but they’re too human to properly care for those children in the end. Their bodies are too cold, they don’t purr, they don’t get the little lizard-adjacent tells that Targaryens do by instinct alone, and in the absence of Viserys, Daemon simply steps in. It's easy for him.

They calm down, Alicent claims, almost overnight. It’s as if something settles in them, now that they no longer feel so alone and disassociated among the non magical people without the first clue on what to do. It does weird Alicent out, though. It’s more like she tolerates Daemon’s presence than anything, especially when he purrs and chirps at them, and they respond in kind.

It’s difficult for Alicent to wrap her head around her children not being truly human, and needing different care than that, even if she means well. Forcing them into human boxes will never do anything but backfire, potentially horribly, and it’s giving Lyra flashbacks to her first life and her parents never putting any effort into understanding her own neurodivergent struggles and sending her into the world with a nice box of issues and trauma that not even reincarnation could fix because they refused to read a diagnosis, let alone understand it.

She’s better, though. Because she gets it, and even if Daemon doesn’t, he tries his best to be accommodating. Being magic elf-coded lizardpeople also helps. Is this why neurodivergent people were compared to fey in ye olden times? Because being weird sure is easier if your immediate family is just like you, and it weirds others out.

The children like music, too. Lyra has to keep her guitar from getting trampled on, but once she starts playing, they sit and listen and don't cause her much trouble.

Same can’t be said about poor Snickerdoodle. Lyra brings the cat to the nursery exactly once, and he spends most of his stay on the top of the wardrobe after Aemond tries to eat his tail.

The one person who is very unhappy with the whole situation is of course Rhaenyra. She expected Daemon to join her in complaining about her siblings, and instead, he shuts it down rather quickly. Reminds her that Alicent didn’t want to marry her father, and her siblings didn’t choose to be born, and that she should be kinder to them. 

Rhaenyra doesn’t take kindly to it; Daemon doesn’t seem to care.

She gives up her sulking after a week when Daemon continues to not care. Huffs and puffs still, but seemingly accepts that she can’t hog her uncle’s attention. Even starts to come to see her siblings from time to time, and to her horror realizes they’re not that bad.

Lyra meanwhile follows Snickerdoodle’s example, and begins to climb out onto the roof whenever she wants a moment of peace. Past some startled looks, it works very well.

○

Daemon takes them flying, one by one. Alicent tries to disagree, but he insists it’s tradition, backed by just about everyone. Even Viserys comes out of the woodwork to support the idea. After all, he can’t because Balerion is dead, Rhaenyra is too young with a still-young dragon (a bullshit excuse nobody buys, Syrax is at a point where she can fly two) and Alicent never had a dragon to begin with, so it just makes sense. Daemon is the next best thing.

Lyra too it turns out when Helaena decides that today is the day she doesn’t like Daemon after all. It takes some back-and-forth, but Ancalagon graciously allows a passenger other than Snickerdoodle in the end. Once.

It’s a hit, especially with Aegon. He starts hunting down Daemon to demand dragon rides daily after that. It’s funny to see a toddler marching towards a spooked Daemon. Defeated by a child quarter his size, again.

○

It's never that Alicent seeks out Daemon's company in any capacity, so it makes it all the more confusing the one time she does.

“Thank you,” is what she tells him. “For all your help. You needn't have to.”

“But I did need to,” Daemon says. “If not me, then who?”

Her face does this funny thing where it freezes somewhere between anger and shame as she bites down on an agreement. They both know the kind of a man Viserys is.

“You need to learn to take care of them,” Daemon declares eventually and she startles. “Properly, I mean. I won't be here forever, neither will Lyra, and if you try to raise them like any other human child, all you'll have will be heartache and unstable, broken adults.”

Alicent picks at her fingers, face set in a frown. “Do you mean that I am a bad mother?” she asks eventually.

“No, just human. And that is simply not what they need. Can't make a bird out of a fish, or a fish out of a bird.”

“Do you detest my humanness then, then?”

“It's not a personal attack, goodsister. Just the truth,” Daemon smiles wryly. “Don't try to put a dragon into a human mold and we'll get along just fine.”

○

Corlys arrives eventually, too, with Laenor. They needed some more time, between Corlys making the best of the victory and not having a dragon, but they're there. Lyra doesn’t really remember if they did that originally, but without Daemon crowning himself, and with a newfound relationship between Velaryons and Dorne, Corlys is a very welcome guest.

Viserys grovels almost, between that and not having married Laena. It’d be funny, if it wasn’t so pathetic.

○

Honestly… Daemon should have known that something like this would’ve happened, and soon.

His stay in King’s Landing was nice. Too nice. Too peaceful. Too unproblematic past the chaos he caused himself for fun.

Then, Viserys calls him to a Small Council meeting, and Daemon can’t fathom why. It’s not somewhere he goes after all of Cunttower’s plots to have him removed from this very room. Part of it has him curious.

He finds Otto there, all smug, and Viserys positively beaming, and Corlys looking—wildly uncomfortable. He winces when his eyes land on Daemon, and that is the precise moment Daemon knows he’s about to hate this meeting equally as much, or more.

He soon finds out why as his curiosity bleeds into confusion bleeds into disbelief and eventually into simmering anger.

It’s a betrothal talk. Viserys’ and Cunttowers newest machination, trying desperately to soothe the relation with Velaryons fuelled by Corlys’ newest Dornish alliance and haphazard attempt at soothing the political quagmire Viserys gleefully ran into by not marrying Laena—

But it’s not Rhaenyra, who is looking for a husband anyway, that Viserys wants to throw at Laenor and call it a fix. No, no—Rhaenyra gets to pick her own future king. No.

It’s Daelyra that he wants to marry to Laenor.

“What,” Daemon says somewhat dumbly, because he, for the life of him, cannot quite compute anything about this decision, starting with the fact that his daughter, his child, is three-and-ten, and ending with the fact that neither he nor she were asked for their input on the situation.

Corlys, too, is looking like he wants to shrink into his chair, and part of Daemon can commiserate. Between the hell Rhaenys would unleash and the hell Lyra would add to it, and Laena no doubt being upset in the middle—

How can Viserys not see it?

“Daelyra and Laenor already have built up a rapport, after all,” Viserys says, hapless fool. “They know and are fond of eachother, and besides Daelyra already bleeds so there’s no need to wait—”

And how the fuck does he know that? Daemon will snap the neck of whichever maid that tattled.

He doesn’t hear the rest of Viserys’ speech as static fills his ears. He sees white, grits his teeth, clenches his fists; something burns in his chest and throat so hot he thinks he could very well breathe fire right now.

Instead, he stands up abruptly, bright eyes zoned on this foolish, foolish creature.

“Brother,” he says as calmly as he can and his voice sounds distant to him through the haze of the fire that swirls in his chest for it, and takes grim satisfaction in the way Viserys flinches. “I suggest you stop with this jest. There’s nothing remotely amusing about it.”

Viserys balks. Gods, please, he can’t be this stupid, he—

“This isn’t a jest, Daemon. Daelyra will be betrothed to Laenor—”

The world goes grey, static in his ears.

He will marry Lady Royce as soon as he comes of age. Married life will calm him down.

Of course, mother.

But he doesn’t—

He abruptly stands up and slams his fists onto the solid slab of wood they have for a table, and it crackles ominously under his fingers and the power of the blow, splintered spiderwebs left in his wake. “Stop. This. Jest. Before I do something you will regret,” Daemon snarls, and there’s nothing at all human in his voice. The kingsguard take a step forward but he doesn’t move, eyes boring into that pathetic foolish wyrm before him. Viserys had gone pale all of a sudden, shivering like a rabbit spotted during a hunt.

“I-I’m your king—” he tries.

“And?” Daemon snaps, because right now, he doesn’t think kings matter much. Just because Baelon, in his uncharacteristically limp-dicked spineless lapse let Alysanne sell Daemon off as she pleased in her senility doesn’t mean Daemon will do the same when his brother threatens his daughter like that.

He knows how that feels, and fourteen forbid he was a father quite as lousy as Baelon. He’d rather die.

He’d rather kill Viserys, really. Lyra wouldn’t even stop him, he knows, because he would be right to kill that wretched, spineless creature—

No.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. Repeat until you feel a little less like getting blood on your hands could fix you.

But it could, though—

He shouldn’t commit regicide, and neither should Lyra. It’s rude, apparently. Bad for the realm too, or some unimportant shit like that. He doesn’t see how or why because Viserys is many things but a good king he’s not, but it would upset Lyra that she wasn’t there for it and that’s enough to stop him.

Viserys swallows, fixes his collar, fidgets with his hands nervously, as if aware of the thoughts going through Daemon’s head. Daemon doesn’t move, or even blink. He’s quite good at not blinking, and it makes people nervous the longer it goes on.

“You should,” Viserys says, stops. Swallows thickly. “You should consider it.”

It wasn't even about Laenor’s proclivities; Daemon himself partook in men, perhaps more often than in women. It was about the principle.

“I will,” Daemon tells him, voice devoid of anything. “If—and only if—Lyra drags Laenor before me on her own and in no uncertain terms tells me that this is who she will wed. I don’t give a shit about the political quagmire you waltzed into, and you will not use my child as a tool to get out!”

“Daemon, this isn’t how—”

“Am I understood, my King?”

There’s an undertone to those words. A growl, a snarl—he’s not sure, but it’s bone-deep and rattling, a flash of sharp teeth, and it makes Viserys snap his mouth shut. Because at the end of the day, they’re both dragons. Dressed in human silks as they may be, playing pretend with human hierarchies—it won’t kill instinct.

And Daemon is done deferring to one quite so toothless.

Daemon is also fairly sure nobody has ever used ‘my king’ as an insult to the king’s face either, but alas, there’s a first time to everything. All the councilmen suddenly decided their hands laid on the table are the most interesting thing in the room, even the Cunttower. Even the Kingsguard are uneasy, shifting from foot to foot like half-spooked horses.

“Yes,” Viserys says, voice a little faint to match the paleness of his face. “I—I believe… That this meeting is adjourned. You made your opinion on the matter quite… Clear.”

“And don’t even think of going behind my back about it,” Daemon feels it prudent to warn. “I doubt you’ll enjoy the consequences.”

“You dare threaten the king—” Cunttower rises up, but snaps his mouth shut when Daemon side-eyes him. Pales, more than he’s already pale.

“I’m not threatening anyone, merely reminding people to be mindful of the consequences of their actions, like you constantly remind me. And I’m protecting my daughter as is my gods-given duty,” he tells the man. “Though I understand that you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

As he turns on his heel and walks out, he doesn’t miss the sharp glint of discomfort in Otto’s eyes. It brings him enough glee to calm some of his anger.

The silence left in the wake of Daemon’s exit is nothing short of ominous. There was a sort of confidence in Viserys and in all his councilmen before this—that Daemon, despite his vices, would never turn against his brother.

Now, through Viserys’ own designs, that certainty is gone.

○

“Your Grace, you cannot let Daemon get away with such display of hostility. It is all the more essential you bring him to heel. I beg you to proceed with the initial plan.”

“I… You’re right, Otto. I made my decision. I ought to see it though.”

○

They go take a nice long flight, after Daemon comes back and tells her. It’s necessary. Caraxes was just about ready to chew his way through the Red Keep to get to Viserys, and the more Lyra listened, the more Ancalagon became a gleeful accomplice.

They’re still rattled by the end of it, but better. So long as Viserys pulls no more stunts.

Which is probably exactly why he pulls another stunt very quickly.

○

Corlys Velaryon, as steeped in the traditions and customs of the realm as he is, with all his pride and greed, is far from blind, and he’s far from stupid. He has also spent several years in close vicinity of Daemon and Daelyra at the Stepstones, and gained an insight that most seem to sorely lack in the face of those two.

And so when Viserys calls him to speak again privately and resumes as if each party agreed to the betrothal, Corlys shuts him down maybe more harshly than intended. Viserys balks at it, at this olive branch he so graciously extended, and Corlys doesn’t budge.

He declines, without any room for discussion even if it will inevitably lead to continued tensions between Velaryons and the crown, and he sends Laenor to tattle.

○

Laenor shivers under her gaze, co carefully blank, with a smile so carefully polite he dreads whatever hides beneath it.

“Thank you,” she says simply, voice carefully even. He swallows thickly.

“What will you do now?” he asks, even though he’s not sure he wants to know the answer.

Her smile sharpens; miniscule but noticeable, and Laenor finds himself flinching.

“Nothing,” she says breezily, but her eyes have darkened to black with rage threatening to overspill under that mockery of calm nothingness that devoured light as if it only ever starved. He doesn’t even want to imagine the kind of rampage her nightmare of a dragon is going on right now; he thinks he can hear it screeching somewhere outside the city, in the skies above the ocean, more than receptive to its rider’s rage and more than eager to act on it.

He’s relieved to see her turn around and leave; no doubt to go to the beast, and rage with it.

He’s glad to be wiser than the king, as the cold claws of danger leave with her.

○

Daemon is restless, and he knows himself that his idea is stupid and dangerous and, in all honesty, wrong, and that he shouldn’t—but he doesn’t think he cares.

He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but he expected it would. It hurts him all the same, and it makes him want Viserys to hurt as well. To regret. He wants his brother to taste the same bitterness he’s tasting, to feed him the same medicine Viserys has been trying to feed him.

And if Viserys insists on targeting Daemon’s daughter—well. Daemon can do the same.

He runs into Lyra by what almost feels like chance, but he knows better. She’s still in her riding leathers, the braid he twined himself windswept but holding strong, coiled at the base of her neck.

She looks like a wraith in the candlelight, a ghost come to haunt him for his choices or maybe absolve him of guilt or something in-between, white hair and pale face shining in the darkness, black clothes melding with the shadows, and black eyes looking like bottomless voids full of emotion, reflecting candlelight back in an eerie glow, his own emotions thrown back at him through the warped mirror of his blood. Rage, mostly, but underneath the rage it’s a maelstrom of conflict there, and singularly he can read them fluently, but together he can’t make much sense of them—and by the looks of it, neither can she.

He can relate. He wants to lash out, too, some way, any way. He’s lashing out now, actually.

They stand like that for a while, just looking at each other.

She may stop him, he thinks. He worries. Because she’s the only one who can. If she tells him to not do this, he won’t. If she tells him she forgives Viserys for this transgression, he will forgive.

She takes a deep breath, and her eyes harden as she clenches her fists. Then—

She steps away without a word, away from the light and into the shadow. She looks away.

This is wrong, Daemon thinks. She should be stopping him. She should be telling him not to follow through, because it’s wrong. And she wants to, he realizes. That’s what shining in her eyes. Part of her does, at least, the lone righteous piece left.

But the part blazing hotter and hotter, the bitter anger; it snuffs the reason out. They really are made of the same stuff, in the end, vengeful and capricious and utterly unwilling to let this go. They will both regret it tomorrow when their minds are cleared of this fire, and neither of them cares.

She turns on her heel and leaves on silent feet, and Daemon watches her go as he lets out the breath that he didn’t know he was holding. He takes in another, in and out, plasters a cheeky grin on his face and hopes it looks real enough, and if the swagger to his step looks a little forced, it’s best to not dwell on it.

He has a note and some common clothes to deliver.

○

Cloak and rough spun clothes, a scarf wrapped tightly around her head. A prayer and a toll paid in blood spilled from her own veins, answered by a glint of yellow eyes just outside of the periphery as Morghul lets his shadows cloak her.

Until dawn and not a moment longer,  the Shadowlord whispers as she lets blood drip down her fingers and into the fire. It’s more than enough she declares as she licks what is left off her fingers and takes a moment to wrap the shallow cut tight with clean linen.

And maybe that’s overkill. And maybe she doesn’t need them, and maybe she wouldn’t have been seen anyway, slithering through the bowels of the keep like a thief in the night with her skill alone—but one can never truly be too careful, and she wants to test her limits, too.

○

He leaves Rhaenyra with her pants down and hair undone in the middle of a brothel where everyone can see her, and leaves. Runs, almost, to Mysaria, grabs her shoulders, shoves a pouch in her hand, heavy with coin.

His skin crawls. His hands feel clammy. He wants to scrub his lips and neck and hands raw and then pour pure alcohol over them for good measure, to make sure they’re clean.

Stick them in a vat of boiling water, even. Maybe that would help.

“Make sure the princess remains unharmed. I want her reputation ruined, nothing more.”

“Of course, my prince.”

He trusts Mysaria’s greed.

He himself goes deeper in Fleabottom, and drinks, and drinks, and drinks—until Lyra, hooded and barely-recognizable in urchin garb save for the familiar gleam in her near-black eyes, materializes at his elbow and slams her hand on his cup.

She’s only a fragment of his wine-and-regret-addled mind, he’s certain. The wraith his guilt chose to show him, shaped like that which he holds most dear.

And then she speaks.

<She’s back in Red Keep.>

<You should be, too,> he slurs but leans onto her shoulder. She’s warm, and too solid for an illusion of what remains of his conscience. The hands she puts on his shoulders are warm, too, fingers digging into his shoulders so hard it hurts. He welcomes the distraction. <It’s dangerous here.>

<It’s more dangerous for you, in your state. You can barely sit up. Come.>

She tugs at his elbow and he goes, blindly following her lead, much too drunk to do more than focus on not falling flat on his face. She leads him through alleys he barely-recognizes when sober, better-versed in the veins cutting the city than he is, especially in the dark, and much less drunk. They stop eventually, she speaks to someone—he thinks he recognizes the voice, deep and friendly, but is tugged along again before he can figure it out. He’s ushered onto a cot and tucked in, manages to get his shoes off before fitful sleep claims him.

○

“Harwin.”

It’s barely a whisper, but it still startles him as he spins, face to face with the shining dark eyes he recognizes; Lyra, sitting on a barrel half-covered by shadows, deeper in the alley, awfully at home in rough-spun street urchin garb with a knife at her belt.

“Seven hells, where did you come from?!”

“Red Keep,” comes the dry yet cheeky answer. “I need your help.”

“I don’t know where Daemon is.”

“I do. Rather, I need you to escort the princess safely back to the Keep.”

“Ah. I. Yes, if you know where she is.”

“I do.”

“Of course, you do. I’m not even going to question why you’re sneaking around alone at night.”

“The less you know the better you sleep. Follow.”

“That wasn’t ominous at all. Aren’t you going to question how I’m not surprised Princess is here?”

“You ran into her earlier.”

“…how do you know that?”

Glint of violet in the candlelight, pupils that look uncomfortably slit and viperlike in the light, starting straight at him. That’s a familiar smirk right there, all smug and Daemon-like. Eerie, in this light.

She doesn’t answer. He doesn’t ask again.

○

Mysaria looks into the creature’s eyes, all the darker for the candlelight yet glowing impossibly bright under the shadows of the hood. She just sent off the princess, upset and cantankerous at being stood up as she was, led away and back to the Keep by a Gold Cloak the girl brought with her.

Then Mysaria is alone with the wraith, and it’s… Far from the way she imagined their first meeting would go.

“Can you make sure Otto Hightower thinks they fucked?” the wraith asks and Mysaria bites at her lower lip. “Just enough implication without outright stating it. Let his mind fill in the blanks.”

“I can try,” she says carefully. The wraith turns to look at her properly, and she shivers. Something moves under the cloak.

“Let me rephrase that,” the wraith says, a hefty bag of coin between its pale fingers. It’s bigger than the one Daemon gave Mysaria a scant minutes agon. The bag is more than enough to buy Mysaria’s loyalty for the night.

The wraith came prepared. Of course she came prepared, ready to speak the language of whores and thieves, dressed like an assassin urchin just after her father ran with his tail between his legs and something disturbed in his eyes.

Maybe it’s this very thing before her now that haunts him.

“I can,” Mysaria amends herself. “And then?”

“The rest will fix itself. Don’t worry about it,” the wraith that is Daelyra Targaryen says in a sing-song voice the notes of which send shivers down Mysaria’s spine and makes her feel cold around her neck, and then the girl slinks back into the shadows she came from leaving only empty space, like she was never there at all.

Mysaria rubs her arms, the bag of coin in her hand the only proof that she didn’t dream it.

She worries about it.

○

“What are you going to do about this?” Harwin asks.

“Sleep.”

“The dawn is already almost upon us. But I meant—” he trails off and gestures at Daemon sprawled on the cot. “He was out with the princess. I ran into them. The king will have questions.”

Lyra sighs, tugs the scarf off her head and two thick braids come loose from under it, falling haplessly on her back. They’re almost blindingly white in contrast with everything; very easily recognizable without the headgear.

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it in the morning. And you—and I mean, all of you,” she leans forward and points at the door where few other freshly-off-duty guardsmen cheekily wave at her, unabashed in their eavesdropping, “don’t throw yourselves under the bu—carriage for us. You don’t need that kind of trouble.”

“With all due respect m’lady,” Corren says and crosses his arms on his chest. An ugly bruise is blooming on his cheek, no doubt from duty hours. “If all of City Watch says you and Daemon were here all night, then who will speak otherwise?”

Lyra closes her eyes and sighs. “Some are in Cunttower’s pocket.”

“Few. They’ll be persuaded to speak the truth.”

She likes the tone with which he says it. She likes that they will stand with Daemon, the loyalty they still hold for him years later.

But getting them in trouble is not something she wants. It’s a lousy reward for their loyalty.

“Viserys will believe what he’s more comfortable believing. And if Otto believes Daemon to have been the culprit, and feels scorned by you—the Hand can make you all miserable. And he can spin his tales into a believable case.”

“Otto can go fuck himself,” spits out a huge guy, buzzcut and bushy moustache, Lyra somewhat recognizes him—Morsh, she thinks, former bouncer at one of Fleabottom brothels. Wave of agreements follows. “Daemon made us into what we are. He’s the only reason we’re able to do our jobs at all, that we’re no longer just a bunch of idiots with pitchforks and leather jackets!”

The men cheer. Lyra sighs and shakes her head. “I have a better idea,” she says, a half-remembered scene coming back to her, two girls, a tree crying bloody tears, and a lie by omission. “Say he was there, with Rhaenyra. Say you saw them drinking in taverns. Say they went to a brothel.”

A murmur of confusion. Lyra holds a hand up, wags a finger at them.

“And then tell the truth. Tell that he didn’t do it. Moment of clarity or coward’s way out or got distracted by whores, however you want to phrase it.”

“How do you know that?” Morsh asks. Lyra grins.

“Because I was there, stalking them,” she says simply. “Making sure nobody got into actual trouble.”

“She told me to get the princess safely to the castle,” Harwin admits, and turns to her. “Aren’t you a little young to be your father’s protector, though?”

“If I don’t look out for him, who will?” she asks. It causes an uncomfortable beat of silence as they look between each other. She claps her hands. “Anyway, boys, remember! Don’t get in trouble for our sake. We got ourselves into this; we’ll get back out. We always do.”

They filter out after that, shift rotating. Some get in the barracks for some much-deserved sleep, some leave. Corren’s cot is right next to the one Daemon is on right now, and Harwin sits at the foot of it once he’s gotten out of his armour.

“Sorry for taking your bed,” Lyra says. He shakes his head.

“I offered. I’ll figure it out.”

Corren lets out a long-suffering sigh and scoots to the side of his cot, patting the now-free half. “Get on, idiot.”

Harwin looks at him, eyebrow raised. “You just want me because I’m warm.”

“Would you rather sleep on the floor?”

Harwin rolls his eyes and heaves himself to lay down next to Corren. “But if you put your cold feet on my shins, I will kick you o—ogh-fucker!”

Corren, who has clearly just put his feet on Harwin’s shins, snickers and sprawls across his chest. It looks like a somewhat familiar maneuver, and he’s clearly comfortable. “I’m letting you sleep on my cot. Least you can do is spare some warmth in return.”

Harwin grumbles, but neither moves to push Corren off or to get out himself. Lyra giggles.

“Goodnight boys.”

○

“What if he does get banished again?”

“Then I’ll follow.”

“You can’t follow him forever.”

“I will for as long as I’m the only thing he has.”

“Lyra, Harwin.”

“Yes Corren?”

“Go the fuck to sleep instead of philosophizing, would you? Some of us want to rest.”

“Sorry Corren.”

“Goodnight Corren.”

○

Kingsguard comes, finds them—how they find them, Daemon stumbling towards Red Keep, disheveled and bitching about everything every step of the way. The sun’s too bright, the people too loud, the air too dry, and the puddle too wet.

Corren, bless his soul, crawled out of the bed to get him some water before they left, but then crawled right back under the covers, causing Harwin to bitch about cold feet all over again but not budge, and leaving Lyra to drag her father back to the Keep through the morning light.

What birds are out there chirping piss her off too as she does. Who let them be this chirpy this early even.

It’s Willis Fell who first sees them as they enter the courtyard, Lyra recognizes his face immediately. He takes a step forward and then promptly freezes when his eyes slide to her and he registers her presence, as if reconsidering his life decisions as his face circles through several emotions before settling on a sour grimace. The Kingsguard make a move to grab Daemon but Lyra whacks the hands of the nearest one with her sheathed dagger and snarls at the other and he takes the instinctive step back, hands raised. Smart man. Or startled—either way, no longer a problem.

“We know the way to the throne room, thank you,” she says primly and then shoves the cloaks and other unworn outer layers into the hands of Fell because carrying them wrapped around her elbow and dragging Daemon along is a bit much logistically. “If you want to be of use, carry these instead.”

Fell’s face sours further but he bites on his words, especially as Ancalagon’s crocodillian rumble resonates through the air, still audible from the other side of the cliff and over all the city-noises. It’s the kind of rumble that triggers something deep within the hindbrain that says run before the consciousness even registers the danger.  Fell grips the cloaks and follows, and if Lyra purposefully sets a slower pace, well. Daemon is still somewhat out of it, and she herself isn’t faring the best either, between lack of sleep and coming off of a magic high.

Fell barely follows them in; throws the cloaks on the ground and leaves. Lyra doesn’t turn to look.

The throne room is drab and dreary as always, with its offensive chair sitting offensively as the centerpiece further in. Lyra sits Daemon by one of the pillars but he flops over to the ground, curling on himself. She lets him, though he doesn’t get to wallow for long, because the door creaks open, and Lyra’s second least favorite person in the world wobbles in.

He is surprised to see Lyra there for sure, as he stops and looks at her wide-eyed, taking in her appearance. Bar her hair, so white it almost glows in the shadows, she’s dressed like any other street rat after all.

“What—” Viserys says and sighs before looking at Daemon with disapproval. “My daughter. Your daughter. You’d take them both to the bowels of Flea Bottom?”

“No,” Daemon groans. “Just Rhaenyra. Lyra hunted me down herself.”

“You don’t—” Viserys snaps and makes a move as if to kick Daemon, but Lyra is faster and whacks his shin with her sheathed dagger maybe harder than she intended, but it certainly sends the message as Viserys stumbles back, looking at her wide-eyed, wind knocked out of him.

“He won’t deny the truth,” she tells her idiot uncle king. “But you don’t know the truth, do you. Just the honey Otto Hightower poured into your ears.”

“That I took Rhaenyra to the brothels,” Daemon groans and rubs his eyes.

“You defiled her,” Viserys says, but though he visibly wants to, doesn’t make a move to try to kick him again. Lyra still has her sheathed dagger in hand, and already proved she’s faster than him.

“Oh, what does it matter, brother?” Daemon asks as he slowly straightens up into a sitting position, only to flop his head on Lyra’s shoulder. If her back wasn’t against the pillar, he’d have toppled her over. “When we were Rhaenyra’s age we fucked out way though most of the brothels on the Street of Silk.”

“We were young men,” Viserys says with that disbelieving huff of his. “She’s just a girl. Your niece!”

Lyra isn’t sure what Daemon being Rhaenyra’s uncle has anything to do with it in the magic dragon incest family other than being a hypocritical kind of statement.

“Rhaenyra’s a woman grown,” Daemon argues instead and smirks. It’s a sharp and ugly thing, but a winning one nonetheless. “Besides, if you can marry off my daughter, then I can at least show yours how to have a good time, can’t I?” he coos and Viserys rears back and stutters, and looks at him in shock.

“It was revenge, then?”

“Reminder,” Daemon purrs and leans forward, a little more awake. “I’ll cut you a deal, how about that?”

“What deal could you possibly offer me?”

“A very simple one. You stay the fuck away from my daughter, and I’ll stay the fuck away from yours. I suppose Rhaenyra will sulk for a bit for it, but in the end, everybody wins.”

Viserys’ face sours. He looks at Lyra, sitting next to Daemon, then back at Daemon. His face goes through several emotions Lyra finds very funny. The fact that her father can be slumped halfway between the pillar and her shoulder, though, hungover and in crumpled dirty clothes and looking like death warmed over, yet still exude a commanding aura over the king of the Realm—that’s impressive.

“I ought to have you sent away for this,” Viserys says. “You said so yourself, actions have consequences.”

“Then do so,” Daemon says as he leans back against the pillar, soaking up its chill. “But know this, once and forever. I’ll do anything to protect my daughter, no matter from what—or from who. Even from you.”

“Including harming mine?”

“I didn’t go that far,” Daemon bristles, violet eyes snapping open, ablaze in the morning light. “And I wouldn’t. Unlike some, I don’t find myself attracted to girls barely older than my daughter that I helped raise. I’m not a monster.”

Viserys rears back as if struck. Daemon grins, and his teeth seem sharper in the low light, bared and threatening.

“And I am to believe you have no ambition for my crown?” Viserys pivots quickly, grasping desperately at any topic at all to distract from being called out on his own misgivings. He’s good at that. “No intention for Rhaenyra’s hand?”

“Please,” Daemon scoffs. “She’s cantankerous and spoiled and more arrogant than us both combined on a good day, I can barely tolerate her in small doses. I got out of one miserable marriage, I’m in no hurry for another. And I’m certainly happier away from the responsibilities of ruling. Why do you think I didn’t crown myself King of Stepstones, or something equally idiotic? I could have. Corlys said I should have, but I have no patience for this nonsense and you should know this by now!”

“So you have no ambition for rule? For power?”

“I only have ambition for enough power to protect my daughter and punish those who’d seek to harm her,” Daemon snaps. “Which is exactly why I did what I did, and if I must, I will do it again until Rhaenyra’s reputation is shredded into nothing, because that, brother, is the best and most direct way I have to make you pay. To tarnish your precious, precious heir and force you to disinherit her. I can. And I will, if you keep pushing me, so step the fuck back while the situation is still salvageable, brother—because I did not start this, but I’m more than willing to end it.”

Viserys rears back, angry but helpless at the way Daemon looks at him, eyes bright and wide and so full of nothing but disdain. He may be consistent at failing his children, even the one he claims to care about, but Daemon isn’t, and the realization is a bitter pill to swallow now that it’s happening, before he shoves it in a box and pretends this conversation never happened.

Lyra flips him off on both hands when Viserys looks at her helplessly, and he winces. She only offers judgment, there’s no support to be found from her. Not for Viserys.

She is happy Daemon picked up on her very nonchalant way of speaking, though. Music for sore ears indeed, to hear him chew his brother the king out like that.

In the end, Viserys huffs and puffs and postures and tries and fails terribly at trying to take control of the situation but between the lack of sleep, Lyra coming off of a magic high, and Daemon’s hangover, they simply don’t give enough of a shit about it, and even Viserys catches on, too. That, or it’s their continued flippant, snappy comments that have him biting back tears at a certain point, because he knows he’s fucked up though he refuses to admit it, but it’s two on one. Especially after it comes to light that not only Daemon didn’t do anything to Rhaenyra—didn’t even think to, past making everyone see her be at the brothel—and Lyra on top of that made sure her cousin got safely back.

He doesn’t do much to either of them in the end. No banishment, not even a ban on seeing Rhaenyra for Daemon. Just a helpless and uncomfortable man being called out on his bullshit after being warned to not commit this very mistake and trying to shift blame when Daemon predictably did a very Daemon thing to drive the point home.

Lyra is so glad he’s on her side, her father is a force of nature. Same capacity to be reasoned with at times as a hurricane.

She hopes that this humiliation will make Viserys be even harsher on Otto later. He has to take it out on someone after all, and Daemon has just made himself an incredibly inconvenient scapegoat in his willingness to bite back where it hurts, and technically not doing anything wrong besides.

○

Alicent hunts Lyra down after the audience. She heard what happened, and wants the truth; Lyra gives it to her, and doesn’t mention things she shouldn’t know. 

Granted, she doesn’t actually know if Rhaenyra went and fucked Criston Cole after she returned, so she’s not even lying by omission. She just knows it could have happened.

Final puzzle piece is set.

○

She hears about it. She’s in the nursery with her cousins and the bored maids whisper of a displeased king and Hand who’s no longer a Hand.

Life’s—not good, not really, but better.

○

It’s by sheer chance that she runs into Otto as she returns from the nursery. He seems to be in a hurry. 

Lyra doesn’t think she’s seen the man up close before, at least not alone. He’s awfully unassuming for someone causing so much trouble for her family, though most importantly, he’s finally missing the Hand of the King golden pin that otherwise sat primly on his chest.

Lyra almost chokes on the giddy giggle that threatens to burst out.

“Good day to you, Ser Otto,” she says breezily as she passes him. “And a word of advice?”

He stops. He turns around. Lyra turns around, too. He’s taller than her, but it feels like they’re on equal ground, and she doesn’t cower under his disappointed stare that no doubt makes Alicent wilt every time.

“And what advice might you have for me, My Lady?” he asks. Lyra smiles.

“Daemon is not Viserys, and I’m not Rhaenyra,” she tells him simply. “And you’re not our old friend.”

“I’m not sure what you mean—” he interrupts.

“I’m not here to listen to you play dumb, Otto,” Lyra interrupts back, sharply, and his mouth clicks shut, maybe at the sheer shock of it. “I’m here to tell you that Viserys won’t protect you and take the fall for you forever if you insist on poking the sleeping dragon. While my father has the propensity to lash out at the surface threat he also listens to me, and I’m not blind to the underlying problem.”

“Is this a threat?”

“Actions have consequences, as you are so fond of reminding my father. Figured you could use a reminder yourself, too, is all.”

Lyra smiles at his grimace; and her smile widens further at the realization flashing suddenly in his eyes. The knowledge that a child, a little girl, played him like a fiddle. And yes, she followed what she knew, made sure to iron out a few kinks and ensure information flow is all… But him thinking it was all her master plan is infinitely funnier.

“Good day to you, Ser Otto,” she repeats herself with a small but perfect curtsy, voice just to the left of composed as some giddiness pierces through. “You played yourself beautifully.”

And then she’s gone.

[veloursdor]

Writing Patterns (Tag Game)

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there’s a pattern!

Tagged by @tideswept. One of this isn't posted per se and only Winter knows about it, but let's see what these fics reveal of my patterns 😉

Obi-Wan Kenobi remembered the day he lost Anakin Skywalker as if it had happened just the day before. (Emperor-Wan fic)

It was hot, heavy, and intense. (Cheating-Wan fic)

Anakin hurried his steps, the clock in his phone mocking him by showcasing he was five minutes away from arriving late. (CEO Obi-Wan signs a contract with intern Anakin)

Obi-Wan awoke with a splitting headache and a parched mouth; his eyes struggling to focus. (Saw AU)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there exists the legend of a man who had everything – beauty, power, money, and above all, love – until he committed an unthinkable atrocious crime due to a broken, corrupted mind. (La Llorona AU)

It was big. (Stepdad Obi-Wan AU)

They only found a lightsaber when all was said and done. (Thought dead AU)

“You want me to do what?” Anakin asked Master Windu, as he stared, dumbfounded, at the pouch containing pieces of flimsi folded in half. (Secret Santa Exchange fic)

Anakin Skywalker met Mr. Kenobi when he was 16 years old. (fslseaes)

Obi-Wan could only stare as Anakin was driven away by the ambulance. (Criminal Minds (the show) AU)

tagging (no pressure): @amadwinter, @bunnywan, @palfriendpatine66, @anakinsthot, @posthumousvigor, @somethingsteff, @jedibongrip, @deathbyobiwan for as many fics as they'd like to put and i don't know who else to tag.

[agirlandherquill]

writemas invitations

welcome one and all to this merry affair! this post is to hereby invite writers to a little game commencing December 1st - rules to follow - till the eve of Christmas itself, the 24th now you may be asking, what is this game and what are the rules? well, dear writer, the purpose of the game is simple - for writemas, all you have to do is pick a prompt from a given list and compose something with it, prompts could be a word, a trope, a place, a feeling, anything at all, it all depends on the day and as for the rules, well, this author sincerely hopes they are as equally simple to follow: if you accept the challenge, gift the community a glimpse of your work and share your responses, share the game with friends, family, anybody you'd like, that's it, utilise the prompt from the challenge, share your work, and tag me in your responses!

and now for the important part: how is the game going to work?

each day, starting December 1st, i will post the writemas challenge containing the prompt

the game is open to all, and if you join late, no problem! just embrace the writery-christmas spirit and play along!

bonus part (completely optional, but lovely if you choose to do it) - alongside your challenge entries, make sure to find a blog on writeblr, a writer you admire or one you've only just found, and pay them a compliment!

and since this post is an invitation to everyone out there on writeblr, in order to participate and be notified of the challenge posts when they go live, all you have to do is interact with this post and you're on the tag list!

any questions, let me know, and happy writing!

~ A Girl and Her Quill

(adding my tag list to ensure at least some folks see this, no pressure to interact!)

@the-ellia-west @willtheweaver @tildeathiwillwrite @drchenquill @365runesofthesystem

@coffin-hopping @godsmostfuckedupgoblin @a-mimsy-borogove @frostedlemonwriter @i-do-anything-but-write

@r-u-living @thatuselesshuman @lead-to-code @sunflowerrosy @theaistired

@phoenixradiant @autism-purgatory @corinneglass @tiredpapergirl @patheticexcuseforawriter

@missmisanthrope @littlestchildofthemoon @morganxduinn @thebrownleathernotebook @rmhashauthor

@lamuradex @fantasy-things-and-such @glasshouses-and-stones @hattonthehatman @humbly-a-doppelganger

@ramwritblr @s-pendragon7 @thelastneuron @heartreactor @ihauntmyhouse

@shiningstars-world @scaewolf @just-emis-blog @joeys-piano @ramitola

@yrndrgn @riveriafalll @lawrencespen1777 @theverumproject @zackprincebooks

@justjariel @orion-lacroix @jupiter---daydreams @vinniehorrible @stars-forever

@thewritingautisticat @whatwewrotepodcast @anaisbebe @appleandsnow @urnumber1star

@chaotictravelerrants @andagii-projects @dragmewithyoutonirvana @a-bi-cat-with-books @fearofahumanplanet

@just-a-domesticated-cryptid @attemptingwriter @kitkins13 @ray-writes-n-shit

@theonewholivesinthemovies @rheas-chaos-motivation @bookwormclover @sunflowerrosy

[stillboldlygoing]

fic writery thing

thank you for the indirect, sort-of tag @lauronk -- and also you @ameerawrites

How many works do you have on ao3? 2

what's your total ao3 word count? 36k!

what fandoms do you write for? Currently only for "The Last of Us"

what are your top five fics by kudos? wellllllll I only have the two 💀 but: The Garden Set Us Free Like a Rock

do you respond to comments? like, obsessively

what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I can genuinely say that the only draw, for me, in writing fanfic is giving people the happy endings canon didn't-- so everything I've ever written ends happily. (Minus the WIPs that never ended at all, RIP. 🪦)

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? The Garden Set Us Free -- so wildly fluffy I was worried it would be a flop

do you get hate on fics? I had some... let's say... brutal reviews of my early fics, but tbh it was all deserved. (Not to excuse leaving rude comments!!)

do you write smut? if so what kind? I've written all of it! Slash, femslash, het.

do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written? It doesn't really count as crazy because it was in-universe, but Voyager/TOS.

have you ever had a fic stolen? I have no idea -- but if you're gonna steal a fic, please steal the ones I left unfinished 10+ years ago after writing myself into a hole and then tag me cuz I'd really like to see how they end.

have you ever had a fic translated? no 🥲

have you ever co-written a fic before? only round-robin style!

what's your all time favorite ship? Like most fandom trash I am constantly embarking and disembarking -- but my OTP with the most longevity is still my very first OTP, Kirk/Spock

what's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I no longer post as I go-- but I have a truly absurd amount of words written for a Jaime/Brienne (Game of Thrones) "You've Got Mail"-style AU that I fear will never see the light of day. I love the plot, I love the setting, I love the vibe-- and my original self-imposed posting deadline was... December 15th, 2017, which was the day AOL shut down AIM. May the me that truly believed I would make that deadline rest in peace.

what are your writing strengths? I had dial-up for, like, years after everyone else switched to high speed-- and therefore have a deep wellspring of patience. I am never in a rush to post!

what are your writing weaknesses? I'm an underwriter... to an extreme. I'll be on the 58th draft before I realize I've never once, in 80k words, described a single outfit.

thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I try to only sprinkle in words/phrases that can be 100% understood via context alone -- or words that are used so often in canon that even the most most casual fans would recognize them.

first fandom you wrote for? Star Trek: Voyager <3

favorite fic you've written? Like a Rock. I don't know that I'll ever be able to recapture the joy I felt posting this one... I hesitate to call it a crack fic because I did write it in earnest (and in homage to one of my favorite fanfic writers) buuuut I knew people would go "wtf", and there are few things my inner Hellmo enjoys more than people looking at me and going "wtf"

NO PRESSURE BUUUUUUT.... if you want to do it!! And also I apologize if you were already tagged!! I tag @bearrycool, @howtotrainyourdoofus, & @becomethesun

[hypnotisedfireflies]

Fic Writery Thing

I haven't done this one in awhile. Thanks for tagging me, @adhdprincess!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 22! 2. What's your total AO3 word count? 967,602 3. What fandoms do you write for? These days, just TLOU, but I used to write a lot of LOTR, DW, SW ... there used to be variety. 4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Drifter's Dawn Snowqueen of Texas Drifter's Dusk If On a Clear Day A Door Once Opened 5. Do you respond to comments? Yep, always! 6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Probably Dawn, I guess? 7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? ... The Legend of Charro? 8. Do you get hate on fics? I don't get hateful comments, no. 9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yeah, I write smut, but it's usually plot-driven. I'm not writing smutty one-shots these days. 10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? No, not my jam. 11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yeah, and it was a fic I'd taken down, and the person had only posted as many chapters as they'd saved and swapped the fandoms. That was pretty hurtful, because they'd obviously liked my fic enough to save it, and it was in a very obscure fandom so I guess they thought nobody would see it and tell me. Also, readers really liked the story and were heaping praise on this person for it. Ouch. I contacted AO3. 12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No. 13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yeah, I love collaborative fic writing. 14. What’s your all time favorite ship? I don't deal in absolutes, okay. :p 15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? If On a Clear Day, but that's only because I lost all my notes and I have no idea where that story was going anymore. 16. What are your writing strengths? I'm persistent. 17. What are your writing weaknesses? I'm persistent. 18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Big yes! Thank you @bignosebushybrows who translates my Spanish dialogue in Snowqueen and makes the story so much richer for it, and to @flckrsoflight who translates into French for IO. With their help, I can add a layer of detail and authenticity I cannot achieve myself. xx (Can I also point out the work they actually put into it? Neither just blindly translates, they check with me for context and make sure it has the right flow and meaning, and say things like, 'okay but it would make more sense if...' etc. So like, major effort and care goes into it.) 19. First fandom you wrote for? I want to say Star Wars? By it honestly may have been Police Rescue. 20. Favourite fic you’ve written? That absolutes thing again! I really don't know. I try to challenge myself in a different way in each, so I feel they've each got favourite components for me?

Tagging @march-flowerr @seethesunny @ameerawrites@oliviassunrise

[artbecausewhynot]

Hello!! Welcome to my blog. It’s pretty surprising that of all the places on this site, you ended up here. I’ll take it as a win though.

This is my first post on tumblr, and my first ever blog. I don’t 100% know what I’ll be posting yet, probably just whatever’s on my mind, maybe some old art projects and, of course writery things. Not very interesting, I know. It’s more a project for me than anyone else, but tag along if you want to!

But enough yapping from me, I’ll let you get on with your day.

-me

(ps heres a very old sketch of myself as a little offering)

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

Dude. Your fics are just so good. I've probably written a comment or two on ao3 but 'you see him, now you don't' popped up into my mind yesterday and all the other fics followed like a demented domino effect and now I have to send you an ask.

I don't know how you manage it with your magic, writery brain but you always manage to create such a specific atmosphere. Reading your stories feels like I've had a part of my soul unearthed and turned over that I didn't even know existed. Sure, whenever I decided to reread something I'm almost guaranteed to get the depression running back full pelt at me but that is a good thing in this case.

All the characters feels so real and human while at the same time like nebulous personifications of something you don't understand that you encounter in a fever dream. I love it. All these characters are etched on the inside of my brain now.

And your plots! Your plots, man. It's always something so unexpected but predictable and I'm holding my breath and internally screaming or feeling the impulse to throw my phone every other paragraph. It's always something so off the wall but like so on point that it also knows the molecular structure of the materials the wall is made out of lol. It feels like I've been thrown into a blender whenever I read a fic of yours. And I don't how you do it but the mood and atmosphere is always so present, I suppose. It's like entering a room from a memory that you had almost forgotten and the air, the smell, the feeling is so real and different from any sort of reality you could ever even imagine.

It just always throws me for such a loop whenever I think about these stories. They're some of the best things I've read and probably have had a measureable impact on my life. Not only is it incredible writing (gimme some of your knowledge) but like. It's made me feel emotions. That I never otherwise would have and it's wrung things out of me I never would have otherwise really let myself feel and think about.

I just really love your works and have always enjoyed reading them a lot. So, thank you, I guess, for writing.

hey, thank you for this. it means way more than i can explain. i just want people to enjoy their time reading my stuff and if im lucky it may even make them feel something, anything at all. thats all ive ever wanted. so thanks for spending the time and emotions in reading and trusting my writing. i cant emphasize it enough. i appreciate this message more than you know

[mrsaito58]

ars gratia artis

For a few years now, I've been saying that [the recently late] Alice Munro is my favourite writer. Now, news is coming out that calls her personal character into question. [It also suggests that efforts were made to suppress this news while she was alive?] This brings us once again to the issue of, "What do we do when good art, art that we love, has been made by a person who is not good, who we find it hard to love?"

There are various levels of separating the art from the artist (or not), and we all vary in how much we are able or willing to do this. Ultimately, it's a subjective and personal decision. I've come to realize that, for me, it's better and more accurate for me to say that I am a fan of a creator's work rather than a fan of a creator. I'm now trying harder to express myself in that way.

And now I'm seeing people going back to Munro's work, re-reading it in a new light, and wondering if they were inadvertently approving of messages counter to their own values. In this case, I don't have so much of an issue, I guess. For me, it isn't so much what she wrote about, or what her message was, as how she wrote it. Her writing has an elegant and insightful economy to it: she never sounds like she's straining to sound Writery®. That's what I like about her sutff. Those times when she wrote about dubious people doing dubious things, I never took it as approval of those things — more an awareness that there are people like that out there.

And now it turns out that she was one of them, so maybe we shouldn't be so surprised.

P.S.: I can understand boycotting an artist when we learn things like this about them, not wanting to contribute to them financially, etc. But, once they're gone, that whole aspect sorta becomes moot, I think?

[aboutdragons]

the thing about dragons - chapter seven

in which Lyra makes a promise.

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

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

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

Now with a Discord server! Come join me at Marq's Assorted Writery: discord.gg/WQ7mNwk

◄○○○►

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

warnings: casual murder, feral children doing feral things

wordcount: 9,542

Read the chapter under the cut.  

Viserys leaves them the fuck alone, at least for the time being, entirely unable to deal with the truth they so readily throw in his face when nobody else is willing to. He’s the king, after all; people generally at best criticise his policies, and even that in a way that doesn’t make him feel like a pile of human waste he actually is. Daemon and Lyra are related to him, able to ignore the barrier of his social standing, and not nearly as kind as his lickspittles.

And Viserys doesn’t like the consequences of his actions manifesting to bite him, even if it’s just the truth thrown in his face. It ruins his little perfect delusion in which nothing is wrong and everyone loves everyone and he didn’t hurt anyone.

Pretending like he didn’t abuse and murder Aemma, like he doesn’t doesn’t abuse Alicent now, like he doesn’t let Rhaenyra run unchecked and make bad choice after bad choice without consequences in a truly insidiously self-destructive way, like he doesn’t neglect his children by Alicent, forgetting they exist half the time—

With a clear view like that, Lyra thinks she just hates him. No wonder this family is so fucked up.

<I hate him, you know?> she tells her father. She’s sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Daemon on the roof where she made a habit of escaping to. <I think I hated him for a long time.>

<I think I don’t have the energy left to hate him, wasted on trying to love him all those years before,> Daemon admits and takes a swing of wine. <I’m tired, and I want him to stop. I don’t even know what I want him to stop, just—stop.>

<I don’t think he will, not until he rots in his filth and dies,> Lyra says and briefly considers the bottle, but Daemon moves it out of her reach, shaking his head. Fair enough. <But we should do better even with the Viserys-shaped obstacle in our path. For the future he’s trying so hard to ruin.>

<It’s about Rhaenyra and Aegon, isn’t it?> Daemon hums. 

<Uh-huh,> Lyra grumbles and snatches Snickerdoodle who wandered a little too close, wraps herself around the cat. <Didn’t change heirship, didn’t betroth them to eachother. On its own that’s fine I suppose; but he’s not teaching Rhaenyra anything! Hells, he’s letting her make a mistake after a mistake without any fucking consequences! Who’s going to accept her as queen if she doesn’t know how to do shit? What if she gets worse? In her position, there’s things she absolutely cannot do, and if she does the Hightowers are going to exploit the fuck out of that, and then the civil war will be inevitable—>

Daemon looks at her sharply as she snaps her mouth shut, and looks away. 

She dropped hints that she knew the future of this world in a certain capacity, he knew there were stories in her past life; but she’s never gone in depth about it. She regaled him with tales of other worlds, but never this one that was now hers, avoiding the topic on purpose often.

But he knew. He knew she knew what future they were heading towards.

Lyra takes a breath, scoots closer and puts her head on her father’s shoulder. He puts the bottle away and puts his hand around her shoulders, shielding her from the wind picking up and world alike.

<You don’t have to shoulder this burden alone,> he says softly, and so horribly, horribly perceptive in the way he gets with her, and Lyra knows he wanted to ask before, just never did. <Tell me?>

And Lyra folds like a wet blanket, and tells Daemon everything she can remember about the Dance of Dragons.

○

Daemon can’t sleep, late in the night, with his daughter and her shedding beast curled by his side. His mind is racing, it has been for hours. The conversation they had, the information he learned; all put the happenings around him into a brand new perspective Daemon decided he hates with vitriol.

And how scary it must be for Lyra, his child, to be the lone person capable of change. And how terrifying it is that despite her existence changing things, so much remains the same anyway, because people are bound to act on their whims all the same?

And she’s playing the long game, she tells him. Because how easy would it be to just kill Viserys and Cunttower and throw the country into chaos,and run East to never be seen again? That was his first thought, but what guarantee was there it wouldn’t make everything worse?

None. In fact, it guaranteed the opposite.

But hope was not all lost, Daemon thinks. He changed. Things changed, not many, not nearly enough, but some, and for now that’s enough to hope..

He’s not good at playing the long con, not remotely, patience has always been his weakness; but it’s not Lyra’s. She has no idea what to do just yet, told him as much, her goal is to save the dragons first and the Targaryen family maybe if she can fit their survival into her plans, but she wants to try.

Daemon has faith in her. They have a little less than twenty years before Viserys dies, and Lyra is still a child besides. He doesn’t doubt that they will have a solution by the time the mounting conflict reaches its breaking point.

<Dad, you’re thinking too loud,> Lyra complains into his side. Daemon chuckles.

<I’m not saying anything.>

<But your heart is hammering really loud, and you’re very tense. Not a good pillow.>

<Ah. Sorry, little flame.>

<It’ll be fine,> she tells him and pats his chest. <There’s time. Don’t worry about any of it yet. There’s enough shit to deal with now.>

It’s almost like a magic spell. She’s right; there’s no point in worrying about the future so distant when the now is tricky enough.

<Alright,> he says. <Goodnight.>

<Mhm. Goodnight.>

And it works, somehow. Daemon turns on his side and pulls her close, and the cat weasels itself from between them, clearly done playing the cuddle-toy; but Daemon falls asleep, mind finally calmed enough to shut up.

○

Between the stunt they pulled, Otto getting dismissed—and subsequently getting replaced by none other than Harwin’s father, Lyonel—and the following rumours about Rhaenyra’s outing, Viserys decides to speak with Corlys once more, though this time about possible betrothal between Laenor and Rhaenyra. Those talks bear much more fruit than Vsierys’ attempts to circumvent Daemon, even though Corlys isn’t entirely happy with being the fallback. He’s fully aware Laenor wouldn’t willingly touch a woman, and he knows Viserys knows; and no matter their family’s standing, this is looking an awful lot like Rhaenyra getting punished with a gay husband for her indiscretions.

Lyra and Daemon exchange a knowing look as they see them off on their trip to Driftmark. Corlys catches them, and his face does something ugly, because Corlys is a sharp, smart man who has seen enough shit in his life, and who can put two and two together quickly.

<We have your back, should you ever need it,> Daemon tells him with a pat to the shoulder. Corlys nods. <Be it a shoulder to cry on, or a blade between ribs.>

<You’ll outlive Viserys,> Lyra tells him quietly, tugging on his hand and he looks at her sharply. She grins. <And remember, nothing he breaks is unfixable even if it seems like it. It just takes willpower and elbow grease.>

<You’re both horrible,> Corlys tells them fondly. <Thank you. I’ll see you when we’re back for the party.>

<Good luck with cousin Rhaenys,> Lyra says with a fanged grin. <Remind her that if we can’t commit regicide, she can’t either.>

<Duly noted,> Corlys snorts, and with one last pat to Lyra’s head and a handshake with Daemon, he’s off for the ships. Viserys and Rhaenyra pack up too, trailed by Criston Cole. Alicent barely sees them off, upset and shaken by her father’s recent dismissal.

Daemon does see Rhaenyra off—she’s still somewhat cross with him for not fucking her—but neither pays much mind to Viserys, who also does his best to ignore them.

It’s better that way.

The procession of ships leaves. They will have at least two weeks or so of peace before Viserys returns, maybe even a month if they’re lucky.

Then, they’ll see.

○

It’s barely a day after the departure of the royal procession to Driftmark that Alicent hunts Lyra down, even more frantic that she’s last seen the older girl, dragged off to a more secluded corner in the gardens.

“You lied to me,” Alicent hisses, shaking Lyra by the shoulders, and for a moment Lyra just lets her, marvelling at the outburst of emotion unbridled by decorum. “You and Rhaenyra both, you lied to me.”

“Hey now, I didn’t!” Lyra tells her, putting her hands on Alicent’s wrist to stop the shaking. “Is it about the brothel visit?”

Alicent opens her mouth, but says nothing. Closes it, opens again, closes it again. Frustrated, she sighs and just nods.

“I didn’t lie,” Lyra repeats. “Daemon didn’t fuck Rhaenyra. He did take her to the whorehouse, but it went no further.”

“And how do you even know that?” Alicent asks finally. “Was it your father’s word? Wasn’t he just corroborating Rhaenyra’s own words for his own safety and peace?”

“I told you what I saw,” Lyra says simply and Alicent rears back in surprise, eyes wide and searching for something, anything on Lyra’s face. Lyra can’t tell what.

“You were there?”

“I stalked him, and Rhaenyra too I suppose, because I was worried,” she admits, “because I knew how angry he was at everything, and I know how he gets when he’s angry like that. I followed them through Fleabottom and into the brothel dressed like a street urchin, and I saw what they did, and what they didn’t do, and I was ready to step in had they gone any further. They didn’t. He left her with her pants down and hair loose and upset he didn’t fuck her, and ran with his tail between his legs. I found a Gold Cloak I trusted, and had him escort Rhaenyra back to the keep safely. I saw no more of her that night; I was busy making sure Daemon didn’t end up gutted in some corner.”

“So Rhaenyra spoke true?” Alicent asks, dejected and confused. “Then why’d she take the tea if it was sent to her?”

“The tea?” Lyra blinks. “The moon tea? She took it? How do you know?”

“I heard—coincidentally, also from a son of Lord Strong,” Alicent admits, calmer by the moment. “He asked me about her wellbeing after she left for Driftmark, he saw Grand Maester bringing her tea. I… Maybe it was actually just regular tea?”

There’s so much hope in those words, it’s unbearable. Lyra almost feels bad for what she’s about to do next, but she is no liar. Alicent deserves the truth, even if it’s hidden under the veneer of speculation.

“It may have been moon tea,” she tells Alicent who snaps to look at her, eyes narrow. “The honest truth is, she didn’t fuck Daemon. But the honest truth is also that there is a chance she fucked someone after her return to the keep.”

“Who?” Alicent asks. She’s picking at her fingers again. Lyra shrugs, and takes the older girl’s hands in her own.

“Serving boys. Castle guards. Fuck, a Kingsguard even. Few men would say no to the young, pretty, willing princess.”

Alicent mulls over it.

“Daemon did,” she says eventually.

“Daemon is not nearly wretched enough to be interested in fucking the girl he watched grow up,” Lyra scoffs. “And he’s always been one of the special few besides, in thought and action both.”

Alicent bites her lip and looks away, grasping the double-meaning of Lyra’s words with ease.

But there’s something else that worries Lyra.

“The Lord Strong that told you… Was it Larys, the younger one?” she asks quietly. Alicent looks at her, and nods.

“Yes. He was… Helpful.”

“Or intent on sowing discord by giving you a very convenient twisting of overheard gossip intended to prey on your vulnerability after your father’s departure,” Lyra tells her and Alicent looks at her fully. She’s thinking about it, and there’s a moment where her eyes widen with a realisation. Lyra looks around, scanning the area for people and rats alike, before she leans in to whisper. “Do not trust this man. His brother is one of the Gold Cloaks I trust the most and I have it on very good authority that nothing Larys ever does is for free. He’s looking for a wedge to slither into your good graces and exploit the hells out of your goodwill. He’s an expert in twisting anything in his favour, and then calling that favour in. He may have well told you the truth, but he did not do it out of goodwill.”

Granted, it’s not Harwin who told her, but he’s as good an excuse as any for Lyra to try to protect Alicent from Larys and his sticky paws as it gets. A believable one at least.

“I… Are you certain?”

“Yes. Do not trust him. Use his services if you must, but as sparingly and carefully as possible, you understand? A double-edged blade may just cut you deeper than it does your opponent, and he will bleed you dry if you slip once.”

Alicent just kind of slumps at that, eyes going glassy. She’s picking at her fingers again, her presence diminished. Lyra pulls her into a hug.

Alicent digs her fingers into Lyra’s sides, shaking as she buries her face in Lyra’s shoulder.

“Father was right, this is a den of hungry wolves,” she sobs. “I want to go home. I want all this to stop. I never wanted any of this.”

“I know,” Lyra says as she wraps her arms around Alicent in a tight hug. “You shouldn’t need to be contending with any of this.”

“I’m so scared of so many things. Of the future, of what Rhaenyra might do, of what Viserys might do, and I don’t know what to do, how to protect myself, how to protect my children!” Alicent sobs quietly. “I’m terrified Rhaenyra will have to kill them for posing a challenge to her by just existing whether she wants to or not. I have two sons, Lyra, no matter what Viserys says the lords will prefer them over a ruling queen because that’s tradition and they already passed over Rhaenys once before! And Rhaenyra barely tolerates her brothers as is. She will have them killed—”

“She will not,” Lyra says and presses her cheek to Alicent’s hair.

It starts now then, doesn’t it? Right here, in this dark alcove, with her friend sobbing on her shoulder, terrified of the threat that might befall her children for the sin of being alive in the relatively near future.

“How can you be so sure?” Alicent asks as she pulls back to look Lyra in the eyes. “You know how she is. You know how this land is. Once Viserys is dead, all semblance of peace goes with him! We both know it’s only his willful blindness keeping this farce going!”

“Because I won’t let her,” Lyra tells Alicent simply. “And before you disagree; I will be an adult before Viserys dies. I ride the second largest dragon in the world, I have Daemon and his dragon on my side as well. And the Velaryons--they always preferred Daemon, and Rhaenyra’s peaceful ascension would be in their best interest if this marriage goes through besides.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Alicent whispers.

“Because at the end of it all, it is so easy,” Lyra insists. “On the fire and the blood in my veins, on the ancient magic that binds me and Ancalagon in mind and soul, I swear. I will not let her kill them. I will protect your children from unjust, early death to the best of my ability. I will protect them from Rhaenyra and from this world’s fucking inheritance politics and outdated Andal traditions that should have never bound my people in the first place. But you need to promise me something, too.”

“What is it?”

“That you will protect them from the greatest threat they will ever face. One only you can successfully shield them from.”

Alicent shivers, wide-eyed. “And what is that threat?”

“Your father’s ambition,” Lyra tells her, and Alicent presses her mouth into a thin line. “The very ambition that forced you in this position, that will herd your children into an early grave if left unchecked no matter what I do. I can protect them from Rhaenyra and from Viserys and Daemon, from open conflict and dragons and fire and steel; I cannot protect them from your father and his insidious influence.”

“He’s my shield. My strength—”

“He’s the root of your misery. The poison seeping into your bones. Can you not see, can you not feel?” Lyra asks. “He peddled you to Viserys for a morsel of power. His beloved daughter. What makes you think he won’t sell your children, should it benefit him?”

Alicent opens her mouth. Closes it, looks away.

“What can I even do?”

“More than you think. You’re the queen, Alicent. Quite a beloved one, in fact. You have more power than you see; exploit to Hells and back and then some more. Protect yourself, protect your children. I can only do so much, a child and a daughter of a second son and a nobody without a name forged in fire yet. You can do so much more. Yes, you’re surrounded by ravenous wolves, but you forget that you’re no lamb destined for slaughter. Otto’s hapless power grabs put you in a situation you should never have contended with, but it also gave you power. Seize it. It’s okay to be selfish in your situation.”

Alicent looks up at her, eyes still glassy, but face set.

“Thank you,” she says. “I… Still don’t know what I’m going to do, but this… Helped, I think. I needed this.”

“We all need a friend sometimes,” Lyra says. “A shoulder to cry on and some advice. You’re not alone. I’m not going to agree with everything you do, you won’t agree with everything I do… But I like to think we can look past that when we need each other.”

Alicent nods. “I… Have a lot to think about. You brought up a lot of things I didn’t think about… That I don’t want to think about. Not all is as it seems, isn’t it?”

“It never is. But I think it’ll do you good to reevaluate some things.”

Alicent chuckles wetly. “Have you always been this casually insightful?”

“When you need to translate your father back to himself and to the world sometimes, you pick up a thing or two. Besides, I’m not afraid to be honest with you, etiquette be damned.”

“I suppose it’s alright, if it’s just the two of us,” Alicent agrees. “I’ll be going now. I need solitude, I should think.”

“And do not reach for religion first thing,” Lyra cautions. “The gods have enough to contend with. They rarely answer, and never in personal matters.”

She means the Fourteen. She knows Alicent will interpret it as the Seven instead, but it is a common language for them at least.

Alicent blinks at her. “I’ll keep that in mind. Will you visit the children later? I… Might not be able to, today.”

“I will, don’t worry.”

○

She sets Snickerdoodle loose on the rats. See how well Larys can greenseer through them while running for their lives from a hungry and motivated beast.

○

Lyra does visit the children later, and even pesters Ancalagon into letting her take Helaena for a flight again. Once the excitement is dealt with and time comes for bed, she tells them the story about a boy living in a cupboard under the stairs and the enchanted castle he went to study magic in.

And if half of it is better than the original, drawn from half-remembered fanworks, well, nobody will know.

Once they’re asleep piled on top of her father, she slinks away into the hidden passageways and out of the keep. She needs a breather, maybe to cause some chaos, and she has questions she needs to ask that Harwin might just be able to answer besides. Larys, as the talk with Alicent reminded her, is not someone she can afford to ignore for much longer if at all, and who better to give her information than the man’s own brother?

Still she’s distracted from her laser-focus easily enough when she runs across a scrawny boy being held by the neck against a wall. The other guy is an adult, scrawny too but twice the kid’s size, and has a knife to the kid’s neck; something about money the boy’s mother owes.

Worse, there’s a round iron plaque hanging from his belt, with a severed hand scratched on it. Lyra isn’t sure what exactly is the name of these guys, but it’s a new Fleabottom cartel that Gold Cloaks are trying to nip at the bud.

This isn’t even Fleabottom. Or her problem. Or first or last or only altercation of this kind. By all means, she could—should—walk away, ignoring the situation like everybody else around.

Instead, she unhooks the wooden club from her belt, speeds her step for momentum, and swings the studded wood into the back of the brute’s ankle. He howls and drops the boy as he too drops down on one knee. Lyra wastes no time and totals the other knee with a strong whack to the kneecap, and when she has him downed, howling, the third hit connecting with the man’s jaw and putting him writhing on the ground in pain and confusion is little more than a formality.

Club in hand, Lyra turns to the boy looking at her with wide eyes—and promptly freezes.

He’s scrawny, shorter than her, and dirty, which is normal. His dirty hair shines white under the grime, his eyes are just almost faded enough to pass for blue, but there’s an unmistakable tint of violet in there; but that is not unusual. Dragonseeds and Essosi of Valyrian descent are common enough a sight in King’s Landing.

It’s the face that gets her, distinct and almost-regal under the grime and so, so painfully familiar in such an uncanny way; a little like her father and a good bit like her uncle, and missing the sharpness of her grandmother just to circle back to looking eerily like a younger, living version of her grandfather’s portrait hung in the Red Keep. And it just made sense timeline-wise, too; the boy, scrawny and a head shorter than her, looks to be somewhere between ten and twelve. Baelon died ten years ago.

It takes Lyra just a split second too long to analyse him, enough for the boy to grow defensive and all but snarl at her, hackles raised.

“What do you want?” he hisses, unfriendly. Lyra blinks slowly on instinct and he almost blinks back, only to catch himself and give her a weird look instead.

“What’s your name?” she settles to ask after a few seconds. The boy scowls, body winding up like he’s about to make his grand escape, eyes darting between the club in the hand and the man. Lyra puts her weapon back in her belt, and with the other hand tugs her hood down and then the bandana she wrapped around her head, two white braids spilling over her shoulders. “I’m Lyra.”

There’s an immediate shift in the boy as his gaze latches onto the white hair, and his hand twitches, stopping halfway to his own head. Lyra lets him come to his own conclusions.

“Ulf,” he deigns eventually. “‘m Ulf.”

Ulf, maybe not yet called White, with her grandfather’s face and potential to claim a dragon some twenty years from now, is currently maybe twelve and standing within arm’s reach, and suddenly, this is no longer just because of some sort of innate dragonseed camaraderie Lyra may have felt before.

She really is gods’ favourite princess. She’s also not stupid enough to ignore a chance like this.

By this time, the thug is finally crawling up, and the Gold Cloaks have noticed. Lyra doesn’t recognize the guardsman approaching them other than vaguely having seen him before in the barracks, but he does recognize her, especially with her hair out, so she catches the man’s gaze directly, nods at the thug and then turns around, grabs Ulf by the hand, and drags him along the street where they vanish into the crowd.

They weave under elbows and between legs with the ease of two street rats, unbothered and unnoticed, but the place is unpleasantly crowded and the air stale for it, so Lyra pulls Ulf to the rooftops soon enough via some conveniently stacked boxes under some brass fixtures that are easy to climb on. Ulf is clumsier than she, unused to the impromptu parkour but good enough at improvising to follow, and Lyra herself hasn’t been taking to the high ground as often as she’d like either, so they both stumble here and there. She needs to fix that—as far as extreme sports go, reenacting Assassin’s Creed parkour in King’s Landing is one of the more fun ones, and it makes moving around the crowded city much easier to boot.

“Ya hungry?” Lyra asks once they’re both perched at the edge of one of the buildings. Ulf looks at her briefly, then shrugs, but Lyra has been hearing his stomach grumble since she pulled him along. “Come on, I can get us somethin’ nice.”

“Why?” Ulf asks, somewhat suspicious still. “You saved me, that’s enough.”

“Call it my good deed o’ the day, eh?”

“You this nice to everyone?”

“Jus’ the pathetic ones,” Lyra grins. Ulf, she can see in his eyes, considers shoving her off the roof. He doesn’t.

This is just one of the steps, in a way. While Lyra isn’t blind to the situation of people in the poorer districts of King’s Landing, she also lacks any real power to do anything about it right now, thirteen-year-old daughter of a second son; certainly something to look into changing in the future. Between everything going on, she does need to start considering venues of making money, ideally large amounts of it. It will be easier with her background and a dragon, so that is a boon, and once she has some wealth, she will be able to do things she wants.

Like forcing the king and council into fixing up the city’s waterways and sewers properly by investing in it herself and putting them before a decided fact. Like investing in businesses to create more jobs. Like getting healers educated and settled in. Like building shelters and soup kitchens. Like continuing to fund and train the Gold Cloaks and weeding out any corrupt ones with no mercy.

But for today, she thinks, she’ll settle for feeding just one street rat wearing her grandfather’s face.

She hops off the roof onto a haystack, then onto the street, and Ulf looks at th path dubiously before deciding fuck it, and followign her anyway.

They go to the market, get some food. Ulf gets some herbs for his ill mother with what money he has, and Lyra matches his budget to double it, to get him something better on top of a fresh leg of pork and some vegetables. She’s pleased to find potatoes among them.

“They say the princess Daelyra brought them from an expedition,” Ulf says, still a little overwhelmed over all the things he now has to bring to his mother, and Lyra almost bites her tongue for real out of sheer instinct to correct the princess part. “Can you imagine? I wonder how she found them. People get sick when they eat them raw, but they’re as good as bread when you cook ‘em!”

“I hear they’re even better when you fry ‘em in fat,” Lyra muses. Ulf makes a face.

“I hear, too, but who’s got money for so much fat to waste?”

“Yeah.”

She walks Ulf back to his home, a little shack in a poorer district but not quite Fleabottom. The sun is setting by then already, and she still needs to hunt Harwin down.

“Wanna come in?” Ulf asks. Lyra shakes her head.

“I was lookin’ for someone actually, before I ran off with you.”

Ulf blinks. “Oh. Shite, did I waste yer time?”

“Nah. But I should go now. Pops will worry if I stay out too long after nightfall.”

Ulf nods. “Will ye… Will we see eachother again? Where do ya live?”

“Here and there,” Lyra evades, but Ulf just nods. Some things are touchy subjects here, and she takes full advantage of that. “And sure. I know where ya live, I can find ya. An’ if ya want to find me, ask the Cloaks.”

“Cloaks?” Ulf asks, eyebrows raising. “Why in the Hells would Cloaks know shite?”

“Coz’ they’re thick with my Pops,” Lyra shrugs. “I’ll tell them to know, if you’re gonna come lookin’.”

“...alright,” Ulf says after a moment. “Alright! I’ll be seein’ ya then, I s’ppose.”

“Ya will. Until me and pops fuck off from the city again. We do that from time to time.”

○

“Harwin, your brother is suspicious as fuck. Tell me everything about him.”

“Bloody fucking hells Lyra, where did you come from?!”

“The fucking street, through the door like everybody else?”

Harwin just looks at her funny. Lyra grins.

“I’m starting to think you just like scaring me.”

“Your pattern recognition is in working order then.”

Harwin closes his eyes and sighs. Some of the other cloaks, as they are now gathered in the canteen, chuckle. This is a rather common occurrence, and free entertainment besides.

“Why are you interested in my brother all of a sudden?” Harwin asks. Lyra shrugs and sits next to him to minimize the amount of people that could overhear.

“Not much, he’s just been actively widening the rift between the princess and the queen for his personal gain on top of his other courtly exploits. He’s a threat, to me, to them, to everyone probably.”

Harwin purses his lips, a frown on his face and gaze hardening. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

After she’s done grilling Harwin, she tells the Cloaks present about Ulf. She hops back to Red Keep pretty much only to show that she’s still alive and change clothes, and then she’s off to fly with Ancalagon. The air helps her clear her head and come to conclusions between what she learned and what she remembers of the show.

If Larys Strong isn’t a greenseer, she’ll actually eat her leather boots, buckles and all.

○

Ulf becomes something of a fixture in her day-to-day life from then on. She finally makes good on her promise to learn to run the rooftops and Ulf, for all he thinks her weird for it, joins in anyway. He finds her weird in general, she thinks, for her odd mannerisms and more so how he reacts to them. For how the Cloaks treat her to how she always has at least a little money that she doesn’t mind spending on him, or how she never tells him where she lives. 

For how she never steals, not even a stray apple, but slits a man’s throat in the gutters without so much as a flinch when she finds him with his pants down in front of a little girl, and only stops speaking to Ulf to check up on the child before she runs off, uncomfortable, spooked, but otherwise fine for the day.

He gets used to it, in the short weeks of peace of Viserys’ absence that let Lyra run more unchecked than usual. His mother gets better, too, he tells Lyra, between the herbs and the food. She has no idea if the woman lived originally, but it’s nice she’s fine nonetheless. Ulf is happier for it.

○

Devil works fast, Viserys works faster. Unseemly fast, in fact.

Because if Lyra learned one thing they never show in shows and gloss over in the books, is that this society, without electricity and cars and planes, works slow. Leisurely.

Organizing a Royal Wedding within one month—two weeks that it will take Viserys and Rhaenyra to go to and from Driftmark, and another two that Alicent and master of coin, Lyman Beesbury, jointly demanded before the start of the Viserys-ordained week-long celebration, or the whole ordeal would be impossible—is not only unseemly fast, but also a logistical nightmare.

Then again, a total lack of foresight on Viserys' part is something everyone just learned to work around. He, happily and haplessly, just said he wanted a Thing to happen—and everyone else had to bend backwards to make it happen.

Because fucker was the king, and that’s just how it worked.

Not something Lyra can do much to help with, except tip Alicent and Beesbury off about merchants peddling good quality wares they wouldn’t otherwise think to hire.

At least Corlys had enough foresight to insist Viserys send out wedding invitations before they even leave for Driftmark, so that lords from further reaches of the country even had a chance to arrive on time; otherwise Viserys would have shafted the Lannisters, coming all the way from Casterly Rock.

○

Daemon comes to Lyra with a frankly brilliant idea that she loves, and not even because it will piss people off.

This is medieval; people do not throw away good clothes, and Daemon still has plenty of good clothes stored from his youth, and it won’t even take many alterations at all for them to fit Lyra.

She picks a silk red shirt with long, puffy sleeves with golden buttons at the embroidered cuffs, and a black sleeveless doublet-tunic reaching slightly past her knee, embroidered in delicate golden stitch with geometric lines and runes, and a red three-headed Targaryen sigil on the right breast. With a belt and gloves and boots all in matching leather, and pants roughly the same black as the doublet, she looks like a proper Targaryen prince. It just needs to be taken in the shoulders a little; while she’s as tall as Daemon when he was fifteen, her shoulders aren’t quite as broad.

She’s not a prince, of course; but she hates dresses and likes looking nice, so it’s the next best thing.

<I never liked hand-me-downs,> Daemon agrees.

<I do,> Lyra says. <It’s less work on a good pay for the seamstress, too.>

<And it looks good, even if it’s not a traditional Valyrian look. It has our colors at least.>

<And what is a traditional Valyrian look?>

<More Essosi,> Daemon hums. <I think at this point the Yi Ti has fashion most closely resembling it. They traded closely with Valyria through the sea, and many who lived on the coast sought refuge there after the Doom. None with dragons, but I hear white hair became relatively common there in the last two centuries.>

Lyra blinks. Yi Ti? That meant Valyria was more Chinese-coded than she thought. Wasn’t it supposed to be more Byzantine-adjacent? Or maybe it simply was here.

<Interesting,> she says. <I think I’d like to go there. I hear they have the best silks and good food. And I’ve been considering learning a new language.>

She wasn’t. Not in this life, anyway; but in her past one, she has been making slow progress in learning Chinese. Chinese dramas have been a bit of a guilty pleasure for her.

She looks at the doublet again. It does look good, sleek and expensive.

A hanfu in those colors would have looked better, though. More dramatic.

<Want me to get you a Yi Tish tutor?>

<Not yet. But after this whole mess is over, we’ll see.>

<Alright.>

○

Somehow along the way, Alicent decides it’s a good idea to organize a family supper. Neither Viserys nor Rhaenyra are back yet, and Otto is by this point halfway to Oldtown, so it’s just the three of them and a cat, toddlers already tucked in bed.

Still, it’s only really awkward in the beginning, with Alicent on one side of the table and Lyra and Daemon on the other. Five minutes in, Lyra decides to magnanimously come to the rescue, as funny as it is watching Alicent and her father flail. Navigating the minefield of their potential topics isn’t even that hard, so long as the topics are kept in interesting neutrals. Music and art and fabrics, and soon enough Daemon is once more sharing with Alicent tips and tricks on how to deal with magic lizard toddlers.

(Daemon never actually put her in a fireplace, but Alicent’s horrified face when she said he did was priceless and Daemon almost cackled himself off the chair rather than deny the allegations.)

Lyra plays the guitar for them when they sit down after the supper, Daemon on one side with a glass of wine and Alicent on the other with Snickerdoodle on her lap, tracking in white fur all over her dark dress, and Lyra cross-legged on the floor in the middle.

It’s actually quite nice without interference like that. It could stay so if Lyra had a say.

Which is probably unrelated to Viserys and Rhaenyra and the whole progress returning just a couple days later to ruin whatever pleasant routine they worked out in the absence of them because they were due to return soon, but it sure feels like it happens to spite her anyway.

○

The thing with Rhaenyra is that, Lyra is simply unable to hate her, and certainly unwilling to wish ill on her, unlike Viserys. That may well change in the future, of course, but currently, while Rhaenyra is definitely an infuriating presence, Lyra is able to somewhat look past all the entitled and spoiled veneer and see a seventeen-year-old girl so utterly failed by her father it’s hard to even truly blame her for her behavior.

Even though at this point, she probably should be actively learning to do better on several fronts, than expecting fortune to keep falling in her lap and active consequences keep evading her.

Which—is easier said than done, honestly. Rhaenyra has some lordling friends and her tutors, but she’s a princess who was never really told ‘no’ until Viserys put his foot down about her marriage. And anybody who’d tell her ‘no’—that is Lyra, Alicent and Daemon, primarily—she’d never listen to. Do the opposite, most likely, if they tried.

Naive and prideful is not a good combination to be, in Rhaenyra’s position.

It is a rock and a hard place kind of situation, and Lyra couldn’t change it if she tried.

Viserys could, but he doesn’t see anything to change. He sees Alyssa with Aemma’s face, and lets her do whatever.

One more reason to hate him.

○

<You would have been a better match in every way but political,> is the first thing Laenor tells her after he hunts her down to vent his frustrations shortly after landing and greeting everyone important.

Lyra blinks at him. It is—not necessarily out of left field, but it’s weird. It also appears she’s become everyone’s shoulder to cry on.

<What the fuck,> she tells him in answer. Laenor snorts and leans against the wall. They’re in a hallway, a little ways off from the party. Lyra is sat on the railing, ready to vault herself over and run if the conversation gets weird, which—it already has in the opener.

<I mean—hear me out,> Laenor sighs. <She has a strong personality, which—>

<I do, too,> Lyra reminds him.

<Which, yes, you do too,> Laenor agrees. <But you are more… Reasonable, than her. You’re not expecting everything to just fall on your lap.>

Sometimes she does, and she almost says it, but bites her tongue. Cheeky distractions are not something Laenor needs now and curse Lyra’s bleeding heart for trying to be a good friend.

<You are so similar, but you couldn’t be more different,> he says. <Both prideful, both mercurial, both entitled brats—>

<Bitch.>

<It’s true!>

<It is. But you’re supposed to be nice and not say the quiet part out loud, therefore; bitch.>

Laenor snorts and shakes his head. <What I’m getting at is, I have a very foreboding feeling about the whole thing. Like I’m marching to my doom. Because unlike you, Rhaenyra does not stop to think. To consider the consequences of her actions. And I’m worried. So, so worried about the future. Mine, my house’s. My family’s. I’ve seen her making cow eyes at her kingsguard, Cole, all the time we were at Driftmark. She was not subtle. Neither am I but—I at least can’t fuck a bastard into Joffrey, you know?>

<Offer her one of your cousins, then, > Lyra says. <She can keep fucking Cole if she wants, but if she has half a working brain, she’ll either have a child by you, or by someone who looks like you. Take initiative.>

<And this is precisely why I’d prefer you, > Laenor says. <You with your flippancy and reasonable approach to the situation. But Rhaenyra…>

Lyra winces. <Rhaenyra always knows best, doesn’t she.>

<Yeah.>

<She will think it beneath her, to do the smart thing.>

<Yeah.>

<Rhaenyra will never listen to me,> Lyra tells him. <But she might to you, if you dress your arguments prettily in concern for her throne. She needs heirs too. Ones she can pass as legitimate; she’s already knee-deep in this quagmire as a woman heir, a single misstep, especially of this magnitude, and the lords will eat her alive.>

They mull it over for a moment in silence unbroken between them bar the sounds of celebration and people moving about the keep. Laenor hides his face in his hands and slides down the wall, in to a crouch, and then sits.

<I envy you,> he says. <I envy your boldness. Your wildness. I envy the fact that any day you could just pack up, get on your dragon, and go. And that you wouldn’t look behind.>

He looks at her, and Lyra remains silent. His eyes are an angry, stormy purple.

<I envy that you can, that you have this choice. That you can choose to go, or you can choose to stay. I envy that you would be brave enough to choose yourself, even if you were in my shoes.>

<I don’t think I’d damn my house if I were in your shoes, to be honest,> Lyra admits. <I understand duty. I’m just beyond glad I’m privileged enough to be born into little of it. A daughter of the second son, a girl with nothing.>

<A girl who can be anything,> Laenor muses. <I couldn’t. It’s too comfortable, being the Velaryon Heir, and soon the King Consort. The shackles chafe and tug—but it’s just too comfortable in my little gilded cage to dare try the unknown.>

<Do you pity me, then?> Lyra asks. Laenor looks at her and chuckles, entirely humorlessly.

<Of course! You have nothing. You are nothing. Nothing but your blood and that blasted dragon. No lands, no holdings, no name, no legacy, no duty. Not a single shackle past ones you yourself choose. I pity it. I pity you. And in the same thought I envy you so, so much.>

<Bitch,> Lyra repeats. <You’d want to shackle me to the Velaryons instead of yourself to Rhaenyra and I’d have to slit your throat if you did. I’d hate to make Rhaenys upset, but needs must.>

Laenor snorts. <There it is. The courage to leave naught but scorched earth. To burn the very bridge you stand on. I wish I had half your spine.>

Lyra hops off the railing and walks up to him, hand extended. <Alright, pity party over. You made your choice, and that is to stay. And, for whatever it’s worth Laenor, I think it’s admirable, and impressive.>

Laenor chuckles, but takes her hand and lets himself be pulled to his feet. <Viserys made a whole circus of the proposal, I hate that too. But you’re right. I’ll ask if any of my cousins won’t fuck the princess for me. I just hope nothing goes wrong in the end, you know?>

<Don’t jinx it,> Lyra huffs. <Or I’ll kill someone at the party myself, just to spite you.>

<Bitch!>

It’s so offended-sounding when he says it, Lyra can’t help but cackle.

○

With the wedding, many things will change. Lyra is anticipating that she might need to leave King’s Landing soon, and she was thinking about Ulf. She’s grown fond of the scrawny brat, and worried what mess he’d get into without her to pull him out of it if she were elsewhere.

Thankfully, she has quite a perfect solution for it, and so she hunts Ulf down and pulls him to the rooftops.

“I might leave soon,” she tells him honestly. “Go somewhere else with me dad. I won’t be able to help you anymore.”

Ulf looks down at his feet. “Oh.”

“So, I been thinking. Gonna pull some strings,” she says and looks to the side, to where she can see the shingled roof of the guard barracks. “I’m gonna get ye a job. I’m gonna get ye a trainer. And when yer a man, yer gonna join the Cloaks.”

Ulf looks at her wide-eyed, disbelieving. Lyra can almost hear what he’s thinking.

For a noble son, Gold Cloaks were a respectable enough position to take for several years; Harwin was one of them. Men seeking to be knights or even knights without land seeking to improve or better themselves, acknowledged bastards of noble houses. Actual prince in line to the throne was a Cloak once, even.

It was a prestigious position, where you could rub your shoulders with even Lords Paramount and the Royal Family.

It was employment, good pay, and a chance at a better life; and near-impossible for someone of Ulf’s background to join unless he was an exceptional fighter, or literate, or both.

Ulf was neither. He was a scrawny twelve-year-old bastard son of a former whore trying to make ends meet as a washerwoman after being able to leave the whorehouse she worked at, likely because Baelon paid her so well for her services she could afford to buy herself out and go.

Ulf clenches his fists and purses his lips.

“Ye can, can’t ye,” he says, and looks at her, eyes bright and piercing. “Cause yer the princess, ain’t ye.”

Lyra crosses her arms on her chest and grins. “When’d you figure it out?”

“Now, coz only the prince Daemon’s daughter could have enough say over them Cloaks to even think of making someone like me one of ‘em,” he says. “An’ the prince Daemon got only one daughter.”

“You upset?”

“You lied.”

“I did,” she nods. “You’d tell me to shove it if I didn’t.”

“I would. Why me?”

“Why not?”

“Coz I’m one of many white-haired bastards runnin’ around,” Ulf scoffs. “S’ppose I got lucky, eh?”

“I suppose you did,” Lyra agrees, and extends a hand to him. “Come. We have Gold Cloaks to harass.”

“Yer fuckin’ weird,” Ulf snorts and shakes his head, but takes her hand anyway.

“Thanks!” Lyra grins at him, and he rolls his eyes.

○

“Wait, Lyra, does it mean that huge black beast—”

“Yes, that’s my dragon, Ancalagon.”

“Can ye take me dragon-riding?”

“No.”

“Awh. Dragons only for them royals, eh?”

“It’s a no because I have the grumpiest, meanest dragon alive. He’d eat you. He tried to eat my father.”

“Really?”

“Yea. He only ever lets me take my cat and the princess Helaena flying on him. Anyone else and he throws a shitfit, even the other kid princelings.”

“A cat? You got a cat?”

“Yep. His name’s Snickerdoodle. White and fluffy and bigger than a small dog. Eats at least three rats a day; good thing, too, Keep’s crawling with ‘em.”

“Hate rats?”

“Not really, but ones in the Keep give me the creeps. They watch. They listen. Especially when you don’t want them to.”

“Eugh.”

“Indeed.”

○

“Corren! Harwin!”

They’re both off night shifts now, as she knew they would be, satin the canteen and eating a late breakfast before a nap. She may or may not have memorized the schedules of all people she liked harassing, for ease of intruding on their lives.

Corren looks at her from his bowl of stew. Harwin, with a freshly split brow barely scabbed over and bruised knuckles from his shift, has apparently decided she can wait in favor of his food. Understandable, really.

“Lyra! I thought you’d be back—” Corren says, as his eyes slide to Ulf. “—home.”

Lyra shakes her head. “He’s figured it out, you can just say Red Keep.”

Corren and Harwin exchange a glance over their bowls and look back at the two.

“I have a favor to ask of you. Mostly Corren, because Harwin’s gonna be heading home sometime soon for lordling duties,” she says and pulls Ulf before herself with a hand on his shoulder, and the boy just looks between her and Corren, unsure.

Corren chews his food for a moment and then points at her with his spoon. “You want us to take the kid in,” he deduces. “‘Cause you think you’ll be out of the city soon, and want someone to take care of him.”

Lyra grins. “See, and this is why I like you! He’s only two-and-ten, so he can’t really join the Cloaks yet, but you can put him on, dunno, floor sweeping or other busywork, and train him up with some weapons so he can join when he’s grown in four years.”

Corren sighs.

“Please?” Lyra asks. “He’s quick on his feet and pretty quick with his head, too.”

Corren sighs again. Harwin elbows him.

“Alright, cough it up,” Corren says. “He’s your brother?”

Ulf looks at him wide-eyed, then at Lyra. “I am?”

“He’s not!” Lyra huffs and pulls Ulf closer to the two, to sit on the bench next to Corren. She leans in. “I’m pretty damn sure he’s my uncle, though.”

“He’s what?!”

“I’m what?!”

“Fucking hush, all of you!” Lyra snaps at the three. “I can’t say for sure, but the timeline lines up, and he looks a lot like the portrait of grandfather that hangs in the Keep. Honestly, more than uncle or dad. My dad just looks more like his mom, and my uncle like a pudgy overcooked noodle.”

“Isn’t your uncle the king?” Harwin asks, eyebrow raised.

“Last I checked, speaking true is no crime.”

Harwin raises his hands in surrender, Ulf meanwhile looks at Lyra like she grew a second head.

“She hates her uncle,” Corren tells the boy. “Any chance she gets to talk shit about him, she’ll take.”

“Damn fuckin’ right,” Lyra says and steals a slice of Harwin’s bread, dunks it in Corren’s bowl of stew, and bites into it.

“Oy,” Corren says. In response, Lyra dunks her bread in his bowl again. He ruffles her hair. “You little shit.”

“Why thank you for recognizing my efforts!” Lyra chirps, and eats her prize. “Anyway. Will you take him?”

“Go talk to the Commander,” Harwin advises her. “I assume you’re keeping this from your father?”

Lyra looks at him, then at Ulf. “Not… Particularly. Now that Ulf knows who I am, might as well tell dad.”

“Then do so. And then have him come down and talk to the Commander about taking the kid in. You could do it on your own, but Daemon will have an easier time.”

Lyra nods. “I only have sway here because of him anyway. Yeah, I’ll go ask tonight. It’ll be finished by tomorrow.”

○

“So that’s what you’ve been hiding from me these last few weeks,” Daemon says, eyes trained on a fidgeting Ulf. “Hells, he really does look like father.”

“Told ya,” Lyra says. “So, you gonna talk to the head Cloak? I think his name’s Kester.”

Daemon looks at her and Ulf takes a relieved breath. “Alright. Let’s get my secret kid brother a job. Gods know you can’t keep taking care of him, Viserys might kick us out any day now.”

“Um,” Ulf says, wringing his hands. “I’m, um.”

“Out with it, I don’t bite,” Daemon says, hands crossed on his chest. Ulf looks up at him, eyes big.

“Can you take me to fly on a dragon?” the boy blurts out. Daemon’s brely-extant eyebrows shoot up his forehead, and he looks between Lyra and Ulf for a moment, before he grins.

“Oh he’s got guts, I think I like this brother better.”

Lyra snorts.

○

Caraxes is much more amendable to joyrides with extras than Ancalagon. Ulf almost vibrates out of his skin with excitement when they finally land.

○

Ulf gets the job at ten stags a month. It’s not much, but more than he expected, and he’s more than happy to bring extra money home to his mother.

Commander Kester originally offered him half that, but Daemon asked nicely that he reconsider, so he did reconsider.

○

The day before the celebrations begin, Lyra is filled with an odd sense of restlessness. Untapped energy buzzing just beneath her skin, a horrible kind of anticipation. She spends the rest of her day in the nursery, after the final fitting of her party outfit.

It’s where Alicent finds her, and pulls her to the side, face firm.

“I will wear green,”Alicent tells her, arms crossed on her chest. “I trust you know what that means.”

“I do,” Lyra says. “I’m wearing pants. My father’s old clothes perfectly befitting the occasion with their opulence and craft, but still. Not a dress.”

“That’s a statement, too.”

Lyra grins. “I guess we’ll both be taking bits of Rhaenyra’s spotlight then, if for entirely different reasons. But a green dress? That’s a loud and clear sign of your allegiance. I don’t think I've ever seen you in green before, ever.”

Alicent turns to face her, a small, sad smile on her face. “You said so yourself, I have more power than I know. And I will make good use of it, to protect myself and my children. And that starts with my own house. My father did have some—unsavory ideas, but I cannot ignore the rest of my house, or their power. And my uncle, Lord Hobert Hightower, will lend me his strength if I show I stand for my house. I need that support.”

Lyra nods. “Our paths will diverge, even if they lead to a similar goal. They would have diverged nonetheless, because you are right. My support is not enough. It would not be, not for a long time.”

“Because you were never a lady at all,” Alicent agrees. “Our customs are not for a creature such as you, and… I suppose the color fits, for I am green with envy when I think of you. For all you lack in power to sway the courts, neither are you shackled by any duty, and that—that is a terrifying kind of privilege, like a leaf fallen from the tree, unburdened by branches but at the mercy of four winds.”

“And yet, I would never trade that dangerous freedom for the comfort of a cage,” Lyra says.

“I admire that. I envy that. I resent that. But my place is here, and it is time I played this wretched game. For me. For my children.”

“Good luck Alicent,” Lyra says. “Good luck surviving that father-daughter duo from hell.”

Alicent chuckles. “I thought that was you and Daemon?”

Lyra shakes her head. “Sometimes I wish, but Rhaenyra and Viserys really do outdo us with all the harm they cause by their blind haplessness alone.”

Alicent chuckles again. She’s a little more firm now, a little sharper. She gave up on Rhaenyra, Lyra thinks, and if she ever had any hope for Viserys, Lyra will never know. Wouldn’t be surprised if there was none.

“I hope you will keep your cousins in your heart, still,” Alicent says after a moment. “And then—And then, when the winds inevitably carry you on another adventure away from here, I hope you would write to me once more.”

“I will,” Lyra promises. “We will disagree. We may well grow to resent each other, and our choices and circumstances, but remember. Where it actually matters, past those idiotic politics of old men who can’t even wipe their arses, you have a friend in me. Always. And if I’m able to help, I will.”

“Thank you. For everything. And good luck on your future endeavors.”

“You too,” Lyra nods. “For whatever it’s worth—I’ll likely cause trouble at the reception, too.”

Alicent actually giggles at that. “I rather look forward to it. Just don’t kill anyone.”

“No promises. I’ve been getting really good at that.”

Alicent slaps her shoulder. “Do not.”

“Gods, you sound like cousin Rhaenys! Fine, I’ll keep my violence to myself!”

“That’s all I ask.”

“Oh, and Alicent?”

“Yes?”

“If you want to make a big statement, be late to the welcome party.”

“Oh, I intended to, yes.”

“Good luck. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“You too, Lyra.”