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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 29: Complete

MASTERLIST

Summary: Aemond's desires come to truth as Daemon and Naera wed in the way of old Valyria.

Word count: 2.9k

Warnings: NSFW Content! It's not THAT explicit, only vague kissing and fondling, heavy implications, suggestive themes, breeding kink, etc.

Aemond knocked tentatively on the ebony door, feet shuffling as he turned to his back, then each side, not at all calmed by the endless echoing corridors of the Keep. In his hand he held an ornate box that lay carved with ancient Valyrian runes—the result of his escapades in the King’s Stores, that he had taken it upon himself to deliver to his uncle and half-sister as a marital gift.

And then some. He had a question to ask, assistance to seek from the person he had grown to trust may understand. His half-sister was as selfish as he felt, he knew, and his uncle her husband even graver in his deeds. They were the perfect match, in a way—blood and fire, the epitome of what it meant to be Targaryen. The world would know no peace.

“Come!” He heard Naera scream from within, and he turned the heavy door on its hinges, silent. And entered the solar. It was strewn adrift with papers and letters, books and fresh parchment. Pots of ink sat beside collections of quills, ornate and rough-spun huddled alike, beside bottles of Dornish Red and some strange concoctions in twinkling glass bottles that ranged from the looks of curdled milk to liquid jade. He could smell ginger, at his first step, lemon at his second, and ash and embers when he sat.

Naera sat on her chair, eyes trained on a letter. She read it, expression bearing a soft frown that he realised was the natural way her lips fell, until she smiled, crumpled the pages in her hands and tossed it into the fireplace.

“Good morrow, Aemond.” Aemond turned to the window, one good eye watching the sun make its descent into the waters.

“It is to be evening soon, sister.” Naera followed his gaze to the window, to the haze that would soon be ushered with twilight. Her face glowed differently, he saw. Much had changed since they last met, even if only a moon had turned. As for him.

He’d made his moves carefully, spent stollen moments with the object of his every desire. He’d plucked her flowers she had never held before, told her tales of truth and sometimes even of valour, stollen kisses under the cover of shadowy night, and held to his stealth for protection. It wasn’t enough.

“Ah.” She turned to the door to her chambers, and said, aloud, “The sun sets soon, make some haste, dear groom.” He saw that she still wore a gown of black silk, not the garments of their tradition. He heard laughter from the other side, slurred words in their mother tongue that Aemond couldn’t quite decipher, but he recognised that Naera sat blushing and silent afterwards.

Blushing, for all her warrior-like ways. It was rather different from his sweet true sister’s blushes. Naera seemed scandalised, mischievous, a light flush of red on her cheeks, an embarrassed smile on her lips, but Helaena, Helaena blushed so red he feared he’d have to fetch a maester, turned so high and brilliant, eyes sparkling, lips chapped together that he--right.

He set the box down on the table, “A gift to commemorate your union.”

Naera smiled, inching the box closer to herself for a look. “Thank you—” but the door opened with a shudder.

Aemond’s uncle walked in, scuttered, rather—his steps were hasty. He was dressed in traditional garbs—red and cream, his silver-white hair left free to hang an inch above his shoulders, Dark Sister in her scabbard in his hand.

“No,” Naera covered her eyes, “A Tyroshi priestess once told me that gazing upon your betrothed on your day of marriage is considered ill-luck.” A burst of laughter left her lips.

“And a Valyrian book once told me that I may gaze at my wife as often as I wish.” Daemon left his sword on the table, snatched his wife’s hands away from her face and kissed her lips, with lust and haste, then kissed her forehead, and ran out the door. Aemond watched his back as he left, baffled as to when he had retaken the sword.

“I closed my eyes!” Naera screamed after him. Still laughing, she turned back to Aemond, “What can I do for you, brother?” Brother. He smiled back at her, unable to stop himself.

“Tell me, sister,” he breathed, licked his lips, hesitant. That is why he’d come, he knew. Sure, pay respects to his favourite family members after Helaena, congratulate them on their union, but there was always the other cause. “How can I take her?” Her, her, her; his Helaena, splendid, ethereal beauty wrapped in a promise of treason.

Naera sighed, and he was glad that she’d understood without him having to spend more words.

Naera poured him a cup of wine, water the colour of blood settling into a silver cask, like rubies spilling from a dark slate. Naera froze as she filled it, eyes distant, lost. Then, she asked, voice betraying her dreamy loss of the moment, “Does the Trident have Green Waters?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head, handed him the cup and returned to her chair.

Aemond swallowed the wine in a breath, eye not leaving his sister’s face. She had paled, that sickly palour returning to her face. She blinked frantically, sipped a cup of water.

“You cannot take her, Aemond,” Take what you want, she had told him some moons ago—and he realised his folly. It was akin to a jerk to wake him from a long sleep.

Gods, what had he been thinking? He couldn’t take her, how could he? Where would they go? What would they do when men came seeking them? Had he been so blinded by his love, that he’d forgone all practicality? He’d hoped that she’d have an answer but—“You can maybe ask her.” He furrowed his eyebrows, a ghostly pain returning from under his eyepatch.

Naera sighed, “A maiden’s word must be your shield if you intend to have her.” Rapers went to the Wall at best, to the headsman at worst. Disgraceful.

“I do not mean to defile her,” Aemond defended, “I wish to wed her—to—” to see her wear the garbs Naera would at dusk, to drink her blood and hold her hand and vow to protect her for all their lives. That was what he wanted.

Naera refilled his cup, “I know, and she knows. The world does not.”

“You could—”

“What?” His sister’s eyes grew cold and cruel, her voice tuned to injure, to pick at his folly and tear him a regretful wound, “Tell the world that you love her? It isn’t so simple.” Aemond looked down, unable to meet those crystal eyes. Every word she spoke was true, and that hurt. Leave the world, he thought, Mother is the one we need convince.

“You can only love for so long without being loved, brother,” Naera sighed, chin dropping to her palm, elbow banging against the table, “You can only run if she wishes it also.” Run with me, Helaena. We’ll wed in the faith of the Seven or that of the Valyrians. We’d be one heart, one soul—just say the word.

“She wants me, I am certain of it.” She hates Aegon, and knows well that their days near quickly. If only mother saw through her schemes.

“It is only mother, even the King—”

Naera shook her head, “Fuck the King,” he smiled at her brashness, “fuck your mother and your cock of a grandsire,” he felt a pang of shame after the moment passed. He hadn’t defended them, he realised. He agreed with his sister. His mother, fuck Alicent, who wouldn’t see past the grey shroud of duty to gaze at the world in all its colour. Love, was the colour he wished to see, he reminded himself. He had caught a glimpse, now he wanted a full look. “Aemond,” she summoned his wits back to her, “Ask her, confide in her, and run, together.”

Dusk hung heavy in the isle of Dragonstone, a curtain of fog descending on the shores as fires were lit and the Blood of the Dragon gathered near the volcanic crypts. It was a cacophony of red and black, the colours of their heritage—silver hair and purple eyes, fire in their veins, all gathered in respect or obligation.

The priest fanned the coal and flames, ornate chalices and candles gathered by Rhaenyra arranged on a block of rock marbled with red and yellow—it was slab of frozen fire mined from the haunted crypts of the Dragons.

Daemon could hear them murmuring through the fog from where he stood on the sandy beach. He could make out the Hightower cunt’s voice, could see her black gown flapping in the breeze even through the fog, and it only irritated him. The Blood of the Dragon had gathered, so why, pray why had the stupid lanterns joined in? His robes were scratchy and cold, the calm breezes did nothing to allay his urgency. The sun was falling into the sea, a streak of gold and saffron following it, and the mists grew pink and red as though the sky itself bled. It was time

The waves rustled the sands calmly as she took his side. Wrapped in a robe nearly identical to his—cream and ruby, adorned with gold, an ornate headdress laid between her braided silver locks. Beautiful. The curve of her nose, the pink flesh of her lips, her eyes—crystals clearer than diamonds painted blue and red, gods.

His ire vapourized, that familiar panging of his heart returning, thud, thud, his heart now beat only for her, it seemed.

He took her hand wordlessly, her chilled touch sending shivers through him, and in his mind, he spoke a prayer.

Let me hold this hand forever.

The rocky shores bristled against her bare feet, reminding Naera of the time she had scaled the ports of Asshai from the rocky ends. It hurt, but it was worth it. Daemon’s hand was warm in hers, his grasp tight and binding, as they crossed the threshold to where their family waited.

The fires flared when they made it to the clearing, the sky reddened like a maiden’s blush—if the Gods could betray more of their intentions, she did not know how. With the cold of the fog, and the warmth of his hand, the serene calmness of this event came a gradual understanding that this was right. She was meant for this—to be his, to hold his hand, to wield her sword for them, to sleep and wake and live beside him. Her uncle who had never cared for her, but now he cared not what the world said as long as he could have her.

Her family stood around the flames; the two branches of the house split over the priest. Viserys stumbled close, wilting hair and face, though he had a guilty smile on. He’d done this in some hope of companionship, but it had grown into a sickly sort of love, he knew.

He took her hand, clasped it in his cold damp one, and pressed a shuddering kiss to her forehead. Naera smiled at him, watched him return to Rhaenyra’s side—Rhaenyra, who smiled in a way most disillusioned, who stood with her husband, her sworn guards, her children, her court, choosing war even in that moment. Across the priest was Alicent, face contorted in distaste for such old ways, her children at her side, all in red and black, a treaty of peace. Aemond gave her a curt nod when she met his eye, a tingling smile on her lips.

The priest—one of the old Keepers of the Dragonpit who still followed those old doomed gods—began his droning, hymns sung to Meleys, the goddess of love and fertility, to Teraxes, to Balerion—to nearly every god, but Naera cared not. This had been the scene, she knew—Daemon shrouded in fog, silent and still, calmness in his eyes.

The priest handed him a blade of obsidian, a shard of glass as black as night that glowed in its shadowy beauty. He ran it down her lower lip, skin splitting instantly, blood pooling. He dabbed his thumb on that red, red, red beauty, and smeared a straight line on her forehead.

I name you woman, fire in your veins, it meant.

She took the blade, and did the same for him, his blood warm against her thumb as she drew three bent lines on his forehead.

I name you man, blood in your nature.

He traced the dagger over his palm, striking a wound deep and true to stand out amongst all thousands scars that he brandished. A line of red dripped down his skin. Naera traced the same wound on her own palm—Of my own will, I thus give you myself, and their hands joined in a flash of pain and flame.

The priest began, “Hen lantoti ānograr va syndroti vāedroma,” Blood of two joined as one, lifeblood dripping to mingle and mix, tethering them to each other.

The priest wrapped a ribbon the colour of night and light over their held hands, blood dripping down through the binds.

“Mēro perzot gīhoti elēdroma iārza sīr,” Ghostly flame and song of shadows.

He handed Naera a chalice of stone and glass, as dark as night, and she tilted the vessel till salt and iron flooded her tongue. Our blood to bind.

“Izulī ampā perzī prumī lanti sēteski,” Two hearts as embers forged in fourteen fires.

Daemon mirrored her acts, his face twisting as their blood laced his tongue. He swallowed it bravely, and watched Naera’s eyes. Close, so close.

“Hen jeny māzilarion, qēlossa ozūndesi,” A future promised in glass, the stars stand witness.

Naera breathed, breaking into a delicate smile again, “I shall be your side forever.”

He took her other hand, eyes never leaving—lilac and lilac, crystal clear and shallow pools of glass. “I shall hold your hand forever.”

“Synroro ōñō jēdo ry kīvia mazvestraksi.” The vow spoken through time of Darkness and Light.

She inhaled, cold, wet air flooding her nose in a rush, and she gazed, gazed, gazed at him, his eyes that refused to leave hers, the wealth of his wisdom yet to be cultivated, the gift of his existence forever claimed by her. She said, “I will defend you.” Against the night, against the light, against whatever was to come. Against every wish to exile, every spat with the greens, every ill word with the King, she will stand by him, she will protect his honour as though it was her own.

He smiled, though both love and mischief twinkled in his eye, “I will warm you.” When the night was dark and full of terrors, when the end came and her will faltered, he shall be with her, he shall give her fire and light. He will warm her bed and hers alone, warm her body when the cold came, warm her spirits over every loss and share her joy over every victory.

Naera said, “I will give it all up for you.” Dorne, Volantis, Pentos, the Dothraki Seas, Asshai, and her dreams—Yi Ti, the Jade Sea, whatever lays east of the Shadow, the very wonders of the world could be laid abandon. She loved too easily, but even the gods had proclaimed this union as perfection.

“I will never hurt you.” Not as he once had, no, never. He will never disappoint her, never let her down, never leave her behind, never let her think that he could survive without her.

“I will love you.” Daemon’s heart lost a weight he did not know he bore, a delightful, fiery blaze in his chest, a joy uncontainable. His, his, his. She was his, every flicker on her eyes belonged to him, every mocking word his, every act of bravery, every witted word. He loved already, but he could love better, now that she loved him also.

His hand flew to her face, thumb smearing the blood at her lip, red, red, red, and to show that he cared, that he loved, that he was willing to understand, he said, “For the night is dark and full of terrors.”

She leaned on her toes and kissed his lips.

His laughter would be her lifeblood, she realised as his heaving breaths reverberated through her chest, made her feel warm, made her feel him, his spirit and not just his body.

“D’you know what they’ll all say,” he spoke into her neck, his nose breathing cool air over the red mark of his bite, “When you grow round and great with my child, again and again?”

She laughed, a fleeting giggle morphing into a ridiculed laugh, “What?” He pulled her into a different corridor, away from their chambers.

“The Princess must really love her uncle’s cock,” the vulgarity made her roll her eyes.

“Maybe they’ll think that the prince has no control over himself,” Naera challenged, “Keeps getting his sweet niece with child, the poor woman.” He pushed her against a wall, cold stone of the corridors of the Keep making her flush and hum, and his hands roamed her flesh like a man starved.

Their lips met, tongues melding, breaths fading until the newly wedded couple panted for breath.

“Poor woman?” His eyes twinkled with the sort of courage that came with deeds best not committed.

“They needn’t know,” she kissed his cheek, arms winding around his neck. “They needn’t know that the idea of bearing her uncle’s seed fills the niece with a selfish joy that she cannot account for.” With a deft flick of his hand, her robes parted, rough linen tearing aloud.

“Oh, but the uncle knows,” he descended on her neck again, “He knows very well how much his niece loves having his spend in her womb.” He hoisted her legs up, lips falling to her breasts.

“Yes, oh, yes he does,” she moaned, wits departing her, fingers tugging at his hair, leading him to the other breast. He complied greedily, nipping, licking, kissing the flesh, leaving red and purple marks on every patch of free skin.

Her garbs were torn and ruined; her headdress abandoned in the hands of Laenor before they had scurried to the corridors in some mad bout of lust. Gods, lust was only one word for what she felt. She felt charged, as though lightning had struck her very soul. She felt fiery, as she often did when he stood beside her.

One kiss to his lips and the sentiment had caught on as a candle-flame blazes into an arsonist’s dream.

Now her swelling flesh was in his hands. She had lapped away the drying blood of his lip, sucked at the tear in his skin till the wound was raw, and now, she was at his mercy once again.

“Daemon,” she called, making him stare into her eyes with his own, lilac flowers and bloody amethysts. Beautiful. His hair was tousled, red streaking his forehead, but his eyes, those eyes that were over a decade older than her own yet were livelier than she had been just moons ago.

“Naera,” he called back, as had become their ritual, and she recalled the sweet bliss of hearing her name from his lips again. Completion, he made her sound complete, made her believe that she could conquer this new land that was marriage and slay this new demon that was mistrust.

Footsteps.

And the moment broke, but he was smiling as he leaned his face close to hers, covering her form from view.

“Fuck off,” he chastised behind himself, swaying his wife slowly. “Can’t you see—” but Naera put a finger to his lips, her eyes trained over his shoulder. Daemon turned tentatively, half-expecting his brother or the Hightower cunt or the cunt lord of hands but no.

He hugged his sweet wife tighter as she gave a subtle nod to Aemond, her half-brother—his sister Helaena’s hand in his, her face caught blushing a bright red, as they rushed through corridors and passageways, hastened and cautious. When their footsteps echoed away, Naera laughed.

“The Hightowers fall on our wedding after all.”

To be, or not to be…

…continued

MASTERLIST

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 28: Loss

MASTERLIST

Summary: The Dornish Envoy; The Red Priestess.

Word count: 3k

Warnings: angst?

The Dornishmen who rowed in after noon were strange to Daemon’s eye. He had a great affinity for the Dornish, even if he liked denying it. Their wine began at dawn and stopped an hour before it. Yet their past with Meraxes, with his ancestress Rhaenys, put him in at dynastical odds with them.

His eyes remained on the ship at the horizon, treacherous to his sentiment. He anticipated a woman in Red to follow, but Naera made no such motion. He almost heard her whisper once. At dusk.

There were three soldiers, in leather armour, holding spears and adorned with the crest of the sun. Martell swords, Naera had whispered to him when the party crossed the threshold to the audience hall. Rhaenyra sat at the throne, sharp gazed and peace entreated. They escorted a man in golden silk, curly-haired and clean-shaved with sharp amber eyes and bronze skin. Identified as only a representative of House Martell, he had paid Daemon none of the heed that would be expected from a nobleman. He spoke with simple words in a thick Dornish accent, refusing stay and custom, thanking the Princess of Dragonstone for excusing their intrusion.

All the Martell Envoy asked was a word with the Silver Knight.

Daemon watched the resident Kingsguard, Ser Redmond or whatever the fuck his name was, frisk the soldiers for any weapons. He took their spears, and thin blades that two of them carried, cutting his hand on a pocket blade that the third had hidden. The Martell man had only a dagger, blunt and ceremonial, but Daemon suspected it to be poisoned.

Leave us, Naera had commanded after Rhaenyra departed, and not asked. He grumbled an insult, at which she raised her Valyrian Steel dagger, placably keeping it within hand’s reach. As soon as the doors closed, he crept along to one of the old passages in the Keep, taking the entrance from Aegon’s Garden to the side crypts of the Great Hall, where the Dornish held audience with his wife.

It was a dusty hallway, barred windows allowing him a peek into the solemnly lit stone throne room, another showing him the sandy beach were his dragon roared with Naera’s. Gēliax, she had renamed him. The beast swirled in the sand, roaring and gurgling flames and smoke, coughing pieces of bone with slithery, slimy entrails from old rotted meals. Where the fuck had he been?

“I offer the congratulations of House Martell, Princess.” The man in gold silk spoke, and Daemon watched Naera stand still, the picture of diplomacy in an ash black gown, red and silver scales at her sleeves, arms folded, “With this child, you usher a new age for your House, leaving your past with us behind.” Daemon crept closer to the window, seeing the Dornishman, when it clicked. Simple words, but the Martells were poets. She had written as such in all those lovesick letters to Rhaenyra. The man’s posture was stiff—far too stiff for a lord of any station, knighted or otherwise. This was a footman.

“I did love your Prince,” Naera spoke soft and clear, that old defiance that commanded respect leaking back into her tone. He’d have to get rid of that, Daemon smiled, but her words lost his confidence. Prince Raiden of Dorne and Princess Naera of King’s Landing. A match by the hand of fate, the citadel historians had praised.

Then, there was her.

He watched the Martell ship in the distance, anchored near the Isle but still within the Blackwater. He feared Naera when she turned this way. Cryptic, independent, defiant. As though she knew the world in her twenty-and-five years better than he did in his thirty-odd. He had caught her reading her journals from the Shadowlands, watched her eyes linger over the portrait of the Priestess, all red, cursed, beatific, sure, and if he tried, he could even find her beautiful.

Naera had smiled at him, sad, sad, as sad as she had been when he first met her after her time in Essos, yearning and longing for that pesky thing she called freedom. It made him angry, or rather, he thought that it did—but there was no fire to his anger, only a sinking sadness.

Would he lose her again?

She continued, “More than anything or anyone I had loved before him.” Before him.

The silken man said, “We know that.”

Naera did not seem fazed. Her lilac eyes had retained that frozen amethyst quality, a clarity of thought that bled into an estranged clarity in her eyes. Her silver hair waved a frolic as she tilted her head at the guardsmen who surrounded their ‘emissary’.

“Why are you here, Prince Qoren?” His heart dropped. The third escorting man, the one with the sharp blade Redmond had committed follies with, stepped forth, the other guards and the man in gold silk stepping back, kneeling before him.

Qoren Martell. Prince of Dorne.

“It relieves my heart to know that we have not yet grown so estranged or distant that you may not recognize me, Princess Naera.” The man was young, younger than Naera, with the same sun-bronzed complexion that the footmen carried, yet he spoke with a softer accent, his words were better chosen, his posture more dignified. Royalty.

“It relieves my heart to know that you have not yet grown so daft as to walk into an enemy monarch’s Keep undisguised.” She smiled in a kindred, warm gesture—siblings meeting years past. She opened her arms, sheathed dagger still in hand, and the Prince of Dorne embraced her.

Daemon had no thought to speak, but his jaw tightened. A Dornish Prince—nay, the Dornish Prince, the reigning ruler of the peninsula of sand, in his Keep. His love’s reminder of an old life, within proximity. He knew not what to think, much less what to speak.

When they parted, Prince Qoren smiled. “Ask what you wish to.”

Naera grimaced, her glowing features contorting in a gritting of teeth, a flare of her nose.

“And what is that?” She asked, taking three steps away from the foreign company to stand directly in the stream of light that fell through the stone ceiling. It fell on her face, but didn’t outshine her, only made her hair glow a pure gold at the forehead that faded to a splendid silver near the strands, made her skin sparkle clean.

“Ask what it is your duty to ask.” Qoren followed her with two strides, chocolate eyes gleaming in the darkness.

Duty.

Duty with the Dornish?

“I cannot,” Naera said, turning her face away from her once almost good-brother, “You know that I cannot.”

“And you know that if you ask us, we can safeguard a victory for those who wear Black in this war that comes.” Indeed. Rhaenyra’s war. Daemon recalled the tale of the Asshai’i amber merchant, the exploit of Rhaenyra’s deeds. It was Naera’s duty, as her sister’s sworn sword. By whatever means necessary, gain support for her faction. Win the war.

“There shan't be—”

“I have never known you to remain in delusion, Princess.” Peace is a delusion. Prosperity, an illusion. If the axes weren’t swinging, they were simply being sharpened, Daemon knew. His thoughts flittered back to the Stepstones, the fact that the very man who stood before his wife now ruled his old kingdom. “All you need do is ask.” Prince Qoren paced away from Naera, giving her room to breathe, time to think.

Daemon wished that he could speak up—that he could call out, offer a hand, take this deal, win this war. The offence of Rhaenys’ death be damned—the Dornish knew how to war with Dragons. They knew how to slay a dragon. Vhagar wouldn’t fall to any dragon of this age, except, perhaps, perhaps.

He thought of the wild beasts in the Dragonmont—Sheepstealer, who terrorized the fishing village in the north of the Isle. Cannibal, who rested on the corpses of his kin. Vermithor, ferocity incarnate. A dragon as grand as Vhagar, the Keepers stated.

Perhaps.

Naera shook her head, “All I shall ask is that you do not support the Greens.” Naera wouldn’t. By whatever twisted morality she had adopted, had ingrained within her, across her years in the East, she’d never exploit the Dornish, even if it was a fair exchange. Not when it may cost the Rhoynar their freedom.

Prince Qoren stepped towards the doors.

“As you wish, Princess.”

Naera bid him farewell, and remained in the hall, staring solemnly at the dagger in her hand.

When he made the rounds and returned to the Hall, she stood the same, tracing her hand over the dagger, the ornate silver-steel scabbard, the dragon’s jaw parted over the dead sharp blade.

“What is it?” He forced her to leave her speculation of the dagger, leaning his forehead against hers, holding her waist. He felt the need to be closer if only to ground her, remind her nearly constantly of what he had built with that.

“This dagger,” she pulled away, holding the blade under the light. “Where did you get it?” It sparkled.

He had given it to her the first time they properly spoke. Back in King’s Landing, in the Godswood.

Daemon took the dagger from her, spinning it in the air, catching it again. He had found it in Pentos, during one of his many exiles. He’d wagered for it, a duel to the death with a young sellsword of the Golden Company. The Valyrian Steel dagger and Dark Sister. Winner keeps all.

“Pentos,” he handed it back to her, “Why do you ask?”

“Daemon,” she laughed, “I think that this once belonged to Visenya.”

When dusk came, the family had convened for an early dinner, celebrating the return of Geliax, where the kids argued about the might of their dragons and the speed of their wings. Around the table lay empty the chairs for Daemon and Naera, and even the maids knew not where the pair had fled.

“Leave them,” Laenor had advised, scrunching his nose at the idea of catching the pair at an amorous juncture, and Rhaenyra hadn’t argued. The children had hardly noticed.

Naera knew that he would try everything, everything within his power to coerce her into staying. His child was within her, he’d remind her, their bond was eternal, he’d insist. So, perhaps just to allay his anxiety, when dusk came close to falling, she had taken his hand and dragged him to the sandy beach with her.

The wind swept his hair astray, even when it reached only his shoulders, and he squinted in irritation at the setting sun. The sky was blown to the shade of a tangerine, ripe and orange, streaked with wine red, and at the far edge of the water, the sun crept as an orb, golden and sinking through the waters.

His hand was as warm as hers, but her hold was tighter. A lone raft swept towards the isle, bobbin in sync with the currents. She could see a single person adrift on the distant boat, dressed in red, red as blood.

He stood at the edge of the sand, watching, fear growing in the pit of his stomach, dark, grotesque tendencies flooding his instincts again. He breathed, calmed himself, took one long look at his lady wife, at the way her skin refused to give up a sparkling sheen, the crystal clarity in her eyes worth more than all the world’s diamonds collected, and let her go.

Melisandre of Asshai thought that she knew much about the ways of the world. But she also knew that this was her ignorance.

All her life, she had known loss. The oldest loss had been that of her freedom. Melony, the one who must not be named whispered in her ear every night, pulling her into his embrace. Melony, is what she had once been called. A young girl with red hair, too young to fuck, though some had tried, no, a young slave with red hair, sold to the Temple at Asshai.

She remembered being told that it was her eyes—red eyes, that urged a passing Red Priest to make the purchase, and she had risen the ranks of faith simply from her long, persistent acknowledgement of the truth. The Lord of Light had saved her, rescued her from a life as a dainty whore, plucked her from her written fate and dropped her in the light. The Lord of Light had saved her, so she must do his bidding.

She remembered the coldness within her, that eve, in the cells, before she had been saved. She remembered that sense, a chill in the breeze that warned of loss, unthinkable, eternal loss—a loss she had soldiered through without a single tear spent or a single word spoken.

She had lost her will in exchange for a purpose. The journey was long, it was hard—the fire burned her eyes, the ruby charred her throat, but she must journey even further. She had longer to live, farther to strive if she was to repay her debt.

Now, as she sat on a wooden raft big enough for two, rowing her way across the Blackwater, she knew not what was to come. The lord of light had sent her West, and asked him to retrieve her lover—but this feeling, this estranged heft in the air reminded her of loss, loss and even heavier loss. She felt as she had before she lost her freedom.

R’hllor had shown her too much of what was to transpire this eve, made her listen to words that crushed her heart, made her watch scenes that broke her resolve. But that had been days ago. Now, she visited the Isle to only hear what she knows will occur, to see what she knows she shall, and the pain had mellowed into a haze. She felt no remorse. She felt no anger.

The Isle of the Dragon floated discordant in the blue waters, rocks streaked red with lava, the songs of dragons in the air. She rowed faster. Her hands ached; her skin blistered. She rowed faster still, for the sun was setting on the world, and she had made a promise.

When the Isle became clear to her sight, such that she could watch the span of sand, and feel the Blood of the Dragon pulsing in the veins of the royalty that resided within, she couldn’t smile.

She wondered if her visions were to come true today. Whether she’d lose it all again, today.

The sky burned orange, clouds the colour of gold streaking the sun.

She left the raft in the water a foot deep, trudging the salty, sandy mess till she stood in just an inch of the sea. She stood on salt, a stain of red against the pale ocean—a drop of blood on ivory skin.

There she was.

Silver hair, lilac eyes. Her Targaryen Princess, wrapped in black and red, is a pure token to her heraldry. She walked, tempered steps that made her dark cloak billow behind her, as swept with the wind as her silver hair.

We shall meet again, ‘tween sand and salt.

A wave brushed past her feet, swallowed the hem of Naera’s dress in its muddy current, and they stood before each other.

When the sun dips below the horizon.

The sky darkened, the orange sun sinking into the water to the west. The golden hour drowned. Naera stared into her eyes—rubies meeting amethysts, but there was no lust, no fire. Only wistfulness.

For hours spent in the delight of your embrace.

Naera fell into her arms, and Melisandre took a long breath of fire and brimstone, ink and paper, and something more—something sharp and metallic, different from anything she had known about her love before.

Changed. Melisandre realised. Her love had changed.

She carried a dagger of Valyrian Steel, ornate yet dangerous. She stood taller, and her eyes were brighter—not blown black with admiration as she had long known her eyes to be, but burned instead into glass.

“My love,” Melisandre smiled, wistful, aware of how things were inevitably to pass, “Do not fret,” and kissed her lips, slow, calm, nearly chaste, and held her, warm, eyes closed, eyes dry. Losses made her weep no longer. She had a longer war to fight in, and a longer life to survive.

“Do you remember when we first met?” There was warmth in Naera’s words, despite the coldness in her words. Why dig up memories that pained? “In the Dothraki Sea, in the slave cells of Vaes Dothrak?”

“Yes,” The Red Woman recalled the day with perfect clarity. A white-haired woman in the cell next to hers, biting and struggling against the cell’s bars, futile, Melisandre had thought.

“I did not mean to save you,” Naera confessed. She had been walked out of the cell, named a witch for her hair, a beast for her tongue. She had named Melisandre her accomplice. She had saved her from the fire. “I only wanted you to owe me safe journey to Asshai.”

Melisandre laughed. “But I left you behind.”

“Yes,” Naera smiled, but her eyes refused to follow, “and I must leave you.” The Red woman closed her eyes. “I cannot return.” Naera confirmed. “My—” No.

“Shhh…” Melisandre pressed a finger to her lip, held her jaw, touch tender, “You shall return to my side one day, my love,” in life or in death.

Her eyes flickered to Daemon, off in the distance, his gaze trained on the woman she held. Love is a fickle thing, the Other echoed in her mind, distant, frightening.

She met Naera’s eyes again, “But today is not that day.”

Naera fell, dragging the priestess down with her in sobs, and cries, apologies and promises, but Melisandre listened to none of it. She had no need to. She had heard it all in her dreams already.

“Thank you,” the woman once called Melony told the Silver Knight, “Thank you for letting me love you.”

MASTERLIST

#daemon targeryan #original female character #house targaryen #house of the dragon #daemon x oc #daemon smut #daemon targaryen smut #team black #house martell #dance of dragons #melisandre of asshai #melisandre #daemon x y/n #daenerys targeryan #azor ahai #dreams #fanfiction #archive of our own

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 27: Dragon

MASTERLIST

Summary: Naera meets Wisestone and comes to terms with his truth.

Word count: 2.4k

Warnings: nothing, really

Their footsteps echoed through the halls of the fortress. A set, heavy and muddled, more hastened than the other, that paused periodically, presumably to let the other catch up, and the second—lighter and clearer, with a calm, unstopping rhythm, a sense of expectancy escaped.

The doors of the fortress creaked aloud as they opened, drowsing guards shaken awake by twin flurries of silver hair and black capes at the first hour of dawn. The pair stumbled out into the staircase, cold morning air shocking the breaths out of both, a hazy fog settled over the walkway.

Daemon took Naera’s hand, leading her from two steps ahead, failing to suppress the sense of urgency that had filled him. Her hand was warm, far warmer than his, almost as though she had turned to toss embers around while he dressed. The air was salty, sandy, and gratingly cold, and his breath nearly fogged two inches before his face, but he kept his pace, descending the stone staircase towards the beach.

The sound of waves greeted them, harsher for the morning, water crashing against the cavern rocks and rising on the beach. He left her hand, just for a second, scouting around for her great white beast that he hadn’t really met in years, and the low, gurgling Valyrian of the dragonkeepers alerted him.

“Dohaerās,” they chanted, serve, and by the time he turned, Naera had already broken half the distance towards the white dragon settled on the corner of the landing of the isle, wings horribly scratched, harness torn to shreds. Naera walked with greater urgency, cape flapping with the wind, silver hair drawn into a braid that turned and flittered with every step.

He took a step to, but she uttered without turning, “Umbagon.” Stay there. He stepped back, drawing a cold breath through his mouth.

Half a dozen Keepers surrounded Wisestone, spears at the ready, the oldest amongst them uttering the same command, a word that made her frown in distaste.

Wisestone. Wisestone. Her oldest friend, after Rhaenyra. The other part of her being, other Dragonriders would argue, but her bond to her beast had always been one of understanding.

Nyke jorrāelagon ao, se ao jorrāelagon issa.

I need you, and you need me.

Iotāptenon. Raqagon. Pāsābarves

Respect. Friendship. Loyalty.

And look where it got her.

He was injured, it brought tears to her eyes, to see him, perched at the edge of the sand, white leather wings torn and burned in places, with a pulsing, bloody clot winding around his long, spiny throat.

But there was something different. He was larger, his wings reached farther, and she could not recall him ever being so tall. His tale whipped languidly, longer than what she remembered. He had grown—where once he may have beaten Syrax in size, now, just moons past, he could soar in equivalence with the ugly Cannibal. Beautiful Cannibal, Daemon would have argued, despite the wyrmling carcasses surrounding his nest.

The Keepers stepped in, muttering the same inane words and requests.

“Dohaerās, ziry poghash,” Serve, he says. The Keepers turn in unison, bowing their heads, stepping away when the oldest motioned so. Naera paid them no mind. She only stepped closer to her friend, glad to see him uncoiling, neck extending, his reptilian head, glowing white in the morning haze, approaching her slowly.

She said, “Zaldrizes buzdaris iksos daor, kona dohaerās” She heard the voice of the Liberator, splendid sweet as it was, echoing in her mind. She clenched her eyes shut, shocked at its return. It had been weeks since the last occurrence of the Stormborn’s voice in her mind, and she shook her head, trying to rid herself of its impact.

A dragon is not a slave that serves.

The Liberator had dragons, of course. The Dragon Queen.

Three to count. Aegon Returned.

Wisestone curled his neck towards her, head bumping hers, knocking her a step back. The great beast purred, guttural, a lovely sound, perhaps.

“Iksos skoros nyke emagon rhēdessiarza ry ñuha glaeson.” That is something I have believed all my life. And look where it got her. She shook her head, laughing when the beast scuttled through its throat, tilting its head, larger than a small carriage, perhaps, in her direction, claws grasping at the sand and rock, battered wings flapping like canvases survived from an arson flapping in the autumn wind.

“Nyke emagon dōrī eptan ao naejot dohaeragon, ñuhyz raqiros.” I have never asked you to serve, my friend. Even when she had been a girl of less than nine, braids swinging, skirts pleated, when all the old dragonkeepers had repeated the same word in the decrepit halls of the Dragonpit, she had never echoed their sentiment. She had never asked him to serve her.

She had only given him a choice.

“Nyke jaelagon naejot henujagon bisa dīnagon,” she had told him, I want to leave this place, before she had even understood the world. It had been just a feeling, just an irk with the home she had been born in, a tire with the septa who raised her, small discomforts that urged her. She had asked him a question, unimagined by the young beast who only knew flesh and fire and spears and iron and commands, “Jāhor ao māzigon rūsīr issa? Will you come with me? She had become a dragonrider that day.

Half a dozen years later, at the eve of her return to King’s Landing, fate to be sealed in sorrow, misery to be sculpted for eternity, she had become a dragon rider again. She had taken her freedom, for No one can hand you your freedom, the Liberator said.

Now, she faced the same creature she had only obtained freedom with, living with the reality that he had left, left her, and come back, battered and half dead.

“Gōntan ao pendagon bona nyke gōntan jaelagon naedako daor?” Did you think that I did not want to run? Run, run, run, for the first months had been a prelude to just that. To run, to fly free, to love without judgement, act without thought, but she had done else. She had chosen duty over joy, family over desire, for just once in her life after Dorne.

Perhaps, just perhaps it had been a futile attempt at repaying her crimes. More likely, it had been a fleeting sense of love for Rhaenyra, a practical idea of what would incur if the Greens won. But she had stayed. And he had left.

Left.

Wisestone screeched, and whined, scarred wings flapping in the dawn sky, spiny neck wounding around, shaking with the force of his efforts at protest. No, he seemed to object, I did not run.

No, he had not run.

He had only returned.

Returned.

Returned to Asshai, to the cursed waters at the edge of the Jade Sea, to the skull-laden fields that hid their sins with miles of milk-coloured grass. Towns and cities, towers and palaces of a civilisation lay’n destitute. A land of gold, amber and ruby cursed by their god, where red, red, red blood, cloth, souls dwelled, crested in gems, guarding relics of old.

A land he had made home, and she had made to soul.

A woman she had mated to soul.

“Gōntan ao pendagon bona nyke gōntan jorrāelagon daor?” Did you think that I did not love? He made the same sound, a whine of protest, and dove forward till his jaw rested on her shoulder. She reached forth a hand, brushing her warm hand against his cruel, hard scales. He was warm, boiling warm, like a sword forgotten in the temper, a volcanic caldera spouting disaster.

His claws gleamed, sharper than she had ever seen them.

She hugged his head, arm going under his maw, head sliding against his skin, hot, pulsating flesh brushing against her cheek, her neck, her arms.

He had changed, yes, but so had she. She was not the same soul—resistive, defiant, still, but her loyalties, her motive had changed. She needed freedom, yes, but she was tethered forever also. He needed family, she realised. Not just a friend, but a soul to bond with. A person he could name his own.

“Yn, nyke aōha raqiros.” Yet, I am your friend. She fell to her knees, him sliding with her.

He huddled closer, grumbling deep in his throat.

Friend. The dragonkeepers had asked her what her words meant, whispers of treachery whistling through the thick, stale air which smelled of ash and burnt flesh. The shadows had made his reptilian eyes sparkle bright, like candles in the darkest night as she cowered away from swine and rats.

Just making a new friend, she had argued. A friend to burn the fears away. For what promise is a friendship better built on, than one of freedom, and trust? What is a trust better founded on than understanding?

A trust based on a bond, a bond based on heritage. She was as much a part of him, as he was inexplicably a part of her. Souls tied from that moment in the Dragonpits, when he had flapped his wings and taken her to the air.

His golden eyes gleamed, dark slits as black as the endless abyss of the Shadowlands—no, as black as the doomed ashes of Valyria.

“Ao issi ilirigin aōha qrimpālegon,” you are forgiven your deed, a betrayal she could never hold to heart. She hadn’t raged when he had done it, because she had understood where his desires were rooted—love, love, love, for home, for comfort, for understanding, but there was something greater than desire at play here. “Syt nyke unyishishk mazverdagon ao se tolie ezīma hen nuha gīs.” For I would name you the other half of my soul.

Like a true Targaryen. Bonded for life with a beast of her ancestry. Fire made flesh—Dragons and Valyrians—they were meant to burn together, eternal.

“Ilon dakōtan qrīdrughagon hēnkirī, ry lī jēdri inkot. Sir, īlon amāzigon naejot gaomagon īlva gaomilaksir.” We ran away together, all those years ago. Now, we return to do our duty. Now, they return to their families. Her to Daemon, to Rhaenyra, to Viserys, and the war that she wished to avert. But Daemon.

She turned, eyes searching the bright beach.

He stood like a beacon in the darkness—a sliver of shadow near the white waters. When he met her gaze, she smiled.

She turned back, stroking the side of his jaw, and, perhaps by the sight of the smile on her face, he knocked her back, pushing her on the sand. Wisestone dropped his head on the sand, eyes half-lidded, the exhaustion of a long journey catching him.

She trailed a hand down his head, tracing new scars. There was a gash, bloody and raw, running from his left eye to his wings, thin but deep, staining his silver-white scales. It looked like a river of blood on ivory skin, a sight she recalled from the flames, but it was different—he was greyer, more lustrous, as though ashes had soaked his skin raw. She wondered what could have caused it. He had survived Stygai with fewer injuries, Naera recalled. “Skorkydoso istan Asshai?” How was Asshai? She asked, gaze turning to the Dornish ship in the murky distance. It had sailed closer but was still hours away from anchoring.

Wisestone whined, guttural, a wisp of smoke bursting out his nostrils. Not Asshai?

“Skoriot, par?” Where, then?

The dragon raised his neck, wings waving twice, tail lashing, extravagant, and blew a roar of fire.

No.

Naera furrowed her eyebrows.

“Daor.”

No.

“Valyrīh?”

He bobbed his head, waves of muscle and flesh, fire and blood, wavering and pulsing, and settled back on the sand, eyes closing calmly.

Valyria.

Land of Doom.

How could he have survived—no, no, if he survived, then—she cursed her thinking. She couldn’t go to Valyria. The tale of Aerea, rider of Balerion came to mind. The Targaryen Princess who had ridden the Black Dread before her father had disappeared for a full year, and when she had returned…

She was cooking from within, Septon Barth had written. Her mouth and nose smoked. She begged for death.

But…

Skoryso?

Why had he ventured to the land of death, leaving her side? Why had he not returned home, to the Shadowlands?

Why?

As though sensing her foolish question, he opened his eyes, groaning in his throat, silver scales glistening in the sun.

She laughed.

“Aōha lenton.” Your home.

His home was in Valyria.

For they were so very similar, indeed.

“Iksā Valyrīha. Sīr iksin nyke.” You are Valyrian. So am I. Ancient, cryptid, written in stones that melted, remembered by a dynasty that survived. Targaryen. Fire made flesh, gods made human.

She had the Blood of the Dragon.

My dragon is not Valyrian, she had told the Keeper at King’s Landing, arrogant, blind. Now, she knew. Now, she saw.

“Iksan brōztagon Naera. Īlen gimedagon bona brōzi naejot rigle ñuha ānogar.” I am called Naera. I was given that name to honour my blood. Aegon. Rhaenys. Viserys. Daemon. Jahaerys. Rhaenyra. Valyrian names, revived across centuries forgotten. “Nyke would tepagon ao mēre sesir,” I would give you one also, and a dozen names echoed in her mind. Balerion, Meraxes, Meleys, Caraxes, and also Syrax, Teraxes, Vermithor, but also Gaelithox and Shrykos—names of dragons, names of their old gods, taken, or to be taken, but not by her.

“Nyke brōzi ao arlī.” I name you again, a name to correct her errors, a name to let him find a home within his kin, amongst his brethren. He wouldn’t be a creature of foreign lands, he’d be one of their own. A Targaryen Dragon bonded to a Targaryen Princess. “Nyke brōzi Gēliax.” I name you Gēliax. Silver-struck steel, Valyrian history infused the metal, grey as his wings, chilled as his wrath. Then the silver burned the wolves, her mind said, but she couldn’t place the reason.

The dragon raised his head, sharp gold eyes, dotted with ash black blinking as he considered the new moniker.

With a roar that deafened, and brought the skies down to the Isle of the Dragon, Gēliax accepted his new name

By noon, every soul in the fortress knew of Gēliax. Rhaenyra had greeted the beast, raced against Naera on Syrax—lost, and the children had all crooned over the great silver dragon in exchange for something between indifference and violence until their septas and knights ushered them away. Daemon soared the skies, judging Caraxes hardly too tired to retire after heralding the race of the sisters. Ser Redmond now limped around the keep, evermore cautious of the Princess and her friend.

Now, with the sun high in the sky, the princess sat on the sandy beach, leaning against Gēliax’s silver belly, humming an old tune she couldn’t place the origin of. Gēliax lay warming in the sun, tail whipping from time to time when strangers approached—though there was hardly any person he didn’t waver at, except Naera.

“Se vys gimigho sȳrkta…” And the world knows better, she sang, quiet, just a melody against the crashing waves, “Nyke runagon doar.” I do not remember.

Her eyes upturned as the Bloodwyrm screeched, taking another round of the island before landing on the beach. He roared innocuously, racing the sands to approach Naera and Gēliax. The silver beast raised its head, regarding Caraxes with caution, until Daemon scuttled to the ground, sweaty and delighted.

Caraxes tilted his head, snorting smoke, and narrowed his eyes, inching towards Naera and the new dragon in their midst. His red, pulsing features struggled with the new disposition. Where Geliax was calmness incarnate, calculated, careful yet impulsive, defiant, so much the image of Naera, Caraxes was the picture of Daemon—grumpy, furious, brash and loud, yet clever, intelligent.

The red dragon locked eyes with Naera, a humbling moment for her, to be showered with the attention of a creature so fleeting. He knocked his nose against Naera’s shoulder, breathing smoke into her face, at which she only laughed.

“Qrīdrughāks, ao mele dyni,” Daemon laughed, brushing a hand over Caraxes’ scales, “Tepagon nyke iā merioso lēda ñuha ābrazȳrys, kessa ao?” Go away, you red beast. Give me a moment with my wife, will you?

Caraxes turned his head, blowing smoke straight into Daemon’s face, and then wound away, regarding the silver beast on his territory instead.

Daemon himself settled on the sand, ash trailing his footsteps, and gave Naera a glorious kiss.

“Skorkydoso is aōha ñāqatubis, valzȳrys?” How goes your morning, husband? She asked, smiling with a touch of mockery. Husband and wife, he had tried to remind without fully meaning to. He was hers and she was his.

“Visited the Dragonmont,” he smiled, regarding the image of Caraxes and Geliax with some amount of surprise. Rather than battle for dominance, as is expected with most beasts of their caliber, the two observed each other, puffing smoke, growling and whistling. “Vermithor’s grown bigger.”

Naera hummed, falling to the sand as her support with a soft whine, Geliax departed the sand, wings flapping, soaring with Caraxes. Daemon laughed, helping her up to her feet. Her hands fell to her back, waddling for a few steps before returning to her usual gait.

He pulled his arm around her, the sky was clear, the ocean was loud. The dragons swept close to the ground, racing in some twisted game of claws and flames.

“How goes your morning?” He asked her question.

“Well,” she smiled, as they took the staircase back to the fortress, “Better than any for ages.” He smiled, though solemn. Every morning since he had arrived, though a fortnight had well passed, he had seen her in sickness. Nights were spent at windowsills, afternoons cradled near the fire.

Fire. He hadn’t dared stare too hard into the flames, a strange coiling in his stomach dissuading him from the endeavour. She hadn’t either, for his comfort, perhaps, but he suspected that the woman he knew to be on the ship within sight had more to do with her reluctance to predict the deeds to come.

“Daemon, ēdrurys vēttan īlva dāryssy.” Dreams made us kings. She read his mind, as easily as she would a book, from his fleeting frequent gazes at her, at the ship, at her journals in her solar, his mind that tore itself at the fact that she was ready to flee, should she wish it.

“Yn ēdrurys gōntan mazverdagon īlva raelatys daor.” But dreams did not make us lovers. “Bona iksin vējes.” That was fate. She kissed him, hot, close, burning, her hands clutching his shoulders. She left him when they made it back to the Keep, making a home in the library away from questioning souls.

He sighed.

MASTERLIST

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 26: Returns

MASTERLIST

Summary: Responses to the King's learning of Naera's pregnancy.

Word count: 3.3k

Warnings: nothing, really

“His Grace wishes that you return to King’s Landing.”

Laenor sat mildly fearful in the small solar adjoining his sister-in-law’s chambers. Periodically, he flitted over his hair, or his garb, anything to stay alert. Daemon sat opposite him in Naera’s chair, surrounded by papers and piles of poorly bound journals. He swirled a glass of Dornish Red, eyes set on the first of many letters received.

Laenor placed the King’s post on the table, blinking frantically when the page melds with the mess and he can’t quite locate it any longer. Shaking his head, “He is throwing a banquet in her honour, Daemon.”

Silence. Laenor raises his eyebrows, trying to discern if Daemon heard any of his words.

Daemon put down his letter, drained his glass, and hummed absently. The sunlight that poured in through the windows fell on the Rogue Prince’s face profusely, brightening his face to a degree that made Laenor’s eyes burn just looking at him.

“No,” Daemon reached for another letter, breaking the wax seal and flipping to the first page in one fluid movement.

“No?” Laenor questioned. I’m going insane.

“No, the mother of my children will not be debasing herself to dine with the vipers of King’s Landing.” His words were dismissive, insulting, even, but there was pride in his voice. Laenor still found this new situation difficult to shield himself from. The couple had been at each other’s throats—quite literally—on their wedding day, and had orchestrated a horrendous war of wits and words shortly after, causing Naera to flee to the Island, and yet, yet, with the announcement of their impending child, they had settled rather beautifully.

Laenor eyed the door to their bed chambers, wondering if asking for Naera would instigate an argument. Despite their newfound love, he doubted the Rogue Prince had lost his pride of station.

“Then, he insists that he bring the court to Dragonstone.”

“No.” He heard Naera shout through the door. He heard it followed by clutter, scrambling, rustling and a rush.

“His grace wishes to—” The door slammed open. Naera, hair messy and palour pale, stepped inside, barefooted. She crept to Daemon’s side, who didn’t hesitate to wind an arm around her waist.

“Tell His Grace to shove his wishes up his withered whore of a wife and maybe I’ll consider it.” She reached for his wineglass, took a sip, and spat it back. The pair exchanged glances, and while Laenor could hardly decipher their estranged codes, it appeared something along the lines of Wine when pregnant?

Tastes like pig’s piss.

Daemon drained the glass. Say that again, or, more disturbingly to Laenor, I'd rather taste you.

Naera rolled her eyes. It was the latter.

“You heard the Princess,” Daemon tutted, smiling at his wife.

Laenor resisted the urge to drop his face into his hands and whine against his fortunes. Daemon wasn’t his favourite person to deal with, to say the least, even if respected the man immensely. “How long do you intend to avoid this? He is only trying to reconcile.”

“His reconciliation means little after his dismissal, Ser Laenor.” Naera’s words hovered after she spoke them. “He will not have Rhaenyra back at King’s Landing to protect his Hightower wife. I will not leave her side for the sake of my pride, and that of my husband.” Husband, and he marvelled at how brazenly the paid fit into that description now. Husband and wife, valzyrys se abrazyrys, fire and blood.

He erred on the side of caution, however, voicing his singular concern, “If you join this struggle, it’ll turn into a war, Princess.” A struggle his parents, his sister, his wife, and his children had already joined. The Queen Who Never Was wouldn’t sit silent as the realm was denied another Queen, be it the daughter of her own Usurper, and the Sea Snake had been at sixes and sevens with the Hightowers since their dismissal of the threats the Triarchy had once posed.

“This has been a war since your wedding, Laenor.” Daemon reminded.

The Driftmark heir couldn’t deny the truth. The factions, the War had begun when he had married Rhaenyra, and he knew it. He remembered the moment still, in the midst of Viserys’ speech, when Alicent Hightower had stormed into the banquet hall, wearing the ugly lavished green of her House.

The Strong brothers had wondered aloud, what colour Oldtown blared its towers when arming for war.

Green.

“Needless,” Naera turned to the lone window in the solar, a carcass of glass and iron that overlooked the cavernous cliffs and beaches, “You may inform His Grace that we do not consider it apt time for such an event. I can hardly stomach a dozen grapes, much less a feast.”

Laenor nodded.

Just months after their marriage, on her visit to Dragonstone for the arbitration of a trade dispute for which she had been named arbiter in accordance with the Law of the Free Cities, Princess Naera announced that she was with child. It is alleged that she and her husband had reconciled some longstanding differences upon this news, and settled comfortably in Dragonstone.

Princess Rhaenyra welcomed their stay, and Prince Daemon took to training his grand-nephews Princes Jacaerys and Lucerys with the blade. Princess Naera often read them poetry and politics, but mostly kept to herself and her husband during her early pregnancy, as she was most sickly during this time.

Maester Gerardys of Dragonstone has noted that the Princess had been in poor health, both physically and mentally for reasons he never clearly deciphered, and wrote in his person that he feared the life of the child and the Princess. He dreaded, in some of his logs, that he be forced to perform the same deed unto Princess Naera as had been performed unto Queen Aemma years prior.

Maester Mellos had recorded three letters in the Citadel from this time that were exchanged between King Viserys and Princess Rhaenyra, relevant to this telling. The first, sent by the King, discussed the news of the day and requested Princess Rhaenyra to forward his bequest that both Princess Naera and Prince Daemon return to King’s Landing to receive due honours. The second was addressed by the Princess, who informed the King that his wishes had been dismissed as the pair did not wish to return to King’s Landing. It mentioned that Naera had been in poor health and would not be adequate company, thereby dissuading King Viserys from gathering the court at Dragonstone.

The third was a letter from the King addressed to Prince Daemon, which beheld his cordial congratulations, his commendation at Daemon for finally “taking an honest wife and bedding her”, be it his daughter or not, instead of consorting to his bevvy of whores, and a brief inquiry as to Naera’s health. This letter was never responded to by Prince Daemon.

Naera picked the last letter tentatively. It had been the first on the pile, so, naturally something that Gerardys considered the most important and what she was inclined to believe a waste of time.

It was dark without, an ugly affair of auburn fading to black, black like ash, black like the terrorful night. A fire burned in her solar, warm beyond her respite so she threw open the windows overlooking the caverns of Dragonstone. Breezes whistled past, curtains flapping forth, the song of Dragons resounding sweet in her ears.

She overlooked the igneous rocks of the isle, the ancient stone passageway built towards the shore, and recalled her dream of the scene to take place there. Three years hence, perhaps longer, she shall stand there, when the sky bled mist, and Otto Hightower would burn by fire and blood.

She thought of the day again, of Daemon, his windswept hair, that ebony cloak, and Syrax’s flame. Syrax. Dragons. Dreams and Dragons—the truths of Valyria, her heritage, woven into her skin, bled into her veins without her choice, without her knowledge, and now she needed to confront the deeds.

She felt drawn, as of late, to the bleak stone of Dragonstone, in its dark foggy hours, to its dark underground caves with paintings of dragons and doom. Daemon accompanied her there, often, a nostalgic smile etched on his face, as though he longed desperately for the home that he had never had. Flames felt warm, not even hot, to the skin, and the darkness scared her less. She felt drawn, to the old, to towering flames and obsidian stones, to a history she hardly knew.

Wisestone lingered on her mind with these thoughts, wreaking havoc to her mind, and plunging her into guilt. Melisandre, she thought—what was she to say, to her Red Woman, to her love declared and spent?

It wasn’t meant to be, she knew. She was just a page in her life, for the priestess would live to the age of night and stare that horror in its face, unshook by its vastness, unfazed by its perpetuity. Something in that made Naera wish she could reduce her old love to a simple page in her own book, for, as she was now, all her pages needed was Daemon.

His eyes, his strength, his charm. Ha. His love, that she had allowed him, his affections she had accepted, his yearning for a world long lost. Lost, lost, lost. How much more was to be lost? In the war to come, she saw only death, death, death—trails of blood, dragons drowning.

Aemond was the key, she knew. If he reached age, he would be invincible. Vhagar at his command, a warrior’s ferocity, and an aspiration such as the Rogue Prince to live up to. He would want to be Visenya, and she’d have to show him that there was to be only one at this age who could live up to that title.

“Skoros issi ao otāpagon bē?” What are you thinking about? She smiled as Daemon rested his chin on her neck, arms encircling her waist.

“Se vīlībāzma,” she confessed. The War. The war that she was now fully entangled in. That her children were entangled in. The war that would name its survivors kinslayers and kingslayers. She only dreaded one who would be called queenslayer—upon her dead body.

“Don’t worry your pretty head with such things,” he turned her, and leaned down, their foreheads brushing, arms entangled. He shook those thoughts away from her, getting hopelessly good at the deed of distracting her.

“Gevie bartos?” She raised her eyebrows. Pretty head?

“Gevie abra.” He grinned. Pretty woman.

He leaned even further, noses brushing, and caught her lips.

“Se olvie gevie ābra.” The most beautiful woman.

She closed her eyes, sighing softly, relishing the weight of his forehead against hers. An image flashed through her mind, an obsidian blade, glassy and sanctified, almost glowing despite the darkness, and fog—heavy, cloudy fog, that suddenly laid weight on her limbs, made her gasp in tire. She held the blade, cold in her touch, and cut open a lip—Daemon’s lip. Blood poured down the laceration, and she smeared the blood, dragging the stain on his forehead.

She blinked, a sudden warmth settling within. The scene was gone, the fog, the blood. There was only Daemon, solid, real and present, holding her, with her.

Blood on the lip, blood on the forehead—a custom of marriage in a culture long lost. If I’d had my way, I’d wed you in the ways of the Old Gods of Valyria. I’d wed you beside fire, and take your blood, like the ways of our ancestors.

Her heart skipped at the thought.

“Ivestragī īlva dīnagon.” Let us marry.

Daemon laughed against her lips, eyes crinkled close, “īlon īlva emagon.” We have already married.

“Isse se ñuhoso hen valyrio daor.” Not in the way of Valyria. She heard him inhale, hungry, torn with desire. He flipped like a coin, she marvelled, tender for a moment and ferocious the next. His lips crashed against hers, eyes torn open to gaze, gaze, and gaze, and see the world the way she did, reflected in her eyes.

Gevie, she thought. Daemon Targaryen was a beautiful man.

He took her hands, brow creasing as he found paper. On finding the letter, he gave it but a glance—but that was enough, for the sight of the King’s seal was enough to ruin the mood.

“Tubi’s?” Today’s? Naera nodded, pushing him down into a chair, arms going around his neck when he pulled her into his lap. He kissed her again, a promise, and his eyes turned to the letter.

It was from the King, addressed in what he knew now to be distinctly the hand of his whore of a wife—swirling, southern, small blots of ink dotting the eyes that looked suspiciously like stars. The addressal read to Daemon, of the House Targaryen, Prince of the Seven Kingdoms, and mentioned Naera not. Daemon broke the seal open, watching the red dragon snap, and tossed the envelope away.

He opened the first page, ignoring the greeting, trying to ignore the ire it wished to propel. Daemon, and not brother.

Naera busied herself with his hair, legs dangling off the side of the chair, fingers winding through his silver-gold curls, lips tracing the shell of his ear.

He read the letter in silence, covert in not showing its contents to his beloved wife, and balled the parchment up. He tossed it into the flames, and she didn’t ask, only holding his hand, silver hair cascading down her shoulders.

“Nyke kesīr,” she told him, when his eyes regained their glassy rage, “Nyke rūsīr ao, sir, se va moriot.” I am here. I am with you, now, and always.

“Nyke raqagon Aemon,” he kissed her neck, hours later, when the sky was dark and the tides had calmed from the storm. A book was balanced precariously on her knees, her hands holding his at her waist. “Aeron? Aem—”

“Daor.” She shook her head, her silver locks sprawled across his chest, head amidst them. She said, “se brōzi hen ñuha muñnykeā daor, kepus.” Not the name of my mother, uncle. He made a half-timid noise of apology, humming against her, feeling her weight, her warmth that seemed hotter than the fireplace. He pondered on how to coax her mind away from those thoughts that he knew she’d drown herself in again.

“Ziry iksos nykeā lumie naejot pendagon hae olvie hae ao gaomagon.” It is a sickness to think as much as you do. Thinking, thinking, bashing her mind over possibilities that had long passed.

She chuckled, “Skoros jāhor ao emagon issa gaomagon, pār?” What would you have me do, then? She threw her head back, a wave of nausea hitting her. She breathed, laboured, vision swimming with strange white dots. He had grown used to such fits, extracting his arms, giving her space.

“I’ll send for Gerardys—”

“No,” she clamoured off the chair, leaving him cold, struggling towards the oaken table beside her bed place. She bit off a piece of ginger, chewing on it in consternation. She spat the fibre out, “He’ll only pour a cup of tea.”

He hummed, paging through her book. A tale of Riverland customs, strangely, but he didn’t wish to question her visions. Her thoughts only lingered on the war, lately, and it dismayed her to speak of it aloud. After she made a round of all her remedies—lemon, mint and some herbs he couldn’t quite place, he did her the courtesy of throwing open a window.

She sat at the sill, appearing to him a blazing enigma amidst the darkness of the night sky. Her silver hair shone, scattered as it was over her face, her skin pale beyond reason, glowing. He knew not what to feel, now, when the bizarre had faded, when she had become just a constant thing, who loved him, loved, loved, loved him back.

Naera sighed, soft, nausea eased with every fresh breeze.

“Naerys,” Daemon brushed away her hair, “if it is a gir—”

“Rhaenys,” she offered, for the first time, “Aegon, and Viserys.” She considered the names, “A dragon has three heads.” Daemon breathed, flared, gods, three children. No, he calmed himself, grinning regardless.

He clicked his tongue, falling into an armchair, “That Hightower cunt has that name.”

Naera gathered her hair, an estranged smile on her face, “The Conqueror had that name.”

He closed the book. “Rhaenys died at the hands of the Dornish,” he dared remind. Would it not be a disgrace, after her engagement to the dead Prince of Sunspear?

“We have far too many Visenyas, Daemon,” she voiced. She was Visenya, but so was Daemon—formidable warriors, hard-hearted, confused so oft for Maegor. Then, there was the matter of Aemond. Too many hands asking for Dark Sister’s honour.

The third. Viserys. The first of that name emerged a weakling, but Daemon doubted that he could ever grow to hate the man who held it. No, now, that wasn’t fair—he hated his brother, yes, hated how he denounced him, defamed him, distrusted him, forced him to settle, condemned him to marry—but there, his anger fell short, for he loved his ugly brother’s beautiful creation.

Beauty, and he stared at the incarnation of Meleys, the Valyrian Goddess, every day. Silver hair, lilac eyes, but strong, capable, capricious but timid, yielding, relinquishing in a way that made his blood sing, made his thirst morph into famish, rather than quench it.

“To swoon as much as you do is a sickness, kepus,” she taunted, lips parting in laughter, head thrown back, glorious, splendid.

He smiled, watching her intently, twinkling eyes, “Happy with ourselves, are we?”

She laughed, fleetingly, the crackling of the fireplace being the only sound that remained.

He asked, “Viserys?” Brother.

She took a final breath of fresh air, staring at the black sky that had turned an inky blue, telling her that dawn arrived. Another sleepless night owing to her sickness, and Daemon had stayed awake still. She didn’t know whether to reprimand him or thank him. She left the windowsill and the thoughts of mundane daily life, sighing aloud.

She said, “The King deserves a reminder of his deeds,” one he can’t dismiss, one he can never claim to have forgotten. But he will forget, Daemon knew, as much as it ached his heart to believe. With the way his King’s health went, he would drown in poppies before he’d remember his grandchildren—his nephews’ names.

Then, there was the boy.

“What of Aemond?” She asked, pacing the chambers, soft cotton dress swinging with every step.

A change in ideology, as it were, needed be done. To rip the boy called One-Eye from the clutches of green treachery and inflict in him a dishonour unimagined. It needs to be his decision, Naera had insisted, and Daemon couldn’t disagree. The boy babbled, as indicated by his blame on Aegon for the insults spewed on Rhaenyra’s boys. He’d be exiled again, perhaps with Naera, even, if they’d outright suggest it.

“It won’t take long,” she assured, “three days. The boy stands on the brin—”

And then they heard it.

A screech, a sense of calling.

A dragon’s cry.

But familiar.

Naera burst towards the window; her eyes set on the horizon. There, with the dawn that broke golden across the sky, she saw, coming from the east, shrouded in light—a dragon, paler than white.

Wisestone.

In all his glory, stronger, certainly larger than the last time she had seen him, but memory tricks the mind often. He flew west, barrelling through the skies towards the little Isle, roaring in homecoming.

But that wasn’t all, for, with that first light, she could see a lone ship bearing orange sails spotted with gold suns in the distant sea where the ocean curved into the sky.

A Dornish ship.

Melisandre.

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 25: Love

MASTERLIST

Summary: Daemon and Naera talk;

Word count: 2.8k

Warnings: NSFW content, creepy Rhaenyra, smut, no truly graphic descriptions, but ya.

Naera was alone when he found her.

It was, to him, a tragic sight. His love, his wife, the object of his every desire, wound in a loose chemise, leaning against the fireplace, head to the mantle, eyes set on the flames. Her long silver hair hung in the flames but did not burn. Fire cannot burn dragons, he thought, before he saw that she had a hand in the flame, placed with purpose over the embers within the glowing sphere of the fire, moving in soft, careful strokes, as though she was trying to lull a dragon to sleep.

The smell of ash and woodfire greeted him with every breath, the darkness that engulfed the room putting him on edge. It was silent—completely, deathly silent, like a day of mourning, a day of contemplation, or rather, the calm after the storm.

He called her name. She did not respond.

He asked for forgiveness. She did not hear.

Daemon Targaryen feared few things, but he’d never thought that his woman would be one of them. While one day, the thought had delighted him, today, it only chilled his gut. She couldn’t hear him.

He stepped closer, his heavy black cloak a comforting presence, as was the heft of Dark Sister in the scabbard—not that he’d ever use it. How could he? If she died, if she died by his hand, who would he become? The revolting equivalence of the Vale’s heir to his niece is not something he’d want history to remember him for. Daemon Targaryen—heir, exile, uxoricide.

He dropped to his knees slowly, unsure, unable to relinquish his grasp on Dark Sister’s hilt.

“Naera, ȳzaldrīzes naejot.” Speak to me. He folded his sleeve upwards, breath bated, and thrust his hand into the flame. It was hot, but not enough to burn. Cautious, he crept his fingers forth and held her hand within the flame. Only then, did she turn.

Like a poet broken from her musings, she awoke.

Naera gasped, alert, and withdrew her hand from the blazing fire, bringing her ember-laden hand out of the flame, instinctively wiping the ash on her dress. The fabric burned in her wake, cotton threads spindling and burning, ripping oblong holes that merged and contorted grey, as the fiery embers struck their surface.

Naera shook her head, eyes watering from the light, as she blinked frantically, as though she couldn’t figure what had transpired. Staring into the flames, hour after hour, burning her eyes, but seeing the truth. The blasted faith of the Seven had something of the sort, Daemon recalled, but he couldn’t place if it was with the Weirwood gods of the North instead—a prophet, blinded, maddened, wild and devoid of any sanity.

No.

“Are you well?” He asked, taking his face in her hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. She didn’t comply, backing away from his hold, crushing his hopes, sending cracks in his heart. Don’t run from me, he wanted to beg, but he couldn’t.

Pride shall be your failing, Viserys had once told him.

Inaction shall be yours, he had retorted. Now, he wasn’t as sure.

He repeated his words, desperate, but Naera refused to meet his eyes, looking back at the flames instead. The locks of her hair smoked still from their journey into the flame, and the fabric of her dress near her lap was charred and tattered.

She hummed an affirm, scarcely nodding, but her lips parted, as though she wished to speak, then clamped close in doubt, in hesitancy.

“Tell me,” He whispered, unable to bring himself to anger over her lack of response. It is my wrong, he wished to claim, but again, pride came in his way. He dared not take her hand, her guttural, insistent, hateful words coming back to echo in his mind like bells of winter. Don’t touch me, she had said.

Again, she drew on the verge of speech, but no words came. Naera shook her head, sighing out, she threw her head back, and Daemon cursed that part of him that came to life at the sight of her gracious neck, the scene of her dress poorly laced, the prospect of something he had forsaken by his own err.

Tightening his jaw, he pushed those thoughts away and tried again. “Issi ao sȳrī?” Are you well, he asked.

“Issa,” she replied, hoarse, on instinct more than anything else. She could hardly resist when he spoke in Valyrian.

He dared to smile, solemn, “Nyke māzigon hae aderī hae nyke ryptan.” I came as soon as I heard, he added, “Skorion massitas? Gerardys jāhor ȳzaldrīzes nykeā udir daor.” What happened? Gerardys won’t speak a word.

Naera shook her head, the last of her resistance waning, growing thinner, and thinner, as her eyes bleared and her voice cracked to a shrill tune, “Daorun.” Nothing. And the shields revived.

Daemon steadied his thoughts, reined them from racing, and said, “Naera, nyke vala, darilaros, azantys, yn gō ry hen bona, nyke nykeā mittys.” I am a man, a prince, a knight, but before all of that, I am a fool. “I got everything I wanted dropped in my hand, and I let it slip through.” She did not move, did not speak. She listened, breathless. “I was never a mender, Naera, se sir nyke emagon ivestragī ao pryjagon.” And I have let you shatter, “Sīr lo ao ōregon mirros syt issa yn vēdros, ivestragī issa jorrāelagon ao.” If you hold anything for me but hatred, let me love you.

Shhh, she lurched forward, stopping his words, her crackly, tearful, high-strung voice resounding foreign to both their ears, “Daor, nyke gaomagon daor vēdros ao. Skorkydoso kostagon nyke?” No, I do not hate you. How can I? “Ao lit issa perzys. Ao vēttan issa zālagon. Ao vēttan issa giez—perzys se ānogar. Ao vēttan issa nykeā targārien arlī.” You lit my fire. You made me burn. You made me whole—fire and blood. You made me a Targaryen again. Fire made flesh; gods made human. Fire and blood, the blood of the dragon ran in their veins—hot, hotter than the burning sun, for the Martell flags could never contain their glory, only compete with them. He had lit her fire, reminded her of loyalty, burned her from within till she glowed.

“Avy—” she breathed in, “Nyke jeldan ao naejot pāsagon issa.” I wanted you to believe me. To believe the blood, the magic, that dreams dictated the fate of dragons, and not the other way around. Daemon knew now, simple proof to crack his ignorance. Targaryens were dreamers before Dragonriders.

“Kesrio syt avy jorrāelan, kepus.”

Because I love you.

She dropped her head on his chest with a deft thud, breathing hastily, spent, exhausted, as he said, “se avy jorrāelan, ābrazȳrys.” and I love you, wife. Like the dragon does the skies, like an honest man’s blade does its scabbard, like fire does blood, as a Targaryen does one of his kin.

Then, wrought by these confessions, head raised to meet his eyes in finality, she spoke her last secret, “Nyke rūsīr riñnykeā.”

I am with child.

A child. His child.

Daemon and Naera—fused as one, a proof of their love, a token of their union. An heir, no less, but Daemon smiled to think of a girl with her smile and his temperament, or a boy with her bookish demeanour. This was his every dream—a Valyrian bride, Valyrian children, pure, strong warriors, dragon riders, swordsmen and archers, but steeped in royalty. He breathed a laugh, picturing an heir to pass Dark Sister to, dragons to keep their kin company.

“Drējī?”

Truly?

She nodded aghast, hands trailing to his chest, her head falling against him. He wound his arms around her, and she melted away, latched unto him as though she were a sinner, and he, absolution. Thoughts returned, of the last time he had truly held her, of his crime, of his brutality, his ignorance, his pride that he had just learned to relinquish.

“Forgive me,” he whispered against her ear when he felt her heave, gasp, tremble, and he repeated himself, like a chant, morphing into his mother tongue to utter in continuity his regret, his apology, until Naera gasped a strangled sob.

His regret merged with his joy.

“Nyke istan pirta,” he told her, I was wrong, and she wept even further.

By when her sobs ceased, she lay in his grasp nearly insensate, a gracious promise of trust renewed, of forgiveness granted, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, until the skies fell, until the rivers rose and the mountains trembled.

“Mazverda ūndegon.”

Show me.

Show me the truth.

If he couldn’t battle down his fears, if he couldn’t rationalize them, conquer them, he’d bow to it—he’d do it, for her. If it would make her forgive him. If it would make her love him.

Naera took his hand, rising, languid but unbroken, unbowed, unbent, unbroken, he recalled and dragged him to the fireplace. He stared at her eyes—swollen red, but not by pain, he shuddered, by fire.

“Jurnegon,” Look, she held his hand tight, “Jurnegon ezīmagon se perzyssy,” look into the flames, and he did.

He watched the flames, and he saw.

He saw eyes—his own, and Naera’s, the same lilac, but smaller, with the gentle squint that she forever carried with her slight near-sightedness. He saw the pairs of eyes merge, lilac meeting lilac, the lines of their irises floating outwards, glowing nearly silver, until they were all that remained, growing, festering, spinning and clashing slivers of steel and iron.

He saw blades, one, two, three, dozens, dozens of dozens, and even more, some sparkling and polished, others rusted and bloody. He saw iron being melted in a great crucible, red hot and molten metal poured into moulds, and he saw sparks, bangs, the sharpening of a thousand blades.

He watched those blades heave to, merge with the flicker of the flames into arrows, strung on bows, the stretching of string, the tightening of one’s aim, and hark, a thousand arrows sailed the wind, but the wind merged to water, the water that held the carcasses of a million ships. He watched ships, sails flickering with the sky, sails of black and red—Targaryen banners, luminescent dragons on the sails that spun in slow circles, sped, three red heads chasing one red tail, spinning, hungry, fast, ferocious, ruthless, and when he blinked, it was all gone.

The red of the flames clotted together, inching lower, fluid, blood, gallons and gallons of it, pouring, red, hot, thick, warm—the blood of the dragon, pouring down acres and acres of skin, ivory backs, breasts, pooling on perfect hands, pouring down perfect lips, and the lips were stained—red, red, red, and the teeth shimmered like rubies—red, red, red, red eyes, red lips, a woman in red, flames in her hands.

He heard, whispered in the silence, a breath against his ear that he knew wasn’t Naera. It was a voice most old, nearly arcane, but soaked in the effeminate youth of a woman unaged.

“Syt bantis zōbrie issa se oss ȳngnoti l ēdys.”

For the night is dark and full of terrors.

A tremor ran down his spine.

The flames contorted, flickering, crumbling under his gaze, but he saw iron, he saw the blades again, old, rusted and arcane, soaked in blood and polished, he saw the blades drown in fire and blood, saw the thousand blades melting together, fusing by the hilts and edges into a throne, a throne of Iron, a symbol of power, and the flame grew hotter, the flame that melted this monstrosity, sealed it in history. The flames blinked shutter, dragon scales the colour of night coming into view—scales, talons, claws, teeth—too many, too bloody—and wings the colour of dread. Balerion, he knew, the dragon that soared to the sky, the vision of the throne long forgotten.

He saw the dragon, its scales, leathered scars, ridges and contours, and he saw it dissolve—fragment in a second, into thread, spools of green and black, woollen and silky, wrapping around, weaving the carcass of the dragon. He saw the silks break into waves, waves that poured over stone, sand, salt, over great cliffs in the Stepstones, over merchant ships in the Blackwater—gems—emerald and amber, engulfed in flames, drowned in darkness. He saw great wooden hulls clash against each other, masts horizontal as fleets capsized, saw the rapture of a dragon as he burned it all to seafoam.

The seafoam boiled to clouds, the skies—red and orange, fire and blood. He saw faces forgotten in the whip of the wind, saw cities upended in the matter of a whim, bricks crumbling, wings rising, a throne laid in dust, but a sky open, free, blue and oh, so brilliant.

Glaesagon, Daemon, his brother had told him.

Live, Daemon. Live how I never can.

"It is true," he spoke, turning to face Naera, his own vision growing blurry and delicate. He sighed in relief and joy, elation at his forgiveness, delight at his impending paternity when she pulled him into her arms again.

Rhaenyra stood at the door to Naera’s chambers, watching the scene by the fireplace, silent. Her fingers trailed the blood-red rubies of the Valyrian Steel necklace Daemon had gifted her all those summers ago, feeling every ridge of metal, every mark of their heritage.

I brought you something, he had told her when he first presented it to her, when she was just a girl, and hopeful. Before Harwin, before Laenor, before Cole, it had been him. It had always been him.

She watched her sister drag their uncle down to her arms, heard him sigh in solace, heard him sob in realisation. He loved her too, with a fire unmatched, she knew. She watched on, sick of the play, wary of the sentiment, the hope that he’d ever give her what she needed. He won’t.

But he had given it to Naera. A child. A symbol of love, something to prove their union, something she’d never get from Laenor, and could only abhor from Harwin.

She blinked that last tear away, steeling her face in a porcelain mask, the loving sister, and not the forgotten lover. She knew what she had to be, but that only made it harder, only shackled her further to her fantasy. She couldn’t turn her eyes away, even when they embraced—a hungry, desperate, tearful affair as long, lithe limbs drowned his silver head into a lean frame. Hair entangling, kisses exchanged, the flick of metal on his cape as his cloak gathered on the ground, his sword forgotten, his defences dismissed. No, Rhaenyra didn’t look away, she couldn’t, because despite herself, despite her claims, despite her desires, she yearned to be the one in his arms.

She dropped her hand to her chest and grasped the metal embroidery of her neckline—a hasty attempt at calming the ache in her heart, which only reminded her of his every touch, all those summers past, when she had been the object of his every desire.

It made her remember that night in the streets of King’s Landing, when he’d stripped her bare of any defences and abandoned her, left her hanging on to the fantasy that had festered for years to bring her hence, to watch the scene that unfolded.

Her sister fell back, a spool of silver against the ebony wood, and he leered over her, mouths entangled, and the first semblance of a moan broke through, strangled, ugly and pitched. Still, Rhaenyra couldn’t look away, no, she watched, watched and watched, as Daemon took her there, raw, hungry, desperate and messy. She watched them meld, watched him rip her dress apart, watched him worship her form, watched them writhe in harmony, biting, tearful, grasping, senseless, as the pair hummed a sensual symphony of pleasure and pain morphed into more, and more pleasure.

She unclasped the steel necklace, feeling the warmed metal grow cold in her hand. She traced her skin over its engraved metal once more, counting the rubies—fourteen, as with the gods of High Valyria of Old, as with the Flames that erupted, horrendous volcanoes that brought about doom, examined the steel disks that housed each gem, then turned her eyes back to the pair that lay entangled beside the fireplace, settled on the remains of their garbs.

Rhaenyra watched her sister’s pale, ivory back, and its near lack of scars glow brightly against the darkness, a beacon in the dark, rising and falling like the ocean waves on a sunlit eve, sounds she’d considered from him impossible wringing true and loud to echo in the silence, praises, worship, pleads, prayers, and she heard her sister, her flesh and blood, the one she had condemned to this blissful fate, moan in harmony. Amongst it all, was a declaration, one that shattered the load in Rhaenyra forever, shocked her core and slashed her shackles, resounded the doubt and made her whole.

“Avy jorrāelan, Naera.”

I love you, Naera.

The mother of his child, the object of his every desire, her sister, their blood, ha. The Blood of the Dragon, ignited, boiling and broiling, bringing another child to this bloodthirsty war of Greens and Blacks, treachery and trickery.

No. As much as she tried, she couldn't villanize them, couldn't pretend that she didn't want it, no.

It was her, her sister, her Visenya, her commander.

Her, and none other.

Rhaenyra dropped the necklace on the floor, walking back to the chamber of the Painted Table. Her War Room. Her duty. Her birthright.

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 24: Confession

MASTERLIST

Summary: Naera accepts her truth, and swears her allegiance

Word count: 3.2k

Warnings: nothing, really

“Where is the princess?”

Naera opened her eyes with a start, cold, harsh fog surrounding her. A distinct chill ran down her spine, flowing in short, quick bursts, as though the winter flood had come to the Riverlands. The sky was tanned, the colour of burnt sugar, dusted in mist.

Scales whipped past—pink, stained gold, scarred and leathery, humongous wings with a screeching presence. She could smell smoke, ash, and the salty seas. With a gasp, Naera blinked away the haziness. The rushing of waves greeted her ear, the sight of cavernous rocks around a stone corridor. Dragonstone. She stood on the passageway to the fortress from the sandy beach, half a dozen armoured knights behind her.

Daemon stood beside her, dressed in the finest, darkest black she had seen—black as though the terrorful night had embraced his visage—and his hand crawled along Dark Sister’s hilt as though the very air held threats. His face resembled a scowl, his shoulders tensed, but he glanced at her, and his eyes took some relief from her calm. He nodded, absent, catching his lack of control.

Her sword was in her hand, safely within its scabbard, and her Valyrian Steel dagger dangled at her waist. She thought of the day he had gifted it to her, that day in the hedges when he’d proclaimed wanting to know her, admitted his desire for a successful marriage, his desire for her, against her every belief,

Daemon stared upwards, hardly shocked by her presence—as though they hadn’t warred over their last meeting as terribly as she recalled. Silver clasps held together his cloak, and Naera felt the familiar, long-faded urge to rip it apart, to hear the clinking of its metal against another’s, to feel him as a part of herself, however fleetingly so. She followed his eyes to focus on the dragon that flew overhead, pink and red, with a long snout—Syrax, she recognised, as well as the flapping black cloak of her rider. Rhaenyra, white hair twirling in the wind, clothes as dark as Daemon, with a flicker of gold on her brow.

Syrax circled the air, humming her song which was but a battle cry, and Naera felt a sense of urgency despite her languor. She felt the danger Daemon did, the tightening of the air, the crispness of their conduct.

When Naera’s eyes dropped, so did her heart. Otto Hightower stood a few paces before her, eyes trained upwards, with a dull hunch that suggested fear. A man with a white cloak stood before him, another dozen with green following.

Syrax thundered down on the corridor behind Otto Hightower and his swords, Rhaenyra slipping off her mount and crossing the sentry to stand a pace in front of Naera and Daemon. Syrax growled as Otto stepped forth again. Naera’s eyes trained in on Jaehaerys’ crown on Rhaenyra’s head.

It was a ring of gold and silver, engraved with the seals of every major House of Westeros—the Stark Wolf of the North, the Tyrell Rose of the Reach, the Lannister Lion, the Baratheon Stag. Naera could only recall having seen it on her father, and her heart shuddered at the implication.

Viserys was dead.

“Princess Rhaenyra,” Otto began, solemn, as though the fact that Rhaenyra stood at Dragonstone while soldiers in green accompanied the Hightower snake didn’t mean what was apparent. A coup had taken place. Otto looked distressed, as though the day didn’t spell out his long-sought glory, the fruit of his every ambition.

“I’m Queen Rhaenyra now,” her sister corrected, “and you all are traitors to the Realm.”

“King Aegon Targaryen, Second of His Name, in his wisdom and desire for peace is offering terms,” Otto tried, testing the waters, as though the knights with polished swords and archers with deadly aim that watched him were not enough indication of their folly in trying to make amends. Still, he spoke, “Acknowledge Aegon as King and swear obeisance before the Iron Throne. In exchange, His Grace will confirm your possession of Dragonstone. It will pass to your trueborn son Jacaerys, upon your death.”

Naera stepped forth, her sword growing light in her hand, as though a single stroke wouldn’t hurt. “Lucerys will be confirmed as the legitimate heir to Driftmark and all the lands and holdings of House Velaryon, after the death of your lord husband, Lord Laenor.” Daemon tutted, nearly silent, but Naera heard him. Rhaenyra listened to Otto’s words, devoid of the fury the fire had promised. She listened to Otto’s words, not truly considering them, but respecting their attempts—regal, in the very literal sense.

Emboldened by the lack of response, Otto spoke louder, “Your nieces and nephews, the children of your sister Princess Naera, will be allowed return to their home or residence at Dragonstone or King’s Landing as respected members of the family, and will also be given places of high honours—your son Joffrey, and nephew Aegon the younger as Kingsguards upon their coming of age, your nephew Viserys, the obvious younger, as the King’s squire, and your niece Rhaenys as his cupbearer. Finally, the King, in his good grace, will pardon any knight or lord who conspired against his ascent.” Aegon, Viserys, Rhaenys. Her children.

Daemon said, “I would rather feed my sons and daughters to the dragons than have them carry shields and cups for your drunken usurper cunt of a king.” Their children.

Naera spoke, without thought, without intention, “Do you consider us cowards if we tread in the strength of Dragonstone, Lord Hightower?” Her voice was bold, strong, hardly aged and mocking, “This is where the Conqueror planned his war, and it is where we shall win ours, should the day arrive.”

“Aegon Targaryen sits the Iron Throne,” Otto said with finality, a touch of the pride, of the malice leaking through his perfumed visage, “He wears the Conqueror’s crown, wields the Conqueror’s sword, has the Conqueror’s name. He was anointed by a Septon of the faith before the eyes of thousands. Every symbol of legitimacy belongs to him.” He smiled, ugly, and the world saw him for what he was. A man whose ambition had been fulfilled. His blood on the Iron Throne. “Then there is Stark, Tully, Baratheon—Houses that have also received and are at present considering generous terms from their King.”

Rhaenyra spoke, for the first time, her white hair flickering with the air. Her voice was cold, “Stark, Tully and Baratheon all swore to me when King Viserys named me his heir.”

“Stale oaths will not place you on the Iron Throne, princess,” Otto took silent, leering steps closer. Naera tightened her grip on her sword. “The succession changed the day your father sired a son. I only regret that you and he were the last to see the truth of it.”

Rhaenyra ran forth, faster than the wind, and grasped the old man’s cloak. She plucked off his golden pin, the hand with its pointed finger, and said, “You are no more hand than Aegon is King,” she tossed it off the side, down to the crashing waves below the stone passage. “Fucking traitor.” The green soldiers inched closer, swords at the ready. Rhaenyra looked at Otto through her lashes, daring his hand.

The red-caped knights of her own company stepped forth, but Naera stopped them with a raised hand. They were not so foolish.

Otto called for the Grandmaester, that tattered old man who called himself Mellos. The grey-robed man husk of a man offered him a page, old and folded, fraying at its edges.

“What the fuck is this?” Daemon muttered, glancing at Naera for a clue. She kept her eyes trained at Rhaenyra, at her locks of silver, at the golden crown that rested on her head as though she was borne for it. She was, Naera reminded herself. Rhaenyra was born to rule.

Rhaenyra studied the page out of sight, but Otto spoke, “Queen Alicent has not forgotten the love you once had for each other.” Rhaenyra’s shoulders hunched, hesitant. “No blood need to spilt so the realm can be carried on in peace,” he glanced above Rhaenyra, at Naera, at Daemon, at their primed swords and unbreakable resolve. Rhaenyra was queen, and there was to be no question of it. “Queen Alicent eagerly awaits your answer.”

Daemon answered, “She can have her answer right now stuffed in her father’s mouth along with his withered cock. Let’s end this mummer’s farce,” and the shrill sound of steel against steel rang resonant in the air, as all drew their swords except Naera. The maester stepped away frantically as Daemon continued, Dark Sister gleaming red in the twilight, and Naera couldn’t help but imagine running a hand through his wind-ruffled hair, pressing a fleeting peck on his cheek, holding his hand despite the war that raged on. “Ser Erryk, bring me Lord Hightower so I may take the pleasure myself.” Syrax groaned in warning, wings flapping behind the green escort. They were surrounded—swords facing them, a dragon behind, with a hundred feet fall into jarred rock and crashing waves to the sides.

Rhaenyra clutched the page still, and Naera watched her hands tremble. No.

“Udligon issa sepār mēre másino, jorrāelagon mandia,” Tell me just one thing, dear sister, she said this without knowing, as though she was a mere spectator to the event, not an involved actor at all. Naera pulled her sword out, brandished steel from the Shadowland, polished to the colour of silver, like her name, like her legacy.

“Gaomagon ao jaelagon ērinnon isse bisa vīlībāzma?”

Do you want this war won?

Do you want the Iron Throne, the Seven Kingdoms, the rule that is your birthright?

Rhaenyra caught her failing self, pushed away the sentiment she had long been cursed with, and stood straight, head held high, the golden crown gleaming.

“Rūsīr perzys se ānogar.”

With Fire and Blood.

She crushed the old parchment in her grasp, felt the page wrinkle and tear against her skin, and tossed it into the waves.

Rhaenyra turned back, walking towards her knights, and Naera saw a hint of something different in Daemon’s eyes, an admiration uncontainable, a love aged and solidified until it had become a part of him. His hair, nearly reaching his shoulders, flapped with every turn of the wind, a smile etched on his unaging face. Naera felt the all-familiar ache in her chest she had grown to associate with only a certain woman, but with this came a wave of fire, a flame of courage. Naera trailed after Rhaenyra, the knights parted to make her way, and Daemon took her side again, his arm going around her shoulders, lips brushing past her ear.

As they began their ascent into the fortress, Rhaenyra spoke, clear and loud over the hanging air, “Dracarys.”

With a roar untethered, Syrax breathed fire—raw, hot, magical flame unto the green escort, embellishing their towered shields and silken cloaks with the might and wrath of Valyria.

But within Naera’s mind resounded not the screams of Otto Hightower. Instead, it was those names—those three names, again, and again, and again. Aegon, Viserys, Rhaenys. Her children. Daemon’s children.

A sound pulled her from her musings, eyes snapping open to white calicoes and stony roofs. A storm raged outside that same fortress, thunder, lightning and wind clamouring against the windows. The sound returned, a deep knocking on wood.

“Come,” she uttered, barely heard by herself, but the door opened. She swept in a breath of cold air, dragging herself up. Her head felt clear, though she couldn’t discern how. A dream such as that, prophetic in all but name, could hardly come without a cost.

With careful footsteps emerged Rhaenyra. She wore the darkest black, much like her dreams, but not quite. On her face was the same solemn, regal expression she had donned for as long as Naera could afford to recall. All their childhood scuffles lay forgotten over the succession.

“Princess Rhaenyra,” Naera cleared her throat, “how fares—” Rhaenyra sat beside her, taking her hand. The touch burned both, as though the mere distrust had made the other’s touch anathema.

“They shall return in a fortnight.” Merchants could hardly afford a week’s absence jittering over an ailing arbiter. Naera nodded absently, mind yearning to return to her ponderings. Aegon, Viserys, Rhaenys. Her children, by Daemon. That very Daemon who Rhaenyra had yearned for, to the point of betrayal, to the epitome of disgrace, to the brink of exile; that very Daemon whom she yearns for still, Naera thought, and the dread that followed that realisation confused her, bothered her, stripped away the defences she had long built and tore her wounds open to the salty sea air. She yearns for him still, but so do I. “You aren’t well, sister, I did not mean to—”

“Don’t,” Naera stopped, her free hand trailing to her neck, to the bruises long faded, so the anger long drowned by none other than a sickening, flooding, endlessly sweet ache. “Do not apologise for seeking your best.” It was the noblest thing for Rhaenyra to have done, and they both knew it. She couldn’t sit and wait while the Hightowers gathered support, and allies, while they plotted schemes to usurp the throne, not after she had, in finality, lost the only thing she had wanted as much as the Iron Throne. Daemon.

“I only apologise for distressing you.” Rhaenyra sighed, unable to find the proper word, unable to breach the subject she had poised herself to address. Naera stared at her sister, at the way her once innocent face had hardened with toil, at the crease of her fair brow, the shadowing of her eyes that counted far more than a dozen sleepless nights. She stared at her jewels, gilded Valyrian Steel with the bloodiest rubies, at her neck. Gold and tarred silver at her ears. Black and Red velvet at her waist, cinching scales like those of the Black Dread on her sleeves.

She imagined that somewhere west, a woman her age lay adorned in green.

“How long shall you fight silent, Rhae?” Naera trailed a hand to the embroidered wrists of her sister’s gown, tracing the spiked, metallic lines, “The Hightowers denounce you with every other word.” Why play so civil, when, “That whore of a queen cut you with a blade, challenged your sons’ legitimacy, married—” she breathed, “married the man you love to your sister.”

And it shattered, then, and there.

Rhaenyra flicked her hands away, a strangled sob being the only flash of lightning before her thundering tears broke the gates. She took Naera into her arms, against her steel gown, against her scarred self, and held her sister silent, as tear, after tear trailed down her cheek, dripping onto Naera’s face to mingle with her miserable proclamations.

“Forgive me,” Rhaenyra choked, “for I have caused you nothing but pain—for I have given you nothing but hatred, hatred over deeds you never committed.” She shook her head, gasping for breath.

Naera took her face in her hands, grasping senselessly for support, “It is I who has been selfish. If I had stayed—”

“Then you’d be broken,” Rhaenyra resolved, “You’d be like the rest of us, Naera, do not seek forgiveness for doing the best for yourself.” She recited Naera’s own words. “No, do not wish me that misery, of seeing another fallen to Hightower ambition.”

Naera’s chest tightened, a desperate cry echoing through the stone chambers, “but that isn’t all I’ve failed you in, Rhaenyra.” Daemon. His flapping hair, his kindred smiles, the passion with which he burned every second, of every day. Fire and blood. Naera had fallen, defeated, immersed in his beauty, sunk in that ugly sentiment.

“I love him,” as the dragon does the sky, as the waves do the wind, as a Targaryen does one of her kin. Hopelessly, without sense, without reason, without paying heed to the screaming logic that reminded her of his flaws, but he was perfect. He was sublime, strong, ever-present, until she had pushed him away.

Rhaenyra leaned her forehead against Naera’s and whispered, “Pār jorrāelagon zirȳla sȳrī, syt nyke daor.” Then love him well, for I cannot. “Laenor treats me well, Naera,” she chuckled, nose blushed red, “Ser Harwin loves me dearly. It is well. I am well.” Naera closed her eyes. I am well. She doesn’t need him—no, she doesn’t want him, for she knows now that Naera does.

She does not want him, because she cannot have him. Her ambition has ended with the demise of her true love, but Rhaenyra cuts those thoughts short, “I have not wanted him in years, Naera, neither has he me.” She nodded, as though seeking a declaration of trust.

Naera found herself believing her sister against every fact, against her own instinct. She nodded, and Rhaenyra smiled, wiping the tears from Naera’s face. “We’ll be strong, we can win this, Naera,” a glimmer of hope, a ray of light that broke through the storm, “if you’d only—” Panic rushed through her, an image of night, of snow, of blood pouring by the gallons, and seas turning dark. Fear surged through her veins, frigid as the morning air, dead as the Long Night.

“I forgive you,” Naera brushed away Rhaenyra’s tears, and struggled to her feet, cotton chemise barely strung together. Rhaenyra protested her deeds, imploring her to take the needed rest, but Naera ignored those pleas.

She knew what was to come.

A coup, orchestrated by the Green Queen. The Conqueror’s Crown on Aegon’s Head, and the proclamation of his rule, and she knew what was to follow.

A War, unlike one that had been seen since the foundations of the Freehold.

A War amongst Dragons, and years after that

The Long Night.

And she understood her role, finally, in this grand scheme, amidst this treachery, and debauchery. This confinement had a reason, as all curses and trials do, for the Lord of Light is just, and often kind. He was kind when he granted her Melisandre, as kind as he is now, granting her Daemon, his love, his fire, his passion to ignite her world that had been dimmed by the night, to set it alight once again.

She was to stand by Rhaenyra’s side, for it was she, who would lay the foundation for the Liberator’s acceptance as Queen of Westeros. The first Queen to sit on the Iron Throne—Naera would be her Visenya, her right hand, her soldier, her Queensguard—the broken half of her soul held close but never fused to heal the rift of regality.

“I am yours and have been for long, but I implore that you hear it for once, and for all.” She drew her sword, silver steel cursed with flames, in a leather scabbard, survived from Stygai. Naera knelt, her white gown pooling at her ankles, sword held before her.

“I swear by fire and blood, that I, Naera of the House Targaryen, Princess of the Seven Kingdoms and Knight to Westeros, shall follow the cause of you, who are the heir to the Iron Throne, Rhaenyra Targaryen, and die if I must, to place you as Queen of this Land.”

MASTERLIST

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 23: Visenya

MASTERLIST

Summary: Daemon speaks to some folk at Oldtown. Rhaenyra learns of Naera's health.

Word count: 2.9k

Warnings: nothing, really

“You’ve devoted your life to studying hers, yes?” The flight to Oldtown had not taken long, but the Hightower flags hung on every last wall of the Citadel made him wish to utter a quiet dracarys to his mount. From the doors of the old building, to the walls of the library which he could peek, to every last Maester stationed within, had something or the other of Green.

Calm.

For Naera, he reminded himself, confident that if he could learn about her life, it would surprise her, even delight her, perhaps. He had given up on her writings. Caraxes could ink his thoughts better.

“Well, I mean—” the three maesters at the Citadel Viserys had spoken about were less than intriguing. They were young, barely in training, with perhaps two links on their chains and half a lifetime of learning under their belts. The first was the most forthcoming, Orphes, or some other strange name he couldn’t care to recall. The blond boy had nary an accent, probably a commoner from the West or the Rivers, but he was half Daemon’s age, probably even younger than his wife, and a very nervous lad.

He had already sweated through his garments and was jittering and flapping in his seat as does a drugged raven. Daemon didn’t like him, his only thought being perhaps that the lad should return to whatever mole cavern he crawled out of. He probably shouldn’t speak that out loud.

“Yes,” the second stated definitively, turning to check with his fellows, to remind them that yes, they were. He was a bastard, it was obvious in the way he struggled for recognition before Daemon, a Waters, probably, judging from the stiff-set shoulders and formal stature which were indicative of a childhood spent with septas and septons in the Crownlands. Daemon couldn’t help his expression of disgust upon the boy who reminded him far too much of brilliant and charismatic and intelligent Lord Highcock, and his whore of a daughter who had colonised every square inch of Oldtown, seemingly. Even his tea was served in green cups dotted with gold. Was this his bitch niece’s tea party? Ha. Alicent would probably stoop that low to acclimate her children to their faction, so it might as well be. Creyolin, Daemon thought the Waters boy’s name was, was still talking. He dismissed him.

The third was the most peculiar of them all—his skin had a tannish bronze tinge to it, and he did not speak, but only sat still and uninvolved, curling a deft finger along the fraying edges of the leather-bound book he had carried with him. He seemed at least half as qualified as a maester should be, for he was the only one with his chain, and Daemon had counted seven links on it thus far, making him an acolyte, at least, but judging by the dark maroons and mustards he wore, he had not taken any oaths yet. The acolyte shrugged at Waters’ words. An adult, at least.

“I primarily study her times in…in Qarth, Pentos, Volan—the Free Cities, your—my prince,” Orphes corrected, sweating and stuttering out whatever he could. By the old Gods.

“I concern myself with her time in the Dothraki’s Grass Sea, the Shadowlands, and…oh, and Yi Ti, whenever she shall decide to continue her journeys.” She shan’t, Daemon would have corrected a fortnight ago. Now, he wasn’t so sure he reserved the right.

“And you?” Daemon asked the acolyte, who pursed his lips with an air of what he could only describe as arrogance to him.

“Her childhood, and all her own works in Lys and Naath.” Creyolin responded for the acolyte, fearing that his long silences would anger the Rogue Prince. He wasn’t completely wrong. “You see, my prince, Princess Naera had changed after the Shadowlands, though I couldn’t fault her for it, and she focused more on the world, after that. Her…more ridiculous decisions had slackened.”

“Ridiculous decisions?” Daemon was amused, even if the three students didn’t see it that way. It was strange to him, to think of his wife, his niece, his Naera, cold, calculated and thoughtful, to make decisions on impulse.

“Forgive me—I did not mean it a—”

“No, go on,” he couldn’t help his laugh, “What has she done?”

“What has she not done?” Orphes had calmed down, glad to turn to matters of research and notation, “She fought in the pits of Mereen for weeks rather than looking for an escape, she smuggled ill slaves out of Yunkai—” Yunkai. That explains the threats. “She once sailed all the way to Lorath for an apple.” Sailed to Lorath for an apple?

“Oh, she once convinced the Dothraki into burning her at the stake for her crimes along with another ‘witch’ they had found, and helped her escape also.” Ah. The Dothraki feared witches. Naera’s silver hair would not have helped on that account, he supposed, but to convince them to burn her at the stake? Brilliant. Fire didn’t burn a dragon—genius. Daemon wondered, however, who had been the witch saved?

“Oh, you must never forget her deeds in Qarth!” Orphen waved insane gestures with his hands, and the group roared in laughter and awe. Even the acolyte managed a word of agreement, and Daemon recognised the accent as distinctly Dornish.

“Yes, that was perhaps the greatest political coup of our lifetimes!” Creyolin exclaimed, “Princess Naera had, you see, gained control of some grand wealth, though the details are hardly known yet, we await her journals here at the Citadel.” Daemon regretted not bringing them along. This group of young book humpers could probably make sense of her etched scrawlings which had started to resemble with greater, and greater replication, the patterns of dirt on the coasts of Dragonstone as Daemon recalled them. “She got into a tiff with the Third district ruler, and usurped his office. From the rumours and hearsay, we’ve patched together a rough account, but—”

“But we need her journals.” The Dornish man interrupted, “When can we have them?” His voice sounded deep and rugged, luxuried, and demanding.

Daemon didn’t know whether he should call it contempt. He only explained, “The Princess has sailed to Dragonstone. You must question her on that yourself.”

“Ah, the—no, Qarth was not her best, ‘Olin, it was the bloodriders!” The Bloodriders?

“Dothraquoy,” Creyolin nodded, “Princess Naera is a warrior to the last, my Prince,” he addressed, “Then, there is also Stygai, the Heart of the Shadow. Any person without some skill with the blade would never survive those parts of the world.” The Shadowlands. Daemon did not wish to think of those parts, and who would have surely accompanied his lady wife in navigating them.

“Her time in the Stepstones is not to be trifled with.” The Dornish acolyte noted. Stepstones. Daemon’s face grimed at the memory. Crabfeeder. The Sea Snake. His brother’s patronizing letter sending support. Viserys had never helped him when he had asked for it, only instead looking for ways to demolish his value and prestige by patronising his efforts. Viserys had made a joke out of him, but so had Naera. She had understood him, back then, even, that he’d abandon the battle sooner or later, but they still never spoke of the matter. King’s Landing’s courts, one in which a lord’s count of whores can’t stay secret for longer than a week had been ordered silent to protect her fucking reputation when she returned.

It was clear who Viserys cared for more. His sweet, his perfect, his brilliant and adventurous knight who wouldn’t ‘waste’ her life, but would instead fuck half the free cities’ prie—okay. Daemon clenched his eyes close. He’d need to watch that temper, if he was to ever regain her favour or affection, if he was ever to touch her again without it being against her will, if he was to ever make her a mother, as she was born to be.

“Well,” Creyolin nodded, “What would you like to know, Prince Daemon?” That is why he came, yes. Then, this trio of young boys had ambushed him with insane tales of increasing ridicule, and the good old Dornish fucker had distracted him with the Stepstones. No, he needed to turn back to her childhood. That, sadly enough, meant confronting his failures also.

Burned at the stake? Wouldn’t look for an escape? Political coup in Qarth? Led the Dornish Victory over the Stepstones.

For all his crypticity, the Dornish man, who identified himself as Iridin Sand—two bastards studying the life of a disinherited princess; the irony did not escape him—had extensive records on his niece’s life, from the very day she arrived in Dorne to the day she escaped on Wisestone, in frightening, eerie detail.

He claimed that her journalling tendencies had rooted from the day Queen Aemma passed, which lined up with Daemon’s own accounts of his wife, his beautiful, intelligent, powerful wife with a god-awful hand, escaping to crypts and passageways to write, and write, and write. The girl had probably known her written word better than her speaking. After her fleeing, the journals had been entrusted to Iridin Sand, who himself staunchly refused to reveal his parentage to any who would ask—Daemon had suspicions, perhaps the father of Prince Qoren and Raiden, for that would make the most sense out of his story.

Raiden. Naera wrote incessantly about him—long, passionate verses she would never utter to the darkness today—long, passionate, loving phrases she wouldn’t speak to him, ever.

Dornish cunts, he had rolled his eyes before swiping past the entirety of those transcriptions, but then, he read, and he read some more, about her training, about her life at Sunspear, about her intended.

Daemon was nothing like Raiden, he knew immediately. He was not kind, he was not gentle, he was a dragon, he was fire made flesh, god made human, but the scrawling letters sent to Rhaenyra of which only records existed at the Citadel, made him question whether it be possible that Naera didn’t want a dragon.

He read accounts of rumours, of songs by court fools of loving gazes and teases, of a familiarity Naera had expressly refused to grant him, of passion and pleasure shared between her and her prince whom he couldn’t bring himself to disrespect or call names by account of his hollowing heart, and of the first half of her life, he had never spared a thought to.

King Viserys Targaryen, at the behest of his second wife, Queen Alicent Hightower, had sent the younger of his two daughters by his first wife, Queen Aemma, to Dorne, as a means to create a lasting peace between the Six Kingdoms and Dorne. Princess Naera, the girl in question, was nine name-days old at the time, and was betrothed to Prince Raiden, the heir to Sunspear.

King Viserys made it very clear that this betrothal was not a means of acclimating the Dornish into his territory, but instead just a way to calm the century-long tension between them.

Princess Naera had taken less than a year to warm to her Dornish Prince, whom she often described as having been “plucked from a little girl’s dreams” later in her life. Many across the Seven Kingdoms compared her to Visenya, in part for her prowess with battle and combat, having been trained by a Braavosi sword master at Sunspear. She was also well-read, trained in etiquette and described by her septas to be bright, curious and inquisitive.

The Realm was glad for the Princess’ resemblance of Visenya, over Rhaenys, for the wounds inflicted nearly a century prior had far from healed. Dorne had yet to recover completely from its ruins in the First Dornish War, but Prince Raiden Martell had been incredibly involved, along with his betrothed Princess, in the latter steps of rebuilding the Sands.

The match was, unlike most political marriages, one forged in the seven Heavens, for it was as though every god had blessed the union. Prince Raiden was calm, compared to the fire of the Targaryen Princess, and his genius that was spent in the planning of trade and infrastructure nearby the Water Gardens was best countered by the Princess’ own flair for execution, brilliance and spontaneity, but combined, they owned a pragmatic outlook on the growth of their land—and it was their land, as the Princess had all but forgotten her Crownlands’ heritage.

Unlike Princess Rhaenyra, daughter and heir of Viserys, who was often called the Realm’s Delight, and was by all means, Rhaenys returned, strictly Valyrian, and refused to adopt any other culture into her life, such as the sailing might of her husband, Lord Laenor Velaryon, the heir to Driftmark and son of the Sea Snake, Princess Naera revelled in Dorne with a talent for adaptation. Within two turns, perhaps less, she had taken to loose silks and a culture of oiled clay lamps and scorched sands and embroidered suits.

The Princess’ first major act in Dornish politics was when she advised the then ruling Prince to support the Triarchy against her uncle, Prince Daemon, and Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, in the Battle for the Stepstones. She is on record as having stated in open court that “The Triarchy is to win, it is known, and Dorne shall win with them.” In response to word of this reaching the Capital, King Viserys was said to have been horrified and conflicted, agonizing over whether sending his daughter to Sunspear had been an incorrect decision. Queen Alicent and her father, the then Hand of the King, had assured him against that by stating that it was, by nature, Princess Naera’s fault to guilt over, as she had ‘betrayed’ her blood.

In response to this carnage of her reputation, the ruling Prince of Dorne had announced his intention of knighting the Princess for her skill after the war. This had only widened the rift between the families rather than narrowing it, as had been hoped. After the War for the Stepstones was over, the Triarchy lost, Princess Naera advised the Dornish to make their move on the Stepstones, leading four assaults herself, which eventually gained them significant control over the Narrow Sea and the Disputed Lands.

Following this, Princess Naera came to be known as the Silver Knight, acknowledged even by King Viserys once the situation had calmed, and officially declared as Visenya Returned. There was talk, most prominently in Dorne, where her popularity had no ends, that Prince Daemon, the wielder of Queen Visenya’s Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister should yield it to Princess Naera on account of her victory in the Stepstones. Prince Daemon is said to have never been made aware of those rumours, strangely enough.

Princess Naera’s second major political victory came in the form of the Hall of Flames, which was a mirrored audience hall constructed under her supervision. Any commoners or lords who wished to hold an audience with the pair could attend during mornings. The Hall of Flames was also a performance hall by evenings, and it was extremely popular also, as thousands of hand-sized mirrors lined every wall, and even the ceiling of the room, and when properly placed candles or lamps were lit, the Hall of Flames sparkled and dazzled as a flame. Thus, it was a building which raised funds for the Sandship, and Prince Raiden did not spare any compliment or profession of love over her success, apparently enamoured and devoted to his soon-to-be lady wife.

King’s Landing’s opinions on this are disputed.

Dorne looked ahead towards a bright future, as Princess Naera and Prince Raiden approached the age for marriage, but, as every god had blessed the union, so had Death. Within a fortnight of their intended date of marriage, Prince Raiden passed in illness.

Thus, in just a fortnight, the first alliance between House Targaryen of Valyria and the Crownlands of Westeros and House Nymeros Martell of the Rhoyne and the Dornish Peninsula, came to an end.

Princess Naera, devastated over the death of her love and betrothed, refusing to marry his younger brother, Prince Qoren Martell whom she had practically raised, and hateful of her father’s wish for her to return to King’s Landing and wed Lord Jason Lannister instead, was forced by her own desire for freedom, to flee Dorne on dragonback and abandon her written fate.

Dorne suffered immensely for this loss, and so did the Targaryens, until the Princess returned eight years after and was arranged to wed her uncle, Prince Daemon. It is notable that the Princess defeated the Prince in single combat set for first blood in a lance tourney on their wedding day.

Targaryen and Martell: A Comprehensive History of the Alliances and Wars

between the Two Foreign Ruling Houses of Westeros

by Iridin Sand (and later, Petyr Flowers and Oberyn Martell)

“Princess?”

“Come, Maester. How is she?” Gerardys didn’t seem glad as he walked into her solar, as he spared a surveying glance over the corridor, and then firmly shut the door behind himself. The healing Maester of Dragonstone was a man Rhaenyra trusted with great sincerity since the time she had flown him to King’s Landing to treat her father’s laceration by amputating two of his fingers, rather than by cauterising or removing the dead flesh, as had been suggested by his attendants.

Gerardys was a young man, compared to others in his position. With his youth and station, came promise of his knowledge. Yet, when he approached Rhaenyra, his ash back hair seemed to wilt, and his face seemed to grey, as though he had wandered the rain for moons and moons. Rain, rain, rain. It hadn’t stopped for hours, and the thunder, and the lightning, and the winds didn’t help either.

“Weak. Asleep.” Rhaenyra recalled the time her sister had collapsed, reasonless, bleeding from the eyes, the ears, the nose, in the Dragonpits, all those fortnights ago. Mellos had failed to find any fault with her, but she trusted Gerardys better with matters of health and ailments than she ever could Mellos. Well, Naera had also insisted on her wellness, and little could be done to treat a patient who does not wish to be treated.

“Have you found a cause?”

“Not yet,” hopeful, “but the maids have noted that she barely ate since she came here.”

“She seemed tired.” Rhaenyra shook her head. “She barely ate at the Capital also.” All those dinners, and she had seemed tired and absorbed throughout the latter ones, after her collapse. She had never noticed her sister’s failing health, had she?

“I do not believe there is anything to fear. She shall soldier through it admirably,” I hope, he did not say. Rhaenyra simply knew that to be what remained unsaid. No matter how small a problem could be, there was never a sworn future in which all would be well. Yet, Naera was strong, she was a warrior, after all, better than Daemon, who many had agreed to be the best of the lot, and perhaps even better than Ser Cole the defector, if they ever come to cross swords.

Rhaenyra bit down, hard. They would come to cross swords, her hopes were. If there was any man who could defeat her chosen Kingsguard, her teenage infatuation, the sworn sword of the Green Queen, it would be her blood, the Visenya to her Rhaenys, her sister, and her first friend, her lifelong bond, even if they had grown distant. Rhaenyra wouldn’t let her Visenya leave her, by any means necessary.

Ha. Though, did that make an Aegon out of Daemon? She thought not.

“Princess, I must say, however that I suspect the cause may be a matter of the mind.” A matter of the mind? Mellos sounded quite sure, for it to be a mere suspect. He was confident enough to present it before her—he was sure, almost.

“Are you saying that she’s gone insane?” Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin. It runs in the family, since the days of Maegor, since the days of Visenya, of Daenys, or even Aenar. Targaryens aren’t always sane, aren’t always godly and divine.

“I cannot say,” Gerardys pressed his lips into a thin line, “I can attempt to get a word from the maids at the Capitol and Grandmaester Mellos, but…”

Rhaenyra nodded, “The storm.” The storm had come, shattering, shaking, blowing and destroying. Ravens would struggle, and ships would sink. Dragons could fly above the storm clouds, they could soar near the heavens, even.

No.

It hadn’t gotten to that yet.

“Do it.” Ravens would have to do. Ravens. Hadn’t Naera ever said something about Ravens? No, that had been Helaena. They were starting to resemble each other immensely.

Ha.

Gerardys hadn’t left—he lingered, averting his sullen gaze, until Rhaenyra questioned him on it.

“There is another thing, princess.” Hesitation. Rhaenyra raised her eyebrows. A truly awful thing, then, if even the Maester is aware that it shall be difficult on Rhaenyra. Was Naera truly that unwell? Had she gone blind, would she never awaken?

Rhaenyra’s shoulders shuddered at the thought, the very idea of another sibling dead at the hands of the Gods pouring wax onto the flames of anger and fear in her stomach.

“I have reason to believe that…”

Calming her now trembling jaw, she commanded, “Go on, Maester.” She would handle it.

“Princess Naera is with child.”

MASTERLIST

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 22: Green

MASTERLIST

Summary: the first round of negotiations takes place, and Naera sees a difficult vision.

Word count: 3.7k

Warnings: nothing, really

Naera had never seen her mother happy.

Every memory she had of Aemma Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, consort to King Viserys, was tainted by a dull, dragging, lengthened sadness. Every scene was only either pain or desolation, perhaps even contentment, but never, ever happiness.

She remembered being taught how to spell by her mother, and she remembered her frowning always when Rhaenyra appeared in her chambers late in time and smelled of dragons. She remembered taking a minute to join her mother, her dear mother, who always seemed tired, and frustrated, face often oiled with sweat, hair always greased but still frail and dry, weak, exhausted, done with life, with birthing, with losing at what she considered to be her only purpose.

Why had it been her only purpose? Why had her mother been made to work for years, strenuously, to provide her father with a boy, only to fail, wretched, debilitated and consumed of every last ounce of her strength and life? Why had she been left to believe that that was her lone purpose? Why had she been left to believe that she had failed in her duty?

Naera had heard once when she had been but seven name-days old, perhaps less, with clarity, maesters and maids rushing through the corridors of the Red Keep, running, frightened, and the atmosphere had been thick with worry, with tension, but also expectance.

She had learned to leave her doors cracked open after that one incident, eyes set at the doors in the darkness of the night, and the next day, as she laid in bed, cold and restless, she watched through the thin gap as maids carried away sheets and clothes drenched in blood, as maesters ran past their ages in search of herbs and medicines to soothe and comfort her mother, and she heard, her blood-chilling and heart hammering at its very pronouncement, the sound of her mother’s voice echoing across the Keep, wailing.

There was sorrow, panic, disappointment, and hurt in a way Naera knew she never wanted to understand, in Aemma’s weeping, her crying and screaming, for what felt like hours, and hours, and hours. Then, through the candlelight which illuminated the paths without her chambers, she had seen armour, heard the clink and clatter of men in metal suits, seen the flourish of a white cape running past the doors, and she had remained still—very, very still, panic rising in her at the prospect of being caught, of being discovered this way, for her gleaming, glowing eyes sparkled like beacons of light in the darkness of her rooms, but her efforts had been unneeded.

Her father passed her door without concern for her, only rushing to his wife, to comfort, to perhaps even shed a tear with her, but certainly to do no help. She had had some idea, even at that juvenile age, of what Viserys must have told Aemma. We shall try again. She also had some idea as to why Aemma only cried louder after that.

Milk of the poppy, or, better yet, the essence of nightshade would have been prescribed, to sedate the grieving queen, as half the court sympathized with her, and the other half mocked her. She wondered what her father would have done—he would have felt frustrated, perhaps, another failed one, for he had hardly ever mentioned the miscarriages. No, her father had only been optimistic, hopeful of the next, never dwelling on the losses, but ready to breed again, to watch his lady wife run herself raw for his wishes, and still never succeed.

Sure, she thought about all that now, but back then, she had been frightened—frightened of her mother, for her mother, and worried also, but the desire to slink out of bed and close the doors with firmness took over. She didn’t wish to see anymore, the passing of people—green, black and green again, shorter, with brown, and maids, again, and the occasional slow-pacing maester.

She was about to let the cold marbles touch her feet, when another round of maids rushed past, none turning to catch her, and once her hammering heart had stilled, she tried making for the door again.

Only, there were other sounds—a single person, quiet in steps, not a knight, certainly, for she didn’t hear any metal, but Naera decided to stay still anyway, now sat up on her bed, watching the strip of light between the doors, and the mellowing yellow and brown and gold and red, and then, the figure slowed to a full stop, blocking the light that entered her room in a blinding strike. Her mouth went dry. Now, she saw only darkness, and red, and the glow of the fire that escaped from above the dark figure to strike her straining eyes.

Silver hair, long, and sleek—Rhaenyra, she had expected at first, but as the figure endeavoured closer, she could see lines, and age, and height, and everything Rhaenyra was not. Naera didn’t move. Her blood went cold. She couldn’t move, unable in every way to displace herself from her awkward stance on the bed, sitting up in the darkness, watching the crack in the door, caught red-handed, for all she could believe.

Then, step, step, and another step, and she only vaguely recognised the face in the darkness, heart shuddering and hammering in her chest, panic rising. She could perceive the stench of wine, the air feeling dense and heavy around her, wet, hot and humid.

Sleep well, princess, she had heard the words whispered in a solemn, miserable, understanding voice unmistakably belonging to her uncle, and with a thrum and shudder, the door had been closed, leaving her in pitch black and darkness, and that had been the first time she had been terrified of the darkness, of its suffocating weight on her chest, of the uncertainty, and the panic, and the inability to draw a single breath that left her clawing at her surroundings and her neck, gasping, sweating, torn and destroyed.

Naera wondered why her thoughts went back to that day. It was a dark and stormy morning, the typhoon over Shipbreaker’s Bay having made its way north, and east, and it rained, with flashes of light and earth-shattering booms of thunder. Only, this time, every candle in her chambers was lit, despite the early morning hour.

She sat alone, in one of the guest quarters at Dragonstone, listening to the showers of rain, to the occasional clashes of lightning, to the flicker and crackle of flames beside her, around her, but she felt nauseated. It was a wretched feeling, present for several dawns, but never as strong, and she’d turn her eyes towards the chamber pot every other minute to assure herself that it was close enough, should she need it.

Naera was confused—she had hardly had anything strange to eat, and she didn’t feel ill, aside from the tire, and the ache, but the vague sensation that she had lost wind of something imperative, forgotten something necessary, was lingering in her mind, a half thought which she couldn’t fulfil, for her mind was racked around and open over the dreams of her mother’s screams, of her blood, of her loss, night, after night.

She could feel the burn of acid in her stomach, irritated, churning, she’d puke, she knew, while, her chest and shoulders were aching, everything pained, from morning to night, and in even those stupors during which she awoke to the darkness, she could only feel and recall the damned pain.

Mother. A gentle face, soft and aged, tired, but lovely, with her silver-white hair, her Valyrian lilac eyes, and though she always dressed in whites and roses and light colours, and though, Naera could seldom recall an incident when her mother had truly burned with anger—she hadn’t. There had been irritation, annoyance, certainly, at Rhaenyra, at her, at the maesters, or even Viserys, and most often, herself, she had never seen her mother angry.

She had only seen her sad, devastated, lost in agony, weak and infirm, legs drenched in red and brown blood, and twinges and strings of her child’s broken flesh, skin, vessels, even silver hair, and his head would always be bashed, torn, turned inside-out, with hollowed eyes pooled with red blood, and grey flesh and soft bones sticking out in all the wrong places, and dark, bloody, grimy skin, scales, and wings, like a bat’s—like a dragon’s, contorted and twisted and tugged and knotted into a bundle of flesh—Naera hurled into the chamberpot, voice racking against the back of her throat, burning with acid, with green bile and spitting out the remainders of her past meals.

Again, and again, until nothing was left in her, more tired than ever before, pained, aching, Naera rinsed herself off and settled back onto her bed, wrapped in warm sheets the colour of the forest in some cruel joke Rhaenyra had pulled again.

Her eyes pulled for sleep, dragging low, and her room felt oh, so warm, but she couldn’t—Xoreo Sorraar Daxon’s ship had arrived, she could see, and she needed to dine with the family if only to make for a half attempt to prove her affections.

“Princess Naera!” The Qartheen man bowed deep in her presence, greeting her with all honours expected, but she couldn’t make enough mind to smile back, settling for an uneasy expression. Her nausea hadn’t gone, and breaking fast with the rest of the family had made it even more tumultuous.

“Xoreo Sorraar Daxon.” She greeted him also. He was a man of great height, taller than perhaps any she had met in Westeros, with skin the colour of ebony and impeccable manners, dressed in embroidered silks and linens, green, with emeralds and other gems woven through him. Naera spared a glance at her sister, who only quirked an eyebrow with the same question she had dreaded.

“Qarth has gone dim in your absence, oh, great Silver Knight.” Politeness. That was the way of the Walled City of Qarth. Strong, refined, grating politeness, but she noted the brilliance of his voice—low, quiet, formal and trained with the common Westerosi tongue, but his words just sang in a way others didn’t. He was a native.

She reciprocated, bashing herself within over the brashness of her own words, “As I am sure it does for your losses.” She managed a smile this time.

Xoreo Sorraar gestured to one of his servers, who pulled forth and opened a decorated, varnished wooden case. Within, lay a necklace of the brightest, clearest emeralds and diamonds Naera had seen in recent years.

Her first instinct was to refuse—things don’t tend to go well when she received gifts, Naera reminded herself. The last gift of her acceptance had been…oh, right. The Valyrian Steel Dagger Daemon had gifted her. She had dropped it in the Godswood where he had presented her with it, before her departure. She couldn’t bear to hold it—it felt heavy, dragging her down, exhausting her more than she already had been—and she couldn’t muster enough calmness to return it to him herself without embedding it thoroughly in his heart.

“It would be my honour if I could—” Naera nodded at his half-spoken request, turning and gathering her silver braids for her Qartheen visitor to clasp the jewellery around her. Rhaenyra watched the exchange with civility, a look of disinterest, and a plainness one could easily mistake for misery, but Naera wouldn’t make that mistake. Her sister watched with a muted gaze, yes, but she knew that her mind ran rampant, above and beyond, with thoughts, with concerns, with ideas as to how it shall fit into her scheme.

Naera turned away from her sister to thank Xoreo Sorraar when her gaze grew into one of disdain. Green. Her primary bother was that she could hardly blame her sister for hating the necklace and her acceptance—it was a play on their bond, the slow grazing of a jaw against their sisterhood which had once been forged in fire, blood and loss. Naera only wondered how long it’d last.

Avidius walked in then, his golden eyes staring through his amber-gold mask, through the careful patterns and slits in his mask, and the red, and the black, and Naera dreaded the glance he threw her sister. He had another with him, a paltry, underfed, tanned woman, her gaze focused below, following a step behind him. A slave. He took a seat, and the woman stood behind him, eyes downset still, hands clasped together, her droughty hair cut short and wispy at the edges. She only dared for a glance every now and again, snapping back every time she caught Naera staring back.

“Dārilaros Rhaenyra, Dārilaros Naera,” he opted for his most familiar language, gesturing to the woman with him, no, the slave woman with him, “Ñuha ydrassis.” My translator. Naera wanted to laugh. He spoke the common tongue well enough. He hadn’t brought her for that—it would have been easier to ask either her, or even Rhaenyra to help him, if he had the need.

No, it was a gesture to give away his true intentions, to remind them all that just because they dwelt in Westeros for these dealings, the laws in use, the customs in question, were still Eastern.

“Let us begin.” Rhaenyra gestured for them to all take seats around the round table. Round table. Naera watched with narrowed eyes, as Rhaenyra set herself close to Avidius, forming a block, a side, a faction, dressed in black and red and metal and flames. Naera spared a glance at Xoreo, at the green and gold, and at herself, and she couldn’t crush the shame and also the ire that befell her.

Why was she even here? Naera chose not to question that aloud. She also chose not to question why all parties were equal—this was the settlement of a dispute, and the arbiter should sit separately, the three parties involved should sit with the order, following a system, but oh, how could she ask?

Xoreo began with a sugared voice laced with ornaments of flattery, “My Princess, may I have the honour to begin?” The translator leaned down, whispering the words in a voice too quiet to Avidius, but Naera was sure that she heard the same shrill alternation of voices, the same stilted tunes of songs and horrors, nights and terrors. The tongue of the Asshai’i.

Naera nodded, allowing Xoreo to present her with two separate notebooks—naval agreements over sailing rights, as expected. The first was of Xoreo Soraar’s own contract with the port of the Blackwater, with the dates and days circled with clarity of its formation and arrangements. His fleet was set to sail past the Blackwater, past the very seas over which the carnage had occurred, on the seventeenth day of the month, while the second, unmistakably that of Avidius, marked the date of passage as the nineteenth. Naera spared a glance at Avidius, to his twinkling, burning eyes through the amber mask. He had no reason to cross their paths—he had been impatient.

“My Princess,” she couldn’t blame Xoreo for the confused words he battered out as Rhaenyra pulled the records towards herself. “…I present proof that my agreement with the Blackwater authorities preceded the agreement by Lord Avidius.”

The translator relayed that over, and Avidius hummed low and quiet in his own mother tongue, rather than in Valyrian. He was too quiet, however, for Naera to comprehend his true words over the distance, and resorted to listening to whatever the woman said, “According the reports Lord Avidius has received, his sailors had passed by the area on the fixed date. It was the ships of Xoreo Soraar which had impeded.” It would be difficult to provide proof of who was where especially on the sea.

The Qartheen wasn’t demented by the accusation, instead, he remained calm and adjusting his emerald green garbs, he answered, “I can assure your highness that ships had not been delayed. These…” he set forth another record book, this time, from the port of Pentos, “…are records which state that seven of my ships departed the port on the fourteenth, which would bring their arrival at the sight on the seventeenth.”

“Forgive me, Ser Xoreo,” Rhaenyra began, “Matters such as this are difficult to prove, given that there are no impartial parties as first witnesses.” Naera couldn’t help but glare. The rubies on Rhaenyra’s necklace seemed to twinkle and sway with each word she took, coming horrendously close to the glowing pulses she was familiar with. Avidius relayed another few sentences to his translator.

She spoke, “I agree with the Princess of Dragonstone. There is no true proof, other than…” she quirked an eyebrow, her cheeks wrinkling in thought. “…other than what the Lord of Light can provide us.” He wouldn’t. Avidius tilted his head to the side, gold and bronze reflecting off the candle lights. He seemed to ask a silent question, one not understood by any other present there. She didn’t want to know what he asked.

“Well,” Xoreo Sorraar rid the table of the records, and Naera could see him straining against his smile. In a delicate voice, one drenched and soaked in kindness and formalities, “It was also the Asshai’i who attacked my ships first.”

“It was your men who raped the innocent passengers on my ship.”

“Preposterous.” Xoreo Soraar argued, “It was the Asshai’i, by all means.” Naera was convinced—it simply wasn’t in their nature. A lone man could have committed a heinous act, or two, or a group, but for ships full of sailors raised and born in Qarth to abandon their key beliefs were radical, impossible. “It was your men who sunk three ships full of jewels in retaliation for crimes we did not commit.”

“Do you consider my amber less valuable?” Avidius leaned back in his chair, his mask hiding any semblance of anger, while his words poured filthy of it.

“I believe that the matters of whatever occurred are delicate,” Rhaenyra turned to Avidius, “We should concern ourselves with the compensations only, as it is impossible to know what truly occurred.” Undermining. That was preposterous. To believe that the entire string of events could be dismissed as simply incorrect—the compensation for both sides should depend on what occurred, and who started it, not just who suffered more losses. What is justice then, if all faults, instigations and crimes could just be dismissed?

What the lord of Light can tell us. Right. Avidius expected her to trust the flames with this answer.

No.

No, no.

She wouldn’t risk it. Visions could be misinterpreted, and without reason—the truth was obvious. It couldn’t have been the Qartheen.

Rhaenyra’s purple eyes wouldn’t leave Naera. They stared and stared, and stared, mapping the path of the emeralds on her, tracing the signs of tire and exhaustion she so clearly displayed. There was something about that gaze, the same half glare she had given her, full of disdain, full of error and fault and patronisation, disdain, distrust, disbelief—Naera knew those looks too well, but to see them on her sister, her blood, her friend, churned an ugly sensation in her stomach, growing the layer of nausea that she had nearly forgotten of, adding to it.

“Very well,” Xoreo turned a concerned eye to Naera, who had a hand loosely clasped over her mouth, trying to swallow the urge to hurl her meal out.

Avidius turned to Rhaenyra, speaking the shrill ululating words to her, directly, waiting for the woman to explain, “I have suffered a loss adding to nearly ten and seven thousand Westerosi gold, the loss of eight and ten invaluable lives of trusted sailors, and more, on the journey to the far west.” Rhaenyra didn’t correct him, didn’t even bother an explanation or a glance as Avidius expected her to pass judgement on the matter.

Xoreo looked troubled—Naera was the arbiter, but by rank, Rhaenyra was the greater party, the heir to the Iron Throne, the older sister, and yet, his loyalties lay with her, naturally, as she was one of his rulers—one of the Thirteen of Qarth. It pained her, to see him flip eyes between the two sisters, then to his reports, for he didn’t deserve to be dragged into an affair as unfair, or cursed as this was. But Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra had decided on this, she had declared Naera an enemy—her sister, her friend, her Queen, the reason she stayed at all—betrayal? Is that what she had accused Naera of?

It seemed the other way around.

“What of you, Xoreo Sorraar Daxon?” She asked in clipped, strangled words, the familiar burn of an ill stomach showing through.

“My loss in merchandise add up to two and six thousand gold, had two distinguished passerbys defiled by the enemy, and lost nine and ten lives, all from the great city of Qarth.” All from Qarth. He was trying to invoke some form of guilt in her, some sympathy, some responsibility and pride to her land, but he didn’t realise that her sister was doing a much better job of that.

Greens and Blacks, faction and faction, and she was being undermined, again. Undermined. Undermined. Undermined. Political tool—set aside, unloved, uncared, unremembered.

Unbowed, unbent, unbroken? A dazzling twilight, and winding, wrapping, stretching, arms, gazing at the summer clear night sky, at the stars, at the moon, warm, delightful, poisoned and pleasured.

“From the Arbor…” The dark-haired man’s voice returned. It faded, mumbling, dragging, blurring, with a crackling, breaking, shattering boom of thunder on the beaches.

A Flea Bottom accent called, a sailor, a rogue, a smuggler, “Many have already declared for him—Mace Tyrell, Randyll Tarly—”

Then, all familiar, warm and tempered as a fire, but sharp, with an edge, with danger, and a burn, Melisandre called, “Stannis does not need to beg this lord or that lord for support. The Lord of Light stands behind him.”

Stannis does not need to beg this lord or that lord—Stannis. Stannis Baratheon.

A man named Stannis Baratheon—no. No.

No.

Naera stood, her wooden chair screeching against the floor, and she made towards the door, hand clasped over her mouth, her head bursting within.

“Princess?” Xoreo Soraar stood with her, shrill, loud, and dizzying with the sound, as drastic showers and destructive rains hammered against the seas and stone, salt, and sand.

“Naera?” She heard Rhaenyra’s concerned voice scream, but Naera’s knees had already surrendered, her ankles striking the floors, collapsed, unconscious.

MASTERLIST

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

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The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 21: Rhaenyra

MASTERLIST

Summary: Naera arrives at Dragonstone, and something has changed about Rhaenyra.

Word count: 2.9k

Warnings: nothing, really

Naera sat on a raft, alone—she had refused everyone else. Ser Redmond had tried following her, something about protecting a member of the royal house, and that the seas were never safe for a young lady, but she had been stern to put him down. You’re a Kingsguard, yes? Go, guard your King. The man was perfectly terrified of her and had not argued.

She had sailed alone before—on her way to Qarth, once, when Wisestone had decided that he loved his lair in Asshai by the Jade far too much to leave it behind, unaccompanied and unlived in. She hadn’t argued for long before yielding and had taken a ship. Then, on her way back to Westeros—she could have flown a direct way, but she hadn’t. Now, that had been mostly in order to anger the King, but the principle still stood.

Ha.

Wisestone. White scales, silver wings, coal black eyes and red flames—he was her, in every way, an absolute embodiment of everything she was, or ever would be—he was calm, complex, calculated, but then he did this, just flew off, without reason, without a singular arrow towards his whereabouts.

He wasn’t just her dragon—he was her friend, the only one to never leave her side, but it seemed as though he had disappointed her also.

She needed to visit Asshai. He was there, she just knew, by the rubies in his den, by the blood and fire of his being. He waited there, waited for the Red Woman, or perhaps even for her. There had been no responses—nothing from Aertha, Velaena, or even Eraia, and by far, none from Melisandre.

She had expected that time come, now that she knew where to send her ravens, she’d receive a response from her fire priestess—‘tis wasn’t so. She had been silent, in word, thought, and her very presence. There were no whispers, no rumours, no talk of a Red Priestess waiting by the Pentoshi Ports, however ordinary it may be.

The land to the east wasn’t like the west—there was more harmony, with no battles fought over faiths and certainly, no wars won over family. The land to the east was better than the west, in knowledge, in magic, in people and customs—ha. Even the Valyrian customs came from the East, and perhaps that was reason enough for the Westerosi to damn the world that wasn’t theirs.

Naera dragged her raft to the sandy beaches of Dragonstone, past the muddy waters closest to the isle, far enough into the sands that it wouldn’t float away. Naera gasped at the effort, her head growing a little dizzy. The dawn blue skies seemed to twist, clouds and all, down, down, down, into the equally blue seas, mixing into an ugly green.

No.

Naera closed her eyes, face twisting in surprise as the seawater brushed past her feet. Her head throbbed and pulsed, out of sync, out of count, and so did her heart—exhausted, she was.

No.

Sand.

Naera’s eyes snapped open, head raised high, eyes looking up at the sky. She was close. She stared at the sky, blue, pale, free, and at the seas, open, broiling, moving, never stopping, never trapped, never restrained. Free.

She couldn’t help the smile that befell her, as golden as the light that bathed the aged boulders and hazel sands. Her eyes smiled also—twinkling, sparking, dancing for the strange senses that dawned upon her mind. She was free—just a day or a week, and she was almost done. She would come back for Rhaenyra, as always, but she was only human—she was weak, she was a coward, really. She needed her pleasure, her love, her security.

Naera leaned down, damp hands tucking stray silver strands behind her ears, as another wave, stronger, faster and larger, collided against her knees. She leaned down nonetheless, one knee hitting the ground and another bent, her black cloak half submerged in the waters.

As the water cleared away, she laid her hand on the hazel and oat sands, wet and coarse, leaving a print of her hand behind. Salt. It felt rough, bristly, and unpleasant, in hand, but in heart, in soul, in mind, it was a quintessential joy.

We shall meet again, ‘tween sand and salt, when the sun falls below the seas? She looked back from where she came, at the endless waves of the Blackwater, at the seas, at the water, but saw something unexpected. Her eyes widened.

Ships. Ten, twenty, easily, but behind them, fading away in the mist and fog and distance, there were more and more, and more. Thousands of ships, and every single one of them bore sails as dark as coal, and ash, and the morning sun made them glow, for in the centre of each was a beast, red and glowing and horrendous, circling, sprawling lizardry creature, twisted and circled to burn—a three-headed dragon.

Naera turned back, towards the ancient stone keep built by the Targaryens during the time of Daenys, hundreds of years past, when even Balerion the Black Dread was but a measly wyrmling. She saw, as clear as the sand, salt, sky and sea, and stone, and the fleet of Targaryen ships anchored in the Blackwater, the Breaker of Chains.

She was dressed in obsidian, hair silver and white, absent, with a thousand thoughts surely running through her mind, as she made her way towards the stone stairs up to the Keep. She had returned, from Essos, from Mereen and Vaes Dothrak, or wherever she had gone. She had returned, with an army, a fleet, with power, and intent. She had returned with a dream.

A screech.

Naera’s head fell back, gaze scanning the skies, head hurting, lilac eyes narrowed, one, two, three dragons—one black, and red, and the largest of them all, leading the others, a winged shadow, and another, green and yellow, and another, white and gold—so very much like her own Wisestone—but they were young, barely adults, and yet, with scales as horrendous as known to man, and teeth as sharp as can be—they were like Aegon’s, sure, but not nearly as large, she knew.

Naera looked back at the Targaryen Conqueror, the Breaker of Chains, the Khaleesi of all the Dothraki. She knew who she was—the only question that still plagued her was what she was. A Targaryen, a woman, a dragonrider, but that wasn’t it. She was all those things—Rhaenys, Helaena, Aemma were all those things, and Visenya and Rhaenys, the wives of Aegon, were also all those things, but the Liberator wasn’t. She was more, somehow. There was something about her, in the way she spoke, the way she stood and walked and breathed, as though something inexplicable, untouchable, ineffable was woven into her, a part of her.

Naera looked, and stared, dazed, at her beauty, and power, and the very aura that surrounded her, earth-shattering with every step, with a silent song of dignity, one of regality, of elegance, of grace, and almost godhood echoing with every breath she took.

She was a Queen—the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and Naera would almost believe that she had been birthed for that, and that purpose only. Based on sheer presence alone, she would almost believe that the Conqueror deserved her rule.

She saw others, Varys, Unsullied warriors, and another woman, dressed in dark leathers, another advisor, and the dwarf with the severed nose and horrendous scar—oh, but she did not miss the iron black pin on his lapel, shaped and moulded into a hand, with a finger outstretched. It was a pin she knew well—she had seen it donned by two men her whole life, it is the honour Daemon had yearned for all his life, but would never have. The dwarf was the Hand of the Queen.

They walked, making their way towards the stone staircases leading up to the ancestral palace of the Targaryens. Naera took steps to follow them, her vision showing no signs of fading—but it was so silent. There were no words uttered, not by the soldiers, or the advisors, and certainly not by their Queen. The Breaker of Chains? Khaleesi.

The dragons sang above them, their own thrice-fold harmony of the Old Gods of Valyria, of the Fourteen Flames, of their blood, and their fire, as they found their home.

“Princess Naera?”

The people blinked away, replaced by a knight. Ser Laenor.

“Ser Laenor,” she smiled, ignoring the caked layers of sand and silt on her cloak and trousers.

“Lord Avidius has just arrived also. He awaits in the Audience Hall with Rhaenyra.” Avidius. Rhaenyra. Yes. That was it—not the conqueror, or Varys, or the Red Priestesses, for now.

No, now was the time for her duty. Then, there would be time for her wishes, and for the conqueror, and the Long Night.

Laenor extended his arm with a silent request.

Naera stepped forward, towards the palace. He wasn’t the one whose hand she wished to hold.

The audience hall was dark, made of old obsidian stones once forged in dragonfire. The seat of power, the throne, by all means, other than name, was old, rugged, made of grisly slabs of stone arranged in a setting one could only describe as imposing, grand, and sullen, and so very, very dark.

Crested and carved from the obsidian stones was a seat, a throne for the ruler, and a symbol of power. In the dim and dark of the hall, a silver and white ray of light only crept through from the glass window, etched high above the stone floors, angled in such a way as to leave everything to the terrors, other than the very throne, and the one who sat upon it. Behind the jagged, sharp stones was another beacon of light, of glow and shine that left everything at a standstill.

On that chair built for discomfort, for pains, for toils and aches, sat Rhaenyra Targaryen, the blood of the dragon, with a face of diplomacy, silence, inexpression, impartiality, regality, and her pale, pale, pale skin, shone as bright as a candle for the light, the rubies on her black necklace glimmering with the same ethereality. Black metal—Valyrian Steel. Her silver-white hair was pulled into intricate braids, Valyrian braids, and the necks and sleeves of her obsidian dress were jarred sharp, angular, woven with plates of metal to gift it a sharpness that reminded Naera of old dragon carcasses, of the splintered swords in and around the Iron Throne, of the scales and wings of Syrax.

Sister.

Standing before her sister, her polished, royal, regal older sister, whose face was already tinged with the curse of age, but her eyes, oh, how was Naera to even stand on her feet? Her eyes were cold, dimmed, unblinking and serious, invoking darkness, night and fear, and authority. Naera felt inadequate, less, failed, covered in wet sand, trailing damp steps onto the centuries-old stone.

“You stand in the presence of Rhaenyra of the House Targaryen, the Princess of Dragonstone, and heir to the Iron Throne.” Naera curtsied, head bowing low despite the lack of necessity, for she felt the need, unsaid, unannounced, unknown—she felt the urge to kneel.

“Sister.” Rhaenyra greeted, cold, tempered and controlled, and Naera did her best to bury the growing feelings in her heart. Something had changed, she knew—something had changed in Rhaenyra. What had happened? Rhaenyra stood. “Join us in the War Chamber.”

The War Chamber?

Naera followed silently with a quirked eyebrow, strange, stranger, and strangest ideas running through her mind. Why in the War Chamber? What had happened to Rhaenyra? Why did her hands tremble, and knees shake to think of the possibilities?

Join ‘us’? War Chamber?

The war room was brighter, with long, panelling windows stretching across a wall, stormed skies burning grey, as clouds and thunders swirled and circled above. There was a storm coming.

A man stood beside the windows, in the very corner, lingering halfway in the darkness, dressed in deep red, and brown, and amber, and gold, patterned extraordinarily in geometric shapes—hexagons, principally, but also diamonds, and squares, all of the same size, the same shape, the same orientation, and the same colour. Consistently.

He turned to face them, amber eyes sparkling from the shadows in the room, glowing, like a cat—no, like a flame. He stepped forth, slow, cautious, his mask coming into view—wooden hexagons, chained and moulded together, crested in cursed gold with symbols of fire, of ancient scripts of the language spoken in the Shadows, of spells and sorcery, and of shadows. His eyes glared through the slitted gaps, a cloak the colour of night obscuring his head and his form.

Avidius of Asshai.

Join us. Why? Naera spared a glance to Rhaenyra, who had gone straight for her chair at the head of the battle map of Westeros.

It was lit.

There was fire—lava, volcanic lava, pouring through every last crevice and gap and pathway, lighting the words for the places, the symbols for the forts—King’s Landing, Dragonstone, Highgarden, Winterfell, but the clutch of land to the south, Dorne, remained dull, unlit, uninvolved, unconcerned, unbowed, unbent, unbroken.

No.

She stared up at her sister, the flames of the war table mirrored in her eyes. She couldn’t. Naera’s heart hastened, beating painfully in her chest, hammering, breaking the bones, blood rushing through her veins, hands, legs, mind ready to run, to fight, to escape. Horror, fear, terror laced her lilac eyes and she demanded, silent, for what words could encompass her inquiry? What is this, Rhaenyra?

What was she planning?

The Princess of Dragonstone sat at the head of the table without a flicker of concern—she was the same, unbothered, for she knew that none could dare question her actions. She was their queen, in all but name, the commander of their battles, the administrator of their wills, the owner of their lives, to sacrifice, or to save, if it came to be.

Rhaenyra seemed to answer, silent still, her blood sister’s inquiries. What I must do.

Naera felt a chill run down her. Every patch of skin nearly froze, every hair on her skin rose, eyes widening, heart hastening, on, and on, and on, and the rush of her own blood thrummed in her ears, loud, and unsettlingly resembling marches. Soldiers’ marches, in sync, in step, in a harmony that preceded Doom.

“D��rilaros Naera Targārien,” Avidius stepped into the light, hand outstretched. Naera met his hand with her own trembling fingers, finding his hands to be as warm as flame. The change only made Naera colder, making her frame tremble and her knees loosen.

“Āeksio Avidius,” Lord Avidius, she greeted also, eyes flickering back to Rhaenyra every other second, who herself was watching the encounter with disinterest, the same face of diplomatic composure, and it only sustained and strengthened the hold of trepidation, of anxiety, and of dread, that had taken hold of Naera’s heart.

No, sister. You can’t.

Avidius made to take a seat, symbolically, and literally, joining Rhaenyra on the War Council. He sat on the Eastern Coast, near the Blackwater, near Dragonstone, while Rhaenyra remained at the North, before the Wall.

Right.

She would know of the Conqueror’s Dream. She would know of the Long Night, and the prophecy if her dreams were true. Naera made towards the blazing hearth, trusting it to wash away the chill that had befallen her. It barely aided.

“Dārilaros hen Zaldrīzesdōron se eman—” The Princess of Dragonstone and I have—

“Lord Avidius will provide us a share the profits of his amber trade to the Crownlands.” Rhaenyra interrupted, Avidius nodded. Why? Xoreo and Avidius had already decided on the compensation necessary, then why?

“Yes.” He spoke with an eastern twist to his voice, “If, I am given the favour of this arbitration.”

If I am given the favour of this arbitration. Lord Avidius will provide us with a share of the profits. Profits meant Wealth. Wealth meant power. Power meant Authority.

Ha.

Naera was still a political instrument, nothing better than a barter coin, or a method for gain.

“Why?” Naera asked only Rhaenyra. She understood Avidius’ cause—servant of Light, or not, he was still a man, and he was still a merchant. Rather, the Lord taught desire—he was taking what he needed. Nothing mattered to him past the pour of gold into his coffers—true gold, not the cursed ores of the Shadowlands.

No, she only inquired her sister, the heir, why she would need the wealth of a merchant. She didn’t need to—No. She wouldn’t.

“Will you follow, or will you not?” Threats. Naera watched her sister from the corner of her eye, watched her stroll towards the hearth, hands clasped together over a flat belly. Her heirs. It was always about them, was it not?

Her heirs, her reputation, her claim, her throne, her power, her life.

It was never about Naera.

I need a reason, she would have argued, but she knew Rhaenyra’s response. Her reason was family—the civil war which she was already plotting, or rather, as the Princess would surely argue, the Greens had already begun—where shall the dragons go, and where shall the footmen? Which kingdoms shall remain loyal, and Naera knew, that if she were to agree to this, she was done. If she played a little mediator’s role in the way the Black Princess desired, she was done. She’d be tied to the war, to the succession, and by the lava that gathered near the edges of the Red Mountains, by the fire and blood that ached to make its way past the Boneway and the Prince’s Pass, by the Dornish Marches, she knew what her role shall be.

Ha.

The war was hardly here—she could seek to weaken the Greens without violence, without fire and blood, but oh, look at the way she dressed, walked, breathed, and talked. Rhaenyra was a creature of fire—a Valyrian Princess, the Realm’s Delight, the object of Daemon’s desire. It will never be about her, then why does she bother? Why does she choose a life where she is nothing more than a pawn, not even a knight—dispensable, worthless and unloved? Uncared for?

Right.

‘Family.’

Naera shook her head, laughing without humour.

Will you follow, or will you not? Would she wage war in the way of the Valyrian Freehold, slaughtering for gain, killing for power, or will she defect, prattle over to Alicent and the Faith of the Seven? What would she do?

Sister.

She came for this—she stayed for this. How could she be surprised? How could she resist? The war was ages away, and she had worked for months to avert one. The war was ages away, and the efforts for its course had already begun. The Greens were already plotting Viserys’ death, probably, and the Blacks were farther than set on their decision for death.

“Leave us, Lord Avidius.” Naera sent him away, eyes never leaving her sister, the battle map, the little green flags near Oldtown, and King’s Landing. The Hightowers’ Court was expanded and grown, and while every lord and lady in the land had declared fealty to Rhaenyra’s rule, not all would stand with her in the hour of need.

Avidius spared Naera a glance as he walked past her, one of sentiment, and of speech, for his words certainly resounded in her mind.

Tolī. Later.

Issa. Yes.

The flames in the candles in the stands, in the little wax pots laid out on the jagged, rugged war table, in the oil lamps of the chandelier, in the bright, hot, glorious hearth all crackled, whistled and sang, they flickered and nearly went out, for the breezes of the Stormlands crept into the chambers also.

There was a storm coming.

“Why, Rhaenyra?” Why are you doing this? “There are other ways.”

Rhaenyra chuckled, dry, mocking, like Daemon, eyes burning with rage, with fury, with frustration, “What other ways? They’ve already sent me out of King’s Landing.” Contempt for the Greens was loud in Rhaenyra.

“We can weaken them from within.” She tried to reason. This was it, perhaps—to prevent Rhaenyra from waging an all-out war, to prevent her from weakening the Greens, who, at the end of the day, were still Targaryens. They shall be overthrown, one day, she knew that with surety. They shall be overthrown, but for that, they must be weak. House Targaryen was strong still, but a civil war, once done, would only invite more—wars they couldn’t afford, if the Long Night was to be fought.

“And is that what you were doing, back in the Capitol, by training my enemies?” Our enemies, Naera wanted to correct. She couldn’t. She couldn’t let this be a misunderstanding—she couldn’t let this be a doubt for her own sister to bear.

“Yes. If Aemond is betrothed to Helaena, then Aegon—”

“Then Aegon, will marry for another alliance.” Rhaenyra slammed her hand against the battle map, drawing her attention to the green flags that already tainted the country. Storm’s End was coloured green—the Baratheons wouldn’t stay loyal, they both knew. Well, Naera knew that perhaps it shall be s stag who shall overthrow the dragon, all in all. Two stags, a lion, a wolf and a kraken? Five kings in a war.

Lions. Rhaenyra and Naera had both refused the offers of marriage from Jason Lannister. Casterly Rock and the whole Westerlands could be turned against them with a simple offer.

Riverrun. It connects Casterly Rock to the Crownlands—the Greens would give up anything for their support.

Harrenhal was still with them, as long as Ser Harwin and Lord Lyonel lived. They would support the Blacks’ claim. Oh, the Velaryons—the Sea Snake was power-hungry. If the Greens were to present a better offer, he wouldn’t hesitate. They might just need to remove him.

“You see, now?” Rhaenyra gestured to the pieces, the pawns of the game, which shall be played one day. She didn’t have alliances, not enough, anyway.

“You shouldn’t have betrothed Laena’s girls to Jaecerys and Lucerys.” Naera shook her head. “Laena and Laenor are loyal to you. Now, in the stead of four alliances, you have none.” Again, the Valyrians’ customs had been concluded as their weakness. Rhaenyra could have easily swayed Jason Lannister by offering him one of the girls’ hands, and House Tully would not have been too difficult either.

“There is no point dwelling on it.” Yes. That is what Naera had always believed, hadn’t it? Aegon will make new alliances, with the Riverlands, or the—”

“He will marry Elysabeth Tyrell.” She had made sure of that by introducing them. Her old friend cared little for who she was married to, and she hadn’t hated Aegon, only found him a touch immature. “House Tyrell is loyal to me.” No. “To us, sister. There is no need for bloodshed.” This could be solved without war, and without death, without devastation, Naera was sure.

“That’s rich, coming from a knight.” A knight, yes, but how much honour did Naera really have? Since her anointment, she had run from her homeland, broken any oaths of loyalty, severed any promises of tradition, and had only returned for her family. She had killed, yes, but she had also spared. She had spared hundreds of lives, when riding on Wisestone, while living in Qarth, while wandering through Slaver’s Bay—dare she say, she had even saved lives.

“My life may be far from honourable, sister,” and she hated how threatening and bashing her tone sounded, “but I do not want to be known as a Kinslayer.” Kinslayer? Yet, the Greens would hardly hesitate in coming to be known as Kingslayers, if it got them the power.

No. The room seemed to darken to a shade of dusk turned to night, golden and yellow and carmine from the firelight. There were people—several people, faces she had never seen, and where Rhaenyra had just sat, now was a man with dark, short hair, and a warrior’s gruff—a general, probably, refined and aged and commanding. To his left, was a man with greying hair, a look of frustration calmed and restrained upon his face. To his right, was oh—oh, no.

The Red Woman, leaning on an unlit war table, gazing with impertinence, ruby pulsing lungs breathing calmly as thunder and lightning showered without. She was red, so red, her hair glowing copper and fire in the lights, her garbs the perfect shades of blood, and she watched, and she listened, silent, smiling red.

“That my brother Robert left no true borne heirs,” a young boy read, “that the boy Joffrey, the boy Tommen and the girl Myrcella being borne of incest between Cersei Lannister and her brother Jaime Lannister. By right of—”

The man at the head of the table interrupted, “Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. Call him what he is.” Kingslayer. Kingslayer. Kingslayer.

The squire corrected, “…and her brother Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim—”

Again, “Make it Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. Whatever else he is, the man’s still a knight.” The others at the table watched the exchange with dull interest, intrigue or sheer boredom. Not Melisandre—no, the Red Woman watched with pride, with relief, with satisfaction.

“Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer.” The squire’s ability to keep a straight face should be commended. By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty.”

“When Eddard Stark learned the truth, he told only me. I’ll not make the same mistake. Send copies of that letter to every corner of the Realm, from the Arbor to the Wall.” The Arbor to the Wall? The Arbor—Dorne had been assimilated into the Kingdoms. “The time has come to choose. Let no man claim ignorance as an excuse.”

“Sister?”

Naera snapped back. No. Another dream, a waking dream, a vision. The men weren’t present, the candles or the light, or the darkness of the night, or the Kingslayer—Joffrey, Myrcella and…? What had been the last name—Lannisters, all of them. Cersei, and Jaime, the Kingslayer.

No.

“Sister, I have never asked anything of you.” Rhaenyra began, but her tone, her voice carried the words on. And yet, you have taken that which I needed most of all. Ha. She was still whining about Daemon and her long-lost love for their uncle. Her long love for their uncle. “Do I have your support?”

Do I have your support? In her claim, always. In a war that may come, always. In a war that need never happen, that could be avoided, without bloodshed, without sacrifice, without death, and the weakening of their House? No.

“Yes, sister.” But I have something else I need to do. She had her own war to fight, her own bidding to complete, her own Red Woman to find, and Kinvara, and Asshai, and so much more. She had a part to play, though she was aware that years shall pass before she can understand it with any honesty, and yet, the Lord of Light had blessed her, and she had no intentions of not repaying his kindness.

“When the time comes, yes,” House Targaryen must be in power when the Night came. If not, then the world shall end in ice, with no flame, and no power. “But not before that, Rhaenyra. I will not aid you in plotting a war decades before it is due, not when another way is still possible.” Another way is still possible. A road of diplomatic warfare, of manipulation and deceit. There was always another way, not always easier, and certainly never obvious, but consistently, there shall always be another way.

“Well,” Rhaenyra turned away, and it made Naera’s heart drop. No, sister. She didn’t agree—she wanted war, she wanted to right her wrongs, and Naera understood. It was her right, but she wouldn’t aid, she wouldn’t help her sister take the first step towards an end to this world.

This war of succession was never Naera’s burden to bear. She had another, deeper, more fearful, more dangerous predicament ahead of her—her bidding to the Lord, her work in return for his guidance, and perhaps it was to wage war—or, more likely, to prevent one.

“Enjoy your time at Dragonstone.”

MASTERLIST

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chromiumagellanic06 · 2 months

Text

The Silver Knight: Warrior, Princess, Wife

Daemon Targaryen/Original Fem [Targaryen] Character

Chapter 20: Letters

MASTERLIST

Summary: Naera visits her chambers in an attempt to find the traders' letters but learns something new. Rhaenyra makes a decision.

Word count: 2.9k

Warnings: nothing, really

There was a storm, one that started small, but inflated and grew, and barrelled off Shipbreaker’s Bay, and wrecked and shattered all that lay in its winding, twisting path. Even in the Norther lands, far enough into the Crownlands, even over the Bay of Blackwater, there were winds, whistling, blighting and marring crops, ships, and homes.

Every door in the Red Keep was guarded shut, every shattered window replaced by wooden planks, but the storms whistled through even that, blowing off papers in every noble’s solar, and every fallen leaf in the gardens and woods.

The Sky was grey, announcing rain, thunder, and lightning. Naera was set to depart before the storm reached the Blackwater, that very eve, in fact, to arrive at Dragonstone and settle this dispute. She was almost eager to meet Avidius again, not as much to hold an audience with the Qartheen emerald seller. Yet, something irked her, incensed the tug of madness in her mind, exasperated her, antagonised her. She had never received a letter.

The maids noticed her aggravation—she had snapped at them whilst flipping through every last letter she had gathered in Rhaenyra’s quarters. Nothing. She needed to prove it, to let it be known that this wasn’t an error of hers—that she wasn’t to blame, even if none on the Small Council had really stated it in so many terms.

After doing through every last letter, she knew the only way to prove—she didn’t want to. She could wait it out, until he was away, sneak into the solar and go over all the gathered nonsense. It would be so easy. No, no, no, she needed to leave earlier. She’d have to do it.

Walking through the passages in the Red Keep was strange—everything was deserted, in wake of the storms, the open corridors assaulted by heavy winds, cold, wet and strong. Naera pulled the edges of her red and black cloak closer to her shoulders, silently thankful for her choice of dark trousers for the journey, but more glad for the silver blouse she had chosen. Never forget who you are.

Naera chuckled, her silver hair braided sternly behind her, Melisandre’s words coming back to her, the regality in you must never be hidden from me, hastening her steps, the gale piercing like needles against her face, every prickle freezing like snow. Every step felt off-tune, akin to a warning, an endless maddening harmony of discordancy and errors.

Her smile fell as she approached Daemon’s chambers.

Naera knocked before she entered her own quarters—her old quarters, she’d insist, but they were very much still in her name. She knew that he’d still be in, but she needed to ask him, to be sure that she had not committed a grievance against the Crown, against those women who were raped and those men who were slaughtered.

Daemon responded gruffly, in his usual way, unaffected, “Come.”

Naera opened the doors slowly, quietly, armouring herself, steeling her face, and building a façade. She will not be bothered. She will not think of that night, she will not speak of their spat. She will behave as though all was dandy.

Upon entering, she made straight for the solar, ignoring his surprise, and entered the room to find it in various stages of disarray and disorganisation. The stench of stale liquor was thick in the room, with an edge of fire and sharp brimstone. It smelled like Daemon, like Dragons. Another cruel joke, she supposed. Ha. Wisestone?

The read letters she had held onto were scattered across the room, her journals lay open, near the hearth, by the windows, on the desk, her old, old journals, and the newer ones, from her journeys, and from her time in King’s Landing. She glanced over at one of them, recognizing the words and inks from her days in the Shadowlands. He had been reading. He had been reading her journals

Civility—she wouldn’t say anything. She wouldn’t do anything. Naera only stated, “I didn’t know you read for passing time.” I thought you needed to be coerced. She walked past the piles of papers thrown haphazardly around, past the embers of the flame that was almost out, past the candles she had always demanded be lit—they still burned. They had been changed. Why? She threw another log into the flames, watching the fire flicker and lash out.

Daemon wasn’t afraid of the darkness. He believed himself to be above those silly, petty, human flaws.

No.

She put the thoughts aside. She had a purpose, a mission, and an agenda. She needed to leave.

“Did you—did you see any letters?” The urge to prove still lived. “From some jewel merchants? There’s a dispute over the Blackwater.” Naera took for herself a glass of water, gulping it down all at once. She seemed to be just thirsty as of late. She flipped through the letters—Astapor, Astapor, Yunkai, Pentos, the Reach, the Vale, Dorne? Ha. She’d have to open that later. Nothing from the Blackwater—nothing from Rhaenyra, even. It was strange.

She glanced up at the wall of paintings, still intact, apart from one. Melisandre’s portrait, the very work of art she had spent nights and days, perfecting, was missing. Her heart ached, and throbbed in her chest, lips pressed into a thin line. Red eyes, red lips, red woman. Where was her Red Woman? She looked around the room, spotting it resting against the mantle by the hearth, the painted side facing the wood, hidden away. Guilt.

What had he done?

“No.” Daemon clicked his tongue, “No, I didn’t see any letters.” What? Naera looked up, eyes narrowed at her husband. That was too many words for him, however strange it may sound. Hm? No. That was his standard response. He did not go above and beyond in his speech—his actions meant more to him, and he had done enough.

“What have you done?” She asked. There was no point in playing games, dangling and dancing around words and phrases and ideas. There wasn’t time, and she wished to spend none of it with him.

“Nothing—I didn’t see any letters.” Hesitation. He was a terrible liar. “Are you going to talk? What about th—”

“I don’t believe there is anything to say.” She had chanted her truth to him, and he had bashed her for it. She had told him all she had to say and he had faulted her for believing that he could be honest, and nice, and kind, and human, for just a moment.

She stood, trailing steps to the hearth that burnt vibrant and bright, watching the orange, the red, the yellow—the colours of the Martells, she supposed—flicker and change and morph into a thing of beauty. She watched the flames, on, and on, thinking and thinking. There were no letters—but letters had been sent.

Where had the letters gone?

There. In the flames, she saw. She saw paper, with writings, scrawling, small, rounded letters—a squire’s writing, in dark inks, and she saw words. Avidius. Amber. Dragonstone. Blackwater Bay. Naera Targaryen. Arbiter.

No.

She saw.

In the flames, in the lapping, dazing, burning light, she saw words and figures circle and morph, as she once had in the flames of Asshai. She saw the dark figure of a man, headless, or perhaps with a head of light hair—Daemon? She saw the paper, burning, browning, tearing from the edges, collapsing and crumbling onto dust and ash, left to be brushed away by a maidservant. She saw smoke, dark, ash-coloured smoke, blowing up, up, up chimneys and pipes and reaching the outside air.

He had burnt the letters.

Why?

R’hllor, show me why.

She watched eyes—red, red, and purple, closing, opening, circling, burning, blinking away and it was gone. She saw people—red, red and silver, circling, hands joined, and she saw bodies, naked and pure, white, ivory skin, pale as death, and a kiss on that skin of fire, and of blood. She saw more paper—it was paper, the same shade as any, but sealed in red wax with the emblem of the fire priests and priestesses, and she saw, within, in scrawling, looping, twisting hands was written a beauty, an oldness, a fear and a mystery. Darkness.

He had burnt Melisandre’s letters.

He was the one. He was the one who tried to keep her away, to send her down ages of agony and pain and confusion and worry over her state, over her being, over her action, or the lack thereof.

“What had it said?” She asked, turning to face her husband.

Daemon raised an eyebrow, and she saw through his own façade. Gestures give us away. She saw fear, and hesitation, like a child caught stealing a cookie, or a priest of the Faith of the Seven caught committing adultery. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

She saw with clarity, the way he sweated and fiddled with his collar, the way he refused to look her in the eye, the way he leaned against the doorframe, steadying himself, and the way the great Daemon Targaryen, Prince of the Seven Kingdoms, the Rogue Prince, the former King of the Narrow Sea felt guilt and regret and shame. She wondered what life he must have led to never have felt it before, for any person who knew the worth of another would never commit such an action, she was sure.

“What?” He tried to defer, to claim innocence. Liar. Cheater. Deceiver. She turned back to the flame, watching the small, intricate latices she saw—hexagons—circling, spinning, expanding and contracting, and growing smaller, and smaller, and smaller, wavering and bending with the strokes of the flames. She saw things.

Finally, she saw things in fire, and not just in dreams. She saw things in fire, and not just in that of a dragon’s.

Finally, R’hllor had blessed her.

“The letters that you burnt, what had they said?” She wouldn’t play along. She’d resist, and run, and be done with him. She didn’t understand his fears. They were done, after what he said, after what he did.

“Naera, I…” How did she know? That was his question, only because he did not want to think of the answer. She knew. She knew the reality, she saw it in the flames. Look into the flames, she had told him. The Lord of Light showed me. The Lord of Light. Dreams. Burning letters. How did she know what he had done? No, no, no. She couldn’t have been right.

What is the power of dreams, against that of dragons? Nothing. It is nothing.

Dragons soar the sky. Dreams are only fantasies. Dragons are reality.

“Just answer the question.” He flinched at her voice. It had changed. It was calm, so, so very, very calm, unlike her, unlike anything that would be expected in such a place. The draughts and hurricanes hammered against homes and bricks and empty fields outside, shaking the very foundation of the lands. It was the calm before a storm, a dull blue fire burning hottest of them all, and if provoked, if shaken, would consume everything, and everyone.

Lightning struck. It was white, just for a second, and another, encompassing the dim solar in a flash of electric light, white and silver and grey, with a distant cry of skies breaking, heavens falling, hells rising.

It was the flame of a dragon—her dragon. Cold and dull, until the moment came, and when the last hour was upon them, he felt his heart shudder and shake, he felt his hands tremble and his voice break. He remembered their wedding day when she had defeated him with ease, with grace and poise and elegance and he remembered that other night, as he watched her gaze into the flames in the hearth, somehow aware of things she couldn’t possibly know, and it made him fear. What if she had been right? What if she had seen it all?

What if the end of the world of men was destined?

What if it was all true?

His instinct, his beliefs told him that it wasn’t so—they were dragons, not soothsayers. They were mighty conquerors, not dull-eyed storytellers. Yet, the facts lay before him. He remembered Helaena’s words, spool of green, spool of black, dragons of flesh weaving dragons of thread, and then was her, his beautiful, brilliant, wonderful, powerful Valyrian bride, who dreamt. She knew.

She knew, and she said nothing to him. She only stared at the fire, hands loose, shoulders were thrown back, ice and lightning, and fire—the ugliest fire. She was angry.

“I’m…Naera, I…” he forced his stuttering lips to bend to his mind, treading forward until he leaned down to watch the flicker of golden flames in her lilac eyes. She wouldn’t even look at him, he whispered, “I am sorry, I know that I—” that I fucked up, horribly, possibly irredeemably, for he had failed her before, and he shall probably do it again. He raised a hand, just to brush back the loose strands of silver-white hair that fell out of her near dozen braids clasped together, but he couldn’t.

Don’t touch me, she had said. He watched the ring of yellowed bruises on her neck, below the ash black cloak and silver blouse, all with high collars to cover the injury, but the damage was done.

“I don’t care.” Plainness laced her voice, simplicity, and a lack of argument, of hope, of resistance, “What did the letter say?” Naera watched the flame, circling, growing, shedding and glowing, and she saw so much, from her blessing, from the Lord of Light. He showed her dragons, obsidian and horrendous, with vast scaled wings and fleshy masses, and one was larger than any of them, with the greatest wings, and the farthest flights, and she saw it fly, quiet, leering, seething. Vhagar. She saw the beast fly, into clouds of storm and rain, dark and shadowy—as dark as night, and full of terrors also, and screeches echoed in her mind—distant, as though the sounds were distorted by a film of water, in a different realm, a different time.

“She awaits at Pentos.” Pentos. Pentos. Pentos. It shall be Volantis, to High Priestess Kinvara, and then to Pentos, to her Red Woman, to her love, and her delight, and her pleasures. “She—Lady Meli—”

“Don’t.” You do not deserve to speak her name. He said it wrong, Naera always thought, the way he spoke her name made it sound just as wrong as he spoke her name right.

“Naera, don’t—” There. He knew how to say her name, make it sound complete, in one piece. Daemon knew how to speak her name, and he did beautifully, with sensation, and appearance, and excellence and marvel.

It did not change the facts. It did not change what he had done, what he continued to do, with every word, and every glance of his that burned her, and made her wish to die, every day, always.

“She waits by the ports for a Dornish ship—A Martell ship, and she does not know when it shall arrive.”

A Dornish Ship. Pentos. Melisandre. The Long Night, the Breaker of Chains, Khaleesi, Targaryen Blood, Stannis, and that a red priestess shall support him, and be wrong to do it. Kinvara shall support the Breaker’s claim, and those who don’t believe shall burn in Light.

“I am sorry, Naera, I—” no, no, no, “I’ll do anything, anything—I am sorry.” Anything to regain her favour, to regain whatever trust she had put in him, to touch her again, he’d do anything.

“Very well,” she stepped away from the hearth, away from him, eyes snapping to the curtained windows. “Inform His grace that you shall not be accompanying me to Dragonstone.” She gathered whatever letters she could, pocketing the one from Dorne,

“Dragonstone?” He asked her, as she made for the door. We’re done, her words echoed in the silence, uttered days ago.

“To detangle the mess you created.”

Dearest Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra sat in her solar in Dragonstone—the princess’ solar, as they called it now, having put her boys to sleep.

“Laenor,” she called. Her father had written to her, strangely enough, it would be important. Laenor stuck his head into the room, eyebrows raised, and entered at her behest. “Viserys has written.”

“What is it?”

She inhaled, “Dearest Rhaenyra, you should expect two in the coming days—one, a Lord Avidius from Asshai by the Shadow, an amber merchant, and another…” she squinted, “Xoreo Sorraar Daxon, from the Walled City of Qarth, an emerald merchant. They had undergone a disagreement, and have requested Princess Naera as their arbiter.”

“Naera?” Laenor narrowed his eyes, lips left unparted as he recalled every interaction with his stony and silent good sister. Naera? Arbiter?

Rhaenyra attempted to refresh her mind, thinking back to those dozens of letters from her times in the East.

“She spent a long time in Qarth, from whatever I can recall.” She had ruled in Qarth for some time, if she recalled well, but had decided that it hardly suited her, and left. “And in Asshai, something with the fire priests and priestesses.” She had spent a long time in Asshai, so it made sense. She was educated and learned and perfectly adept in the Laws of the sea, and of the King, but it made no sense, still.

“Surely, she has relations with these people, but—” But.

Rhaenyra sighed, silent, reading through the next few sentences. They were details of the disagreement, the number of ships lost, what the Crown could gain, and on, and on. Unimportant. She only had a single question roaming her thoughts. It was a legal matter, and an imperial, or royal matter of exceeding importance. Sure, the King couldn’t waste his days on that, but shouldn’t it be her? The Princess of Dragonstone? The Heir to the throne who spent half her time going over palace maintenance on a little rock island off the Eastern coast?

It was a joke—her life was a joke.

“It should be you.” Laenor did always speak his mind when it came to this. “We shouldn’t have left King’s Landing, its her.” Her, her, always her. Alicent. She had succeeded, Rhaenyra supposed, in manipulating her father, turning him against her, to forget about her, undermine her, dismiss her.

She has poured honey down Viserys’ ears—and Viserys was a weak and old fool. He had succumbed to the lies and deception. Yet, she had turned to Dragonstone to take half the court with her, to ensure that her boys wouldn’t have to live with those ugly rumours.

Hah. Rumours. They just never stopped. The more mouths, the more talk, the proverb went. Ugly, disgusting rumours about the illegitimacy of her children, about Daemon, about the King’s failing health that all seemed to paint her in the dirt, and never the shining, pious, responsible Alicent, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, once, her friend, but hardly any longer.

She could never quite forget what had been uttered on the day Joffrey was born. Do keep trying, Ser Laenor. You’ll eventually get one that looks like you.

She was a cunt, and a wench, and whatever else she could be, but behind a face of gold, glimmer, innocence and chivalry, all her flaws faded into the shadows.

Then, there were the other rumours—that Naera had turned to Aemond and Helaena back in King’s Landing, that she had begun training her enemies, making them stronger, giving them more warriors. Her dear sister, who she had always taken to have been assigned the same punishment for her royal birth—a husband not of her choosing, a life not of her preference, but that was hardly it.

Oh, not Naera. Her life was brilliant. A Dornish Prince who she had grown to love—truly love, and not just befriend, like she had Laenor—and years of exploration, and wonder, and then Daemon. It was all a joke, wasn’t it?

“What will you do?”

Rhaenyra shook her head. She wouldn’t blame her sister, she wouldn’t hate her for something entirely out of her control, and she won’t do it. Naera had never wanted to stay, she had only come for her, to protect her claim, to work for her welfare, and that of the Blacks.

She turned her eyes back to the letter.

“Daemon won’t follow.” She smiled—that would be a relief, to just have Naera, her sister, her friend, and not him around her, a constant, blazing symbol of her grief.

Her joy did not last. “They’ve been facing problems. I trust you to solve them, Rhaenyra.” Ha. She tossed the letter down onto her desk. “Who does Viserys think I am?”

Her father was as oblivious as always, it seemed. Never understanding, never remembering, never knowing anything well enough. How could he expect Rhaenyra to work for their marriage, when her own was failing? How could he expect her to help Daemon, to help Naera, after what had happened, all those years ago?

“Rhaenyra, I…” I failed you, as his words always echoed. Laenor had failed her, as a husband, as a companion, and as the father of their children. He shall forever hold onto that guilt, of never being able to provide his best friend—his wife, the thing she needs the most. A true heir. It had been why they left King’s Landing in the first place, after Viserys’ command—the rumours, the chatter, the disgrace and disrespect she was forced to face every day.

“No. That had been our agreement.” He could fuck his fill of squire boys and enjoy his life, and she’d do the same with Harwin. Oh, had they only known the consequences of their deeds beforehand—they would have tried better, and worked harder to conceive. “You haven’t failed me, Laenor.” Her face darkened, thoughts returned to the dragonrider, the princess, oh, but she wasn't the first and weak with the second. “Naera has.”

She was helping the greens, her own sister, working for Alicent’s gain, probably already bent to her will. She had got Daemon—and that wasn’t enough; she needed power, and claim, her lost little sister, left wandering the East, fighting, learning, venturing, pleasuring, and she was left here—with contested heirs and draining authority.

“Rhaenyra…” Laenor looked away, his own heart heavy, his own fears solidified, cold, realised. The blood of the dragon ran thick, he knew, and the fire in Rhaenyra burned the hottest of them all.

“I think it’s time we returned to the politics.”

MASTERLIST

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