Ash and Salted Earth
Chapter 2: Wings on the wind
Daeron Targaryen x fem!reader
Synopsis: As you continue your ill-advised endeavor with a wild dragon, you meet a strange man with purple eyes Word count: 7.4K Warnings: Alcoholism (but it's Daeron, so I feel like that's a given), injuries, animal in pain Notes: Major canon divergence, no use of y/n, it is fem!reader but gendered descriptors are few and far between (at least for now), you are a street rat, original dragon, the dragon finally gets a name Masterlist <<Prev. chapter Next chapter>>
Yet another big shoutout to @lalalovelyly for not only inspiring this fic, but also for suffering my continual dm's and letting me pick their brain
Your life has taken on a strange rhythm as of late.
Against all reason, the threat of being burned or eaten alive has not yet persuaded you to stop tempting the Stranger. Sometimes the dragon is there, waiting, when you make the long trek out to the farmstead, and sometimes it is not. It always turns up eventually though, for whatever meagre offering you’re able to scrounge up while also trying to keep yourself fed. You have, to your distaste, had to eat the slop served in the single, still-open pot shop in town several times now.
It is a long walk, from Hull to the outskirts of the surrounding farmlands and back again, but it’s not as though you have any other pressing obligations.
You don’t have a name for whatever it is that keeps drawing you back to the beast. When night falls and the town goes quiet, and you take a moment to breathe without daring to let down your ever-present guard, you feel a barely perceptible, still-present buzz in your fingertips that brushed against the dragon.
Or it might just be your fingertips going numb from the chill, as they so often do.
You feared for your sanity, and you still do, but now the feeling is mirrored, turned on its head. The air grows colder when you back away from the dragon and make your return to Hull, the world seeming to withdraw behind a pale grey veil of rain and cold. The dragon, and its flames, and its terrible, dark, monstrous shape, seems all the stronger, all the warmer in comparison. It is as though your mundane, dirty, day-to-day life is the dream your mind has conjured up, and the dragon is the only real thing you’ve ever encountered.
You can’t stay away.
Even as the thing still seems determined to make a meal out of you, as soon as you outlive your usefulness.
“Stop that,” you tell it, in what you ardently hope is a steady voice, on the seventh day since your offering of fish and rat, “I need to look at it.”
The dragon is growling at you, a dry rasp that makes the fine hairs on your arms stand up and sweat bead at your nape. You stand beside it as it finishes the gull and crow you brought, around five-and-twenty yards from the dilapidated farmstead that’s become you and your dragon’s meeting point. You are trying to lean down and look at the shaft buried in its wing-joint again, shielding your eyes from the sharp sun of the late afternoon.
Evidently, the dragon has not forgotten your interest in the injury, as it jerks its head towards you in warning and you have to jump back. Its lips are curled back over its crooked, black fangs, and you can see bits of burnt bone and flesh stuck between them as it snarls.
You half-choke on a gasp, as you nearly fall on your rear.
“I’m trying to help you,” you spit at it, frustration and fear bleeding through. Some logical part of your mind knows that you are, most likely, just venting your frustrations at a wild animal that only tolerates you for the scraps of food you bring it. Another, considerably less logical part of you, desperately wants to believe that there’s a deeper intelligence in its blazing, hungry eyes.
The dragon hisses, thin tendrils of smoke curling from its nostrils. A gust of warm, foul-smelling breath rushes over you, making your eyes water.
“Fine,” you huff, taking a step back, “Be in pain. See if I care.” The dragon continues watching you, the tip of its long tail twitching uncertainly. You look back at the dragon’s injured joint, before it shifts its wing in what seems to be an attempt to hide it from you.
Your eyes glide over the dragon’s massive form again. The broken spurs around its head, its splotchy, muddy colouring, and its multitude of scars, spines and ridges all come together to make it resemble a horrifically misshapen giant pinecone.
It really is an ugly thing, you think to yourself. You almost tell it so, but hold your tongue, just in case you did not, in fact, imagine the intelligence deep in its eyes.
“I-” you start, and have to clear your throat, “I’ll be back tomorrow. And this time,” you look at the awkward way it holds its wing, trying to shield its injury from you, “This time, I will have a look at that thing.”
You are most definitely trying to convince yourself more than the dragon, who doesn’t seem overly impressed with your declaration.
You take a slow step backwards, and then another, still facing the dragon as you take your leave. You still don’t trust the beast enough to fully turn your back on it before you’re at a distance where you’re fairly sure you can at least make a decent run for it.
And so, you begin the long walk back to Hull, through the barren landscape of brown hills and empty fields, feeling a pair of molten eyes boring into the back of your head the whole way.
– – –
“I dreamed of you.”
You nearly jump out of your skin at the sudden words that interrupt your solitude. Hull is quiet, when the better folk have closed up shop and pulled shut their shutters; doubly so since the Great Spring Sickness came to Driftmark and left a trail of death in its wake.
The man is leaning heavily against one of the houses that line the main street into Hull. Drunk, you determine immediately – he stands unsteadily on his feet, as though he’s about to keel over, and his doublet is stained with wine. It is of fine make, you note, and his cloak has silver clasps. Some merchant or relative of a merchant, you figure, who has found himself stuck in Hull due to the lockdown on the port and has nothing but drink to pass the time.
You would dismiss him and keep your pace down the darkening street, if not for the way his eyes are firmly fixed on you through clumps of sandy blonde hair. A shiver runs down your spine and, for a moment, you feel as though you’re trapped beneath the wild dragon’s molten gaze again. Your eyes rest on the fresh scar that stretches from his cheek back to his ear.
“Ser?” You reply hesitantly, your breath forming a white puff in the cold air.
He shoves off the wall, stumbles a bit, and staggers towards you in a lurching motion that nearly has him falling on his face. You take a reflexive step back. He stops in place as well and sways, grimacing.
“Apologies,” he says breathily, waving his hand in a meaningless gesture. “I’m-” he trails off, eyes losing focus and you stand in place awkwardly, as the man seems to lose track of what he was saying. Just as you’re about to leave him standing in the empty street though, he starts and takes another step towards you, like a fish pulled on a hook.
You tense, unsure of whether to stay or go. Encounters with drunks rarely end well for those less fortunate, but the man looks well-off, even if he is as drunk as a skunk, and you might be able to snatch a coin-purse off him.
“Do you need help, ser?” You ask, discreetly trying to see whether he has a satchel of coin hanging from his hip. The man keeps staring at you, so you don’t think you would be able to get away with any pilfering.
Then again, he is a rather scrawny-looking fellow. If push came to shove, you could probably take him. It’s more of a question of whether you can outrun the city watch.
“I saw you,” the man starts again, and you resist the urge to roll your eyes. Drunk. Most definitely. “Flying.” He takes another step closer, and you can smell the wine on him.
“Ser,” you begin, still trying to peer beneath his cloak for anything within your reach, “I think you might have overindulged. I’ve not seen you before, and I’ve certainly not been doing any flying.”
“You will,” he replies instantly, with such strong certainty that it gives you pause. An uneasy feeling stirs in your stomach.
The more he stares at you, the more unnerved you feel.
“I don’t-” Before you can say any more, his hands clamp down on your shoulders, and you bite back a yelp. His grip is tight, almost painfully so, and his red-rimmed eyes are burning. For a second, you swear you see purple flames flickering deep within them.
“I saw you,” he rasps, cold dread fully settling in your stomach.
With all your might, you shove him away from you. The man flails, falling backwards and onto the cobbled street with a loud groan.
You don’t stop to check on him as you rush away. You hear him call out behind you, but you don’t look back and slip into one of the narrow side-streets between the cramped rows of houses.
You’ve spent your life on the streets and in the alleyways of Hull, and you know them as well as anyone knows their home. You don’t think the man pursues you, but if he did, you would have little trouble losing him.
You come to a stop behind a stack of crates, resting your back against the wall of a tall, timber-framed house. You breathe in deeply through your nose, trying to banish the man’s eyes from your mind. A shudder runs down your spine.
The alley’s as good a place as any to spend the night – you’re even lucky enough to find a bundle of discarded cerecloth to crawl under. Even with this rare luxury though, you lie awake bundled against the wall, feet tucked up under you.
“I saw you,” you hear at the edge of your hearing, and you jerk, but then realise you merely dozed off. With an irritated scoff, you try to sleep again, the night heavy and pitch-black around you, but those three words keep dancing on your peripheral, in the back off your throat and across your burning fingertips, until at last you find your rest when the first pale rays of sunlight begin to lighten the open sky above you.
– – –
You approach the wild dragon the day after with your chin held high and a fine tremor in your hands that you hope it doesn’t see and suspect that it does.
It comes crawling to you as it always does, slinking over the grass, spiked tail swinging behind it and burning eyes fixed on you. Even after weeks of working yourself to the bone to feed it, your pulse quickens and your palms go clammy when you see it coming for you.
Every time you approach it, you risk your life. Any second, it could decide that you are more appetizing that the scraps of meat you bring it. It could devour you and no one would ever know.
“It’s fish today,” you tell it, and you see its large nostrils flare. You’re quite proud of your haul – you’d come upon an overturned barrel of discarded fish on the edge of the harbour in the hour of the wolf, that were all either misshapen, half-rotten or some other version of unsavoury for those who can afford to be picky. Usually, barrels like that would be poured back into the sea or picked over by your fellow guttersnipes, but you suppose the Great Spring Sickness has thinned out the population of beggars enough for you to get lucky. You don’t think the dragon cares about the state of your offerings, not when it’s still a gaunt thing out of options, and it burns whatever you give it regardless.
The dragon rumbles as you throw forth one of the three fish you’d managed to carry with you, a low sound that you swear you can feel vibrating through the earth and up into your feet.
“It’s tasty,” you promise. It is not; you’d scarfed down what you think was a haddock, peeling back the scales and tearing at the cold meat with your teeth. It tasted of seawater and kelp.
The dragon lumbers forward, sniffing the grey, slightly slimy fish. Before it can get too sceptical, you throw the other two as well.
“Eat up,” you encourage it, and then cringe, as you swear it narrows its eyes in suspicion at you. In the end, hunger wins out through, and you see the familiar sign that it’s about to breathe fire as it draws back its neck. You hurriedly jump aside – the fire comes easier now, with less straining and hacking.
It is getting stronger, you note, as you carefully walk down the dragon’s flank. You’re not sure if you’re pleased or alarmed about it.
You stop where you can see its injured joint again. The shaft still sticks out from it like an enemy flag, buried deep. You reckon it must be quite painful still, stuck in between the bones. You’ve not seen the dragon fly once since you happened upon it, and you doubt you will while it remains injured. You can’t deny that it concerns you; it is a formidable beast, but a downed dragon makes for an easy target, and if someone capable managed to take it by surprise-
What then?
The more you think on it, the more confusing your thoughts become. If something did happen to the dragon, then realistically, you would have a lot more food to yourself. You wouldn’t have to make the long trek out through the farmlands day after day, you wouldn’t have to risk burns and death to feed the ungrateful monster. What does it matter if people learn of it, if the Lord of the Tides sends out a contingent to hunt it down, if the Targaryen’s become aware of a living dragon within their reach?
It is all so very far beyond you, high up above your station. You are a motherless street rat, with nothing but the clothes on your back and the hunger in your belly.
Behind you, the dragon breathes another burst of flame, the smell of smoke making your nose itch.
You frown at the injury again.
The dragon swallows the fish whole and burnt, swallowing with that same low rumble,.
It stiffens.
Its head snaps around to look at you and you freeze beneath its sharp, predatory gaze.
Your hand is wrapped around the shaft buried in its flesh.
Now or never.
You pull.
And the dragon screams.
The sound pierces the air like the whistle of an arrow and flames explodes around you. The dragon spews fire, but you’re still holding on and are pulled out of the flames’ path when the dragon lurches away from you. In the sudden chaos, fear and fire, it reminds you bizarrely of a dog chasing its tail, as the dragon pulls you along and continues to screech and hiss and spit fire around you. In your peripheral vision, you see the sad little farmhouse hiss and crackle as it is engulfed in a jet of fire.
The dragon twists and spits furiously and sweat erupts on your forehead, beads leaving trails in the grime at your temples as they trickle down. You nearly lose your grip as the dragon snaps and twists, desperately trying to shake you off, as you pull with all your might.
There’s a crunch, a twist and then, it gives and you nearly fall back on your behind as you pull out a long, broken-off spear with a jagged head. Black blood sprays and burns where it hits your skin, smoke rising from the now-open wound.
With a scream so loud, it echoes off the hills and rocky outcroppings around you, the dragon rears back on its hindlegs.
You drop the old, ruined weapon and, out of pure instinct, reach out to grab the first thing within reach, which just so happens to be the long, black spurs that covers the dragon’s back. Your upper body is lying awkwardly across its side, legs dangling and kicking in the open air beneath you as you hold on for dear life.
The dragon roars, shooting another jet of fire at the sky, and twists furiously from side to side.
“Stop!” You shout, and then nearly laugh at the futility of it, as the dragon’s shrieking completely drowns out your small voice. If anything, it only seems to make it angrier, as it slams itself into the ground out of desperation to shake you off.
It jerks and twists around, jaws snapping, and then coils, wings stretching out.
Your eyes widen.
“Oh, hells-”
With a lurch, the dragon kicks away from the ground and you let out a scream that you will take to your grave. Even as black blood continues dripping from its smoking wound, the dragon works its frayed wings furiously, body rolling awkwardly from side to side. You suck in gulps of cold air as the wind tears at you, the ground suddenly seeming awfully far away beneath you.
You are flying.
Fear has all but petrified you, freezing your mind as you hang helplessly on the frenzied dragon. It continues to hiss and undulate in the air, trying to throw you off, and your fingers are hurting from how tightly you cling to it. Your breath escaped you in quick gasps, heart pounding painfully in your chest, and you think you see one of the legs of your threadbare pants smouldering.
There’s a faint tug from somewhere between your sternum and your stomach, something that twists and turns-
And settles.
The dragon screeches in pain and frustration again, wings beating furiously and-
You realise you were mistaken.
You are not flying.
You are crashing.
You barely let go in time as the dragon collides with a hill and sends dirt flying in a great, brown spray, clumps of grass and mud raining down around you.
Your shoulder explodes in pain as you hit the ground on your side, and you let out a half-choked yell as the wind is knocked out of you. Your ears are ringing, but you can still hear the dragon roaring and hissing not far off, kicking up dirt and mud and rocks. With heaving, gasping breaths, you press your face into the brown grass, waiting for the flames to engulf you or a clawed foot to crush your ribcage.
You think you might be crying, but you can’t tell whether it’s out of fear, pain, shock or something else.
You squeeze your eyes shut as a furnace breath rolls over you, a gust of heat that sears your skin and smells of soot and rotten eggs. The dragon snarls, head-splittingly loud, and you press yourself into the ground and wait for death.
And wait.
And wait.
You shiver as the heat gradually abates. Your shoulder is still in absolute agony and there’s a dull, throbbing ache in the joint of your opposite elbow. You can feel your heart pulse in your throat.
You open your eyes.
You are alone.
The dragon is nowhere to be seen. As you carefully dare to sit up and look around, the only sound is that of the wind, the distant sea and your own quick, uneven breaths.
You are left lying in a wasteland of burned grass and overturned earth, a single, solitary speck of life in a stretch of dead land.
– – –
It surprises you that you are able to slip into Hull unnoticed.
From what you glimpsed in the few puddles you came across, heading back to the town, you make for a frightful sight. You are filthy and shabbily dressed at the best of times, but now, you are positively covered in dirt, soot and black blood, the edges of your makeshift clothes burnt and blackened. Your eyes are wild, darting back and forth, as if they can’t decide what to rest on, and you have multiple cuts and scrapes across your face and body, though they have mostly stopped bleeding.
The streets are not empty.
For the past few months, there have been few people who venture out much, with plague rippling through the seven kingdoms. The carts of corpses that roll through the streets and out the city gate have been a very effective deterrent.
But now, townsfolk stand in small throngs, clearly still unwilling to go too near each other. Something has drawn them from their homes though, some of them calling across the street to their neighbours, and most of them pressing cloths over their mouths to ward off the miasma of the outside.
Night is beginning to fall, the first handful of stars making themselves known on the darkening horizon. The few faces you can see in the dim lighting are pale and tight. You hear someone’s wet cough and cringe.
None of the folk standing about pay you any heed as you slip in the open city gate and hurry to press yourself up against the wall of houses that lines the main street. There’s an agitation in the air, and you hear the words “Dragonstone”, “volcano” and “monster” getting thrown about as you continue down the street, trying to remain unnoticed.
The back of your head prickles and you frown, turning about to see who is looking at you. Your stomach drops as you recognize the man who seized you by the shoulders the previous night, babbling of dreams and how he saw you and flying-
You freeze in place as you recall his strange words, your heart clenching uncomfortably in your chest.
You’ve met plenty of drunks in your time, babbling about nothing, but this one seems to have either made one of the luckiest guesses you could possibly imagine-
You don’t let yourself finish that thought.
You fix your eyes on the gutter and keep on walking, trying to keep out of the way of the men and women who have been drawn out of their homes. Soon, you expect the city watch will turn up and make the people disperse again – Lord Velaryon has been trying to keep people indoors, clamping down on gatherings and rushing anyone loitering along. They’ve told you to move it more than once, though it usually just means you move to a less conspicuous alleyway or street corner.
“It’s the volcano,” you hear a man croak as you pass by half a dozen men in stained linen shirts and coifs, “Has to be, there’s flames on the horizon-”
“‘ave you gone daft?” Another one asks, and spits, “There’s no ashfall, and Dragonstone’s to the fuckin’ northeast of ‘ere. That’s northeast.” He points, to what you’re reasonably sure is southeast.
You rush onwards, before you can hear any more, stomach twisting with unease. Your nape still prickles, but you doggedly keep your eyes on the brown street and your head down. Footsteps pick up behind you.
“An’ the screaming? What about then, then?”
“A volcano doesn’t scream either, you absolute-” You slip down a side street before you can hear the conclusion to the insult, ducking under a low-hanging clothesline. You look back over your shoulder, and something that you dearly hope is mud squelches under your right foot. You can’t make out much in the darkness and with two pairs of damp breeches in the way. You think you can hear someone calling out, but you can’t tell if it’s meant for you.
You turn back around, shoulder aching with the movement, and keep moving. You vault over what you think is a rotten, overturned bench, or an exceptionally poor attempt at a fence, and nearly collide with a wheelbarrow laden with rotten straw.
“Wait!” A voice gasps out somewhere behind you, and you quicken your pace.
There’s a high, wooden fence at the end of the narrow path, blocking it from the wider street. You’re still far enough from it to get a running start and you grimace as one of your running footsteps lands in a puddle, sending drops of brown water flying.
You leap upwards and grab the pointed top of the fence with both your hands. You let out a short cry of pain as pain flares from your shoulder again, but still, you keep pulling with all your might, getting one leg over the fence, and then the other. You stumble as you land heavily, legs nearly giving way with pain and exhaustion beneath you, but you manage to right yourself and keep going.
You burst out into one of the larger streets running through Hull. Throngs of people still stand here and there, muttering amongst themselves and occasionally pointing at the sky, but you see a couple of men from the city watch approaching on your lefthand side, shouting out orders for people to return to their homes and to watch where they cough.
From behind you, there’s a thump and a loud groan.
Against your better judgment, you look back.
The strange man from last night lies in a heap at the foot of the tall fence, face down in another puddle. With a dramatic moan, he staggers to his feet, his tangled hair dripping, and then leans forwards to rest his palms on his knees.
“You” he gasps “are a difficult woman to keep pace with.” You take a step back, on the verge of bolting, especially as you hear the guardsmen getting closer by the second. With another groan, the man stumbles forwards, waving his hands. “Stop, stop, I beg of you. Please. I haven’t the knees for another chase.”
“You didn’t have the knees for the one, from the look of you,” you reply sceptically, as the man breathes in deep gulps of air and leans forwards to grab his knees again.
“Yes, well,” the man coughs, and straightens, seeming to try to look you in the eye. “I need to speak with you.”
“You did plenty of speaking last night, ser,” you bite, glancing at the guards again. They’re near enough to hear now, walking down the street and shouting for people to stop their blathering and go back inside.
“Yes,” he huffs awkwardly, running a hand through his wet, sandy blonde hair, “I… might not have made the best of impressions, I’ll grant you that.”
“How gracious of you.”
“Please,” he asks again, hands twitching as though he wants to reach out for you. Thankfully, he doesn’t.
“You two!” A guardsman calls in a coarse voice, and you wince. Usually, when a guardsman shouts at you, it’s preceding a beating, or worse. “Move it. There’s a sickness about, and we’ve corpses enough already for the asses to pull.” You bite your tongue – you’ve a smart reply at the ready, and the experience to know it is wiser to keep it to yourself.
“Right,” you mutter instead and glance at the man who insists on speaking with you, before you look around and pick a random direction to walk in. It doesn’t matter which, you know you won’t find much regardless.
The man falls into step beside you, to your chagrin.
“I saw you,” he says, and your face twists at the reminder of your encounter with him the night before.
“Yes, I gathered.”
“Right.” He clears his throat. “Might we talk? The night is cold, and…” he heaves a wistful sigh, “I rather need a cup of wine.” You squint at him suspiciously and take him in for a long moment. He is clad in the same clothes as when you saw him last, of fine make, but stained and wrinkled. He has no discernible sigil from what you can tell, so at least he’s not a noble, and getting him more drunk might allow you to snatch a coin or two off him.
“Fine,” you snap, frustration and humiliation bubbling in your chest at the relief that softens his features, “Lead on.”
– – –
The innkeeper hasn’t stopped glaring at you since you crossed her doorstep.
You can’t entirely fault the stout woman for it; you’ve left sooty footprints in through the tavern to your seat, and you’re positive your seat will be filthy when you rise from it as well.
The inn is humble, but warm and dry, lit by the warm glow of low-hanging, flickering lamps, with a mix of wooden chairs, tables and benches strewn about and a layer of straw on the floor. By now, the hour is truly late, with only one or two drunken patrons in the main hall of the inn, and they seem to pay you and your strange companion no mind.
“A flagon of red, if you please,” the man calls to the innkeeper, as he all but falls into the seat opposite you. She snorts, you think, but the man either doesn’t seem to notice or care.
“What kind?” She asks, up behind to counter, and the man blinks at her, as though he’s momentarily confused.
“Whichever will work,” he replies vaguely, and you think the innkeeper snorts again. You frown – with vagueness like that, she’s like to pour him the most expensive thing on tap just to make a few extra coppers.
The man fixes his eyes on you and something in his gaze clears. You shift uncomfortably in your seat, both at the sudden sharpness in the man’s watery eyes and at how you’re certain the innkeeper is still glaring at the back of your head.
“What’s your name?” He asks. You hesitate, not because you care much whether he knows your name or not, but because it’s been so long that you’ve said your own name aloud that it almost feels foreign to you.
You do manage to say it though, after a few moments. The man’s lips part and move silently, as though he’s tasting the feeling of your name in his mouth, as though it is something profound.
“And you?” You ask.
“Daeron.”
“What, like the king?”
“Yes,” Daeron’s lips quirk and he gives you a bemused look, “Like that fellow, I suppose.”
A flagon of wine slams down between you, the large woman placing her thick arms on her hips as she looks you and Daeron over.
“That’ll be four pennies,” she states. Your eyes widen – the inn is no fine establishment, and you reckon half that price would still be exorbitant for the swill they’re like to serve.
Daeron slams five copper coins down on the table, and your eyes nearly roll out of your head.
“And thank you kindly,” he calls after the innkeeper, as she hurriedly scoops up the coins and makes off with them before he can realize his miscounting.
“That was five,” you inform him, still reeling. With five pennies, you could eat for days.
“Was it?” Daeron looks back at you, lips quirking upwards. He reaches out and pours himself a generous cup of thin, red wine, and then sloshes some in your cup as well for good measure.
You do your best to shake off your outrage. You don’t entirely succeed, but you’re able to move the halting conversation along.
“You wanted to speak.”
Daeron drinks deeply and licks his lips.
“Right,” he says, blinking, and takes another mouthful, “Right.” There’s a long, drawn-out pause.
“Are you going to speak?”
“Yes. Eventually.” He tips back his cup and pours another. The smell of wine, sweat and smoke is making the air thick and heavy. He opens his mouth, starts, and then closes it again. You shift in your seat, the wood creaking beneath you.
Abruptly, he stands up and sways on his feet for a moment. When you make to stand as well, he waves his hand at you.
“Stay,” he bids you, and your face twitches in disdain at the command, like you’re a dog he’s expecting to sit and roll over when bid to do so, but he doesn’t seem to notice your displeasure. Instead, he brushes past you. You look at him over your shoulder as he makes it to the counter of the inn. You think perhaps he’s gone to ask for his extra copper back, but the innkeeper doesn’t seem too angered at what he tells her, only disappears through a low door behind the counter.
Daeron returns to your table, collapsing heavily into his seat again.
“Right,” he says again, staring at his cup. Then, his eyes snap up to you, and you notice that, in the warm lamplight, his eyes are almost the colour of the purple heather you’ve seen sprout on hillsides when summer gives way to autumn. “Did you fly?”
For a moment, you sit rooted in your seat, deeply unsettled.
“Why do you ask?”
“I…” Daeron hesitates, picking up his cup. “See things.” He takes another deep drink.
“You saw me?” You suppose you and your wild dragon had made an awful ruckus earlier, when you’d inadvertently taken off and proceeded to obliterate half a hill. You hadn’t seen any man or woman around, but you suppose it was too much to hope for that such a spectacle would go completely unnoticed.
“Yes.”
“Alright,” you say, after a pause and a deep breath. Daeron blinks at your acceptance with a surprised look on his face, like he hadn’t expected you to believe him so easily. He takes another drink.
“You know,” he starts slowly, a slow, self-deprecating smile pulling at his mouth again, “I didn’t think this through much. Or at all.”
“What?”
“I’d find you. I’d talk to you. Then…” He waves his hand in a vague motion, “Things would happen.”
“Listen,” you interrupt him, your patience wearing thin, “You might’ve seen me, and you might be well-off, stuck in Hull with little to no amusements, but-” you break off and take a breath, your chest tight. For a long moment, you are both silent, the only sounds the fire burning low and the innkeeper bustling about somewhere in the backrooms. “This is all I have,” you finally breathe out, and it feels like a confession. Daeron just looks at you, quiet.
The innkeeper comes bustling towards you again and you blink hard, trying to get your head back on straight. She sets down a bowl of something between you and Daeron, grunts and walks back to her counter. Your mouth waters.
The stew is nothing like the grey slop of shoe-leather and fish-heads served in the pot shop. The pottage is a rich, dark colour, near overflowing with tubers, mushrooms and even bits of meat, and thickened with barley.
There’s only one spoon.
Your stomach drops. It’s cramping and growling, so empty it hurts, and you clench your fists under the table.
This man means to feast in front of me. What a great joke this must be for him.
“Go on,” Daeron says, and takes another gulp of wine. You blink at him, your mind refusing to comprehend what he’s saying.
He ordered it for you.
You’re positively drooling.
“I don’t want it.” You do, you do want it. You want it desperately, your stomach twisting at the enticing smell. But you can’t afford to indulge, because gifts given freely like this always, always come with strings attached; it might not be immediate, or even soon collected on, but eventually, someone will come to collect, and when you have nothing to give, they’ll find something to take.
“Yes, you do,” Daeron retorts nonchalantly. You remain still for another moment, and another, but then you can’t hold back any longer.
You seize the spoon like it’s a weapon and dig in, damn the consequences. Your shoulder seizes in pain with the sudden movement. You wince but push the sensation aside.
Flavors explode across your tongue, sharp and rich and heady. Potato, leek, carrot, mushroom and meat meld together into something so beyond your usual fare that your eyes water. Mouthful after mouthful goes in gracelessly, so fast that you almost don’t chew.
“Don’t choke on it,” Daeron tells you helpfully, as you choke on it. You cough and force a hard swallow. You had expected to feel scrutinized under Daeron’s gaze as you practically inhale your meal, or even ashamed, but strangely, there’s nothing in his bearing that makes you feel so.
For a long time, your conversation comes to a halt, as you scarf down your meal as though it’s the last you’ll ever have. You’ve nearly finished the bowl when you begin to slow.
Daeron is still watching you with a blank expression, nursing his cup of wine, seemingly unbothered by your voraciousness. You meet his gaze and hold it, slowly chewing on your mouthful of stewed tubers. You still hold fast to your conclusion that he must be some wayward relative of a merchant who got stuck in Hull when the port closed, with the rich red of his doublet, how his cheeks fill out and the way he clearly has coin to spend. Beneath his watery eyes and clammy skin, he has fine features, with a straight nose that looks like it’s never been broken and a square jaw dusted with several days’ worth of stubble. You think that, if he were to shave and wash his hair, he could be quite a beautiful man.
You also note the fresh scar that stretches from beneath his right cheekbone back to his ear.
“How did you get that?” You ask, gesturing at his face with your spoon. Daeron blinks, as though he’s not sure what you’re referring to, but then his face twists.
“A mishap,” he says, and you let it lie. From his tone, he clearly has no wish to speak of it. You swallow another two mouthfuls of greens.
“Who are you?” Daeron sighs at your question, staring deeply into his cup. For a long moment, you think he won’t answer you.
“I’m… not a local,” He starts lamely. You give him an unimpressed look. “I usually spend my time in the Dornish Marches.” You don’t know exactly where that is, but you know that anywhere Dornish must be a long way from Driftmark.
“That’s… not exactly close,” you observed. Then, you frown. “How did you get here?”
“On a horse.”
“No, I mean… Driftmark is closed. The port is not supposed to let in visitors or merchants or, well, anyone, really.” If you didn’t prefer to keep yourself humble, you’d think you see Daeron blushing, but considering the amount of wine he’s had, it’s little wonder that he’s going red.
“Well, I…” he clears his throat, “I found a boat.”
“You found a boat?” You don’t really care if he commandeered a vessel, but considering his drinking and his general bearing, you don’t take him for much of a sailor. He sighs.
“Let’s just say that I gave far too much for passage that proved nowhere near worth the coin I paid for it.” He empties his cup and grimaces. You find his continual struggle with conversation somewhat confusing – you imagined that, if anyone actually were to see you feeding a wild dragon, that they’d have more than just a few questions for you. Or that they’d kill you or the dragon outright.
This man isn’t making any sense.
“You said,” he starts slowly, with a queer frown, as though his thoughts are trying to escape him, “that this is all you have. I think?” You swallow, your mouthful suddenly feeling too big for your throat.
“Right,” you mumble, feeling mildly embarrassed. Daeron hums, still studying the dregs of red left in his cup.
“Then,” he breathes deeply and shifts in his seat, “I’ll swear to you that I have no desire to see the beast or come within half a hundred yards of it. I’ll not take this from you.” You stare at him. You open your mouth, and then close it, and then scrape your bowl for another mouthful while you try to think of an answer.
“Why?” You finally ask. Daeron gives you a bemused look in response, his eyebrows quirking upwards as that small smile of his tugs at his mouth again.
“I have no desire to burn.”
You suppose you cannot find the flaw in that argument. You give your empty bowl a mournful look.
“How…” you frown, trying to be deliberate with your words, “What did you see?”
Daeron is silent for a very, very long time.
“Wings,” he finally says quietly, eyes focused on some point over your shoulder, “Great, dark wings, rising from dead earth. It breathed fire and the world burned.” You stare at him. It seems an awfully dramatic description of your afternoon. “And you rode it. Sat on its back, with no saddle, you spoke the words and flames engulfed me.” You give the cup in his hand a sceptical look. You strongly suspect allowing him to empty the flagon on his own was a mistake. “When the fire died and the ground was grey, shoots of green came up through the ash. And the world was made anew.” He falls silent and blinks, as though he’s come back to himself, and he looks at you.
“Right,” you reply, for lack of anything better to say. Daeron exhales, and smiles that small, sardonic smile of his again.
“Have you named it?” He asks unexpectedly, in a tone far more casual than that which he spoke in moments ago. He waits, as you gather your thoughts. In truth, you have not, still thinking of the dragon as just that; a dragon, a wild creature of fire and blood and death. Not a pet to be named, nor a thing to be laid ownership to.
It takes little for you to recall the shape of it in your mind’s eye, the frayed wings, the ugly colouring, the dozens of dozens of spurs, ridges and horns that covers its body and its maw of long, black, uneven teeth that stick out every which way when it closes its mouth.
“Snaggletooth,” you say, thinking back on the several times you’ve nearly been burned, eaten or torn apart by the beast. An ugly name seems like a justifiable bit of payback.
A full grin flashes across Daeron’s face and he snorts. You recall your earlier thoughts, that if perhaps he were to wash, he would be quite handsome.
“Got bad teeth, does he?”
“The worst,” you confirm, a small smile pulling at your own lips.
“Well then,” Daeron refills his cup, and adds some extra to your own untouched one, and raises it at you. He quirks an eyebrow and you stare at him for a few second, not understanding. Then, it dawns on you, and you hurriedly raise your own cup, even as it makes your shoulder throb with pain again. Your cheeks have gone warm. “To him. And to you.”
“To you,” you echo. It only seems fair.
– – –
In the castle of Summerhall, in the Dornish Marches, Prince Maekar Targaryen strides down a hallway with long steps that echo off the stone walls.
He is in a glum mood, though that is not unusual for him – if anything, it has come to be known as his default state. There is a pain starting behind his left eye, one that he attributes to his eldest.
“And you’ve checked the stables?”
“Yes, my lord,” his seneschal, a grey, mousy little man replies. With every word he says, Maekar’s headache throbs. “The stables, every outhouse, and I’ve sent another contingent of guards into Summerfield, as you said. All the usual places have come up empty, but I’ve told the guards to conduct another search-”
Maekar cuts the man off with a grunt, rubbing his forehead with a large hand. He had, admittedly, not put much stock into it when he’d been unable to locate his eldest son. Daeron has made an art of avoiding him, and his responsibilities, but this makes for an unprecedented record.
There’s a familiar twinge of worry in his gut that he is, by now, exceedingly experienced in pushing aside.
He had dismissed the one testimony they had gathered, from a maidservant who claimed to have found his son in quite a state, demanding a horse and rushing off to seven knows where. Daeron’s distaste for riding is well-known, and it usually takes Maekar’s blunt refusal to suffer his antics for the boy to mount a horse. Now, he fears that he might have been mistaken.
If Daeron truly has managed to take a horse and leave Summerhall, he could be halfway to Harrenhal by now for all he knows.
That’s if he hasn’t broken his neck or been mugged in some roadside tavern along the way.
For a long, tense moment, he closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, his temporal muscle flexing.
“Where the fuck is he?!”
