⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀UNLIKE HIS BROTHER, daeron did not throw himself at the wine with enough enthusiasm to cause the table to quiver, bringing the cup to lips for a single, slow gulp of the scarlet liquid within, swallowing down the burn of it whilst returning the chalice to the table, fingers remaining draped around its curve, a pointer tracing along the curve of the shimmering rim absently.
“ i know. you're king now. ” in another life, mirth may have accompanied the words, been reason enough to announce a celebration to rejoice in not solely the reunion after so many years of being apart but aegon's new position in the realm, or even envy, though daeron had never yearned for the throne, for something he'd always known with certainty he would never have, was not quite the type to desire another's possessions. it would have been anything but the bleak tone in which he stated it, underlined only by a twinge of disbelief that should not have been there, under different circumstances.
perhaps it was because he was the youngest of four, the very last of three sons born to viserys targaryen, not even a spare option, no one of great importance, really, but a distant plan at best, a last resort, that would only come into fruition if all else had failed and tragedy after tragedy had struck and reduced the line of succession to very few remaining options ( provided they had ever been a part of it to begin with ), another son where the birth of a daughter may have served them better, posed a suitable wife to aemond, or the head of another noble house to form a significant alliance. perhaps he did not understand it, not in the same way he assumed his elder brothers did, or perhaps he had been gone for too long, missed out on too much in the time he had spent in oldtown, but growing up, daeron had always felt it was quite clear that the crown would be passed into the hands of their half-sister, rhaenyra, someday, if not for the fact that she had come long before them and grown up with what he could only assume had been a much different side to their father, younger, more enthusiastic, perhaps, one that, if it had ever existed, likely long had withered away and died by the time the remaining children had been born, then for the obvious lack of interest in the children apart from her, particularly his sons. for all the blatant differences between them, that much he and his brothers seemed to have had in common at least; sharing a father with whom they had but a surficial relationship, lived alongside, at least for a time in daeron's case, but never felt particularly close to, at least not in the way that their elder sister had been, not in the way he had seen the parents of other noble families behave with their children.
