The Martells arrive at Summerhall, and Daeron has no choice but to stand where he has been placed.
There is ceremony to survive: fathers greeting fathers, daughters presented before princes. There is wine placed in his hand and left untouched. There is a woman from Dorne who is no longer a name in a letter or a thought kept safely at a distance, but real enough to look at him, question him, walk beside him, and laugh when he tries -quite badly- to warn her about the man she is meant to marry.
Comes right after Love and mutual incomprehension.
Word Count: 7.8k
Warnings: mentions of alcohol as a coping mechanism, sobriety/early withdrawal, mentions of nightmares/prophetic dreams, self-loathing, complicated family dynamics. Already catastrophic levels of yearning, Daeron is again very normal about his wife betrothed.
A/N: using the gif of him preparing to start the trial of seven as the header for the story where he meets his intended/betrothed is fitting honestly. this man is terrified. I finally finished writing the first meeting between them. I hope you like it!
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote by Agustín Gómez-Arcos, "Whether you come as a lover or an executioner, I am ready to recieve you."
The corridor is empty for three breaths.
Daeron takes them because they are offered and because no one is there to see him need them.
Behind him, his father’s door remains closed; and ahead, Summerhall has begun to gather itself into ceremony. The sounds come first, distorted by stone: footsteps below, a servant calling for room to be made, the clatter of something carried too quickly and corrected too late. The horn has stopped but the echo of it seems to have gone into the walls, digging into old stone.
His hands are covered. That, at least, is something.
The leather fits smoothly over the fingers now, tight enough to make a better shape of them than nature has managed this morning. He flexes once and watches the movement become almost princely. Controlled, decent, proper. A courtier might see only gloves, a servant might see only preparation, and his father would see the lie immediately.
Daeron lowers his hands.
There is no wine in him.
The thought comes without invitation, sharp and useless. The empty cup waits in his chamber as if patience were a virtue objects could possess, as if metal and glass can stalk and pounce the way a beast would in a hunt. He can see it too clearly: clean rim, untouched bottom, the decanted beside it with morning caught in the glass. Maekar’s words have made him want it more than thirst ever could. Not taste, not pleasure, just the blessed blurring of edges, the softening of father, wife, mother, dream, shape, all the knives and their little wounds.
He does not turn back. There is nowhere to turn back to.
So he walks.
The first stretch of corridor lets him pretend he is alone. By the second, the house begins to find him. A pair of Kingsguard stand near the stair landing, white cloaks bright against the darker stone, their faces arranged into the useful blankness of men paid to notice everything and admit nothing. One of them lowers his eyes a fraction, not enough to be pity, not enough to be respect either, only acknowledgement.
Daeron gives him the prince he is owed. Chin lifted, shoulders easy, mouth calm. He has always understood performance better when there are rules, after all.
The stairwell opens below into more sound. Servants move with trays, folded cloth, fresh water, some las unnecessary correction to an already corrected welcome. Someone has set flowers near one of the lower arches; pale things, chosen for elegance rather than scent, and he has the absent thought of how they compare to the Water Garden’s.
Beyond the doors, light waits.
Too much of it.
Daeron feels it before he reaches the last turn of the stair: the brightness of the courtyard, the open air, the movement of horses, the heat carried in by bodies that have been travelling beneath a different sun. the Martells are no longer merely approaching, they are here.
Somewhere beyond the doors, Mors Martell is dismounting or laughing or putting a hand to his daughter’s shoulder. Somewhere beyond the doors, the woman promised to Daeron is still unseen and already nearer than any thought of you has ever deserved to be.
His step catches.
Not from fear, exactly.
His body, stupidly, treacherously, wants to hurry.
The realization is so sudden and unpleasant that he nearly laughs. Some stupid part of him wants to reach the courtyard faster, as if arrival might become easier if he is the one to move toward it.
He continues walking because stopping would be worse.
You are only a woman.
He makes himself think it plainly, without metaphor, without all the private foolishness his mind has already made of you. Not light under a door, not warmth behind glass, not a hand remaining where it has not been asked to remain. A woman. Road-weary, probably. Irritated, perhaps. Loved by her father. Stolen from her sisters. Brought to Summerhall because men have decided that her life and his might be made useful together.
A woman who deserves to be met by someone present.
Daeron has managed present, at least. Barely.
The lower hall narrows near the courtyard entrance, and the house becomes fully alive. More servants, more guards, a page boy nearly runs, remembers himself, and slows with terror written plainly across his young face.
Then the doors are opened wider.
Outside, the courtyard flashes into shape: stone, horseflesh, banners moving in the air, the bright scatter of Dornish color against Summerhall’s paler order. Voices rise and overlap, a laugh carries through before he can see who owns it.
Warmth enters the courtyard like an accusation.
Daeron steps toward it.
His smile is ready, his posture is ready, his hands, gloved and uselessly elegant, hang still at his sides.
The gloves hide the tremor, but they do nothing for the rest.
No one is beside him when he first steps into the courtyard, though glimpses of silver and red and black linger on the edges of his vision.
For a few breaths, there is only light.
It catches on pale stone, on buckles, on the white cloaks of the Kingsguard set along the stair and near the gate. Servants pass behind the line of nobles with lowered eyes and careful hands. Someone has swept the courtyard too clean, the dust from the road has already begun to undo the effort.
Daeron takes his place, because there is a place left for him.
Baelor stands at the front, and ceremony has arranged itself around him without needing to be told. His uncle’s face is turned toward the gate, composed and open, every inch of him gracious enough to make welcome look simple. Aemon is still beside him, quiet in that way of his that does not draw attention unless one knows to look for it. Aerion stands farther down, sharp-edged and bored, his mouth soft with the sort of amusement that usually means someone else will bleed from it.
Near the edge of the household line, Egg rises briefly onto his toes, remembers himself, and sinks back down with miserable dignity. Daella is watching with the same eagerness, big brown eyes set on the doors as if she might see color before it arrives. Rhea has one hand caught in her governess’ skirts and the other being quietly reclaimed by Aemon whenever she forgets royal children are also furniture at events like this.
Daeron almost smiles at the sight.
Then Maekar steps into place beside him.
Not one word, not one glance, only the familiar weight of his father’s body settling near his shoulder, and the courtyard alters around it. Space tightens, the line holds straighter. Daeron feels the study door behind him though it is nowhere near them now, he feels the gloves on his hands, the clean mouth, the empty cup left waiting upstairs with all its patient accusations.
Maekar looks toward the gate.
So does Daeron.
Baelor glances at him once.
It is a small thing. No warning in it, no command. His uncle’s mismatched eyes pass over his face with a gentleness careful enough not to call itself by name. Daeron gives him a tight-lipped smile fit for daylight and turns ahead before Baelor can decide whether to believe it.
The first riders come through the gate in a brightness of cloth and harness and road dust.
Dornish colors do not enter Summerhall quietly. They move in sun-warmed reds and deep yellows, in blue worked into sashes and saddlecloths, in gold catching light at throats and wrists and reins. The horses are lathered from travel but well-kept. Men dismount with the ease of those who know precisely where they belong and do not need to prove it by standing still.
Mors Martell rides near the first carriage.
Daeron knows him at once, though the man is older than the story Maekar carried in his mouth. Sun has darkened him, time has set itself at the corners of his face. There is stiffness somewhere in the way he comes down from the horse, not enough to weaken him, seemingly only enough to prove the body keeps record of war. He hands the reins of his horse to an attendant without looking and turns first, properly, to Baelor.
“Your Grace.”
His bow is exact. Not stiff, not servile. A man who knows the shape of court and chooses, for the moment, to honor it.
Bailor receives him with both hands extended and the warmth of a host who has never needed to raise his voice to fill a courtyard.
“Prince Mors. Summerhall is honored.”
There are other words after that. Welcome, journey, gratitude, the polished things men say while everyone listens and no one is fooled into thinking speech is the only matter occurring.
Mors answers them well enough.
His attention, though, keeps moving toward the carriages. He keeps eyeing the attendants and their movements, the way they guide the horses and, by extension, his family, into the yard.
Mors turns back to the awaiting Targaryens, to Maekar, as if remembering, at the last possible moment, that old war friends are also princes when the court is watching.
“Prince Maekar.”
“Mors.”
The bow is returned. The titles land in the space between them. Then Mors reaches out and clasps Maekar’s arm.
Maekar allows it.
There is no grand softening, no smile that changes the weather. Only his father’s hand closing around another man’s forearm, firm and familiar, and the brief narrowing of Mors’ eyes as if some private inventory has been taken and found mostly intact.
“You look better than you deserve.” Mors says, low enough that the line does not quite own it.
Maekar’s mouth moves. Not a smile. Something older and meaner and almost fond.
“You have always had a generous eye.”
“And poor taste in company.”
“A quality you and your Lady wife share.”
A smile curves at Mors’ lips and deepens the lines on his face.
“Indeed, my Prince.”
“Mors.” The voice comes from the open carriage door.
Not loud, but it seems it need not be. Mors turns as if the sound has found a place in him older than protocol.
The woman waits at the top of the carriage steps, one hand braced lightly against the frame. An attendant has set the steps down and offered his hand. She has not taken it. She looks instead at her husband, brows lifted with patient expectation.
Mors’ smile changes.
“My love.” He says, and goes to her.
Mors looks toward the carriage one final time, and whatever answer he might have made is taken from him by habit as he approaches his wife.
She accepts her husband’s hand as if she has accepted it a thousand times and intends to continue correcting how he offers it for the rest of her life. Travel has not made her careless. Her gown is ordered, her veil pinned smoothly, her chin lifted against the cold with only the smallest pause in her breathing to betray that she feels it. One hand draws her outer wrap closer, the other remains in Mors’ until both her feet are on the stone.
Mors says something Daeron cannot hear.
His wife looks at him. That is all. Only a look, brief and dry and full of old jurisdiction.
Mors’ shoulders shift as if he has been chastened before an army.
Beside Daeron, Maekar exhales once through his nose.
The second figure from the carriage is younger. A sister, Daeron thinks before anyone names her. She descends with less patience than her mother and more grace than she probably intends to show, turning back before both feet have settled as if the conversation inside has not ended merely because the door has opened and royals await.
She says something into the carriage.
Daeron cannot hear it over the horses, the servants, the small swelling murmur of the household. He sees the answer instead.
A hand appears first against the carriage frame. Then the tilt of a head from within, the pause of someone gathering skirts and dignity after too many hours enclosed with family. Your sister’s mouth curves, and you must say something back, because your sister’s smile sharpens into triumph.
Then Mors is there, offering his hand.
You are already halfway down the stairs.
Your father offers his hand anyway. You take it anyway.
The cold finds you as you step into the courtyard stone. Daeron sees it in the small lift of your shoulders before you smooth it away. You look first at Summerhall.
Not at Baelor. Not at Maekar. Not at him.
At the stone, the height of it, the banners, the ordered windows, the arches opening dark behind the light. Your eyes move carefully, brightly, taking in the house that is meant to receive you. Or keep you. Or swallow you slowly enough that everyone can call it honor, or duty.
Then you look back at your sister.
The look you share is quick, almost nothing. It belongs to something he has no right to, to whatever argument had filled the carriage before the gates opened, whatever joke survived the road, whatever private language can pass between two girls who have shared their lives with one another.
You smile.
Honestly.
Not with delight at Summerhall, but not with sorrow either. The smile is small and alive and gone almost before the court can claim it.
You are still smiling when Mors releases your hand.
Only briefly. Only toward your sister, as if the two of you have carried some private joy out of the carriage and into all this pale stone. It is gone by the time your mother turns to you, smoothing some crease on the fabric by your shoulder, but Daeron has already seen it.
That is the cruel part.
Not the dust at your hem, not the cold lifting of your shoulders before you master it. Your smile.
It belongs to the carriage, to your sister, to the argument he could not hear and the home he has never seen. It is not meant for him. It reaches him anyway. Another of the Gods’ little ironies.
Egg looks at him. The glance is quick and solemn and big-eyed, full of inquiry. Is that her? Is that the one? Is that what all those stolen scraps of knowledge were for?
Daeron does not answer. His mouth would make something ugly out of it.
Mors says something to you then, too low for the courtyard to keep. Your sister steps aside. Your mother’s hand leaves your shoulder. A small arrangement, barely anything.
But enough.
Baelor turns toward you with all the gracious attention of the house, and the line of Targaryens changes with him. Daeron feels it happen before he moves: the moment narrowing, the watching ending, the ceremony reaching for his name.
Daeron has one last breath in which you are only someone he is looking at.
Then Mors brings you forward.
You step toward them with a ghost of a smile still on your lips, and Daeron remembers too late that his hands are covered and his face is not.
Mors brings his family before the Targaryens.
Baelor receives the first courtesy because rank demands it. He does it gracefully, with both hands extended and voice warm enough to soften the courtyard around him for a breath. Mors answers properly, his wife curtsies, his daughters follow.
Mors’ eyes follow the point of contact between his wife’s hand and Baelor’s gloved hands, and his mouth shifts as if several possible comments have presented themselves and been denied out of respect for the hour.
Daeron sees out of the corner of his eye that his father takes notice.
He sees too much, that is the trouble with being sober in daylight. Every look, every pause, every old affection left uncovered because no one else knows to hide it.
Then Mors turns to Maekar and his children. The old shape of their previous greeting returns, if only in the softening of the Dornish Prince’s features.
His wife comes first, her hand resting again at his bended arm, the two of them moving with the practiced ease of a marriage that has spent making room for ceremony without surrendering to it.
“Prince Maekar. Your welcome honors us.”
Maekar inclines his head, “We receive you gladly, my Lady. You are more than guests here.”
The words settle strangely.
Daeron feels them in the space beside his father, in the line of Targaryens and servants and guards, in the bright courtyard where everyone is pretending this is only courtesy.
Summerhall is but pale stone and old ghosts and his father’s silence made into walls, and now Maekar has opened it before the family whose daughter has been given to it.
Mors turns lightly.
“My eldest daughter.”
Daughter.
Not match, not arrangement, not the Dornish answer for whatever failure Maekar had found no local cure for. Mors says it as if the word has weight enough to stand on its own.
You step forward.
The courtyard remains itself around you: horses shifting near the gate, servants waiting with lowered eyes, banners moving lightly in the air. You only move from your father’s side into the line of public attention, and Daeron stands there while the fact of you is given a place among all those watching eyes.
You curtsy to Baelor, then Maekar.
The movement is correct despite the road, despite the cold, despite the weight of the courtyard. Your sister watches you with the solemnity of someone storing the moment for later mockery or comfort. Perhaps both. Your mother’s gaze stays near your shoulder for a breath, then leaves you to it.
Maekar receives you with the same grace he gave your mother, though something in him seems to soften. He states a short greeting, and your answer is quiet, proper.
Daeron hears it and loses another part of the person his mind had made in your place.
He had not imagined your voice clearly. Some cowardice in him had refused the detail, the thought of tone, of accent.
Your actual voice crosses the courtyard and ruins that little safety. It belongs to you. It has traveled in your throat from Dorne. It has spoken to your sister in the carriage, to your mother when the cold touched you, to your father before he gave you to the attention of strangers.
It has never belong to him.
Good, he thinks, a tad too harshly.
Maekar’s voice comes beside him.
“My son, Prince Daeron.”
No command in it, no warning. Daeron steps forward anyway.
Daeron steps forward because his body remembers ceremony even when the rest of him would rather be taken apart stone by stone and left somewhere no one uses his name.
Maekar says nothing else. Daeron feels his father beside him all the same. A pressure at the edge of sight, a piece of the study carried into sunlight. Aerion’s bored attention rests somewhere down the line. Aemon is still and careful. Egg watches with his whole anxious body and tries not to.
The courtyard narrows to the distance between Daeron and you.
You wait one breath, meet his gaze for half a heartbeat.
Then you offer your hand.
Not far, Daeron has to come the rest of the way.
His right hand begins to move.
Leather.
The sight reaches him late: his own gloved hand lifting toward yours, dark and smooth and false.
No.
The refusal barely forms before his other hand catches the glove at the wrist and pulls.
Fast. Too fast for grace, though not enough for anyone careless to call it clumsy. The leather gives, catches for the smallest instant at the knuckle, then comes free. Cool air strikes his bare fingers. The glove folds badly in his left hand.
At the edge of his vision, Maekar’s attention sharpens toward him. Daeron does not look at him.
Your eyes turn once to the movement, only once before they return to his face.
Daeron takes your hand.
The contact is small, courtly. His fingers close around yours with all the care he can force into them. Not loose, not tight. Correct. He tries to make the hand obey the shape of courtesy, and for a moment it almost does. The tremor is there beneath the stillness, thin and humiliating, more felt than seen. Perhaps you feel it, perhaps you don’t. perhaps your face gives nothing because you are well-trained, or kind, or simply tired after the road.
He cannot tell.
You look at him as if there is something to read and you have enough time to begin.
Daeron bows.
The back of your fingers comes close to his mouth.
He has kissed hands before. He has kissed more than hands with less ceremony and more wine in him. This should be skin, form, breath. A gesture taught before anything else has any chance to make a ruin of it.
His lips touch your hand. Briefly. Properly.
Long enough for the courtyard, long enough for want to open beneath it.
He lifts his head.
Your hand remains in his. His bare hand. His stupid, disobedient, honest hand.
“My betrothed.” He says. The words sour almost as soon as he gives them shape.
Too near claim, too near the reminders of wife. Too near every shameful room where he has let the thought of you stay longer than it had any right to stay. Betrothed should be safer than wife, smaller, less final. Instead it sits between his teeth, already spoiled by the mouth that has spoken it.
Then you answer.
“My betrothed.”
The same words, returned.
The sound of them in your voice make something in him falter. For half a breath, the phrase is not only his offense. You place it back between you, and Daeron cannot make it mean only what he meant.
His fingers almost tighten.
Almost.
He lets go instead.
Correctly. He hopes correctly, anyhow. Not so quickly that it seems he cannot bear the contact, not so slowly that the holding confesses anything. His hand opens, your fingers leave his, and every part of the movement feels visible.
The courtyard returns in pieces: horses, cloth, stone, the low murmur of people permitted to begin existing again.
Daeron’s right hand hangs bare at his side. The glove remains in his left, folded wrong.
He knows he should put it back on before anyone has time to wonder why he removed it in the first place. Before Maekar reads effort or danger in uncovered skin, before Baelor sees gentleness where there is only failure of control, before you look again and find the tremor with nothing between it and the light.
His bare fingers close once, then open. He leaves them uncovered.
The courtyard gathers sound around the place where Daeron has let go of your hand.
A horse shifts near the gate. Someone murmurs too softly to be answered. Baelor says something gracious to your mother, and she answers with a warmth that has lost none of its shape to travel. Your sister leans closer to you, close enough that her sleeve brushes yours. Mors stands at your other side, broad and pleased and too alert to be entirely harmless.
Daeron’s right hand hangs bare at his side, the glove remaining in his left, folded wrong.
His thumb finds the opening without his permission. Leather gives beneath it, familiar and dark, ready to cover what he has been foolish enough to bare. He could put it back on. The motion would take only a few breaths. Wrist, fingers, tug at the knuckle. A small correction. A prince restoring himself to order.
He does not move. The bare hand feels larger than the rest of him.
Beside him, Maekar says nothing. His silence, as always, has edges. Daeron can feel the place where his father’s attention had sharpened when the glove came off, the brief turn of his head, the cutting focus, the old knowledge of hands and concealment. It remains near even now, unsaid and therefore harder to answer.
Mors notices his wife draw her cloak closer.
The movement is slight, done without complaint, but Mors’ head turns at once. Habit again, it seems. An old reflex of his body toward hers. It is there and gone before courtesy can pretend it has not seen.
Maekar sees it too.
“You still hover over the poor woman." His father comments around a scoff.
Mors smiles, “She knew what she was getting.”
“And took you anyway. I have never understood Dornish courage.”
Mors’ smile shows teeth. He takes a breath and speaks again,
“May we get the courtesy done with before I tell a prince of the Realm to go fuck himself?”
Your sister lowers her head with a hand to her mouth to hide a laugh. You do not laugh, but Daeron sees the corner of your mouth shift before you master it, sees your eyes drop for a breath toward the stone. Your sister’s shoulder presses against yours once, quickly, and a whole exchange passes between you without sound.
Baelor’s face remains serene in the heroic manner of men choosing not to hear what would require response. Your mother closes her eyes for half a moment, then opens them again with the patience of a woman who has survived nine daughters and one husband and has chosen, repeatedly over the years, not to murder the least manageable of them.
Maekar’s mouth moves. This time, it is nearly a smile.
A heavy hand falls on Mors Martell’s shoulder.
“Come inside,” He says, “You have had enough of the road.”
There is no softness in the words. Somehow they make room anyway.
The order of the courtyard begins to loosen. Servants move first, then guards, then the gathered line of family and household reshaping itself toward the open doors. Baelor offers his arm to your mother. Mors says something to Maekar that Daeron cannot hear, his expression still bright with the insult he has not yet delivered in full. Your sister says something close to your ear. You answer quietly.
Daeron hears none of it clearly.
Your voice has already done its damage. It remains somewhere under his skin, not as memory exactly, not yet, but as a place where the imagined thing has lost another wall.
His thumb presses again at the glove.
This time he almost draws it on.
Then your gaze drops.
Briefly. To his hand, or the glove, or only the movement of leather in his fingers. He cannot tell. By the time your eyes lift, there is nothing in your face he knows how to read safely.
Daeron lets the glove hang.
The household starts toward the gallery.
He falls into step because everyone does. Maekar moves beside him for three paces, then ahead, caught by Mors and whatever old quarrel has already begun to revive between them. The space his father leaves behind is not empty. It keeps the shape of pressure for a moment after he is gone.
You are ahead and to the side, close to your mother and sister. Mors turns once as he walks, checking the distance between you and the rest of the party with a father’s practiced eye. Your sister leans toward you again. Your shoulder lifts slightly against the cold before the shadow of the arch takes it from the light.
Daeron looks away.
Under the arch, he puts the glove back on.
The leather drags over his fingers, stiff from being crushed in his fist. He keeps walking while he works it down, while the courtyard brightness falls behind them and the cooler dimness of Summerhall opens ahead. The glove catches once at the knuckle.
By the time they reach the gallery, his hand is covered again.
____
The gallery receives you all with smoke, beeswax, and the low scrape of servants making room.
After the courtyard, the air feels heavier. Warmer, perhaps, though not enough to convince anyone who has come from Dorne. Tapestries hang between the high windows. Old hunts, old battles, old silver-haired men making claims over land and beasts and each other. The polished floor takes the movement of the party and returns it in broken pieces: skirts, boots, cloak hems, the flash of a cup lifted from a tray.
Daeron keeps walking until the room no longer requires him to.
The glove is back on.
The hand beneath it has not forgotten.
He stands near enough to the others to remain part of the welcome and far enough that no one can accuse him of seeking notice. It is a useful distance. One he has perfected across feasts, councils, family gatherings, any room where remaining visible has been demanded of him. Close enough to answer when spoken to, but far enough to vanish one step at a time.
A servant comes toward him with a tray.
Wine, of course.
Dark red, bright at the rim where the gallery light touches it. The cups are clean. The smell reaches him before the servant does, familiar enough to make his mouth remember things the rest of him has spent three days refusing.
Daeron takes one.
His fingers settle around the stem. Correctly. Lightly. The glove helps. The cup gives his hand a purpose, and for one grateful, humiliating breath, that is almost enough.
He does not drink.
Across the gallery, Mors has already found Maekar again. Or Maekar has found Mors. Their voices do not carry clearly, only the weight of them: old familiarity, old irritation, a rhythm made before Daeron was old enough to understand why men came back from war with more silence than stories. Baelor stands with your mother, gracious and attentive. Your sister remains near you at first, then turns her head at something Daella says, curiosity brightening her face. Aemon watches the younger children with the resigned patience of a boy already practicing being older than he is.
Daeron knows where you are.
He does not look often enough to make it obvious. He does not need to. His body has begun keeping its own account, which is inconvenient and deeply untrustworthy. You are near one of the tapestries, your attention lifted toward a scene of riders and hounds worked in faded thread.
You are reading the house.
Not admiring it, exactly. Daeron doubts Summerhall has earned admiration from you yet. You look at the height of the windows, the old woven dragons, the dark stone polished by hands that had no choice but to keep polishing. You warm your fingers once against your other hand and then stop, as if even the cold must be given no more acknowledgment than courtesy requires.
Daeron brings the cup near his mouth.
He stops before the wine touches him.
The smell is enough. More than enough. His throat works once, badly. He lowers the cup again, and the movement is smooth because he makes it smooth, because there are still people in the room, because his father has not stopped existing simply because he is no longer standing at his shoulder.
He should set it down.
He does not. A cup in the hand is easier to explain than an empty hand with nowhere honest to be.
He lets the rim hover again near his mouth and looks past it, toward the safer movement of the room. Mors has drawn Maekar nearer one of the windows. Baelor and your mother are enduring with patient eyes something Aerion is saying. Your sister has been caught by Daella, or has caught Daella; and their heads bend together over some bright embroidery on a sleeve.
You are no longer beside the tapestry.
Daeron finds this out too late.
The space where you had stood is empty, and by the time he understands that his eye has gone looking for you, your voice comes from nearer that it has any right to be.
“Is it so bad?”
Daeron turns too quickly.
The wine shifts in the cup. Not enough to spill. Enough for him to feel the threat of it climb the side and settle back.
You are closer than you were, head tilted to the side as you look at him with that open curiosity again.
He should have heard you approach. Perhaps he did. The gallery is full of feet, voices, cloth; he had sorted the sounds into harmlessness because none of them had yet required him to answer. Now you stand just beyond the reach of his arm, your sister no longer between you, your hands gathered lightly before you as if you have done nothing more alarming than ask a question.
“The house?” He asks, confused.
Your eyes move to the cup. Only briefly.
“The wine.”
Daeron looks down at it, as though the object has betrayed him by remaining in his hand.
“Ah,” It is a poor answer. Unfortunately, it is the only one immediately available. Your gaze returns to his face. Patient, or simply waiting, he cannot tell the difference yet. He clears his throat and amends with, “It has an excellent reputation.”
Your eyes narrow a fraction in response.
“That was not my question.”
“No,” His thumb shifts along the stem. “It was not.”
The cup is too visible now. Before, it had been a thing to hold. Under your attention, it becomes a confession with a polished rim.
He almost drinks to ruin the observation.
The impulse is quick and mean and gone before his hand obeys it. His mouth remains clean. The wine remains where it is.
“It depends,” Daeron says at last, eyes still on the dark red liquid, “on what one asks of it.”
You look at him a moment longer.
“And what do you ask of it?”
Nothing, he thinks.
Everything.
To blur the edges. To quiet the dreams. To make his father’s voice less sharp in the memory of a room. To make the hand he had uncovered in the courtyard belong to someone else. To make this conversation possible and unnecessary at once.
The cup rests steadily in his hand. A miracle of leather and terror.
“At present?” He says, choosing against reason and self-preservation to answer with truth, “To make me look occupied.”
Something shifts in your face.
Not laughter. Not yet. Only the faintest softening around the attention you have fixed on him, as if the answer has not been what you expected and has therefore earned a second look.
“It is doing very well.” You comment, a hint of something in your eyes. Daeron’s mouth nearly betrays him.
He lowers the cup.
“I would hate to overburden it.”
That almost does it. He sees the edge of your smile before you tuck it away, sees the decision to remain composed pass across your face and settle. You glance aside, toward the nearest woven hunt, and the smile is gone by the time you look back.
The loss of it irritates him.
The wanting of it irritates him more.
A servant passes close with another tray. Voices lift near the far end of the gallery; Baelor says something that draws a warmer answer from your mother. Mors’s laugh cuts through once, low and pleased, before Maekar says something too quiet for Daeron to hear. The room is moving around them, closing and opening in small, temporary arrangements.
Daeron could step back now.
He could make some remark about refreshment, about the journey, about the honor of receiving your family. He could return himself to the edge of the room and spend the rest of the afternoon being correct enough that no one could complain without seeming cruel.
Instead he says, “There are better things in Summerhall than the wine.”
Your eyes return to him.
“Are there?”
A fair question. Cruel only because it is fair.
“A few.” He admits, choosing again truth despite what his better instincts ask of him.
He looks toward the length of the gallery, toward the tapestries and the high windows and the carved screen beyond which a colder corridor turns toward the inner gardens. Not private, nothing so dangerous as private. Only quieter than the center of the room, with enough open space and enough watching eyes to satisfy propriety.
“May I show you?”
The question sounds almost courtly.
His hand knows better. His mouth knows better. The cup knows better, untouched and accusing in his grip.
“Yes,” You answer. “You may.”
Daeron inclines his head.
He does not offer his arm. The impulse comes and is denied before it can reach the body. The hand he would use still remembers yours too clearly, and the other holds the wine he has not drunk. So he turns instead, slowly enough for you to fall into step beside him if you choose.
You do.
The gallery sound thins as you move away from the largest cluster of voices. Not gon, never gone. Only softened by distance, by tapestry, by the mercy of other people pretending not to watch.
Daeron walks with the cup in his hand and the taste of nothing in his mouth. Beside him, you are quiet.
Daeron stops before a tapestry because it is the nearest thing that can bear the weight of intention.
That is the first failure of his offer.
He had said there were better things in Summerhall than the wine, and you had believed him enough to come. Or not believed him, perhaps. Perhaps only accepted the movement, the courtesy, the excuse to step away from the center of the room. Either way, you are standing beside him now, and Daeron discovers, with humiliating clarity and entirely too late, that he had not meant better things in any honest or useful sense.
He had meant, more than he’d like to admit, to say stay near enough that I can keep your attention a moment longer. He had meant, selfishly, do not go back to your sister or anyone else yet.
None of that can be shown to you, and so, he has brought you to a hunting scene.
Three men on horseback, six hounds, a boar with its head lowered in doomed and stubborn fury. The men have all been given the same noble face by some dead weaver with either no imagination or too much loyalty. The hounds look more alive than their masters.
Daeron looks at it for one breath too long.
“This,” he says, “is one of the better things?”
The words escape him as a question before he can force them to sound like a statement.
You turn your face toward the tapestry. Your shoulder is near his, though not close enough to touch. The cup remains in his hand, dark and patient, the wine held steady by the force of his attention.
You study the hunting scene with more seriousness than it deserves.
“The boar seems unconvinced.”
“It may have been ambitious of me to say plural.”
Your mouth curves.
Only a little. Enough.
Daeron feels the small movement before he knows what to do with it. It is not the smile from the courtyard, not the one that had belonged to your sister and the carriage and the private country of your family. This one happens here, in Summerhall, beside him, because he has done and said something foolish and you have chosen, for reasons not yet available to him, not to punish it.
The cup turns slightly in his grip.
He looks back at the tapestry.
“The hounds are the best part.” You say, an attempt at drawing something from the dull scene woven before you that even you seem unconvinced of.
“They usually are.”
“Do you hunt?”
“No,” The answer comes too quickly. Your gaze shifts to him. Daeron keeps his eyes on the wall. “I have been taken hunting. That is not the same thing.”
“No?”
“One requires enthusiasm.”
“And the other?”
“Fathers. Brothers.”
This time your smile stays a moment longer.
The room continues behind you. Voices, softened by distance. Mors’s laugh somewhere near the windows. Your sister answering Daella, or being answered by her. A servant moving past with a tray of cups. The whole warm shape of the gallery bends around the two of you without closing. Nothing improper, nothing private. Only a quieter edge of the same room.
Daeron should let the conversation remain there.
Hounds, boars, bad tapestries. Harmless things.
Your attention is on him now, though, and there is no good place to put it. It does not feel like the attention of the courtyard. There is no rank in it, no public weight. You are only listening, and the simplicity of it unsettles him more than ceremony had.
He lifts the cup, remembers, lowers it again.
“You should not mistake me for a good guide.”
The words come out controlled. Almost easy.
You look back at the tapestry for a heartbeat, a furrow between your brows. “Around Summerhall?”
“Generally,” A pause follows. Small enough for him to step over. He does not. “I know where the wine is kept, I know which doors are easiest to leave by. That is usually the extent of my usefulness in a house. I am…fond of making poor choices.”
The cup feels heavier after that.
There. Some ugly little truth placed between you. Useful, perhaps. Owed, perhaps.
He is not sure what he wants it to do. He knows what it ought to do. There should be a clean satisfaction in warning you, in giving you some early proof of the thing his father had tried to dress in courtesy and marriage contracts.
There is no satisfaction.
You are quiet.
Daeron lets the silence punish him because it is easier than looking to see what shape your face has made of his words.
Then you say, “This seems like one.”
He turns his head.
“What does?”
“Telling me.”
Your voice is mild. Too mild for accusation, too observant for comfort.
Daeron looks at you then.
There is something stubborn in your attention now, a small resistance he does not know what to do with. He has the sudden, unpleasant sense that you have seen the outline of what he is doing and taken offense at the method.
“Yes.” He says. The honesty costs less than pretending not to understand.
He looks back at the tapestry. The boar is still dying. The hounds are still alive. The hunters still have their flat, heroic faces, unchanged by anything occurring beneath them.
“One of the poorer ones,” He adds. “I thought you should have proof.”
Your brows lift. Daeron hears himself continue and can do nothing to stop it,
“I do try to be thorough.”
You laugh.
It is small at first, caught low in your throat, then clear enough to become itself. Not loud. Not careless. Alive. The sound slips past the tapestry and the polished floor and the low voices of the room, and reaches him with the force of a hand closing around his ribs.
Daeron looks at you.
He cannot help it.
He knows this now.
The thought arrives strangely, almost cold in its certainty. He now knows the sound of your laughter. Not as rumor, not as something carried by your sister, not as part of the warm country of your family where he has no place. Here. beside him. Because of him.
At him, perhaps. With him, perhaps. The distinction does not matter and does nto save him.
The laugh changes your face too quickly for court to make use of it. Your eyes brighten. Your mouth opens around the last of it. For one breath there is no carriage, no formal line, no father placing daughter beside son, no cup of wine being held like evidence. There is only the fact that you have laughed because of him.
His mouth answers before he permits it, and at it curves a smile.
You see it, of course you do.
The want comes so suddenly he has no time to make it decent. Again. Not as a word, not even as thought. Only the body’s immediate, humiliating reach toward repetition. To hear that sound again. To be the cause of it again. To keep it somewhere no dream can spoil and no cup can blur.
His hand tightens around the stem. The wine moves.
He does not look down.
Your laughter fades, though not all at once. Some part of it remains at the corner of your mouth while you look at him, as if the sound has left a little warmth behind and neither of you has yet decided what to do with it.
Daeron stays there one breath too long.
The room finds him again by degrees: voices near the windows, the scrape of a tray, Mors speaking low enough for Maekar alone. Then the sense of being watched settles between his shoulders
Across the gallery, Maekar is looking at you.
His father’s face gives nothing away. His eyes move from your face, still caught around the last of your laughter, to Daeron’s.
There is no command in it, no visible anger. Nothing so simple.
Daeron lowers his eyes to the wine. His hand has tightened around the cup. The surface trembles once, then settles.
It remains untouched.
Thank you for reading!! I love the fact that he gets startled by her talking to him, that little interaction lived rent free in my head for so long before I got to write it.
Daeron has never known how to want without making a weapon of it first. Your attention is an ordinary thing to give away in public rooms, over tea, on horseback, in the middle of a dance; he knows this, and dislikes it anyway. But the more room you makes for him in your life, the harder it becomes to vanish behind wit, wine, or injury.
Or, three times Daeron is jealous and doesn't know what to do with himself, and one time he does.
Word Count: 13.6k
Warnings: jealousy, possessive feelings, marital tension, alcohol as a coping mechanism, nightmares/prophetic dreams, brief blood imagery, emotional avoidance, Daeron continuing to be very very normal about his wife
A/N: I wanted to explore how Daeron's jealousy and him being totally normal about his wife could evolve during the course of their marriage and as they get closer to one another. I had a lot of fun with this, hope you like it!
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote by , "Still, there is this terrible desire to be loved. Still, there is this horror at being left behind."
The gallery remains full even after supper. Not crowded enough for discomfort, though Daeron has never really trusted that measure. A room does not need to be crowded to have teeth, after all. A handful of guests can do as much damage as a court if place properly among wine, candlelight, old banners, and the painted eyes of dead men.
Summerhall has put its history on display tonight. Tapestries along the stone walls, hunting scenes and dragons worked in thread gone dull with age; portraits of Targaryen princes and princesses hung between them, pale faces looking down as if judgement were a family inheritance passed through the blood as reliably as silver hair -and while Daeron might have been spared of one, he certainly feels the weight of the other one-. A long table is set near the windows with cups, decanters, bowls of fruit and platters of cakes no one is eating. Servants move quietly between the little clusters of guests, refilling was is emptied, removing what was set aside.
The Dornish party is small. Passing through on their way to King’s Landing, officially. Invited to stop, of course, because Maekar might not admit it but there are few things he would not do to please his mother, and bringing his daughter-by-law trinkets from her home is what he has found works as of late to keep the Queen content with her son’s treatment of the Martell princess.
And the latest trinkets are, it seems the men and women of this small party. A handful of men from your father’s household, ladies who might have attended your mother once, a cousin of some degree Daeron has not troubled himself to calculate. The room has warmed around them as the evening wears on, though Summerhall hasn’t quite learned how to be Dornish. Its fires burn too cleanly. Its walls keep too much inside.
The birds sing wrong, you told him once. He hasn’t questioned it.
Daeron stands near a painted hunting scene and listens with little interest to a man whose name he has already lost.
Something about roads. Or weather. Or the merits of horses bred in the Reach, which has been the only subject even coming close to deserving an opinion. Daeron gives one when a pause seems to require it. The man seems satisfied, which only proves how little has been asked of him.
Maekar stands vigil in this little cluster, cup untouched in his hand, speaking when necessary and watching when not. He has the incredible talent of making silence look like martial discipline and not a man counting the heartbeats until this dull affair is over. Daeron has inherited no such useful gift. His silences are often mistaken for impertinence, drunkenness, stupidity, or some combination of the three.
To be fair, they are occasionally correct.
Across the room, you are laughing.
That is the first little detail of this night that lingers with him far longer than he should let it. Not the man standing beside you, not the shape of the circle you made among your own people, not even the sudden difference in your expression. Only the sound.
Daeron looks over before he means it.
A Martell knight stands before you, broad-shouldered and sun-kissed, with the easy posture of a man who has never had to learn how to make himself disappear in a room. He stands with one hand loosely around his cup, the other moving as he speaks, and seems at home in his own body.
Daeron dislikes him at once.
That, at least, is efficient.
The knight is saying something about your sisters.
“…-she has decided she is the eldest now, you understand. In rank only, of course.”
You laugh again.
Not politely, not the careful little sound you use at supper when Aerion circles once more to how interesting it is that the blood of the dragon is already in your veins from your grandmother Daenerys, not the polite chuckle at Rhae’s seventh time showing you the newest song she’s learned. This laugh comes before you remember the room, it seems. Your head tilts, your hand comes up as if to hide it but does not quite manage.
For a moment, you look younger than you do beside Daeron. Or perhaps not younger, simply closer to where you had begun.
“She has not.” You rebuke, incredulous.
The knight grins, pleased with himself. Daeron feels something in his stomach churn at the sight.
“She has. Quite gravely. Your mother asked who had given her the office, and she said the post had been abandoned and someone had to restore order.”
One of the ladies beside you says something too low for Daeron to hear.
The knight smiles, softer now, “There is not much the Prince can do about it. He says the Water Gardens have grown ambitious without you to keep them properly afraid, Princess.”
“Afraid?” you ask, voice tilted with humor, with teasing.
“I am merely repeating the words of my betters, of course.”
That earns another short laugh, softer this time, full of recognition.
One of the ladies touches your sleeve and adds something Daeron cannot hear. The knight answers, and the little cluster shifts nearer around its own warmth.
The man across from Daeron pauses,
“My Prince?”
Daeron turns back.
The Reachman, if that is what he is, looks at him expectantly. His father is looking at him too. There are questions in both faces, though only one man has learned the habit of making them feel like sentence.
“I beg your pardon,” Daeron says, “My attention wandered. It has always had poor discipline.”
A small laugh passes through the cluster.
The Reachman smiles. Relieved, it seems, to have been given permission, “We had only observed that you have been quiet tonight.”
“Quiet is one of the few virtues I have left.”
“One of the few?” Another man repeated, polite smile placed upon thin lips. “That is a harsh inventory, my Prince.”
“Not mine,” Daeron replies. He glances down at his cup. “I believe it is my father who keeps the official record.”
The laughter comes before anyone could decide whether it ought to.
Maekar, of course, does not laugh.
Daeron feels his father’s attention before he looks up to meet it. There it was, the small hardening around the eyes, the mouth held flat, the old warning without words. Daeron knew the shape of it so well it might as well have been another family sigil: Stop, enough. Do not make sport of what you are.
As a child, he learned to answer that look before it could become a hand around his arm, a strike that arrives too quickly to be braced against, or a reprimand spoken low enough that only the nearest people could hear. He learned to make a face for Egg, for Rhae, for Daella, so that if the eldest showed how little it weighed, the youngest would still believe a father’s anger can be survived.
He is older now, his sisters are not in the room, and Egg is probably evading nobles by hiding in some nook or another.
Still, Daeron smiles into the rim of his cup.
“To his credit,” He adds, “He has never lacked evidence.”
The room obliges him again.
Maekar turns his gaze away first, which is in some way worse than in he had spoken. Daeron drinks, because the cup is there and his hand already knows what to do with humiliation.
Across the room, the knight from your father’s household is speaking again,
“It has not been the same since you left. Your sisters blame everyone in turn, but I think they know perfectly well whose absence has ruined the household.”
You laugh again, though this one carries something more tender through it.
Since you left.
There is nothing in the phrase that should cut. Women leave home all the time. Girls are raised in one house and sent to another with jewels, contracts, horses, blessings, tears. Daeron knows the shape of the world, he was born inside it.
Still, his mind changes the words as they come.
Since you left very easily becomes since you were taken.
The cup in his hand has emptied itself somehow. Or he has emptied it. The distinction really does not matter for long.
Daeron sets it down on the nearest table and takes another from a passing servant with enough -with enough practice- to make it look accidental. The servant does not ask, servants rarely do by now. A useful thing, a reputation. It instructs people before one has to trouble oneself with speech.
He excuses himself from the cluster with a bow too graceful to be apologetic and crosses the gallery towards you.
No one stops him. Why should they? He is your husband. The law made him welcome in all the places where affection has not yet thought to invite him.
The Martell knight sees him first. There is deference in the man’s face at once, which Daeron dislikes immediately. Not because it is insufficient, or out of place, but because of how…exact it is. The knight straightens by the proper degree, inclines his head at the proper moment, and gives no sign of fumbling for the correct manner of greeting a prince. He does not grow eager, he does not grow nervous, he does not look over Daeron’s shoulder in search of Maekar’s approval, or glance down at the cup in Daeron’s hand, or attempt that careful brightness men sometimes use when they have heard too much and wish to pretend they have heard nothing at all.
He simply makes room, adapts. What an irritatingly competent thing to do.
You turn a moment later.
The laughter has not left your face entirely. It softens when you see him, perhaps, or guards itself. Daeron cannot tell quickly enough, and the uncertainty has teeth.
There had been a time, not long ago, when he might have known what to do with either expression. Welcome could be turned aside with charm, caution could be rewarded with proof that caution had been wise. He is good at that, at making people’s worst assumptions feel almost courteous.
But you have become more difficult than that.
You have seen him half-asleep, dead on his feet, asleep on your floor and, somehow, in your bed. You have seen him with his hands uncertain around a cup of tea, have let him into your room when he comes with excuses too poor to defend themselves. And now here he is with wine in his hand, his father’s silence at his back, and the room watching closely enough that every kindness could be mistaken for permission.
If there is welcome in your face, he does not know whether he deserves it.
If there is caution, he cannot pretend he has not taught it to you.
The uncertainty annoys him because it is his own fault. Most things are, by the time he notices them.
“Forgive me,” Daeron says as greeting, coming to stand at the edge of the little circle that has gathered around you. “I appear to have wandered into the happy corner of the room. I hope there is no custom against it.”
One of the Dornish ladies smiles. The knight offers a short bow.
“None that we’d dare enforce in the north, my Prince.”
“Oh, how generous of you.”
“Dorne has always prided itself on generosity.”
Daeron feels your gaze on him, he feels it before he lets himself look. A foolish thing, perhaps, to feel a gaze among so many others in a crowded room, but yours has begun to acquire that inconvenience: the ability to make him aware of his own hands, his own mouth, the cup he had not thought to set down.
When he looks, your expression gives him very little.
That is somehow worse than disapproval. Disapproval has uses, he can meet it, mock it, prove it right. This is only attention steady and difficult to name.
Perhaps you are waiting to see what he will do.
Perhaps you already know.
Neither possibility improves him.
He finds that he dislikes being watched by you in public. Privately it is different, privately there are fewer places to hide and at least the humiliation has the decency to feel intimate. Here, with his father somewhere behind him and your countrymen around you, your attention feels like a candle held too near a page already beginning to blacken.
Daeron looks away first.
The knight continues, perhaps because he has not yet understood the air has changed, or because Dornishmen are trained by heat and pride to step forward where other men step back.
“We were only telling your Lady wife that she is dearly missed back home.”
“I heard,” Daeron lifts his cup, almost in salute, “Then Summerhall must count itself lucky that Dorne is so generous with what it loves.”
That is still perfectly reasonable, perfectly polite. Almost. The sentence wears courtesy well enough. The older Dornish lady nods as if pleased by it, and even the knight smiles, though his dark eyes moved briefly to you. Daeron hates that.
“Generous, yes,” The man agrees. “Though not without complaint.”
“No, I imagine not,” He should stop there. He knows it. He knows he should stop, which has never once been the same as stopping. So he continues, “Generous our careless, I suppose that depends on who is left missing her.”
The knight’s smile does not disappear, though it suddenly seems something held in place rather than chosen. It is enough.
There is a small pause, quickly covered by one of the ladies making some comment about sisters and their talent for complaint. The room does not fall silent, nothing so dramatic happens. A few people nearby have begun to listen, because people always listened when the shape of a conversation suggested danger without yet promising consequence.
You have stopped smiling.
Daeron sees it. Sees, too, the moment you decide not to give the room any more than he has already taken. Your face arranges itself into composure with an ease that should relieve him.
It doesn’t.
A lady from the edge of the circle, eager to rescue the subject or perhaps himself, says, “Summerhall is hardly a poor exchange, my Prince.”
Daeron looks at him. Blinks once. Considers, for one brief instant, stopping.
“No,” He answers earnestly. “Summerhall has done what it can. But exile is difficult to furnish properly.”
This time, the laughter comes unevenly.
It is a good line. That is the trouble, for the room knows what to do with a good line, even when it is shaped like a bruise. Someone laughs because it is clever. Someone else laughs because Daeron has made himself the object before anyone could accuse him of making anyone else one. The knight does not laugh at all.
Neither do you.
Daeron drinks.
There is nothing in his throat that requires wine, no dream pressing behind his eyes, no old terror rising up with familiar claws. Only the sudden knowledge that he has taken the first true sound of your laughter this evening and made a room uncertain of it.
The wine goes down anyway.
You remain in the gallery for a while after that. Longer than he expected. Perhaps because leaving at once would have given the moment shape, perhaps because Martell women did not flee rooms simply because their husbands had decided to bleed over the carpets.
Daeron stays to.
He becomes, if anything, better company.
He answers one man’s question about tourneys with enough wit to make two ladies laugh into their cups. He listens to a story badly told and improves it at the teller’s expense so neatly that even the teller is grateful. He lets a servant refill his cup again and makes some remark about Summerhall’s hospitality being determined to finish what his vices have begun.
The room warms around him, because the room prefers him this way.
That is an old lesson, long ago learned. Men forgive a great deal of damage if it entertains them in passing. A prince might be drunk, disappointing, unreliable, damned by his father laughed over by his own household, but if he makes the disgrace easy to swallow, he can be welcomed for another cup.
Across the gallery, you are speaking with one of your ladies.
You do not look at him often.
That is fair. He has given you very little reason to.
When you finally withdraw, it is quietly. A word to the elder Dornish lady, a touch to the knight’s arm, brief and familiar, which he receives with a bow and a softer expression than Daeron cares for. Then you move toward the door.
Daeron is already following before deciding to.
He still has the cup in his hand, which was slightly improper, perhaps. Not improper enough to stop him. A wife could be escorted by worse things thana. Husband carrying wine, his own marriage is proof enough of that.
You slow when he comes to stand beside you.
For several steps, neither of you speak. The noise of the gallery thins behind you, laughter and voices blurring under stone. Torchlight moves along the corridor walls. A servant passes, bows, vanishes.
Daeron’s right hand holds the cup. His left remains at his side, useless.
Usually, he offers it.
Usually, the courtesy costs him less than the wanting did. He offers his arm as if it is only manners, and you take it as you have not both begun to understand repeated manners could become something more dangerous than habit.
Tonight, he does not know whether offering would be presumption or apology, so he does neither.
You walk three paces before stopping. Daeron stops as well.
You turn your head and look at his empty arm.
Ah.
He offers it then, a second too late, which seems to be the natural hour for most of his better impulses.
You take it, your hand settles lightly at his sleeve. No warmth in the gesture, but no refusal either.
“You were…uncharacteristically entertaining tonight.” You say, looking ahead.
“Uncharacteristically?” He repeats, attempts a joke, a smile. “I had hoped I was improving.”
“That was not improvement,” You correct. “You made them laugh at you.”
“I find it saves time.”
Your hand does not tighten on his arm, but he feels the silence that follows his word as heavily as if you had. A strange thing to feel, as if silence suddenly has weight when carried by someone close enough.
“Then you made my home part of it,” You say, resolute as you add, “I want no part in it.”
An accusation of jealousy he might turn aside with a little grace and a great deal of dishonesty, but you dig instead at the thing beneath it. The thing he touched and dressed as wit and handed to the room.
Daeron’s smile stays in place. It has survived worse than truth.
“I thought that was decided when they put your hand in mine.”
The words come lightly, too lightly. They are out before he could decide whether he meant them as defense, apology, or merely as proof that he could always find a lower place to stand if given enough tope.
You stop again.
This time, your hand leaves his arm.
Daeron feels the absence before he lets himself look at you.
“Not by me.”
It should be mercy.
Some part of him knows that. Some small, inconvenient part, not yet fully drowned, knows you are not saying that you did not choose him, that you are not saying the marriage is exile. Knows you are only refusing the sentence he placed on the both of you, knows you are refusing to let him take your hand in his as another item in the long account of his disgrace.
He knows that, perhaps. He understands enough for it to hurt properly.
Still, what reaches him first is something else. Something easier, something his mind already knows how to hold.
Not by me.
No, of course not. Not by you. What choice had there been for you in any of it? A father’s promise, a prince’s arrangement, a road north, a sept, a hand placed in his. No wonder Dorne missed you, no wonder the knight looked at you as if he had brought a piece of home and found it kept in someone else’s cold hall.
Daeron inclines his head.
“Then I stand corrected.”
You look at him for a moment longer. Whatever answer you expected, it seems, was not that. Or perhaps was exactly that, and disappointment is only recognition arriving tired.
Your chambers are just ahead. The guard at the door lowers his eyes as you approach.
You do not ask Daeron to come in. He did not expect you to.
That, too, was a lie.
“Good night, Daeron.”
“Good night, Princess.”
The formality between you lands with a small, ugly sound.
You go inside, and the door closes behind you.
Daeron remains in the corridor with the cup still in his hand.
For a moment, he listens to the quiet beyond the door. No laughter, no voices from Dorne, no sisters complaining of an absence. Only the faint settling of the house around him and, farther away, the muffled life of the gallery continuing without need of him.
He looks down at the wine.
He had forgotten it there, which is ridiculous. Daeron has forgotten prayers, promises, appointments, names, hours, whole mornings if the previous night had been committed enough to the task.
Rarely wine.
There is no dragon waiting behind his eyes tonight, no fire, no dead thing dragging itself toward meaning. Nothing sent by Gods or blood or madness.
Only the memory of your joy leaving your face.
Daeron drinks anyway.
By now, Daeron knows the shape of your mornings.
It is a dangerous thing to know about a person. Worse when one has no defensible reason for knowing it. He has learned, through no virtue of his own, that you wake earlier than he does when sleep has been kind to him and later when it has not. That you prefer the shutters opened before the brazier is stirred, even in the cold. That you keep one shawl over the back of the same chair and use it more often than any lady should use a thing so plainly chosen for comfort.
He knows which cup is yours.
He knows you drink the first steeping too hot and complain when anyone else does the same. He knows the tea with orange blossom is for mornings, the darker one with clove and pomegranate rind is for rain and the rose-heavy blend is not meant for breakfast no matter how often he reaches for it because it smells most like your room at night.
He knows which one you set before him after a bad night.
That had not been a formal confession, not an outright admission, nothing as simple as that. Daeron could have defended himself against such things in principle. It had only been a morning, and the inside of his skill still full of fire and a sun blacked out by thick blood, and your hand setting a cup near him before asking whether he had slept at all. The dream had loosened something in him before wine or pride could fasten it back down and he had said, into the steam, that this one was less bitter.
Since then, that was the one you reached for when he started your mornings with shadows under his eyes.
He has learned these things quietly, with the grave attention a better man might give to military maps or ledgers of debt. Daeron has never been good with maps or ledgers. He prefers smaller proofs. A cup placed near his usual chair before he asks, a blend chosen because he had once admitted to preferring it, the maids no longer waiting for your order before setting a second tray in the room.
Little things, harmless things.
He has made a habit of surviving on harmless things.
This morning, the solar is bright enough to be indecent. Sunlight lies across the floorboards, thin and pale, catching in the steam from the teapot on your writing table. You sit with your sleeves drawn back from your wrists, letters spread before you in orderly piles. One is already sealed, another waits beneath your hand, a small packet of folded paper rests beside the inkpot, tied loosely with thread.
Daeron enters the sun lounge without announcement. He still pauses at the threshold, because habit has not made him entirely shameless. It has only made him hopeful in ways he prefers not to examine.
You look up, see him, and smile instead of asking why he is there.
That, too, is something he has learned to count.
“Good morrow,” You say, “You missed breakfast.”
He smiles before he can stop himself and comes farther into the room.
There is a cup set near the chair he uses. Not his chair, that would be a foolish thing to think. It is only the chair he has taken often enough that servants have begun to betray him by remembering. The cup is empty for now, but it waits in its little saucer with all the quiet presumption of a trap.
Daeron sits.
You return to your letter, writing a few more words as you comment, “Valarr writes that King’s Landing remains damp and cold.”
Daeron’s hand stills on the arm of the chair.
“Does he?”
“Mhm. Says those are its new principal virtues, alongside being constantly impressed with itself,” Your eyes dance over the open letter, “Says the Keep has not improved but at least one of his rooms smells less like wet stone now.”
Daeron looks at the open letter.
There is nothing secretive in the way it lies there. That makes it worse, somehow. Secrets have shape, secrets understand themselves. This is only paper, ordinary and half-folded, its contents harmless enough to be left beneath the morning light.
Your fingers return to the small packet beside the inkpot. You fold one edge more neatly, pressing it flat with your thumb.
“He sends his thanks for the blend,” You continue, “Though I suspect he let the water boil too long.”
Daeron looks at the packet.
Tea.
Of course it is tea.
It is very nearly funny.
He waits for himself to become reasonable about this. It does not happen.
“You sent Valarr tea?” He tries to make it sound like anything but an accusation, but he isn’t sure he succeeds.
“I did.”
“Tea.”
A furrow sets between your brows, confused, “Yes.”
“To King’s Landing.”
“I am told they have cups there.”
He looks at you. You do not look as though anything has happened.
Because nothing has happened, he reminds himself.
A woman has written to her husband’s cousin, she has sent him leaves and dried flowers from Dorne, she has made a packet for him with careful hands and perhaps a note on how not to ruin it.
Daeron knows all this, he knows it with terrible clarity.
The knowledge does nothing to improve him.
“What sort of tea?”
“Orange blossom and mint.”
Daeron’s mouth does something in response. He hopes it is not visible.
That one.
It’s a stupid thought. He knows this immediately and with some force. That one, as if the tea has sworn itself into service, as if dried leaves can be faithful, as if a blend made in Dorne long before his marriage, long before he first entered your room half-dead with sleeplessness and pride, long before he learned to sit in the morning and accept a cup from your hand, has somehow committed an offense by travelling to his cousin.
Still.
That one.
“You like that one.” You say upon his silence.
“Do I?”
You glance up, eyes slightly narrowed.
He has chosen badly. He knows that too.
“Yes,” You retort, slowly, “You do.”
“Then I am grateful to be informed.”
Your writing stops.
Daeron sits very still in the chair that is not his and looks anywhere but at the cup that is waiting for him. The packet next to your letter to his cousin gives off a faint scent even through paper. Orange blossom, mint, something green beneath it, a little bitter if seeped too long. You had thought him that three mornings ago, or ten, or some number he refuses to have kept. The water should not be scalding, the cup should be covered, and honey ruined the edge of it unless the leaves were old. He had listened as if the instructions mattered.
They had mattered.
That is the problem.
You told him because he was there. Because he had looked into the cup with an expression that must have betrayed ignorance, or curiosity, or some other undignified appetite. Because you were generous with what you knew. Because there was tea and he had hands with which to hold it.
And he had made too much of the lessons.
Naturally.
Daeron has always been talented at turning crumbs into evidence and then resenting the table for feeding other men.
You set the packet aside.
“I am sending more,” You continue, “His first attempt was apparently drinkable, but not correct. I know it.”
“An exacting standard.”
“You should appreciate it, you benefit from the same one.”
“Yes,” He answers, and he should bite his tongue but he doesn’t and instead quips, “How fortunate for me that your instruction is so widely available.”
That earns your full attention.
You look at him, and Daeron takes care to keep his face impassive.
It is a ridiculous amount of effort for so small a sentence. He knows that too, and resents the knowledge. There had been nothing in it, really. Only instruction, only tea, only Valarr in King’s Landing with his correct handwriting and his princely gratitude and a packet of leaves folded by your hands.
Nothing worth reacting to, really.
Which is why, of course, he is reacting so poorly.
Your gaze moves from his face to the untouched cup near him, then back again. Not long enough to accuse him, just long enough to make him aware that the cup is still empty, and that his hands have arranged themselves too neatly over the arms of the chair.
“Will you have tea?” You ask, tone carefully innocent.
“No, thank you.”
Your brows lift slightly.
There it is, the thing he had hoped to avoid and then walked toward with both eyes open. Not your anger, not even your confusion. Only the careful beginning of your understanding that something in him has caught, like a stray edge of an old cloak, on a point too small to be seen clearly, snagged and started fraying.
“You have not asked which one it is.” You protest, and Daeron offers a smile he does not mean.
“I am certain any selection would be excellent.”
“That is…a very careful answer.”
“I am making an effort.”
“Yes,” You answer, “I can see that.”
He smiles again.
He is doing it wrong. He is doing all of it wrong, and worse, he knows precisely how. A jealous man should have the decency to choose a worthy object. A glance, perhaps. A dance. A letter folded too carefully and hidden too quickly. A knight lingering near a lady’s hand. A lover, even. A lover would at least offer a man the dignity of proportion.
Tea does not. Tea sits on the table in a paper packet and makes him ridiculous.
“You are angry over tea.” You accuse, and for the sake of whatever pride he has left, he does not focus on the hint of laughter clinging to your voice.
“I am not angry.”
“No, you are being polite. It is worse, somehow.”
“I was unaware courtesy had fallen so low in your estimation,” He retorts, because deflection is easy, because biting is easier. “My father will say I have corrupted you.”
“It is not a matter of estimation,” You say without missing a beat, “But with you, courtesy rarely arrives without injury.”
“You keep a harsh account, Princess.”
“An informed one.”
He chuckles under his breath, because the alternative is worse.
You rise, take the teapot, and pour into the empty cup near his chair. The scent reaches him at once. Not orange blossom. Rose, this time, with a little lavender. The morning light moves through the steam with ease.
Daeron watches the cup with the irrational feeling that it has personally betrayed him by existing.
He should stop.
There are several good reasons to stop. The first is that he is a grown man and was supposed to leave irrational envy for his cousin behind him years ago. The second is that you have begun using his name in that level voice which usually means he is close to losing a kindness he had no right to expect. The third is that even he can hear himself.
He does not stop.
“How does my dear cousin take instruction from you?” He asks, head tilted to the side, “Gratefully, I assume.”
The question sounds almost idle. Almost.
Daeron hears the small excess in it only after it has left him. The polished edge, the word instruction held a little too long. He reaches for his cup before remembering he has refused one, and the empty movement of his hand annoys him enough that he sets it back on the arm of the chair with care.
You do not answer at once, which is worse than if you had. A quick answer might have let him pretend the remark had been quick as well, only another piece of morning nonsense passed between the teapot and the letters. Instead, you look at him for a moment, then down at the packet beside your hand.
Before answering, you sit back down with the poise some reserve for thrones, crossing one leg over the other as you turn your body to face him.
“Valarr asked about the blend.”
“Yes. I gathered that.”
“He complained about the cold, a-…”
“A terrible thing. It has taken many good men.”
A sigh is your next response.
“What is happening here?”
Daeron holds his smile. He is aware, now, of the shape of his own mouth. The sun is too bright in the room. The cup near him is too empty. The little paper packet on your side of the table has become absurdly present.
He hates that cursed little packet.
“I am merely making conversation.”
“No, you are making something else.”
He laughs once, very softly, “Am I? How industrious of me.”
That nearly works. Not with you, perhaps, but with himself. For a half a heartbeat, he feels the familiar little relief of having made shape out of discomfort and breathing gets a bit easier.
Then your eyes move from his face to the packet beside your hand, and the relief thins.
You seem to be following the line of him from one small proof to the next: the refused cup, the careful hands, the attention fixed too often on folded paper and thread.
The packet, damned thing that it is, is very small. It should not be able to accuse him of anything.
“You are acting,” You begin slowly, choosing your words, “as though I have given something away.”
“No.”
The answer comes too quickly.
You do not answer at once. You set your cup back down and the small sound of porcelain against porcelain seems louder than it should.
For a moment there is only the room: the pale sunlight, the letters, the faint steam from the pot and the cup he has refused. Somewhere beyond the window a guard calls to another in the yard, a horse stamps. Ordinary morning sounds. None of them appear to understand that Daeron has chosen at some point between sitting down and hearing you talk about letter, to be ruined by dried leaves.
“It is tea.” You sat at last.
“Yes,” He retorts through a humorless smile that is little more than lips pressed together, “I gathered.”
“No,” You argue, voice quiet, “I don’t think you did.”
He looks at you then, because the words are not sharp and still manage to prod at something sore.
There are several answers available to him. He can ask whether Dorne has a philosophy for every beverage. He can say he understands tea well enough to drink it, poorly enough to drink it, and not nearly enough to be scolded by it. He can mention Valarr again, because Valarr is convenient and absent and, therefore, safer than the truth.
He says none of that.
His hand tightens against the arm of the chair.
I thought that was ours.
The thought arrives whole and useless. He despises it at once. Ours. What an immoderate little word. He has no claim over orange blossoms or mint, no claim over the Water Gardens only available through your eyes and voice, no claim over the little instructions you give him with a practical hand and a half-distracted voice. He has no claim over the mornings simply because you have allowed him to sit in them.
I thought you only taught me these things.
Worse.
That one has the raw, stupid sound of a child objecting to a favorite story being told in another room.
Daeron says, “I was unaware there was so much to understand.”
“There is more of it.”
“Tea?”
“Tea.”
“And this is meant to settle the matter?”
“I am not certain there is a matter to settle, Daeron.”
That nearly makes him laugh. It also nearly ruins him.
Because you know. Not all of it, perhaps. Not what he has made of this in his own head, or the foolish shape his thoughts have made of a cup in the morning. But enough, enough to understand that he is behaving as if something has been taken from him, and enough to answer the injury without granting its terms.
There is more of it.
As if the loss is practical, as if it can be met with supply.
As if what he fears is scarcity.
Perhaps it is, he doesn’t truly know.
Daeron looks away first.
“A relief,” He says. “I would hate for the realm to suffer a shortage on my account.”
The answer has the shape of wit, at least. A little dented at the corners, perhaps, but serviceable. In another room, with another person, it might have passed for recovery.
Here, it sounds like retreat.
Your hand moves to his cup. For a moment he thinks you mean to take it back, and something in him tightens absurdly at the thought. But you only turn it slightly, setting the handle toward his hand.
A small correction.
He has seen you do it before. With your own cup, with his, with a bowl of sugar he had once reached for without looking and nearly knocked over the lip of the tray. You remember where hands go, where things spill, which habits are accidents waiting for a sleeve.
Then you lean back on your chair.
Valarr’s letter waits open on the table. The packet beside it remains untied, one folded corner lifting a little where the paper refuses neatness. You press it down with your thumb again and reach for the thread.
Daeron les the cup wait.
Steam rises and thins between you. The room goes on being morning around him: the pale square of sunlight on the floor, the scratch of pen in paper, the faint smell of clove, the distant sound of a horse stamping beyond the window. You write another line, pause, and read it back with a slight crease between your brows.
Every so often, your attention returns to him in small pieces. A glance at his hand, at the cup, at his face. Nothing that corners him, nothing that forgives him too quickly either.
He stays.
The tea cools.
He had wanted the lessons to mean something. That is the truth of it. Not in words, because words are rude enough to make even small hungers look excessive when he speaks them. But somewhere beneath them, in the place where he keeps things too soft to defend. He had wanted the cup near his chair to mean he was expected, he had wanted your correction of his methods to mean he was worth teaching, he had wanted the taste of orange blossom to belong to the morning because he had been allowed into it.
None of that has been taken. He know that, but what use has knowing things ever been to him? Knowing does not stop him from feeling robbed.
A stupid wound, then. His specialty.
By the time Daeron reaches for the cup, the steam has gone thin enough to vanis before it reaches his face.
Your pen pauses. Only for a moment.
You see the cup in his hand, then you see him. Your expression barely changes, but the corner of your mouth softens as if you have decided, privately, to spare him of something.
“It will be too cool now.”
Daeron looks down at the cup.
It is. Cooler than you tolerate it. Cooler than he has learned to expect from your hand. The clove has sharpened, the pomegranate rind sits bitter.
He drinks anyway.
“It is tolerable.”
Your nose furrows. Adorable.
“By Targaryen standards, perhaps.”
The silence after that is smaller than the one before it. You return to your letter, Daeron keeps the cup in his hand until the warmth has nearly left the porcelain. When you reach for the packet again and tie the thread around Valarr’s tea, he watches it without quite hating it.
The warmer days come slowly to Summerhall.
At first, they are only suggestions. A softer wind through the yard, frost thinning from the stable roofs before breakfast, the ground beginning grudgingly to remember that it can be green.
You have -had- begun riding together in the mornings.
Not every morning. Only when the weather permitted it and the roads had not turned to mud overnight. Only when he was sober enough to be called awake without it proving torturous and when the dreams had been kind enough to let him sleep enough to stand upright. A narrow set of conditions, perhaps, but they had occurred often enough to become something like a habit.
He had complained the first time.
Of course he had. It had been early, and cold, and the horse assigned to him had looked at him with the sour disappointment of an old septon. You had only adjusted your gloves and told him he could go back inside if he preferred to be defeated by what even a Dornishwoman considered a warm morning.
Daeron had ridden with you for nearly two hours out of spite.
After that, the spite became less useful as an explanation.
The rides were ordinary. No grand declarations, no soft confession made beneath flowing trees, no sudden absolution granted by sunlight and fresh air. Only the two of you leaving the yard while Summerhall stirred behind you, hooves on damp earth, your cloak moving with the horse’s pace, the ocassional turn of your head when you pointed out some path or bird or ridge he ought to have noticed in his own land and usually did not.
He learned the south path held water longest after rain. He learned you disliked riding too close to hunting dogs because they make the horses stupid. He learned that you always checked the girth yourself, no matter how many grooms had already done it, and that you grew quieter on the way back than on the way out, as if returning required something leaving did not.
He learned the small courtesies of it. Taking the reins of your horse when they were handed to him, waiting while you adjusted your gloves. Offering his hand as you readied to dismount, and receiving yours without making a triumph of it. Riding close enough to hear you when you spoke, not so close that either horse objected. Ordinary things. Husband’s things, though he would not have called them that aloud.
Daeron noticed them.
He noticed everything that could be mistaken for being trusted. Or worse, wanted.
He has -had- been getting better at touching you.
A ridiculous way to think of it, perhaps, as if a husband’s hand were a skill to be learned like swordwork or suns. But there had been a time when even taking your hand had seemed to him like a thing requiring courage he did not possess in reliable quantities. Now, he knew the shape of your fingers in the dark. He knew the warmth of your shoulder beneath his cheek and the weight of your head on his chest. He knew how your mouth softened under his and then turned up into an amused smile if he kissed you too cautiously.
He knew the sound of your breathing when sleep had almost taken you. He knew the place beneath your jaw where the scent of rosewater lingered longest after a bath. He knew that if he woke badly and did not speak, your hand would often find his wrist beneath the sheet, reminding him where he was.
He had kissed you in corridors where shadows no longer looked like soot. He had held your hand under tables. He had learned to sit close enough that your sleeve touches his and not immediately make some joke to excuse the wanting of it.
Small victories.
Small enough that no one else would have called them victories at all.
Then the dreams began again.
No, that is not right. The dreams had never stopped. They only sharpened their teeth.
For nearly a week now, the same image keeps returning to him in pieces. A sun first, bright enough to hurt. Gold, then darker. Blood moving over it slowly, thickly, as if the light itself has been cut open and left to drown. Sometimes, a hand beneath it. Your hand, or a hand he knows as yours because the dream insists upon it. Red between the fingers. Red at the wrist. Red where there should be warmth. Red, red, red.
Sometimes he sees your face. Sometimes he does not. The dream is not generous enough to be consistent. It leaves him with certainty instead of detail, which is worse. Certainty has no seams to pull apart, certainty wakes him and sits in his mouth until wine is the only thing with any weight against it.
It would be easier if you were still unfamiliar to him.
That is an ugly thought, and yet not less true for being ugly. Fear has less to work with when it is given a stranger. A wife kept at a distance can remain a figure: silk, title, duty, Martell gold. But you have not remained a figure, not for some time.
The dream takes what he knows and covers it in blood.
Your hand beneath his in the stable yard. Your hair against his arm. Your mouth under his. Your wrist beneath the sheet.
Not a stranger dead. Not a symbol. Not the sun of Dorne drowned red.
You.
The first morning after it comes, he does not tell you.
He almost does. You are there with tea and your sleeves drawn back from your wrists, reading a letter from one of your sisters. The sun from the window touches your hair. You have pinned part of it back with a small gold sun, one of the ornaments brought from Dorne, bright and harmless above your ear.
His mind covers it in blood.
Daeron looks down at his cup until the steam makes his eyes sting.
The second morning, he arrives late and leaves early.
The third, he does not join you in the solarium at all.
By the fourth day, he has made an art of absence.
He still shares your bed. Absence has different forms, he finds, when two people lie close enough to hear each other breathe. He turns away before you can settle against him. He pretends sleep has taken him when your hand moves beneath the sheet. Once, you kiss him before morning and he kisses you back too quickly, too hard, then draws away as if he has remembered a wound neither of you can see.
You ask him what is wrong.
He says, “Nothing.”
It is an old answer. Useless, but familiar. He has worn familiar uselessness for years.
When he does appear in your rooms before midnight, he is over-bright or formal or drunk enough that the distance can be blamed on wine. When he stays sober, he finds excuses to leave your side early. When your hand touches his, he goes still before he cans top himself.
You notice. Of course you notice.
That is the kindness and the danger of you. You have a talent for noticing what he would rather leave unobserved, and for saying less than he deserves.
Once, after supper, you ask him whether he has grown tired of the mornings.
Daeron looks at your mouth, because it is safer than the sun above your ear, safer than your hand resting bare beside your plate.
“Mornings have grown tired of me.” He says instead of anything truer.
Your expression does not change enough to give him anything easy.
“I asked you.”
“Yes,” He says, “I heard.”
“And?”
“And I would hate to speak for the dawn. It has always struck me as proud enough to object.”
You let that sit between you.
The next morning, you ask if he will ride with you when the weather clears.
He says yes.
He means it when he says it. That is the inconvenient part. Daeron has lied often enough to know the difference. He means to wake, to dress, to be in the yard when the grooms bring the horses out. He means to take the left side of the path because the low branches on the right catch at your cloak. He means to stop making a coward’s shrine of every room you enter.
Then night comes.
Then the sun goes black with blood again.
He wakes before dawn with his hand clenched in the sheet and your name bitten raw behind his teeth. For one foolish moment he thinks the dream has ended because he has opened his eyes. Then the room takes shape, and the dark in the corners looks too wet, and there is a smear of red behind his eyelids each time he blinks, and when he turns to look at you the comfort of you sleeping beside him is replaced by the dread as he finds only an image of torn open skin and spilled blood.
Daeron stumbles out of the bed, out of the bedroom. Daeron drinks.
At first, because he is afraid.
Then because the first cup does not help.
Then because the second almost does.
Morning arrives without his permission, finds him asleep -though that seems too generous a word for the rest he got- for the first time in a long time away from you.
The servant comes twice. The first time, Daeron does not answer. The second time, he says something with his head still against the table that makes the man retreat with an apology and the careful steps of someone who has learned how to survive princes before breakfast.
By the time Daeron dresses, the ride is already gone.
He knows it before anyone tells him. The stable yard has a particular sound when horses are being led out. A briskness. Buckles, hooves, men calling to one another. He missed it. He lies to himself for another quarter hour, because he is still capable of pettiness even alone, then fastens his collar too carefully and goes downstairs.
He looks presentable.
Mostly.
His mouth tastes sour. The morning light irritates him. His hair is combed, his coat correct, his hands steady so long as he gives them something to do. There is nothing spectacular in the ruin of him today. No stumbling, no slurred words, no vase broken in a corridor or servant sent running. Only the quieter evidence: the line of his mouth, the shadow beneath his eyes, the way his left hand closes once before he reaches the yard.
You are returning as he steps under the arch.
Of course.
Summerhall has always had a taste for timing.
The horses come up from the lower path, their legs splashed with pale mud. A groom hurries forward. Ser Martyn rides a little behind you, close enough to have attended you properly, not close enough to be accused of anything but competence. He is one of Maekar’s household knights, a man of ordinary birth and excellent posture, with a quiet face Daeron has never had reason to resent before.
He resents it now.
Ser Martyn dismounts first. He hands his reins to the groom and turns to your horse. The movement is practiced. Unremarkable. He reaches up. You place your gloved hand in his.
Daeron sees it.
A hand in a hand.
Leather over leather. Nothing more.
The dream supplies the rest. The knight shifts in place
Your glove is dark from the reins, not blood. The sun that fastens your cloak is only gold. The red that flashes across his sight is not there, not in the yard, not on your sleeve, not between your fingers when Ser Martyn steadies you from the saddle.
Daeron knows this.
His body does not.
The air goes too thin at the back of his throat. For one instant, he is back in the dream with the sun drowning and your hand lost beneath it. Then your boots touch the ground, and Ser Martyn steps back, and you are whole before him in the yard, cheeks colored by the ride, hair loosened at one temple, alive enough to look immediately and very clearly displeased.
That does not help as much as it should.
“Princess,” Ser Martyn says, lowering his hand. “The south path is still wet beyond the ash grove. I would avoid it tomorrow unless the wind holds.”
“Thank you, ser. I will remember.”
He knows the path you rode.
That is the thought that arrives, small and mean, before Daeron can stop it. He knows which road. He knows where the mud was. He knows the state of the wind, the ash grove, the morning he occupied because Daeron did not.
Ser Martyn turns then and sees him.
“My Prince.” He bows at once. Respectful. Correct. Untroubled.
Daeron smiles. It is empty.
“I see my absence was well supplied.”
The yard does not fall silent, though it seems to adjust itself around the words. A groom busies himself too intently with a strap. One of the horses blows hard through its nose and shakes mud from its fetlock.
Ser Martyn’s expression changes by a fraction.
You remove your gloves slowly.
“Someone had to ride with me.” You say, tone clipped.
A simple answer. Daeron would have preferred a complicated one. Complications give a man room to be clever.
“And Ser Martyn was available.”
“Ser Martyn was asked.”
That lands cleanly.
Daeron looks at the knight. “By my father?”
Ser Martyn inclines his head. “Prince Maekar thought it proper that the princess not ride unattended.”
“Proper.” Daeron repeats, disgust curling around the word. The knight shifts in place.
You glance at Ser Martyn. “Thank you for the ride, ser. And for the warning about the path.”
The dismissal is gentle, but it is dismissal all the same. The knight bows again, to you first, then to Daeron. That irritates him too, the order of it, though it is exactly as it should be. Ser Martyn leaves with the groom toward the stables.
Daeron watches him go longer than dignity requires.
“He did nothing wrong.” You state.
“I did not say he had.”
“No. You rarely begin there.”
That should amuse him. In another morning, perhaps, it would. Today it finds no purchase.
“He is very attentive.”
“He was attending me.”
“An impressive distinction.”
“It is not difficult.”
“No?”
“No,” You finish tugging the first glove free with more force than it requires and hold it in your bare hand. “He rode with me because you did not come.”
The dream returns in a flash so quick it almost disguises itself as memory. Your hand bare now, fingers flexing around dark leather. Blood in the palm. Blood slicking the wrist. The sun swallowed by red until no gold remains.
Daeron looks away from your hand.
“I was indisposed.”
“Yes.”
The word is quiet. Agreement, not absolution.
His jaw tightens.
“You might try sounding less convinced.”
“How could I? You have been indisposed for days after all.”
The yard feels too open. Too bright. Somewhere behind him, a stable door creaks. The sound grates along his nerves.
He looks at you.
Your face is composed, but not cold. That is almost worse. Coldness would let him turn cruel without feeling vulgar about it. This is hurt held in both hands and kept steady.
“You have been gone for days,” You claim, stepping closer. “Even when you are in the room. You sleep beside me and turn away before I can touch you. You kiss me as if you are trying to end the thing before it begins. When I ask what has changed, you give me wine or wit or courtesy, and then you disappear.”
Daeron thinks of the dream blade he has not seen.
Only blood. Only the result. The world already after.
“I asked if you would come,” You continue, and something in his chest cracks when he hears the tremble, the sadness, in your voice, “You said yes.”
“I intended to.”
“I know.”
That, somehow, is the worse part.
He exhales a laugh without humor. “Then why hold trial?”
“This is not a trial.”
“It has witnesses.”
“The witnesses are leaving because I dismissed them.”
“Very efficient.”
“Daeron.”
Again. His name as a hand on a door before it closes.
He should stop.
There are places in a conversation where a man can turn back if he has the sense to recognize them. Daeron has rarely been accused of sense, but he sees this one clearly enough. He sees your riding cloak, the gold sun at your throat, the mud at the hem. He sees the place where Ser Martyn’s hand had steadied yours. He sees the blood that is not there.
He could say: I was afraid.
He could say: I saw you.
He could say: I keep seeing you.
His tongue stays behind his teeth.
“You seem to have managed very well without me.” He says instead.
Your expression shifts.
There. There it is. The moment he has made himself worse than the thing that hurt him.
“You do not get to resent the help I accepted after you failed to come.”
The words are not loud. They do not need to be. They strike more cleanly for being measured.
Daeron’s face does something pleasant and useless, “I am not resenting anything.”
“You are.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.” You step closer, enough that he can see the small crease left by your glove at your wrist. “And you are choosing the wrong target.”
He focuses on the small detail of your wrist, though he knows better.
Your hand is bare. Your skin is only skin. A faint mark from leather. A little cold at the knuckles. Nothing more.
His mind gives him blood anyway.
Daeron closes his left hand.
You notice that too. Of course you do. Your eyes flick down, then back to his face.
For a moment, the anger in you makes room for something else.
He hates that most of all.
“What is it?” You ask.
“Nothing.”
The answer arrives too quickly and too low.
You do not believe him. He had not expected you to. The morning seems to hold itself still around the lie.
“Do not make your father’s knight answer for what you did.” You say, a sigh leaving you.
“I did not ask him to answer.”
“You tried.”
Daeron looks toward the stables, where Ser Martyn has disappeared. “A man may envy competence.”
“You were not envying him.”
“No?”
“No.”
A small wind moves through the yard. Your cloak shifts, and the Martell sun at your throat catches the light again. Gold. Only gold. Bright enough to hurt.
Daeron looks at it for one breath too long.
Your voice changes. “Daeron.”
He wants to tell you.
The desire rises so abruptly that for a moment he almost mistakes it for courage. It is not courage. It is exhaustion, fear looking for somewhere else to live. He has brought other fears to you before in pieces, badly wrapped, hidden inside jokes or silence or the ruin of his sleep. You have never known how to cure them, but that was never the point. You only made space beside them until they became less monstrous for having company.
This one is different.
This one wears your face.
To speak it would bring the dream into the yard. It would put blood between you in daylight. It would ask you to stand still while he described the sight of you dead or dying or something close enough that his body cannot tell the difference.
He cannot do that.
He cannot keep doing this either.
“I saw-…”
The words leave him before he can stop them.
You go still.
“What?”
Daeron looks at your hand.
The bare hand. The living hand. The hand that held the reins this morning, that accepted another man’s help because Daeron had made himself absent, that has touched cups and letters and the back of his wrist in rooms where he was too tired to pretend not to need it.
“What did you see?” You press.
His mouth opens.
Nothing comes.
There is the sun. There is blood. There is your hand beneath it. There is the certainty of loss, thick and choking and stupidly bright. There is wine in his throat from last night and shame in his mouth from this morning. There is Ser Martyn’s hand under yours. There is his own hand, late and empty.
“Nothing.” Daeron says.
Your face tightens.
“Daeron.”
“Nothing I should have brought to you.”
The answer is almost true, which is the most cowardly kind of lie.
You are quiet for a moment.
He feels, absurdly, as if he has put something at your feet after all. Not the dream. Not enough of it to be understood. Only the shape of the refusal. Only the locked box and no key.
When you speak, your voice is lower, “Then do not bring me this instead.”
He looks at you.
“This?”
“Whatever it is you are doing now,” Your fingers close around your gloves. “This…this. This pretending the problem is a ride, or my hand, or who helped me down from a horse.”
Daeron says nothing.
“You may be frightened,” You say. “You may be angry. You may be whatever it is you will not tell me you are. But do not hand it to me by cutting someone else.”
The words settle in the yard.
Somewhere nearby, one of the horses stamps again. A groom murmurs to it, soft and practical. The world has a talent for continuing through humiliations. Daeron has always disliked that.
He could apologize.
The apology is there, or something like it. He can feel the shape of it behind his teeth, awkward and insufficient but present. He thinks of saying your name. He thinks of reaching for your hand and then cannot, because the dream is still too near and his own hand feels unfit for the task.
So he does what he knows how to do.
He bows his head.
“As the princess commands.”
Your expression closes.
Not entirely. Not forever. But enough for him to see the door he has shut with his own hands.
The courtesy sounds ugly between you. He had chosen it because it was clean. It arrives instead like a blade wiped on a sleeve.
You look at him for another moment, then begin pulling your glove back over your bare hand.
That, too, he notices.
The hiding of it.
The horse stands waiting beside you, reins held loose by the groom. Ser Martyn is gone. The yard is bright. The gold sun at your throat gleams as you turn, catching the light in a way that should mean nothing.
Daeron watches you walk toward the house.
The mud has dried a little at the hem of your riding skirt. Your cloak moves with each step. Your hand, gloved again, stays at your side.
There is no blood.
He tells himself that once. Then again. By the third time, the words have become useless.
The sun on your cloak is only gold.
Daeron cannot look at it for long.
By the time Summerhall grows warm enough for music after supper, Daeron has learned several things he has no wish to name.
He has learned that you notice when he leaves a cup unfinished. That you remember which chair he chooses when he wishes to look less tired than he is. That if he comes to your rooms too late and says something foolish at the door, you may still move your papers aside before telling him so.
He has learned, too, that not every silence requires rescue. Some silences are only a room making space for two people who have grown used to one another. Some are the pause before you ask whether he has eaten. Some are the quiet after he answers honestly enough to make both of you look elsewhere for a moment.
Tonight, Summerhall has opened itself to guests.
Not court, thank the Gods. Court makes even pleasure behave as if it has been summoned for questioning. This is only supper, music, a warm gallery, men and women lingering because the wine is good and the air from the open arches smells faintly of grass. Candles burn along the walls. The old tapestries look less severe in the shifting light, their dragons softened by weather and music and the late hour.
You leave him near one of the long tables after supper, your hand brushing his sleeve as you go.
It is a small touch. Hardly a touch at all. A warning that you are moving, perhaps, or a habit neither of you has agreed to notice. You step away to answer Lady Reyne about something sent from Dorne, and Daeron remains where he is, one hand near a cup, watching the room behave around him.
He knows how to do this part.
Stand. Drink. Smile when required. Let men think him harmless until he is bored enough to prove otherwise. He has survived whole evenings on less.
For a while, the room asks nothing difficult of him.
Music begins after the servants clear most of the supper things. Not a formal set, only a few players near the far end of the gallery, enough to make the guests shift and laugh and remember their bodies after too much sitting. Someone asks a young lady to dance. Someone else follows. The gallery opens itself in degrees.
Daeron sees the moment a man asks you.
He is some Reach lordling with a pleasant face and the sort of manners that have never had to defend themselves against anything more dangerous than boredom. His name came to Daeron earlier and left almost at once. Beesbury, perhaps. Or Rowan. Something with fields in it. He is no one important, which should help.
It does not.
You accept because there is no reason not to. Because he asks correctly. Because this is the kind of evening where women are asked to dance and men are meant to endure it with dignity, or at least with the appearance of it.
Daeron reaches for the cup beside him and finds it already in his hand.
He looks down.
The wine is dark, the surface catching the candlelight in a narrow red line. He does not remember taking it. A servant must have offered it, or he must have accepted it because his hand is faithful to older loyalties than the rest of him.
Across the gallery, the lord places his hand at your back.
Correctly, briefly. but still there.
Daeron sets the cup down.
Not with force. Not with virtue. He sets it down because it has started to annoy him, and because holding it makes his hand feel occupied in the wrong direction.
Your gown is deep orange tonight, with gold worked lightly at the cuffs. Not Martell colors in full proclamation, but close enough that the candlelight finds you easily. Your hair has been pinned back with the small gold sun above your ear, bright when you turn, small enough to disappear when the music carries you past a shadow.
Tonight, he can look at it.
Mostly.
The lord says something as the dance turns you nearer. Daeron cannot hear the whole of it, only the end.
“...-makes even Summerhall seem generous, Princess.”
You laugh.
Softly. Politely, perhaps. Nothing unguarded. Nothing given away. Only enough warmth to reward a harmless compliment and let the dance continue.
Daeron knows the difference.
That should help too.
It does not.
The lord smiles as if he has achieved something.
Perhaps he has. Perhaps that is what irritates Daeron most: not that the man has done anything wrong, but that he has received exactly what the room permits him to receive. A dance. A smile. Your attention for the length of the music. No more than that.
Daeron dislikes the exactness of it.
The lord speaks again. You answer with your head tipped slightly toward him, your attention polite and clean and infuriatingly blameless. Daeron sees the man receive it with the pleased concentration of someone being given more than he deserves.
An old instinct lets a line form in Daeron’s mouth.
Careful, my lord. My wife has a charitable habit of making dull men feel briefly interesting.
It is a good line.
He can imagine the shape of the room after it lands: the little burst of laughter, the lord uncertain whether he has been insulted, your face tightening before you decide what can be shown. Daeron would smile. Someone would call him witty. The thing inside him would have somewhere to go.
He keeps his mouth closed.
Not because he feels noble. There is nothing noble in him just then. There is only the line, sharp and ready, and you across the room, turning beneath the candles with another man’s hand at your back.
Then the music begins to slow.
The dance is nearly over.
Daeron straightens before he has decided to move.
A foolish thing, perhaps, to cross a room for a woman already his wife. A revealing thing. But the thought of remaining where he is while someone else returns you to the edge of the gallery feels suddenly intolerable. It is not the insult he wants most. It is not the laughter.
It is your hand.
The music ends.
There is light applause, the loose sort given after supper when no one is required to mean it too deeply. The lord bows over your hand. He does not kiss it. Daeron is aware of his own gratitude for that, which annoys him enough to make him cross the room faster.
You turn, and for a moment your gaze finds him coming toward you.
Your expression changes, though not by much. A small awareness. A little warmth at the edge of amusement. You know him too well not to see something on his face, and not cruelly enough to name it at once.
The Reach lord straightens when Daeron reaches you.
“Dear wife.”
The greeting comes out more formal than he intends. Your eyes move over his face first, then past his shoulder, toward the table where he left the cup.
When you look back at him, there is nothing triumphant in it. No approval. No lesson. Only notice.
“Yes?”
“The next one.”
It is too blunt. He hears it after he says it, the demand of it, the stripped-down wanting.
Your hand pauses at your side.
Daeron looks at it. The glove is still smooth over your fingers, still warm, he thinks, from the other man’s hand.
He breathes through his nose.
“If you will.” He adds.
Your mouth softens, almost despite you.
Not forgiveness. Not instruction. Only the look you give him when he has arrived at a door badly and not yet fled from it.
“Of course.”
The lord bows again, cheerful and untroubled. “Prince Daeron.”
“My Lord.”
Only that.
He manages only that.
The next piece begins.
It is slower than the last, less crowded, the kind of dance that requires proximity more than display. Your hand settles in his. His other hand finds the proper place at your back, above the waist, where any court would permit it and where his fingers nevertheless know the shape of you well enough to make permission feel irrelevant.
For several steps, neither of you speaks.
The music gives the silence somewhere to go. Daeron watches the turn of other couples, the pale swing of sleeves, the candlelight moving in bright strips across the floor. He can feel your attention on him, though your face is angled toward his shoulder.
He had thought coming to you would settle something.
It does, a little.
Not enough.
The lord is no longer touching you. That should satisfy whatever low, graceless thing has taken up residence beneath Daeron’s ribs.
It does not.
Instead, having your hand only makes him aware of wanting more of what he already has. Your attention. Your eyes on him. Some reassurance he will not ask for because he knows better than to need it, and because knowing better has never once cured him of needing.
“You came quickly.”
The words are quiet, pitched for him alone. Not teasing enough to let him dismiss them. Not solemn enough to make him feel accused.
Daeron glances down at you. Candlelight catches along your cheek before the turn carries it away.
“The music ended.”
“It did.”
Nothing in your voice contradicts him. That makes it harder to answer lightly.
He looks past your shoulder. The lord has already stepped aside, already smiling at someone else, as if the dance has cost him nothing at all.
“He was pleased with himself.”
Your hand remains in his, warm through the glove. A pause follows, long enough for him to hear the pettiness in what he has said.
“He was only dancing.”
That draws his eyes back to you.
“I know,” The words come out too flat. He hears the accusation in them after, late enough to dislike himself for it. “I saw.”
Your hand does not pull away. It changes instead, becoming more present in his, and that is almost worse. He would know what to do with offense. This is harder.
“There was nothing improper in it.” He offers it as if it might excuse him from feeling anything.
It does not.
“No.” You agree. You do not sound amused. That is almost worse.
“I know that too,” The dance turns. For a moment he has to look away from your face to keep the step, and the gold sun in your hair flashes bright, then disappears into shadow. A breath, and then, “I disliked it anyway.”
There. Worse. Truer.
Your eyes stay on him long enough that he considers retreat. The first escape is already there, waiting: a joke, not even a bad one. Then another. Then the shape of an apology made sharp enough to save his pride.
At last, your mouth softens. Not quite a smile.
“Yes. I thought you might.”
He looks away first.
The words should be humiliating. They are. They also settle something, though he resents that too.
“I wanted to say something else to him," He states. Your gaze stays on him. He should not continue, the admisison is already too large, lying there between you without decency to disguise itself. Still, he goes on, "Something clever.”
The word feels worse once spoken. Smaller. Meaner.
You do not rescue him from it.
“I even came up with a very good line” He adds, because apparently he cannot be honest without also trying to make himself less pitiable.
Now your mouth almost moves.
“I am sure.”
“I nearly regret wasting it.”
“Do you?”
He thinks of the line. The little burst of laughter. The lord’s uncertain face. Your own face changing before you could prevent it.
“No.” The answer comes out without ornament. It leaves him with nothing to hide behind.
His hand has gone careful at your back. He notices and loosens it.
“It would have made him look foolish.”
“Yes.”
“And me clever.”
“Yes.”
“And you-...”
The sentence stops there.
The music does not. The dance carries you another few steps while the unfinished thing hangs between you.
Your expression changes slowly. The amusement thins, not into anger, but into attention.
“And me?”
He could still refuse. There is room. A smaller man would call it mercy and take it.
Daeron looks at your shoulder, at the gold thread near your cuff, at anything but your face.
“Kind,” he says. “Warm. The qualities he might have mistaken for something made for him.”
The words are awkward and too earnest. Heat rises in his neck as soon as they are out.
You do not soften them for him.
For a few steps, there is only the music, your hand in his, the brush of your gown when the dance brings you close again.
“I was only being polite.”
Your voice is still quiet. It does not flatten the feeling, does not ask him to disown it. Only gives the plainest shape of what happened.
“I know.”
“I am often polite.”
“I have suffered from it.”
That gets the smallest movement from your mouth.
The sight loosens something in him before he can stop it.
“You are suffering now?”
There is more warmth in the question than the words require.
“Yes.”
“From my politeness?”
“From its reach.”
Your fingers settle more securely against his.
“I am still dancing with you.”
You say it almost practically, as if pointing out where his hand already is, where yours has remained.
Daeron looks at you then.
There it is. The thing he had wanted and would not have asked for. No grand tenderness. No assurance made large enough to embarrass you both. Only the practical fact of your hand still in his, your body still following the same music as his.
He grips your hand a fraction too tightly before making himself ease.
“Yes.”
Your eyes flick to his hand, then back to his face.
You say nothing.
That mercy again.
He is beginning to resent how much of marriage appears to be surviving mercy.
The Reach lord laughs at something near the windows. Daeron hears it, or thinks he does. His shoulders know before his mind does, a small tightening that begins at the back of his neck and moves down into his hand at your back.
Your fingers press once into his.
Not warning. Not instruction.
Only there.
Daeron breathes in.
The old feeling is not gone. It stands where it stood before, ugly and alive, offering him the same exits: a line, a drink, a turn of the shoulder, a coldness he could later pretend was manners.
He looks at you instead.
You are close enough that the room blurs at the edges of your face. Close enough that the gold at your cuffs catches against his sleeve when the dance carries you through the next turn. Close enough that he can see the place where you are trying not to smile at him.
“You look as if you want to say something.”
Your voice has gone softer, threaded with amusement now. Not indulgent. Only yours.
“I often do.”
“I know.”
“It passes.”
“Does it?”
Daeron glances once toward the windows.
The lord is still there. Still whole, still smiling, still possibly named Rowan. The line remains where Daeron left it, sharp and unused.
He looks back at you.
“It is passing.”
The corner of your mouth moves.
“Is it?”
“No.”
This time, your laugh is very quiet.
It is not the laugh from Dorne, not the laugh of a home before him, not the sound he once tried to turn into proof of his own exclusion. This one happens inside the dance, close enough that only he can hear it, startled out of you by his failure to lie convincingly.
Daeron smiles before he thinks better of it.
Not the bright, useful smile. Not the one made for rooms, for fathers, for witnesses, for escape. Only a brief, helpless thing that comes because you are laughing and he is close enough to feel it happen.
The next step brings you nearer. Or he does. Or both of you do, badly enough that the dance would suffer if anyone were watching closely.
For a moment, your brow nearly touches his. Not quite. Close enough that he feels the warmth of your breath and sees the amusement still caught at the corner of your mouth.
He could say something.
He does not, and you do not move away.
The music nears its final turn.
He feels it before he hears it: the subtle preparation of the other couples, the shift of hands, the return of public posture. He does not want to let go. That is not new. What is new is that the wanting does not immediately sharpen into resentment.
The final steps carry you near the edge of the gallery, where the candlelight thins and the air from the arches is cooler. Your hand remains in his. His remains at your back. Nothing increases. Nothing withdraws.
For once, the admission has not broken the flow of anything.
The dance ends.
You begin to lower your hand.
He lets you.
For a moment, the absence of your fingers sits in his palm. It is only absence, he reminds himself. Not theft, not proof, not a wound to be answered.
Only the end of a dance.
You curtsey. He bows. When he straightens, you remain near him.
The Reach lord -Rowan, perhaps; Daeron still has not recovered the name- glances across the room again. His gaze passes over you, lingering just enough to prove he is not as subtle as courtesy has allowed him to believe.
Daeron sees it.
You see Daeron seeing it.
For a breath, the old line returns, hopeful as a loyal dog.
Daeron keeps his mouth shut.
Your hand touches his sleeve, not taking his arm yet, only finding the fabric.
“He is going to think you dislike him.”
The comment is low, almost idle, but your eyes are on his face.
Daeron looks down at you.
There is something like amusement there now. Not indulgent. Not instructive. Only yours.
“I do dislike him.”
“I know.”
A pause.
Then, quieter, because he cannot help himself and because it is easier now that the worst of it has already been said badly, “I dislike him less than I did.”
Your mouth softens.
“A triumph.”
“No.”
The word leaves him too quickly. He looks toward the room, then back to you.
“Do not call it that.”
You study him for a moment.
Then you nod once, as if accepting the correction, or the refusal, or whatever dignity he is trying to rescue from this.
“Walk with me?”
It is an ordinary question. A practical one. There are guests to greet, another dance beginning, the long gallery open before you, music gathering itself again at the far end of the room.
Daeron offers his arm.
You take it.
The unused line remains for a few steps, sharp behind his teeth. Then someone laughs near the windows, a servant passes with a tray, your sleeve brushes his wrist, and he has to adjust his pace to yours when you turn toward the arches.
By the time the music begins again, it has become only heat in his face, only the pressure of your fingers through his coat, only the next step and then the next.
Thank you for reading! The dream about the sun blocked out by blood is definitely coming to play later and I'm definitely planning to write something about it later on btw.
The first time Daeron slept beside you, exhaustion brought him there. The second time, he needs an excuse: he comes to your door with a bent hairpin and a poor lie, but it's all he has.
Part of a Soft Midnight Breathing, a bunch of short stories (within the existing series) centered around nights in Daeron's marriage.
Word Count: 3.6k
Warnings: alcohol dependence, sleep issues, fear of dreams, emotional avoidance, arranged marriage, developing intimacy, Daeron's love language is terrible excuses, non-sexual bed sharing, yearning, Daeron being very normal about his wife
A/N: This is the first of a loose sequence of night-centered pieces I want to write, following the slow evolution of Daeron and his wife's intimacy after they begin sharing a room (somewhat). The series as a whole is still non-chronological, but these pieces belong to the same little thread: excuses, routines, sleep, touch, and Daeron being absolutely down bad for his wife.
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote by daedalians, "Pure, and I mean that: her hair touching my arm as she sleeps. Imagine feeling that safe. I can. I do. The terror of all times stops, the night freezes. She shifts quietly but doesn't wake. Soft midnight breathing like a blue hammock, paradisiacal. Everything evil becomes bearable. And I think, 'I've loved you the whole of my life', which isn't possible, 'my life only started when I loved you', which is."
It takes Daeron two nights to come back.
Two nights is not long enough to be called absence, he thinks. Not properly, not in a house with so many halls and courtyards and rooms made for avoiding one another politely. He has not vanished, he has not given anyone cause to send. Men into inns or stables or the corners of Summerhall where servants know better than to look too closely.
He has only been…elsewhere.
Elsewhere, unfortunately, has a way of arranging itself around you lately.
At supper, he remains longer than he means to because your voice carries from the other end of the table, low and even over an answer to one of Daella’s endless questions. In the gallery, he passes through twice in one afternoon because one of your ladies mentioned that you were there, and because passing through a gallery is not a crime anyone can accuse him of. In the yard, he stops to ask after a horse he has no interest in because he has seen the hem of your dress at the edge of the covered walk.
None of it counts.
That is what he tells himself on the third night, while he stands outside your door with a bent hairpin in his hand.
There is wine in him, but not enough to count either. Not enough to give sleep any hope of mercy, not enough to make this wise, and certainly not enough to stop him knowing he should turn away before your door learns the shape of him.
Enough, perhaps, to make shame worse.
Enough to make his hands steadier than they would be sober, though not steady enough. His thumb worries at the bent silver of the hairpin until the purple stone at its end bites into his skin. All the wine in the world could not make his hands stop trembling sometimes. That seems unfair. Wine ought to be better at the few offices for which he still keeps it.
The hairpin is almost certainly not yours.
It is too pale, for one thing. Too delicate in the wrong way, with its little purple stone and its silver curve bent nearly out of usefulness. Rhae might have worn it, dropped it in a mad dash for the kitchens once she smelled honeycakes, or bent it trying to force Egg to let her put it in his hair.
Daeron found it hours ago near the stairs and picked it up without thinking.
And then he kept it.
That had been the first mistake, really. Or the second. Or the latest in a long and humiliating tradition of mistakes, if one wanted to be honest, which Daeron does not.
In his hand, alone, the thing had seemed almost like a reason. Poor, perhaps. Thin. But a reason all the same. Now, before your door, it becomes what it is once more: a bent hairpin, about to be offered to the wrong owner, proof that he holds no dignity at all.
A fed stray comes back to the hand that fed it, that is the trouble of feeding anything that has learned the shape of hunger. It circles, it waits, it pretends the door means nothing to it but still returns to it.
Daeron knocks before he can make himself leave.
The sound is small, and for one awful breath nothing happens. Then there is movement inside, a faint scrape of a chair, and your voice through the door,
“Yes?”
He should say something useful. His name, perhaps. An apology. A lie. Any of the usual tools.
“Um, it is…me.” He says instead, almost flinching at his own words. It is not an answer, it barely qualifies as a warning, much less a greeting.
Another pause. His breath stops as he waits for your response.
Then he hears the latch lift. For some reason, he takes a step back.
You are not dressed for sleep, not yet anyhow. Your hair is still somewhat arranged, though less severely than it was at supper, and there is in on the side of one of your fingers. Behind you, near the hearth, a low table holds a cup of tea, a sheet of parchment, and a letter half-filled in a hand he does not yet know well enough.
You look surprised. Not displeased, he thinks, and the thought is so dangerous he discards it almost as soon as it arrives, lest it takes root.
“Daeron.”
He has heard his name in many tones. Commanded, cursed, sighed, laughed over, sharpened into a warning. He knows what to do with most of them.
He does not know what to do with this.
His name sounds smaller in your room, spoken by you. Not diminished, not even softened, simply…nearer. In the corridor, a name can still be something called after a man, but in your room, with the fire behind you and ink on your finger, it has nowhere to echo, and it reaches him too cleanly.
“I found this.”
It is too abrupt, he knows it as soon as the words leave him.
Still, he holds out the hairpin because he has come too far to do anything else with it. The thing lies across his palm, bent silver and purple stone, suddenly smaller than it had seemed in the corridor. Meaner, somehow. In his hand, before your door, it had almost possessed a purpose, but here, under your eyes, it becomes just an object again.
You look down at it. Then at him. Then back at his hands.
“A hairpin.”
“Yes,” He replies. Promising start. He clears his throat and adds, “I thought it might be yours.”
You look back at him then, not long, and not unkindly. That is almost more daunting than any worse alternative his mind conjured up. Then you take the pin from his palm with two fingers, careful of the bent place, and turn it once toward the light.
His hand remains open after it is gone.
He notices that. He notices, a breath too late, you noticing it. He closes his fingers too late, drops his hand back to his side.
The purple stone catches briefly in the lamplight. Pale. Northern. Entirely wrong.
“It is not mine.” You say.
“No,” He agrees. He should have known that. He did know that, or something in him had known and chosen not to trouble the rest of him with the fact until now. “I suppose not.”
There is nowhere for the sentence to go after that. Nowhere for him to go after that.
The excuse to see you dies there, in the doorway to your room, without even the courtesy of putting up a fight. He has brought you a thing that is not yours and asked you to believe in it just long enough to let him stand where he wanted to stand.
You look down at the hairpin again.
Then your fingers close around it.
“I can keep it.”
Daeron looks up from your closed hand to your face.
“It is bent.” He says, uselessly, because apparently he has chosen idiocy and intends to remain faithful to it.
A smile curves slightly at your lips.
“I see that.”
“It…may not be of any use.”
“Many things are not.”
That should give him room to make a jest, it even waits politely for one. He finds no words worth sending out to die at this doorway.
You step aside.
“Come in. Close the door,” You say simply, “The room will go cold.”
An order, then. Good. Orders are easier, when he wants to follow them. Orders have edges, orders require a body and a man present enough to wield it.
Daeron comes in and closes the door behind him.
For a moment, that is all he does. He has entered the room; the hairpin has been surrendered; the door is shut. He has no next step.
You seem to realize it at the same moment he does, though there is no grand comprehension in your expression, no terrible softness that verges on pity. Only uncertainty, and something warmer beneath it.
Your first step away from him is a step back, and some foolish part of him tries to find a meaning to cling to in the way you seem to linger a breath longer looking at him.
Returning to the hearth a few paces away, you take a sit and state,
“You may sit.”
There is a chair near the hearth, angled away from yours. Far enough to be safe, near enough to count.
Daeron sits.
You return to your place with the letter. The hairpin is set on the table beside the ink, bent silver beside black, a strange little corpse with a purple eye. It looks absurd there. Yet it looks, somehow, less absurd than it did in his hand.
He looks at the parchment because it is easier than looking at you.
The quiet digs under his skin, a hunger for hearing your voice he has no right to feel churns at his stomach, and so he blurts out,
“Are you writing to Dorne?”
Your gaze follows his to look at the letter, and you correct, “To my sister. She has questions for me.”
“The one who sends the tea?”
“No,” You say, “A younger one, ten and three. There are…many of us.”
Eight, he knows. He doesn’t think he learned that information through any means that might let him keep a bit of dignity, so he doesn’t admit to knowing it.
“That sounds dangerous.”
There, a small smile. Not quite laughter, but something alive at the corner of your mouth, something warm in your gaze when you look at him. Daeron feels an answering pull in his chest and mistrusts it immediately.
You dip the quill and write another line. He watches your hand move across the page, the slight pause before a word, the way your mouth shapes some private correction before your fingers commit it to ink. There is nothing extraordinary in it, and that is precisely the problem.
Daeron has wanted women before. He knows, more or less, what to do with wanting. It has rules, even when they are ugly ones. Wanting can be purchased, provoked, regretted, outrun; it has a beginning and an end and, often enough, a door one can leave by. It can be made into something brief and rough enough that no one -not even him, especially not him- has to ask what else it might have been.
This is worse.
Not cleaner, even. Certainly not purer. He is painfully aware of your hands moving with precision over the page, of your mouth and the brief little glimpse of your tongue as it darts out to wet your lower lip, of the line of your throat and the way the light of the fire creates a path to follow down it. He is entirely too aware of the small distance between your chair and his, between your knee and his, and how easily a man might ruin that distance by wanting too loudly.
But the wanting does not move him toward any familiar end now.
It only keeps him still.
He wants to remain in the room while you finish a letter. He wants, absurdly, to be allowed to be there when you look up.
It is a stupid want, and almost unbearable.
“What does she ask?” He asks instead of letting those thoughts linger any longer.
“Many things.”
“Should I be concerned?”
Your eyes lift from the page, a glint in your eye he feels his pulse racing at the sight of, “Only if you object to being described.”
“I do, generally.”
“I had guessed.”
“Descriptions rarely favor me.” He explains.
“Perhaps you have been poorly described.”
A smile curves at his own lips, humorless and almost bitter but his, “Reality has been no great ally either.”
That earns him another small look, and you seem to consider him for a moment, as if deciding whether the sentence he spoke is a door or a wall.
Then you look back at the letter.
“She asks whether I have seen King’s Landing,” You list out, “Whether Summerhall is as cold as she imagines. Whether all northmen look as though they are being punished by the weather.”
“Northmen?”
“All men north of the Prince’s Pass are northmen to her,” You explain. “She also asks if the Queen resembles our grandfather.”
“Does she?”
You think on it, and then answer, “In the brow, perhaps.”
He does not know why that pleases him, some bridge of blood and memory drawn between Dorne and the woman who had written to his father, between your hand and Myriah’s, between the life you left and the House that has taken you in. it should not matter. It does.
You write another line.
“And,” You add, almost reluctantly, “She asks whether my husband is handsome.”
Daeron goes still for one foolish moment.
The question should amuse him. It does, distantly. Girls of ten and three in Dorne, apparently, possess the same merciless and direct interest as girls of ten and three everywhere.
But it is your answer he thinks of.
“What did you tell her?”
The words are out before he can make them safer. Gods be damned, hunting hounds request praise more subtly.
Your fingers still on the page.
“I have not reached you yet.”
He should be relived. More likely, he should be offended. There are several decent vanities available to him, and none arrives in time.
You have not reached him yet.
Not avoided nor omitted him. Reached. As if he belongs somewhere further down the page, after the weather and the cold and the shape of Summerhall’s halls. As if he is not an interruption to the life you are writing home about, but part of the order in which it might be told.
“Oh.” He says. Terrible answer.
You look up then.
“I wanted to write of you only what I know.”
“A short letter, then.”
“Not so short.”
He has no answer for that either.
You return to the page, and he lets himself watch you because no one has told him not to. It is a poor defense, but it is the only one available.
Your hand moves, the fire shifts, and somewhere beyond the walls Summerhall settles into itself, stone and timber taking the night’s cold and holding onto it.
The cup of tea beside you gives off less steam as time goes on. He learns that you write slowly while you are thinking and faster when you are certain. Once, you frown and cross out half a line with more force than the paper deserves. Once, you smile at something before you write it, and Daeron wants, with embarrassing force, to know what it was.
He does not ask.
The edges of the room begin to soften, from exhaustion, from the hour, from the heat of the fire and the rhythm of your quill and the unbearable intimacy of being allowed in a room where someone else is at ease.
He should leave, but he thinks it without moving.
The fire gives a low but sharp crack, and Daeron’s gaze stays with it too long.
Sleep is there before sleep comes. That is the part no one ever understands. It is not only the closing of the eyes, it is the approach, the dark gathering itself behind the face, waiting for the first loosened thread of sense. Men speak of rest as if the body simply lays itself down and is forgiven, but Daeron has never found it so generous.
“Daeron?” He blinks. You have stopped writing. Your eyes are on him, and they do not stray as you comment, “You look tired.”
He should have something for that, some clever answer, something light enough to make the concern retreat.
“And here I had hoped that this was me looking my best.”
The words come out rougher than intended, and your expression changes by very little. You lower the quill.
“I did not say it looked badly on you.”
Heat climbs traitorously at the back of his neck. For once, no answer comes quickly enough to save him.
You seem to notice that, or perhaps you only take pity on the silence. Either way, you look back down at the letter and take up the quill again.
The sound of it returns to the room by degrees: the scratch of the nib, the small shift of your sleeve over the table, the faint crackle of the fire settling lower in the grate. Daeron sits with his hands folded badly in his lap.
You write another few lines.
He watches less openly now, or at least he hopes he does. He watches the way your fingers pause before choosing a ward, the way your mouth tightens around some private correction, the way your gaze moves once toward the bent hairpin before returning to the page.
Perhaps you write of him then. Perhaps not.
The thought keeps him still longer than pride would like.
By the time you set the quill down again, the room has changed around you. The tea has gone cool, the fire has sunk lower, the hour has thickened into night.
You blot the page carefully, and set the letter aside.
Daeron should stand before you do, he knows that. He is a prince, a husband, a man with several failing claims to courtesy. But his body has grown heavy in the chair, and the thought of rising has become entangled with the thought of leaving.
You stand, and his body understands dismissal before his mind can argue.
For one startled moment, Daeron thinks he has ruined it. That you are finished. That the night, the poor excuse, the strange little allowance of his presence here has reached its natural end.
He does not stand, he only looks up at you.
There are several things he might say now if he were a better man. He says none of them.
“You will sleep poorly there.” You say.
The words take a moment to find their shape.
“In the chair?”
“Yes.”
A smile curves at his lip, “I have slept poorly in worse places.”
“I remember.”
That, stupidly, stops him. You do not soften the sentences after saying it, you do not apologize for remembering. You do not pretend the floor beside your bed, the morning, your hand withdrawn from his hair, his body folded at your feet like a thing that had come in from the rain, has vanished simply because he stayed away for two nights.
Then you move again, offering an ink-stained hand.
“Come to bed.”
Daeron looks at your hand.
The room does not move, the fire does not roar, no god marks the moment down in thunder. There is only the room, the bed, your hand outstretched between you.
He looks at your hand for what he is certain is too long.
If this is a kindness, it is a dangerous one, and if this is an order, it is worse. Greed tightens a hand around his throat and keeps any warning he could give you trapped in his chest.
He takes your hand.
Your fingers close around his just long enough that they don’t slip from his grasp when he moves to stand. His own hand is cold, he realizes. Yours is warm from the room, from the cup, from memories of the sun on salt-kissed stone.
It is almost humiliating how easily a touch becomes a leash when said touch is bestowed upon him, but he does not much care to linger on thoughts of dignity. You are leading him to your bed, and he has lost his dignity for far worse rewards.
Once you are standing by the bed, you let go.
The loss almost undoes him more than the touch did, so he gives himself something to do. Something to focus on rather than the soft slide of the silk on your shoulders as you shrug off the robe.
He undresses only enough for sleep, with his back turned where modesty and cowardice can share the labor between them. You do not watch him, or if you do, you are kind enough not to make him aware of it.
When he lies down, he chooses the far edge of the side you do not occupy.
On his back, hands above the covers. Too till, too aware of very fold of linen and every place his body does not touch yours. The space between you is narrow by any reasonable measure, yet it feels like a field.
You put out the nearer lamp, then turn on your side, facing away from him.
For a moment, Daeron eels the small, foolish loss of your face as if it were a blow.
He stares at the ceiling until the shadows above it loosen.
Sleep comes badly. It comes in pieces, thin and sharp-edged. Once, he wakes with his jaw clenched enough to ache. Once, with his fingers twisted in the sheet beneath him. Once, because somewhere in the house a board gives a soft complaint and his body readies itself for a danger that does not arrive.
Each time, the room is dark. Each time, your breathing is breaking the quiet. Each time, he is still in the bed.
The last time he wakes is near morning, when the fire has sunk low and the first pale color of dawn begins to find the curtains. Daeron opens his eyes again.
The bent hairpin lies on the table beside your unfinished letter.
It is not yours, it is of no use to you.
It remains anyway.
Just fyi, this man will be picking up trinkets all over the place and shamelessly using them as excuses to see her from now on.
Thank you for reading! I have at least four more ideas for these night stories, some fluffy and some not so much (I miss writing this man properly Going Through It, so more angst and darker pieces are coming). I hope I can post more soon!
Daeron takes a bath in a room that smells like his wife, returns expecting absence, and finds instead that you have made space for him to stay.
Continuation of I'm not sure what peace is and What it's supposed to feel like
Word Count: 10.6k
Warnings: slow burn even though they are married, angst, thoughts of drinking, drinking as a coping mechanism, references to alcohol dependance, sleep deprivation, fear of sleep, nightmares / prophetic dreams, panic/anxiety, emotional hurt/comfort, non-sexual intimacy, this man is Touch Starved
A/N: Daeron taking a bath. Daeron taking a bath. DaerontakingabathDaerontakingabathDaerontakingabath. Writing that scene shouldn't have been as fun as it was. someone give that wet dog of a man a bath in a room that smells like his wife damn it. Anyhow, finally the third and final part to what was supposed to be a one-shot. Hope you like it!
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote by anatomy-of-rains, "You touch me and suddenly I feel a little less war torn. I'm not sure what peace is supposed to feel like but I think it may feel a lot like you."
The adjoining chamber is already full of steam.
It softens the stone walls, clouds the edges of the mirror above the basin, and turns the air warm enough that Daeron feels the difference at once when he crosses the threshold. The maid steps in after him only far enough to set a folded cloth within reach of the bath and adjust one of the lamps near the wall.
She does not look at him directly. That is either mercy or training, and he has never found much use in distinguishing between the two.
“That will be all.” He tells her, and his voice comes out steadier than the rest of him feels.
The maid curtsies, withdraws, and closes the door.
He is alone here.
For a moment, that is enough to make the chamber feel enormous, which is ridiculous, because it is not. It is smaller than the room beyond, smaller than the dining chamber from last night, smaller than half the rooms in Summerhall built for no reason he has ever understood. Still, the quiet after the door closes has a strange weight to it. The main chamber is cut away from him. Your voice, the maids’ soft movement, the small established order of your morning, all of it becomes something on the other side of wood and steam, safe from his intrusion once more.
He stands where he has been left and looks at everything except himself.
That proves more difficult than it should, and the mirror catches him anyway.
Only for a breath, a moment. But enough to see a pale face made worse by morning, eyes still red at the edges, blond hair tangled from the floor and your hand or not your hand and his poor decisions. Enough to see his shirt creased, his collar gone wrong. The shape of the man you have been forced, by the arrangements of your fathers and now by his own weakness and selfishness, to endure.
He looks away before his own eyes can linger on him.
He removes his cloak at first. It is twisted from sleep and smells faintly of smoke, wine, and the cold corridors he has dragged himself through the night. His boots follow, then the rest, each piece of clothing set aside with less care than neatness would require and more care than he wants to admit to. He does not fold them, that would be absurd. But he makes them small on the seat near the wall, keeping them contained, out of the way, as if even discarded clothes might trespass if left too openly in a chamber that has not learned to expect them.
His ring catches a fastening on his belt.
Daeron stills.
Gold against linen. A small, practical obstruction, nothing more. He frees it after a moment, and the ring turns slightly on his finger, warm from his own skin. Wife, he thinks, because apparently his mind has decided to be unhelpful and linger on what is not his to linger on. But the mere thought of the word, the existence of it in itself, brings an uglier truth to light, a thing that because you and wife exist, must exist in return. Daeron and husband.
The words are not new, they have followed him for weeks now, fastened to him by vow and law and witnesses, but they had been easier to bear when they belonged to other people’s mouths. In those mouths, the words had been almost impersonal, almost surreal. Wife as duty. Husband as title. Marriage as a room he was expected to enter and instead spent weeks circling like a coward with subpar manners.
In your mouth, they had not sounded like that.
The words had been placed among ordinary things, and no solemnity would have troubled him half as much as the way you made the words practical, routinary, domestic even. My husband, because you had ordered a bath for him. Wife, because you had decided to joke that his endurance of it might reflect upon you. Practical, almost absurd, and therefore much harder to defend against than anything solemn could have been.
Arrangement he knows how to mistrust. Ceremony he knows how to dull himself to survive.
This was something smaller. And it has stayed with him, struck him somewhere and dug under his skin like an arrowhead.
The bath waits.
It is large enough to be indulgent, deep enough that steam rises from it in steady white threads. They have prepared it as they would prepare it for you. He knows this before he knows how he knows it. There are oils on the surface of the water, faintly golden where the light catches them, and petals darkened by heat, and the scent that fills the chamber is not the sharp cleanliness of soap alone but something warmer: jasmine, perhaps, rosewater, and something green beneath it that makes him think of gardens he has never seen and sun on stone after saltwater has been poured over it.
Yours, then. Entirely yours.
The realization should make him step back.
Instead, he reaches for the edge of the bath and lowers himself into water hot enough to make him gasp.
For one appalled second, he wonders whether this is how Dornish women conduct warfare on ‘northerners’.
The thought is so immediate and so stupid that it nearly helps. Nearly. His skin stings first, then protests, then begins, traitorously, to accept the heat. He does not add cold water. There is a jug of it within reach, set there by someone more sensible than either of you, but he does not touch it. He tells himself this is because adjusting another person’s bath would be an unnecessary intimacy, which is nonsense. He is already sitting naked in it, there is scarcely more intimacy than that. He tells himself, then, that the water is tolerable anyhow. That is closer to the truth, eventually.
Mostly, he does not add cold water because this becomes another thing to know. To hoard.
You dislike cold floors. You drink lavender tea too dull for the morning unless your sister rescues it with orange blossoms. You order baths for men who give you poor excuses. You bathe in water that might strip flesh from bone and consider it, apparently, ordinary.
A man ought not hoard such things.
Daeron does anyway.
The heat works its way into the stiffness of him with humiliating efficiency. His calves loosen first, then his back by slow degrees, then the shoulder that had spent the night against the bedframe and has been making its grievance known ever since. His body, faithless little kingdom, begins to soften as if it has been waiting permission from someone that is certainly not himself. His mind remains awake, irritably so, observing the betrayal from behind his eyes.
He leans his head back against the rim of the bath, only for a moment.
The steam gathers over his face. The scent of jasmine and rosewater clings to the back of his throat, a word unsaid. Somewhere beyond the door, he thinks he hears movement, or imagines it because the alternative is an emptiness too daunting to trust.
Perhaps you are dressing yourself, adjusting the necklace the maid had picked out for you -he does hope she chose something other than the rubies, it looks entirely too much like blood to be against the skin of your neck-. Perhaps the girl is fastening something at your back, nimble fingers making quick work of a knot and smoothing over the curve of your waist as she checks her work -and he has no right to envy an intimacy he has not earned, but for a foolish, passing moment, he thinks he could serve just as they do, if you’d let him-. Perhaps your morning has already recovered itself and is preparing to go on without him, which is only reasonable -he tells himself there is no grief in that truth, no dread pooling in his chest at the thought-.
His eyes close.
He opens them again at once.
It would be almost funny, he thinks, if the first night he spent with his wife ended with him drowning in her bath. No one else would find that funny, though, and that is usually a reliable sign that he should keep the thought to himself.
He reaches for the soap.
It, too, smells faintly of the chamber and not of him. Clean, floral, warm from steam. He washes because that is what one does in a bath, because he has been given a task and can still manage the simpler forms of obedience. Smoke leaves his skin. Wine leaves, or something near enough to leaving. The night comes away in stages: under his nails, at his throat, from the inside of his wrists where his pulse has begun to slow against his will.
When he raises his hands to his hair, he does it too quickly.
His fingers catch in the tangles at first, and the small pain is useful. Ordinary, easy enough to understand. He works soap through the strands, more roughly than necessary, and then his hand reaches the place near his temple where your fingers had been.
Or had not been.
He stops.
Water laps softly against the side of the bath, phantom caresses at his ribs with each movement of the scalding water. Steam curls at the edge of the mirror. His hand is in his hair and for one shameful, stupid moment he tries to remember the shape of your touch precisely enough to repeat it.
It is impossible. Of course it is.
His own hand knows him too much. It arrives with intention, with memory, with the whole weight of all of it. It cannot move slowly, steadily enough to be yours. It cannot be gentle enough. It cannot grant him the mercy of pretending the touch is coming from outside himself.
Still, his fingers pass once, lightly, near his temple.
A poor imitation. Worse for being close to nothing at all.
Daeron lets his hand fall back into the water.
He scrubs perhaps a tad too hard after that, then stops because there had never been dirt there. Not where it mattered, not in the place his skin keeps insisting had been touched.
That is quite enough of that.
He rinses his hair with water that is still too hot and tells himself the heat in his face is only from the bath. It is a reasonable lie, and he appreciates those when they present themselves.
By the time he rises, the chamber has become thick with steam and the water has gifted him enough heat to make leaving it feel like an error. He does anyway. His body protests this, too, having apparently decided to develop opinions now that no one has asked for them.
The stone floor is cold beneath his feet, which gives him, briefly and uncharitably, a fuller understanding of your earlier flight toward the carpet.
He dries himself with the linen left for him.
The clean clothes wait, innocently, on a low bench near the wall.
He notices them properly only then. A shirt, breeches. Fresh linen and silk. Nothing remarkable, but unmistakably his.
Daeron stands very still with the cloth in his hands.
They might have been fetched while he sat by the hearth. That is possible. Servants are efficient creatures, and princes’ clothing tends to appear where it is required with a speed that would be impressive if it did not so often make one feel like a child. Perhaps someone went to whatever room his things occupy now. Perhaps someone opened a cabinet, chose what was needed, laid it out, and withdrew.
Or perhaps the clothes had already been here.
The thought is quiet. And so, so much worse.
These are, after all, his chambers as much as yours. That is what everyone says. That is what the law says, and household arrangements, and the servants who have no doubt been instructed to treat the matter as fact no matter how thoroughly he has failed to inhabit it. There could be clothes here. A place for boots. A drawer, perhaps. A hook. Some small portion of the room set aside for a husband who has spent weeks in absence.
He does not know whether the clothes were fetched or waiting.
He does not know which answer he wants.
In the end, wanting does not matter. The clothes are here, and he cannot return in nothing but a towel.
So he dresses.
The clean shirt feels too clean against his skin. The scent from the bath clings beneath it anyway, at his wrists, in his hair, along his throat. Jasmine, rosewater, heat. The scent sits under the clean linen at his throat and wrists, private enough that no one else might notice and strong enough that he could not stop noticing.
Still, as he fastens the shirt, he wonders how long it will last once he leaves this place. How long before smoke, wine, his own skin, the rest of the world take it from him. How long before there is no trace left of this morning but the knowledge that there had been one.
You did not need to touch him again -if you ever did in the first place- to leave something on him.
The ring remains of course. Gold is easy enough to keep. Gold is meant to be seen, accounted for. A lawful mark, a public one. No one would think him strange for wearing proof that a vow had been spoken over him.
This is different.
There is no proof in the scent at his wrist, no witness at the warmth of the water, no name for the small shameful want that rises in him at the thought of carrying some trace of your room beyond its door. He becomes dreadfully, painfully aware of how much he wants to preserve it, as if evidence of you might be hoarded the way other men hoard letters favors, locks of hair, things actually given.
Nothing has been given.
Not like that.
And still, he catches himself pressing his thumb once against the inside of his wrist, where the scent of you lingers strongest, before he has the sense to stop himself.
He dislikes that thought and therefore does not look at it directly.
Instead, he looks toward the door.
The main room is quiet.
Too quiet, perhaps, though he has no right to judge the proper amount of sound your chambers make without him in them. The maid might still be there. You might be dressed by now. Gone, perhaps, to wherever your morning had meant to take you before he appeared on your floor and made himself into an obstacle to be stepped around with more grace than he deserved.
He tells himself that would be better.
It would be easier, certainly. To return to an empty room. To find the bed made or not yet made, sheets still faintly shaped by your sleep, perhaps the scent of you lingering at the pillow, perhaps some warmth left in the mattress if he were foolish enough to check, which he would not be.
Probably.
He could send for wine then.
The thought arrives with such practice ease that it embarrasses him more than longing would have. Not much, he tells himself first, because every bad idea deserves the courtesy of beginning politely. Only enough to take the edge from the thought of sleep.
A thought follows, shamefully almost as practiced as the first, and he thinks of allowing himself another bad idea. He will drink enough to make the bed survivable, enough to lie down where you had been and keep the dark from arriving too quickly with its mouth full of teeth.
Another indulgence, that. Another trespass dressed as necessity. If the Gods keep a ledger of him, they must have long ago assigned several clerks to the work; so one more line would hardly ruin the order of the page.
Drink. Lie down. Borrow the last warmth of your body from the sheets. Sleep, perhaps, if wine did what wine was meant to do and the dreams were too slow to follow.
He knows what to call that.
The word comes anyway.
Worth it.
It is a miserable little thought, greedy and quiet and entirely his. He lets it sit there for a moment because there is no one in the bath chamber to see what shape wanting takes when left unattended.
He thinks of what awaits him past the door. A cup on the table not yet cleared away. A shawl moved from one chair to another. Small proofs that you had been there and were no longer there.
Remnants.
He has always known what to do with remnants. They are easier than presence. Easier than wanting while the thing wanted is still in reach. A scent in linen, warmth fading from a mattress, the last image of a dream gone thin by morning; all ask less of him than a person who stays.
And perhaps it is better, he thinks, to keep only what remains.
What remains cannot look back at him.
The thought should comfort him. It does not.
Daeron stalls, delays his exit, fully aware of what he’s doing and unable to stop himself. Familiar dance, that.
He checks the fastening of his sleeve once, then again. Runs a hand through his damp hair and stops when his fingers reach his temple. Looks toward the mirror and away from it without letting his reflection gather. Listens to the quiet beyond the door until the quiet begins to sound like an answer.
Gone, then.
Probably.
Reasonably.
He ought to be relieved.
He opens the door.
The main chamber is brighter now. The curtains have been drawn closed again, but the hearth has taken properly and lights the irregular shapes and the traces of you. For one short, dreadful instant, he thinks the room is empty.
Then he sees you.
You are on the bed.
You are sitting against the pillows with your legs folded beneath the covers, a book open in your lap and one hand resting lightly against the page as though you have been holding your place rather than reading. The maids are gone, the tea has been cleared, and the room has settled into stillness that is not abandonment somehow.
Daeron stops with one hand still on the latch of the door.
You look up from the book slowly, one hand resting over the page, and for a moment Daeron can only stand there with the door half-open behind him. You do not startle, you do not ask why he has returned. The room is quiet enough that even the latch settling into place would feel like an answer, and still you only look at him, as if there had always been a place in the morning for this.
He had prepared himself for remnants: a little warmth left in silk, the ghost of lavender, some proof that you had been there and no longer were. Things he could keep because they would not know they were being kept. Things that could not look back.
The scent of you clings to his skin. You are looking at him.
Daeron closes the door behind him.
The latch settles with a soft, final sound that seems louder than it ought to. He keeps his hand there a moment after it has done its work, fingers resting uselessly against the metal, as if there is sense in holding the room shut once he has chosen not to leave it.
The scent of your bath is still on him. In his damp hair, at his wrists, beneath the clean linen of the shirt. He is aware of it with a clarity bordering on indecent, and because of that, because the awareness has nowhere reasonable to go, he looks away and towards the hearth. Fire and dancing flames are not easier to gaze into, exactly, but they are at least more familiar.
He feels as clearly as if it were a touch the weight of your gaze on him. Your eyes move over him, not rudely, not slowly enough to make a thing of it. He wonders, not for the first time, what you see when you look at him. Damp hair. Clean shirt. Bare throat. Whatever the bath has removed and whatever it left behind.
“Was the water warm enough?” You ask.
Daeron’s fingers loosen from the latch, and his eyes disobey him and greedily return to you.
“I mistook it for a test of character.”
Your mouth shifts, not quite a smile. “And did you pass?”
“I survived,” He steps away from the door because continuing to hold it would make him look either nervous or trapped, and he would prefer to appear neither while being both. “I hesitate to claim more.”
“Then it was warm enough.”
The answer comes with such calm satisfaction that he has to look away. The bath had been hot enough to make his skin briefly reconsider its allegiance to him, and you sit there as if he has merely confirmed the household staff had not failed one of their simpler duties. Of course. Of course you would think so. You had fled the cold stone as if it had personally insulted you, you had ordered fire into water and called it adequate.
Another thing to know, he thinks.
He should stop collecting them. He does not, he will not.
“Your morning has been…forgiving.” He says. It is the safest version of what he means. Not you waited. Not I thought you would be gone. Not I had already prepared myself for a room without you in it and was halfway to making a comfort of the idea. Only the morning, which can be blamed for any number of things and blushes at none of them.
You glance at the book in your lap. “I was reading.”
“Were you?”
“A little.”
His eyes drop before he can stop them. The book is open beneath your hand, the corner softened where your thumb has held it. He cannot know how long you have been sitting there with your attention fixed elsewhere. He only knows that when he left the room, you had been near the hearth, wrapped in the beginnings of a morning that looked as if it would soon gather itself and go on without him.
Now you are back in the bed.
That should be a small difference. A change of seat, nothing more. People move through rooms, women sit where they please in their own chambers. But the bed is not the chair, and the room no longer feels like a morning resuming its proper course after his interruption. It feels, instead, as if the interruption -as if he- has been given a place to stay.
He should not want that as much as he does.
“You did not need to wait.” He says.
“I know.”
The answer is immediate, if slightly offended. No excuse offered, no kindness dressed up as inconvenience. You do not even look embarrassed by it, which is inconsiderate enough that it nearly steadies him.
“You could have gone, continued on with your day.”
“I could have.”
He waits for more because men like him are always foolishly expecting more, expecting perhaps for absolution to announce itself. You give him none. You only shift the book slightly higher in your lap, one finger sliding along the page as though you might return to it, though your eyes remain on him.
Daeron inclines his head, accepting whatever kind of answer that is meant to be, and looks toward the hearth again. The chair is still there, and so is the small table, though the cups have been taken away and with them the last clean script he had been given. Tea had made sense. A chair had made sense. A bath made sense because it had answered the lie offered about the sheets, and a man who has been given a practical solution to a practical problem can sometimes pretend that nothing else has been touched.
He takes half a step in that direction anyway.
Not even a full one. His body knows the way to the chair before his mind can object. The hearth is a place to stand near without meaning anything, a chair is a way to remain in a room without asking the room to bear too much of him. He is almost grateful for the instinct that tries to take him there again, almost ready to let it carry him back into distance.
Then the book closes.
It is not a loud sound, but it changes the room regardless, it rings in his ears like the strike of a mace.
You set the book aside on the bed near your hip, careful with it, unhurried. Then you reach for the covers on the empty side and draw them back.
Daeron stops.
Or tries to. His feet stop before the rest of him does, and the rest of him arrives badly: breath first, then pulse, then the sudden useless awareness of his hands at his sides. For one absurd moment he feels almost threatened by the sight of sheets folded back from a mattress. He has stood in taverns with drunk men reaching too quickly for knives and felt less plainly outmatched than he does now.
That is not a flattering comparison, even he knows that. He has never mistaken himself for a courageous man. Courage, in his experience, belongs more visibly to people with fewer alternatives. Still, there is something humiliating in discovering that a brawl can be easier to face than a space made gently for him.
The panic is there first, because panic is quick and well-trained. It knows the path through his body. It tightens the throat, lifts the breath, makes the opened bed into a question with teeth.
The wanting is slower.
It comes after, heavy and almost trusting, before he can stop it: the treacherous drop of the body toward rest, the ache in his knees remembering the floor, the pull of warmth and silk and the empty place you have made as if his absence had been expected to end. Need is a clumsy thing when it has been starved too long. It does not know how to enter a room politely.
The movement is small, domestic. So plain that his mind still tries, hopelessly, to deny it the force of an invitation. A seat offered, a cup poured, a bed made available. All of it quiet enough to refuse, perhaps, if refusal had not begun to feel like one more form of lying.
You look at the opened space and then back at him.
“I take it the bath has resolved the matter of the sheets?”
The accuracy of it lands before he can dress it as accusation.
He had said he was not fit company for clean sheets. He has now been bathed, dressed, and returned to the room scented faintly of your oil and your water and whatever else he should not be carrying on his skin. He had been answered too thoroughly. There are cruelties in the world, he finds, less effective than a practical woman with patience.
He owes you, if nothing else, to drop the pretenses, and so he takes a breath and attempts,
“You should not make a practice of solving my excuses.”
“Then stop giving me solvable ones.”
For a moment, he has no answer. The plural catches him. Ones. You have not only answered the matter of the sheets, you have noticed a pattern while he had been busy mistaking evasion and cowardice for delicacy and subterfuge. He had thought himself careful. He had thought himself negligible. He had thought himself and his absences inconsequential.
Apparently, he has been legible.
His mouth moves, as it often does, before anything wise can reach it,
“They are made for a reason.”
“So is a bed.”
The absurdity of it almost saves him. He lets out a breath that might have become a laugh under different conditions, if his chest were a little lighter, if he had perhaps a different body or a different mind, if he were a different man instead of the one standing there with sleep caught under his ribs like a sickness.
You are bringing him down to the object, you seem to understand the object is easier to survive than what it means. He tries to reduce it to wood, linen, mattress, warmth. His body refuses the simplification in the usual places: throat, hands, breath.
He knows a bed is just a bed, but his body, traitorous and hungry thing, does not appear convinced.
“I would not impose on your reading.”
“You overestimate my interest in the book.”
There is something in your voice then, too slight to name generously and too present to ignore.
Not flirtation, exactly. He knows better than to call it that, as if attention becomes invitation merely because a starving man has decided it tastes like it. It is only that: attention. Your book set aside, your eyes on him, your interest turned from the page to the man standing uselessly near the bed.
But apparently he is starving enough to take it.
The knowledge lands in him with a small, private shame. He takes it anyway. Not as proof, because he is not quite foolish enough for that, but as something near enough to warmth that his body does not care what name should be given to it. He lets it catch, lets it matter, lets it be one more thing he will later pretend he did not keep.
The opened side of the bed waits beside you.
That is the ridiculous part. It is not even truly an offer, if one wants to be precise about it. The room is his as much as yours. The bed is his as much as yours. The space beneath the folded covers is, by every law that has ever spoken over them, the side of the bed that is technically his.
Technically is such a terrible word. It has excused more cowardice than he cares to admit.
Technically, he has had space here for weeks now. Technically, he has had a wife. Technically, there has been room enough for him in the bed every night he chose a chair, a corner, a borrowed patch of floor instead. The word gives a man all the shape of belonging without requiring him to suffer the fact of it. It lets him stand outside a door and call it restraint. It lets him make absence into mercy. It lets him pretend not taking something is the same as not wanting it.
Your hand rests near the turned-back covers, still and patient.
You are not insisting, not saying a thing, not issuing any commands he might follow or refuse.
He does not move.
“Daeron,” You say. His name, for the first time on your lips without title, without courtesy wrapped around it, without the replacement of husband like a hand placed over a wound to see whether it still bleeds. Just the name. Quietly spoken, all the more dangerous for that, because no one has made it a command and yet it reaches him as one. “It is just a bed. You may lie down.”
Just a bed.
He could almost laugh. He could almost tell you that very few things are just themselves once they have been wanted desperately enough. A cup is not a cup if it is handed to a starving man. A door is not a door if it is left unlocked for someone who has spent too long outside. A bed is not just a bed when sleep has teeth and dreams have learned his name and there is another person close enough to witness what happens if he forgets to be careful.
But the words are about this morning. He knows that. He knows that. This room, this hour, this body dragged past the point of any convincing denial. A present mercy, a practical one.
Some undisciplined part of him strains to hear more anyway.
This room again, perhaps. This bed again. Sleep within reach of you, without wine enough to blunt the edges first. The possibility of waking badly with you there to, if nothing else, witness it, witness him. The possibility of being allowed to return even after he has proved exactly why he should not.
He should say no.
He takes a step toward the bed.
It is infuriating, how quickly the body abandons principle when offered a place to fall. One step, then another, before he has gathered the proper objection. He feels heavier with each pace, not weaker exactly, but aware of every hinge and muscle and old ache as if the promise of rest has made exhaustion bold enough to declare itself. His knees remember the floor. His shoulder remembers the bedframe. His hands remember the cup burning his fingers. His mind remembers every hour it has been denied the dark behind his lids and every reason that dark cannot be trusted.
By the time he reaches the bed, he has thought of four refusals and yet spoken none of them.
You do not move away. It feels like a strike.
He stops beside the opened covers, close enough now to see the faint crease where the book had rested against your lap, the loose fall of your sleeve near your wrist, the place where the bedding has held the shape of your warmth. The scent of you clings to him still. Not enough for anyone else to notice, perhaps, but enough that he knows it is there.
“Only for a moment.” He says, and it comes out low. Too low, perhaps, to be properly offered to you. It might have been meant for himself, except he is no longer alone in a room where such lies can pass unchallenged.
Only for a moment. A reassurance, if you are generous. A limit, if he is strong enough to hold one. An apology, nearly. Or worse than any of those, the smallest shape a plea can take.
You look at him for a beat.
Then you say, “Start there, then.”
He has no defense for that.
The words do not take the lie from him, but they do not let him keep it either. They leave him instead with the first part only: the beginning, the act, the one survivable inch between refusal and surrender. Start there, then. As if one can begin with a moment and not be ruined by what follows.
Daeron sits first because lying down all at once sounds too close to collapse.
The mattress gives way beneath him. Warm, still, from the proximity to where you have been sitting, and the sensation travels through the sheets at his hip with such sudden intimacy that he has to set one hand against the bed to steady himself. There is no reason for warmth to feel like being caught, there is no reason for it to feel like evidence. It is only a body’s remnant left in cloth, only the ordinary physics of someone having remained.
He had been prepared to steal that warmth after you were gone. It is much harder to touch it while you are still here.
He keeps his eyes lowered as he draws his legs onto the bed. Too carefully, because care is the last curtesy left to him. He leaves space between you. More than enough. His damp hair brushes the pillow when he lowers himself, and some part of him notes with horror and relief that the pillow does not reject him.
Absurd.
He lies on his back, any other position would ask too much of the room. His body wants desperately to curl toward warmth, toward the dip of the mattress, toward the living fact of another person beside him. He refuses it that much. His hands settle over his stomach, then move, then settle again at his sides because over his stomach looks too corpse-like but at his sides feels too vulnerable. Breathing evenly suddenly becomes an occupation. Not closing his eyes becomes another.
Beside him, you are quiet.
Not gone. Not touching him. Not asking him to make the moment into anything more than he can bear.
Daeron stares up at the canopy and tells himself, with the last foolish scrap of authority he possesses, that he will stay only long enough for the bed to stop feeling like mercy.
But the bed never stops feeling like mercy. That is the first problem.
The second is that mercy, once accepted, proves to have weight.
Daeron lies beneath the canopy and feels every inch of the mattress as if his body has been asked to give testimony against him. The silk is clean and soft. The pillow is too soft. The covers lie folded low over his hips because he has drawn them there with extensive care, as if there is a correct way to be covered in a bed that belongs to one’s wife and he might yet discovered by doing nothing too quickly. His damp hair cools against the pillow. His shirt pulls faintly at one shoulder when he breathes. His hands rest at his side, then over his stomach, then at his sides again.
There are, apparently, no good places for hands when a man is trying to seem less breakable than he feels.
Beside him, you sit against the pillows with the book returned to your lap. You have opened it again, though he does not know whether this is for your sake or his, whether you intend to read or only to give him something other than your quiet to survive. The pages make a small sound when you turn them. Dry paper, a careful touch, the whisper one sheet passing over another.
He keeps his eyes on the canopy. It is easier than looking at you.
It is also markedly not easy.
The distance between your bodies should reassure him. He has left enough of it. A uselessly polite stretch of linen, a diplomatic border in the middle of a marriage bed. No part of him dares touch any part of you. Even the warmth of your body reaches him only indirectly, through the mattress and the air and the scent of your bath still caught in his hair.
Because the quiet is starting to sound too much like something he might rest in, he blurts out,
“You may regret this.”
The page stills beneath your hand.
For half a heartbeat, he wishes he had kept the warning inside his mouth. He has given too many warnings already, and none he actually wanted you to heed.
“The bed?” You ask.
A laugh would help. He can feel the shape of one somewhere in his throat, but what leaves his chest is trembling and too honest.
“Me in it.”
You do not answer at once.
The quiet is not empty, and somehow that makes it worse. He can hear the fire shifting in the hearth, the soft movement of your body against the pillows, the slow drag of his own breath trying to behave against the dreadful feeling that no air is reaching him.
So he fills the silence again,
“I do not always sleep well.”
The understatement is so vast that for a moment he feels almost fond of it. A small, badly built bridge over a chasm no one has asked to cross. He does not sleep well. He does not sleep harmlessly. He does not sleep as one ought to sleep beside another person, with nothing but rest passing through the body and no horrors dragging themselves behind the eyes. He does not know how to make sleep survivable, he does not know how to make it safe, he does not know how to keep it from finding him.
You sit with that for a moment, a breath you let out and one he holds.
Then you turn the page.
“Then sleep badly here.”
Daeron has slept badly in chairs, on floors, against walls, in borrowed rooms where dawn found him before oblivion did. Badly is familiar, it is almost easy. It is the here that catches him, the placement of it with such ease, as if ruin has simply been given somewhere to happen.
He should not be grateful for it. Gratitude is a dangerous habit when one has so little judgement about where to place it.
“Generous.” He says, because some defense must be made.
“You underestimate my selfishness.”
There is something said there, a truth he might hoard with the others if he just reaches. But like an open flame, the thought tangles with dread and Daeron lets go of it as if it had burned him.
For a while, he tries to let the sound arrange the room. Page, fire, breath. The faint shift of silk when you settle more comfortably against the pillows, the hush of paper beneath your fingers.
His body begins, treacherously, to believe in the bed.
It starts at the edges. A loosening in his fingers. The slow unclenching of his jaw. The drop of one shoulder toward the mattress before he has agreed to yield it. His back, faithless and exhausted, softening by a fraction. The warmth under the covers gathering around his legs. The pillow accepting the weight of his head with an indecent willingness.
Then sleep moves, shifts.
It does not come as sleep should come, gently and by degrees, with the simple darkening of a tired mind. It waits just beneath that, a pressure, a tide at the edge of him, a beast on the prowl. it is something old enough, familiar enough, that it knows the way.
His eyes open.
He had not known he had closed them.
His breath catches so sharply that he has to swallow the sound before it becomes something more obvious. Every muscle returns to duty at once: hands still, face still, body still. Do not move. Do not dream. Do not frighten her. Do not make her regret staying.
The instructions arrive with the useless authority of prayers said after the Gods have already made their decision.
Beside him, the page does not turn. Daeron keeps his gaze fixed on the canopy.
There are kinds of cowardice so small they almost pass for manners. He tells himself he is sparing you the awkwardness of being looked at after you have noticed too match, he tells himself there is no need to check whether your attention has shifted from the book to him, he tells himself several things in rapid succession, all of them respectable and none of them true enough to matter.
He does not look because he does not want to see regret.
Not pity, either. Pity would be bad enough, but regret would be worse. Regret would mean the morning had reached the point all kindness eventually reaches with him: the moment of reconsideration, the quiet correction of generosity, the recognition that whatever had seemed harmless from a distance had become something else when allowed too close.
The page turns. Only then does he breathe again.
Slowly. Too slowly, probably.
He starts with the prayer the septa taught him when he was young enough to believe the order of words mattered more than the state of the soul offering them. Father above, judge me justly. Mother above, keep me kindly. Warrior, lend me strength. Smith, mend what has broken. Maiden, preserve the untouched. Crone, light the way. Stranger-
He stops there.
Not the Stranger. Not tonight, not this morning, not in this bed with you turning pages beside him as if a man might be trusted to lie still and not invite every dark thing he has ever feared into the room.
He begins again.
Father above, judge me justly.
That goes poorly as well.
After prayer fails, he counts kings. That lasts until too many of them begin to die in ways he does not care to remember. He turns instead to wines, which is either discipline or cruelty, and lists Arbor golds first because they are easiest, then reds, then the pale vintages some lord in the Reach once insisted had notes of pear and sunlight, whatever the fuck that means. The first swallow. The warmth moving down his throat. The dulling at the edges of his mind, not enough to save him, never enough to save him, but enough to make sleep less like being taken by the throat.
There is no wine in him. Not enough to count.
The thought lands late and hard. No proper barrier. No thick sweetness at the back of his mouth. No obedient, reliable blur between himself and the place sleep throws him into. He has come to the bed without the one ritual he has taught his body to expect before surrender, and the body, recognizing omission too late, answers with a small ugly panic under the ribs.
He turns it into stillness because that is what he has.
The book shifts in your lap. Your thumb worries at the edge of a page. He listens to that instead of the absence in his blood.
Then the bed gathers him again.
It is unbearable, how patient exhaustion can be. It waits through useless prayer, through counting, through the catalogue of wines he cannot drink, and then it returns to the body as if nothing has been decided. His eyes grow heavy. The fire softens. The sound of pages draws further away, then closer, then farther again. His thoughts begin to loosen their order.
Not gone, not dreaming, he reminds himself. Only thinning. Only a moment.
Dark collects at the back of his eyes.
Something moves inside it. A wing, a flame, a sky cracked open.
Daeron wakes before he has slept.
This time, his hand jerks against the covers. Only once, a small, stupid movement. Nothing that should matter. But his heart is suddenly loud, and his skin is cold beneath the warmth of the bed, and for one wild second he cannot remember whether the thing reaching for him had been in the dream or in the room.
The page does not turn.
He presses his hand flat against the mattress and forces his fingers open. One by one. He does not curl them into the sheet despite the instinct begging him to. He does not grip despite immobilizing need to cling to something to tether him here. He does not turn his head despite the way something in him already starves for a glimpse of you even if he has you closer than he deserves.
He does not turn his head. He can feel the place where your attention might be, and because he cannot bear it, he refuses to make it real.
Nothing happens. You do not ask. The fire shifts. The room remains a room, the bed remains a bed, his wife remains beside him with a book in your lap and enough mercy, apparently, to leave some things unnamed.
That nearly undoes him more than being questioned would have.
In another world, he might ask what you are reading.
The thought comes from nowhere and is almost more frightening than the ark because it is so small. So possible. It belongs to a man who can turn his head on a pillow and ask his wife about a book without making the question into a confession. It belongs to rooms where the beds are slept in and mornings are ordinary and no one counts the distance between bodies.
In another, kinder world, he might ask you to read aloud.
Not because the words would matter. They could be histories, accounts, some dreadful romance full of people making choices no living person would survive. It would not matter. He thinks, with a want so simple it shames him more than many worse things have managed to, that your voice might give the dark something to hold besides him, that it might carry him toward sleep by a road the dreams have not yet learned to watch.
He does not ask. Of course he does not ask.
Instead, he counts the ridiculous blades Aerion once purchased from a merchant who had sworn on three gods and one dead mother that each was made in the likeness of one of Valyrian steel. The first had been too heavy, the second too bright, the third had a dragon worked into the pommel so badly that Aerion called it an insult. There had been eight of them, or nine, Daeron cannot remember. He starts over at the first because the number matters less than the work of keeping the mind moving so sleep cannot catch it standing still.
One.
Too heavy.
Two.
Too bright.
Three.
The insult.
A page turns.
He follows the sound as far as he can.
His body lowers by degrees despite him: shoulder, jaw, spine, breath. Each surrender is small enough to deny until it gathers with the others and becomes something dangerous. The room blurs at its edges, the canopy loses its pattern, the fire becomes warmth without shape. Your presence remains the one fixed thing near him, not touching, not speaking, only there in the little sounds of paper and cloth and breath.
Sleep reaches again.
He feels it before it has images, that is the worst part. Before ash, before heat, before any face or field or flame can name itself, there is the pull. The old certainty of being dragged toward a place where his body will not obey him and waking will not come when called.
No.
His eyes open.
The word does not leave him, it lodges somewhere behind his teeth.
The book has gone still again. Daeron stares upward and does not move.
This time, he cannot make himself begin with counting prayers. The words feel worn from use, thin as cloth held to light. He tries wines again and loses the order after Arbor red. He tries kings and finds death. He tries the blades and cannot remember whether there were eight or nine or whether Aerion had bought them all or only a few. His mind, traitorous now in its own exhaustion, refuses the clean lines he gives it.
So he counts his breaths.
One, and the bed under him.
Two, and the fire.
Three, and the space between your body and his.
Four, and the page beneath your hand.
Five, and the dark waiting.
At five, he begins again.
One. The bed under him.
Two. The fire.
Three. You, beside him, not gone.
He stops there because counting you feels like another kind of theft.
The page turns at last, soft and careful in the quiet.
Daeron closes his eyes for the span of one breath and opens them again before sleep can decide it has been invited.
Then he begins again at one.
After a while, he hears the book close beside him. Daeron does not look.
The sound is small, barely more than paper against paper, leather settling shut, your hand leaving the page. Still, after the long effort of counting every sound in the room into its proper place, the change reaches him with absurd force. The page will not turn again. The little rhythm he had used to keep himself awake has stopped, and for a moment he feels almost betrayed by the silence.
Then the mattress shifts.
Not much, only enough to tell him you’ve moved.
He keeps his eyes shut at first, which is worse than keeping them open because darkness is never empty for him, not for long. He opens them again and fixes them on the canopy before anything can gather behind his lids. The pattern above him is blurred by exhaustion, the carved lines of wood and shadow going soft at the edges, but it is still there. A thing, a shape, a proof that he is awake.
The bed dips more fully at his side. You are lying down.
He knows it before he lets himself understand it. The change in the sheets, the warmth shifting nearer, the quiet adjustment of your body as you settle into the space beside him, close enough for the mattress to change under both of you and far enough away that he has no honest complaint or warning to give.
The arrangement of the room has changed again, and Daeron, who has learned to lie very still through dreams with teeth in them, through his father’s anger, through tavern rooms where drunk men mistake misery for an invitation to draw blood, finds himself nearly undone by the sound of a woman lying down in her own bed.
His hands remain where they are. That takes effort.
Everything takes effort, really. Breathing without making a study of it, remaining still without looking dead, keeping his eyes open without seeming terrified of closing them. Not turning his head. Especially not turning his head. He cannot look at you. If he looks, he will have to see how close you are, and if he sees how close you are, he will have to survive whatever it is his heart does with that knowledge.
There are limits, though he will be the first to admit he has met very few of them with dignity.
The mattress shifts once more, then settles. You have turned onto your side. He knows that too, because the warmth changes shape, because your breathing is angled toward him now, because some part of his body that has no loyalty to his pride is aware of you with humiliating precision. The same way you had slept the night before, perhaps. Curled on your side, one hand loose near your face, unaware of him until morning made the whole disaster visible.
Except this time, you are facing him.
Except this time, he is in the bed with you.
Except this time, after a long moment of lying very still and pretending stillness can pass for restraint, Daeron turns too.
It is not a graceful movement. He takes it slowly, as if any suddenness might give away too much, might come across too eager, drawing one shoulder from the mattress, shifting beneath the covers, finding the edge of the pillow with his cheek. His body understands the shape before his mind permits it: turned toward warmth, toward breath, toward the living fact of you in the bed beside him. He stops before he has turned fully enough to be accused of seeking you.
He leaves space, more than enough.
A careful, cowardly distance between his knees and yours, between his chest and the hand he does not yet know how to refuse.
His gaze drops to the sheets between you. It is marginally safer than your face. Marginally.
His throat works, but no sound comes out. Good, he is certain no sound he’s capable of now would help him.
The room waits.
Fire low in the heart, sheets warming in uneven places beneath him. The faint smell of rosewater and jasmine clinging to his own skin. Your breathing, steady enough to be kind or deliberate enough to be kinder. The bed does not ask him to move, you do not ask him to speak. Nothing in the room asks him for anything, which is perhaps why wanting begins to move so freely through him, finding no obstacle except his own will, which was never anything impressive in the first place.
Then your hand comes to rest between you.
Daeron goes still in a way that has nothing to do with rest.
It is not touching him, it is not even particularly close, if one wished to be reasonable about this. Reason, however, has been making a poor showing all morning. Your hand rests on the sheets between your bodies, palm turned upward, fingers loose, neither reaching nor withdrawn. A hand in the bed. A simple thing, a deniable thing. If he had more courage, perhaps he might even call it inconsequential.
He does not have enough courage for that.
He knows the shape of it.
That is the part that catches beneath his ribs. Palm open. Fingers easy. The softness of an offered thing made to look like sleep, or carelessness, or nothing at all. It is the shape his mind had worried over in the bath when his own hand failed at gentleness near his temple, the shape he had remembered from the night before when you had been unknowingly within reach and all his wanting had been safely impossible because you were asleep.
Now you are awake. Now the hand is there. Now any movement toward it would belong to him.
If you had touched him, he could have endured it as something done to him. If you had told him to take your hand, he could have made obedience out of it and hidden himself inside the instruction. This is worse, this is nothing dressed as nothing, and therefore everything depends upon whether he is desperate enough to make it into an offer.
He is.
The knowledge is immediate and degrading.
He does not move. Sleep shifts under the edge of him again.
Not only sleep, the place before it, the slope. The body beginning to lose its argument with itself. The edges of the room blur, then steady when he forces his eyes wider. His breath shortens. The dark behind his eyes is not visible because his eyes are open, but he knows it is there, waiting without face, waiting with patience. A warmth without comfort, a pressure without hand, the old pull toward a place where waking does not answer when called.
No, he thinks. The word is useless. It has always been useless.
His fingers move anyway.
Only slightly, a failure more than a decision. His hand shifts against the sheets, and then again, and for a breath he thinks he may be able to pretend the movement has been nothing more than another restless adjustment from a man very bad at lying still. Then the backs of his fingers brush the backs of yours.
He stops. Every part of him stops.
Your skin is warm.
That is all, that is the whole catastrophe of it. Warm skin, the faint rise of knuckles, the impossibly small contact of his skin against yours. It should mean nothing. It is barely touch. It is less than what courtiers trade in greetings, less than what servants tolerate in passing cups, less than what he has given strangers without remembering their faces.
His heart behaves as if he has been caught in a crime.
You do not move away.
For a moment, the two of you remain like that, scarcely touching at all, and Daeron cannot decide whether your stillness is mercy or a test. Perhaps it is neither, perhaps you are simply letting him have the exact measure of what he has chosen and no more or less. That would be like you, he thinks, though he does not know you well enough to be so certain and is becoming dangerously willing to pretend otherwise.
He has done worse things than touch a woman’s hand, the Gods know that. The Gods, if they keep their ledger, have darker ink set aside for him than this. Still, very few things have felt so much like reaching for something so out of his reach.
His hand turns before he has decided to let it.
Not boldly, he only lets his fingers shift from the back of your hand to the hollow of your palm, awkward and careful and half-ashamed, as though even now he might apologize to the space between your fingers for entering it. His hand is trembling; he hates that you must feel it. He hates even more than that even then he does not pull away.
Your fingers close once around his.
Only once. A small answer, a confirmation barely stronger than breath. Your hand receives his and then rests, warm and steady, as if nothing astonishing has happened at all.
Something in him gives way.
Not enough to break, only barely enough to stop holding himself quite so hard.
He keeps his gaze lowered between you, fixed on the place where your hand has answered his. It is easier than looking at your face, though not by much. Your fingers do not tighten again, but neither do they leave. The fire is still in the hearth, the bed is still beneath him. The room remains itself. The dark waits where it has always waited. The dreams have not vanished, and sleep has not become kinder. Still, his hand remains where it is.
And when the room begins to blur again, there is something for him to find.
Your palm against his. Your fingers loosely held. The slight pressure of your hand answering the tremor in his, not stopping it, not shaming, merely existing around it. Waking has a shape now, a place to return that is not the canopy, not the counting. He follows it without moving, lets his attention drop from the dark to the point where your hands meet. Warmth, touch, skin. The faint, living pulse of another body close enough to be known.
One, he thinks, and does not know whether he means breath, or heartbeat, or your hand.
The counting falls apart almost at once. And for once, he lets it.
Sleep comes again.
He feels it gather and his body begins its old revolt, every tired muscle tightening for the fight it has no strength left to win. But the fight does not find the same shape. His fingers, instead of clawing at the sheet, hold yours. His breath, instead of catching alone behind his teeth, finds the rhythm of yours and loses itself there. The dark presses forward, and the room recedes, and still some part of him knows the difference between dream and hand.
The bed warms around him, the fire becomes a distant, steady thing. Your presence remains, reduced and magnified at once into the place where his hand is not empty.
He does not trust sleep, he does not forgive it. Some lucid, frightened part of him refuses even now, insisting that he should keep watch, keep count, keep himself from falling where the dreams can take him and do what they please with him.
He cannot.
His eyes close, and this time, he does not open them at once.
the room slips again. He loses the fire, then the curtains, then the weight of the covers over his legs. He keeps your hand longer than the rest, or perhaps it simply becomes the only thing he knows how to notice. Warmth, skin, you. The faint pressure of your fingers answering his when his own forget how to be still, when some frightened and foolish part of him squeezes once as if to request reassurance you remain there.
The dark comes anyway.
This time, Daeron does not wake himself to avoid meeting it.
His hand is still in yours when sleep takes him.
Thank you for reading! I have entirely too many ideas for this universe/collection, so I'll hopefully be posting more soon.
Morning finds Daeron exactly where he never meant to be: on the floor beside your bed, seen in the full light of what he failed to hide.
He expects the room to become impossible now that he has been found there. Instead, the morning continues. A bath is drawn, tea is poured, and your questions are careful enough.
Daeron has spent weeks making his absence look like mercy, but now, with every poor answer he gives, he begins to understand that you noticed. And that you intend to understand why.
Continuation of I'm not sure what peace is
Word Count: 6.3k
Warnings: mentions of drinking, drinking as a coping mechanism, prophetic dreams, and arranged marriages. I think that's it.
A/N: This was supposed to be a second and final part to this little story but it got away from me and I had to cut it up. I'll be posting part 3 soon, would love to hear your thoughts in the meantime!
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote by anatomy-of-rains, "You touch me and suddenly I feel a little less war torn. I'm not sure what peace is supposed to feel like but I think it may feel a lot like you."
The first thing Daeron feels is a hand in his hair.
For a few breaths, he does not know enough to make a person out of it. There is only the careful pass of fingers through hair gone tangled from the floor and the night and however many hours of poor decisions preceded it; there is only the faint graze along his hairline, almost to his temple, a thing to gentle to have context and too unlikely to require one. His half-sleeping mind, useless with the softness of it, does not think of you at first. It does not think of anyone, it only knows warmth where there should be none, the slight pull of a strand caught and released, the shape of a hand moving slowly enough that his body has time to trust it before thought can interfere.
His body, treacherous and starving thing this body is, accepts it before he understands that it has.
Something in him sinks. Not much, not enough for anyone watching to name it. A fraction only, the barest softening of his neck, his cheek turning by a breath toward the touch. Sleep still has him by the throat. Or perhaps not sleep, perhaps something worse, something like that small falling feeling before the body remembers to be afraid of falling.
He does not jolt awake, not this time. He is still somewhere inside that slow, impossible descent when your hand is gone, and it is the cold left behind -instead of pain, of fear, of any of the usual mercies- that opens his eyes.
Morning finds him, unsurprisingly, badly.
There is pale light at the curtains, thin and grey-gold, enough for it to return shape to the room and cruelty to the objects in it. The bed is beside him, the floor is beneath him. His shoulder is pressed to the bedframe, his mouth tastes of old wine, one leg has gone so thoroughly numb that it might as well belong to some other fool entirely. And, most importantly, your face is clear above him, turned toward him and far too awake.
You are looking at him.
For a moment, Daeron does nothing. He does not move his hands, he does not breathe properly, he does not even manage the good sense to look away. In darkness, the room had been kind enough to blur itself around him, to make intention and accident resemble one another if one did not look too closely. Morning, as always, is less generous. It has arranged the facts with humiliating simplicity: floor, bed, wife.
The promise to leave before you woke broken before he could even remember making it.
He had meant to spare you this. Before light, before servants, before your eyes opened and found him folded beside your bed like some stray creature. He had meant to rise, to go, to leave no sign of himself but perhaps a little warmth where his shoulder had touched the frame, and even that would have been gone soon enough. A harmless failure, if there is such a thing. Small, quiet, entirely his.
Instead, you are awake, and he is still here.
Your hand is no longer in his hair by the time he is awake enough to know if it had even been there. That should make it easier to dismiss. A dream, perhaps, however rare the good ones are. A stray mercy invented by the last scraps of sleep.
But his skin remembers the path of your fingers near his temple, and his cheek feels colder, and his body has the nerve to miss something his mind has not yet agreed happened.
That, more than the floor, is the problem.
Daeron looks down and finds his fingers still curled into the fabric of his trousers, stiff from clutching cloth through the night. His cloak has twisted around one shoulder, and his damn boots are still on, because of course they are. When he tries to shift in place, sensation returns to his leg in a hot, ugly prickle from knee to ankle, and his mouth tightens before he can stop it.
Well, that is certainly dignified.
He moves away from the bed. Not far, because his body refuses the ambition of distance, but enough that his shoulder leaves the frame and his head no longer rests against the mattress. Enough, perhaps, to pretend there had been intention in any of this.
He can feel the shape his hair must be in, which should not matter, except your hand had been in it, perhaps, and he cannot decide whether it is worse if you know you touched him or if you do not.
You watch him do it.
Not cruelly, not even with the sort of pity he might survive by hating it. Your eyes are too clear for that, too awake. There is worry in your face, he thinks. Curiosity too, perhaps, in the careful way you do not ask the obvious question. You look at him as if he’s a puzzle that has appeared on your floor.
“That cannot have been comfortable.” You say.
Daeron does not look at you when he answers,
“I have slept in worse places, I promise you.”
It is true, but it still makes such a poor defense, even to his own ears.
A small silence follows. He feels it along the side of his face, the back of his neck, the places where your fingers had been or had not been. Then he looks at you properly, because not looking has begun to feel more revealing than the alternative, and reaches for the nearest thing that might keep the morning from becoming too grave to survive.
The smile comes by habit, poorly assembled and dragged from somewhere near the ribs.it trembles before he can make it useful, but it is there.
With nothing else, he offers, “Good morrow.”
You blink once, and then your mouth softens. Not quite into a smile, but near enough that his chest goes briefly, stupidly tight.
“This is certainly one way to begin one.”
It should not help. And yet, it does. Only a little, only enough that the room does not split open beneath him.
You have taken the shape of what he offered you, ridiculous as it is, and answered in kind. Morning, manners, a prince on the floor wishing you a good morning as if he has not just woken beside your bed with one leg useless, his hair ruined, and his last scrap of good sense and self-preservation somewhere beneath the mattress.
Or perhaps beneath your hand.
No, not that. He refuses to let the thought linger. He is not certain there had been a hand. He would prefer, almost not to be certain.
You shift against the pillows, rising a little onto one elbow. The covers move with you. Daeron’s gaze drops at once to your hand instead of your face, which was a mistake, because your hand is no longer near his hair or his face but it still exists, and that seems almost as dangerous.
Your fingers rest loose against the sheets. Empty.
He looks away.
“That was a very poor use of a perfectly serviceable bed, however.” You say, tone light.
His fingers tighten once against his knee.
There it is: the bed. It has been in the room the whole time, of course. Large and soft and impossible behind him, above him, beside him, however one measures impossibility from the floor. Still, it feels newly named when you say it, as if the object has turned to look at him.
Daeron studies the floorboards between his boots for a shameful moment. They are ordinary floorboards. Indifferent. He finds himself grateful for that.
“I am hardly fit company for clean sheets.”
The answer comes easily because it is not entirely a lie. He had been all wine and smoke and cold corridors when he arrived, wakefulness worn thin enough to tear. Whatever filth clung to him had at least been real enough to name, and that has always been the mercy of practical things. dirt can be washed, sheets can be changed, boots can be removed. No one has to speak of what else a man brings into a room when he comes there after days of refusing sleep.
He glances up only briefly.
Your expression has changed. Not enough for accusation, not enough for certainty. Only a small adjustment around the eyes, a quiet narrowing of thought. You do not believe him, perhaps. Or perhaps you believe the words and not the shape he has forced them into. Perhaps you have mercifully decided there are some answers to brittle to touch directly in the early morning.
His stomach twists. He waits for you to say something.
You do not.
A knock comes at the door, light and routine, and Daeron goes still so quickly that his returning leg punishes him for it. Before either of you say anything, the door opens, because morning has rules and servants obey them, and princesses do not usually begin the day with their husbands half-curled on the floor beside their beds like a scolded dog.
Three maids enter with the efficient quiet of women expecting the morning to behave like morning.
“Good morrow, Princess,” The first says, “You ought to write to y-…”
She sees him then.
To her credit, she does not drop anything, only chokes on her words and halts her stride. The second maid stops half a step behind her. The third looks down at the folded dress in her arms as if it has, quite suddenly, become the most interesting thing in the world. There is a pause, small but complete, in which everyone in the room -or halfway into it- appears to remember at once that no one has been given the proper script for this.
Daeron considers closing his eyes. That has rarely solved anything, but he has always appreciated the simplicity of the method.
Instead he lifts a hand and offers a half-hearted wave of his hand, and the first maid’s eyes widen, turning in search for guidance to you.
You sit up a bit more fully, unhurried. Not startled, not apologetic, not embarrassed.
“Good morrow.”
The maids take their cue from you, and the first is quick to recover, curtsying her greeting.
“Princess,” A bow of her head, eyes that of a cornered rabbit when she stammers and adds, “Uh, m-my Prince.”
Daeron remains on the floor. This is not the worst state in which the servants of Summerhall have found him. There are servants in this castle who could probably rank his humiliations by season.
Still, for some reason this feels worse in a way he does not intend to examine while still sitting beside your bed with his leg half-numb and his hair in disarray.
You keep your attention on the maids.
“Have a bath drawn, would you, Laerra?”
The first maid’s -Laerra’s, he learns- eyes flicker once, very quickly, toward Daeron. Then back to you. Only once.
“Of course, princess.”
No one says for whom, no one needs to,
Daeron lowers his gaze to his hands. His fingers are still stiff, and there is a crease in the fabric where he held himself all night. Perhaps you believed him, when he told you the smell of smoke and grime of the day were what kept him from your bed. Perhaps you did nt. Perhaps you only decided to answer the lie he gave you instead of the truth he could not.
He says nothing.
The room moves around his silence. Not with the brittle and tentative care of people pretending not to have seen what they have seen, no, although in some ways that might have been easier. Instead, the maids recover because you have recovered them, and morning resumes with the terrible efficiency of a thing that has never once considered stopping for Daeron’s benefit.
One of the girls leaves to see to your request of a bath. Another goes to the hearth and kneels before the embers, coaxing what remains of the night’s warmth back into flame. The third crosses to the wardrobe with the folded gown still in her arms and lays it out with practiced care, perfectly aware of where it ought to go, of which hook takes which sleeve, of which warm boots belong with which shade, of which dress can bear a necklace of rubies and which requires something less severe.
They know the room.
That is the thing that Daeron notices, the thought that lingers, though he would prefer not to. He lingers not on the quick glance the first maid gives him before she disappears, not on the way the second keeps her eyes politely on the hearth, not in the third’s sudden and heroic interest in fabric. Those are familiar enough forms of discretion, and he has lived his whole life among servants and their careful blindness. Their presence should not matter.
It does not matter, not in the way it should.
What unsettles him is the ease of them, the way the room opens itself to their hands, the way they know which curtains to draw first, where the kettle waits, which small casket holds your hairpins, which shawl was left over the chair the night before. The way one of them, after only a few moments, says, with the familiar worry of a woman continuing a conversation that must have begun days ago,
“You ought to write to your sister, princess. There is barely enough orange blossom left for the week.”
You make a small sound that might be agreement and might be offense at being reminded of it.
“She is well aware,” You state, “She has just chosen to abandon me to northern weeds.”
The maid at the hearth smiles down into her work.
“I am certain she would be heartbroken to hear your plight.”
“She should be.”
It is nothing, a small exchange, easy enough to pass unnoticed if one belongs in the room. Daeron does not. He remains on the floor beside the bed, half-numb and entirely too awake, and listens as if the matter of dried orange blossoms sent from your family’s home is a court secret he has stumbled upon by mistake. Orange blossoms, lavender, a sister who sends things. A morning habit old enough to be teased over. A life made of little continuities that have nothing to do with him.
He had thought, somewhat stupidly and perhaps arrogantly, that his presence would make the room impossible.
The room appears not to have noticed he has irrupted. Or worse, it has noticed and decided to continue anyway.
You shift on the bed, and Daeron moves because you do.
There is no thought in it at first. You draw the covers aside, and his palms press against the floor. You sit up, and he gathers one knee beneath himself. You reach for the robe folded near the pillow, and he rises, stiffly, because suddenly remaining on the floor becomes an absurdity too large even for him to defend.
His body objects to the change with great conviction. His leg, newly returned to him and apparently resentful of its treatment, sends another ugly prickle up his calf. His back is stiff from the strange angle of sleep. The hand he uses to brace himself on the floor is slow to open properly, fingers still half-curled from the night. He manages to stand without making a so und, which he counts as a victory, although perhaps only because he has lowered his standards beyond recognition.
You do not comment. That helps more than it should.
You stand and slip into the robe with your attention half on the maid at the hearth, half on the morning itself, as though your husband rising from the floor beside your bed is only one more thing to be folded into the day’s order of events.
Your bare feet touch the floor, and your face changes by the smallest degree.
Then, with more haste than dignity, you make for the carpet before the hearth.
It is such an ordinary little betrayal of discomfort that Daeron looks at it a moment too long. And suddenly you are less the clear face above him in the morning light and more a woman who dislikes a cold floor, and there is something in the small, ridiculous flight from the boards that makes the room feel less like a place where he has committed some grave offense.
He looks away a moment too late. No one seems to notice.
You reach the carpet and tuck one foot behind the other as though to scold the floor without giving it the satisfaction of words. The maid at the hearth set the kettle near the revived flame, another brings the cups and utensils to the small table by the chairs, and the scent of lavender begins to lift into the air, faint at first and then steadier, soft enough that it reminds him of last night.
You move toward it, and Daeron follows.
He does not decide to. Deciding would have at least given him the dignity of refusing himself. Instead, you move, and the rest of the room becomes briefly unreadable, and by the time he understands what his body has done, he is standing near the hearth a few steps behind you like a hound awaiting instruction.
He stops. You glance over your shoulder.
“You may sit, you know.”
The words are mild. Almost formal, almost amused.
Permission, at last. That is worse than a command in some ways, and better in others.
Daeron sits.
Immediately, which he realizes a heartbeat too late. The chair is not far from the hearth, close enough for warmth to reach his knees and for the revived light to catch on the rim of the tea tray.
He should have hesitated, he thinks. He should have made some polite refusal, some gesture toward leaving, some claim about duties or intrusion or whatever shape of lie would have done the least damage. Instead, you gave him a place to put himself, and he put himself there.
Very well. Apparently this is also the sort of morning he is having.
You pour the tea yourself.
A maid might have done it. Perhaps one usually does, he does not know enough of your mornings to know what is habit and what has been changed around him, which is its own discomfort. You rake the kettle in hand, steady and unhurried, and fill one cup before setting the pot down. The tea is a pale, almost grey amber in the morning light. The lavender scent rises with the steam.
Not one thing about it is remarkable enough to justify the care with which he watches it.
Then you turn and offer the cup to him.
For a breath, Daeron only looks at it.
A task, he thinks. Something ordinary enough that he can understand the expected use of his hands.
He takes it because he has been given it, because he remembers his manners even when they have to crawl to him from very far away, because refusing would be stranger than accepting, because you are looking at him and the cup is somehow easier to meet than your face.
The first tremor is small. Small enough that, had he been alone, he might have ignored it. The second sends the tea lapping against the rim, and he tightens his grip st once, too quickly, too visibly, his fingers closing around the porcelain with enough force that the heat bites into his skin. A drop spills over anyway, sliding down the side of the cup and across the knuckle of his thumb.
It burns. He does not let go.
For a moment, the whole of him narrows to the ridiculous work of keeping tea inside a cup. Not the bed, not the floor, not your hand in his hair or not in his hair, not the maids moving around the edges of the room, not the fact that he has no idea what to do with the mercy of being allowed to remain. Only the cup, the heat, the small crescent of liquid threatening the rim, and his useless hands making a spectacle of what ought to be simple.
You look at the tea. Then at his fingers. Then, mercifully, not at his face.
“I was overgenerous.” You say, choosing to critique the pour of the drink instead of him. Instead of the evidence that his body has followed the ruination of his mind, and some combination of too little sleep and too little drink has taken his hands from his control.
A breath catches somewhere behind his teeth. It might have become a laugh in a different man, or in a different morning, or in a different world.
Overgenerous.
Yes. But not with the tea.
The thought is there and gone before he can punish himself properly for it. You have been overgenerous with the chair, with the cup, with the calm way you let the morning move around him as if he has not dragged some private wreckage into your day. Overgenerous with the fiction that the problem is the pour and not the hand holding it. Overgenerous, perhaps, with letting him have the smaller lie when the larger truth sits beside him like another guest at the hearth.
He lowers the cup enough to keep from spilling more.
“My thanks.” He says, because that is safer than anything else.
“For the tea or the absolution?”
The question is light enough that one of the maids might mistake it for teasing if she were listening. Daeron does not make that mistake.
He looks at the cup for a moment, before retorting, “I had not realized they were being served together.”
This time, your smile does arrive, small and brief, and he has the terrible satisfaction of having caused it while wishing, at once, that he had not seen it clearly enough to want another.
You turn back to the tray to pour for yourself.
“It is better with orange blossom,” You say, after a moment, returning your attention and your words to the tea, “The lavender alone is too dull in the morning.”
Deron brings the cup to his mouth because holding it and not drinking it has begun to feel absurd. The tea tastes of lavender and something faintly bitter beneath the floral softness. His mouth still tastes of old wine, the tea does not cure that, but it argues with it, which is more than he expected.
“You dislike dull things in the morning?”
“I dislike unnecessary dullness at all hours.”
You are adding nothing to your own cup. No honey, no milk. Only the tea as it is, apparently inadequate but still worth drinking. The maid at the hearth makes a small, amused sound and hides it badly by taking the kettle and moving it away. You ignore her, which tells him this, too, belongs to the room: the tea, the orange blossom, your sister’s delay, the maid’s poorly hidden amusement, the shape of a morning that has made space for all of it before he even set foot here.
“It lacks the freshness of orange,” You point out, glancing down into your cup. “And pomegranate rind. But my dear sister has abandoned me to lavender and boiled water.”
He ought not to find the petulant affront at imperfect tea endearing, he ought not to smile. He does anyway.
You sit then, close enough that the light from the hearth catches the side of your face and the steam from your cup rises between you in thin, vanishing threads.
“When she remembers her duties,” You continue, “You should try it properly.”
It is a small thing, so small a better man might have known how to leave it small. A cup of tea, no more. A comment made because you were speaking of orange blossoms and lavender and sisters who send gifts from home. Not an invitation, not a promise, not anything he should take into his hands and hold so tightly it cuts him.
Daeron knows this. He knows this with the same part of himself that knows the cup is not too full.
He should say something. A jest, perhaps. Something light enough to return the offering to its proper size. Instead, the warmth of the cup presses into his palms, and the room continues around him, and for once Daeron cannot find the cruelty in allowing himself to imagine a later in which he is still permitted to be here.
“You might regret teaching me to expect better tea.” Daeron says. It is not the answer he meant to give.
He meant to make some harmless remark about your sister, perhaps, or about orange blossom being wasted on a man whose palate has survived far worse offenses than inferior lavender. He meant to keep the offer where you had left it: small, domestic, no more dangerous than steam rising from a cup. Instead, the warning comes before he has decided whether he is making a joke of it.
A poor habit, that. Speaking.
You look at him over the rim of your cup.
“I shall take my chances.”
Of course you say that lightly, of course you make it sound as if the danger is only tea, only expectation only a prince developing standards inconvenient to your stores. That is the mercy of it, and the trouble. You leave the words exactly where he has placed them and somehow hear what sits beneath them anyway. Or so he hopes, against hope.
Daeron lowers his gaze to his own cup. The spilled drop has cooled against his thumb, leaving a faint tackiness where tea and heat and his own unreliable hand have conspired against him.
“A brave woman.”
“A curious one, mostly.” You correct.
That makes him look up again.
You say it without solemnity, which is the only reason he does not retreat behind whatever flattery or foolishness he can find. There is no grand claim in your expression, no pretty gentleness arranged for his benefit. Simply the same watchful softness from before, made more dangerous by the fact that it is not trying very hard to disguise itself. Curious, then. Not frightened or disgusted. Yet, anyhow.
He takes another careful sip of tea because the cup gives him something to do with his mouth other than make matters worse.
The room continues around you both. The two maids that were lingering in your room finishing their duties bow their goodbyes and take their leave, while he hears somewhere beyond one of the internal doors water being poured. The bath exists now as a consequence of his own excuse, which means it is both mercy and a trap, and he is too tired to decide which name is less humiliating.
You set your cup down first.
“Had you slept before you came here?”
The question is not abrupt, not exactly. It is simply placed there, careful and plain, as if you have followed the thread he offered and found, beneath better tea, the shape of something less easily sweetened.
Daeron’s fingers settle more firmly around the cup.
“That depends on what one counts as sleep.”
The answer arrives with enough ease to be a tad painful. He even manages to make it sound mildly thoughtful, as if the matter is philosophical rather than pathetic. As if sleep is a category to be debated over breakfast, as if he has not spent a lifetime learning all the ways a body may close its eyes and still refuse to rest.
You tilt your head a little.
“I mean the kind after which one wakes rested.”
Ah. A most difficult standard.
He considers lying. He considers several lies, in fact, arranging themselves obediently as soldiers at a muster. Some are polished enough to be believed by someone less awake than you. Some are true in ways that would not help him. Some involve dignity, which is ambitions of them.
In the end, he obeys an unspoken command, fulfills an unvoiced request, and offers truth.
“Then no.”
Your expression does not change enough for him to resent it. That is inconvenient.
The truth sits between you, small and ugly and not nearly complete enough to explain itself. He dislikes it for that. A fuller truth, perhaps, could have defended itself. This one only sits there, insufficient and exposed, while you look at him as though you are not yet finished seeing it.
Because his mouth proves often faster than his thoughts, he uselessly adds,
“There was not enough wine to make a convincing attempt at it.”
The words are lighter than the admission beneath them, or try to be. He hears that himself. Hears, too late, the shape of what he has given away.
His reputation precedes him, he knows this. Tales of his vices carry just as far as the reputation of his House. But this is different, this speaks of something more. Not wine as pleasure, not wine as vice alone -though the Realm, he is sure, has enjoyed that simpler story well enough-. Wine as tool, wine as door, wine as a blunt instrument taken to the back of wakefulness until something in him quietens or pretends to.
He brings the cup to his mouth again and finds it too empty to help him now.
Your gaze drops once, briefly, to the cup. Then back to him.
“And before last night?”
There it is, then. The next door opening before he has found a way to close the first.
Daeron leans back on the seat, or attempts something like it. The movement pulls at his stiff shoulders, reminds him of the floor, of the bedframe, of the absurd fact that he has already provided you with more evidence than any sensible defendant would allow.
“Summerhall has more chairs and corners than any reasonable castle requires.”
For a moment, there is no sound but the hearth.
You do not smile. Not quite.
“That was not an answer.”
“No,” He says, with practiced insolence, “But it was a very accurate inventory.”
That earns him something. Not a laugh, not fully, but a narrowing of your eyes that suggests amusement has considered entering the room and decided, for the moment, to remain near the door. He will take it. The Gods know he has taken less.
You look toward the bed, then toward the chair beneath him, then back to his face. The movement is small, too small to accuse, too small to name. still, Daeron sees the path of it and feels something in him draw tight in answer.
Floor. Chair. Bed.
Not a difficult inventory.
He knows what you are trying to understand, or thinks he does. A husband who will not sleep in the bed. A prince who appears at dawn beside it. A reputation dragged in behind him like mud on a cloak. A set of inconveniences you did not choose and are no expected, by law and Gods and men, to manage.
You are measuring the burden of him, he thinks.
Unsure as to why the words seem to claw their way past his throat, why restlessness demands of him something and his body obeys before he choses to, he rushes to say,
“I did not mean for this to become part of your morning.”
The words are not apology enough and too much apology at once. He hears the stiffness in them and dislikes it. He dislikes, too, that they are the nearest thing to honesty he can reach without touching the larger shape of it.
Your dingers rest against the handle of your cup.
“It became part of my morning when I woke and found you on the floor.”
He concedes with a gesture of his head, looking away, “That was…poor planning on my part.”
Your mouth softens a little.
“I was warned of your proclivity for that,” You recall, “By you, if memory serves. Which only proved to me you were telling the truth, by the way.”
It startles a laugh out of him. Barely one, gone almost before it arrives, more breath than sound. Still, it is there, and for a second the room loosens around the fact of it.
Daeron looks back at the tea.
“I should not keep you.”
He begins to set the cup down as he says it, the motion careful and deliberate, because if he can return the cup, rise from the chair, leave the hearth, reach the door, then perhaps morning can still be folded back into something nearer to what it should have been. You will have your cold floors, your orange-less tea, your maids and your gown and your sister to accuse of betrayal. He will remove the question of himself from the room before it grows teeth.
“You cannot leave now,” You say. His hands still on the cup. Your words do not sound like a plea, but they do not sound like an order either. Faltering for only a moment, you straighten in your seat and explain, “If you go, I will have ordered a bath for no one, and my maids will have one more reason to think me strange.”
Daeron blinks once, then, because he cannot help himself, “They have reasons?”
“They think me unreasonable about tea.”
“A grave reputation.”
“But a defensible one. If nothing else, written off as Dornish eccentricity. Requesting a bath for a ghost, however, would be…absurd of me.”
He looks at you, and you merely look back, composed and absurd and apparently very serious about the political cost of unused bathwater. It should not work, it is as transparent an attempt at manipulation as there ever was one.
You are not asking him to stay because you wish him to, nor are you asking him to stay because he looks like he may fall apart if given a corridor with no instruction. You are asking him to spare you a minor domestic embarrassment.
A task, then.
A reason to stay that does not have to be hunger, that does not have to bring shame.
Daeron’s fingers leave the cup.
“I would not wish to imperil so delicate a reputation.”
“No,” You say, smile curving at the corners of your lips. “I thought not.”
There is something too knowing in your response, but before he can decide whether to take offense or comfort from it, the door opens again.
The maid who had left returns with cheeks slightly warmed from haste, though she has enough discipline not to show more than that. She curtsies from the threshold to the bathing room.
“The bath is ready, Princess.”
The words arrive like mercy with a latch on it.
Daeron stands because this time there is a clear thing to do. His body protests less now, or he is better prepared to ignore it. The chair shifts beneath him, the light of the hearth slipping over the cup he has left behind, over the small place where his thumb has marked the porcelain with tea. He does not look toward the bed. He does not look toward your hand.
He does, however, look at you.
Only briefly. Only a moment.
You give him no softness large enough to drown in, no visible permission, no careful speech about rest or shame or whatever else might someone be entitled to after finding a man on their floor. You only lift your cup again, as though the morning has not been derailed in the slightest.
“Do try to enjoy it.” You say.
“For the sake of your reputation also?"
“Well, yes,” You agree, a glint in your eye when you turn your gaze to him, “It would speak poorly of me as a wife if my husband walks to the bath I had drawn for him like a man to the gallows.”
For a moment, he forgets the maid, the bath, the open door.
Wife is not a new word, the Gods know the word has lingered in his head since long before he had a face and a voice to tie to the title. Even if not spoken aloud, it has been spoken over him by septons and lords and witnesses, folded into contracts, fastened to him by law and ceremony. But in your mouth, in the morning, with tea still warm in his hands and steam waiting in the next room, the word seems to land in him differently.
Not softer, worse than that somehow. As if the word has been allowed to mean something.
He turns toward the adjoining chamber where the bath waits.
It is an escape, of a kind. Only another room, steam, water, the consequences of the lie he was permitted to give. Still, it is away from the hearth, away from your eyes, away from the chair where tea sounds dangerously close to a promise.
As you can robably tell by the 'northern weeds' comment, the Reader is a Martell, eldest daughter of a third son of the Prince. The marriage was not arranged for political reasons really (the daughter of a third son and the son of a fourth are not exactly big players), I will get into that in a later fic. Thank you for reading!
Summerhall is quiet at night, but Daeron knows better than to trust quiet.
After days of wine and the fear of the dreams waiting behind his eyes, he finds himself outside the chamber he has spent weeks avoiding for your sake. He does not mean to ask for comfort. He does not even mean to stay.
But the room is quiet, and you are there, and for once the dark is not empty.
Word Count: 4.4k
Warnings: drunkenness, alcohol as a coping mechanism, arranged marriage, sleep deprivation, prophetic dreams/visions, fear of sleep, self-deprecating thoughts, angst, Daeron as a grade-A yearner.
A/N: I felt like a monster writing my first Daeron fic, so here is something a little bit lighter. not entirely fluff, but certainly some comfort after the other one.
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote by anatomy-of-rains, "You touch me and suddenly I feel a little less war torn. I'm not sure what peace is supposed to feel like but I think it may feel a lot like you."
The wine is not enough. That is the trouble with it tonight.
Not that it is poor wine -he is honest enough to admit he doubts he ever drank wine for its taste-, nor that there is too little of it. The scattered servants lingering still have been dutiful enough in that regard, appearing and disappearing at the edge of the smaller dining chamber with the quiet, practiced misery of men who have learned the shape of a prince’s worst habits.
A cup emptied, a cup filled. A flagon replaced before it is asked for. A candle trimmed. A glance lowered. All of it a dance so familiar that Daeron has long since stopped noticing the steps.
He had meant to sleep here, he thinks. Or perhaps he had only meant to drink until sleep became a less frightening notion. There is a difference, he knows it, though it has grown thin after so many hours awake. He has slept only in scraps these last few days, if scraps may be called sleep at all: his eyes closing for a breath or two between one cup and the next, his head dipping toward his shoulder before the body startles itself back into obedience, the darkness behind his eyelids already too crowded to trust.
No dream has taken him tonight, and that should be a mercy. It is not, because he knows that it only means they are waiting.
They do that, sometimes. Withdraw long enough to make him foolish, to find him with defenses lowered. Long enough to make him think perhaps the body can outlast them, perhaps wine and wakefulness and motion can hold the door shut if only he is clever enough, stubborn enough, ruined enough. Then, when he inevitably fails, they come back. With teeth.
So he drinks.
Or tries to.
The cup is halfway to his lips when the ring catches against the rim.
A small sound, nothing more. Silver against gold, clear and bright and indecently clean in the muffled room.
Daeron stills.
The servant nearest the wall stills with him, as if the sound were command enough. Daeron does not look at him, his gaze has dropped instead to his own hand, to the ring there, to the pale gleam of it around a finger that does not feel entirely his.
It is not the first time he has noticed it, of course it isn’t. Rings are made to be noticed; vows are made to be remembered. That is the cruelty of them, or perhaps the mercy, if there is a difference between them at all.
He is married.
The thought arrives first as a fact, and only after a breath as a wound.
Not because the word displeases him, though he sometimes wishes it would. That would certainly be simpler. Crueler, perhaps, but simpler.
No, the word has the opposite danger. It is too warm a word for what has been done to you, too intimate for a bond you did not choose, too claiming from a man who has spent the weeks since your wedding making of his absence a mercy.
His wife.
He does not often allow himself the shape of that thought without placing something else around it like a frame. Vow is safer. Ceremony, witness, some public facing architecture of a thing that might otherwise become want if he lets himself look at it for too long. Duty is easier, a public contract is easier, the Gods know both are things he knows how to fail and how to survive breaking.
The ring rests against the cup.
Wine below, vow above.
The jest would almost be good, if he were less tired.
There had been other answers once. Poor ones, ugly ones. Warm rooms where no one asked too carefully what a prince wished to forget. Laughter softened by coin, by wine, by habit. Hands that did not need to be known in the morning. Mouths that did not ask for truth before biting. A body could be made into a simpler thing in such places, and for a few hours the world might have been kind enough to believe the lie.
He does not go there now. Not since you were married.
It is not virtue, he knows himself better than to try and find that in himself. It is only a vow, and a vow, he has found, is sometimes easier to keep than a self.
He has so little of himself left to give you. This, at least, he can keep from anyone else.
The thought is small. Ridiculous, perhaps. A beggar’s candle laid at an altar. He does not know what you would do with it if he ever had the poor taste to offer it aloud. Pity him, perhaps. Worse, thank him. Worse still, accept it for what it is.
A poor gift, really, which is why it remains unsaid, unrevealed. But it is a promise he can keep, a vow he can keep from breaking, and he has little else to offer.
Fidelity, if nothing else, might be one of the last things left in him worthy of offering to you.
Daeron sets the cup down.
The servant shifts, “My prince?”
The wine trembles once in the cup, a tiny wave, then settles.
Daeron looks at it a moment longer, as if it might yet become useful, as if it might yet open some road beneath him where sleep is only sleep and the dark behind his eyes is only dark.
It does not.
He stands.
The room moves with him, not spinning, not quite, but drawing itself a little too slowly into place. He is not drunk enough, the realization is a weight on his chest. Not sober enough to be steady, not drunk enough to be safe, the worst state between.
“My prince,” The servant tries again, softer now, “Shall I-”
“No,” Daeron tells him, though he does not know what is being offered. More wine, a chair, a bed, a mercy. It hardly matters, “No, I have been admirably tended to, but I require nothing more.”
It is meant to sound light. It almost does.
He leaves before the man can decide whether to believe him.
___
Summerhall sleeps badly.
Perhaps that is only because Daeron does, perhaps houses are innocent of the futures men place inside them. Stone is only stone, timber only timber, shadow only shadow, and it is no fault of Summerhall’s that the dark gathers in the wrong corners.
Still, at night, the place feels less built than waiting.
The corridors are nearly empty at this hour. A few guards stand at their posts with faces made blank by discipline, the torches burn low in their brackets. Autumn has begun to thin the warmth from the walls, drawing summer out of the stones by slow degrees, and the air that moves through the halls carries the first sharpness of the season to come.
Summerhall was refuge once, home once.
It still is, in some ways. That is the cruel part. Grief clings to the old stone, yes. His mother is part of its walls as surely as mortar is, part of the rooms no one names too directly, part of the hush that gathers around his father’s worse days, around certain doors and certain hours. But it has no ash in its memory yet. No blackened stone, no terrible fire anyone speaks of but him, on nights where sleep does not let go of him and servants find him incoherent and half-mad, in the worst grief his dreams draw from him.
He grew up beneath these arches, learned the turns of these passages, the windows that catch dawn first, the stair that groans in the rain, the place where the mosaic above the east gallery has cracked and never been properly mended.
It should be safe. It remembers him young, after all. Almost happy, almost whole.
Instead, it feels haunted by what has not happened.
A shadow lies along the pale stone ahead of him, too dark to be only shadow. For a moment it looks like soot, as if some fire has already passed its hand along the wall and left the proof behind. Daeron blinks, and it is only the angle of torchlight, only night, only his mind making ruin out of darkness because it has grown too practiced at the work.
He keeps walking.
Movement is useful, it gives the body instruction. One foot, then the next. A turn. A stair. Another corridor. So long as he walks, he is not lying down, and so long as he is not lying down, sleep remains a thing at distance. A country glimpsed across water, a door closed but not yet opened.
He does not think about where he is going.
That is what he tells himself, at least.
The castle knows the path even if he does not. Or his body does. It carries him through Summerhall with a purpose his mind refuses to dignify, to linger on. Past the gallery, past the windows where the night presses black against the glass, past a shutter that rattles softly in the wind -sounding for one breath too much like a whisper, or a wing, or a hand against wood-.
He touches the ring as he walks.
Not fondly, not even consciously at first. His thumb finds the edge of it and turns there, worrying the metal as if it were a thought that might be worked smooth by repetition.
His wife is asleep somewhere in the castle.
No, not somewhere. The correction comes before he can prevent it. He knows exactly where.
He stops at the next turn, absurdly, as if stillness might undo that knowledge. It does not.
The corridor beyond is familiar. Too familiar. The guards at the far end are familiar, the door between them is familiar.
Your chamber, he thinks.
The law has made it his as well.
Theirs, it insists.
The word sits badly.
Him and you. You and him. Joined by words as if words have ever been a harmless thing. To think of the room as something of the two of you feels like reaching for more than a door, more than a bed. It feels like placing himself beside you in a sentence and expecting the sentence to hold all the weight.
Still, he has not asked for separate chambers.
You haven’t, and some foolish part of him clings to that fact and makes him not quite able to ask for them either, even if for your sake he ought to.
He cannot say he remembers the path that took him here, the thoughts, if there were any, that led to the decision to drag himself to your doorstep.
Calling it your doorstep is not really accurate, he gathers, but he cannot bring himself to even name himself the distance he knows he ought to put there -the distance he owes you, the distance you deserve-.
So he has done the kinder thing, or what he has told himself is kinder. He has slept elsewhere. In chairs, or couches. Once in a garden bed after too much wine and not enough sense. In guest rooms when some excuse could be found. In rooms that smelled of smoke and spilled drink. Nowhere that required you to learn the weight of him beside you.
He has spared you, with great dedication. Has made a habit of it.
And yet, here he is.
One of the guards straightens as he approaches. The other looks briefly toward the door, then away again with admirable discipline.
Daeron smiles before he can decide not to. It is a thin, trembling thing, but he remembers his manners.
“My prince,” The guard greets, keeping his voice low, “Shall I announce you?”
The absurdity of it nearly makes Daeron laugh.
Announce him. At the door of the chamber that is his by law and not his by any honest measure. Announce him. A visitor, a petitioner, a man who has arrived somewhere he has a right to enter and still stalls, awaiting permission that won’t come.
He lets his words carry the smallest theatrical offense when he answers,
“At this hour?” Daeron asks. A beat passes. His smile remains, his certainty does not. “It is late, is it not?”
The guard’s eyes lower at once. Kindness, perhaps. Or discomfort. Often they look the same.
“Very late, my prince.” He confirms.
“Good.” Daeron says, though he has no idea what good means here.
He looks at the door.
He should leave.
The thought is clear enough that ought to count for something. He should turn around, he should go back to the dining chamber, or to some chair, or to whatever patch of floor first offers itself. He should not bring wine and wakefulness and the stink of fear to your threshold. He should not stand outside your room like a stray hound that has mistaken pity for invitation.
His hand lifts anyway.
The latch is cool beneath his fingers. When his ring makes the slightest sound against the metal of it, it sounds less like a call to heel than a comfort.
For a moment, Daeron does nothing but stand there with his hand on the door and his ring cold against the metal. Behind him, the guard breathes carefully. Ahead of him, wood and silence, just quiet.
No. Not quiet.
Something softer than that, less daunting than that.
The faintest shift of sheets. The low, faint crackling fo a dying hearth. And beneath it, so slight he might have imagined it, the steady rhythm of someone sleeping.
The room beyond the door is quiet, but it is not empty.
Daeron opens the door.
The room receives him before he understands that it has.
That is what feels most dangerous, most daunting. Not the darkness, not the hush, not the low, dying glow of the hearth.
There is little enough light to see by, only a weak gold caught in the embers, a faint redness under ash. The sort of firelight that should trouble him with its closeness to other things. burnt things, blackened things, screaming things. It does not.
Daeron stands just inside the door with one hand still on the latch, and some part of him loosens before he has given it permission. His shoulders. His jaw. The small, ugly clench behind the ribs that has held him upright for hours, days, however long it has been. It eases by a fraction, and the easing is so unexpected that it almost feels like being caught.
He closes the door.
His body does that, too, before his mind has quite approved it.
The latch clicks into place. It is a small sound. Soft, really. Careful. Still, he flinches as if it has struck the room instead of merely closed it. The guards are on the other side now. The corridors, the cold, the low torches, the palace with all its waiting shadows. Behind him. Kept out.
Or he has shut himself in.
Or he has shut himself in with you.
The thought is absurdly difficult to place, shelter and trap wear one another’s faces in the dark. A cornered thing does not always know whether it has found a den or a cage. Worse still, Daeron cannot decide which of you is the beast cornered.
So he does not decide. He remains very still.
The room is nearly blind around him, though he can make out the dark shapes of furniture by degrees: the curve of a chair near the hearth, the small table beside it, the heavier shadow of the bed. The air is warmer than the corridor, though only just. Warm with what remains. Linen. Ash. The faint trace of the oil you use in your hair, something soft and foreign to Summerhall, carried here with you and made ordinary. Beneath it, almost imagined, the dry ghost of lavender tea.
You have made a place of this room.
A shawl left over the back of the chair by the hearth, one end slipping toward the floor. A book, open-faced on the seat as if you meant to return to it and sleep had interrupted you. A pair of gloves laid neatly together, fingers touching fingers like hands intertwined.
Small things. Things of yours.
Daeron looks at them because they are safer than the bed. Or, at the very least, he tells himself they are.
The chair by the hearth catches him first. He can imagine you there too easily, and because the imagining comes without permission, he hates himself for the sweetness of it. You sitting while the night gathered at the windows, you reading with the shawl drawn around your shoulders, you turning a page. You, pausing at some sound in the corridor that was not him, or perhaps was never going to be him.
Perhaps thinking of him.
The thought is obscene, and he pushes it away.
Not because there is anything indecent in it. That would almost make it easier. But there isn’t, the thought is soft, domestic, harmless. The idea that you may have sat in this room, in the quiet, and allowed him some place in your mind not shaped by duty or dread or regret. That you might have wondered where he was, whether he would come, whether he slept.
He should not want that. He should not want to have been thought of kindly in a room he has spent weeks avoiding.
The bed is there. He has known it all along, and he turns toward it finally, because all the smaller proofs of you lead there in the end.
You are asleep on your side, turned slightly toward the room, one hand drawn near your face on the pillow. The dying hearth almost gives nothing of you to sight. A line of cheek, the loose fall of hair, the line of the sheet near your shoulder. The faint suggestion of fingers resting open against the silk, soft in a way that makes his own hands feel suddenly large and ruined and too badly made to hope for the touch of yours.
He looks away. Then looks back.
Only once. A brief glance, a stolen thing. But enough.
The moment feels breakable, that is the word his mind does not quite form and his body knows regardless. Breakable. As if he has opened the door upon something made of glass, or frost, or morning before anyone has spoken into it. The dark around you is only dark, the night is only night. You sleep as though sleep is something one might enter without being dragged there, as though the body might surrender and not be punished for it.
He has brought the wrong world to your door.
Wine, wakefulness, cold corridors and old fears. Shadows that become soot if looked at too long, fire where there are only embers, screaming where there is only wind. He keeps it all inside his skin by will or habit or some uglier thing, but skin has never seemed a reliable border to him.
He does not wake you. He does not even truly consider it.
There is a world, perhaps, where he does. Some other world made kinder by accident. In it, your eyes open without fear, your face does not tighten at the sight of him, your mouth does not shape his name as accusation or pity. In it, you see him in the dark and do not wish him elsewhere.
Perhaps you shift aside, perhaps you lift the covers. Perhaps you say nothing at all. No questions, no startled breath, only room made for him.
In that world, he is the sort of man who climbs onto bed beside you.
In that world, he is the sort of man who can gather you against him as something real and loved and his -not owned, never owned, but held-. A tether, to this time, this house, this body, this world where the walls are not yet black and the dead are not yet calling.
Or in that world, perhaps you hold him. The thought comes worse, a blade, a wound.
In that world, your hand tangles in his hair, your palm settles softly at the back of his neck. In that world, there’s a touch moving over him as if there’s nothing in him that might cut you for coming too close, as if the skin that has always felt to him like something flayed and exposed might learn, beneath your hand, to be only skin.
In this world, Daeron closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, nothing has changed. You are still sleeping, the room is still dark, the bed is still impossible.
Not forbidden, that would imply a gate, a guard, a rule. This is simpler than that. A man may stand beneath the Dragonmont and understand that dragons will never fly above him again, a boy may look toward the stars and know he has no road there. One might desire a thing and never mistake desire for reach.
The bed is yours.
The law has made room for him beside you, but law is a clumsy, useless thing. It cannot build belonging out of witnesses and words alone, it cannot make him the man who would be allowed to lie down in the warmth you have left open by sleeping.
So Daeron approaches, but he dares not climb into the bed, dares not touch it.
Heavy steps take him to your side of the bed, though he does not name it that. There is no question of the other side. The other side is the place a husband might claim if he had courage enough or cruelty enough, but it means nothing. The bed is soft because you are in it, the room is shelter because you occupy it. If there is any warmth in the world in this night, it gathers where you breathe.
He is not brave or cruel enough to climb into bed, but the Gods know he is not strong enough to step away from it, from you.
He goes to the floor beside it instead.
He lowers himself carefully at first, then less carefully.
By the time he reaches the cold floor, the movement feels less like sitting and more like yielding. The boards are cold beneath him. He notices it distantly, and almost welcomes it. Cold is honest, hardness is honest. Neither asks anything of him, neither allow him to forget himself.
His shoulder comes to rest against the bedframe, the edge of the mattress.
For a moment he sits upright, knees drawn toward him, boots still on, cloak still around his shoulders. A trespasser, dressed for leaving, dressed to give away how much he does not belong here. His hands settle against his knees, fingers curling into the fabric there. He isn’t sure if he’s holding himself in place or holding himself back, and gathers the difference does not matter.
The ring presses cold against his finger.
He touches it, deliberately, once. Only once.
Above him, you shift in your sleep. Daeron goes still.
The sheets whisper. Your hand moves a little on the pillow, fingers loosening, palm open and empty beside your face. He looks at it, because a hand is safer to look at than a cheek, the delicate fan of lashes, a mouth he knows the softness of. Because a hand may be imagined without the gnashing violence of wanting the person it belongs to.
But even that is not safe.
Your fingers are soft with rest, and his own tighten in his clothes until the knuckles ache.
He thinks, absurdly, of touching nothing.
Not you, not the sheet, not the covers hanging near his shoulder. Not the edge of the mattress where his head has begun, without permission, to lean. He thinks of making himself into a shape that asks for nothing and leaves no mark. He thinks that if he can be still enough, quiet enough, perhaps this will not count as taking.
Only a moment, he tells himself.
That much is allowed.
Perhaps not allowed, but forgivable. So small an indulgence it may pass unnoticed by Gods and wives alike.
Only a moment, and then he will go. He will rise before morning, before the servants breach the quiet, before light can make something of him. You will wake to nothing worse than the room you had before him, the bed undisturbed, the air untroubled. You will never need to know that he brought himself here and then thought better than to burden you with the knowledge.
He will spare you this.
He lets his head rest, barely, against the edge of the mattress.
The covers are soft beneath his temple. Not warm, not enough. Enough.
Your breathing moves above him.
In.
Out.
The room follows it.
Or he does.
The hearth gives a low crackle no more than a settling ember. Once, that night have become something else. Tonight, it remains small, contained, simply a sound in a room where someone is sleeping.
Your breathing returns.
In.
Out.
The dark does not empty itself around him, it has a rhythm now, a body. A witness that asks nothing, knows nothing, but stays. Daeron listens to it with the attention of a man counting waves from a shore, though he does not know what shore he has reached, or whether he is meant to be there, or how long before the tide drags him back.
Only a moment, he thinks again, but the thought has lost its teeth.
His fingers loosen in the fabric against his knees.
His body, traitorous and wise, gives up another inch of itself. Then another. The line of his spine softens against the bedframe. His eyes close.
He means to open them.
He will.
Before morning, before you wake, before this becomes anything that must be answered for.
Above him, you breathe, and sleep takes him before he can forbid it.
Thank you for reading! In case this story isn't evidence enoiugh, Orbiter by Noah Kahan has me on a chokehold.
There's a second part to this btw, I'll try to post it soon.
Daeron has not drunk in three days.
By the time his father summons him, his hands are shaking, his mouth is clean, and the woman promised to him is close enough to become real. Maekar means to warn him. Daeron hears judgment. Between them stand an arranged marriage, a dead mother, an untouched cup of wine, and every failed attempt at love neither of them knows how to name.
Daeron's perspective of the confrontation with Maekar in Nothing between them but. I really recommend reading it too, as it gives some needed context to Maekar's actions and words.
Word Count: 5.8k
Warnings: alcohol dependence, alcohol withdrawal symptoms, self-loathing, implied past sexual trauma/non-consensual sexual encounter, references to sex as self-destruction, complicated father-son dynamics, grief/mourning, and prophetic dream imagery. Dyanna Dayne is very missed. Daeron already being very normal about his wife betrothed. Daeron needs a hug, and Maekar needs better communication skills.
A/N: This is Daeron's perspective of his interaction with his father before the Martells/Reader show up in Summerhall, and it was supposed to be a short thing and lead to Daeron meeting Reader and its whole own thing, but the tragedy of Maekar and his gaggle of failsons is too good to pass up on writing. I'll post the actual first meeting and what comes after this soon.
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote by Marilynne Robinson: “A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”
The button will not go through.
Daeron stares at it for a moment, as if it had made a choice. A small pearl thing, smooth and harmless, caught against the slit of his cuff with all the stubbornness of a castle gate. His fingers hold it badly, that is the trouble. They hold everything badly this morning.
He tries again.
Misses.
“Fuck.” He breathes.
The word makes the room no less quiet. His chambers at Summerhall remain as they have been since dawn: curtains drawn back, basin water gone cold, coat laid readily across the chair, boots polished by someone with more faith in the day than Daeron has ever possessed. On the side table, where a better man might keep correspondence or flowers or some harmless token of civilized living, stands a decanter of wine and a clean cup beside it.
The cup remains empty.
That seems important in a way he dislikes. A full cup would accuse him of weakness, but an empty one accuses him of something far worse.
Daeron looks away.
Three days without wine have not made him better. They have only made him easier to find, to see.
His hands know it, trembling and imprecise. His stomach knows it, tied in knots and threatening to turn on him. The thin skin around his eyes knows it, tender with the pressure of too little sleep. His mouth is dry enough that his tongue feels ill-fitted to it. Beneath his clean shirt, sweat gathers where there should be none. Every sound comes too sharply, every line of light too cleanly, as if the world has been scrubbed of mercy while he was not looking.
He has done this before. That is the irritating part. If this were the first attempt, he might have been able to find some dignity in it. Men always liked beginnings, they make for good songs afterward. A first effort, a first step, a first brave march.
This is not that.
Daeron has counted hours before. He has counted mornings. He has counted how long his hands could be made to obey before the shaking gave him away. Once, he lasted long enough to become briefly, stupidly, proud, which had made the first cup afterward taste almost like punishment.
He has failed enough times to know better than to name this anything.
Still, the cup remains empty.
He takes the cuff again, slower this time. Slowness does not help, it only makes the tremor easier to see. His fingers work the button, miss once more, then finally force it through.
There. A victory fit for songs.
Daeron flexes his hand and watches the tremor return as soon as the task is done. Small, not yet violent, not enough to excuse himself from anything.
The Martells will arrive before long.
His betrothed will arrive before long.
The thought should be simple. A fact of the day, no more intimate than the weather. The eldest daughter of Prince Mors Martell is coming to Summerhall with her father, her mother, and at least one of eight sisters, though Daeron knows better than to admit how certain he is of that last detail.
There is very little dignity in having sought to know the number of a woman’s sisters when she has not been the one to tell him.
He did not ask his father. There are questions a man could only ask if he trusts the answer not to be used against him, and Daeron has never been quite that drunk in Maekar’s presence. He has learned in pieces instead. A servant speaking too freely. A visiting Dornishman correcting another man’s mistake within earshot. Daella, bright-eyed and pleased to know something her brother did not, repeating half a conversation she overheard from some lady who had no business speaking near children. Egg, with all the solemn importance of a boy entrusted with espionage, informing him that the Water Gardens have pools enough to make Summerhall look mean and dusty by comparison.
Daeron did laugh at that. Too late, probably. He does that sometimes. Smiles too quickly, laughs too late, answers before he knows which face he meant to wear. Sobriety has left him badly timed, arriving had a breath before or after himself.
Still, he listened.
Your name. Your father’s name. Eldest daughter. Raised in the Water Gardens. A sister close enough in age to be brought north with you. A mother still living. A household warm enough, if rumor has any use, to send daughters into the world with more brightness around them than fear.
Fragments.
Enough to imagine, not enough to know.
That is exactly the place shame has chosen to live in.
Daeron turns from the mirror before he can meet his own eyes. He sees enough in passing: collar straight, skin pale, hair made nearly respectable, the hollowed look no water could wash out of his face. Wine does not make him less ruined, he is aware of that, but at least it gives the ruin somewhere to blur. Without it, every part of him sists too close to the surface.
And he has already thought of you too often from below the surface of himself.
Not properly, not cleanly. Not as a man ought to think of the woman being sent across half the realm to marry him. He had thought of you in rooms where no decent man would have brought a stranger, much less a future wife. In taverns, in borrowed beds, in the bruised hours after touch had become something done to him and then taken away. He has thought of you as light under a closed door, as warmth behind glass, as a hand he has no right to imagine reaching for him.
Stay, some ruined part of him has thought, without deciding what the word means.
Stay through the night, stay through the shaking, stay when the dreams come, stay after finding out what his father has given you. Stay, as if staying were something one could as of a stranger and not another kind of indecency.
He has not asked. That matters, he has enough shame left to know it matters.
But he has imagined it.
That is perhaps the first of many wrongs he has done onto you, and you have not crossed the yard yet.
His hand twitches toward the side table before has given it permission.
Daeron stills.
The decanter waits. Dark glass, darker wine. A simple arrangement: lift, pour, drink, and the morning will soften at the edges. His hands would become less visibly treacherous, his mouth would stop feeling like old linen, his eyes would lose some of that awful clarity. By the time his father sends for him, he might become almost convincing.
Too easy. Too familiar.
Too early to begin disappointing a stranger.
That is all the explanation he can bear, so he keeps it. Courtesy, perhaps. Pride, if one wished to be generous. Spite, if one wished to be more accurate. His father has arranged the stage again, selected the witnesses, set the morning in motion, and Daeron has no doubt he is expected to arrive already guilty of something.
He has altered only one thing.
The stage will not see him enter drunk.
A knock comes at the door.
Daeron’s fingers curl once at his side before he opens them again.
“Prince Daeron,” Comes the servant’s voice from the other side of the closed door, “Prince Maekar requests you in his study.”
Of course he does.
For a moment, Daeron looks back at the side table. The empty cup remains beside the decanter, clean and patient and horrible. He thinks, absurdly, that someone might see it after he leaves. That someone might understand what it means to leave it that way.
The wanting of credit is so pathetic it nearly makes him laugh.
He does not laugh. He crosses the room instead.
His coat sits properly over his shoulders. His collar does not choke him, regardless of what his body believes. His hair was passable, if quite the wrong shade for his blood. His breath is clean. His hands are still his hands, unfortunately, but there is no helping that.
When he opens the door, he knows the servants sees a pale prince dressed well enough for ceremony and smiling a little too quickly.
Daeron gives him no answer, there is nothing to say that would not come out wrong.
The cup remains empty behind him.
By the time he reaches his father’s door, his hands are already clasped behind his back.
It is not enough to still them. He knows that before he knocks. The tremor has a will of its own this morning, small and spiteful, running beneath the skin as if his body has learned to whisper against him. But behind his back the evidence becomes less immediate, less available. A private disgrace, if there is such a thing left in him.
He knocks. Maekar bids him enter.
His father looks up from the desk, and Daeron has the sour, childish thought that he should have drunk after all. Not because wine would have made the room kinder; wine does not make rooms kind, wine only teaches the walls to stand further away.
But it might have made his father’s eyes less exact.
Maekar sees the collar first, perhaps. The clean coat. The straight line of him. Then his gaze lowers, briefly, to the hands hidden behind Daeron’s back.
There.
Daeron clasps them harder.
His spine straightens before he gives it permission. His mouth finds a smile too quickly, polished and thin and almost certainly wrong for the moment. He knows it is wrong because he feels it arrive before feeling anything worth smiling about.
That happens now. Smiles too early, laughter too late, answers hald a breath before the thought that should have shaped them.
“You sent for me.”
Maekar’s eyes return to his face.
Daeron cannot tell if his father knows. That might be the worst of it.
If Maekar knows he has not drunk, then he has decided not to name it. If he does not know, then Daeron is simply this wretched in his natural state. Pale, shaking, sharp-mouthed, and arranged badly around an absence.
Neither possibility improves the room.
“The Martells are soon to arrive,” His father tells him instead, “You will meet them properly.”
Daeron let one brow lift, “I had intended a bow, at least.”
The scowl on his father’s brow only deepens.
“A bow is the least of it. You will stand in the yard when they arrive. You will be in the gallery after. You will sit at supper, you will answer when spoken to, you will not make my brother lie to pretend your impertinence is charm.”
A neat list. Daeron has always admired his father’s talent for making disaster sound administrable.
“So, not merely a bow.”
Something hardens in Maekar’s face. Not much. Maekar has never needed much.
“No running. No hiding. No vanishing into whatever fucking inn has learned your name this month.”
The words land line a strike, and for a breath he thinks he would have preferred one.
He is here. that is the first answer, the stupid one, the child’s answer. He is standing in front of his father with clean breath and a dry mouth and his hands shaking behind his back because he has spent three days refusing the thing his body and the fire waiting behind close lids are still asking for. He is here, precisely where he has been told to be, waiting to meet the woman he has pitied and imagined and wronged before she has even crossed the yard. He is here, and he is scared of what this means, of what this will ask of him and he will fail to do or be.
I am here, he nearly says.
The words rise so plainly that he has to bury them under an insolent smile, and a quick retort of,
“I generally wait until after the first course before making a run for it.”
“This is precisely the kind of insolence I am warning you against.”
“I thought you liked precision.”
“I like sons who do not make sport of their own disgrace.”
The words of through him more cleanly than they should.
His hands tighten behind his back. Thumb into palm, nail into skin. A place to put the answer, a place to put the small, humiliating thing inside him that still wants to be recognized.
I have not drunk.
There. Smaller than a plea, worse thana. Plea. A fact so pathetic he can hardly bear that it matters to him.
I have not drunk.
I am trying.
I am still here, under all of it.
Daeron looks at his father and imagines saying it. He imagines the words in the room, naked and insufficient. He images Maekar’s face then: anger, perhaps, disbelief; worse, understanding.
No.
No, he will not offer his father that. He will not stand in Maekar’s study asking to be praised for arriving sober to the ruin arranged for him.
So he gives the room something sharper.
“A rare breed,” Daeron says, “You should have had more of them.”
Maekar stills. Good, Daeron thinks, and knows at once there is nothing good in it.
“Do not make a fucking joke of this.”
“That was not my intention.”
“No,” Maekar says, “Your intentions are usually worse.”
There it is again, the old shape of the room. Maekar’s anger, Daeron’s mouth, the small bitter satisfaction of proving a man right before he can finish accusing him.
It would be easier if his father were cruel.
Daeron has had that thought before, and thinks it again now with no more justice than he did the first time. Cruelty would be simple, cruelty would allow for hatred cleanly given and cleanly kept. Maekar is not cruel. He is disappointed, impatient, proud, brutal, but he is not cruel. He is a father, trying in whatever hard-handed fashion he trusts, to keep his son from becoming worse than he already is.
Daeron knows that.
Daeron hates his father for making it impossible to hate him honestly.
“That is fortunate,” He answers instead of anything more honest, “That no one troubled himself with my intentions.”
“You were told of the match, boy.”
Yes, he had been told. Daeron had been told of a match. A letter, a name, a House. A daughter of Dorne to be placed beside him in whatever shape the realm required. It had been possible, then, to make the thing abstract, to hold it at a distance, to think of seals and bloodlines and old debts of war instead of a woman with dust on the hem of her dress and a life still warm behind her.
The distance is gone.
Somewhere below, somewhere beyond the ordered stone of Summerhall, a Martell caravan is drawing nearer with every breath he wastes in his father’s study. It carries Mors Martell’s eldest daughter. A woman with eight sisters, if Daella’s bright little thefts and Egg’s solemn reports can be trusted. A woman raised at the Water Gardens, among pools and children and heat and the easy noise of a life Daeron has never known how to enter without ruining.
You will miss it. The thought arrives with such certainty that it feels les like pity than indictment.
You will miss the Water Gardens. You will miss your sisters. You will miss the sun that had known you first, the courtyards, the voices, the belonging. Summerhall will be too pale, too still, too full of ghosts that are not yours. You will hate it, perhaps. Or worse, you will be cou8rteous about hating it and endure it.
And he will be there, the reason for all that loss, standing sober and shaking in a room where his father has the gall to speak as if warning had made anything about this merciful.
Dorne’s sun, someone had called you once. Or one of its suns. Daeron does not remember the face of who spoke enough to remember the exact words. A courtier speaking too freely, perhaps. A Dornishman warmed by wine. Daella repeating something she had not understood with all the careless accuracy of a child.
He remembers it now and resents his father for it.
For giving him a sun and expecting him not to darken it.
His smile sharpens.
“I was told of a match. I was not aware I had become a problem that required Dornish assistance.”
“Do not speak of her as if she were being sent here to scrape you clean.”
“Is she not?”
“If I thought a whore would serve you better,” Maekar barks, “I would not have troubled Dorne.”
For one breath, Daeron’s wrist remembers a hand.
It is not memory, not properly. Only pressure, sudden and vile in its precision, closing around bone. His fingers flex behind his back before he can stop them. The room remains Maekar’s study, the light remains morning. His father stands before him. No one touches him.
Still, his body has never been a reliable historian.
It has been used too many ways to keep an honest account. By others, by himself. As escape, as punishment, as proof that he could still be wanted in some shape if not any shape worth keeping. He has gone to strangers because thought became unbearable, he has let hands make decisions for him because wanting nothing was easier when someone else wanted enough for moth, he has woken afterward with disgust in his mouth and no clean place to put it.
Whore.
The word lands not as accusation, but as inventory. Daeron smiles because his ace has always been more obedient than the rest of him.
There are words a man can survive by making them ridiculous. That is not one of them. Not today, not with his skin too close to the air and his mouth clean enough that shame has nothing to hide behind.
Daeron’s smile remains. That is something, at least.
“Touching of you,” He says, “To trouble an entire principality on my behalf.”
“I troubled a man I trust, ” Trust. Daeron could laugh at that, if the timing of him were better. Trust is everywhere in this match, Placed on his father, your father, you most likely. All that trust, arranged around Daeron like scaffolding around a collapsing wall. None of it placed on him. Maekar continues, “A man who trusts me, enough to bestow his favorite daughter to you.”
Favorite. The word sits badly in the room.
Daeron knows, suddenly, that he did not know this. Not properly. He knows you are the eldest, he knows you have sisters, he knows you were raised in the Water Gardens because Daella repeats things too prettily to suspect how useful they are and Egg cannot keep secrets to himself when he thinks he has acquired them in service of a brother. He knows fragments gathered without dignity and kept without permission.
But not this.
Favorite daughter.
Someone’s favorite daughter is crossing the realm to meet him.
For one moment, absurdly, Daeron wonders what it is like to be named that by anyone. Favorite. The thought is so young and stupid that contempt rises at once to beat it bloody.
“His favorite.” He repeats
“Yes.”
“Then his judgement is poorer than you remember.”
His father’s hand tightens once at his side.
Daeron sees it because he is watching for the hit, bracing for it. He is always watching for the hit, even when the blow is only a word and even when he has invited it.
Maekar does not strike. That, too, is almost worse.
“Her Grace, your grandmother, has written,” His father says instead, “She expects her kin to be received with honor befitting of her.”
“Kin?” He asks.
“Her Grace’s brother is Prince of Dorne. This girl is his granddaughter.”
“So, kin.”
“Not close enough to trouble a septon.”
“Few things are, in this family.”
Maekar glares at him, and Daeron inclines his head. Apology without repentance, a courtly form he learned quite young.
“Myriah knows something of leaving Dorne for a Targaryen court, which is what your betrothed is doing.” His father continues.
The insolence in him shifts, not gone but altered.
“Summerhall is not King’s Landing.”
“Fuck, no.”
For one strange moment, they agree, they share something.
Daeron dislikes it more than he expects to. Anger has rules. Agreement leaves too many doors open. There is a shared thing between them suddenly, small and unpleasantly alive: the knowledge of that city, of its polished rot, of its teeth under silk, of the way it turns women into history and men into witnesses. Summerhall has ghosts enough of its own, but it is not that.
Maekar looks away first.
“Her father is a good man.”
“I know.”
“No. You know his name, I know the man,” Daeron concedes with a gesture of his hands he hardly means. “I know what he was when men were dying around him, what was left when rank and pretty words had no use. He returned to Dorne with his honor intact.”
“A rare habit.”
“Yes,” His father agrees, “Rarer than it ought to be.”
Daeron looks away first this time.
“Mors left a daughter at home when he marched against the Blackfyre rebels, as I left you and your brother,” Maekar tells him, pushing on as always, “He swore he would get back to her if he had to crawl through every godsforsaken mile of the Reach to do it.”
“And did he?”
“He did.”
Of course he did.
Men in his father’s stories often do. They return form war, they keep honor intact, they crawl through godsforsaken miles for daughters who run to them. They make themselves into the kind of men other men can trust.
“He got back. To himself, to them,” His father insists, with all the subtlety of a ramming rod. “And he stayed long enough for them, for her, to believe in him again.”
Daeron’s eyes move before he can stop them.
Not quite a flinch, not enough to name. Enough for Maekar to see, perhaps. Enough for Daeron to hate himself for offering it.
Stayed.
The word finds him too easily.
Stay through the night. Stay when the dreams begin. Stay after discovering what has been given to you. Stay, as if staying were simply because men in stories made it home at the end.
His father is still speaking of Mors Martell, he knows, but you have become brighter in Daeron’s mind with every word. Not more known, but certainly less mercifully imagined. A daughter with a father who returned, a household that expected return and received it. A woman loved loudly enough that the word favorite can be said of her in a study half a world away.
Poor thing, Daeron thinks again, and this time the pity has teeth.
“Your mother had no easy husband.” Maekar says, startling him.
The room changes.
Not visibly, nothing as generous as that. The desk remains where it is, the folded letter remains. His father remains before him, hard-eyed and living. But something in Daeron goes young so quickly it feels like falling.
Dyanna.
They do not speak of her.
Not really, not Maekar, not Daeron. Others can say her name and have it mean something reverent, something missed, something free of jagged edges and things unsaid. Aemon can speak of her gently. Rhae has nothing to remember and nothing to miss. Daella can remember fragments and make them bright because children are allowed to keep the dead in color. Egg knows her more as absence than as mother. Aerion makes everything too sharp and brutal to be trusted with grief.
But Maekar and Daeron do not speak of her.
They had known her the longest, and perhaps that is part of the trouble. Between them there is too much mother, too much wife, too much woman once living enough to make breakfast matter and Summerhall alive. Too much of the night she died and the days before it and the dream Daeron understood too late.
He had seen something before she died. He thinks he might have told his father, once.
He didn’t see anything clearly. Nothing is ever given to him clearly enough to save anyone. That is the Gods’ little cruelty. Fire without translation, blood without date, a door closing somewhere inside sleep. He had woken afraid and useless for months, and only later, after his mother’s body had become still and the house had changed its breathing, he understood what the dream had meant.
His father is still looking at him, something haunted in his gaze.
“That did not excuse me from trying to be better than I was.” Maekar says.
Daeron’s response comes lightly. Too lightly.
“I’m sure she appreciated the effort.”
He knows, the moment the words leave him, that they have gone where he meant them to go. He also knows that he means them.
Not at Dyanna, never at her. The thought of his mother hearing him say something like this makes something in him recoil. No, the cruelty is for Maekar, because his father brought her into the room as proof, as lesson, as one more dead thing Daeron is meant to stand straighter beneath.
Maekar’s face alters. Only slightly. His father, ever the soldier, pushes again regardless,
“She deserved more than effort.”
Yes, Daeron thinks. She did.
They all do.
He says nothing.
There are answers too honest to survive the air. He could say that his mother deserved a son who had known what his dreams meant before the world made meaning of them for him. He could say she deserved sons who did not become drunkards or monsters or boys trying so desperately to become men before tenderness can find them. He could say his father deserved to have kept the one person who might have given him more than fire and blood, more than war.
He says nothing because silence, unlike truth, can sometimes be mistaken for restraint.
“So will your wife.”
Daeron recoils.
Not visibly, or he hopes not visibly at least. But something in him pulls back with the instinctual, animal certainty of a hand drawn away from flame before pain has made itself known.
Wife.
The word should not be able to touch him. You are not in the room, not yet in the yard even. You are still road dust and rumor, a name gathered from other people’s mouths, a woman carried closer by horses and duty and whatever trust Mors Martell has been foolish enough to place in Maekar’s household.
But the word finds you anyway.
It finds the shameful places where Daeron has already imagined you staying. It finds the rooms where he had no right to bring even the thought of you. It finds the small, ruined hope of a hand that does not leave, a body that remains beside his through the night, a voice that does not sour when the dreams make a coward of him.
Wife makes that hope uglier. Wife gives it walls, witnesses, obligation.
Wife makes staying sound less like mercy and more like something that might be done to you.
“Not my wife yet.”
The correction comes too quickly, too sharply.
As if he can spare you by refusing the word, as if the distance between betrothed and wife is wide enough to hide you from him.
“She will be,” His father sentences. A breath, and he adds, “You will not shame her.”
Daeron’s smile returns before he can choose a wiser face.
“There he is.”
“Do not.”
“I was beginning to worry we had wandered into sentiment.”
“I said do not.”
The words should frighten him more than they do. Perhaps they would, on another morning. Perhaps wine would give them more weight. Instead Daeron only feels the old tired shape of it: his father warning him against becoming the very thing everyone already sees.
“She is not being sent here to watch you rot,” Maekar says, “She is not being dragged from Dorne so you can make a tragedy of yourself in front of an audience.”
“No,” Daeron retorts, “I expect that would be discourteous.”
“Seven Hells, Daeron.”
His name in his father’s mouth is rough enough to make his hands tighten again.
It would be easier if Maekar only hated him.
It would be easier if Daeron did not know, somewhere under anger and under shame, that his father is trying to put a hand between him and the edge the way he would put his hand over the edge of a table during Egg’s first stumbling steps.
A hard hand, a soldier’s hand, a hand that grips too tightly and calls the bruise rescue.
Still a hand.
That is what makes Daeron want to pull away until bone shows.
“You think you are the first man to close his eyes and see fire?” Maekar asks, mouth turned into a snarl.
Daeron goes very still.
There are things his father has no right to touch.
The thought comes hot, immediate, almost clean. No right. No right to make the dreams into war, into discipline, into something men survive because men are expected to survive all manner of useful horrors. No right to place his own ghosts over Daeron’s and call them the same shape.
And yet.
Maekar knows fire. Maekar knows men dying. Maekar knows what it is to wake with violence lodged beneath the skin. That is why the line wounds more deeply than ignorance would have. His father knows enough.
No, Daeron wants to say. But I think I am the only man in this room who cannot tell whether the fire is memory, warning, punishment, or madness.
He does not say it.
To explain the dreams is to make them smaller and more monstrous at once. To speak them aloud is to invite the maester’s dry concern, Baelor’s pity, Maekar’s discipline, Aerion’s too-bright interest. To say, I see things, and sometimes they come true, is to become either liar, lunatic, or tragedy.
Daeron has never decided which one would be worst.
“Men live with it,” His father continues, and Daeron thinks of the men that died against Maekar’s shield wall in the Redgrass Field. “They stand. They do what is required of them.”
“Good,” He concedes with a tired attempt at a shrug, “Not much does.”
That one comes too close to truth, he feels it as soon as it leaves him, that little exposed nerve of a sentence. Not enough to take back, but too much to look at.
For a moment, neither of them speaks.
Outside the study, Summerhall continues arranging itself around the arrival. Footsteps pass in the corridor, somewhere below a servant calls for someone to move with more care. The household is becoming ceremony. Daeron can feel it, the great machine of welcome turning its gears, and the center of it a woman he has not met is being carried closer by every moment he spends in the room.
A woman whose name he knows.
A woman whose sisters he has learned by theft and accident.
A woman he has imagined most often when he least deserved to imagine anything good.
His hands shake behind his back.
“You can change,” Maekar states, solemn and so, so tired.
Daeron looks at him.
The amusement comes by habit, but it cannot quite make it to his mouth.
There it is. Not the dig at his vices, not the warnings, not even his mother.
This is worse, because some part of Daeron, the weakest and least dignified part, wants the words.
You can change.
He wants them as if they are absolution. As if his father has found whatever remains of him under the rot and named it something living. As if three days without wine, one empty cup, one clean breath, one morning spent buttoning cuffs with treacherous fingers might count as the beginning of a man and not merely the delay of a failure.
He almost says it then.
I have not drunk.
Not proudly, not even defensively. More like a hand lifted from underwater.
I have not drunk.
I swear, I am trying.
There is something still here.
But Maekar’s face is hard with hope stricken into command, and Daeron knows what the words would become once spoken. Small, begging, insufficient. A son asking his father to notice that he has managed, for three days, not to pour himself into a cup nor lose himself to madness.
He cannot bear it.
So he says nothing.
“You will change,” Maekar insists again, “Gods be damned.”
There is no room in it for the thing Daeron has already done, no room for the shame of it, no room for the wanting of it. Only the future, sharpened into order and placed against his throat like a blade.
Outside, a horn sounds from the yard.
The Martells have arrived.
Daeron turns his head toward the sound because it is easier than looking at his father.
For one moment, the desire for wine comes so violently that it is nearly physical. Not taste, not pleasure, just…relief. The empty cup in his chambers returns to him with hideous clarity: clean, patient, waiting beside the decanter as if he has only postponed the inevitable.
Then the horn sounds again.
You are here.
Terror replaces thirst so completely that he almost laughs.
When he looks back at Maekar, the smile has found its proper place again. Bright, brittle, a little too sharp.
“Then I suppose,” He says, “I should go and begin improving.”
Maekar does not answer gently. Daeron never expected him to.
“See that you do.”
Daeron bows because ceremony has uses, it gives the body something to do while the rest of him decides whether to fall apart.
He leaves the study.
The door closes behind him, and for a moment the corridor is empty enough to be merciful.
Then his hands come forward.
They are worse now, or perhaps he only hates them more. The tremor moves visibly through the fingers, delicate as a secret and twice as damning. He looks at them for one breath, two, then reaches inside his coat.
The glove are folded where he placed them earlier and pretended not to know why.
Leather over the hands, courtesy over the shaking. A prince’s hands arranged neatly over whatever lives beneath him.
He pulls the first glove on too hard. The leather catches at his knuckles. He tugs until the fit is smooth, until his fingers look steadier than they are. The second follows, tighter, better.
By the time he starts toward the stairs, his hands are covered, his smile is ready, and every exposed thing in him has learned, for the moment, how to stand.
Thank you for reading!! Would love ot hear your thoughts!!
Pairing: Daeron Targaryen x Betrothed!Reader, Maekar Targaryen x Dyanna Dayne
Summary:
Maekar knows what it is to return from war with blood still under the nails. He knows what it is to be loved badly, and to love badly in return. He knows, too, that Daeron is sober, shaking, and already looking for the nearest way out.
The Martells are coming to Summerhall. Maekar has arranged his son’s marriage for reasons he can name, and for reasons he refuses to.
Word Count: 4.2k
Warnings: Maekar is tired. References to war and allusions to PTSD, prophetic dreams, drinking as a coping mechanism, arranged marriages, grief/loss. Martell Reader. 'Maekar misses his wife and doesn't know how to talk to his son', the fic.
A/N: This is mostly, entirely almost, a Maekar & Daeron fic. It's a small companion piece to a future Daeron fic, set on the day his betrothed arrives at Summerhall. I originally wanted to understand the same interaction from Maekar’s side before writing it from Daeron’s, because the gap between what Maekar means and what Daeron hears is basically the whole wound, and it ended up looking pretty enough to post.
Also, listening to Niño by Milo J on repeat while writing this.
This is another installment of the Where I am good and loved collection/series, but like all pieces it can be read as a standalone.
Title is from the quote by Marilynne Robinson: "A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension."
His mother’s letter had arrived three days before the Martells.
It sat on Maekar’s desk, opened and closed and then opened again, for three days. It sits there now, parchment gone soft after so many folds and refolds over the same creases. His mother’s hand remained neat despite her age, Dornish in its confidence, queenly in its restraint, and motherly in its infuriating ability to make a son feel thirteen again with a few lines of ink.
She expects her kin to be received with warmth, with honor.
That had been the shape of most of it. Courtesy. Or warning, if one had the sense to read a mother properly. Myriah Martell had become Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, gave her husband four sons, but she had never ceased being a daughter of Dorne. She had learned the ways of King’s Landing, endured its courtesies, its damp, its rot; but he knew even without her reminder that her heart belonged to Sunspear.
The girl on her way to Summerhall is no granddaughter of Myriah’s blood, not close enough for a septon to trouble himself over, anyhow. Her Grace’s brother is Prince Maron of Dorne, and so the Prince’s granddaughter is kin in the way all Martells are kin when they are sent northward into halls built for dragons and men pretending fire can replace the sun.
No one needs to tell Maekar what his mother means by honor, by warmth.
Receive her properly. Do not let your house swallow her whole.
Myriah wrote a few additional lines meant for Daeron. Maekar read them once, then again, then left the paper where it was, because what the fuck is he supposed to do with the softness laid in it?
Be patient with her, my boy, the Queen wrote. Dorne is not easily replaced, and no woman raised beneath its sun leaves it and forgets it. She will miss what she has left. Let her.
Then, beneath that, in a small hand:
Do not despair of it either. A woman may come to love the life made for her and still hold dear the life she left. I pray, in time, that she may look upon the road that brought her to you and find nothing in it she would alter.
His mother, apparently, believes there is still something in Daeron that could be trusted with another person’s homesickness.
That is the part that sits poorly with him. Not because he wishes to disbelieve it, because the Gods know he doesn’t. Disbelief would certainly be easier, Maekar was good at it, was practiced at dressing it like discipline. It would have been easier to look at his eldest son, see the wine, the inns, the whores, the vanishing acts, the insolent mouth sharpened against every hand held toward him in an offer or a strike, and called the matter settled.
Many days, he did.
Then Daeron would look up too quickly at some sound no one else heard, or stand sober in the yard watching Egg with his hands hidden behind his back to hide the trembling, or smile in that bright, brittle way that told Maekar the blow he dealt had landed exactly where he had meant it to land and where he had not meant it to land at all.
And then the matter would not stay settled.
Maekar turns his eyes away from the letter.
Beyond the window, Summerhall is readying itself. Horses in the yard, household servants running around with more purpose than usual, banners and carpets checked twice and then thrice because Baelor is present and his brother has a way of reminding everyone of the use of ceremony. The Martell convoy had been sighted before noon, which meant they would arrive before long.
Prince Mors Martell will be with them, and the thought settles differently than the others.
Maekar has not seen him in years, not properly, not outside letters and courtly reports and the occasional message that managed to sound like an old song even when it contained nothing but exchanges about weather, horses, and daughters. Once, he had known your father without silk, without rank, without a daughter to deliver to a prince’s household. He had known him in mud and smoke, with his mouth bloodied and temper intact, laughing at the clash of swords and shields and lances in a way Maekar had thought insane until he understood men find their own way of surviving seeing others dying, of enduring the killing and the fighting and the fearing.
Mors had gone to war, to join the Dornish host of King Daeron, with one daughter at home and another child on the way.
A daughter, he said the maesters had told him, and Maekar reminded him that maesters had been wrong before and would be wrong again with the same dry certainty they brought to all things. But the Martell had said he hoped they were right. He remembers, more clearly than he cares to, the way the man’s face had changed when he spoke of the child already born. Three years old, old enough to run to him when he returned, and young enough, Mors had said, that if he died you would remember him only through stories and lies told kindly by those who loved him.
He had said it smiling. Then he had said, as easily as everything else, that he would return for you.
If nothing else, for you.
Maekar had said nothing of the children waiting for him. Daeron already old enough to ask questions in that unsettling way of his and half-lost to nightmares only his mother knew how to face, Aerion small enough to still look harmless when sleeping. He had thought of them then, though. Thought of Dyanna. Thought of the rooms that existed somewhere beyond the field, beyond the smoke, beyond the reality that the hours to come would require more killing of him if he meant to survive them.
At the end, he had returned.
And so did Mors Martell.
Not whole, perhaps. Maekar has little patience for men who speak of war as nothing but glory and victory, who pretend war spits anyone out whole. But the shape and manner does not matter, all that matters is the return. A man can come back with blood under his nails and still stand in a nursery, still lay at his wife’s side, still let small hands take his fingers and pull him toward a life that had gone on while he was away.
Dyanna knew that better than he had. It was her hand, he still recalls, that took his and brought it to the soft sand-colored hair of his sleeping son’s head, with a silent promise that he could learn to hold more than a mace again.
She had no easy husband, she had married a prince and received a soldier with the temper of a drawn sword, a fourth son’s pride, and very little talent for gentleness. He came back from war with anger too near the surface and silence lodged beneath it, with grief and resentment and old violence making a fog of ordinary things. Some mornings, he felt made more of command than flesh, and some nights, he laid awake beside her and counted the dead by the shape of their last cries.
And Dyanna had expected him at breakfast.
That is what he remembers now, with the letter in his hand and the Martells drawing closer to Summerhall. Breakfast, the questions that assumed he would still know how to answer: whether Daeron had slept through the night, how they ought to handle Aerion’s refusal to anything but honey cake, whether he meant to sit there glowering at his own sons until they mistook it for conversation.
She expected him to remain part of the life he had returned to, in whatever shape he had returned.
He loved her for that. Loves her still.
Badly, perhaps. Imperfectly, most likely. With more harshness than she deserved and less ease than he should have learned. But he loved her, and if there is any mercy in a household, any use in marriage beyond duty and bloodline, perhaps it is that: someone looking at the ruin war had brought home and simply talking to it about the children.
That is where Maekar’s mind returns, though he has spent the better part of three months now telling himself the match was made because it was sensible.
A good woman, from a good House. A father he trusted. A mother who raised daughters with spine enough to survive Dorne and whatever waited beyond it. A marriage with enough politics to satisfy men who cared for them and enough trust beneath it to satisfy Maekar.
Maekar looks again toward the yard, though the Martells are still far.
Daeron simply needs something to come back to.
The thought irritated him the moment it formed, because it sounded too much like prayer and too little like strategy. Daeron has rooms, brothers, sisters, a name, duties. None of it has ever kept him from vanishing into inns, into cups, into beds, into whatever half-rotten corner would have him when the dreams or the wine or the shame drive him out of sight.
A wife, Maekar knows, might not mend that. A wife is not a chain, no matter what some men make of marriage. Dyanna had not mended him, she just refused to let him disappear inside the worst parts of himself.
That is, Gods be damned, all he tries to give Daeron.
A door, a table, a reminder.
The thought makes him angry as soon as he has it. It is too much to place on a girl who has not yet entered his house, too much to expect of Daeron. Too much hope altogether, and hope has always made Maekar less patient, not more.
A knock comes at his door, leading him away from old thoughts and older angers.
“Enter.”
Daeron walks in, dressed properly enough to make the effort visible.
That is the first thing Maekar notices, and because he notices it, anger rises again.
It would have been easier if Daeron had come in drunk, easier if he had smelled of wine, if his collar sat badly, if there had been some obvious disgrace Maekar could put his hand around and name. Instead the boy stands there sober, pale, tired around the eyes, dressed like a prince, and the effort is an accusation.
His hands are behind his back. Hidden.
Maekar knows why they are hidden. He hates that he knows, hates that Daeron thought to hide them from his own father. Hates, above all, that some part of him wants to tell the boy to sit down before his knees decide the matter for him.
His son smiles. It is a thin thing. Polite, insolent, already braced.
“You sent for me.”
“The Martells are soon to arrive,” He tells him. Maekar moves around the desk to come to stand before his son, and his voice is as severe as always as he orders, “You will meet them properly.”
Daeron’s brows lift, “I had intended a bow, at least.”
“A bow is the least of it. You will stand in the yard when they arrive. You will be in the gallery after. You will sit at supper, you will answer when spoken to, you will not make my brother lie to pretend your impertinence is charm.”
A faint, familiar brightness comes into Daeron’s face, “So, not merely a bow.”
There it was, the shape of his son before flight. Not flight yet, not even refusal, only the little turn of the shoulder by which Daeron found the nearest door in every duty set before him.
Maekar has watched him do it too often.
“No running. No hiding. No vanishing into whatever fucking inn has learned your name this month.”
Daeron’s smile sharpens by a fraction, “I generally wait until after the first course before making a run for it.”
“This is precisely the kind of insolence I am warning you against.”
“I thought you liked precision.”
Maekar advances, “I like sons who do not make sport of their own disgrace.”
That blow lands. Maekar sees it in the fraction of stillness before Daeron’s smile corrects itself.
“A rare breed,” He says, “You should have had more of them.”
“Do not make a fucking joke of this.”
“That was not my intention.”
“No,” Maekar spits back, “Your intentions are usually worse.”
Daeron’s expression does not change. Not enough.
The trouble with Daeron is that he learned too young how to stand very still while bleeding in all the places a man could not see. Maekar has no patience for it, never did. He has even less patience for the knowledge that he taught him how to.
Daeron’s gaze flickers to the window. Not long enough to be called longing, but long enough for Maekar to see it.
“That is fortunate,” Daeron says, “That no one troubled himself with my intentions.”
“You were told of the match, boy.”
“I was told of a match. I was not aware I had become a problem that required Dornish assistance.”
The words were mild, and that made them worse.
Maekar felt his temper catch like dry grass touched by embers, “Do not speak of her as if she were being sent here to scrape you clean.”
Daeron looks back at him then, and for half a breath there is no smile at all. Almost resentment, almost shame, almost grief.
“Is she not?”
There are better answers, Maekar knows that even as anger rises through him. No, I would not punish an innocent girl if I didn’t think she might find contentment in this. No, I am trying, Gods help me, to give you something to give yourself to.
What comes out is rougher,
“If I thought a whore would serve you better, I would not have troubled Dorne.”
The smile remains on Daeron’s face. That is exactly how Maekar knows the blow landed.
At Daeron’s back, one shoulder shifts. Barely. His thumb is digging into his palm, then. Maekar has seen men do stranger things to hold themselves steady, has done some of them himself.
“Touching of you,” Daeron says, insolence practiced and afraid. “To trouble an entire principality on my behalf.”
“I troubled a man I trust,” He corrects. “A man who trusts me in return, enough to bestow his favorite daughter to you.”
Daeron’s expression changes. Only slightly, enough that a lesser man would have missed it and a kinder man would have pretended to.
“His favorite.” Daeron repeats. There's a tragic kind of humor entering his voice.
“Yes.”
“Then his judgment is poorer than you remember.”
Maekar’s hand tightens once at his side. There it is again, the practiced little mercy Daeron offers everyone, from prince to beggar, before they can offer it to him. The warning, the insult turned inward, the hopeless little arrangement by which no one can be disappointed if he has already named himself unworthy.
It makes Maekar want to strike the words out of his mouth. It makes him want to shake from his mind the times his father put those words there.
It makes him want, with equal force and far less use, to tell him to stop helping people leave him behind.
He does neither.
“Her Grace, your grandmother, has written,” He says instead, “She expects her kin to be received with honor befitting of her.”
“Kin?”
“This girl is granddaughter to the Prince of Dorne, Her Grace's brother.”
“So, kin.”
“Not close enough to trouble a septon.”
“Few things are, in this family.”
Maekar turned to look at him, and Daeron inclined his head despite the smile curving at his lips with dry humor, the picture of apology without repentance.
“Myriah knows something of leaving Dorne for a Targaryen court, which is what your betrothed is doing.”
Something in Daeron’s expression shifts then. It is not softness, he does not soften easily under his father’s eye, and Maekar would not trust it if he did. But the insolence changed shape for a breath, as if the blade had turned dull for a moment.
“Summerhall is not King’s Landing.” His son quips. Maekar scoffs.
“Fuck, no.”
For one moment, they stand in agreement. It is not much, it has never been much, with them. Still, there it is: the same distaste for the capital passing between them, the same knowledge of that city with its stench and teeth and rot. Summerhall had its ghosts, every Targaryen seat did, but it was not King’s Landing.
Maekar looks away first. He resents himself a little for that.
“Her father is a good man.”
“I know.”
“No. You know his name, I know the man,” Maekar says. Daeron’s mouth closes. “I know what he was when men were dying around him, what was left when rank and pretty words had no use. He returned to Dorne with his honor intact.”
“A rare habit.”
“Yes,” Maekar agrees, “Rarer than it ought to be.”
Daeron glances away first.
“Mors left a daughter at home when he marched against the Blackfyre rebels, as I left you and your brother,” Maekar says, and sentimentality is kept hidden under a tightly closed fist, but Mors never had such refrain. It is easier to recall his old friend’s words than anything else, so he says, “He swore he would get back to her if he had to crawl through every godsforsaken mile of the Reach to do it.”
Maekar remembers the letter that came months after the war was through, months after Daemon Blackfyre and his sons were slain. Mors’ hand blunt and uneven over the page, telling him that his daughter had hidden behind her mother’s skirts for half a morning before deciding he was still hers. Telling him she had followed him after that from room to room, suspicious of every door that closed between them.
“He got back. To himself, to them,” Maekar continues, “And he stayed long enough for them, for her, to believe in him again.”
Daeron’s eyes move briefly, not quite a flinch. He is listening despite himself.
That, too, angers Maekar. Everything does, when he is afraid enough.
“Your mother had no easy husband.”
The silence after that is immediate. Too immediate.
Daeron looks at him now, really looks. And Maekar feels the old grief press up under his ribs with the force of a hammer against breastplate, with a force that makes him want to turn brutal if only to get free of it.
He had not meant to bring Dyanna into the room so abruptly.
No, that is a lie.
He meant to bring her into it because she belongs here, because every choice he has made for their children has been under the shadow of what she would have wanted and what he failed to give her while she lived. He meant to use her memory, cleanly, as lesson and proof and command.
He didn’t mean to feel it.
“That did not excuse me from trying to be better than I was.” Maekar continues.
Daeron’s voice comes lightly, too lightly, as he responds, “I’m sure she appreciated the effort.”
“She deserved more than effort.”
Another silence.
There are things a father ought to say here. Perhaps Baelor would have found them, he has a gift for placing gentleness where it would do the most good and the least damage. Maekar has always been better with commands, commands did not require a man to show a wound before speaking from it.
“So will your wife.” He pronounces.
Daeron’s expression trembles for a moment, a heartbeat.
“Not my wife yet.”
“She will be.”
Daeron’s jaw tightens. His hands remain behind his back, and his back straightens.
There it is, then. The place where the conversation always ends, whether they reach it by wine or duty or the gods-damned weather. Maekar can speak of honor and mean shelter, but Daeron will hear sentence. Maekar can speak of trust and mean hope, but Daeron will hear expectation sharpening its knife.
Perhaps, Maekar thinks, he has earned that. Perhaps the boy learned the language exactly as Maekar taught it.
The admission moves through him and becomes anger before it can become anything worse.
Maekar steps closer.
“You will not shame her.”
Daeron smiles again, faint and immediate. A retreat, a familiar one.
“There he is.”
“Do not.” He warns, a frustrated sigh escaping him, but his son goes on anyway.
“I was beginning to worry we had wandered into sentiment.”
“I said do not,” Daeron’s smile thins but he holds it. Of course he holds it. The boy would go to his grave making a jest of the shovel. “She is not being sent here to watch you rot. She is not being dragged from Dorne so you can make a tragedy of yourself in front of an audience.”
“No,” Daeron agrees, “I expect that would be discourteous.”
“Seven Hells, Daeron.”
The name comes out rougher than Maekar intended. Daeron hears it, he has always heard the wrong parts and the right ones with equal precision.
Maekar thinks back to Mors Martell on that field, speaking of a little girl who would run to him with little arms stretched out to welcome him home. He thinks of Dyanna at a window with one of the boys in her arms. Thinks of Daeron as a child, solemn-eyed and strange, waking from dreams no governess could soothe and no maester could explain to Maekar’s satisfaction. He thinks of the man standing before him now, hollowed by wine and avoidance and whatever else finds him in the dark.
And beneath it all, worse because it is not spoken, is the old excuse.
Daeron has never given that excuse cleanly, and that would have been easier to answer. As boyhood left him behind entirely too soon, Daeron stopped saying I dream, stopped saying I am afraid. He stopped saying when I sleep I see things no man should see and wake with them burning behind my eyes.
Instead, he drinks. He vanishes. He laughs. He makes himself foul enough that no one cares to ask what frightens him.
Maekar knows fear when he sees it. That was the unforgivable wound. He knows it, and still some hard, furious thing in him rejects the use Daeron has made of it.
Fear is not permission to rot. Fear is not permission to drag every gift down after him and call the fall inevitable.
The anger comes because the fear is real. The roughness comes because Maekar has no gentler place to put it.
“You think you are the first man to close his eyes and see fire?” Maekar asks.
Daeron suddenly goes very still.
Good, Maekar thinks, and knows at once there is nothing good in it.
“Men live with it,” He continues. It feels not unlike a mace denting hit by hit a shield, it feels not unlike desperate strikes to try and break a shield wall. “They stand. They do what is required of them.”
“Good,” His son replies. For a breath, the smile is a tad sadder but a tad more honest when he adds, “Not much does.”
That strikes closer than Maekar likes. For a few breaths, neither of them speak.
The household carries on beyond the door: footsteps in the passages, a servant’s voice lowered and answered, the distant snap of cloth from the yard where banners are being worried into perfection. The Martells are coming. Mors is bringing the daughter he survived a war for into Maekar’s house. Myriah’s letter sits open on the desk, full of instructions Maekar does not know how to obey except by ordering someone else not to fail them.
He could stop here. The boy is sober, dressed, present.
That might have been enough for one morning. But enough has never saved Daeron from himself, has never saved Maekar from saying one more thing badly because he cannot bear the thought of leaving it unsaid.
“You can change,” Daeron looks almost amused, and the expression makes Maekar want to seize him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him the way one might shake breath back into a drowning man. “You will change, Gods be damned.”
For the first time, Daeron’s amusement seems to fail him entirely.
There he is, then. The boy under the waste of himself, the one Maekar kept seeing at the worst possible moments, always too late to know what to do with him.
Outside, somewhere below, a horn sounds from the yard.
The Martells have arrived.
Daeron turns his head toward the sound, and when he looks back at his father, the smile is in place again, bright and brittle enough to cut.
“Then I suppose I should go and begin improving.” He says.
Maekar does not answer gently. He does not know how.
“See that you do.”
Thank you for reading! i'll be posting the story of the Reader and Daeron meeting for the first time and Daeron's perspective of this interaction hopefully soon!
Chapters: 4/?
Fandom: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Alysanne Stark (Daughter of Beron)/Daeron Targaryen (Son of Maekar I)/House Manderly Characters, Dunk | Duncan the Tall/Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen, Baelor Targaryen/Lonnel Snow, Daeron Targaryen (Son of Maekar I)/Original Female Character(s), Daeron Targaryen (Son of Maekar I)/Original Male Character(s), Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen/Original Male Character(s)
Characters: Daeron Targaryen (Son of Maekar I), Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen, Maekar I Targaryen, Aerion Targaryen (Son of Maekar I), Valarr Targaryen, Aegon V "Egg" Targaryen, Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers, Beron Stark, Alysanne Stark (Daughter of Beron), Wyle Manderly, Lonnel Snow, Ser Tallad the Tall (A Song of Ice and Fire), more to be added, Dunk | Duncan the Tall (A Song of Ice and Fire)
Additional Tags: The Long Night (A Song of Ice and Fire), Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen Lives, no beta we die like baelor, Or what happens when the Long Night comes early, Daeron's shawl, Shawl Watch 2026, Horny Daeron is easily distracted, Widowed Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen, Widowed Maekar I Targaryen, aerion gets to play with wildfyre in a productive way, Daeron wants a refund on this trip of a lifetime, let Maekar smash things, Maekar takes his frustations out on wights and has the time of his life doing so, Baelor is stressed out and needs some relief badly, Dunk keeps telling the Targaryens that they need mittens and yes cold will kill a dragon
Summary:
"Oh, my sweet summer child, what do you know of fear?"
Winter comes early, and with it comes the horrors of all things. An ancient enemy has awoken from its slumber before its time.
A trial is interrupted, and with it the course of history is changed forever. House Targaryen owes a debt to House Stark, and bound by their oaths travels to the Wall and beyond in order to do the one thing it sorely needed the most. Protect the realm, protect the people, and remember what it means to truly rule for everyone.
Summary: "Oh, my sweet summer child, what do you know of fear?"
Winter comes early, and with it comes the horrors of all things. An ancient enemy has awoken from its slumber before its time.
A trial is interrupted, and with it the course of history is changed forever. House Targaryen owes a debt to House Stark, and bound by their oaths travels to the Wall and beyond in order to do the one thing it sorely needed the most. Protect the realm, protect the people, and remember what it means to truly rule for everyone.
AO3 Link
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four
Chapter One: Snow Falls, Wolves Howl
Deep within the Lands of Always Winter, a horn blows.
One blast.
A second.
A final third.
Blue eyes snap open.
Snow fell. Flat, fluffy, and cold snowflakes that fell from the sky.
Spring was supposed to have arrived. The Citadel had sent out the ravens nearly a year ago, but here it was, snow in spring, when the only kingdom in all of Westeros that was supposed to be beholden to such weather was the North. Snow was ever present even in summer. It made sense that it should still fall there.
Not Ashford though.
Not here.
And yet it fell.
It covered pavilions with a fine white powder. Tents of vendors and smallfolk could not keep it from their wares. Even the seats for where nobility were to sit and watch the Trial were covered with snow, enough that it had to be brushed aside. And yet it still kept coming. They all wake to this unwanted surprise, to a cloudy, snowy morning, when it should have been the beginning of spring.
A false spring for near on a year, for winter was still here once again.
Winter has come.
And with it have come the horrors beyond anyone’s imagination.
A horn blares. Once, low and long, and Daeron wishes it would not be so loud.
He wishes for a great many things. Such as when this farce would be over. When he could lay down in the mud and pretend that he was not witnessing yet another nightmare made true. That Aerion need not be so violent in defending their house. That he had hidden better and never made it to Ashford in the first place. That the snow would stop falling and the cold would go away. He was not made for such things and misery seemed to be his only companion.
He wished he could be braver, be stronger, be something other than who he was but then it would be a false self. Beyond no measure of doubt, what he wished for the most was not to be a false mad prophet, but simply himself without the pain and suffering the gods had forced onto him since his birth.
Gods, at least the snow had stopped momentarily. Any longer and there would be a postponement that would drive his brother up the wall, and possibly push his father into murder.
As it was, Uncle Baelor was doing that singlehandly with his choice to ride for the hedge knight. He could not remember a time when his father and uncle fought against one another outside of the training yard.
There was a miserable ending for all involved, no doubt. If only his dreams were false.
If only…
“Riders! Grey and white wolf banners!”
His head tilts off to the side because no one should be announcing anything, not when they were about to settle just who was riding for Ser Duncan. More riders, and wolf banners?
Wolves? Starks? This far south?
The large gate is opened. Barreling inside at what must be top speed are a trio of riders, all dressed for the weather better than the majority of spectators. Leathers and furs, steel at their hips, and one has a bow across her back.
Her. She. A girl.
Wait, a girl?
Daeron blinks. It could not be, for who would be so stupid, or perhaps desperate, to send a girl?
And it is very much a girl, or rather a young woman, leading the trio. A boy, for that is truly a boy and not a man, but must be one who was three-and-ten at the oldest, is at her side, and holding the banner of House Stark and a green haired man that looks around his age but wearing a sigil of a merman on his cloak. All three have the look of the North. Pale skin, dark of hair, though the girl seems rather short when compared to the elder of the boys, though it seems the younger one is already at her height. It does not seem to bother her though, and Daeron watches with strange sudden interest as she trots towards them with utmost confidence.
And then, much to the gasps and horror of the crowd, in trots a large wolf, bigger than any normal wolf he has seen, and it moves with the silent grace of a predator that knows it is one of the most dangerous creatures in this space.
A direwolf, his mind supplies, and he swallows thickly.
The beast takes a spot next to the girl, and Daeron wonders if this is some sort of hallucination from lack of wine. It must be. Who would have the gall to interrupt a Trial of Seven?
“We need to speak to the Hand of the King, and the Prince of Summerhall. Now,” she demands loudly, looking around at the various riders and frowning deeply. That no one answers right away means nothing as she looks around, eyes settling on the two groups of seven knights. Worse for wear, they look as if they have slept in many ditches, rode for hours upon hours, and what must be dirt and grim from the road covers in odd spots. That the girl is dressed in men’s riding clothes is strange as it is, but even with a bulk of layers on her, it could not hide the fact she is, in fact, a young woman.
The braid would give it away regardless, as well as the shape of her face, and Daeron wonders what she would look like if dressed as a proper woman and not this man’s dress she clearly has been wearing for at least a moon’s turn.
“Lady Alysanne of House Stark. My younger brother Errold and Ser Wyle Manderly accompany me. But I need to speak with the princes, and I need to speak with them without any delay,” she tries once more. The wolf besides her gives a low growl, echoing the words, and it shuts up any murmurs in the crowds.
Daeron would give her credit for this. Not just anyone would have the gall to do what she is doing and demand an audience with the highest peers in the realm. All without proper introductions too. And a Stark to boot.
Starks never came this far south. Not since the Young Dragon had ventured to Dorne and the family had lost their heir in the process.
“What game are you playing for fuck’s sake? This is a trial. Have you lost your mind to interrupt like this?” His father of course. Daeron wonders if he would have the small group taken into cells for daring to stop a trial. It looks as if whatever little patience he has finally left. Given Uncle Baelor’s surprising choice to accompany Ser Duncan, much to the crowd’s delight after the hedge knight’s speech, his father looks about ready to give a lashing to just about anyone who manages to push him in the wrong direction, family and bloodline be damned. Age be damned too, from what he had as a punishment upon being found in that inn by Maekar.
He, at least, withdrew his accusations.
Uncle Baelor seemed slightly less disappointed with him once he had done so, and he had nearly confessed once more as to why he had done what he did in the first place. Once was enough though, as his mind and soul could not take yet another confession. Ser Duncan had been more than what he could take in a single evening.
But yes, the girl, who is outright glaring at his father, and seems just as annoyed with the turn of events as Maekar does. And does not even bother to hide any bit of it.
Maybe she has lost her mind. Maybe they all have, for all that Lady Alysanne just looks at his father with utterly no fear, and seems to just let her whole body go. Just the resignation of someone who was granted a terrible task and must carry it out even if it weighs on the very soul. Daeron almost pities her for that. If he were a better person he might, but she has clearly chosen a path of action and now must follow through. Brave young woman.
“Fuck your trial.”
Or stupid young woman.
Is it wrong if he lets out a snort of laughter at that? Ser Donnel is glaring at him now which does make him stop, as he is rather fond of the knight for all that the man has put up with and done so rather admirably throughout the years. Daeron shrugs off the glare and tries to look less like a fool than he knows he already does, and focuses on what is clearly the peak of entertainment for the entire crowd as well as every knight on the field seems to be focused on the Stark girl, or woman, or person, and the mere fact she just cursed at his father.
Even his father seems stunned into silence at that gall, and not much does surprise Maekar anymore.
“The fate of Westeros depends on your choices you make now, for we have run out of time. All of Westeros depends on this very moment, of what you and those assembled do,” she explains. As though every single person is incapable of understanding the weight of whatever it is that she has come to say.
Even his uncle, ever unflappable Crown Prince Baelor, upholder of all that is good and chivalrous, the most honorable man in all of the family so to speak, looks as if he is about to call on their guards to escort the intruders away. But Daeron knows his uncle and knows that there is something in his eyes that makes him curious as to what had driven the Starks to send someone this far south, to interrupt a proceeding that had been allowed by the Crown, and the desperation that all three riders wear as if it were a cloak.
Daeron, despite himself and every single voice in his head telling him not to be, is curious too.
Was there a saying about curiosity?
It killed some poor creature.
Was he that creature?
“My lady, you must understand, this is neither time nor the place and-” starts Baelor. Resigned, courteous, but unwilling to let this farce go further.
Right until he too gets interrupted.
“Fuck you, and fuck your time and place. We all might as well slit our own throats now if you refuse to listen. Every single person here is in danger, lowborn, highborn, hedge knight, even you bloody dragon princes,” she snaps, agitated. Vibrating with anger and resentment.
He is sure she most definitely has a death wish as the rant continues.
“We didn’t come from The Wall just to get pushed aside. Day and night for nearly a moon and a half straight. People died just to make sure we got to Ashford in time when the damn raven said you weren’t to be in King’s Landing, and we nearly killed our horses and ourselves getting here.”
Nothing rings false about these people. That the risk of being thrown into a cell and locked away does not bother any of them. Judging from the way the man introduced as Ser Wyle Manderly has a hand hovering over the hilt of his sword, he is thinking that it is a possibility that fighting their way into getting everyone to listen. That the Stark boy, because that is definitely a boy and not a man, is doing the exact same with such a stern, serious face, no one would ever doubt him to be anything but a Stark. One willing to die for his sister and her spectacle it seems.
“And we brought proof, that good men and women died to gather, so you, Prince Baelor,” and here is where she points at his uncle, shaking her head as if the grown man were a naughty child, before repeating the action with his father, “And you, Prince Maekar.” A pause and then with wild eyes she turns, and Daeron has no idea what to think other than, what is this crazy lady doing and are all people from the North like this?
“And all of you, lords, ladies, and everything in between. You all will listen and watch and by the Old Gods and the New, you will either help us or end up dead when winter truly comes, I promise you that.”
And then the gates open once more, and in comes a smaller party, no more than a half dozen, with large, heavy northern horses pulling a cage covered with large sheets of metal. It rolls in and takes ages to stop, but when it does it is smack in the middle of the field for every single spectator to lay their eyes upon it. Deliberately done, of course, and Daeron can see the frustration growing on both his brother and father at the way the Stark party have now co-opped the trial with their claims of death and destruction, proof of some sort of monster coming for all of them.
But the cage, much to his horror, is shaking.
And then there were sounds.
Dear sweet merciful seven, the sounds.
Inhuman would be kind. Gastly, unearthly, shrieks that pierce through the very being of a man would be more accurate. Blood chills instantly when the shrieks and groans hit his ears and Daeron nearly falls off his horse when a tingling sensation runs up his spine. By his side he knows that Ser Steffon Fossoway has already dismounted and is on the ground, eyes wide at and staring at the box. “Impossible,” he says so softly that had he not been next to Daeron, the words would have been entirely missed.
What was impossible?
What was in that cage?
The girl, Lady Alysanne his mind supplied, turns to the crowd, looking towards them with such disappointment. Shame flickers across several faces, and before long she is turning back towards his father and uncle. A young woman, who looks at two battle-tested princes and every inch of her body says she has found them wanting; Daeron, despite his terror, wants to laugh at that. Men grown, chided by a young woman the same age as himself.
“The Wall shall fall. And what comes from beyond it is no mortal enemy but the very horrors my ancestor sought to keep out from our homes. Horrors unlike anything you could imagine gather and if you do not answer the call now, and come to aid us, then I promise you the Seven Kingdoms are doomed.”
His father has his hands on his mace, raised up and turning towards the source of everyone’s horror. His uncle has already dismounted to take a stance, blade drawn and eyes the cage. Even Aerion has armed himself, ever the mimic of their father.
His own hands, shaking from lack of drink and fear of falling to his death in a deadly trial, have moved toward the sword hilt on his side. Instinct rather than thought and Daeron knows that whatever is in that cage is death. Part of him, deep inside and bred into the very soul, creeps to the surface.
The Starks have brought death with them.
Words chill to the very core.
“Winter is here, once more, and it comes for us all.”
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@dripsdrabsmusicmusings
Works Master Post -> Master post of all works
Between A Dream & A Hard Place (Prologue) series (Ao3 Link) -> At four and ten, Daeron dreams of a maiden kneeling before a weirwood. At eight and ten, he ventures North for a marriage not of his chosing, but of the crown's command. A Pact was made when dragons danced. A Pact is honored when Blackfyres are a constant threat. And the bonds between House Targaryen and House Stark are strengthened when the eldest of a fourth son marries the youngest daughter of a Warden of the North. Some things change for the better, others for the worse. A few stay the same. But when one with dragon dreams meets one with greensight there are bound to be repercussions no one thought would happen.
Godspeed Dreamers A sequel to Between A Dream & A Hard Place (Ao3 Link) -> Blood, sacrifice, and death. The gods have seen fit to meddle in ways no one could predict. In the aftermath of a tragedy in Ashford, a bargain, however unintentional, was struck. The world turns and what was once set in stone as fate is suddenly no longer a certainty. And now Daeron, and all those around him, must deal with the consequences of changing fate itself.
The Kids Are All Right (AO3 Link) -> A delegation from the North brings four children together in the year of 194 AC, changing the course of history in Westeros as we know it.
Blank Canvas Pt1 (Ao3 Link) -> Sometimes change is for the better. A new place, a new life, rebuilding after hitting rock bottom, he is doing that in White Harbor, far from the walls of Summerhall and the chaos of King's Landing. A story about second chances and growth, as seen through Daeron Targaryen's eyes.
@therealslimshakespeare
In Dreams Series Masterlist (Ao3 Link) -> Bloodraven whittles this family for sport, and I am to trust the gods?
@musingsofheaven
Waiting Room (Masterlist) -> they say marriage is more than bearing children, yet in Westeros, a woman’s worth is measured by whether she can give her husband a child, and you are just another wife who needs to do your part.
@julez-5
Fixer Upper -> (Modern Au) You were hired to fix the horrid image of Daeron Taragryen, but you never expected to fall for his drunken charm.
No Cameras Now -> (Modern Au) You were hired to fix the image of Daeron, and swore it was professional, but there was no cameras around and you had let him kiss you. OR Daeron was fine with giving you space allowing you to collect your thoughts from your heated momemnt, but then he saw you flirting with his younger brother.
@idreamedofyouuuu
Making Him Jealous -> You're King Aerys I Targaryen's only daughter and he decided you should marry Daeron, your cousin. Let's say you both are jealous during the feast that Maekar threw for you and Daeron's bethoral
Messy Wedding Night -> a messy wedding night with your brother you married.
Good Morning -> (Modern Au) you wake up horny next to Daeron, your boyfriend
@asoiafraven
A Sleeping Dragon -> Since finding love Daeron thought the Gods had spared him the worst of his dragon dreams but he was mistaken.
@sansaorgana
Unworthy -> Daeron avoids his wife because he thinks he is not worthy of her and he wants to protect her from himself. Meanwhile, she thinks she is lacking and a disappointment to him. Finally, after teasing comments from his friends, he decides to fulfill his marital duty but his insecurities make him struggle.
Wishful Thinking -> Your husband doesn't believe he is worthy of you, so it doesn't help when other women pity you for being married to him. You defend Daeron in public, not realising he can hear you standing up for him.
Silent Treatment -> Daeron embarrassed you at the feast thrown to celebrate your mother's name day, which led to an argument between you two. You give him silent treatment and he realises he should finally change his behavior because he's about to lose what is the dearest to him.
The Mystery Knight -> Maekar sends Daeron to take a part in a tournament organised by an unimportant Lord, hoping that his son can at least win this one. However, The Mystery Knight from Daeron's dream complicates the tourney for the Prince. Especially when he finds out who (s)he is...
A Fortnight Apart -> Daeron doesn't react well to the news of his wife's pregnancy, which results in a fight. He goes to the tavern and she flees in the middle of the night to be with her family.
@cosmicoatlatte
To Believe In Tomorrow -> Daeron and his darling wife enjoy an evening in the gardens of Summerhall...
@maekarsmistress
A Change -> maekar starts to notice changes in his eldest son, and who to thank for them.
Restless -> your husband awakens you with a horrible nightmare - you help him settle... in your own way.
@thespottedcreature
Too Good For Me -> You love your husband very much, even if he and sometimes others don't always understand why you love him so.
Drunken Dragon -> Being the wife of Daeron the Drunken, you've figured out how to stretch the truth whenever the situation calls for it, especially with your pregnancy.
@saeransangel
The Heavens and The Earth -> Daeron continues to push you away after your arranged marriage. You want to find comfort in your troubled husband, you wish for love to grow between the two of you, but how could that be if he keeps you so far from him? Then there comes a day when you finally put your heart on the line, and everything comes spilling out.
Still The One -> daeron and his wife love each other
@h0ney223
Late Nights -> Your husband comes back from a late night of drinking, again.
@pacificheights (Ao3 Link)
Cups and Cups -> finding your husband in his cups at odd hours of the night had become routine. thank the gods you had perfected coaxing your wine-addled prince back to bed.
A Helping Hand -> being dragged to Ashford is bad enough. the forced sobriety that follows might be worse. on the night before the trial, you help distract your husband from his withdrawal in the best way you know how.
Make Me Behave Like An Animal -> Daeron drags you to a shitty dive bar to see some shitty band named Rat Poison. Your first mistake? Going shot for shot with him. Your second? Noticing how good he looks under those lights. By the fourth shot, you've stopped making mistakes and started making decisions.
Ulterior Motives -> your husband wants another child. you're not sure if his reasons are entirely selfless.
Grow A Pear Series Masterlist
Grow A Pear (Angst) (AO3 Link) -> the one in which you find out that your husband is cheating on you
Too Far Gone Pt 1 (Grow a Pear Sequel) (AO3 Link) -> after your husband's infidelity, you did not think you would return. the harsh reality of it - surviving as a lone woman in westeros was not a manageable feat. so, there you found yourself, back in your shared apartments.
Alcoholics Anonymous Masterlist (AO3 Link) -> "my name is daeron, and I'm an alcoholic." after being fired from his latest job, daeron finds himself back at alcoholics anonymous for what feels like the hundredth time. this time, the girl from his prophetic nightmares is sitting across the circle - and, damn, if she isn't even prettier in person
@starxs-s
My Nightmare
@valarrsgirl
Modern!daeron -> summer in northern italy with dearon
I'm Your Man (Modern Au) -> what starts as trying to get him home turns into a messy, desperate confession he’s been wanting you for months.. and a reckless hookup, when neither of you can pretend otherwise anymore.
Without You (Modern Au) -> you walk into a club you didn’t want to be in, and there he is. the man you loved, broken and wild. one look, and the past crashes in. he confesses and promises to never let go of you again, and for the first time, you almost believe him.
@feyhunter78
My Light, My Life -> What began as an insult quickly turned into a marriage of deep devotion and comfort. AKA you’re the only thing keeping Daeron together.
Crawling Back To You -> Trials, grief, anger, it all falls away when your husband has need of you.
Five Firsts with Daeron -> Meeting, apology, lie, kiss, and bedding. Five firsts with the prince who would capture your heart.
A (Nearly Ruined) Wedding Tourney -> You’ve never been more excited; your new husband Daeron is set to ride in your wedding tourney, but it doesn’t turn out as you hoped.
Sleep Beside Me, Ease My Dreams -> Early on in your marriage you’re unaware of Daeron’s dreams. That is until one night you fall asleep in his bed and everything changes.
Conversations in the Garden -> At a garden party with your husband Daeron asleep in your lap, you discuss the past and finding love with your good brother Egg. (Set a year or so before the tourney)
@imnotcryingyouare1
Isn't That What Being A Parent Is?
Let Me Sleep
@moonlitgraves
Need You Baby, Like I Breathe You Baby -> daeron grows bored with the jousting and crowds at the ashford meadow tourney. fueled by arbor red and overwhelming need, daeron pulls you away from the tourney grounds to have his way with you.
Take Me Back To Eden
@goonofthrones
A Moment of Respite -> Daeron Targaryen leads a troubled life, the only solace he has amongst everything is you, his wife.
@wolves-and-dragons
Sweet Dreams are Made of These -> While laying in bed with his wife, Daeron's beloved daughter comes in with claims of a terrifying nightmare. Daeron fears the potential that his dragon dreams have been passed onto his offspring to torment her for the rest of her days.
@escapic-mezzanine
My Moon, My Man -> An imperfect bride for a flawsome man – it was not a tragic match by any means, but the heavy shroud of expectations made affection morph into doubt. It felt like a choke, the duty imposed by House Rosby, tightening on the necks of Daeron and his wife.
Dim Refuge -> Life as Prince Daeron’s wife sometimes made you feel like the sky would fall on your head while you and your husband were just a pair of lambs sent to slaughter...
@foolishleclerc
Off The Record (F1 driver!Daeron) -> it was supposed to be just another interview. but the way he looks at her even when the cameras stop rolling says otherwise.
Wine-stained Words (modern! akotsk x the pitt) -> daeron targaryen arrives at the ER bleeding, charming, and quoting poetry no one asked for. she blames the alcohol, she doesn’t expect him to return the next day, clear-headed and still flirting.
Drunk on You -> after prophetic nightmares drive prince daeron targaryen to the brink of drowning himself in wine, his wife offers him a different remedy: her. what begins as stolen kisses to silence the craving soon becomes something deeper, fiercer, and far more addictive. because daeron doesn’t stop drinking, he simply finds something sweeter to be drunk on.
An Empty Cradle -> haunted by the thought that she cannot give him heirs, she expects daeron to resent her. instead, he reminds her that from the moment he first saw her, she was the only future he ever wanted.
@ukegjtwrite
We Are Still Here (Ao3 Link) -> Home, a familiar place, a familiar silence—until it is broken by the flutter of returning wings.
@nullmoon-s
Come Nightfall (Ao3 Link)-> The Ashford Tourney had been, frankly, a resounding disaster. Sheathed within the night does Daeron seek the company of Lord Ashford's eldest daughter—a girl of whom had haunted him in both dream and prose for many years—and deals with the morning after.
@sehaedazokla
In Turning Divine (Ao3 Link) -> your arranged marriage to prince daeron targaryen is distant at best. when your existence begins to bleed into the edges of the mad world he wishes to shield you from, he suddenly finds his hands and his head so very full.
@dreammfyre
Dream A Little of Me -> being married to prince daeron targaryen wasn't easy, not just because of his lifestyle—you knew he liked to drink, the good life. but the hardest part was dealing with the curse that had haunted him since birth, the dreams that kept him awake.
@erzsebetrosztoczy
Sleepless Dreams; Dreamless Sleep -> Still new to the married life, and to none other but a prince, you try to navigate yourself among the duties of a royal wife. Having Daeron as your husband, and Maekar as your father-in-law brings situations, you weren't prepared for. But your vision haunted husband tries best as he can, to be there for you. Even in the ordinary moments.
Fever Dreams
@thespottedcreature
Dreams and Exasperations -> Annoying your brother is the number one priority of your life, but this time, more comes out of a simple gesture than Lyonel's irritation.
@tcrgarien
Bound To Be -> when king daeron ii arranges a marriage between the concerningly lost eldest son of maekar targaryen, and the eldest daughter of daemon ‘the pretender’ blackfyre, the gods celebrate as the union they’ve been awaiting for finally takes place.
@blueskinnavi
A Good Husband -> Ahead of his wedding to his cousin, the woman he’s loved all his life, Daeron feels insecure.
@catbayunthestoryteller
Bespoke -> Modern Au
@goldenhoneyedwine
Just a Taste -> kissing is just like needle work or horseback riding - a skill that takes practice!
@scarlett-rivers
What Does the Dreamer's Wife Dream Of? (AO3 Link)-> Daeron's wife wakes to find out that the dream she was having was much more real than she thought.
Comfort For A Dreamer (AO3 Link)-> When an undesirable highborn lady is married to a drunkard, they form a bond that is not love. But after the tourney at Ashford, they both find themselves needing one another more than they'd previously thought.
Childhood Friends with Daeron
Overwhelmed Daeron
@night-scare
In Bloom (AO3 Link)-> Daeron dreams of a flower among the snow, his only reprieve from the terrible nightmares of death and destruction that he drowns in his cups to forget. At Ashford Meadow, on the eve of the Trial of Seven, he meets a woman who brings new meaning to his dreams of snowdrifts and blossoms.
@targaryenstar
Just Us -> daeron does not want fancy feasts and propriety for his name day, he just wants you.
Woven Souls -> little calmed the familial visions daeron was cursed with, except your sweet song.
@phythius
Drunken Confessions -> Daeron stumbled into your chambers, his senses dulled by wine, and pressed a written confession into your hand.
@lunsilun
Trial of The Seven -> taking care of injured Daeron after the trial.
@the-dendrophile-bookdragon
Lifeline -> Maekar has found his wayward heir and brought him back to Ashford against his will. But Daeron does not care for his father's distaste. It' his wife's worry he hates to see
@hyperfixatedhyperstressed
The 5 time Daeron and his wife woke the other up. And the one time they didn’t.
@silkaurum
Furtively -> on a quiet, hot summer day, you're waiting in your chambers for prince daeron, your childhood friend, your biggest secret, the man you shouldn't desire. what started as a childhood friendship has long since moved into forbidden territory, but in the shadow of the red keep, when your husband is busy elsewhere, you steal those moments that you can.
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, For Tomorrow We Die -> for three moons, you have kept your pregnancy a secret. you know with certainty that the child is daeron's, not your husband's. but the weight of silence has grown too heavy to bear, and you have no choice left but to tell your beloved the truth.
@moon-heart22
The Princess and The Dragon Part 1 -> As a princess from a foreign land you marry Daeron Targaryen and are afraid of him and your wedding night. His brother Aerion causes you a lot of trouble and makes your fears worse. Gods how lucky you are that all your fears are proven wrong.
The Princess and The Dragon Part 2 -> After giving birth to your twin sons, you and Daeron are over the moon. You also find out how good of a father Daeron actually is.
@non-picturesque
No.1 Party Anthem Part 1 -> What begins as polite professionalism, but slowly turns into late-night conversations and unexpected friendship—and when he finally finds comfort in her presence, the lines between duty, trust, and something deeper begin to blur.
If you enjoyed any of these fics, please leave likes, reblogs, kudos and comments to show the author you liked it 💚💚💚
@no-sleepie
Charming. Coherent. Capable (AO3 Link) -> Daeron Targaryen has been dreaming about a girl for months. Then he finds her actually existing restocking limes at a dive bar. She thinks he's homeless. Eyme Flint has a dead-end job and a last name that stopped meaning anything centuries ago. When the beautiful disaster at the end of her bar turns out to be a prince, and his fifteen-year-old brother offers her a fortune to keep him upright at a four-day polo classic — she takes the deal. For the money. Obviously.
His Girl Part 1 -> daeron never asked to be captivated by his cousin’s girlfriend.
@nullmoon-s
Doves & Foxgloves (AO3 Link) -> A collection of letters chronicaling the relationship between Prince Daeron Targaryen and Lady Myrielle Ashford—the Lady of The Meadow.
@captainfern
Need -> your husband is brought to your chambers drunk, but not in the way you are used to (or, a sex pollen fic with our beloved dragon dreamer)
@padmespetal
Nice To Each Other (Modern AU) -> daeron targaryen finally begins to see the point of recovery after egg’s babysitter becomes a regular part of the family or the five times daeron targaryen asks you out, and the one time you finally say yes…
@deadonyouraccount
5 times you were caught with Daeron and the one time you weren’t (in a way)
All Men are Fools, and All Princes Too
@margarettarg
Honey and Wine -> betrothed to the only daughter of his uncle, baelor targaryen, daeron can't help but notice the softness his soon to be wife carries with her everywhere she goes, and he can't help the guilty taste this brings to his every goblet of wine.
@thought-you-knew
Sleepless Night (Modern AU) -> All the ways you try to help your boyfriend fall asleep.
@louloucake
Tell Me How to Do It (Modern AU) -> trailertrash!daeron x reader
@osarina
Lament, Cassandra -> … for you cannot change the future, only suffer knowing it before it comes. OR, Daeron dreams of your death, and he knows in his heart that there is nothing he can do to stop it, but how is he not supposed to try?
@sleo00
Dark Thoughts
Bitter Taste (Also Platonic Aerion Targaryen)
@venmondiese
Courting Someone With Strange Dreams... -> Daeron is head over heels for a lady, unsure how he must court her. He had never met someone more strange than him, that's for sure.
@rxiwrites
What Heaven Feels Like (Modern AU) -> who needs a rave bae when you have daeron, your best friend's boyfriend's best friend (and cousin), to keep you company for the night?
Fate -> daeron promised to find you in the next life, he didn't know the next time it'd be seeing you in the club
@celestrys
Be My Fool -> Fearing seeing your new husband is pain, you've convinced him to skip the tourney and hide out in an inn until the tourney comes to its end. As his dreams start to haunt him a little too much within the night, you decide the best course of action to distract him from them
Thank You, Essos -> During a visit to a tourney, you were given an erotic book from the Free City as a cruel joke to your husband, after reading the book, you learned of a technique that you've been too shy to bring up to your husband, until now
@suadoring
Dreams do come true, only the good ones
@halfformedthing
Blood Bank (Modern AU) -> You meet Daeron in group therapy.
@konalis
Cure For Me -> you've healed him since the first dragon dreams. He's wanted you since the first time you didn't leave. Until neither of you can pretend that him asking for your help — and you being there for him — is still just duty.
@margoshansons
Sun Bleached Flies (AO3 Link) -> The night of his second cousin's engagement ceremony, Prince Daeron Targaryen stumbles into the arms of a beautiful woman, mistaking her for a common whore. It is only when his hangover has cured and his mind is his once more he sees her for who she truly is. Lady Amaya Uller. The only daughter and heir to Hellholt. And Prince Mors Martell's bride to be.
@ladysands
Dreamwine Masterlist (AO3 Link) -> Prince Daeron "the Drunken" has always lived by that moniker, so is it any wonder that he finds himself taken with a girl from the Arbor who loves wine just as much as he does? As events unfold around him, can she help him conquer his dreams and become the man he was always meant to be?
@lilyswritings
Dragon Dreams -> You wake up to find your husband gone from your bed. it is not the first time his dreams have driven him out. it will not be the last.
@inkfables
Depollute Me, Gentle Angel -> your strained marriage to daeron targaryen takes an unexpected turn when your once-absent husband seeks to reach an understanding.
@pennyroyaltar
Overheard Yearning (AO3 Link) -> your betrothal is not a happy one. he's convinced you hate his guts. you've convinced yourself that this is true. well, that is — until he overhears a very..revealing conversation between you and a friend, where you wax poetic about how much you want him.
@mareyshelley
A Bad Influence (AO3 Link) -> After the disaster at Ashford, Baelor’s sheltered and polite daughter is swiftly married to Daeron, to join the family at Summerhall.
Thanks and Reward (AO3 Link) -> When Daeron goes missing, his sisterwife, Elaena, leaves the castle to bring him home. She tries her best to help him, and he tries to help her
@lostrealityr
Your Father Is Not Going To Actually Kill You -> Daeron and his wife spend stifling night hiding in an inn, kept away from prying eyes, after he manages to lose his youngest brother on the way to Ashford Tourney.
A Successful Pairing -> Marriage between Hightowers and Targaryens was not an unheard of affair, it had just been a previously unsuccessful one. However King Daeron the Good decided a marriage between his youngest son’s firstborn and a Hightower lady would be good for unity. Four years into the marriage and a singular son produced it was deemed a successful pairing.
@samthegreenapologist
A Drop of Understanding Part 1 -> Daeron’s wife is starting to understand why he is called “The Drunken”. Their wedding was an abysmal event, and in the months that followed Prince Daeron hadn’t been any better, he seemed perfectly content to mostly just avoid his wife. Whatever he hoped to accomplish through that wasn’t going to happen because she was far to persistent of a women. Determined to gain some form of companionship with him…or at least a babe! So she plots to spend some quality time with her husband. Just her and him, no siblings no staff and absolutely no wine!
Armistice Part 2 -> Continuation of A drop Of Understanding. When Maekar insist they attend a tourney to be seen as a couple by the nobles Daeron decides it will be better to disappear before they arrive. Another prime opportunity that Daeron has to be a good husband and he just avoids it entirely. When he arrives late and finds you warming to his younger brother, Aerion, who had been your only option of company. That concerning sight forced him to reflect on the level of romantic neglect he has been subjecting his wife to and confess his true feelings.
Reckoning Part 3 -> You and Daeron’s relationship has turned over a new leaf ever since coming to the realization that you both shared genuine feelings for one another. You are beyond please because now you both share a marriage bed and have genuine companionship. For a long time he feels similarly, you are the distraction and support he has always needed to not feel like isolation is the answer to his problems. You understand him, as much as somebody who did not share the join trauma of his bloodline could and things were going well, until it finally happens. He dreams of you.
@sadesluvr
Like A Prayer -> When Daeron catches word of your decision to become a septa, he’s desperate to make you stay. (Soft! Dark! Daeron)
@luvemmdubb
Lay My Sword Down Anyway Part 1 (AO3 Link) -> A glimpse into the many, many moons you’d spent at Summerhall growing up (plus one visit to the Red Keep), and your relationship with the young Prince Daeron Targaryen.
@novaursa
Drowning You In My Sleep Part 1, Part 2 -> A cursed dream of a drowning dragon has haunted Daeron for moons, long before he understands it is not just a nightmare but a warning. As tension deepens between him and his sister, Y/N Targaryen, the vision begins to point toward a future neither of them is ready to face.
@seamaiden
His Dragon in Silk (AO3 Link) -> Daeron Targaryen has spent years chasing his cousin. Vaera Targaryen has spent just as long making sure he never quite catches her. A dragon prince in love is a dangerous thing. Vaera prefers her dragon desperate.
Of Threads and Little Dragons (AO3 Link) -> A collection of Daeron and Vaera lore, childhood memories, and past antics set before the events of His Dragon in Silk.
@goldenhoneyedwine
A Dragon's Hoard -> Reader and Daeron have communication issues and continue to be down bad for each other. They are lovable, klepto idiots.
@daeronsladywife
Sweeter Than Lilac Wine
@whyamihere666
I'll Be Good -> you and your husband are having trouble producing an heir. luckily, daeron is given a remedy in the midst of his drunken stupor.
@witchacoocoo
Sun & Moon (Series) -> Lady Maelis Celtigar moves into the Red Keep on her 18th birthday, struggling with her identity and place in the world even before she unexpectedly presents as an omega. As though that weren't enough, Mae will have to endure one more thing forced upon her: her marriage to Daeron Targaryen.
@ valyriandream 0n AO3
Labors of Love (On AO3) -> On her honour, Naerys had not known her drunken fool of a cousin had conceived a passion for her handmaiden, nor that her fair friend had deigned to meet his glassy gaze. Naerys had always been fanciful, but even she could have never dreamt Daeron would steal Roslin away in the dead of night. Her father had been bemused, her mother affronted, her grandfather furious. Roslin had come to the Red Keep as a hostage, the price her family paid for their inaction during the Rebellion. She was never meant to be a dragon’s bride. How the gods favoured her proud, ancient blood. She could still hear her uncle’s cursing, something along the lines of the fucking Hightowers again. Oldtown celebrated from dusk to dawn, when word spread of the star-crossed lovers. In the end, Daeron and Roslin seemed content in their punishment: exile to serene Summerhall. Naerys thought the scandal excessive. If the Hightowers were truly beginning the game anew, Daeron was a poor choice for pawn. Her father would sit the Iron Throne; after him, Valarr. As for herself… well, she would find her own path. (In which Princess Naerys dreams of song and splendour while Prince Daeron's wife spirals in her sorrow)
@Looveboog
It Was You All The Way Down (Series Masterlist) (AO3 Link) -> in which daeron flees his home and family, trading the privilege of his surname for the anonymity of working a dead-end diner job. his carefully crafted isolation is broken when a pretty customer starts getting close enough to notice the parts of himself he's been trying to leave behind
@nebulaad (nebuladd on AO3)
A Light That Never Goes Out (On AO3) -> "Who's he talking to?" she asked urgently, standing to get a better look at them. "Prince Daeron," Brenn said, and she whirled on him. "What? I didn't name him." "That's not a Targaryen prince," she hissed, and Brenn put up his hands. "I didn't sire him either, Jeddie. Him and one of the sisters was born more on the Dayne side." She turned to look back at him, and made eye contact with Prince Aerion—she darted back down to her seat, feeling her face burn. "What's wrong with you?" he asked. "Nothing," she said shortly, her eyes straight ahead. "Can you swear to that?" he asked. "Because they're both looking over here now and I reckon I can take Daeron, but Aerion'd eat me for dinner." "I fucked up," she admitted, letting it burst out of her chest like cannon fire. "I fucked it up so bad, Brenn—"
@ Ivylle (On AO3)
You Can't Miss What You Never Had -> Aerith Blackwood always thought she knew exactly who she was and what every important person in her life meant to her. Her Family. Her best friend. Her best friend's older brother. Between shared afternoons and friendships she believed would last forever, Aerith grows up convinced that some things never change. She's wrong. People change. Families break apart. And some love stories don't begin with a single spark. They begin with years of familiarity, trust, and moments so small that no one notices them until it's far too late.
@ Prxttyvixens (On AO3)
Lady Bronze -> And suddenly it occurred to Daeron why his father had agreed to this marriage and sent him to Runestone. If he could do nothing else of importance, then at least he could sire the next lord or lady of House Royce. All he’d have to do, he realized as he stared at those dark curls and that fierce gaze, was put a babe in Lady Rhonwyn Royce’s belly. A quick glance down her bodice and at the supple flesh there told him that may be a more enjoyable task than he originally thought. Alternatively, Daeron gets his own sort of Bronze Fury.
@leather-bound-fantasies
Something in the way (Modern!Au) -> You mostly meet late at night anymore. Your place a sanctuary from Maekar. And even after decades of friendship, life still finds away to surprise you on one of those nights.
@samthegreenapologist
Fireweed -> You join your Brother and Father in Ashford for the tourney. When things take a dark turn during the trial of seven you must find a way to process the grave situation and your new reality. You end up finding comfort from somebody who’s never processed anything in their life in a healthy way, cousin Daeron!
Indecent Proposal -> Being overshadowed by his younger brother’s accomplishments is nothing new for Daeron. Aerion outright suggesting he would be able to fufill Daeron’s husbandly duties better than he can, is new, and infuriating.
@sunfyre-targaryen
The Vigil -> within the cold, unforgiving walls of the red keep, two opposites collide in the dead of the night. a lady-in-waiting, raised to value duty and perfection above all else, discovers the shattered reality behind prince daeron "the drunken".
@the-dendrophile-bookdragon
And They Were Roomates! (Modern!AU) -> You and Daeron always thought of each other simply as “the roommate,” nothing beyond that. But one bad date changes everything.
@vaokses
Where I am Good and Loved (Series Masterlist) -> A collection of non-chronological but connected stories about Daeron and the wife he is given in an arranged marriage. Each installment can be read as a standalone, but together they follow the early months and years of a betrothal and then marriage. Here the author delve's into aspects of Daeron's dreams and the things he does to avoid them or survive them, how he might view himself and how he might face the possiblity of being loved, among other things.
A collection of non-chronological but connected stories about Daeron and the wife he is given in an arranged marriage. Each installment can be read as a standalone, but together they follow the early months and years of a betrothal and then marriage.
Here I will delve into aspects of Daeron's dreams and the things he does to avoid them or survive them, how he might view himself and how he might face the possiblity of being loved, among other things.
Chapters (in chronological order):
I cannot leave myself
Nothing between them but (Maekar's PoV)
I'm not sure what peace is // What it's supposed to feel like // It may feel a lot like you
Soft midnight breathing - A bunch of short stories centered around nights and the progression of their intimacy and relationship in them.
Pairing: modern!Daeron 'The Drunken' Targaryen x fem!reader
Warnings: friends/idiots/roommates to lovers, fluff, it gets spicy but no smut
Summary: You and Daeron always thought of each other simply as “the roommate,” nothing beyond that. But one bad date changes everything.
Words: 2K
A/N: This is part of the @hotd-bigbang AKOTSK Prompt Meme Challenge. Prompt: Oh my god, they were roommates!
He sat in the pub at a table in a dark corner. The light was flickering slightly in the lamp above him. Daeron was sure—with his luck—the light would go out soon.
He held on tightly to his pint of beer. Stale and cheap—he didn’t expect much from a university pub selling beer for under ten pounds. At this moment, he wished he had snuck his pocket flask with the good wine with him.
His jaw was clenched; he looked at the person across from you—a study buddy of yours. You had introduced him a month ago as you walked into your shared flat with the tool in tow. It had been for a paper you got paired up for.
Daeron had nearly growled as he saw that stupid, smug grin on the guy's face as you disappeared into the room with him that first time. “Just a study buddy.” You had smiled and waved off Daeron's concern about the guy. You were too trusting for your own good.
He remembered his father often telling him as a teenager to keep his door open when he had a girl over. At the time, he found that rule stupid; oftentimes, nothing beyond the waist happened. But now he was older and a bit more knowledgeable and understood the concept of an open door. Not that he didn’t trust you; he did. He didn’t trust the guy with you.
Was it possessive of him to think like that? He just wanted you to be safe in your own house.
And now, he sat there, watching the guy trying to get into your pants while you, sweet, oblivious you, sat opposite the scumbag and laughed.
Was he jealous? Maybe. He didn’t want to admit he had some feelings for you.
He swore when you moved in together that you were off limits. Your friendship meant more to him than that silly, growing crush he had harboured for you ever since you called him up for that extra room in the flat. Well, love wasn't as predictable as he had hoped.
He took large sips from his pint. The bitter brew he liked so much tasted even more bitter than ever.
Suddenly, he got a text. Immediately fishing his phone out, he looked down, seeing a text from you.
‘Save me, Obi-Wan. You are my only hope.’
It had been a running joke between you two. He had dressed up as the Jedi Master for a Halloween party last year. He had even gone so far as to grow a beard for the part, and he looked so much like Obi-Wan Kenobi. And of course to remember it and show his children one day, you took many pictures to never let him live it down that he looked like his favourite Star Wars character ordered on Wish.
But now, the memory dulled in the face of your text. This was no joke. You wouldn't write things like that just for shits and giggles. Now it was a secret SOS.
He left his half-drunk beer on the table and hurried over to yours.
Only now could he see your posture. Rigid and stiff. You had never sat that straight since he'd known you.
“You called, Princess,” he rasped, holding out his hand to you. Daeron saw the relief in your eyes.
Quickly, your hand shot up to his offered hand, grabbing it tightly, glad to escape this horrible date and leave immediately. Your tight-lipped smile turned into a relaxed one.
You put your share of the money on the sticky pub table and said goodbye – ever the nice person, always trying not to make people uncomfortable or angry.
As you left the pub together, Daeron turned over his shoulder and threw the guy the same smug smile your date had thrown his way during your dinner. He wasn't as nice as you. He openly admits he is a petty bitch. But it ran in the family.
As you walked, he placed his hand softly on the small of your back. For your comfort, of course! “You okay there, princess?” he mumbled as he held you close. You nodded softly, leaning closer.
“Yeah, you came just in time.” He chuckled. “That’s what roommates are for.” He kissed your forehead softly. You hummed, your smile softly faltering. But Daeron didn't notice. He was too busy getting you home safely.
“You don't get it!” Kira rolled her eyes at you. She stirred her pink latte impatiently. “I don't get you all chickening out whenever you see him. For R'hllor’s sake, you are roommates!”
Valarr sat there, staring into his coffee and wishing his girlfriend hadn't pulled him along with her.
You sat opposite them, your head in your hands and your elbows on the table. “I thought he would get jealous if I went out with the guy. I even endured alpha male talk!”
“You know Daeron isn't confrontational,” Valarr piped up, trying to defend his older cousin. “He never actually was. He hates conflict.”
You shot him a glare. “I know. I live with him. He hides in the bathroom when I can't find my snacks because he accidentally ate them while he had the munchies.” You growled, holding your own beverage a little tight—maybe too tight.
Kira sighed. “Well, just talk to him!” Her pink nails tapped against the table. You looked at her as if she had kicked a puppy. She just shrugged. “Chicken. Both of you. You are living together already. You have inside jokes, for God’s sake!”
“But I don't want to lose him!” you whined.
Valarr rolled his eyes this time. “You both are perfect for each other,” he muttered under his breath, taking a sip of his coffee. He was fed up with you and his cousin dancing around your feelings. Suddenly, he felt eyes on him. He looked up, seeing both his girlfriend and you looking at him with death stares. Did his shirt always feel so tight? He adjusted his collar.
“Spill!” Kira growled, stopping just short of pinching his side. Valarr grew hotter, his ears turning red. He began to squirm in his seat. He saw you lean closer to him, ready to pounce over the table like a predator. He swallowed thickly.
“He made me promise not to say a word. He is my cousin after all!” He cringed, scooting farther down in his chair.
“Valarr…” his girlfriend growled.
Valarr grew even hotter, his face the colour of a tomato now. “Gosh, yes! He has the biggest crush on you, but he had sworn never to act on his feelings because you are roommates!” Valarr blurted out.
Kira petted his head, muttering “Good boy,” while you threw your hands up in frustration.
Suddenly you got up. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to speak to my roommate!” you growled, your chair scraping against the floor before you stormed out of the café.
“Get your man, girl!” Kira hollered after you as you left the café. Valarr nearly sank under the table as people around them turned their heads.
Daeron was in his room sitting over a textbook. He sighed. He had read the paragraph multiple times, the words already jumbling together. Maybe he should just give up and become a full-time bartender. His life choices had already brought him the disappointment of his father. He couldn’t sink further in his father’s eyes than he already had.
His door burst open without a warning; you stood in the doorway, with windswept hair and a wild look in your eyes. “You are an idiot!”
Daeron nodded in agreement. “Thank you for stating the obvious,” he muttered matter-of-factly.
He watched you move into his personal space with a speed he didn’t anticipate at this moment. His legs spread on instinct as you stood between them. His head fell back on the headrest of his gaming chair to meet your eyes. You looked slightly stressed.
“I am an idiot, too,” you muttered, much calmer, your bottom lip jutting out. Daeron made a noise at the back of his throat. “No,” he mumbled. “You are far from being an idiot.” He sighed softly. He gently took your hand, pulling you to sit on one of his thighs. “What's wrong? Why are you running around calling people idiots?”
You bit into your lower lip softly. Daeron grew more worried. Your eyes swept to the floor, trying to evade his soft gaze. “Darling? Haven’t your parents taught you not to look away from a person when they are talking to you?” He gently hooked his finger beneath your chin and turned your head toward him. Your eyes met; he smiled encouragingly at you. “What's wrong?”
A small sigh escaped your lips. “Do you have feelings for me?” Daeron swallowed thickly. He didn’t expect this kind of question. Was he going to tell the truth or the lie he had been telling himself since you two moved in together?
Now it was he who looked down, his hand falling to his side, away from your face. “I—ah…” he let out a breathy chuckle. His ears grew slightly red.
You gnawed at your lips now. “Because I do,” you muttered shyly. “For a very, very long time. And I didn't know how to tell you.”
Daeron's brain short-circuited. He stared at you with wide eyes. He must have misheard you. “It just sounded like you had said you had feelings for me.” He chuckled, not really believing you.
With a roll of your eyes, you leaned closer, grabbing his head and pulling him closer. He had to crane his neck; his beautiful amethyst eyes widened as your lips slowly grew closer.
His breath stuck in his throat as their noses touched, his hands growing sweaty.
Meanwhile, you seemed calm, but on the inside you were screaming Bloody Mary. Sirens were going off in your head as you slowly leaned in, your soft lips laying on his slightly chapped ones.
Both of you stood still for a moment. No one dared to move until Daeron moved his hands to your lower back, gently pulling you closer—so close you had to straddle him.
Your lips moved shyly across his, moving experimentally until both of you grew bolder. It was Daeron who teasingly swiped his tongue against your lower lip, tasting the vanilla lip balm on them and waiting to be granted entrance to your mouth.
When you opened it slightly, one hand of his moved up your back to tangle in your hair. The kiss deepened, growing into a full-blown make-out session in an instant.
You didn't know how long your lips were locked together, only that your lungs burned for air.
With a small gasp, you looked down at him. His eyes had gotten darker—he looked slightly feral.
Your hands had wandered too, one in his hair, the other beneath his shirt. But your hands weren't the only ones that explored. While one hand had stayed on the lower half of your body, the other was grabbing onto one of your buttocks.
“Did you open my bra?” you panted, just now feeling your chest less supported. A self-satisfied grin appeared on his lips. “Sorry, habit,” he giggled, not one bit ashamed of his quite impressive sleight-of-hand trick.
You remained like this for a little while. You were straddling him on his desk chair, your hands in his hair and on his abs, which you didn't know existed.
His hands remained on your neck and ass. His thumb softly caressed the soft hair on the nape of your neck.
He felt like he was staring up at a statue of the Maiden.
The light slightly caught in your hair, making it appear like you had a halo.
“Daeron, what are we going to do now?” The man in question leaned back gently. “I'm going to take you on an epic date. Not one in a seedy campus pub. I'm going to show you I also own button-ups and nice pants.” You giggled, making his grin wider and more lopsided. “And I'm going to treat you like the goddess that you are, even if my dad calls me and asks me if I have either lost my mind or have fallen for a scam. Because trust me, no money in the world will ever suffice to pamper you. I think I have to drain the world of its money for it to finally suffice, but I will try. I want to spoil you, and I will. And I will not let you go, because you are special. The most amazing person in my life.”
You melted back into his arms, your head leaning back down – your foreheads touching. “I don't need all of that money.”
He chuckled softly. “I just want to make up for the lost time and all the times I called you ‘just my roommate,’” he mumbled, catching your lips in another sweet kiss. “Already paid your debt,” you mumbled between kisses.
To read more of my work, please take a look at my MASTERLIST.
✧ summary: within the cold, unforgiving walls of the red keep, two opposites collide in the dead of the night. a lady-in-waiting, raised to value duty and perfection above all else, discovers the shattered reality behind prince daeron "the drunken".
✧ pairing: daeron targaryen (the drunken) x fem!reader
✧ contents/tags: soft/fluff, hurt/comfort, panic!attacks, severe!anxi3ty, sleep deprivation, vivid descriptions of dragon dreams and impending doom, mention of alcohol as coping mechanism for traum4, pre akotsk era, canon divergence
✧ word count: 2k+
other works
notes: hello there ♡ — based on this request. hope you like it♡ sorry it took a while, i was busy :')
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The Red Keep was a labyrinth of echoing stones and suffocating expectations. For a woman of your standing, the castle was not a home; it was a stage. Every morning, before the sun have even kissed the Blackwater Bay, you were already awake, breathing became a secondary concern to posture.
Your mother, a woman whose heart was forged from the same unyielding iron as the Great Gates, had raised you with a single, devastating philosophy: "A lady is the ink with which history is written; if she blots the page, the entire story is ruined". You remembered a summer in your youth, perhaps your tenth year, when you had tripped during a formal dance at a harvest ball. You hadn't even fallen, merely stumbled, but the look of pure, curdled disappointment on your mother's face had stayed with you longer than any physical bruise. You had spent the next three days in a darkened room, practicing your steps until your slippers bled.
As a lady-in-waiting to Lady Kiera of Tyrosh, you were the epitome of that harsh upbringing. Your dressed were never wrinkled, your hair was a masterpiece of braids and silk, and your voice never rose above a melodic, controlled murmur. You moved through the draughty halls like a ghost of perfection, carrying the weight of your family's honor on your narrow shoulders.
To you, duty was a religion. And that was precisely why you loathed Prince Daeron Targaryen.
He was the blot on the page. Known to the court as Daeron the Drunken, he was a prince who traded his dignity for the bottom of a wine flagon. You had watched him from afar for months — stumbling through the gardens, his eyes unfocused and glazed, his sandy brown hair matted with sweat. To you, he was an insult. He had been given the greatest gift in the world — the blood of the dragon — and he was throwing it away while you struggled every day just to keep your chin at the correct angle.
Every time you passed him in the Great Hall, you felt a surge of visceral disgust. You woul look at him with eyes as cold as the Wall, your spine so straight it looked ready to sharp. You saw the way his lips would curl in a defensive, bitter sneer when you glided past. You were the Perfect Lady, and he was the Royal Failure. You hated him because he was allowed to be broken, while you were forced to be a statue.
The night of the encounter began as many other. The air was thick with the scent of old incense and the damp salt of the sea. You had just finishe a grueling evening of service, reading Tyroshian poetry to Lady Kiera until your throat was dry. The moon was a silver bone in a sky of ink as you began the long walk back to your quarters.
The Red Keep at night was a different beast. The tapestries of ancient kings seemed to watch you with judgmental eyes, and the shadows stretched like grasping fingers. You walked with your candle held high, the flame steady — a reflection of your own discipline.
But as you turned the corner near the library, a sound broke the stillness. It wasn't the rhythmic clanking of a Gold Cloak's patrol. It was a ragged, wet gasp, followed by a frantic thumping, like a trapped bird beating its wings against a stone cage.
You stopped, the flickering candlelight casting long, distorted shadows against the masonry. In a deep, arched alcove, you saw a figure. At first, you though it was a beggar who had snuck past the gates, but the shimmer of a fine silk doublet — now stained and rumpled — gave him away.
It was Daeron.
But he wasn't drunk. Not tonight. He was slumped against the freezing stone, his head between his knees, his entire frame shaking with such violence that his heels were drumming a frantic rhythm against the floor.
Your first instinct was to turn away. The lady in you recoiled at the sight of such raw, unkempt emotion. Disgraceful, you thought. Another night of excess and shame. But as you turned to leave, a sound escaped him — a broken, high-pitched whimper of genuine, agonizing terror. It wasn't the sound of a drunkard; it was the sound of a man facing his own executioner in the dark.
"Prince Daeron?", you whispered, your voice trembling despite your best efforts to remain poised.
He didn't look up. "Go away", he choked out, his voice a jagged ruin. "Leave me to my madness, little saint. Go back to your nests of silk and propriety. You shouldn't be here. You'll get your skirts dusty".
Ignoring the voice of your mother in your head — the one that told you a lady never touches a man in the shadows — you knelt beside him. The ston floor was freezing, and you could feel the dust of centuries clinging to your fine skirts, but for the first time in your life, you didn't care.
"You are not well, My Prince", you said, reaching out a tentantive hand. The moment your fingers brushed his shoulder, he flinched as if you had touched him with a red-hot iron.
"I am never well!", he shouted, finally snapping his head up. His violet eyes were bloodshot, pupils blown wide with a primal terrifying panic. "How can I be well when the world is burning in my head? How can I be well when I see the end of us all before it even begins?".
He lunged forward, his fingers digging into your wrists with a strength born of desperation. His hands were like ice, yet he was sweating. "I saw it again. Just now. The moment I closed my eyes to rest. I saw a dragon, massive and black — so large its wings blotted out the sun. It lay dead in the mud, its heart stilled, its fire extinguished. And beside it...a knight. A common, wandering knight with no name, standing over the corpse of a god, watching the world turn to ash".
He began to hyperventilate, his chest heaving in jagged, uneven bursts. "It's coming. The doom of my house. I see the fire, I smell the copper of the blood, I feel the heat of the pyre. Every time the sun goes down, the dragons die, and I am the only one who has to stand watch at their funeral".
You stared at him, the candle light reflecting in the tears streaming down his face. You had heard the whispers of Dragon Dreams, the curse of the Targaryen bloodline, but you had awlays dismissed them as the dramatic excuses of an eccentric family. Looking at him now, seeing the raw, unadulterated horror in his eyes, you realized it wasn't a legend. It was a physical weight — a psychic burden that was crushing the soul out of him.
"This is...why you drink...", you whispered, the realization hitting you with the force of a physical blow. All those months of judgment, all those sneers of The Drunken Prince — they were all wrong.
"I drink to kill the dreams...", he laughed, a hollow, jagged sound that broke into a sob. "Wine is the only wall I can build. If I am drunk enough, the black dragon stays in the shadows. If I am sober...I am a prophet of the grave. Tell me, Lady of Duty...what is the 'honorable' path for a man who carries the weight of a thousand deaths in his mind?".
For the first time in your life, the armor of your upbringing shattered. Your parents had taught you how to act, how to speak, and how to represent your name. But they had never taught you what to do for a man who was drowning in a sea of time.
"I am sorry...", you said, and the words felt heavy and real. You reached out and, this time, he didn't pull away. You pulled his head to your shoulder, letting his forehead rest against the crook of your neck. "I judged you for your weakness, but I did not know the strength it took just to stand up every morning with that fire in your head".
Daeron let out a long, shuddering breath. He leaned into you, his hand clinging to your waist like a child afraid of the dark. The silence of the hallway swallowed you both. In that moment, the hierarchy of the court vanished. There was no prince, no lady-in-waiting — only two sould in the dark, one terrified and the other offering a anchor.
"Help me to my room...", he murmured against your skin. "Please. If the guards see me like this...if my father sees me...I cannot bear the look in their eyes. Not tonight".
The journey to his chambers was a tense, agonizing crawl. You supported his weight, his arm draped heavily over your shoulders. You could feel the heat of his body through his doublet, a stark constrast to the chilled air of the castle. Every time a shadow moved or a torch flickered, your heart leaped into your throat.
You passed a bust of Aegon the Conqueror, and for a moment, the stone eyes seemed to judge you for your shattered propriety. You were a Lady-in-Waiting, a woman whose reputation was her only currency. If you were caught now, your life as you knew it would be over. Yet, as you looked at Daeron's pale, sweat-slicked face, you realized you didn't care about the Perfect Lady anymore. She felt like a stranger, a doll made of wood and paint.
"Almost there", you whispered, your voice a soothing balm. "Just few more steps, Daeron. I have you".
His chambers were a chaotic reflection of a fractured mind. The hearth was a heap of grey ash, and the air smelled of old parchment and stale wine. Scattered across the desk were frantic sketches — dragons with broken wings, circles of fire, and names of kin crossed out in dark, aggressive ink. This was the laboratory of a man trying to solve a puzzle that had no solution.
You eased him onto the furs of his bed. The room was dark, so you moved to light a candle, but he caught your hand, his grip desperate.
"Don't leave", he pleaded. "The knight...he's waiting in the corners of the room. He's waiting for me to close my eyes so he can show me the end again".
"I'm not leaving", you promised.
You sat on the edges of the mattress, and without hesitation, he moved, curling up against you. He buried his face in your lap, his arms winding around your waist as if you were the only solid thing in a crumbling world.
You began to stroke his hair, the sandy brown strands feeling like a cool silk between your fingers. You began to speak, your voice a soft, rhythmic hum that filled the empty spaces of the room. You didn't talk of duty or kings; you told him of the Tyroshian coast, of the way the sun looked when it hit the sea, and of the quiet, mundane things of the world that didn't involve prophecies of fire.
"Why are you doing this?", he asked, his voice muffled by your skirts. "You've looked at me with such hate for so long. I thought you were made of marble".
"I thought I had to be", you confessed, your own voice cracking. "My parents...they taught me that any emotion was a crack in the foundation. I hated you because you were the person I was most afraid of becoming. I was afraid of losing control".
"Control is an illusion", Daeron whispered, his breathing finally beginning to slow. "We are all just leaves in a storm. But tonight...the storm feels a little further away".
As the hours ticked by, the castle grew even quieter. Your back began to ache, and the cold of the night seeped through the stone walls, but you didn't move. You watched his face soften in the dim light. The lines of terror that usually etched his brown began to smooth out, replaced by the peaceful mask of a man who had finally found a moment of silence.
You leaned down, pressing a chaste, soft kiss to his temple. "Sleep well, Daeron", you whispered. "The black dragon is gone. The knight has ridden away. There is only the wind against the stones and the warmth of this room. I am here. I am watching".
Every time he stirred or let out a soft, subconscious moan, you would tighten your hold, whispering sweet, nonsense words of comfort until his breathing leveled out again. You became his sentry, guarding the borders of his mind against the horror of the future.
As the first grey light of dawn began to creep through the heavy velvet curtains, you realized that your parents had been wrong about everything. Duty wasn't just about being a perfect statue for the world to admire. Sometimes, the highest, most sacred duty was to be the shield for a broken heart that had no one else to turn to.
You remained awake, curled around the sleeping prince as the sun began to rise over King's Landing. You were exhausted, your reputation was at risk, and your life would likely never be the same. But as you looked down at Daeron — peaceful, at last, in your arms — you knew that you had never been more perfect than you were in this messy, silent, and beautiful moment.
You would stay until the sun was high, ensuring that when the Drunken Prince finally woke, he would find not a shadow, but a light.
tags: ooc Daeron, possessive Daeron, breeding kink, dom leaning Daeron, warning of Aerion being himself (smug af), angst/comfort, PnV, creampie, Targcest (reader is his cousin) tights ripping, fucking with panties on, mentions of past whisky dick, missionary, wee bit of breast play.
Summary: Being overshadowed by his younger brother’s accomplishments is nothing new for Daeron. Aerion outright suggesting he would be able to fufill Daeron’s husbandly duties better than he can, is new, and infuriating.
A/N: based on this ask, I love receiving requests. Hopefully the liberties I took with this one are okay!!
Word Count: 2.3k
“it’s a girl,” you tell him as you enter the study.
“Shall we barricade ourselves inside to avoid the wrath Aerion is sure to rain down upon the keep?” Daeron droned.
“she’s beautiful.” You offered up.
“and likely to be cursed with some ugly name. Thought nothing rivals Maegor.” Daeron shuttered at the memory of that naming announcement.
“You should go,” you said coming to sit beside him on the lounger and took the cup from his hand taking a sip of your own. It was only right that you’d been there to help with the labor. Daenora was your cousin, and you’d very much grown up with her. Offering your support to her was not only right but equally expected of you. Even now that your father was gone, that you no longer were burdened by the expectations that came with being daughter to a man that was set to be king you still held yourself to a high standard. You thought that was what your father would want.
“my brother cares not if i gawk at his new babe.” Daeron assured you and reached to take the cup back.
“I care. The child is your niece. It is not hard to show your face for a moment.” You cared less about what Aerion thought and more about the whispered you’d hear at court the next day.
You could hear them now. “He was too drunk to walk. Likely burried in a whore. The brothers don’t speak…not after the transgressions.” People enjoyed to gossip. It frustrated you more when the information they had regarding Daeron was true.
“always the perfect princess.” He did not mean it cruelly. He used it as a term on endearment but at times it did grind at you. You weren’t trying to be perfect-and you did not expect him to be perfect either. But you did want him to try, even a bit!
“Please.” You reiterate sitting down with your needlepoint project now in hand. “For me-not for him.” You attempt and that had cousin, turned husband standing up from his comfortable spot and finding his shoes.
“For you alone.” He said pointed at you standing in the doorway “you cannot claim me a bad husband for the rest of week now!” It was half jesting. Half showing he did process your frustrated remarks that you thought were said only for your ladies ears to hear.
Daeron rubbed his face as he went down the halls of the keep in search of his brother’s wife’s chambers. Then he figured that Aerion, likely had healed from the wound of having a daughter already and was showing his new dragon off to court.
“She’s strong, pratically tore her mother in two according to the maester.” Aerion smirked as he spoke about it and that made Daeron a bit queasy.
He knew his brother was man. Only Aerion would see that as a good thing…thinking it meant his child was strong and not just that his wife was likely going to need to drink milk of the poppy for the next moon!
“brother,” he cut into conversation holding out two cups of wine for celebration. Aerion easily took one because a nurse maid currently held his newborn while he peacocked around faulting of the achievement he had very little to do with.
“you’re awake?” He took the cup and looked around at the other men gathered and said lower, but not at all low enough to make it seem like he was even trying to prevent his brother for hearing this. “Shocking, they must have sent him home early from the brothel!” He smirked when the men let out half stifled chuckles.
“My wife wishes me to express my congratulations to you.” Daeron took a sip of wine. Mulling over his brothers comment about the whore houses and his presence within the keep. He never claimed to be perfect. Never promised his wife he would be anything close to a decent man. He supposed she was not really in a position to accept or deny him based on how she felt about that admission. It had been the last marital arrangement her father had thought up for her and when he was killed her mother, lady Jena thought he would have wanted her to see it through.
He assumed that his uncle had likely rescinded the possibly of a marriage between his only daughter and him rather quickly into the entire Ashford debacle. Though lady Jena had no way of knowing that.
“I think an apology to your daughter may be better use of my time though.” He stepped to the babe and his long fingers tickled her little belly. “I’m terribly sorry you’ve a terrorizer as a father. Gods bleed you that your mother is kind.”
Aerion’s cup was put down with a loud clank and the conversations in the room went silent when he approached his older brother and pushed his shoulder back harshly.
“you’ve quite the stones to pass judgment on me!” He snapped. Hauling Daeron back into a bookshelf and grabbing his collar. “Failures do not normally speak so boldly!”
“I’m hardly a failure.” Daeron attempted to push Aerion back. Despite his brothers smaller size his rage did help with his strength.
“you’ve been married longer than I.”
Daeron said nothing. That was true…and he struggled to find the relevance of insult?
“married the almost king Baelors only daughter and let her womb grow cobwebs?” Aerion snarled with a laugh. “I’ve done my duty as a husband. Twice!” He smirked.
Daeron shoved his brother with more effort and this time it did send Aerion stumbling back.
“What is it that keeps her stomach empty brother? We have all been curious.” He looked about the room and then back to Daeron. “Is she broken?” He watched how Daeron reacted to each accusation closely looking to see which one cut the deepest into his side. “Is your cock too diseases from the whores that she refuses you?”
Those did not grate at him enough so Aerion tried again. Getting close this time and rubbing his brother shoulder.
“can you not preform?” Mocked sympathy. “If she wishes for a babe I could, well I could assist brother.” He offered. “I’d even make sure she enjoyed being fucked for once!”
The insult landed somewhere very deep in Daeron’s chest. He was frozen. Blinking. Any sharp joke he would normally make at his brother’s expense was lost. The only thing playing through his mind, over and over, was that Aerion said he would fuck you. That he could bed and breed you better than he did.
Daeron finished his glass of wine with one large gulp and then left the room without defending himself. He would prove it. To his brother, to court, to you! He was a fine husband. He did care for you, did love you. He could have a child! He would!
You looked up when the door opened and then glanced back to your embroidery when you saw it was Daeron.
“I thought you’d last a bit longer.” You chuckled. “Did you even get to see her little eyes open-“ the question seized in your throat when suddenly Daeron was as grabbing you by the hair behind your head. Lifting your head up enough that he could kiss you.
“what-“ you spoke against his lips “Daeron what are your doing?” Your hands grabed his shoulders to try and settle him but he just bit at your bottom lip. “Uh! Gods-“ but the gasp had given his tongue ample opportunity to slide into your mouth.
You found yourself melting into the kiss the longer it went on. The more he remained there seeking you out. Tasting your tongue and grazing his own against all your teeth between the warm slow movement of both of your lips moving together.
He was climbing over you now and your hand, which had been gripping tightly to the embroidery loop finally let it go in favor of grabbing onto him. When his lips tore from yours to kiss your neck, sucking harshly against it you whinned. Catching your breath.
“Daeron-you’ll leave bruises.” You warned him. He’d done it early on when you two wed. When you did not yet know what all his suckling on your neck would cause. You’d learned to shoe him away whenever he came at your neck with his mouth…he hadn’t attempted in a while. Maybe you’d been too deterring?
“you’re my wife.” He muttered into your skin while finding a new sport to suckle at. His hands gathering your skirts up and brining them up to your waist.
“yes…”you grabed the back of his hair to pull him back a bit as he managed to bully his hips between your now spread legs. “I am quite aware of that!” You laughed some and he cut the sound off with an ever hungrier kiss. You’d never felt him this eager before, this urgent.
Your lips faltered a bit when he pressed himself against you and you could feel something that you’d not felt in quite a long time. He was hard. The buldge in his trousers firm and it tented the material.
“Daeron…what’s happened?” You were concerned now. He’d properly laid with you only a handful of times since you’d been married, and that was over the course of a few years! You knew he saw whores, he got satisfaction from somewhere other than your bed. He drank, enough that laying with you wasn’t actually an option most evening. This interest in you…in this way felt sudden and honestly alarming.
“you are my wife,” the possessive tone dripped from his throat and you nodded softly.
“I’ve never claimed you werent-“
“I can be a better husband, I can put a babe in you.” He interrupted and your heart pounded faster in your chest.
“yes…yes. Please.” You’d wanted one. Desperately. But getting Daeron to attend a feast was like pulling teeth so trying to convince him to give you a child seemed like a pointless endeavor.
That beg, the admittance that a child was something you had wanted from this marriage sent Daeron even quicker into action. You’d starter to try and get your arms out of the top of your dress but apparently there wasn’t time for that. Not on Daeron’s mind. He needed to prove himself now! Right now! Prove his capability to you, to Aerion, to himself!
You gasped when he tugged down the neckline of your dress and buried his face there. You whimpered when his mouth sucked at whatever warm soft flesh he could get at you moaned when his tongue found a nipple and licked over the hardening bud.
You were finding yourself still under him, squirming but not trying to direct anything as you normally did. You need not preform for him today, he wanted you already. He was already heated and hard for you.
“gods above!” You gasped loudly when the tights ripped, you hadn’t even realized that his hands were down there pulling at the thin fabric until you heard the tearing sound. “Oh-ngh Husband!” You gasped louder, the feeling of his fingers even just pulling your small closes to the side, ever so slightly grazing your womenhood in the process, had you coming apart.
“it’s been too long.” He kissed your lips again and burried his face in your neck right after as he pushed his trouser and small clothes down to the back of his knees. “I won’t neglect you again, wife.” He sucked hard over a spot he’d already laid claim of and it made you purr for him.
It was a soft almost vibrating sound as it hummed out of your throat. But your airway opened up significantly when his fat, warm, and leaking tip dragged against your puffy folds.
He groaned at the feeling of it. You wet, needy, making such pretty sounds at such simple movements. He should not have waited this long. You deserved better, or at least just more from him!
“hmm, Cousin-fuck!” You swore when he lined himself up with your sopping core and then pushed forward with his hips. He did not shallowly thrust. He made sure he got burried fully into you.
“You said we should curse less.” He smirked looking up at you. Wrinkled brow bone, slack jaw, closed eyes. This felt good to you.
“D-don’t toss my guidances back at me right now husband.” You warned and he smirked wanting to make you swear again. Wanting to make his wife, the perfect princess lose more of her composure.
“gods, you’re so tight.” His hips snapped forward. Stone slapping into the wet fabric of your small holes that covered your bottom still and he made sure he grinds against you when he was seated to the hilt of his cock. Letting your clit enjoy the stimulation from his pelvis.
“Ahh!” Your gripping at his shoulder as the pace intensifies and he holds on to your hip with one hand and the other gets lost in your hair to bring your head up to meet his. He kisses your. Pants into your mouth, growls out claims of your body.
“It’s too much!” You whimper. The climax building up inside your stomach, deep, twisting and low. It’s made your brain throb and you feel suddenly very overwhelmed. Especially when his cockhead thumps bluntly against your cervix with every thrusts. “Fills me too much-“ you groan out.
“no…no I’ve got you.” He breaths in whatever you exhale and pounds into you a bit harder. Not faster, it was just more intentional more complete, like he was willing your body to take more of him. “So perfect for me.” He droned out, lost in how good you felt clenching around his throbbing prick.
“I’m going to…oh fuck Daeron I’m about to-to!” You couldn’t even finish the sentence properly before the chain winding up in your stomach got to tense to turn any more and just broke. The climax making you grab onto him as you shook through the waves of intense pleasure.
“my perfect princess.” He growled into your jaw as his hips stuttered and he spilled his seed deep inside you. Not leaving until your twitching stopped and he was sure your womb had accepted every drop he had to offer.
