❛ i won't ask you to love me. ❜
the words earned nothing from daemon at first beyond the faint narrowing of pale eyes, as though he could somehow decide whether they had truly been spoken or whether the wind weaving through dragonstone's cliffs had chosen that moment to mock him. dragons were creatures of fire, hunger, conquest. they knew the sky because nothing else could hold them. they knew blood because it stained their teeth and claws alike. love belonged to septons reciting vows before painted gods, belonged to mothers pressing kisses against fevered brows, belonged to songs composed by men too frightened to face the world without convincing themselves it possessed kindness somewhere within it. what place had love inside a dragon's mouth?
his gaze traveled across the crimson beast before him, taking in the twisted grace of that long neck, the sweep of scarlet wings folding and unfolding against the stone, the scar that carved across caraxes' frame as though he had been born already acquainted with pain. hideous, some would call him-- malformed, wrong.
daemon thought him magnificent.
perhaps because he understood what it meant to be looked upon and measured against someone else's perfection; viserys had inherited the crown, and daemon had inherited comparison. always the second son, always the brother. always expected to smile while another man's name echoed through halls that ought to have remembered his just as readily. every feast, every council, every fucking lord who bowed lower before viserys than they ever would before him scraped another layer from whatever patience remained. they called his brother good and gentle and fit to rule.
they called daemon dangerous.
and, they never stopped to wonder whether they themselves had forged the distinction.
his hand drifted toward caraxes' snout, hesitating only for the space of a single breath before rough scales met bare skin. warmth radiated from the dragon, not the pleasant warmth of hearthfire but something unspeakably powerful, forever waiting to be unleashed. another creature might have recoiled from daemon's temper, from the rage forever simmering behind violet eyes.
"nyke won't ask you to love me?" he repeated, tasting the absurdity of it. "ao speak as though dragons care for such things." his fingers traced absent circles against crimson scales, "men beg for love because they have nothing else. kings demand it, fools mistake fear for it. my brother thinks earning it makes him strong." his mouth twisted, "it makes him blind."
his lips curved into something that almost resembled a smile, crooked and full of mischief that had not yet grown into cruelty, "ao iā drējī nyke naejās. biare iksos."
you will not ask me for love. that is fortunate.
then, his forehead came to rest against warm scales, an instinctive gesture that surprised him almost as much as it did not.
"because i have never been very good at giving it." @zaldriz3s