Godspeed Dreamers - Awakening
Summary: 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.
A sequel to Between A Dream & A Hard Place
Warnings: violance, sexual content, drinking, alcoholism, unhealthy coping mechanisms, death, mental health struggles, major character death, depression and self harm tendicies
Main Characters: Daeron Targaryen (son of Maekar), Alysanne Stark(daughter of Beron)
Other(s): Maekar Targaryen, Baelor Targaryen, Valarr Targaryen, Kiera of Tyrosh, Lonnel Snow, Aerion Targaryen, Wyle Manderly, Maekar Targaryen
Pairings: Daeron Targaryen (son of Maekar) x Alysanne Stark(daughter of Beron), Baelor Targaryen X Lonnel Snow
Crossposted AO3 [X]
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten
Chapter 1:
Summerhall, 209 AC
There is a moment when something shifts and the dream becomes less of a dream and more of a reality. A single moment that the world turns and the gods twist threads of reality to make it very real. Vertigo does not give way to the waking world and instead the fall merely leads to a new path. The dream continues and there is no waking moment until he reaches the end.
Ever since the pyre they had become worse.
Ever since he was brought back.
Ever since he saw what he was never meant to see.
The gods were cruel with their boons.
Sometimes he is in King’s Landing, watching the dead be piled high and burned, the scent of death and sickness rotting in his nose. Bodies stink when they decay. A falling crown and a host of dead dragons lay beside a burning pit. Green. It glows green. A terrible, awful green wholly unnatural. When he wakes there is the taste of ash and rotted meat on his tongue, the scent of charred flesh in his nostrils.
Sometimes he is at the Wall. Snow and wind whips around him, a storm unlike the ones from his youth. Never ending winter. A cold that seeps into his bones. No furs can warm him. No fire will burn. Everything is snow and ice and there is darkness all around. He wakes and sees his breath before him. Fingers feel numb.
Sometimes he is in the Red Keep. A rotting husk of a man, thin and gaunt, nails turned into yellowed talons, and arms littered with scabs and weeping wounds. Madness gleams in his eyes. A Scab King who screams and rages and rots outside and inside with madness, and burns plenty. A Scab King who proclaims himself a dragon. He wakes shaking and looking at his arms to see if it is him.
Dreams now become terrible, awful things that twist and turn and leave him wishing for release more often than not. Nothing new except for the vividness.
They feel less like dreams and more like lives lived.
He wakes often enough before sunrise, shaking and shivering, and forcing himself out from the warmth of his covers. Stumbling around his rooms and forcing himself into a plush armchair that is by the window. A flagon of wine is laid to rest most nights, a cup by its side, and he pours and drinks as the sun rises. Even the pretty picture painted by the gods outside of this room and the acid sweet taste of wine on his tongue does little to settle his mind. When the images refuse to leave he takes to drawing them out, getting them out of his head and onto paper.
Rarely does it make the dream itself go away forever.
Perhaps less horrible but worse than before.
But once, just once, he had seen something bright and clings to most of all. In Summerhall, just outside, in the meadows; peaceful and warm. A silvery blond haired young man with grey eyes stands outside in the meadows, beside a great winged beast the color sunrise, of reds and oranges and pinks, long and lean and built for speed, who trills a song so delightful it could make even the hardest of soldiers weep. A smile on the young man’s face, something true and delightful, and his eyes light up in a way so familiar it does bring him to weep.
He curls his body around his wife’s, a hand resting on her slightly swollen belly, and thinks.
What would I give for always having dreams so sweet.
Ashford Meadow, Two Months Prior
Oddly enough the first thought after asking where exactly he was and figuring out that his wife was there, thank all the gods for that, was that he was naked and Aly would not want him naked in front of others.
Did the fire burn off all the clothing?
Did he still have his hair?
Aly enjoyed playing with his hair and he enjoyed when she would play it too, and it would be very sad for both himself and his wife if he had no hair like Egg had no hair.
Daeron will later argue that this was a perfectly acceptable first thought, because being brought back to the plane of the living was clearly traumatic enough, but even more so when one was entirely naked. Everyone would be getting an eyeful of his bits and not everyone would wish to see that. Furthermore, these days there were parts of him that he wished no one else to see other than his wife, and it was rather insulting to have someone alive but stripped as bare as the day he was born. Unless one would count this was rebirth, which then would make perfect sense.
But yes, he was naked, the fire was finally turned into smoldering ashes, and he was very much stripped to only the body he was born with, only a tiny winged creature blocking everyone’s view of his bits. A very loud little winged creature that was suspiciously dragon shaped, and the same color as his cradle egg was. It looks mildly discomforted with all the chaos starting to happen around them both and seems not to want to move from his lap. Which was fine because this dragon-shaped winged thing was blocking everyone from seeing what only his wife was to see these days.
Speaking of his wife…
Where was she?
He tilts his head from side to side, gazing at faces holding expressions that range from absolutely horrified to utter astonishment.
Oh. His father is on his knees?
Why is his father on his knees?
Did someone push him?
Who would be that stupid?
And there is Uncle Baelor and Lonnel, both of them looking as if they have seen a ghost. He is sure he is alive and not dead, the slightly pained breathing confirms that much, and ghosts were not really able to breathe. He was sure of that. Valarr and Kiera too look like they both are on the verge of tears. Wyle shakes while also holding back Aegon who looks like he is about to sprint into the pyre himself. And Shadow is there, howling her head off. And other people. Ser Donnel is there, and Ser Roland, but not Ser Willem, and they look like they are about to draw their swords. But where was Aly?
Where is his wife?
She was here, he saw her, she was here, and now he is not seeing her?
Something touches his back and he turns, slowly, because it is very strange that he is so stiff and sore, and the world is slightly spinning, but he knows that touch. Knows the callous on the fingertips, and he forces himself to turn all the way, with the baby-winged-chicken-lizard on his lap, and sees her. Aly. Alysanne. His wife. Wolfblooded girl. Direwolf bride. Queen of his heart. His Aly.
He smiles. Because he is beside himself with joy that she is here, with him, and alive and well.
The baby-winged-lizard-chicken-that-is-not-a-dragon screeches though, out of protest perhaps? At being jostled, but also it is a baby, and it is looking at him with his mystifying expression he has only seen on newborn pups who look at their mother. He is very much not a mother, but will be a father one day, and perhaps that is why? “Hush you, my wife is here,” he chides, which only earns him another ear-piercing belt of sound that nearly shatters the moment.
It settles though, when Aly does not move away and Daeron manages to shift his weight so his legs are now hanging off the pyre, but he can look and face his wife head on instead of twisting his body to uncomfortable positions. Shadow comes trotting over to sit down and stare at the baby beast in his lap.
“Aly, Aly, Aly, Alysanne” he sings-songs, and maybe something is very wrong still, because his head does hurt, and he is rather warm, and why is he naked again? Did they mean to burn him? Was he burned? Targaryens were burnt on pyres when they died. Yet there were no more dragons to burn them so it fell onto the family to do the deed themselves with just normal fire, except there is a maybe-shaped-like-a-dragon-lizard-with-wings in his lap, and it is very much from the broken egg that was also on his lap but is now on the ground.
His smile is slipping.
A pyre.
He is on a funeral pyre.
His funeral pyre.
He was dead.
And now he was alive.
It keeps slipping. His smile is gone now and he is looking up at his wife, his wonderful, faithful, beautiful wife, who is carrying his child in her belly, and he sees wet eyes. Are his own eyes wet now? They feel it. Overwhelming, heavy aching, and he starts to put the pieces together slowly as a shaky hand reaches out to touch the woman in front of him. His wife, real and present and alive, is here with him, wherever here happens to be, and she is closing the distance between them. All the warmth is draining fast and suddenly his body feels agonizingly tired. Pounding envelopes his head and he remembers… he remembers… he does not want to remember but he remembers…
Good gods, he was on a muddly tourney field.
Trial of Seven.
Baelor in his son’s armour.
Father with his mace.
Pain. So much pain.
And nothing.
You have brought an awakening not seen since the Builder made his wall. Since the dragons were first hatched. Since the Children roamed this land.
Change the song, dragon dreamer.
“I was dead.”
He says it as an absolute fact. Because that is an absolute fact. He was dead. Very much dead. A corpse to be burned on a funeral pyre in the way his family was burned, in the way his ancestors would be had they not been dragon riders. He was dead and gone and he left this very place. Promises were broken. Shattered into pieces and scattered remains that he had left others to pick up. He was dead and gone and he had gone somewhere he could not be followed.
“This was my funeral. This pyre. The ashes are smoldering. It was a fire. I was dead and you were burning my body-”
“Daeron-”
“Because you would have done that because you are the dutiful one. You were burning my body and I was gone and I was dead and-”
“Please, just breathe, Daeron, please-”
“No no no, you do not understand, there was so much death and I saw-”
“Shhh not-”
“Everything. I saw it. Tragedy. End of things. Summerhall and Aegon was king, it was burning, there was wildfire, and then the Wall it was falling, an ice dragon and the dead were marching past just like you said they would-”
Hands are on his face and he is looking up, sheer panic rising. Everything is rushing back. Terrible things. Awful things. He saw anything and everything at once and it was a terrible, twisted sort of knowledge. Others are coming now, and he could care less, because he was gone. He was just a body.
“And Uncle Brynden was a monster. Bound in a tree and hideous with power and he saw me do you realize he saw me and then I saw you. I saw you when I first saw you, when I dreamt of you, only I saw you before and after and why did you never tell me about the blade, Aly, what you were going to do? To sacrifice to make them stop?”
It comes rushing back and he is trembling, not even the heat from his baby dragon, because that thing is a baby dragon, the egg hatched and now there is a dragon in the world again, his dragon, and Aly has her hands on his face, looking at him while there are tears streaming down both their faces. He was dead and burning on a pyre, and the gods had brought him back to the living and hatched the egg he had brought along because of a nagging feeling in his gut.
“What did we do, Aly, what did we do?”
Arms go around to pull him close and his head is pressed against the warmth of her skin. A hand is going to his back, and he breathes in a scent that he thought he would never get to smell again, and they are both crying now, because something had happened, something changed, and they must now live with the consequences of their actions. The Gods had brought him back when he should very much be nothing more than ash. Dead and now alive, living and breathing and there is a heartbeat in his chest, a pulse beneath his skin, and he is alive.
Daeron is alive.
Shadow lets out a mournful howl.
His dragon screeches in harmony.
Ashford Castle
The looking glass gives way to honesty that might not have been told to him upfront.
He looks more like Aegon now. Bald headed and very egg-like. Not quite the picture of a prince he was supposed to be even when he actively avoided being one. Now he just looks miserable and bald. But alive.
Alive when his head was bashed in by his own father’s mace.
Daeron looks at his reflection, a hand reaching out to touch the top of his head, and finding no more locks of sandy blond that had become synonymous with his presence. By some strange stroke of luck his eyebrows were avoided. A scar, still healing, runs the length of his left cheek up till his ear, which is also mangled. Fingers run along it and he slowly moves to the back of his head where he feels another thick scaring on his skin. Where the point of contact had been made, idly comes popping into his mind.
They had dragged him off the pyre, as he was babbling on and on about what he had done, what were the consequences of this, and had forced milk of the poppy down his throat to have him calm and settle enough just to be brought back to the castle without issue. The creature that could not be a dragon had clung to him, snapping at anyone that tried to get too close to it except Aly, and then he had been brought into the room. Everything was a daze after.
Maester Yormwell had been sent by Baelor earlier to personally check him over. To see just how and why Daeron might have suddenly taken to life when he had been gone for a better part of a day prior. The good maester had poked, prodded, and inspected for over two hours, and when the man had left, it had been the weight of not knowing just how or why this was occurring, only that it did. “Perhaps we best not know of the methods,” came out muttered by the maester under a sulky breath, and Daeron wondered if it was the unanswered question that led to the discomfort instead of a man being brought back to life without the use of necromancy via maester. He had also proclaimed that aside from being relatively weak it was expected Daeron would slowly grow stronger as time went on, perhaps back to his full health soon enough. Uncertainty about the timeline, but given that this had never happened on Westerosi soil, there was little to go by. He had muttered something else about R’hllor and Red Priests but Daeron had started already to tune him out at that point.
And now here he was. Alone in his room with the baby chicken-winged-lizard that he was most definitely not thinking of as a baby dragon once more, despite it looking exactly like what one would look like. Focus was instead on looking at his reflection and the top of his head with wistful eyes, even if one was partially discolored with red, and wondering how long it would be before his hair would resemble anything remotely close to it had been pre-mortium.
His tiny beast is squeaking now. Having settled it carefully onto a pile of soft linens and wrapped it up to stay warm, it had been watching him for the majority of the time spent within the room. Right now his baby beast, because it was a baby beast as best he could guess, was no longer content with merely watching, and instead was very vocally starting to express annoyance that the person it imprinted on was ignoring it in favor of a bald head.
Or so Daeron was assuming. One did not simply understand baby lizard-with-chicken-wings right away, and he was most definitely not fluent in dragon, which was what the beast absolutely was not.
Perhaps ignoring the truth would help.
Or not.
He was unsure of that.
It is squeaking again, sounding more like chirps and tiny screeches, and not very intimidating at all. But it seems insistent on having his undivided attention to the point where it starts clawing a way out of the bundle of a makeshift nest. So much so that several linens are torn and with a sigh Daeron goes to pick up his newly born companion and let the creature start to curl its tiny body in his hold. It also kept tilting its head towards the plate of food left over from a frightened servant, and had been watching as Daeron had eaten a piece of the bread with honey that had been given alongside the various cold meats and cheeses.
“I suppose you are wishing to be fed now, is that right little beastie?” he asks, and the thing actually lets out a trill of acknowledgement. With yet another long-suffering sigh he slowly shuffles to the small table and sits down at a plush chair next to it, tiny little not-dragon in his lap now waiting to be fed.
“Go on.”
Said creature does not, in fact, move, but looks at him.
“I take it, you expect me to hand feed you?”
It lets out a trill again.
Well, fine, it clearly understands common tongue despite only being several hours old. He had thought dragon-shaped-lizard-chickens only understood High Valyrian, but this one is doing just fine. With that in mind he picks up a piece of the ham and gingerly holds it out for the little winged critter to take. Thankfully it seems to pick up that yes, this is food, and goes to gobble it down with all the gusto of an animal several times its size. He repeats the measure, only with the meats, ham and some cooked venison, until there is only a single piece left. His little monster, because it is his even if he does not wish it to be an actual dragon, seems settled enough that it curls into a round circle, head down and wings tucked back.
His gaze looks up from the creature in his lap and back to the mirror on the other side of the room. A reflection, his reflection, clear as say.
They dressed him in soft woolen pants and a linen tunic. Slippers on his feet, and left it at that. Easy access should any other maester wish to come in a check on them. The scarred flesh on his cheek that was still healing. It would be there for the rest of his life alongside his mangled ear and the scar on his skull. He looks and sees just himself.
He is alone. Just him and the beastie.
So very quiet.
He does not like this quiet.
They had forced Alysanne out, despite her arguments, physically being removed by her uncle for some sort of interrogation, and that had been several hours ago at this point. And alongside her had been Shadow. Wyle was not permitted entry. Aerion was still on bedrest but no doubt was told of the so-called miracle that occurred. Aegon was refused over and over. His uncle he saw only once and nothing had been said except a whispered apology, and even Valarr and Kiera had not come.
His father took one long, devastating look at him, an expression overtaking him that was so wholly unlike the man Daeron knew and had fled.
His father, the Anvil, Prince of Summerhall, warrior of the highest caliber, one of the greatest military minds in his generation, fled.
Daeron lingers on that now, as he looks at his reflection.
His father fled. Would not say a single thing to the son he killed, because he knew that much, since the maester had said it was a mace that did the damage that killed him and the only man who was near him with such a weapon was his father.
His father swung the mace.
Daeron had gotten in between his father and uncle, and his father still swung the mace.
His father had killed him.
“He did this,” came out whispered, and he could feel the tears welling up and threatening to fall. Grief, maybe, or disbelief. A combination of all of that.
More than once he had heard his father threaten him with harm. Punishment was common enough in his childhood when he had not been the desired heir in temperament or attitude, and he knew it frustrated Maekar to no end. But it had been better lately, these last few years, and he had tried so hard to at least be worthy of something. And yet he was still killed by his father’s own actions.
A mace to his head.
A skull smashed in.
A tear falls. A second. A third.
The door creaks open in the way someone will open a door to sneak inside and not be caught in the act. Naughty children do that. Aegon would do that sometimes, when in Summerhall, and wanting to come give a good cry about the torture he was put through by Aerion. Daeron remembered that.
A figure slips inside and he is raising his face only slightly enough to see.
Alysanne.
“Wife.”
It sounds like a prayer.
He watches as both she and Shadow slip inside, and then the door gets locked. A chair dragged in front and adjusted so no one may attempt to jiggle the handle and undo what has been done. He notes that Shadow pads over and lays sprawled out at the foot of the bed, exhaustion mirrored by her mistress. And Aly, his wonderful, beautiful, lovely wife, still dressed in the same dress from the pyre, face tear-stained, one hand wrapped with a bloody bandage, is looking at him as if he were some sort of miracle. That she shakes as she looks at him, and lets her eyes rest on the beastie in his lap.
Gingerly he stands, still holding the sleeping creature, and walks slowly to place it right next to Shadow. A warm furry radiator of heat, and the little dragon, because he knows it is a dragon but does not wish to say it out loud just yet, lets out a content trill and shoves its whole body into the fur of a direwolfdog.
Daeron straightens up, and looks at Aly, who has crossed the room and stands in front of him. Hands are touching his face. His head tilts ever so slightly when she presses her uninjured palm to his cheek, and the tears are falling without any sort of shame or desire to stop. Both of them, with their cries and their shakes, and he thinks this is not particularly manly but does not even give a shit.
Nothing needs to be said. Not when hands are gentle on his face, when he can touch the soft curves of her body, and hold her flush against his own. Not when he can hear soft hiccups escape as she tries to still her tears and fails so spectacularly that he does not feel as horrible when his own attempts are useless.
They fall together on the bed, limbs entwined, and this is where he wishes to be. Slowly he leans in, resting his head against her chest, eyes closing as a wave of aching tiredness washes over his body. He was the dark nothingness of sleep and no dreams to haunt him. He wants to strip himself bare and lay beside her. He wants to stay wrapped around her forever and never leave.
Somehow he remembers to breathe.
Cinnamon.
She smells of cinnamon.
A hand is resting on the back of his head and he whines, missing the feeling when fingers were threaded in his hair. He feels the hand slip and run down the length of his spine, and he buries his face further against her, pressing close and shivering despite himself.
He was dead.
And now he was alive.
“What have we done?” he gasps through quiet sobs.
Ashford Godswood
Dried blood is on the weirwood. A testament to sheer bloody stubbornness but also of stupidity and ignoring of consequences. Folly of youth or dumb ignorance, he could not know.
He had thought his niece had more common sense than to try and bargain with the old gods. That she had used her own blood to gather their attention and then proceed to scream at them in Old Tongue had made him think she had lost her wits entirely. He had thought she was smarter than to try and pull off a stunt like that. Certainly he taught her better than to test the will of fates and the gods in such a blatant manner.
The whispers have already started.
He was dead and they put him on the pyre. And he rose alive once more, like a god, with a dragon hatchling in his lap.
Is it magic? Did they sacrifice some poor soul for him to live? That wife is from the north, the heathens, and his family dabbles in black sorcery.
Is he a saint? Did the Stranger let him live to bring a new age? A blessing from the Seven?
Is he a monster? Is he the same? He has a dragon now, will he bring fire and blood to us again like in the Dance?
Servants have gossiped and no doubt it those whispers will escape the castle and spill into the meadow as surely as a fire burns a forest. Manfred Dondarrion, who was apparently half-brother to the late Lady Jena, had been there to witness the whole resurrection and no doubt scurried off to share the tale with Lyonel Baratheon. That man could not keep his mouth shut. Ser Duncan had witnessed it from far away and yet would be telling that newly knighted Fossoway as well.
This was a problem.
Lonnel was tired.
A hawk circles above.
It circles and circles and slowly comes down to greet him, golden eyes on his own with a familiarity that no animal should have towards a man. But this is no ordinary creature and Lonnel gently strokes the bird’s head, then securely ties a piece of rolled parchment to its leg.
“There, there, you know where you are headed now. And should you need it, I will guide you home to Winterfell,” he coos to the creature. It lets out a cry and he fishes out a piece of jerky as an offering. Greedily it takes the offered tribute, and lets him continue to stroke those feathers. “To home and without delay. Let my brother plan accordingly.”
Beron would need to know this development. Perhaps shed insight into what might be done about the wayward dip into meddling with the gods in a purely political way that would ensure none of this would backfire on his daughter and his goodson. Lonnel could handle the more mystical elements as best he could, but there were too many unknowns at the moment.
Hence why he was here, staring at a bloodstained weirwood, with a messenger hawk he was able to warg into, ensuring the words written would only be seen by his brother.
There are the heavy footsteps of a man behind him and when he lets the hawk go, he does not turn. Instead he looks at the rusted brown of blood on the bark of that weirwood, and sighs deeply.
“Was this Alysanne’s doing or was it Daeron’s?”
Baelor is remarkably steady when he speaks now, as opposed to before when this tragedy first occurred. He comes to sit beside Lonnel, the pair of them now sitting cross legged closely next to one another and looking at the same strain on a sacred place of worship. If he wanted, he could reach out and hold Baelor’s hand with ease. He knows there is a guard towards the entrance of the godswood, most likely Ser Roland who Baelor seems to trust. Him or Ser Donnel, the pair of them more familiar with how Baelor seems to operate in regards to himself.
They will be quiet on this. That much Lonnel knows.
“I do not know. When Daeron took the death that was to be yours, he disrupted the fate the gods planned. Perhaps they found it amusing and wished to see what he did next and with a dragon alongside. Or perhaps when Alysanne had spilled her own blood and bargained with them for another’s life. Aerion should be sent away if Maekar wishes to keep all of his brood alive; no doubt she would slit his throat if the gods asked that of her.”
It is treason to speak such things. He knows that.
Baelor knows that too.
The problem is that it is true.
He had dragged his niece away from the other, and brought her here. Spent the better part of two hours going over and over what exactly she had done. What she had said to the old gods, if it had been in Common Tongue or Old Tongue, or perhaps by some strange twist in fate, True Tongue. The Children of the Forest knew and they were gone; the Green Men still could speak it but he would not put it past his niece to attempt such a feat in her state. When she had said she had spilled her own blood, that was when he exploded.
Alysanne had yet to see him truly lose his temper up until this point. Her actions alone, her refusal to see just what she did was tempting the gods to strike her down, it had incensed him to the point where he could not hold back. Cruel words were said. Some of them he would not take back because they were the truth, but others, they had been meant to cut rather than to make his niece see the folly in her actions.
What a risk it was to her.
To the child in her belly.
He had no way of knowing what would happen once she did that, with the damn knife that was given to her by her husband. When she had said the leaves rustled with the wind right back, he had feared the worst.
Blood magic, sacrifice of such things, was dangerous to meddle with for a reason.
Gods, he feels so old now.
Nearing fifty.
Many men did not make it to this age and yet here he was.
“This is spreading. I’ve tried to have the knowledge contained but… Lonnel, servants have been speaking of Daeron, of Alysanne, and the things being said are concerning,” Baelor offers, twisting the rings on his fingers. Of course Baelor knows. He made it his business to know. Because that was what a good prince, a good king, did. To have the knowledge of what was happening around him and act accordingly.
Neither of them are young men anymore. This is not a problem that can be won by swinging a sword or charging off on a horse. He cannot slip into a man’s room in the dead of night and slit a throat, washing away problems without care. This is politics and magic and things beyond both of their comprehension. He turns to look at Baelor, truly looks at the man, and feels the weight of age and knowledge for the first time in a long time as something of a burden. Baelor looks the same.
“Manfred Dondarrion was there. No doubt he told Baratheon by now, who would have opened up his mouth if it meant slandering your family,” he adds dryly. It was not as if he hated the man, just, he was one of those who he might never wish to be in the same room with. “The hedge knight, he saw, and he will talk to that Fossoway who helped him. From there it will spread.”
It would get out of control if nothing was done.
He wondered if Bloodraven knew by now.
Idly he goes to take one of Baelor’s hands within his own, giving a rough squeeze. Instead of looking at the man’s face, he looks at his hands. The fingers, adorned with several rings, but more importantly the callouses from a life well spent. From sword training and using a spear, from writing letters upon letters, long fingered and fine, steady hands Baelor had.
And despite the headaches, the pain and suffering, the loss of temper, the chaos that is now coming down on all of them, he would not say it was not worth it. Selfish and greedy of him, but he was a terrible person, admittedly so.
“Summerhall will have to wait,” Baelor mutters brokenly. Duty before pleasure now. He sighs and gives another rough squeeze, and finds his gaze lingering on the ruby signet ring that catches some of the weakening light. “My father needs to be informed of this, and perhaps… I know you dislike him, but-”
“It may be Valyrian in nature, or mixed with some sort of magic from the Old Gods in addition, and as much as it pains me, Bloodraven may have some ideas as to what had happened,” he finishes for Baelor with a heavy heart. “That or his witch of a paramour. Perhaps if they put their minds together and I can stand being in the same room with the pair, then we might have an inkling of how to go forward.”
He hates King’s Landing.
But he loves his niece more.
He loves Baelor more.
“I will go with you.”
It settles something inside of him. He may hate the city, hate the sound and noise and the smell, hate the way people are pressed together like sardines in a jar, hate the fake piety, hate the lack of clean fresh air, but he will go.
They both shift closer to one another. Shoulders touching. If only for a moment. Another stolen moment in the shadow of things yet to come.
A future uncertain.
That shakes him to the core.