Title: Song for Evermore
Pairing: Daeron Targaryen x Baela Targaryen
Rating: M (a light M; it’s mostly T, except for a few paragraphs of non-explicit sexual content)
Summary: Daeron Targaryen’s hopes and dreams always came back to belonging. It had been so ever since he became a ward of Oldtown at five, at an earlier age than most. He finds a kindred spirit in an unexpected place: Lady Baela, the daughter of his grandfather’s bitter rival, Daemon Targaryen.
Word count: 47,559
Multi-chapter (essentially a one-shot split into six parts)
Status: Complete
Excerpt below:
“You sing to your dragon?”
“Yes, I — yes.” Daeron thought he was alone, save the dragons and the last vestiges of his song, echoing back to him. She startled him. His eyes took her in, from boots to breeches and studded jack. Lady Baela and her grandmother had arrived too late yesterday eve to be presented to the court; they had met with the queen and her father, the Lord Hand privately before retiring to their allotted chambers. Baela had been shaped as if by a fine hand; spare, too lean, most would say, with the barest hint of womanly curves. Her hair was pulled back in a thick braid, the silver curls even brighter against her rich bronze skin. Her mouth, generous and lush, curved in a faint smile. Her purple eyes, large, doe-like and beguiling, at odds with the intensity of her expression which he saw as she drew nearer curiously; her gaze was as keen as a blade.
He thought she was as surprised to come upon him in the Dragonpit as he was her, though she hid it slightly better. Surprise was too weak a word. Even as he rose, feet firmly underneath him, he felt unsteady, as if he were on the deck of a ship embroiled in a storm. Fitting when she has both Baratheon and Velaryon blood. How his thoughts run from him, even more than usual. He should bow. He had forgotten to, but neither had she curtsied. Likely it was too late now. He had a thought she would laugh if he did, Daemon’s eldest daughter. Of what he had heard of the man, the uncle he’d never met, it seemed likely. She’d laugh for he would seem like a dog slow to remember an old trick. He might like to see her laugh, he thought hazily. Better that than this halfway state, midway between impassive and expressive.
“Is she the only she-dragon you will sing to?”
“You, my lady?” Daeron didn’t recognise his voice, a low husky murmur. He swallowed against a dry mouth. “You wish me to sing to…”
Her eyes were full of laughter as she said, “Moondancer.” Hot blood rushed to his face, though her amusement was not mocking. Her dragon, she meant her dragon. “Although…” her head canted to the side, “I would not say no to a song, Prince Daeron.”
At last he dusted off his wits. “And what of yours? Your voice, I mean.”
"It would make her weep.”
He gave a little laugh. She surprised him and that cleared his head some. No other lady he knew would ever admit such a fault, especially not so blithely. “So bad as that?”
She cast a fond eye over her dragon, green with pearl tipped wings and crouching stiffly as if expecting a fight. “Certes it wouldn’t settle her, see her thus, like—“ she nodded to the blue dragon behind him, lolling upon the floor contently; were she a pup, she may have rolled onto her back, legs all in the air.
“Tessarion,” Daeron offered with a warm smile, patting his dragon’s flank. Despite her blithe mien, Baela’s stance was almost too casual; something had her on edge. Oddly enough he did not think it was him. Just as oddly the same was true in reverse. She could have been any young woman and he any young man, not two scions of a family split in two. “Any particular requests?”
“If I said The Bear and the Maiden Fair…”
“I’d say you want me sent to the Wall for debauching a lady of the blood.”
“As if you were the bear himself to lick honey from my hair.” The silence was charged with something hot, heavy, which made his breathing hitch. Mayhap she felt it too for her voice was soft, a bare whisper. “You’d be singing a song.”
“And after? How do you know what I would or wouldn’t lick?”
Hot embarrassment at speaking such bold words filled him — Mother have mercy, he had only just met her — but then she took one step towards him, then another, and another. Something fiery stirred low in his belly as she looked him over from head to toe, her brow raised. Then her mouth dimpled in a cheeky half-smile. “My grandmother used to warn me away from the singers who’d come to call at High Tide. Seems she was right to.” Singer. Did she think him such? In truth he was a bit of everything. A bit of nothing. He felt like something under her gaze, like he could be something. “Is that a promise?”
“Do you want it to be?”
“It is discourteous to answer a question with another question.” But she was smiling as she said it, a slightly broader smile.
Seven save me, he thought, you’re so lovely, I can barely breathe. Princess Rhaenys was right to warn her away from those singers; one look at her smile and they must have yearned to carry her off over their shoulders, to sail away with her under the cover of night. What he said when he found his tongue was, “You are enjoying this.”
She stepped backwards away from him, and towards her dragon. The dragonkeepers had saddled her while they were talking. Moondancer was still tense; would a flight see her settled as well as a song? “Why we came is a matter of little and less enjoyment.” Baela paused, uncharacteristically grave, then her voice brightened, “So, why not seek it where I may?” She looked at him over her shoulder and winked.
A smile played across Daeron’s mouth. “Is that a promise?”
“Do you want it to be?”
He was laughing as he called to her retreating form. “Tis discourteous to answer a question with another question.”
Her merry backward wave was the only answer he received.
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