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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Categories:
F/MGenM/M
Fandoms:
House of the Dragon (TV)A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Relationships:
Daemon Targaryen & Original Female Character(s)Caraxes | Daemon Targaryen's Dragon & Daemon TargaryenRhea Royce/Daemon TargaryenHarwin Strong & Original Female Character(s)Aemma Arryn/Viserys I TargaryenAemma Arryn & Original Female Character(s)Original Female Character(s) & Cannibal the Wild Dragon (A Song of Ice and Fire)Aemma Arryn & Balerion (God of Death)mentions of other relationships - Relationship
Characters:
Daemon TargaryenCaraxes | Daemon Targaryen's DragonOriginal Female Character(s)Rhea RoyceDaelyra Targaryen (OFC)Aemma ArrynViserys I TargaryenRhaenyra TargaryenAlicent HightowerHarwin StrongBalerion the God (A Song of Ice and Fire)Shrykos the God (A Song of Ice and Fire)Cannibal the Wild Dragon (A Song of Ice and Fire)Original Male Character(s)Ulf the White (A Song of Ice and Fire)
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ReincarnationFix-Itmodern girl in westerosHurt/ComfortDragonsKid FicDaemon-CentricProtective Daemon TargaryenSoft Daemon TargaryenFather-Daughter RelationshipDaemon Targaryen is Bad at FeelingsTargaryens Being TargaryensTargaryens Aren't Fully HumanNo beta we die like a lot of peopleGrowing UpHigh Valyrian (A Song of Ice and Fire)Caraxes is the Best BabysitterMix of book and showOtto Hightower Being an AssholeBad Parent Viserys I TargaryenViserys I Targaryen Being an IdiotViserys I Targaryen BashingTimeline What TimelineAnimal InstinctsValyrian Gods Solemnly Swear They're Up To No GoodAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceI took canon behind a Walmart and put it out of its misery this is my playground nowWARNING: Not Rhaenyra-beatificshe's just a normal person in this who makes mistakes and faces consequences like everyone elseExpanded Fantasy WorldbuildingMagicBlood MagicGodsFantasyAction/AdventureTargaryens PurrIsekai and TransmigrationPOV Third Person LimitedUnreliable NarratorBiased Narrator
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English
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Part 1 of all about dragons (and more) Next Work →
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Published:2022-11-17Updated:2025-08-12Words:93,655Chapters:10/?Comments:2,642Kudos:9,311Bookmarks:4,340Hits:284,705
the thing about dragons
KillerGirlFuria
Chapter 3: Chapter Two, in which tragedy strikes and Lyra meets the devil.
Summary:
Blasting through the plot because it's literally a glorified prologue for now.
I'm sat here wondering why did I start in 98AC when good shit only starts happening around 120AC. Sigh. That's what I get for wanting everything to make sense without flashbacks.
Oh yeah, and I made a cover and a header!
Also, I'm proud to announce; we have finally earned our Viserys Bashing tag on top of Otto Being an Asshole!
A translation into Thai by Meviss is now available!
Notes:
Me writing 8k words of prologue: surely, this will be the longest chapter in the story
Me writing 10k of chapter one: okay I overestimated myself, dream sequence took more than I thought.
Me, writing this and realizing that Aemma's still alive at 7k words and the ending of the chapter is supposed to be all the way on Dragonstone: goddamnit!
But alas; I needed to expand the relationship of Lyra and Harwin, and of Lyra and Aemma, put in groundwork for Lyra becoming an absolute killing machine later, AND get her a guitar. And then gods decided they want to be a part of the plot still, AND then I decided I want to put Cannibal in this chapter anyway for a nice ending, and so, here we are.
Yeah, Shrykos and Balerion are up to no good again. Last time, they committed an isekai, wonder what problems they'll cause now in the next few chapters. But at least their roles reversed and now Shrykos is the unwilling accomplice, yay!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
She wakes up.
It feels surreal now, with her memories making sense at last, no longer hidden at the peripheries of her consciousness. Daemon is still asleep, still wrapped around her, and right now she's little more than a glorified teddy bear. She finds that she doesn't mind. It's comfortable and warm, and she can feel the steady thrum of Daemon's heartbeat around her.
Lyra listens to its steady rhythm as she plots. Just a little bit, of course, but it's always good to have a plan, she thinks. Or at least a set of goals to work towards. Next few years will be very important for her future, after all. They'll set her course, dictate how people will see and treat her. If she's not careful, they may as well ruin her, too, and she really hates that thought.
Children should be kept safe. Teenagers should be allowed to be stupid.
She doesn't want to be—can't be the perfect highborn lady. Both her violently independent and unapologetic past self and the fire that burns in her veins now simply won't let her. It's a volatile combination and it will combust if some fool tries to tamper it into a box it was never meant to fit in.
She is a dragon. And before she was a dragon, she was a person from a world which worked differently. World which, for all its faults and inequalities, was better.
Besides—perfect highborn ladies don't have more muscles than average man, or tattoos, or piercings. They don't wear breeches and steel-toed boots, and they only sometimes wield swords.
She just really wants to be the kind of person whose mere existence makes the gods-fearing and proper ladies clutch their pearls and pretend-faint with how scandalized it makes them, just like she was her first go-around.
She sighs into her father's shirt.
(And holy shit she actually has a father now, isn't that crazy? She kinda loves it.)
He laughs.
Not derisive, or patronising, not even really amused—he's delighted, the madman, and Lyra loves him a little more for it. He loves the challenge, she knows. And the fact that he just believes in her like that—no you'll-grow-out-of-it's, just I-can't-wait-to-see-what-you'll-do's, it makes her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
She nuzzles into his chest.
He twists, looks at the curtained windows critically for a moment, then moves back into a comfortable position.
<…little flame, my love and the most important lady in my life—>
<…>
He sighs. She gives him a toothy grin and he groans in defeat.
He preens. Of course, he does.
She crawls out of bed and almost faceplants on the rug but he catches her with a laugh.
○
Daemon eats the salad. He grumbles about eating like a rabbit all the way, but it's more theatrical than anything. He's trying to keep her spirits up, she realizes.
He may not be attuned to other people at all, but he's very-well attuned to her emotions. He knows that something has changed yesternight. He knows something is different, but he's not going to ask, because she will come to him when she needs it.
Until then, he makes a clown of himself at breakfast to make her laugh, and that's more than enough.
Drowning in her own blood haunts her a little less for his efforts.
And that's that.
○
Aemma is pregnant again. The year is 105 After Conquest.
Lyra digs her nails into her palms until they bleed when Rhaenyra runs up to them and exclaims that she will have a sister and her name will be Visenya, and puts on her prettiest fake smile and congratulates her as she ignores the cold stab of dread in her gut.
"I'm sure you'll make a great big sister," she tells Rhaenyra and hopes it's passably genuine.
She screams in her pillow later, and if she spends more time with Aemma than before, that's on her. She's seven, after all, she's simply missing a motherly presence.
Nothing else. Nothing more.
Later in the evening, Daemon notices her hands. Or maybe he's noticed before, but followed Lyra's example and refused to acknowledge them. Once they're alone, though, he personally cleans the wounds and wraps her palms with gauze. It stings, because he cleans them with pure alcohol like Melissa taught them both all the way back in Runestone.
But he will be free, won't he. The way Lyra said she wants to be. Then they can do anything, go anywhere. He wants to go to Essos with her—
Lyra lets out a hollow chuckle.
Daemon's blood runs cold. That sounds an awful lot like prophecy.
she says, and it's not the usual cheeky tone he's used to. It's a sombre one, sad almost. She's fond of Aemma. Hells, he's fond of Aemma. He can give Lyra all the love he has, but she will still yearn for a mother's touch, it's how it works.
Daemon moves to stand in front of her and wraps his arms around her fully, pressing her to his chest. She responds in kind, latching onto him, fingers digging into his spine.
Daemon doesn't think he's ever seen Lyra seem quite this small, let alone properly cry. She was a calm child; not necessarily happy all the time or rambunctious, but content. But the sound that escapes her throat at that time feels like someone is ripping his still beating heart out of his chest.
And there's nothing he can do about it. He can only hold his daughter close as she weeps.
○
Daemon doesn't tell Viserys about her 'premonition'. He's never broken her trust before, but it's always nice to have it reinforced like that.
That being said, he doesn't tell her to go tell him either. There's something going on there, she thinks.
Maybe he simply fears Viserys pushing him away more. Maybe he's hoping for the crown.
○
Daemon brings Aemma cookies with rose jam and sugared orange peels. It's her favourites, he remembers as much. When she asks him to stay and talk, he does.
There isn't much left in her of that girl who climbed trees with him and pushed Viserys into a fountain, buried under all that stifling duty, but he brings out as much of it as he can.
He doesn't realize how much he's missed this until now.
He doesn't think of Lyra's haunted prophecy. Doesn't think of how chilling it was. Doesn't think of how his very soul forbids him from disregarding it.
He doesn't.
○
She rips the straw training dummy to shreds and once she's done, she hunts down Aemma and takes a nap on her lap while the woman lounges on her cushions and reads her book—some Vale history, if Lyra read the cover right.
"What's wrong?" Aemma asks her once she wakes up. Lyra huffs and looks up at her.
"I'm worried. Last time you were having a baby it… Went wrong."
Aemma's face softens, but there's a glint of grief in her eyes as she runs her hand through Lyra's hair.
"It's going to be alright," she reassures the girl, and Lyra nuzzles into the palm of her hand and pretends her heart doesn't break a little bit when she hears it, or when she lies with a cheerful façade.
"I hope so! I could really use a cousin that isn't annoying."
"Rhaenyra will grow out of it," Aemma chuckles.
Lyra knows she won't. She doesn't say it—instead, she pouts. "Well, I hope she grows out of it faster! But I'd like a small cousin, too. Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?"
"Rhaenyra thinks it'll be a girl. She already declared her name will be Visenya."
"Well then," Lyra says, "I hope it's a boy so that we can train together!"
Aemma chuckles and braids her hair and sneaks her some sour-sweet lemon cakes after dinner.
○
She's seven. She can't do anything other than spend as much time as she can with Aemma.
Viserys won't listen to her—Maesters won't even give her the time of the day to hear her. Daemon will listen to her, but Viserys won't listen to him, either.
She knows this, because she's tried.
You don't understand, they tell her. It's very important for the king to have a son. You will understand when you're grown.
Except she does. She does understand why Viserys needs a son.
She also understands that his quest for one will kill Aemma before the year is up.
The rage bubbles up, surfacing in progressively more and more mauled dummies. Some, she just stabs with her knives. Others, she tears apart with her bare hands, punches the battered wood until her knuckles bleed. Every time she does it, Daemon finds her first, somehow, and cleans and wraps her hands, and then takes her flying on Caraxes.
It's frustrating, but not surprising. Even in the world she was from very few people took children, especially girls, seriously.
Still, the patronizing tones make her want to commit murder—and it sure is an odd experience to have Daemon of all people discourage bloodshed.
Though, he is right. Viserys and his personal Maester what's-his-name are a bit too of high-profile victims, even for him.
○
She's an idiot. Why go for self-destructive rage when she can go for a creative one?
○
She's not sure when the dreams of bloodstained cheap linoleum and glinting kitchen knives turn into dreams of shadows looking at her with eyes so viciously green that she fears acid burns from just looking back at them, but she won't complain about it. The shadows are comforting in a way she can't explain, bone-deep just like Daemon's presence but just different, and she finds herself much less stressed at night-time, and much less afraid of falling asleep.
It's a relief. It certainly upgrades her quality of sleep, and her mood during the day. Daemon becomes visibly less jittery and stressed when she calms down, too, no longer on hair trigger.
(There's less blood under his fingernails, less bruises on his knuckles. Less reports of him getting into fights anywhere and anytime.
He heals fast. He always has. Rhaenyra, too, Lyra noticed, though not nearly as fast. Lyra doesn't, bruises and scrapes taking weeks to fade, and neither does Viserys, throne-cuts on his fingers smarting for weeks.
If it's not connected to their dragon-having status, Lyra will eat her new leather boots.)
○
○
Instead of letting her maul straw dummies next to a squire that might at this point be more-than-appropriately terrified of his seven-year-old daughter, Daemon starts bringing her to the City Watch barracks almost every other day, much to Viserys and Aemma's displeasure. (This is no place for a girl, or some other useless drivel, he paid them no mind and Lyra didn't either.) With the funding going properly into where it ought to, they finally have a slow but steady influx of proper gear.
Daemon takes Lyra's advice and has the guardsmen darken their armour and wear golden embroidered cloaks over it. Finally, instead of a ragtag group of stableboys, desperate smallfolk, and unwanted fourth and fifth and sixth sons, they're starting to look like a proper militia. That in turns boosts their morale and has them actually acting like proper militia, too.
Daemon will admit that he is quite proud of how far they've come in mere weeks, and he is happy to be able to work on the field, rather stan again stuck behind some desk. Lyra does have to occasionally stop him when he jumps from topic to topic too much to keep him focused on one, preferably the important one, but it really isn't his fault that there's so much to do and he finds new things and loses track of the old ones just to find them again. He was never good at sitting still or focusing on one thing for too long anyway, unless something really interested him.
He's not sure what he thinks about Lyra latching onto that Strong boy, though. She's too young to be interested in boys. He tells her as much.
Lyra shoots him a very judgmental look, and Harwin has the gall to laugh at him.
○
The side effect of her latching onto Harwin is that Daemon remembers that he, too, can carry her on his shoulders, and promptly starts doing so whenever he can.
It's not like she's complaining. His legs are longer than hers so he can get places faster than she can, and she can play with his hair in the meanwhile. It's a win-win situation.
○
She finds a guy in the City Watch named Corren Flowers—a skinny, ratty thing with curly, reddish hair and freckled face, kind-of skittery in disposition and likely an unacknowledged Tyrell bastard if his remarks are anything to go by. He's really good at throwing knives, though, and passable at pickpocketing. It only takes three days of pestering and a bottle of Dornish Red (don't ask how she got it) for him to agree to teach her, and then a continued supply of lemon tarts to persuade him to keep up with the lessons.
It's pretty fun smuggling them out from the Red Keep kitchens with Daemon.
Having resources and using them to further her own agenda feels great. Like she's doing something.
○
He caves some lowlife's face in in an alley at dusk. Mysaria pointed him out to Daemon, said he's been harassing her whores, killed one the day prior, too. Daemon was more than happy to take the matters into his own hands for her; he likes her well enough and it involved murder.
He runs into Harwin the moment he turns the corner, still a little crazed, with blood and brain matter dripping from his fingers—with what's left of the lowlife's head in his hand to give to Mysaria as proof, because the left side of the face had a distinct tattoo. Lyra looks at him from where she's perched on Harwin's shoulders and scrunches her nose.
He looks down at himself, where his braid hangs loosely on his chest, and sure enough, his almost-white hair is splattered with blood, and it will take a lot of effort to get the red out. He looks back up at Lyra. She sighs and pulls out a handkerchief and a flask of water.
Harwin, for one, seems entirely unperturbed by the situation, even as they both do as they're told. Daemon is still turning the man's head in his hands.
He was one ugly motherfucker, that's for sure. No wonder best he could do was Flea Bottom whores.
It takes him a moment for him to realize that Lyra spoke to Harwin in High Valyrian and he understood. He looks at the boy, eyes narrowed.
"She's been teaching me," the boy says sheepishly. "I'm not really good at speaking yet but I can understand simple things."
Daemon snorts. "I take it you don't have much choice in the matter?"
"I don't think I do, my Prince," Harwin says with a smile. He doesn't seem to mind much, though; the whole fact that he's been chosen by Lyra. It's good, Daemon thinks, that she's seeking other people. He thinks. But the pang of jealousy curling around his gut sure is an ugly kind of feeling.
He smiles. There's blood on his teeth. He tells the boy in Valyrian:
She cleans his braid to the best of her ability and pins it up with a stick she was apparently carrying in her pocket. Somehow, she makes it stay up.
he asks, raising an eyebrow at her.
she tells him cheerfully. Suddenly, that night when she woke up and grew so terrifyingly cold and wouldn't calm down for hours flashes to the forefront of his memory, and then all the smaller in-betweens. She presses her forehead against his as much as she can reach, and he presses back.
She laughs and sticks her tongue out at him as Harwin picks her up and puts her on his shoulders again.
There are many reasons for Daemon to worry, he knows. Most of them centre on his daughter, some of them on his brother and his brother's wife. Some even on Viserys' whelp as she tries to insert herself in between him and Lyra, as if there would ever be a place for her in that relationship.
She's not very smart, that girl, and quite spoiled, but he doesn't really mind her existence that much. She has more fire than Viserys—though that bar is an inch off the ground—and she's still young and doesn't know better in many (most) situations. Lyra is ambivalent to her, unless directly annoyed, so Daemon lets her be, too. Being the cool uncle who teaches her dragon-riding and tells her tales of travels and tourneys is something he can do.
She's not Lyra. She doesn't need to know the real him.
She'd run crying from the real him, unlike Lyra who chases him with a handkerchief because he's tracking blood around again.
○
It takes a month, but she gets her guitar. She's not sure she even wants to know what kind of strings Daemon has pulled to get it for her, but given that the craftsman who brings it looks more ready to strangle her father than deathly afraid of him, Lyra supposed it couldn't have been that bad.
It's not what she's used to, but it certainly is recognizable as one. She'll have to fine-tune it with time, and it's not like she's the size to play it properly just yet, but she manages.
But when she spends a day familiarizing herself with the instrument and making notes on what to change, and her fingers ache in a familiar way, it feels alright, for once.
She plays Wonderwall like the basic bitch she is at heart, but she elects to redeem herself with Playing God—or really anything from Polyphia, death hasn't cured her from her obsession with their music—as soon as she's physically able to, cursing her short fingers all the while.
Daemon is quite interested in whatever she's doing with it, at least. Though he makes a bigger fuss than necessary when she nicks her fingers on the strings, no matter how much she assures him that this is fine and normal and will happen again. If anything, it worries him more.
○
"So… This is… What do you call it again?"
"A guitar."
Lyra's pretty sure it says something about her, that fact that Aemma is the second person to hear her play anything other than mindless plucking.
"It looks a lot like the lute bards play," she notices, and Lyra nods.
"It's based on it, yes. It's a bit different, though."
And so, Lyra plays and Aemma listens, reclining in her velveted settee. She falls asleep like that, and Lyra doesn't dare wake her up, as now that she's started showing (second trimester, probably) she's been wracked by insomnia and nausea.
Lyra manages to drag a blanket over Aemma's legs and finishes her tea and scones before leaving.
○
The third person she plays to is Caraxes.
He sniffs the instrument and looks at her judgmentally. He probably doesn't like the lacquered wood; the smell is a bit offensive even for Lyra, but it will fade soon enough.
He barks at her without much conviction.
Caraxes has no idea what Wonderwall is, but he's offended anyway. Lyra sticks her tongue out at him.
○
Aemma really likes Soldier, Poet, King. Enough to learn the lyrics and sing with her.
It's good, seeing her brighten up like that and forget the weariness and nausea.
The Maester tells Aemma not to overtax herself, and she glares at the man while Lyra throws various heavy objects at him in her stead. She nails him in the nose with the cup—that shuts him up, at least.
Viserys tries to scold her for it later, but gets scolded by Aemma himself instead. She was told to not to overtax herself, and Lyra was only doing this in her stead, after all. Daemon, predictably, praises her for nailing the Grey Rat in the face. Alicent is disapproving of her behaviour, of course, but Rhaenyra is happy that her mother is happy, so there's that. She doesn't even make a sour face at Lyra.
○
She subjects the City Watch—newly dubbed Gold Cloaks for their refurbished uniforms—to her music as well. When she sits out of the way in some corner and doesn't bother anyone to teach her to stab better, the barracks are actually a very nice spot to pluck at her guitar and remember songs from her past life that she enjoyed playing. Some of them sit around when they're on a break and listen to her fiddling. Many are surprised at just how violently she can curse when she misses a note.
It's easier than she thought it would be, though, that remembrance and writing down words of songs and notes of their music. It feels like Tessarion is smiling on her, but—it wouldn't be odd, would it? If Balerion and Shrykos and even Meleys personally meddled in her life, why would other gods stay out? Especially since her job is apparently to directly help them?
Best not to think about it too much. She'll just take what she's given.
○
Lyra isn't sure how exactly Daemon gets his hands on the Valyrian Steel, as though he's not frequenting the Red Keep, he isn't really travelling about that much; not enough to go spelunking in Essos, anyway. All she knows is that, one morning, he just puts it around her neck, so that she can have something of their heritage, too—or something sappy like that. He's always sappy when it comes to their culture, but it's endearing and she really likes learning about it anyway.
It's nice, made of three rows of links, and the pendant looks a bit like a Celtic knot, with a ruby in the middle. But—
She distinctly remembers this necklace was supposed to have been gifted to Rhaenyra.
She asks about it but the answer is, as many things with Daemon at their core, very straightforward.
It brings Lyra no small amount of joy to hear this, for more than one reason. Childishly, selfishly, she's just glad she's the top priority. It also brings her some peace of mind; unlike what she remembers, Daemon doesn't seem very interested in trying to seduce his severely underaged niece here and now. It might change in few years, but…
Maybe fatherhood made him a slightly better person overall? Or maybe he simply couldn't imagine a girl barely few years older than his daughter as a potential partner, even for the sake of power.
Rhaenyra still having her puppy crush on him did make sense, though, as annoying as it could get at times. Daemon was, objectively, quite dashing, and his roguish reputation was exactly the exciting bad boy dangerous something a lot of tween girls at the cusp of puberty would be into to the point of being almost rabid.
Lyra would know. She was a preteen once before, after all. She's not quite proud of that time, but she understands it was necessary formative period.
Gods be good, was it embarrassing as all hell in retrospect though. She really could've gone without the edgy period, too. The MCR and Tokio Hotel obsession sure were… Something, as were all the edgy, badly-drawn Sonic OCs.
…
Wow, she really has no room to judge Rhaenyra, does she.
○
"You're very violent for someone your size," Harwin says, poking at the sad pile of straw that was once a training dummy with his shoe.
"It's a violent world," Lyra says with a shrug. "And besides, I'm going to get taller soon enough. And then I'll move on to swords. And I'm going to get worse," she says and looks at them with a grin. He sighs and shakes his head.
"Aren't you supposed to get better with time? Isn't that how personal growth works?"
"Eh. Kepa doesn't seem to think so, just look at him."
"…Prince Daemon is… Certainly a particular case."
"Mhm. Like a seagull in human form. And I'm gonna be just as bad when I grow up!"
"Hmm."
"What?"
"Just thinking about you having to do a lot of growing if you want to match that."
Lyra looks up at him. He looks down at her.
She kicks him in the shin with a shriek and enough force to make his knees buckle. He curses at the pain but laughs at her indignance.
"It's not my fault I'm vertically challenged! I'm seven!"
Harwin only laughs harder.
"I will steal your kneecaps!"
He only barely avoids her swiping at his knees, backing into an exasperated Corren who sidesteps him easily as Harwin falls backwards, landing flat on his ass, still laughing.
Lyra looks at Corren. "You see this shit? No respect!"
"How horrible, m'lady," he deadpans without an ounce of sympathy.
○
She's busy and days fly, turning into weeks, and then months. It's not bad, save for the ever-looming, quickly approaching mess that's puberty. She finds her balance again after remembering her past life, between dragons, City Watch, lessons, her guitar, and spending time with Aemma. She almost loses track of time entirely.
Rhaenyra's unbearably smug occasionally, because Lyra doesn't even have a dragon and she's already a seasoned dragonrider; she's claimed Syrax at the age Lyra is now, after all, so where is her dragon?
Lyra counters her cousin's boasting by being able to handle just about any dragon in her vicinity, while anyone else would pay for that with their whole arm at the very least.
She has her ways, and they usually include talking at the dragons in High Valyrian about anything and everything. They certainly seem to understand. Of course, she can't ride them; that's for their chosen person only, but she nonetheless is about the only person other than their chosen rider who can just walk up to any dragon without getting incinerated on the spot.
Might be gods' blessing, might be her dragon blood.
Might be both.
Then, Viserys declares a tourney will be held for the birth of his son and heir next month one day at a rare family breakfast, and it takes all of Lyra's mental fortitude and then some to not to throw her plate at his face.
In a month, Aemma will die. Viserys will kill her for a dream that he will never live to see fulfilled.
She gives him a bright (fake) smile and manages to compliment his idiocy without being mean about it. Viserys doesn't notice shit, and neither does Rhaenyra. Aemma and Daemon do, but they don't press. They're growing tired of him, too.
○
And then Daemon purges the city of criminals. He's been gearing to do that for a few weeks now, but Lyra knows that the Tourney announcement moved his timetable forward a fair bit, and sends the Gold Cloaks scrambling a bit. It's by no means a mess, but it is a situation. Enough for Daemon to be annoyed about it.
It's his job to keep the city safe, after all.
…
Safe-ish. As much as place like King's Landing can be, that is.
"Make sure to pick up all the body parts. I don't want to find a disembowelled cock tomorrow."
Corren chokes on air, and Harwin falters in his step. Daemon starts laughing.
"I'll personally make sure we pick everything up," he tells her with twinkling eyes. She nods.
"Good. I'll be with aunt Aemma."
○
"It will be fine," Aemma reassures her, even though she's sprawled on her settee, constantly shifting in her now-ever-present discomfort. "You'll have a little cousin to spoil in no time."
"I know," Lyra lies with a small, much less fake-looking smile.
In two years, she will. And his name will be Aegon.
Aemma's eyes are distant, glazed. She's tired.
Lyra nicks her finger on the strings. She wraps it up and continues playing.
○
And then just like that, the day of the tourney arrives.
○
"You deserve better than this," she tells Aemma as she places a crown of daisies and hydrangeas on her head. Aemma, though hazy-eyed, looks at her and smiles, reaching out to gently caress her cheek. A mother's touch Lyra never allowed herself to crave, in neither life.
"I know," Aemma tells her weakly through the haze of tonics and incenses and some poppy milk. "This is a goodbye."
Lyra isn't surprised by this. Their mutual assurances were hollow at best, before. Lyra, sad and desperate, and Aemma, slowly wasting away and having given up. There's little life left in her eyes—was, under all that haze. Now there's none.
Lyra lets herself cry.
"You knew," she says trying to bite through her trembling voice.
"I knew," Aemma agrees. "I could taste it, my death, I… I think I knew, from the start. Is it bad that I'm glad I will no longer have to see Viserys? I tire of his dreams. Of his insistence for a son. I tire of… This."
Lyra shakes her head. "Not at all."
"I didn't want to think about it, you know," Aemma says wistfully. "But I think I knew, from the start, that this is the end of the line. That this one… This one is where it ends, for me. I'm pathetic, aren't I? Only admitting it now, drugged to the gills…"
"You're not pathetic," Lyra disagrees. "You're very strong, actually."
"I want to rest. Gods, Lyra, I'm so tired."
"Then rest. You've done enough."
"He's waiting for me. Balerion, in his Halls, I can feel it."
Lyra chuckles a little, remembering an awkward but kind behemoth with blood-red eyes who knelt down to her level because she was uncomfortable. "He's not a bad person, you know. A bit stupid, lets his friends drag him into crazy schemes. But he's nice."
Aemma smiles.
"I hope so." A pause. Aemma looks at up at the ceiling, then back at Lyra, with some newfound clarity in her hazed eyes. "Goodbye, Lyra. Have fun today. And don't be too mean to Rhaenyra, alright? I fear it's out fault she's this spoiled."
Lyra chuckles, and it comes out all wet and shuddery.
"Goodbye, aunt Aemma. I'll try. But I make no promises."
○
Rhaenyra remains entirely unaware of anything, as usual, as she excitedly gets ready for the tourney.
Lyra envies her so much she has to check herself in the mirror out of fear she'd turn physically green.
○
[Shrykos, I think I'm going to do something stupid, and I need your help.]
[Balerion, what in the fuck—]
[I helped you drag Lyra here. Now, I need you to help me back, since we used most of our power to speak with her. And passages are your domain, anyway.]
[Alright, shoot.]
○
She doesn't go to the royal box. Instead, she sneaks into the knight tents first, and makes a beeline for her father. Her face is still a bit puffy and she splashes it with cold water.
Daemon is drunk, that's easy to realize as he fumbles with the clasps of his armour, his usual dexterity gone. She doesn't mention it, though, just as he doesn't mention her puffy reddened eyes.
She helps him with the armour—where the fuck is his squire?—and he helps her wash her face and fixes her hair. Lyra looks tired if presentable when she finally makes her way, and Daemon looks somewhat sober. He's in no state to fight, in no state to win the tourney, and Lyra thinks, maybe this is how he lost the first time in the past life, in the book and the show.
After all, if Baelon is born safely, he'll loose what affection and standing he has with Viserys. And if they die, he'll grieve for their loss.
It's an odd sort of sadness.
○
There's a tourney. Daemon asks for Alicent's favour to insult Otto, which admittedly is funny, then proceeds to unhorse Hightower Junior—whichever, if Lyra's counting right Otto has four sons and she really doesn't feel like remembering their names, let alone remembering which one is this in particular—and then gets his ass handed to him by Criston Cole who then crowns Rhaenyra. Lyra smiles fondly as Daemon stomps off in a huff, predictably furious that he didn't win anyway, but at least he doesn't pick more of a fight. Lyra's pretty sure he'd have won easily if he was sober.
Or maybe Viserys leaving just as he was about to fight knocked him off his game. Either or.
Probably both.
Lyra wished she was drunk, too. That way, maybe the cold dread pooling in her stomach wouldn't have been as bad when she saw Viserys leave to finish murdering his wife.
Instead, she turned back to Laena to continue their conversation and tried very hard to not think about it. It's almost easy; Laena is a delight. She's fifteen, and Lyra's lizard-child seven-year-old brain thinks that's really cool, and she's reasonable, quite mature, and has that feral little glint in her eye and sharpness in her words that endears her to Lyra in no time.
Laena also catches that Lyra's upset for whatever reason and instead of wheedling it out of her, simply diverts her attention elsewhere. Trash-talking knights and their armour is pretty fun, when done with someone who knows what they're talking about.
She also recently claimed Vhagar, the great beast Lyra saw all of once at her grandfather's funeral two years ago, which makes Laena even cooler.
It's a weird but a little fun situation once they start talking about it; Laena's mother, Rhaenys, now rides Daemon's mother's dragon, while Daemon rides Rhaenys' father's dragon, and now Laena swooped in and took Daemon's father's dragon. Thinking and talking about it—because Lyra is, at heart, a dragon nerd, how could she not be?—helps a lot.
And then they're given the news of Aemma's death and nothing matters anymore.
○
She holds Rhaenyra with Alicent as she wails, and the sound the princess makes rattles her very bones.
A brat she may be, but now she's just a little girl of not even twelve who just lost her mother, and least Lyra can do is be there, because though her heart feels like someone stabbed it with an icicle, she knows for a fact she can't compare to what Rhaenyra feels.
But she's also seven, and has the emotional control to match, and soon enough everyone in that pile is crying.
○
Baelon dies too; he doesn't even reach the twenty-four-hour mark. Lyra seethes when she sees how haunted Viserys looks.
It's his fault. He did it. He insisted Aemma keep trying to birth him a son, he ordered her cut open.
Lyra wants to scream it in his face. She almost does, but Daemon resurfaces from wherever he was and sweeps her up and grabs Rhaenyra by the hand and drags them both to his chambers. They have a sleepover and talk and reminisce about the good days, but throughout it all Lyra can't help but wonder one thing; where the fuck is Viserys and why isn't he comforting his own daughter?
She asks as much, which sends Rhaenyra into a massive tantrum about her father, screaming and cursing and throwing plates and all, but Lyra thinks she feels better by the end of it. She looks a little less haunted.
Alicent is missing too. Lyra wonders if Otto has already started planting his fourteen-year-old daughter in Viserys' bubble.
Later, Rhaenyra demands Lyra to sing her Aemma's favourite song. Somehow, by a miracle of sheer force of will, she manages to perform Soldier, Poet, King without breaking down.
○
Rhaenyra has to be the one to light the funeral pyre of her mother and brother, and the ones comforting her are Daemon and Rhaenys, and the only thing Lyra is sure of is that Viserys found the rock bottom and the attached shovel and he's been digging ever since like it was something he was born to do.
His incompetence as a husband, a father, and a king has the capacity to ruin a nation.
It had, in a different timeline.
But Lyra lives in this timeline. And she needs to save dragons that Viserys will try so hard to bring to extinction, kill them all with his thoughtlessness like he had Aemma. And Lyra isn't going to let him.
○
Daemon would be a second Maegor, or worse. It is the duty of the king to protect the realm from him.
It plays on reply in his head as he watches the Gold Cloaks have their promised fun for keeping the city safe over the tourney. For keeping the theft and harassment to little, and murder to none. He desn't much feel like it, between Aemma's death and Cunttower's words, but—he gave his word, and his word he will keep, because those are good, hardworking men, keeping the city safe.
I will not be made to choose between my daughter and my brother.
But it was not quite a disagreement, was it? And if Cunttower is allowed to keep pouring poison into Viserys' head, it's only matter of time before it takes root. And Viserys doesn't really want much with him nowadays anyway, preferring Cunttower's counsel over his.
Mysaria says something to him and he smiles and waves his hand at her, not really listening. Then one of the Cloaks—Rorke, maybe?—bellows for the crowd to quiet down for him to speak. He sighs, not feeling much into it.
Daemon would be a second Maegor, or worse.
"King and council have long rued my position as the next in line for the throne."
He stands up, doesn't sway as much as he feared he would.
It is the duty of the king to protect the realm from him.
"But dream and pray as they all might, it seems I am not so easily replaced. The gods give, just as the gods take away."
Tears, tantrums, Lyra and Rhaenyra both unwilling to let him go in their grief.
I will not be made to choose between my daughter and my brother.
But choosing between your daughter and your son was easy, wasn't it?
He raises his cup, wry smile on his lips.
"To my brother, the king, and to the king's son, who was his heir for less than a day!"
Rhaenyra wailing, waking up at night only to cry, calling for her mother. Lyra trying and almost succeeding to play Aemma's favourite songs on her guitar for Rhaenyra without breaking down.
His own disbelief as he watched his goodsister wrapped for the pyre.
Gods, they were friends since childhood. He was just beginning to rekindle that friendship.
And Viserys—
Viserys—
"And for the wife he killed for nothing, may she rest in peace free from him at last!"
The people roar and cheer him, but if Daemon's being honest, he just wants to get back and sleep, and hope when he wakes up, the world isn't as horrible.
○
He wakes up.
It's worse.
Viserys calls for him and from the way Lyra sighs, he knows it's nothing good. She pats his shoulder and he presses his forehead to hers to ground himself, and then he's on his feet.
It won't do to keep the king waiting.
Daemon will try to keep it in mind.
○
The confrontation is ugly. Daemon… Both plays a fool and doesn't, because he said what he said and he doesn't regret saying it—because it was truth—but hearing how much Otto misrepresented his words knocks the wind out of him.
He's just.
He's tired.
And Viserys is incensed for Daemon calling Baelon 'Heir for a Day' even though Daemon didn't quite call him that. What he did, what he said, was said out of anger and helplessness at Viserys. If he's to be honest, he genuinely thought Viserys would be mad at him for openly stating that he killed his wife, but he doesn't even mention that.
Odd.
Maybe he doesn't know Daemon said it.
Maybe he does but doesn't address it because he did order her cut open and even before that, he did put the babe in her, and it all directly led to her death.
"We all mourn in different ways, Your Grace," he says after a consideration.
"My family has just been destroyed."
You destroyed your family, Daemon almost says. You made Aemma bear you heirs until it killed her, you ordered her stomach cut open. No pressing outside force. You.
"But instead of being by my side, or Rhaenyra's—"
Porcelain on the wall, little half-orphan girl clawing at his arms as she wails into his chest begging for her mother—
"—you chose to celebrate your own rise, laughing with your whores and your lickspittles!"
Daemon stops listening then, just looking at his feet and trying to keep calm lest he does something his brother will regret.
Dark Sister is at his belt, and cold fury pools in the pit of his stomach. He feels weightless with anger though his throat constricts bitterly.
So he throws his woes back at Viserys. How he always pushes him away, how he's always trying to get him gone. Doesn't he realize he's hurting him, when Daemon only wants to be of use for his brother the way father conditioned him to?
Otto. More honourable than him.
Something snaps, just a little. Just enough.
"You're weak, Viserys. And your council of leeches knows it, they all prey on you for their own ends!"
But will truth thrown in his face now wake him up, when it failed so many times before?
He lives in his own little bubble, dad, Lyra told him once. Where the world works the way he thinks it does. And he will never step half a foot outside that bubble, lest he realizes he might be wrong about something.
He can see that now, much clearer than before.
"I have decided to name a new heir."
Daemon startles a little. "I'm your heir?" he blurts out. It sounds like a question even to him.
Even though he knows he's not, not really. He's never been officially inundated, and Viserys' constant tries for a son made it clear enough he'd never be one. It hurts, but he's accepted it.
But this? Now?
It can't be. He can't, he won't—Surely, surely—
"You will return to Runestone and to your lady wife, and you will do so without quarrel, by order of your King."
All of a sudden, he feels empty. There's no anger rising at the back of his throat nor sadness wrapping its hands around his neck, choking him. There's just—nothing.
He takes a step forward, and the white cloaks close in. He looks at his brother, searching. He's not—it's not—
Viserys looks back, resolute. He thinks he's made a good decision, and the emptiness grows.
"Your Grace."
Daemon turns on his heel and walks out.
A part of him stays behind, in that throne room.
It dies there.
○
He sits on the bed, and looks down at his hands without seeing much at all.
Lyra climbs onto his lap and wraps her small hands around his neck. He wraps his arms around her in turn and buries his face in her hair, grounding himself in the familiarity of it. He thinks maybe he shouldn't; she's his daughter, not a doll to be hugged whenever he feels worse. She probably shouldn't be the one comforting him.
But she offers. Every time, she knows when he's feeling worse and comes to him without fail, and he's powerless to refuse. His mother was the only one who ever brought him this comfort, and she was dead before he truly tasted it.
She's purring, a small sound he can almost feel in his bones. It helps more than he knows to describe.
Alright. Nothing more, nothing less. Just… Alright.
Just like that, she's willing to uproot her life and go with him, again, and Daemon can't help but seethe. She's too good for him—when he and his father and Viserys would have to move, he'd always kick up a fuss, because to a seven-year-old, moving from place to place was terrifying. Children, he knows, need stability. Stability he's very much not providing right now.
He looks down at her with a soft smile, and says:
She nods.
She grins, but doesn't answer. He tickles her in retaliation, and for a brief moment forgets the bitterness at the back of his throat.
○
She looks up at him and narrows her eyes.
It's not a question, but he answers anyway.
Pause. Moment of consideration. Unimpressed sigh. Then:
Gods, he loves her so much.
○
"Bye Harwin, bye Corren!"
"Bye—What?"
"Kepa got kicked out of King's Landing and I'm going with him."
"Ah. Shit, who's going to run Gold Cloaks now? What if they put another useless shmuck in charge?!"
"I dunno. Figure something out, I believe in you! Anyway, that's all I wanted, bye!"
"Have fun and remember to keep up the training!"
"And make sure Daemon eats his vegetables!"
○
Daemon doesn't take Mysaria with them when they leave, like Lyra expected he would. It sends her reeling in confusion because this isn't how that went, but—
But why would he take Mysaria with them? It would be another story if the woman was actually pregnant like in the books, but as it stands, if Daemon wants a reason to steal the egg that was for Baelon, Lyra is a much better excuse than Mysaria and her hypothetical pregnancy.
It just makes sense. Lyra is already here, and she's yet to find her dragon.
And Mysaria not being put in danger by Daemon for superficial reasons, and therefore still fond of him later, when she grows her spy network?
For that alone, Lyra will gladly play along with this plot.
○
Dragonstone is impressive.
A massive island formed around a volcano, and a sizable jagged keep that served as a Valyrian outpost before the Doom, and a Targaryen refuge after. Made of blackstone, with dragons carved into its walls and glass in its windows.
But it feels right, when Caraxes lands and she clambers down the saddle and almost falls flat on her face if not for Daemon catching her by the scruff last moment. When her feet hit the ground rich in volcanic ash and a dragon cries in the sky, circling around them briefly before dipping back towards the volcano itself, its bronze scales flittering in the sunlight.
Vermithor.
Daemon looks at her and then at the Bronze Fury flying in the distance, but she only shakes her head. Other than being in awe of the magnificent beast, she felt nothing.
○
It's a siren kind of song; alluring and inescapable. She hears it from the moment she steps on Dragonstone, a soft but sure thrum in her chest and tinkle in her ears that only she knows to look for. It's in the keens of the seagulls and crash of the waves, it rumbles in the island under her feet.
It's something ancient. It's something wild. It's something just for her.
The bone-deep certainty of something waiting.
○
Daemon is probably more excited about the dragon thing than she is. He's almost vibrating with anticipation and she laughs at him for it. He even proposes they go to the caves on the face of the volcano where the wild dragons nest.
Unnecessary. They wouldn't find it there.
He's not a very patient person, but the excitement from Lyra's impending dragon-claiming at least distracts him from the mess they left behind in King's Landing.
○
They don't have to wait long at all.
They get to Dragonstone in the early hours of the afternoon. By sundown, it's already there, lured to the keep by the very same kind of song that prompts Lyra to get out of the keep.
It startles Daemon, if the sharp stutter in his breath is anything to go by.
It's a great black shape, perched on the hill like a giant spider that wasn't there before, big enough to cover the entire peak with its shadow-and-tar-coloured body. It unfurls when she approaches, slowly as if for show, into leathery wings and scaly sides and ridged back and long neck covered in spikes until finally, a great scarred wolfish head crowned with wicked horns turns towards her. She can see white jagged teeth sticking from the maw of the creature, as long and thick as she's tall.
She sees the familiar acid-green gaze focused on her—the very same that haunted her for months, chasing away bloodstained cheap linoleum and glinting kitchen knives.
A titan to match titans, the oldest and the second-largest dragon alive; a relic of a bygone era.
A dragon who was never meant to be ridden for a girl that was never meant to live.
Lyra takes a fortifying breath and walks forward despite Daemon making a sound of protest, as the Cannibal dragon looks at her with half-crazed, half-intelligent eyes, the perfect picture of a living nightmare.
Notes:
Unrelated because it won't be happening for a good while but; who do you think will eventually be Lyra's love interest? I will neither confirm nor deny anything, I just wanna know what you guys think will happen.
EDIT: No, Cannibal's name is not Satan, it was a funny reference to how he looks xD
EDIT2: Due to learning that cradle egg tradition does not, in fact, apply to Rhaenyra, I've edited the story in parts to match; Rhaenyra now, as in canon, claims a fully-grown and ride-able Syrax when she's 7.
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