[ Syrax relaxes, easing her long horned head back down to the earth with a heavy sigh; in tandem, Rhaenyra wraps her arm around Daemon's, leaning the side of her head against his shoulder, letting out her own matching exhale. No one will leave her alone here, perhaps, but it still seems preferable over the loneliness that awaits her back in the Red Keep.
The horizon in the distance is starting to show peaks of melting into a lighter shade of blue, but the bright shine of the full moon still hangs in the sky, the same moon she'd watch through the windows of her chambers in King's Landing. ]
Even more valuable than you know.
[ Cryptic.
Before he spirals too much to wondering what that could mean, she lets it loose. ]
This is the second time the moon has reached its peak since I arrived here. I've yet to have my moon blood since... since before I left home.
[ Finally she turns her eyes upwards to him, still holding onto his arm. She doesn't feel the need to also mention the weeks of added fatigue and nausea, symptoms that she took as just recovering from her journey or adjusting to the climate or reactions from new foods and spices, too stubborn to admit the truth of it to herself until this moment. ]
[ Syrax coiling in, Caraxes settles down to join her with a distended snort that shoots a small puff of smoke from his nostrils. Perhaps Daemon could have recognized the signs if he had been paying closer attention.
Then again, Syrax had always been a rather pampered dragon. Never hunting for herself, Reggio's servants had to get used to taking the food to her as she couldn't be encouraged to hunt for it. Every night, she remained coiled somewhere between the elder dragons. Well protected.
Daemon stirs, glancing down at the top of his niece's head. Two and two are easy to put together, but he extends a beat of silence to put it together. Then at sudden, shifting to face her. To lift her chin so that he may better look her in the eye. If she's telling him this now after so long, after her expressing her desire to stay with them indefinitely. This would be why. ]
A child, you're certain?
[ Lightly curious, but tempered excitement. That news could mean other things. There were times where Laena had been uncertain before. But they had been traveling some time, it had been stress, it had been false.]
[ Holding his gaze, violetbluewhatever eyes looking close, searching for any hints of displeasure, or worse, disappointment (he is still her uncle, her elder, after all.) A moment, maybe two, before she nods gently. The feelings are too familiar, the symptoms too consistent, the call of their shared blood too strong, entwining the three of them together so soon after she stepped foot in Pentos. ]
I hope. I don't think I could manage two at once.
[ Trying to take the edge off with a tug of a smile at the corner of her mouth, the grip on his arm loosening. Laena handles the twins well, but Rhaenyra would much rather have just one at a time.
Rhaenyra still remembers their conversations on marriage and children, the conviction she had against having either in her life. No one should be closely held to their teenaged beliefs, when one knows everything but nothing all at once, but still, she wants to explain. ]
I realized— before Jace, I realized our family would end with me. I couldn't be the last of our legacy.
[ Targaryens would carry on, but they wouldn't be the same as them. ]
sry for bugging u and the proceeding to fall off the face of the earth.
[It suits her well, motherhood. For as much as she determined herself heir and king without it. A naïve little girl terrified of succumbing to the fate of her mother. A real fear that none should take for granted. Laena herself had a troubled labor. The girls were small. There were many sleepless nights until all three seemed well. Even with the finest healers in Pentos, the fear of losing at least one of them had been very real.
For all the trouble of the night, the uncertainty of his niece's fate of staying with hem, this is still good news. ]
Our legacy. Our family, [ Daemon repeats, finger drawing along her jaw. His forehead coming to rest to hers a moment before his head lifts to press his lips to it. ] It is the only thing worth fighting for.
[ Viserys', Baelons, Alyssas, of all those that came before them. To all of those that survived catastrophe. Something even he thought less about when they were in that garden speaking of their forlorn duties to their kingdom. Something never quite grasped until he severed himself from the sickness of King's landing, the remnants of family, and escaped to the east to see how little left there was. ]
We will fight for it together.
[Daemon's head lifts to meet her eye, thumb grazing across her cheek. Fuck Westeros, honestly fuck the throne. Though fight for it all, some day they will. What lies in uncertainty still rumbles around the back of his head. Due to be addressed at a later time, the humming of it suppressed with a little taste of hope. Gods know they both need it.]
Edited (a word, theres probably more tbh) 2023-10-06 07:57 (UTC)
[ The way he holds her now feels the same as it always has, even back to when she was just a girl child bouncing on his teenaged knee; shielded and safe, a precious, treasured thing whose protection is deserved and not just by a guilted default. Even now, on the same night as an attempt on her life, the multitude of her fears (for herself, for this child, for everything that is yet to come) are quieted for a moment, Rhaenyra burying her face into the crook of his neck, breathing out a heavy exhale, pressing herself further against him, trying to envelop herself in that feeling.
Make no mistake, she still wants to stay, but his affirmation of being together in common cause makes the prospect of returning home seem a little less lonely, even if he remains on this side of the sea. ]
Let's go to bed. Enough excitement for one evening, and I fear I've made you neglect your wife.
[ More tongue-in-cheek to cut through the seriousness of the moment; Laena is still very much sound asleep and it's better she hasn't been disturbed. ]
[ Troubling, it all is more. She wants to stay, he wants her to stay. Maybe she is better off here in the end, maybe she isn't. He doesn't fucking know. It's been a long night, she came a hair closer to dying. Now she is more precious than she ever was before.
She's cutting through the moment with dull scissors, but a wry smile cracks at him all the same. Another press of his lips to her head, a lingering before he turns and slips his arm around her waist. Guiding her from the balcony and their sleeping dragons. Where they will make up for neglecting his poor, unconscious wife by piling into bed with her. Make no mistake, Daemon is not letting his niece sleep alone tonight.]
She above anyone understands your need to draw heads wherever you go.
[ She may not think it, but only Westeros's favorite princess gets assassination attempts. He's certain when Laena wakes up, she'll get a kick out of all of this. And by kick, he means she's going to be running the torch on burning down whoever did this. ]
[ Rhaenyra still is unsure whether she will be able to actually quiet her mind enough to sleep for what remains of this night, but she silently agrees that the best place to try is tucked between uncle and cousin, following Daemon's lead back inside.
She tries to take care not to cause too much of a fuss as she climbs in, a slow, gentle crawl onto the featherbed, maneuvering under tousled linens to lay on her back, her head turned towards Laena at first to see if she's been roused from the disturbance. They may have gotten away with it, so she turns back to look up at the ceiling, a hand meekly searching out one of his, haphazardly wrapping fingers around fingers, eyes still fixed upwards.
Her mouth opens to say something, something about feeling safe or how this is how home should be or maybe something even more vulnerable like I love you, but any words get caught in her throat and she just heaves a sigh, at least doing the physical act of closing her eyelids, even if sleep seems impossible for the moment—
Laena finally stirs and shifts onto her other side. Rhaenyra can't tell if she actually hears her cousin muttering her name, but her arms outstretch and Rhaenyra turns and folds into them, trying to keep Daemon's hand in hers as long as she can keep comfortable while tucking in close. ]
[ It's a lot to piece together in such a short amount of time. Daemon's head is still spinning by the time he is carefully curled on the other side of her. It's probably then he realizes, well and truly, that he can't see her returning to King's Landing. A dangerous through to let one's mind wander this early in the morning. She seems so perfect here, nestled into the center of their bed. Something had been missing, had that something been her?
He shifts and sinks, gaze still rested at the backs of hers and Laena's head. Feeling the deliberate padding of his wife's long fingers to find his arm and give it a squeeze. Daemon then shifts in closer to them, gingerly resting his forehead against her back. Upending Rhaenyra's grip on his hand to shift and curl hers more comfortably across herself, soothing her finger with his thumb. A little gesture that continues well after he begins to fall asleep.
However long that takes, he doesn't fucking know. He hopes that she sleeps in the time he spends quietly losing his mind. It could have been fifteen minutes or well past the first light began to lighten the sky. But eventually it does, and thank the gods he doesn't dream.]
i'm just now waking up from my long winter's nap 🥱
[ Conversely, Rhaenyra does dream. What happens in them is hard to distinguish, dreams are more about what she feels instead of images, or sounds, or any other sensory experiences. This night there is the presence of her mother; even though her memories of Aemma (the features of her face, the timbre of her voice) have faded slowly, cruelly, each day, she still knows the feeling of being with her. There's no clear message from the other side, no prophetic clairvoyance that comes through—there never has been. She does not think she's ever had a dragon dream, or perhaps she has and is just too rooted in this physical world to understand things that are far less tangible and far more cryptic. All she wakes with is the feeling, the knowing of what it was, but even that fades quickly and is easily forgotten.
One bit that was definitely not a dream: Laena, up and out of bed with gusto. Whether that was because she felt no ill effects of the night before or because she did and was forcing herself to push through, Rhaenyra can't tell.
There's a few more tries of her eyes opening for a moment only to quickly close again and drift off before the angle of the sun is too high and too bright to be ignored, stretching limbs and letting out a sigh, eyes blinking and searching to see if her uncle is still with her somewhere in this room, or if his exit was much more stealthy in comparison to his wife's. ]
[ Daemon was never graced with dragon dreams. If they'd ever come to him before, he thought little of their meaning. Often he dreams of nothing at all, cursed by the perpetual restlessness that inhabits his very core. Too rebellious to heed any sort of message from the fates. If he dreams, he dreams of the Doom, of his brother, sometimes of her, of his own children. This morning, he may have dreamed of the babe growing in her belly. A babe with long hair of silver.
Laena is an early riser, even with a hurricane of a hangover. She has always been the sort of girl to hit the ground running in spite of anything else. Nothing gets in the way of her morning flight. It's still too early for Daemon, but he's up with her to check in on Reggio's guardsmen for any news of their investigations into the morning. Slips back into the bedroom for perhaps a light nap before Laena returns and the children are awake.
Very quiet, the prince nudges the door shut behind him. Paused as though he's been caught as Rhaenyra stirs in bed, but only for a beat before he resumes and crawls upon the bed to deposit himself onto the blankets face down beside her. ] It's still early. [ He notes quietly, one arm curling around her middle to reel her in or him into her. ]
[ A tangle of pale limbs and even paler hair, most outsiders would have difficulties finding where one ends and the other begins when they're closely wrapped together like this. It's indulgent to Rhaenyra—not the lounging in bed with no sense of urgency, that is a standard perk of princess privilege—the gentle intimacy of being together like this, without needs of sneaking off through hidden corridors in the dark of night, realizing that she is doomed to always wake up alone (princess privilege still doesn't cover having a lover stay over.) ]
Wh—...ach.
[ Frog in the throat. She clears it. ]
What have you heard?
[ Because she knows he wasn't up early just for fun. ]
[ Reggio's men have been promised to do their finest work in their darkest hour, but Daemon seldom trusts them to get anything done. Someone moved into his home, tried to attack his family. The assassin is gone, but the threat looms over what could have been a lovely morning.
Daemon's grip tightens in a way that could almost deem threatening. A truer indication of his feelings than his answer, which deflects with his mouth pressed against her breastbone beneath the sheerness of her sleeping gown.]
They've increased the guard on the manse. [ He doles out information between pressed kisses, aimless in their ambition. He's just needily close. ] Reggio's informants have been working in the city to track down the assassin and who hired them.
[ Rhaenyra should feel more uneasy than she does, in this unfamiliar place surrounded by unfamiliar people and their unfamiliar ways. Logically, she (and Jace) should have flown off on Syrax by now, fleeing from whatever threat of danger that still may be lingering and lurking in Pentos. But, even with the sharp edge of a knife so close to drawing blood, her yearning desire for this safety of familial love and protection (so nicely demonstrated by the tangled grasp they have on each other) has kept her firmly planted on Essosi ground.
The gossamer curtains sway and float with the breeze, cool sea air in contrast to the warm sunlight that only gets stronger by the minute as it climbs higher into the sky. ]
Mm, but surely you think you'd do it better.
[ Both parts, the guarding and the investigative tracking. Half flattery, half teasing. ]
[ Daemon's kisses still, breath hovering over her warm skin. She's caught him, in a way, and he pretends it doesn't. His mouth reapplies itself along her shoulder where it meant to land moments before. Does it bother him that she's right? Maybe a little, maybe it draws his lips into a reluctant before he remembers in the next breath the gravity hanging over them. ]
I suppose that leaves us with one option. [ Daemon's head lifts to throw her a look. Every spoiled princess runaway's dream. ] Go into town ourselves. [ Endangering her is one thing, but they both know she's safer with him than without. What's he going to do, dress her like a little page boy again? (That's exactly what he's going to do.) As his fingertips slip along her spine. ] Smoke our enemy out.
[ While clearly no shock that he does actually want to do it himself (Rhaenyra knows you, Daemon. Could anyone else on this side of the sea say the same?), Rhaenyra is surprised that he's including her in the plan, still used to being told to stay back and allow everyone else to handle such serious and dangerous matters.
"Our" enemy, like every wrong dealt to her is one dealt to them both.
A quick move on her part to roll him onto his back (though how much of it is him letting her versus any actual strength or athleticism on her end) while pushing herself up to sit astride his hips, leaned over with one fisted hand against his neck to mimic: ]
Hold the knife up to their necks, instead.
[ She is mostly being dramatic for effect; Rhaenyra doubts she would have the mettle to actually do such a thing, but this is her way of saying I'm in. ]
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ī𝔩𝔬𝔫 𝔷ā𝔩𝔞𝔤𝔬𝔫 𝔥ē𝔫𝔨𝔦𝔯ī
happy hotd premiere anniversary!!
The horizon in the distance is starting to show peaks of melting into a lighter shade of blue, but the bright shine of the full moon still hangs in the sky, the same moon she'd watch through the windows of her chambers in King's Landing. ]
Even more valuable than you know.
[ Cryptic.
Before he spirals too much to wondering what that could mean, she lets it loose. ]
This is the second time the moon has reached its peak since I arrived here. I've yet to have my moon blood since... since before I left home.
[ Finally she turns her eyes upwards to him, still holding onto his arm. She doesn't feel the need to also mention the weeks of added fatigue and nausea, symptoms that she took as just recovering from her journey or adjusting to the climate or reactions from new foods and spices, too stubborn to admit the truth of it to herself until this moment. ]
1 yr ago i was mocking daemon's impotence✨
Then again, Syrax had always been a rather pampered dragon. Never hunting for herself, Reggio's servants had to get used to taking the food to her as she couldn't be encouraged to hunt for it. Every night, she remained coiled somewhere between the elder dragons. Well protected.
Daemon stirs, glancing down at the top of his niece's head. Two and two are easy to put together, but he extends a beat of silence to put it together. Then at sudden, shifting to face her. To lift her chin so that he may better look her in the eye. If she's telling him this now after so long, after her expressing her desire to stay with them indefinitely. This would be why. ]
A child, you're certain?
[ Lightly curious, but tempered excitement. That news could mean other things. There were times where Laena had been uncertain before. But they had been traveling some time, it had been stress, it had been false.]
no subject
I hope. I don't think I could manage two at once.
[ Trying to take the edge off with a tug of a smile at the corner of her mouth, the grip on his arm loosening. Laena handles the twins well, but Rhaenyra would much rather have just one at a time.
Rhaenyra still remembers their conversations on marriage and children, the conviction she had against having either in her life. No one should be closely held to their teenaged beliefs, when one knows everything but nothing all at once, but still, she wants to explain. ]
I realized— before Jace, I realized our family would end with me. I couldn't be the last of our legacy.
[ Targaryens would carry on, but they wouldn't be the same as them. ]
sry for bugging u and the proceeding to fall off the face of the earth.
For all the trouble of the night, the uncertainty of his niece's fate of staying with hem, this is still good news. ]
Our legacy. Our family, [ Daemon repeats, finger drawing along her jaw. His forehead coming to rest to hers a moment before his head lifts to press his lips to it. ] It is the only thing worth fighting for.
[ Viserys', Baelons, Alyssas, of all those that came before them. To all of those that survived catastrophe. Something even he thought less about when they were in that garden speaking of their forlorn duties to their kingdom. Something never quite grasped until he severed himself from the sickness of King's landing, the remnants of family, and escaped to the east to see how little left there was. ]
We will fight for it together.
[Daemon's head lifts to meet her eye, thumb grazing across her cheek. Fuck Westeros, honestly fuck the throne. Though fight for it all, some day they will. What lies in uncertainty still rumbles around the back of his head. Due to be addressed at a later time, the humming of it suppressed with a little taste of hope. Gods know they both need it.]
no subject
Make no mistake, she still wants to stay, but his affirmation of being together in common cause makes the prospect of returning home seem a little less lonely, even if he remains on this side of the sea. ]
Let's go to bed. Enough excitement for one evening, and I fear I've made you neglect your wife.
[ More tongue-in-cheek to cut through the seriousness of the moment; Laena is still very much sound asleep and it's better she hasn't been disturbed. ]
no subject
She's cutting through the moment with dull scissors, but a wry smile cracks at him all the same. Another press of his lips to her head, a lingering before he turns and slips his arm around her waist. Guiding her from the balcony and their sleeping dragons. Where they will make up for neglecting his poor, unconscious wife by piling into bed with her. Make no mistake, Daemon is not letting his niece sleep alone tonight.]
She above anyone understands your need to draw heads wherever you go.
[ She may not think it, but only Westeros's favorite princess gets assassination attempts. He's certain when Laena wakes up, she'll get a kick out of all of this. And by kick, he means she's going to be running the torch on burning down whoever did this. ]
no subject
She tries to take care not to cause too much of a fuss as she climbs in, a slow, gentle crawl onto the featherbed, maneuvering under tousled linens to lay on her back, her head turned towards Laena at first to see if she's been roused from the disturbance. They may have gotten away with it, so she turns back to look up at the ceiling, a hand meekly searching out one of his, haphazardly wrapping fingers around fingers, eyes still fixed upwards.
Her mouth opens to say something, something about feeling safe or how this is how home should be or maybe something even more vulnerable like I love you, but any words get caught in her throat and she just heaves a sigh, at least doing the physical act of closing her eyelids, even if sleep seems impossible for the moment—
Laena finally stirs and shifts onto her other side. Rhaenyra can't tell if she actually hears her cousin muttering her name, but her arms outstretch and Rhaenyra turns and folds into them, trying to keep Daemon's hand in hers as long as she can keep comfortable while tucking in close. ]
crawling back to this
He shifts and sinks, gaze still rested at the backs of hers and Laena's head. Feeling the deliberate padding of his wife's long fingers to find his arm and give it a squeeze. Daemon then shifts in closer to them, gingerly resting his forehead against her back. Upending Rhaenyra's grip on his hand to shift and curl hers more comfortably across herself, soothing her finger with his thumb. A little gesture that continues well after he begins to fall asleep.
However long that takes, he doesn't fucking know. He hopes that she sleeps in the time he spends quietly losing his mind. It could have been fifteen minutes or well past the first light began to lighten the sky. But eventually it does, and thank the gods he doesn't dream.]
i'm just now waking up from my long winter's nap 🥱
One bit that was definitely not a dream: Laena, up and out of bed with gusto. Whether that was because she felt no ill effects of the night before or because she did and was forcing herself to push through, Rhaenyra can't tell.
There's a few more tries of her eyes opening for a moment only to quickly close again and drift off before the angle of the sun is too high and too bright to be ignored, stretching limbs and letting out a sigh, eyes blinking and searching to see if her uncle is still with her somewhere in this room, or if his exit was much more stealthy in comparison to his wife's. ]
crawls back to from hell
Laena is an early riser, even with a hurricane of a hangover. She has always been the sort of girl to hit the ground running in spite of anything else. Nothing gets in the way of her morning flight. It's still too early for Daemon, but he's up with her to check in on Reggio's guardsmen for any news of their investigations into the morning. Slips back into the bedroom for perhaps a light nap before Laena returns and the children are awake.
Very quiet, the prince nudges the door shut behind him. Paused as though he's been caught as Rhaenyra stirs in bed, but only for a beat before he resumes and crawls upon the bed to deposit himself onto the blankets face down beside her. ] It's still early. [ He notes quietly, one arm curling around her middle to reel her in or him into her. ]
i suck
Wh—...ach.
[ Frog in the throat. She clears it. ]
What have you heard?
[ Because she knows he wasn't up early just for fun. ]
shhh
Daemon's grip tightens in a way that could almost deem threatening. A truer indication of his feelings than his answer, which deflects with his mouth pressed against her breastbone beneath the sheerness of her sleeping gown.]
They've increased the guard on the manse. [ He doles out information between pressed kisses, aimless in their ambition. He's just needily close. ] Reggio's informants have been working in the city to track down the assassin and who hired them.
no subject
The gossamer curtains sway and float with the breeze, cool sea air in contrast to the warm sunlight that only gets stronger by the minute as it climbs higher into the sky. ]
Mm, but surely you think you'd do it better.
[ Both parts, the guarding and the investigative tracking. Half flattery, half teasing. ]
no subject
I suppose that leaves us with one option. [ Daemon's head lifts to throw her a look. Every spoiled princess runaway's dream. ] Go into town ourselves. [ Endangering her is one thing, but they both know she's safer with him than without. What's he going to do, dress her like a little page boy again? (That's exactly what he's going to do.) As his fingertips slip along her spine. ] Smoke our enemy out.
no subject
"Our" enemy, like every wrong dealt to her is one dealt to them both.
A quick move on her part to roll him onto his back (though how much of it is him letting her versus any actual strength or athleticism on her end) while pushing herself up to sit astride his hips, leaned over with one fisted hand against his neck to mimic: ]
Hold the knife up to their necks, instead.
[ She is mostly being dramatic for effect; Rhaenyra doubts she would have the mettle to actually do such a thing, but this is her way of saying I'm in. ]