Chapter Text
The sun had slipped just beneath the horizon, the sky still warm with pink before the final dusking of the night, when he spotted her from the balcony. Barely a speck of fluttering white on the cliff’s overlook, but unmistakable even from his high vantage. So often her proximity seemed to sharpen the world around him like a whetstone against steel, and even at the sight of her from afar he could feel the air become heavy in his lungs. Without further thought he turned to make his way through the cavernous corridors towards the western gate.
With their departure from the island now imminent, the bustle of the castle had increased since he returned from the bridge, and Daemon could feel the inquiring looks on many a face as he swept through the halls. The aimless moons since leaving King’s Landing had seemingly littered the ground around him with shells, and an anticlimactic end to their occupation of Dragonstone had only made the atmosphere ever more fragile.
He knew they wondered. Why was he not doing more to reclaim his position? Why was he not gathering forces? Why was he not arranging some mysterious accident to befall his niece?
None would dare voice such thoughts directly to him, nor likely even in private company, for fear of facing his wrath, but he knew they were thought nonetheless. All too afraid to follow the questions to their logical conclusions. All, including himself.
His brother had taken his letter at face value and sent the Cunt of Hightower to meet him, an embarrassing and painful twist of the knife that was his brother’s lack of respect. No doubt convinced of Daemon’s deviousness by Otto, and ever so willing to believe the worst of his intentions, it had surely been deemed too dangerous for the king to attend on his own behalf.
After all, wouldn't Daemon cut down any who stood in his way?
If he were allowing honesty regarding his own motivations to seep back into his mind, it wasn’t at all surprising that Rhaenyra was the one to repudiate the notion of his inherent danger. Syrax billowing the thick fog with Rhaenyra on her back, and her so quickly dismissing Hightower’s objections as she made her way towards him, were already welcome visions on their own even before being disarmed by her so efficiently. The righteous indignation and bitter hurt that had festered within him over the past half-year had stood up to scarcely a minute of her scrutiny, and the shackles of melancholy he had placed on himself loosened their grip with frightening speed.
So many others, including his own brother, kept him at arms length with trepidation, and yet his niece had strutted towards him with confidence and stood within reach. Daring him to be the man that everyone else saw him as. Daring him with the fearless surety that she knew him better than they did. Daring him to do something that they both knew he never would do.
She had seen his lies for what they were and called his bluff, and whatever frustration and spite he still held at his dismissal had to be shaped to account for her exception.
He laid his eyes upon her again as he exited the outer wall of the keep and walked along the smoothed path carved into the rocks. She was leaned forward against the waist-high wall, hair rustling lightly in the breeze, looking out at the breakers below. The sky was steadily dimming behind the smoke and fog, and like a moth to a flame he closed in on the silhouette of her against the backdrop of the sea.
“I thought you left,” he greeted as he came to her side, leaning forward against the wall to match her stance.
“Leaving without saying goodbye is unkind, don’t you think?” she asked pointedly, a small catch in her throat breaking through the cold exterior.
“I didn’t want to leave, and I'm glad to see you now,” he replied, watching her profile as her expression hardened.
“You could have seen me before this,” she said sharply in Common, turning towards him. “I did nothing to you. I did not disinherit you, I did not change the succession, I did not cast you out of the city, and yet you spend over half a year punishing me with your silence.”
Her words sliced like a knife through his skin. He had thought of her often over these past moons — of her grief, of her isolation, of the added weight on her shoulders with few to help her carry it, but had cowered away from acknowledging how his own actions and words, or lack there of, would add to her burdens. He wanted to wallow in the uncomplicated nature of his ire, lashing out like a wounded animal, and that state of being could not be kept up in the face of her pain.
With a deep breath, any lingering drops of resentment towards her evaporated, overridden by the bone-deep appreciation that somehow even his most reckless displays never seemed to distract her from the truth of him. Undoubtedly she had heard the rumors of his toast to Baelon, in addition to his purposefully provoking assertion in his letter that he was the rightful heir, and yet still she had come here. Still she had managed to dig through the thorny words of his mordancy to find the heart of the matter, so obscured to everyone else: that he would never harm her. That no matter his feelings about Viserys’ decision, he would never tear her down to climb back up.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, watching her eyes soften. “I was angry, and I did not want to hurt you by saying something I couldn’t take back. And I didn’t want to stop being angry.”
The wetness in her eyes was clearing slowly, and she was looking less distraught and far more comforted. “I hate that we were placed on opposite sides by the circumstance,” she said, placing her gloved hand over his wrist. He covered it with his own, squeezing it in acknowledgement as the tethers of a connection that had so bitterly been missed since his exile snapped back into their rightful place. “I don’t want to believe that you could ever truly be my adversary. Even just the an idea of it over the past months made the world feel very wrong.”
“You will not have to bear even the hint of it ever again,” he said, the words forming from a deep resolve within him. "I promise." His eyes traced over her features, and he felt a well of possessiveness flare within him. This was no easy road she had been placed upon, and he had no doubt that threats would slither around her like poisonous vines eager to eat away at her flesh. He had no doubt that Otto’s support of her being named successor were empty words, that the lords who swore fealty to her would rather have knelt for the ghost of her short-lived brother if the opportunity had arose, and that Viserys’ weak spine could easily bend to the will of whatever new wife he took should she birth a son.
By words and actions, Rhaenyra would suffer the clawing and biting of feral and power-hungry leeches of all ilks — but not alone, and not by him.
“How have things in King’s Landing been since I left?” he asked.
“Dreadfully boring,” she joked, smirking at him slightly. She opened her mouth to continue, but stopped herself before she spoke.
“What is it?” he prompted, and she looked up at him hesitantly.
“Its—I…” she trailed off, biting her lip for a moment before shaking of her uncertainty. “My father doesn’t listen to me. I’m supposedly his heir, entrusted with the future of our house’s rule, and yet I pour wine for his counselors and am dismissed at the first uttering of my contributions,” she spat out, the frustration in her voice palpable. “He underestimates me.”
“He underestimates most people,” he replied.
“Lord Hightower dismisses this business in the Stepstones, and father acquiesces. Lord Hightower suggests that I leave the Small Council meeting, and father sends me off to pick out a new Kingsguard. Lord Hightower speaks it, and father obeys. Its ludicrous.”
“Ah, so it was you who raised Ser Crispin from obscurity,” he said slyly, bringing a similar smile to her face.
“His name is Criston, and he was the only candidate with combat experience. The fact that he beat you in a tourney was just an added benefit,” she needled in jest.
“And what of this business in the Stepstones?”
“Lord Corlys was quite insistent that the matter be met without haste given the importance to those waters for trade. Reports from their shores have been growing more and more grim by the day.”
“What do you think should be done?” he asked.
“I suggested sending dragon riders as a show of strength. It would be the most efficient way to settle the matter. Lord Corlys was more than receptive, but none others. And then I was sent away and made not to worry my pretty little head about it.”
Daemon couldn’t help smiling down at her, blood humming with that same fire. “Does it help at all to know that I would have agreed with you?”
“It certainly makes me feel less alone,” she said, leaning closer against his arm and resting her head against his shoulder. He tilted down slightly, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head and breathing her in as he looked out upon the blackening vista. In the distance two winged shadows blotted out the stars behind them, rising and falling in circuitous tandem with one another.
“You’re not alone.”