the thing about dragons

prologue (II)

in which Daemon has a daughter with Rhea.

part II

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warnings: mentions of violent death, non-graphic childbirth, child neglect, Daemon Targaryen as a POV character, blood

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Daelyra makes Runestone ever so bearable.

True, as a babe she's little more than a toy, and all she does is eat and sleep and shit and sleep some more and make a disgruntled baby noise if something displeases her, but Daemon doesn't find it boring.

She's not a difficult child, rather easy to care for really. Quiet, too; it worries the maids who care for her, but Daemon doesn't mind. He learns her tells faster than anyone; when she's hungry, when she's uncomfortable, when she's tired. He hands her off to the wet nurse to feel and rocks her to sleep even in the middle of the night, and glares at Rhea when she deigns to waltz in to check if the child yet lives, and make a disgusted face when she sees Daemon there more often than not.

Maybe she's upset to have given him something he likes.

He leaves Lyra alone only to train with his sword and to fly Caraxes, but he's with her more often than he isn't. He moves a cot into the nursery and sleeps there more often than anywhere, and the serving girls moving about give him odd looks, but get used to him soon enough. Especially when it quickly becomes apparent that he can calm Daelyra and they cannot.

They give him odd looks when he purrs and chirps at her, on when he sits a little too close to the fireplace, and he hears them say that he'll loose interest soon enough. He's a lord, after all, a man; men don't raise children.

He decides that he will, if only to spite them.

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She wakes in parts, and her days are full of silver hair and violet eyes and a language she's growing to understand, and warmth and the overwhelming feeling of content she's not certain the source of.

She doesn't want to let go—so, she reaches for it.

She doesn't remember feeling quite this content before.

○

Years pass quickly when he's busy. He trains, he treats, he politicks how much he feels like, sends ravens here and there.

Daelyra grows from a quiet babe to a quiet toddler. She speaks little but with intent, and he claims her a little genius in the private confines of their rooms. She walks with purpose, too. It was amazing, the first time she stood up and looked at him with a concentrated frown, and he stopped then too like a hunted deer and watched in amazement as she took a step, and another, and then—

And then he dove and bruised his knees painfully but he caught her before she fell face-first onto the carpeted floor. She didn't cry, just looked at him with those big almost-black eyes and patted his face.

<Great job little flame,> he told her anyway. She doesn't quite understand, barely one nameday and some moons old, but she understands well enough when he stands up with her and presses her against his chest. She curls into familiar warmth and only makes a small disgruntled noise when he sets her down among her toys. It's near enough to the fireplace that she doesn't mind.

A wood-carved dragon with neck just a little too long, painted in red lacquer, is her favourite.

It's Daemon's favourite, too.