the thing about dragons

chapter two (I)

in which tragedy strikes and Lyra meets the devil.

part I

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warnings: canon-compliant violence, gore, Daemon Targaryen as a POV character, blood, death in childbirth (Aemma)

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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.)

<What are you thinking so hard about, little flame?> Daemon asks her sleepily, and she cranes her head to look at him. His eyes are barely open and his braid has come half-undone, and he really doesn't look very awake yet, but his attention is still fully on her.

<About how Gods let me live this life and that I will make it everybody's problem,> she tells him seriously, and looks him in the eye. <Also, enjoy your time as the most problematic member of this family, because I'm taking that spot in next few years.>

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.

<I'm not going to make it easy for you,> he declares. <If you want to be the rogue, you're going to have to prove you got what it takes to be the black sheep of this family. And I'm not going down easily.>

She nuzzles into his chest. <I know. Challenge is good, though. Would be boring otherwise. What time is it?>

He twists, looks at the curtained windows critically for a moment, then moves back into a comfortable position. <Sunrise.>