¹ 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐒 ━━ 𝐝. 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐞𝐧

xli. mercy

✧˖° 🌑 ೄྀ࿐
━ [   SONG OF SORROWS   ] ༉‧₊˚✧
x. act one... the dragon's daughter
mercy ━ ✩・*。

— SUMMER, 116 A.C
RED KEEP, KING'S LANDING

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     NO amount of water could wash away Valerys' sins.

    Droplets of hellfire beaded upon her flesh, scorching her skin; it was not hot enough. She thought, perhaps, she could find rebirth — repentance — within the wildfire water. If she scrubbed hard enough, those darkened fingerprints impressed upon her flesh would fade away — and with them, a night she most regretted... or tried to. It was everything she had ever wanted. The collision of two stars, supernova taken form, blasting out light that untethered the darkness that had taken root in her soul so long ago.

    Daemon had wanted her. He had needed her. He touched her and said everything she had wanted to hear.

    But did he love her?

    Voices of doubt claimed otherwise.

    Purity tarnished and name forsaken by the one man she wanted more than anything — loved more than anything. He was crooked, and broken, and wrong... but his flaws held no torment over Valerys. Careful fingers could fix even the most tarnished of things. If indeed Daemon still did possess a heart to mend, Valerys would spend every moment threading it back together. Even violent ends had gentle beginnings; Daemon didn't have to be a violent end. Valerys didn't want him to be. He was a man touched by barbarism, woven together into being by cruelty, and yet, Valerys saw a sliver of light — a dull, flickering candle-flame in a cavern of shadow, but a light nonetheless.

    Things that are broken are sometimes just things people don't care enough to fix.

    Valerys cared enough. She paid no mind to the length of time it would take to gather the shattered pieces of his soul, to forge them back together — she would do it. For without his soul, hers was lost. She figured, at least, the rebuilding would be easy; the shards reflected her own.

    No matter what, she would —

     "Are you hoping your skin falls off?" The sponge in her hand was swiftly snatched away by fair fingers, water droplets trickling from the bottom and pelting down onto Valerys' head.

    Instinctually outraged, Valerys' sunk into the depths of the water basin and looked up to who had intruded upon her bathing; her anger never had a chance to bubble onto her tongue. With a sharp breath and a myriad of emotions twisting her face, Valerys' stared into the cerulean irises of her younger sister. It had been near two months since Valerys had sent her sister, crackling with rage and regret, off on tour. She hoped then that perhaps it would quell Rhaenyra's tormented soul; she could see now that it hadn't. Thick tumbles of icy white hair chased with gold cascaded down Rhaenyra's stiffened back, well-kept eyebrows furrowed in amusement. Sun spots darkened her cheeks, the heat of the ever-present sun richening her flesh into a gentle tan.

    Two months. Two months since Rhaenyra had struck her and crushed any semblance of hope or pity Valerys still retained for her sister. She'd had time to mull over her actions; to regret casting away her only sibling on the basis of on rage-induced misstep. At the time, Valerys believed she had made the best choice for both of them. She still did. Yet, she could never quite shake the itching nag that maybe — just as Rhaenyra had claimed — Valerys had fallen into stride alongside their father's foolish actions. She had done what she claimed she never would: placed duty above family, peace above blood. It had hurt Rhaenyra — that much was clear in her eyes —so wrought with both relief and betrayal. A near mirror image of her sister — a sight that shook Valerys' glass bones.