Not All Men Dance With Dragons

And Hell Later On

A storm was beating the thin glass outside of Maegor's Holdfast once evening took hold of the sky. Sometimes, lightning flashed and lit the halls up better than any torch or candle ever could. Rhaenyra's words had haunted him for hours in his search for his brother but he was about to admit defeat. If the Gods didn't want Daemon found then he wasn't going to be found and Maerys didn't have to search around in the dark for him.

It was just his luck that he was heading back in when a flash of white came around the dark corner. The Targaryens froze in place as they stared at one another in the dark but it was the younger who spoke first. "Daemon."

"Maerys..." His older brother replied tinged with suspicion. He leaned back with a sneer and narrowed eyes as he approached. "Come to scold me for something?"

"I have not. It's been years since we've had... any kind of conversation at all really. A lot has changed."

Daemon, with the same grace as a mallet, cocked an eyebrow. "That is how time works. If everything were to stay the same then maybe we wouldn't fucking be here."

That pit in Maerys' stomach that he was trying to avoid only grew larger. Whatever stupidity Rhaenyra tried to plant in his brain wasn't worth the vitriol. "This was a mistake."

Yet as he was walking away, Daemon had the gall to scoff. "It always is."

Maerys stopped dead. Despite his well-trained apathy, his face twitched. Daemon always seemed to bring the worst out of everyone and he was no different. All of those years apart, all of the changes in their lives from wives to children to duties and lands changed nothing but gave Daemon more ammunition.

"...Can you, even for a moment, put aside whatever broken glass you have around your heart and realize that we are about to be alone with one another?" Slowly, he turned back to face the quickly darkening expression of his older brother. "You saw the state Viserys is in."

That struck a cord that Daemon didn't want to admit. Of course, it did. Neither of them truly wanted to admit that their brother had reached dire stages but that didn't mean Daemon had any right to shake his head. "I don't see why that matters. You will become Lord of Nightwell and I will be king consort. We will never see each other again unless the Stranger brings us over the same body."

"Well, you have a knack for trying to take things that belong to the dead." Maerys bit back with the same venom as he remembered Daemon's first wife and the estate he tried to claim. "Someone has to shoo you off the corpse."

Something snapped and Daemon's head shot up to glare at him. "You always tried to be my keeper, little brother. It's exhausting dealing with your badgering."

"You think I wanted to have my success defined by how much mayhem I stopped you from getting away with?"

"Oh, the poor suffering prince chasing his big brother around so he can have an excuse to wag his finger at something. No one asked you to-"

"Viserys did." Maerys spat out. "The man you called too weak for the throne saddled me to you because he knew I believed you about as far as I could throw you."

A muscle jolted in Daemon's jaw as he no doubt ground his teeth. In a quiet venomous voice, he replied. "You always thought you were better."

"...Daemon, I thought the world of you."

Their mother was taken from them when he couldn't even lift his head on his own so all he had were those around him. Since Maerys was big enough to walk, he had stuck to the side of his brothers and, a long time ago, he used to love them both equally. For different reasons but equally, because they were all he had. They were all he needed when everyone else at court seemed so fake with their honeyed words and praise.