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It is dim and cold when Viserra gently steps across the stone-laid mount. The darkened, grey sky above her bathes her in a shrouded light— a startling contrast to the funeral black cloak hanging atop her shoulders.
Before her the burning pyre looms, allowing dark clouds to surpass into the air.
Gentle fingers cling onto her, wrapping around the fabric of her dress. Joffrey's brown locks are tumulted by the wind, as he leans into the crook of her arm. A mirroring image.
Viserra lets him hold onto her, feeling that certain, knowing comfort that always seems to return to her. The comfort of family.
The grip hardens, in quiet hard-hold.
"Can I go to her?" his young voice inclines.
Viserra shakes her head, parting her lips and allowing a shallow breath to pass into the air.
"Not now."
Her brother is quiet once more, but his eyes dart towards the two figures standing in the far distance.
Rhaenyra's tear-stricken face stays half-hidden behind her silver hair. It rarely hangs unkept, but now it does. Tangled and beautiful, like a wind-swept ocean down her back.
The scenery before them bears a tormenting sweetness to it, but she remains still. Her grievances have washed into her and through her– leaving her bare and cold. Now, only numbness remains.
The news from King's Landing had brought with them a tumultuous weight. The entirety of Dragonstone came alive with dread once Rhaenys revealed the green's betrayal to Daemon and Rhaenyra. Guards and maids alike scattered and frightened.
Viserra had watched her mother as she wailed and cried, blood trickling down her thighs whilst pleading for her husband to be by her side.
Daemon had not heeded her calls. The rage awakened something in him. Some wayward desire which he thought he'd lost long ago whilst waring and raveging in the Stepstones. He forced daggers into the hands of Dragonkeepers and servant-folk, and ordered ravens to be sent to trusted allies and leal lords.
'You must go see her,' Viserra had tirelessly told him, her voice igniting with agitated desperation.
But her words fell on deaf ears.
It had not been long before her mother birthed a sick and sullied foetus, dead long before ever taking its first breath.
Now the child lies before them, in the midst of burning candles and incense, swaddled in ceremonial fabrics and quietly put to rest. The crackling fire consumes the small, fragile body, and the acrid scent of death mingles with the salt and sulphur that saturates the air. Viserra watches the flames, feeling the chill of loss creep further into her bones.
A girl, she had been told, after its passing. A sister.
Viserra had always hoped for a sister.
But now her hopes have turned to ash in the heavy air. Nothing more than a tormenting reminder.
Joffrey shifts beside her, leaning further into her gentle hold. Behind them, the murmur of voices rises and falls, a tide of hushed condolences and whispered prayers. Lords and ladies, sworn swords and silent watchers, all gathered in a solemn assembly.
They stay there, almost lost within this archaic rhythm. Heavy winds pull at her clothes and wets her face, but Viserra remains unmoving— almost statuesque.
It is then, like the coming of dusk, that Ser Erryk arrives with her grandsire's crown in his hands. And with it— something vital shifts. An overpowering essence of finality.
"A swear to ward the queen with all my strength, and give my blood for hers."
His words bear a song-like cadence. A reminder. A summoning.
"I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children—"
His voice echoes solemnly across the sombre gathering, punctuated only by the crackling of the funeral pyre. Rhaenyra watches him with wary eyes. Though her face is stone, there is a certain inkling in her eye that Viserra finds herself unable to ignore.
"I shall guard her secrets, obey her commands, ride at her side and defend her name and honour."
With those words, Daemon places the crown upon her head, his eyes shrouded by a newly-found deference.
Soon, Viserra lowers herself to one knee. The ground beneath her feels cool and damp, and beside her rests her young brother. She tilts her head upwards and watches through heavy-lit eyes the imposing figure looming above. Her mother ascends with the surety of a true Targaryen. A dragon-queen, bearing with her an admirable boldness.
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authors note!
this is a story i began writing on ao3 some time ago. I thought it wouldn't hurt to upload it here too ! English isn't my first language, and most of the chapters are unedited. Read what you are drawn to :)
