sapphyre | 𝔄𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔢 𝔫𝔬𝔴 𝔶𝔢 𝔗𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔰𝔥𝔢𝔡 𝔶𝔢 𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝔴𝔥𝔬 𝔶𝔢𝔱 𝔩𝔦𝔳𝔢

𝔄𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔢 𝔫𝔬𝔴 𝔶𝔢 𝔗𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔰𝔥𝔢𝔡 𝔶𝔢 𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝔴𝔥𝔬 𝔶𝔢𝔱 𝔩𝔦𝔳𝔢

—if you and i are both still alive and miserable,

i propose we begin to hunt each other for sport—

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[ In the cosmic tapestry of Targaryen, the half of Aemond spun from their blood are the same threads that make up Daemon; they are alike in an unnerving number of ways (funny that Aemond was mum's favorite, considering), and what's more, the younger prince carries a significance in Daemon's life he likely doesn't understand.

For good or ill, Daemon puts considerable stock into dragons. It is interesting to have chapters of his life marked by one in particular, and it's not even his own— Vhagar was there when Daemon was born, all through his childhood and adolescence, and then became the only other being alive that seemed to mourn Baelon as much as he did. When she left, he understood. And when she was lured back by Laena, he understood that, too, for he himself had been charmed by her much the same way, a woman seeking out the biggest, oldest dragon, and the most dangerous, scandalous Targaryen.

He'd sat on the beach after fucking his niece and listened to the roars, and wondered.

Well, here they are.

Daemon doesn't appear again until Aemond has been settled into his bath, which, remarkably, the castle is uniquely set up for, with inset pools at the end of ducts and stone pipes (not unlike lava in a gaol!), and as requested, sporting near-boiling water.

Clickclack, belts unbuckling; he's done a cursory wash-down in cold water as to not contaminate the baths themselves, but he's still a mess. Daemon has seen all manner of complicated plumbing in Essos, holdovers of Valyrian technology, and so this isn't much of a marvel as it could be. Still, he appreciates it. ]

Our hostess is more than happy to enable our survival so that she may use our presence as a deterrent to any looking to scavenge leftovers, [ he says. Spent some time taking in the situation, inspecting the survivors, asking pointed questions. ] Still. Expect a knife from beneath the surface, just in case.

[The vague smell of swamp lingers, though the water is clean. Or as clean as it can get. After long travels and a long fight, Aemond cares little. He would have easily climbed into one of those giant pots or barrels if it were full of hot water. A bathing pool was an unexpected surprise. He is steeped up to his neck. Still soaking out tangles in his hair. The back of his head rests on a messy pile of woven towel designed in an erdtree leaf pattern. The water so hot it might boil out his thoughts. Or at least make equilibrium to that insatiable fire that seems to always rage within him. He was, for a short time, at some sort of peace. Numbed with heat to the point where he could pretend he was somewhere else. Until someone else arrives, that is.

The prince lands one blue eye out to its corner to watch his dirt-crusted uncle. Wet hair shades his sapphire eye, a choice made out of habit. It had a way of unsettling he had grown accustomed to accommodating. In this land where there are more stranger things to do with eyes and limbs, little would care. But he still does it when the spindly maid had come around to check on the water (nearly burning herself in the process) ]

I expect nothing less of this barbarous place.

[Nothing about the lands between was made for sleeping peacefully. He wouldn’t even take a bath without having a blade tucked within the folds of his towel. Who would be a threat to it remains to be determined. Aemond would not put all his faith into an accord struck between former (current?) enemies. Too akin to be trusted and here they trust. The only thing binding is perhaps their blood and perhaps the grief of what’s left of it. But they are kinslayers both, so what does it really mean? He wonders. Part of him hopes, part of him feels a fool for doing it.

There is a shift in him, relaxed muscles tightening and back straightening as Daemon closes in on the pool. Sitting upright to surface slightly pinked skin baked under the heat of the water.]

How many of them to return you think?

[How is it even decided? Who the erdtree returns to life in shimmering gold and who remains rotting a heap for the rest of days. Would there be a time where either of them would fall and not return?]

I haven't the faintest notion of what determines it.

[ Daemon remembers killing Aemond the second time, on the cold ground of the churchyard, and how hollow he'd felt for it. What would have happened if the tree — or whatever the fuck it is — had rejected his nephew? Daemon is terrible at living with the consequences of the things he does. It's why he decided to die.

Bare, he makes his way to the edge of the pool, and though he has no qualms about it all, he stays on the opposite side from Aemond. Speaking of knives from beneath the surface, the younger prince still has Dark Sister, and plenty of reasons to want to see if his uncle would resurrect in gold shimmers or not. He has a few reddish bruises waiting to turn darker, a scrape on his leg, but is otherwise no worse fore wear; sweaty from a good fight, and beyond that, his damage came with him from the world before. ]

Ah— [ a sigh as he steps in, and lowers himself down. ] An acceptable effort.

[ Nearly hot enough to scald someone without the blood of the dragon. And speaking of scalding, Daemon has his own disfiguring scars. Granted, not nearly as routinely visible as Aemond's maiming, but the cascading burn from high on Daemon's neck down over his shoulder and chest is nothing to sniff at. He's even missing most of his right nipple, oh my. Pale pink marbling that shouldn't be there at all— only Targaryen hardiness against heat spared him, a burn so intense so near to his throat and lungs should have killed him. (The fucking greyscale should have killed him, too, but Daemon's never so much as had a cold in his life.) ]

Not going to try and drown me in here, are you?

[ For as many times Aemond snuck into the underbelly of the Dragonpit, as a child, it is a feat to be virtually unmarred. His face is the unrelated exception, of course. But many times he dared and been dragged back to his mother with singe and smoke in his hair. Drawn to the eye of flame in the back of a dragon’s throat. That’s never changed, apparently.

Aemond had died in his prime. Daemon, by all points on paper would seem to be past his, at what…forty and nine? But the night’s activities proved him nearly just as spry. After all that, would think he try to take him down in a bath? ]

Not unless you make me. [ The young prince answers as he shifts his elbows back onto the ledge. A man once was but now only masquerading as relaxed. Talk shit, get hit. Granted, when his uncle’s mouth oft runs as easily as it does, that bar gets set relatively low. Plus:]

It is yet to be the morrow, nor would it be very sporting, would it?

[ He does have standards, he plays by rules (mayhaps a weird set of his own). Which is to say he thinks Daemon deserves a better death than drowning in this filtered swamp piss. It is probably insufferable to think how much time Aemond has dedicated thinking of that moment. Daemon has died in his mind well over a thousand times. He has now been robbed of that moment twice. How much a weight such a moment will pull in a place where death is fickle to be no more than a deep rest, he is not sure. But after so long of thinking of it, he knows nothing else. What point is there now? What will he do with himself once it is done?

In moments where he is not blinded by his grief and rage, he finds he does not have quite the appetite to lunge at the opportunity. Perhaps he is only stalling now the inevitable disappointment. He is right there. ]

[ Nearly fifty, and so well-preserved that troubadours will find it completely feasible that he merely got up and walked away from the battle that felled him. If Daemon ever ended up on the Iron Throne, he'd have ruled for a hundred years— something his supporters no doubt still seethe over, furious he dropped anchor behind a woman and never tried to pass her.

But none of that was ever meant to be. Viserys was born to rot and Daemon was made for movement; standing water and a storm, coal and flames. If they had each been given equal share, what would the world look like? ]

Ooh. [ An amused sound, at being made to. Daemon sinks in to his throat, and dips his head back, soaking his hair. He is ever caught in between innate grace and practiced economy of movement. A man who looks perfectly at ease, and like he could snap to violence at any moment, at the same time.

When he settles against the edge opposite Aemond, head resting against the lip, he gives the younger prince a look through pale lashes. ]

And it would be very unfortunate for you to go a third time.

[ Indeed, right here, and it's unfair that Aemond had such a short life— he barely saw anything past King's Landing, he never crossed the Narrow Sea, he never saw the Wall or took a wife or lived to see a child born. Maybe he hadn't gotten around to having a rose pastry sold in the markets beneath the Red Keep. Maybe he put off reading some of the better works of fiction in the world.

It's too bad. But Lucerys, Jaecerys, and little Visenya won't do those things, either, and so Daemon doesn't feel much grief. ]

I will say, [ a sigh, as he stretches his shoulders, presuming his nephew hasn't flown across the pool, ] I don't mind the view.

[ Perhaps he'll fly, now. ]

[ Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Perhaps the most rousing his uncle has done can be boiled down to the restless way in which Aemond rolls and flexes the knuckles of his sword hand. A tense and fidgeting habit takes on a meditative quality as he holds the elder prince's gaze. No doubt a combined inherited set of mannerism: hot-blooded restlessness meeting fortified restraint. At least he doesn't tear at his fingernails until they're bloody.

Part of him hates the way that this is how it is To think of it being anything else was nothing more than an idle boy's fantasy. What could have been. A weeping wound that's never seemed to close, felt long before the dance between their families even started. A boy setting aside dreams for duty to ease the deepening fears seen in his mother. Tonight, it tastes a little extra bitter. Now after the thrush of their shared violence has tempered and likewise enemies felled. Tides feel like they're turning in on themselves again, hungry for blood. Hungry for something.

A simple implication of losing a third time would be enough for him to fly off handle, but the prince remains leashed in his spot if only out of spite. He thinks he knows that look set deep in the void of Daemon's eyes. It seems to only mock and beckon him to foolishness. When it seems so plain in the face, he cannot be so baited and lured across the pond so easily.]

Do you want me to strike at you, uncle? [ Aemond asks plainly, eye bright and feigned. Peeking sapphire reflecting the torchlight. After all, it is also not the first time he has inquired tonight. One has to wonder.]

Is it death you still long after or is it the only thing that can get it up for you these days?

[ A silken laugh; it rises like the steam around them as Daemon relaxes, careless, taking his eyes off of his nephew entirely. ]

You'll have to investigate the answer to that more aggressively than asking.

[ Wouldn't you like to know, little viper.

Big words, for a guy whose passions are as sensitive as a dove— the tiniest grain of uncertainty and Daemon's cock won't cooperate, it's very embarrassing for a villain and the sort of thing a hero isn't supposed to know about himself. He's neither, something either in between or from another realm entirely, a bloodstained grey.

Aemond doesn't need to know. Everything, as his uncle stretches out, is fine. Daemon is playing his part, the sick predator who soiled poor Queen Alicent's girlhood sweetheart and lured her away down the path of sin and selfishness. He wonders if the Hightower whore ever heard Viserys mistake Aemond for Daemon, and if it bothered her more or less than being called Aemma. He wondered if she liked it, if she burned with the frustration of knowing that had Daemon's son lost an eye, no one would have left the room with both of theirs.

All in tangles. What a family. ]

[ Sounds like a challenge. Sounds like another lure plopping into the middle of the pool reeling empty. Aemond drops his gaze, down to idling fingers that laze the across surface of the water. He'd like that, wouldn't he?]

I'm not afraid of you. [ The young prince speaks after a lingering silence.

At ten, he'd strolled up and claimed the biggest and oldest dragon alive. Nearly fell off her back and shattered every bone in his body trying not to fly off her saddle. The pomp and circumstance, the velvety undertone of predatory violence of a resting dragon is no stranger to him. How easily Daemon wears it, unsettling to most, would not intimidate him. If anything is it envy he feels? To always be that free. ] Everyone else always was.

[ Oh, he had heard a fair share of tales— The debauchery of fair-haired maidens and queer tastes, a penchant for violence, a hunger for power. How he only sought to puppet his half-sister through her cunny to get closer to the throne. Cut him and his brothers up before they could rise to challenge any claim. His mother mostly held onto fear, but it was his grandsire that held most of the contempt. A Maegor incarnated.

Had he believed some of it? Certainly. But even a child can see the taint of the truth with resentment. And gods how they all looked at him the same way once the flame-stoking of his blood had finally breached the surface.]

To what end, do you think?

[ Afraid of him. A man who never actually did anything until he was forced into a corner by dead children, who could have rallied the City Watch and knocked Viserys over as soon as his health started to fail, who was going to go back to Essos until Rhaenyra convinced him to stay. The inheritance of the Iron Throne has never been without drama, and rarely without blood— he wouldn't even have been doing anything new, if he executed every Hightower ten years ago and ruled as his niece's regent until he inevitably got bored.

He loved his fucking brother. He never challenged him, or his designated heir. How very scary, to want a Targaryen on the throne, and not some horrible little half-dog, licking around at the dregs of the Seven and the swampwater of Westerosi culture. ]

Did it serve you at all? Their fear of me? [ Without knowing, his thoughts mirror Aemond's own; he suspects that the same people who hated Daemon within the green court also began to look askance at their ferocious middle prince, who had been bullied and ignored until he turned up with Vhagar. When did the fear sink in for Otto? When did the resentment? Forced to rely on a boy made in the image of the man he pinned his political career on sinking. ] I know you were never afraid. You were very funny, that night.

[ Testing Daemon with a toast so near to what had gotten their cousin swiftly beheaded. A puppy biting one of the bigger dogs just to see what it could get away with.

It's a pity Daemon doesn't know more about him, really, especially considering how much about himself is out there in the bloody world. But he has very little to go by, outside their brief encounters, dynamic as they've been. Just his intuitions through their dragons, and glum stories from his stepsons. Viserys never spoke of any of his children with Alicent, not even when he wrote to Daemon. Only Rhaenyra. ]

[ A low, embittered but musing noise drones in Aemond's throat, would agree that Daemon might have been the only other one that night to have found his antics so entertaining.

The reason so little spoken about him would be that Aemond had spent most of his life in the shadow. Out of sight, out of mind, out of trouble. Too disgusted by his brother to sink into depravity. Too busy trying to prepare himself to greatness to earn his uncle's infamy at his age. Too burdened with trying to keep his family from fucking falling apart. Raised on the belief that any sign of weakness from any of them would be blood in the water. And for all that he did for them, for duty, the light only ever shown on him whenever he fucking snapped.

For all he knew, Damon could have drawn those same cards in life. Known for only his worst and hardly his best.]

When needing to fight fire with fire, that fear served me very well.

[ The breadth of so much glory at his fingertips knowing that he was his brother's greatest asset. He was needed upon, for once. What better opponent to take down a great dragon but with another great dragon? Equally fierce and ruthless, but this one deeply loyal to the right side of history. Raised with an unbreaking devotion, dutiful no matter how much he actually despised his own brother. The chains of command keeping him (somewhat) leashed from spiraling out of control. Only when he donned the crown, king in all but name, did his grandsire probably truly came to regret him. By then it was too late. No one could stop that fire from soon consuming itself. He could have been so much more. Imagine what you could have achieved. ]

I knew then it would come between me and you. [ Aemond slips and sinks back into the water up to his throat. Taunt on his tongue like warm milk.] At least in the end I took you down with me.

[ Certainly robbed of the glory of having his head on a pike. The bitterness is still there, but beggars can't be choosers. Better here in this circus of hells than still alive to go on beheading the rest of his family.]

[ Daemon peels an eye open to look at him across the water, wryly amused, but whatever he was going to say ends up unvoiced; closed again, simply enjoying the water.

I think it was actually Vhagar that took me with her, you couldn't even get out of your saddle, but close enough—

Everyone hates Daemon for good reason, he's fucking insufferable. ]

You didn't think your witch could pull a second dragon off of you?

[ Idle curiosity. No harm in dissecting it, now. His paramour isn't here, and neither are Nettles and Sheepstealer. Daemon and his dragonseed had hunted for Aemond all up and down the blasted continent, and the younger prince refused to meet them. Impressive, honestly, to manage to hide a dragon the size of a fucking castle. Especially one that Caraxes grew up with, and would have had an easier time finding than one a younger creature like Sunfyre, in theory.

In the end, it had worked out. Rhaenyra's decree had made something in him go colder than he could reconcile. Whatever it was had been teetering on an edge since they lost Visenya, with his children scattered to the winds and the young woman keeping him stable banished for her own safety, it had finally fallen. Behind his eyes, he sees the water rush up; he feels the impact. He hadn't been afraid. ]

My lady had no say in it. [ he corrects, one eye pointed across the water. ] I wanted the fight I was owed. Just you and me.

[ Alys couldn't save him. She could sow the murmurings of victory in his ear every morning and divine him strength through her prayers to the gods. She couldn't touch his thirst for glory. For all that she could have offered him if he had asked a different way to earn his victory. Truth of the matter was he was too stubborn for the help. Since the march to Harrenhal, too stubborn and too obsessive to share in anything. No, his victory with Daemon had to be his and his alone. No tricks, no armies, no other dragons. A pure match of strength and fire.

Did he think he could survive Daemon alone? Possibly. Riding atop of a flying mountain is enough to make anyone feel invincible. The question remains is if he too knew that he wouldn't. He had felt true terror watching Daemon stick the landing on the back of Vhagar. If anything, it wasn't the kind of death he might have expected.

Curiosity shifts him, drawing forward to look Daemon more closely. His arms rested at the tops of his knees. Long, pale hair sticking to his back and shoulders like a blanket.]

You knew it was no match without your seed. Why did you want to die?

[ His lady, oh, alright. Daemon makes a sound that's clearly patronizing— it's fine if Aemond wanted some servant matron who spun fortunes in the fire, but she was no lady. He's saving You might as well have been fucking one of Rhaenyra's bastards for when he really wants to annoy him.

A huff of laughter— ]

I knew it was to be a draw, at least. [ And he was correct. Daemon slew Aemond, and Caraxes slew Vhagar. None could have done it alone besides the Blood Wyrm, not Meleys, not Vermithor, no matter that they were bigger and older, none had his grinning monster's sheer viciousness and drive to win, none had someone so brutal-minded giving the commands. ] You forget, I grew up with Vhagar. I knew her, too.

[ Daemon learned to fly alongside his father with her, he traveled with world with Laena with her. There was no one alive with more intel on how to combat the ancient warrior, and he was confident. He was right. Vhagar was dead before she hit the water and Caraxes crawled out, determined to rub his accomplishment in her face, even dying.

Pointless. They all fucking died, Daemon still lost, a draw is not a win. And yet he knew he was the only one capable, and that the encounter would serve all his purposes— stop Aemond, cripple the greens past recovery, end his own life. The real horrifying potential would have been surviving without his dragon; thankfully, he was spared having to do something as pitiful as slit his own throat on the shore. ]

But you're right.

[ Maybe if he'd forced it, defied Rhaenyra and kept Nettles with him, they could have eventually found Aemond and won decisively. Daemon wanted to die. ]

I have felt extinction around my throat my whole life. A good an opportunity as any, and quite the show. My children will go on and the world will be different, with no one trying to make it old again.

[ It's hard for Aemond to imagine growing up in what could have been a less volatile atmosphere. One that might have entertained the idea of what his life might have existed like beyond his duty to protect his family. What good times were there for he to try and restore once this war was over? It was always about trying to make things better.

The circumstances are different, but some feeling there is the same. Aemond's gaze turns down to look at the water. Clearly discomforted as his usual sharpened edges slip and soften. Not having expected what could be an honest answer.

He feels not unlike the same small, stupid boy willing to salve bitter bygones for a taste of kinship. He never got the grasp of it before. It always felt a bit like stabbing himself in the foot every time he might try. Especially towards someone who purportedly has little reason to do anything else but loathe him. It's exhausting to think that Daemon is all he has left of anything. Forced to face duality that sings in his blood every time he looks at him.]

Was the old world really so great? [ He asks after what feels like an yawning silence, gaze landing back on his uncle again. Curious and yet still slightly condescending. Maybe he just doesn't get it. Maybe it's something else nagging at him that he can't bring himself to ask. ]

[ The old world.

Hollow words for something that had been so profound and so wonderful its demise has left a wound on the world that will never heal. The scar of the ruins is bleeding, and will continue to bleed and boil, forever. Valyria, and Valyrians, made the world worth anything at all; the Free Cities are grand and great because they built themselves up from the Freehold, and the only slivers of legitimacy and civilization that Westeros has about it at all are from the Conquest.

Hideous backwater people who believe in nonsense gods and hate all those who are different. The Conqueror should have slain them all. Maegor should have finished the job.

(To what end? Daemon knows they all truly died with Valyria.) ]

You were born, [ he begins, his gaze unfocused at the ceiling, ] to steal my brother's blood and arm usurpers with dragons.

[ Daemon has no bastards. He never gave House Royce any heirs. He understands the value of his blood, the power of his blood. Viserys loathed it— he knows his brother hoped that his children with an outsider wouldn't be able to claim dragons, and that the sorcery of their blood would be diluted enough that they could not threaten Rhaenyra, and furthermore, that he'd have a legacy of something besides dragon-lords. He thought the company afforded him by his Hand's little whore-daughter was a selfless kindness; he was a fool. ]

I was born because my parents were in love.

[ His parents were siblings. So were his grandparents; they, too, were in love.

It's not Aemond's fault that Viserys couldn't care for Alicent, or that Otto pimped his daughter. Daemon understands that. He understands, too, that Aemond has too much Targaryen in him to ever know peace. Viserys has cursed him. He remembers lurking in the great hall at High Tide, and watching Alicent transform from a girl who resented her children to a woman who finally saw a way to use the offspring forced upon her for her own goals. An awful thing. Viserys' son lost an eye and he could barely remember his name; Viserys wanted to shed his scales, but he could only love Rhaenyra, born to him from his cousin-wife, and her Targaryen flesh.

Was the old world really so great.

Daemon could laugh. ]

You'd have just been yourself, in the old world.

[ As spitting an accusation as Daemon gives, he's not wrong. Not entirely. My mother was doing her duty. Strengthening the king's succession. It still wasn't love or desire. And in return, Aemond's upbringing lacked that maternal warmth. Not in the way he watched Rhaenyra with her unfiltered adoration for her dirt-haired bastards. Aemond had to claw out his mother's love by giving her the things he thought she needed. Nevermore did he feel the weight of her love that night at High Tide, nor could he forget how it slipped away once he returned from Storm's End. In the end, it felt like it was only blood and duty.

It's a fool's dream to try and think the world could be any different. That he could have been born to any other sort of life that didn't end in him plunging to his death in a tangle of dragons. As honorable as it was. Whatever he had intended to make of himself before his father died, whatever he had thought to do once the Blacks were all dead and his brother sat the throne, nor whatever fragments of life he had begin to see with Alys and the babe that grew in her belly (Had that babe been made out of love? It felt more like desperation)

Foolish dreams, all of it.]

I guess we'll never truly know.

[ Except they kind of know. They're here. Divorced from everything and still living, if it can be still called living. Severed from their war with no way to return to it. His duty is obsolete here. He has no one to protect against Daemon. Desire is like a phantom limb, twitching without any true purpose. Aemond's not used to purposelessness. He wants to ignore it and put the twitching to an end.

Otherwise, he has just been himself. They both have. With no one else to reign in the fire in their blood. They are free, and so is that chaos threats to consume him knowing it cannot be stopped.]

What now?

[ What will he do? What does he want? ]

[ Duty. A fictional concept used to manipulate. Westerosi nobility are obsessed with it because they have nothing else, having to employ it as a motivation for all they do because otherwise they would have to admit the truth of being selfish, power-hungry peasants dressed up in mummers' costumes. Otto wanted the throne, and so he called it duty to protect the realm when he spent his whole life ruining House Targaryen; Alicent wanted to torment Rhaenyra, and so she called her jealous abuses a duty to uphold decency.

Nothing but craven mongrels in ill-fitting silks. Viserys had been fooled, but Daemon has ever seen the honest face of every single one.

They could have known. Daemon remembers watching them as children, drunk and bleeding and eating snails, and thinking what he'd do to everyone in that chamber if it was his son who lost an eye. Maybe he should have gone back to King's Landing after all— giving himself to Rhaenyra hadn't exactly worked out.

Oh, well. He laughs quietly. ]

Now we see how many turns at death it takes to quiet one or the other.

[ Foolish dreams indeed. ]

Or do you want to go find a nice hut to live in here, minding your own business?

[ What kind of death lies below this one? A nothingness or a new hell? It certainly won't be the dreamy halls of Old Valyria or whatever dusted manuscripts painted of such places in death — lorded over by all the gods they named their dragons after.

Whispers say dragons are in this world too. As the time passed since his arrival, he has felt the vacancy of Vhagar's presence peeling at the hole in his chest. If given the chance would he claim another? Would his uncle?

It would speed up the process re: reaching a mutually assured permadeath. ]

And play a country lord of rocks and ruins, what fun is in that?

[ Well by the night's findings, Some people have found their fun in that. And as nice as it was taking a well-stocked keep for a night, what's the point of keeping it in a place in a perpetual state of anarchy? It sounds like madness to try. Equally as mad sounding as the call to arms that summoned them from the dead for. ]

Becoming the Elden Lord sounds like a bad joke. [ More cursed and bloody to collect a bunch of magical runes than it might be to claim the Iron Throne. But the power it grants, Aemond is at least slightly seduced by that idea of it. As tonight has proven, all this realm's chaos is a little fun. Maybe he can deserve a little fun, he's fucking dead. ]

Though it wouldn't hurt to try. Maybe quiet you in the process.

[ Somehow, he makes that sound simultaneously hostile and suggestive while seemingly innocent of both. ]

[ Daemon has never lusted for power the way people think he has. He's never needed to— he's a Targaryen, he's a prince, he has a dragon. Always a few steps away from the Iron Throne, and a few times, standing solidly with one foot hovering over it. Has he wanted it? From time to time. Sometimes even intensely. But always in concert with the want of something else.

His brother. His niece. Dreams of making Westeros a place worthy of inheriting the legacy of Valyria.

Here he is not a prince, he has no dragon, and being Targaryen means nothing except to him. And Aemond, perhaps, though he's still fairly skeptical. Too much Hightower in him. Raised by bitter little snakes and abandoned so thoroughly he found himself in the arms of a witch. Can Daemon pry him out from that? … Would it be worth it to?

(Better question: Will he be able to keep himself from trying? The pull of their blood has always been too strong, for him.) ]

Are you sure that's why you might want it? [ Somewhat dryly. He recalls the fuss made about Prince Aemond, Regent. Just one more Westerosi desperate for the Iron Throne. Power for power's sake. Tedious. ]

They say that death was shattered, by those runes. Perhaps it's what brought us here.

[ Fragments of great magic, reaching across worlds. ]

I wonder what else they could bring back.

[ Aemond scoffs. Exhausted, exasperated. Wondering if it even matters why he might want something. It doesn't. Daemon's already doomed him to something lesser. As has been his lot in life to anyone worth anything. There should be nothing to prove if there's nothing to gain. Everything's gone, lost, and squandered. His life, as little of it there was, was a joke of what he wanted it to be. What it deserved to be. Everything he'd worked towards.

Is power from want and hunger or is it survival and starvation? As if anything this place offers could make him stop craving something impossible.

A ripple in the water as Aemond lifts himself out of the bath onto the pools edge. Peeling the blanket of water-logged hair over one shoulder to comb his fingers through and wring out.]

You speak the power of literal gods that have made or broken this world in some way or another. Where is that kind of power supposed to end?

[ Again, if it is to be believed. Which in these parts, people seem to remark as something more tangible than the fabled legends of old recanted by one maester or the other. Those runes are one of the most interesting things about this place. Those who hold the shards known to have done equally remarkable things. Possessing even just the right one could play with life and death itself. Is it wild to dare to want despite the rest?]

Think you might resurrect your blood wyrm, is that it?

[ As if he wasn't similarly curious or wanting. ]

Is that all you could imagine.

[ What a bullshitter, this guy. Daemon is absolutely thinking of Caraxes, but he's going to pretend it's about his lost children to look like less of a selfish cunt. It lets him needle Aemond more as he watches him climb out of the bath; Only worth something once you stole my wife's dragon. Thief, impostor, pretender.

Miserable of him. He'd have liked Aemond quite a lot, if the world had been different.

He would like his lost children back, too. And Laena— perhaps her most of all. As the years have gone on he's felt her absence more and more, and the realization of perhaps valuing honesty and patience in a romantic partnership over passionate love has been a strange one. He was never mad with obsession over Laena like he's been from time to time over Rhaenyra, but Laena would have never lied to him like Rhaenyra did. A cold blade.

But what the fuck would he do with any of them, like this? No. Better it's them, draining each other's venom. This is not a hell of the Seven or of the gods of Valyria. But it is condemnation, of some kind. ]

Lightheaded already?

[ Not here. Nothing else deserves to be brought to this place. Nothing else worth bringing back could handle it other than their dragons. What would it serve if either of them had the power to bring back loved ones in a place full of shattered death and madness. Perhaps Aemond just doesn't understand what it would mean to love someone that much. Or (perhaps the more likely version) Daemon is just being a shit.]

No. It was more relaxing when I didn't have the company of a miserable old cunt.

[ It was nice, it was quiet. Far less prickling. Not that being alone with his own thoughts had been granted him much more peace to contend with. A flick of his wrist to dispel cooled droplets across the steamy water's edge. Lightheaded? Piss off.]

Whose fire has gone out long before he could begin to question mine.

[ Being dead is no excuse, apparently. No mercy is granted towards him or what he's lost. He respects it the same. Funny how he spent weeks searching for his uncle only to find it growingly insufferable to be in his company. Had he expected something different? Isn't that the definition of madness?

More foolish dreams. Perhaps he really just does want to get drowned, reset, and pulled into the Erd Tree's embrace. He'll have to try harder.]

[ Por qué no los dos? Except in High Valyrian. Daemon has loved deeply and madly, enough to think that he might enjoy someone's company here and allow himself to be completely unhinged with it, and he is also being an insufferable shit on purpose. A specialty of his.

He laughs, low and lazy. When he was Aemond's age, he'd have reacted violently to a taunt like that. It's a different kind of fire, now. Smoldering like a collapsed mine under the earth, ever-burning, dark and horrid. ]

Is that why you couldn't stop burning fields and villages? [ The older prince sits up, though he doesn't make a move to get out. Only the teeniest bit pruned in places, he's still enjoying the hot water. One hand fans out, making ripples. ] Concerned with the legitimacy of your own fire? Envious it wasn't you seeing visions in it?

[ And then, a sigh— ]

Oh, nevermind. Go on and take what you will of this place, it's had enough of quarreling, ours isn't going to improve the situation.

[ Unfortunately for Aemond, he is still his own age. Only time will tell if the hellfire brewing inside his chest will temper and collapse in on itself in any similar way. Or will it only continue to get in his own way time and time again?

Aemond's jaw clenches as he rises, sweeping the woven towel off the tiled floor from behind his seat that he may make his exit with some dignity. A concerted effort to ignore the deep and constant needling. For all Daemon's efforts in the night, it may as well be a dagger-sized wound.

He steps out, lower legs pinkish and dripping onto the pool's ledge. Sorting the towel between his hands as he ignores the off-kilter line that a better man might throw out to quell a spat.

Aemond's chest rises and tightens, shifting one step to leave. Only to instead turn a split second. A long, thin blade of a stiletto cracks into the grout of the pool's edge beside the arm of Daemon's rippling hand.

Will he get in his own way tonight? Perhaps.]

No? [ Said in the tune of someone who is casually three seconds from losing his shit. What's certain by the look on Aemond's face is that he meant to only just miss. A warning. At least one of them can take the highroad without resorting to the Westerosi equivalent of gaslighting.

Go on, improve the situation then.

Aemond's gaze flickers down to the water and up again, adjusting the towel over his shoulder as he takes his leave. ]

Edited (just a word) 2023-03-22 04:03 (UTC)

[ He watches his nephew, letting himself be distracted by the sight of him bare, even as he's quick about towels. Thinking about it abstractly— young, fit, attractive. Aemond could be all Targaryen for how he looks, and the missing eye even adds to the aesthetic value; his face is a little too sharp, otherwise. Daemon understands. He can't have his hair all the way back or he looks stupid for it.

Furious little viper. Daemon sinks back, and is planning on dunking his hair under to try and work out some of the tangles before it dries again, and then he's reminded about just how dangerous it is to let his attention diffuse.

Aha. No startle, but not because he's too badass for it. Purely because he's grown sluggish with the heat. Woops. But he's fine with appearing to have unflinchable nerves.

Daemon's quiet laugh follows the younger prince. ]

Guess you don't want to fuck, either.

[ Why? Shut up, Daemon.

He does dunk his hair back this time, and if Aemond chucks another knife, it could very well get him in the throat. ]

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