valzyrys: commission, dnt. (● 00074)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-01-30 05:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ 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 allβ€” 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?
valzyrys: commission, dnt. (Default)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-02-12 09:17 am (UTC)(link)
[ Daemon has never lusted for power the way people think he has. He's never needed toβ€” 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.
valzyrys: commission, dnt. (● 00043)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-02-22 06:11 am (UTC)(link)
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 Laenaβ€” 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?
valzyrys: commission, dnt. (● 00246)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-03-20 06:46 am (UTC)(link)
[ Por quΓ© 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 sighβ€” ]

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.
valzyrys: gifted, dnt please. (● 00289)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-04-09 05:49 am (UTC)(link)
[ He watches his nephew, letting himself be distracted by the sight of him bare, even as he's quick about towels. Thinking about it abstractlyβ€” 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. ]
valzyrys: gifted, dnt please. (● 00300)

huehuehue

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-04-10 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
[ Tragic, that Aemond may never have a better opportunity to kill him with such little effort. An infinite spawn of daggers would be very helpful at the moment. But Daemon gets away unscathed, running long fingers through his hair and working out any remaining tangles as his nephew storms away, sounding very much like a big duck.

He takes his time extricating himself from the bath, and drying off in blissful solitude. Lurking maids find his company less objectionable, and he retires to his loaned room β€” not the lord and lady of the castle's, quite content to inhabit whatever's been set up and small enough to solidly bar the door from the inside. This is when, were he another man, he might follow up on that something better. But he doesn't. Because it's more petty, and thus more satisfying, to leave Aemond waiting.

And also because there is in fact something more sad and pathetic than the idea of Aemond scrambling after his knife, and that's the state of Daemon's passions. He would literally rather die being choked in a bath with a soggy towel than let the younger prince know he isn't turned on by negging, to the extent where the slightest hint of discomfort or insecurity makes him unable to perform. No thanks! Absolutely the fuck not!

He stays in his room. Menacing seduction from afar is plenty.

When someone knocks on Aemond's door in the morning, after not enough hours and when the sky is still grey outside, it's not Daemon, but one of the serving girls. She nervously tells him that a visitor has arrived to request an audience, and his companion is already in the dining room with him.

Daemon waits, a new knife tucked into his boot, with a strange man telling him about an even stranger invitation. ]
valzyrys: commission, dnt. (● 00214)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-04-16 09:26 am (UTC)(link)
[ Sometimes, in his posture, Aemond reminds him of Viserys when they were young. He was scholarly and well-mannered, and the regal distance with which he held himself - that looked so kingly, eventually - was sharper. Especially when their father was still alive, and Viserys carried that spark of wanting to impress that Baelon's death extinguished. That's how Daemon remembers him. How he continued to see him, even as he grew old far faster than he should have, and began to decay.

He sees it in Aemond as the younger prince joins them.

Makes his decision to scorn him overnight sting just a little (for Daemon has never been in denial of what he really wanted, merely resigned to the impossibility). But only a little. What'd have been worse? Failing to maintain an erection, or accidentally calling him his father's name?

No one, it turns out, should fuck Daemon Targaryen. And yet. He turns a spoon over in his fingers listening to Rogier and his absurd hat, decidedly not thinking about sex, and some of what the man says lines up with the masked man he'd murdered. Some more lines up with rumors he's heard whispers of. ]


The wind tells tales of the Roundtable Hold not really existing, [ he drawls. ] Does it? As a place? Or is it merely metaphorical?

[ When the sorcerer explains that it's a place just slightly out-of-step with the realm of the Lands Between, and further out-of-step with any other reality, Daemon is forced to accept that is sounds like it might as fucking well be true. It's not like he and Aemond are from this place; they did not arrive by being carried from one place to another.

The talking hat continues, ]


I see you have managed to apply some runes here and there. To really take advantage, you'll need to negotiate with a Finger Maiden. The collective at the Hold can point you in the right direction.
valzyrys: dnt please. (● 00085)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-04-19 05:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ An honest tragedy: Daemon absorbs all of this with an opaque expression, privately mourning all the ways he's been ground down by life, because he really can't justify saying what he wants to, which is, Finger Maidens sounds like something I got in trouble for as a boy.

Aemond and Rogier maintain their straight faces. What a world, what a world.

A keep set between realms, mystical women that commune with strange powers, the light of grace. Daemon thinks of priestesses of fire, glass candles, and blood magic. He wonders how much of the world was like the Lands Between, before the time of the Freehold. How much of it is still like this, in the shadowlands.

He takes a breath and sits up from his lean, looking at his nephew before finally moving his gaze back to the sorcerer. ]


I see no reason not to investigate your claim. [ Sure, it could be true. But it could also be bullshit. Hard to tell, here. ] If you speak true, it would be very helpful. And if notβ€”

[ He shrugs. ] Seems like a waste of your own time, really.

[ Apparently they'll come back, more likely than not. ]
valzyrys: commission, dnt. (● 00185)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-04-23 07:54 am (UTC)(link)
[ Field trip time. Daemon takes the spoon.

And of course it's another fucking sept. What's wrong with these people. (Just wait until he hears the whole history of Marika vanquishing the race of dragonlords that ruled the Lands Between before she was imbued with divinity.) He's plainly unimpressed as he trails behind Rogier and Aemond, taking stock of everything with a critical, skeptical gaze. ]


'Grace', [ he says, his voice dry with disrespect. ] Does your god truly welcome her own replacement? Do traps not exist in this realm?

[ Little things skitter and retreat in the rafters, startled by speech when footsteps had not disturbed them. Rogier is somewhat incredulous about this challenge, explaining that it's the various powers of nature β€” that include the Greater Will, sure β€” allowing them to shift around, not Marika.

Her statuettes being all about the place and facilitating things are just a coincidence, Daemon's sure. Mmhm. ]
valzyrys: gifted, dnt please. (● 00285)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-04-29 08:51 am (UTC)(link)
[ As far as Daemon's concerned, if the Erdtree ever resurrects him, it'll merely be proof it's a foolish cunt without any sense of self-preservation. Nothing worth respecting in that.

He reaches out a hand to join with his nephew's, and the sorcerer's. Serpent-quick, his hand shifts, they moveβ€”

When all three materialize in the Roundtable Hold, Daemon is already jerking Rogier forward. It sends the man offbalance and stumbling towards him, and Daemon darts his other hand up to grab him by his collar. What starts as a sound of awkward apology quickly shifts to alarm when it's clear Daemon did it on purpose, and is even now taking a step back and hauling the man with him, one hand at his throat, the other keeping him from grabbing his sword.

Other people are noticing. ]


Interesting, [ he says, around shouts of protest. ] It worked.

[ As if he was going to just go into that blindly without the potential for a hostage if needed. And now, jeez, everyone is so riled up, maybe if they'd?? Relax?? He'd just let Rogier go??? ]
valzyrys: gifted, dnt please. (● 00301)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-05-01 06:03 am (UTC)(link)
[ A quiet laughβ€” ]

You put your faith so blindly in these people? [ His voice pitches lower, speaking his native tongue. How's your High Valyrian, kiddo? ] In this magic that isn't ours, in this land that's taken us.

[ Speaking to Aemond, while still holding fast to Rogier, whose free hand is flailed out to forestall his companions from reacting. Daemon is only restraining him, no blade of his own out yet (despite the younger one's escalation, which his uncle finds funny).

Perhaps someone's ears prick to hear something that sounds like the dragonlord glyphs of old made alive. Perhaps it goes unnoticed, irrelevant. Either way, Daemon keeps his gaze fixed on his captive, whose face is finally clearly visible up this close, stupid hat knocked askew. Not a bad looking man. Daemon speaks quietly to him after a moment, deliberately private; no harm in being a little mysterious. For fun. He and Aemond are not a team, after all.

Things continue to be tense, until suddenly, they're not. Rogier steps away, no harm done, and for a brief heartbeat before he sweeps his hat back on, there's the sense that his face has gone red.

He's also holding a spoon.

Daemon raises both hands, and smiles. ]


That was very dramatic of all of you. We were only speaking.
valzyrys: commission, dnt. (● 00012)

[personal profile] valzyrys 2023-05-05 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
[ Aemond's High Valyrian is okay.

(Daemon is still an asshole.)

Awkwardness is for everyone else. Daemon stands there, utterly unfazed, no doubt further annoying the others with his audacity to feel no shame at his own poor behavior. Setting the tone. He doesn't want to be welcomed, or to be seen as a fledgling in need of guidance; he wants hostility and distrust, he wants people to leave him the fuck alone.

Negativity is honest. He wants to see them without pretense.

His voice is smooth and gracious when he speaks to the tarnished who nuts up and talks to them, faint smirk tucked into one corner of his mouth the whole time. It's all very interesting, but he's never been much of a joiner. These assorted cunts aren't Valyrian sealords. They're desperate failed men all grasping for the same escape hatch, and this brotherhood will crumble, one way or another. They will betray each other or they will buckle in sentimentality.

Maybe they'll have food that sucks less, though. Daemon incline his head, accepting an invite for a tour. Probably this will not include seeing the Two Fingers so early, which is a shame, as Daemon would have Opinions. ]

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