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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[ He watches Aemond move - if it is Aemond, and not a dream - as though it's happening slower than it really is, even though he knows that wielding Dark Sister propels one to move quicker. She's too light, between being forged for a woman and the inherent magic of Valyrian steel. The swing is competent enough, as far as opening broadsides go.

Of course, he just leans back.

Daemon is bad at tourneys, and good in real fights. A potential conundrum for an opponent trained by a knight with integrity. No inclination towards rules or forms, and reflexes honed by war and reckless living. He knows just where to move to ensure that Aemond's next press forward goes far afield, and how to knock the back of his elbow with the flat of his blade without catching anything off the return strike. A warning, and he'll find out very soon, probably, how much he regrets not just cutting his arm off, there.

Still, there's something detached about him. Daemon looks at Aemond and is angry, but can't quite focus that anger. He doesn't know where the fuck he is, or why they're doing this. If it's a dream, he doesn't care, and if they're dead—

Hah. He doesn't care, even if it's true. ]

Come now, didn't Cole teach you anything? [ Daemon circles him with leisurely paces. ] He couldn't have spent all his time crying about being rejected by Rhaenyra.

[ The response he expects is not the patronizing one he receives. Little more than a guiding tap that rubs salt into an old wound. The frustration is there, gently mounting as he falls back. A scoff shudders out of him as he falls into step, mirroring Daemon's tracing through the dirt and weeds.

The anger he feels remains palpable, pulsing. Though the anger he sees in the other man is not yet directed at him. He has somehow not earned it yet. But he is just a little boy in the training yard, not yet deserving to swing metal at anything but a cloth stuffed with hay.

You are here because of me.

His next advance comes more aggressive, though the swing of his sword remains predictable. Allowing the blades to collide, pressing further for Daemon's counter to push them together. Instead of disengage immediately, he throws himself bodily forward to throw his elbow into the other man's face. A taunt.]

I do wonder how your bitch queen is faring with you dead, [ he speaks as he draws back. Come to him, show him what it is to fight then. ] How long she may hold the throne without her latest attack dog.

As far as you and I are concerned, forever.

[ How fortunate, that they careened down while the only heir Viserys ever declared (and the only child whose name Viserys could ever remember) held King's Landing. Unless their dreamworld is infringed upon by someone from a year out, it'll remain a mystery that's solved by Queen Rhaenyra's enduring victory, and with that drunken, idiot boy defiling the Conqueror's crown slithering away to rot to death in a cave.

Daemon counters the advance, even though he can feel the way the ordinary steel of his blade threatens to give way. He slams the heel of his offhand palm into the fuse of Aemond's raidus and ulna bones when he tries to get an elbow in at him, punishing him for trying to get in close. ]

Vhagar was your cunt brother's only hope, and you've wasted her chasing after me. What's left, sweet nephew?

[ Half their army had deserted already, if reports were to be believed, and Rhaenyra has the full weight of the north bearing down for her. She doesn't need Daemon at all. She never did.

(He pretends it doesn't gut him.) ]

[ The laugh that leaves him is small and bitter. His uncle is right, what is there left? Though that may be a pill he'd yet to swallow. Raking the Riverlands with dragonflame for little good it actually served the Greens in grander schemes. But it was less a campaign of strategy. It was penalty. Desperately clawing to draw as much blood to make up for massive shortcomings.

He had taken the crown, in all but title, This had become his war and what had he done with it? This was not the outcome his Alys had foretold. Had she too led him astray? As the final laugh for letting just one Strong bastard live.

Cursing him here. With him. Just to be made the fool once more, as though it is all he seems to be good for.

He can't bear it.

The uneasy twang throbs and ripples down Aemond's arm as he shakes his wrist. Something in his eye, wide and wild, flickers as the young prince snaps.

He flies forward again with a rumbling growl, striking once and quickly following up with another. As he draws Dark Sister back, he takes her in both hands and pushes forward again swinging with reckless and ravenous blows. Not showing any indication of slowing or stopping until something breaks.]

There you are.

[ Easier to focus on, this way. Daemon's head swims. He blocks, staying in dangerously close despite Dark Sister's reach, knowing he has to hit close to the guard where there's less momentum built up in each swing. Aemond isn't some untrained fool, he won't be able to just knock her out of his hands. ]

Some regent. [ In between clashes of steel, scuffling dodges, harsh pushbacks— Daemon shoves him in ways that would disqualify him at a tourney, uses the strength of his nephew's swings against him to throw him off-balance if he can. Daemon's poise is difficult to break, and he's quick, oiling his way out of tangles, shoulder-checking his nephew to gain distance. ] As soon as you had to do something that wasn't using a dragon to kill your own blood, you failed.

[ Jaehaerys was for Luke, but Aemond still owes debts for Jace, and Rhaenys, and as far as Daemon is concerned, for Viserys. Everyone who benefited from the slow poisoning of his brother shares equal guilt, and their heads should be on spikes just like Otto cunting Hightower.

But they're both at the bottom of the lake, aren't they?

His hands are numb. The end of his sword gets clean sliced through by a swing from Aemond he can't get a better read on. It lodges itself in the dirt. ]

Imagine what you could have achieved, if you weren't so determined to be only your mother's son. Just a Hightower playing dress-up.

[ While each blow of Aemond's blade becomes less and less calculated, he remains quick on his feet. Able to scrape by and redirect his weight every time the brunt of Daemon's counter deflects him away. Prancing back to a point of proper footing where he can reset and fly back at him again. Blades chipping through taunting marks, most of which Aemond only responds in exacerbated grunts as he's throwing his full strength into each blow.

As if would be just as satisfying only to kill him just to shut him up.

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips to see the jagged edge of his opponent's sword. Disengaged, Aemond's breaths fall out of him ragged, chest heaving in the breath of silence. He is slowing, but nowhere close to letting up.]

I don't recall you being around much for my upbringing. Too craven to swallow his shame before his brother-king. [ The words practically spitting from his mouth. Those stories he'd been too young to witness, but would overhear time and again recalling of ludicrous transgressions and depravities.

Poking a thumb into the wounds of his shortcomings is one thing, But it is the insult to Aemond's pride that truly pains him. He is not his drunken louse of a brother who never once cared for who he was or what he was gifted.

The prince lashes forward again either to break the sword or land a blow or drive them both into the dirt. To either win, exhaust, or die. Spurned by this twisted thread to prove himself of something with every swing of the blade.]

Tis I who took my duties seriously. The only one who ever took pride in being the blood of the dragon. Our legacy. For a father who could barely remember my name.

All that shame you heard of, [ he says as he staggers back, looping his broken sword in his hand like nothing's wrong with it, ] and the thing you wanted most was to be me anyway.

[ A second son who got to do whatever the fuck he pleased, banished from his brother's court over and over again and welcomed back each time, waging a war the king refused to condone, even evading punishment for marrying his niece after being forbidden to. No one's ever forgotten Daemon's name, even those who have desperately wished to.

Living it, of course, has been something else. Viserys had never seen Daemon for what he is, had always rejected the way he loved him— refusing to dissolve his horrendous arranged marriage, denying him Rhaenyra, throwing his loyalty and his desire to protect him back in his face. When Daemon tried to live as he was bid, stay out of trouble, raise children, he faded, withered, and hated it. Why can't you see that I love you, with no self-awareness that Daemon's love is barely survivable.

Aemond's anger is pure and focused, and Daemon is half-present. Dark Sister snaps his borrowed sword in half at the cross, and Daemon barely moves away in time to save his shoulder— she slices down along his arm, a clean line, and it's all he can do to let the momentum drop him so that he can use it to pull his nephew down with him and shove him over, throw him hard into the cold ground, loom over him with blood spilling over them both.

Awake. The dark violet cast over his hazel eyes is like the glint of an animal's. He slams Aemond's hand down beside his head, iron-hard, refusing to let him budge with Visenya's sword, and he shoves his wounded arm beneath his chin. ]

You're right. [ He sounds calm, but cold. Finally here. ] I should have been there.

[ It's in his consumed, frenzied madness that he both succeeds and fails in the same stroke. The collision of softness and hardness as both men scramble through the dirt, skipping a beat of a very one-sided fight. The frenzy is half-dispersed as the younger prince is overturned, the back of his head slapping against the ground. Volleying him into a brief daze with the wind huffing out of his lungs.

The only thing he knows in that moment is to keep his grip on Dark Sister. He will not give her up easily. Even as Daemon's grip is so tight it makes his fingers tingle. He rattles his hand once or twice, only to find it going nowhere. Had he his full strength, maybe, but not now. His body in kind, wriggles to find the advantage. One heel finding purchase digging into soft mud but it gives away as he kicks through it.

Everything is cold except for the unrelenting weight pinning him down and the splashed warmth of Daemon's blood. He can taste its sweetness ahead of the own metallic copper and adrenaline that's already filled in his mouth. Chest still heaving as he clambers to catch his breath.

Daemon's words ring somewhere even though he knows it doesn't fucking matter anymore. What's done has been done, what wasn't done can't be fixed. All that they have left might be here, squabbling in the mud.

Aemond's chin cranks upward under the pressure of Daemon's wounded arm, warmth spreading around his neck. He barely wonders how deep it cut. His gaze remains locked downward, holding his uncle's in continued defiance. Pained and angry reflecting back in what voided gaze is bearing down upon him. Briefly wondering if it might consume him.

He swallows his breath, forcing the next to drag up heavily through his nose. Jaw fixing and sucking down the taste of sweat and blood. Gathering himself before his free hand lashes to find the dagger at Daemon's belt in one last ditch attempt to plunge it in somewhere, anywhere.]

[ A bad cut, and he can feel numbness shooting through his arm, but he keeps his full weight on Aemond's throat. It gives him plenty of leverage to slam his knee into his nephew's ribs when he feels him starting to try for his dagger. Maybe he'll still get it. Daemon can't let go of the sword, and he can't let Aemond up.

Two failed idiots scrambling in the mud.

It'd have been just this way without dragons, wouldn't it.

Blood continues to pool between them, bathing Aemond's neck, his chest, into his hair— good thing that having his windpipe crushed will probably kill him (again), or else he might have to live with chopping it all off like Daemon did after the Stepstones, bone-white hair stained rusty and brassy.

He should have been there. He should have come back from Essos as soon as his girls were born, fucked Laenor into doing something with Rhaenyra, strong-armed the influence of the Faith and the Hightowers out of the Red Keep. Their keep, red like their blood, like their fire, he should have forced Viserys to accept him. Aegon would be shuffled away to the east, Aemond would know how to control his godsdamned dragon.

Daemon pushes harder. Staring into that one-intact eye. ]

Why did your witch send you to me?

[ The pool may as well be bigger, it may as well be drowning him. That's what it almost feels like. A knee to the ribs is enough to jostle Aemond's last ditch attempts, but when he reaches for it again he can barely fumble it out of its sheath. It drops somewhere beside the both of them.

He cannot let go the sword, it's all his strength funnels toward now. As the tightness begins to close in his chest with Daemon's full weight on his throat. Shuddering and choking as the face hovering above him begins to pull into a fuzzy darkness, creeping and inviting.

It's uncertain if it's the question itself or that Daemon expects him to answer while crushing the life out of him is what turns Aemond's lips into some hideous smile. His body tries seize with laughter but it comes out mangled and shaking. The pain is iron-hot and spreading.

Why did she? Did she know he would never make it out of the God's Eye? Why would someone send their lover to a certain death? His men had warned of her spilling nothing but poisoned honey into his ear. He never listened. He'll never know. But what had been seen could not be unseen. What had been seen could not become untrue.

The panic sets in whether his mind pleases it or not. His empty hand desperately clambers at the arm pressed against his neck. At first to try and dig his fingers into the wound but winds up clasped with withered strength along his uncle's forearm.]

Already seen. You —— [ There is a sickening noise in his throat. His eye growing glossy. Spitting out what words can. More a sneer than a smile. ] Me.

[ Fuck. When the dead die, do they go deeper into hell? The thought barely grips him before all goes to fade.]

[ A woman near Daemon's age with Aemond, a woman near Aemond's age with Daemon, the both of them accused of witchcraft, while they parted with their armies to duel each other to the death.

Imagine what you could have achieved—

He wants to know. He's curious about Alys Rivers. Was she, after all that, a Strong bastard? Was she enchanting Aemond? Was Nettles a shallow extension of some other, mystical power? Or are they all just fucking fools, is all of it built on ash, because the Targaryens should have died with Valyria?

Imagine what we could have been, all of us.

Daemon hates this. He never wanted to be a kinslayer or make enemies of his own blood, he just wanted the world to cooperate, and never had any fear of having to force it if necessary. He's so fucking angry at Aemond for making him kill him again, and he's so shocked by the paradoxical surge of terror and regret when his nephew goes still beneath him that he just stares at him for a long moment. By the time he notices a someone approaching, he has one hand laid along the side of Aemond's face, and he's sure that when he looks up, he paints a picture of pure madness.

It's the man whose head he cut off, come looking for his mask. Daemon accepts this with more grace than he really thinks the situation merits, and sits in the mud beside a dead twenty-year-old while he finally deigns to hear ~~the game mechanics~~ a welcome to the realm.

Dawn creeps in. Daemon heals his arm. A mutated being with two dozen limbs creeps behind the chapel, and the yard is left empty.

When Aemond wakes besides a glowing aura, Daemon will be gone. He'll be met instead by a stranger in a featureless white mask, who is friendly enough but happy to keep distance with a campfire between them, in no hurry to get between the unpredictable tempers of these otherworldly men, or indeed lose his head again. Impaled in the ground is Dark Sister, which may be more surprising than returning once more to consciousness.

The masked man has a message.

Your uncle bids you retain custody of the blade 'til you learn mastery of her.

'Maidenless', they're called, on top of Tarnished. Daemon finds it funny. What a twisted fairy story. But is he off to find a girl, or merely his own equilibrium? Who knows. ]

[Death pulls him in like a current under some murky surface. The weight of him sinking deeper and deeper into some thoughtless chasm until something tows him away. Feeding him through narrow channels deep under the earth until he is flushed out somewhere first warm and bright. He accepts it.

Layer by layer everything else starts to return. The initial shock, the rage he'd felt, the panic setting in as he lost air, all linger with hazy memory. In the moment, his thoughts could barely be parsed. It was pure emotion, lashing freely without depth or purchase. Like any other reckless drunk, the morning comes most sobering as it all pieces back together.

Why did your witch send you to me?

In those days leading, Daemon appeared in her visions frequently. Raking the Riverlands was retribution and eventually the Blacks would have to put a stop to. It came as no surprise to know his uncle had come looking with his pet dragonseed. Aemond avoided him. Perhaps then deep down he even knew how it'd end. He doesn't know if Alys's words served to betray him or if he heard answers he wanted to hear. He never questioned her because he felt her devotion had been as deep as his. He never questioned her because his dear sister once spoke the same cryptic truths. He knew Daemon had become an inescapable fate and it would seem the elder prince had too come to such a conclusion on that day. Why or by what witchery still eluded him.

He thinks himself a fool to truly believe in curses, but has yet to find a better reason for why he wakes up again where he does. He tells himself it doesn't matter anymore, even though he's never been capable of getting over anything in his entire life. It never stops mattering.

He's dead, but he's still here. Graced with the blunt pains of mortality and haunting echoes of now multiple deaths. Aemond is aware the feeling is mostly psychological. His body feels restored, but the memory remains.

Imagine his disappointment, treading back up that hill to not find his uncle waiting there in a pool of his own blood. Aemond had expected to come finish him off if time hadn't done so first. For catharsis or mercy, he hadn't quite decided. Instead someone else is waiting to fill him in on the time he's lost in the so called Lands Between. Trying to find what matters to him between some Greater Will let alone any other gods old or new.

After that, a long time is spent staring at Dark Sister in his hands. Processing it all. Aemond wonders if it's a gesture of mockery. A shackle of burden to remind him of his shame for picking a fight twice unable to finish. Or is it granting him a taste of recognition he might have longed for, that he'd died for.

Imagine what you could have achieved.

It's fucking infuriating in a way Aemond can't wrap his mind around. Why, uncle? He still uses the sword to fell a creeping beast. The creatures remains take the brunt of his frustration.

A wandering trader leery of his presence entertains him long enough to buy a few pieces of the prince's gilded armor in exchange for a map and some necessities. The urge to seek Daemon out of pure retribution has not gone. He still considers matters between them unsettled, but the ambition has cooled. The man in the blank-faced mask points him in a direction and he goes. Only because perhaps he doesn't know where else to go or he has too many questions left unanswered.]

[ It is harder than Daemon expects to leave Aemond behind, but easier than he might have anticipated to fold himself into this world. Abandoning his nephew and Dark Sister on the word of a man who has reason to lie feels like cutting away a lifeline, but at least it feels like something. He needs to think, he needs to breathe, he needs perspective. When he sleeps, he feels like he's falling, and when he's awake, he smells blood and burned flesh.

He leaves a few bodies in his wake, some turned to light particles and some left to rot, and one merchant who is now permanently wary of white-haired strangers, but who if adequately cajoled will tell a story about another foreigner who looks like Aemond (if he had both eyes) who he graciously taught the local card game to, only to be fleeced blind after two hands. Daemon avails himself of skills long-maligned — Lord Flea Bottom has diverse uses — to nest himself with funds and equipment. It's not a trick that'll work too many times if word travels well in the Lands Between, and so after his opening volley, he remains discreet. More difficult to track.

He wants to see Aemond again. He wants to ask him why, he wants an answer about the witch. But his rage is still too unpredictable, and he doesn't want to kill him again. It shouldn't matter, he should be able to close his heart to it, but something sticks deep in his chest like a needle.

Let him earn his revenge. If Aemond can pull it off, then Daemon will deserve it.

There is a festival to celebrate the anniversary of naming constellations, held in a castle made of black stone that sits on the edge of a swamp filled with elemental beasts and gigantic crustaceans. A lord with a bronze mask over his head and shoulders and his lady with a veil down to her feet host it, inviting all who hear the call to feast and make merry. There will be bets on monsters fights and card games and an auction (of promises, how suspicious) to kiss the lady's hand.

Half the attendants are sentient beings the likes Daemon has never seen. He sits at a table in the open courtyard, trailing fingertips around the rim of a heavy goblet, listening to a jar argue with a snake. ]

[ Aemond's days wandering turns to nights barely slept. Sometimes he wakes to screams that travel over dark hills. Sometimes he wakes himself, jerking in his sleep from phantom pains or plunging nightmares.

He wakes to a purposeless world, at least one with a purpose he's not sure to give two shits about. Tarnished, vying for a crown over a shattered land. A war-torn family with grudges that could put his own to shame so much the gods themselves gave up on them. Turned to smallfolk and foreign lords to take up the mantle if they were worthy. Every day he looks up at that golden tree and wonders. Turning over the same old stone with no newer answers, only more questions.

By the nature of his quest, he's gathered bits and pieces by word of mouth. Not many have seen the foreign prince with two eyes and silver-blond hair. They have plenty else to tell him. For a rune, for trade, sometimes for blood. Knowledge that he compares to the texts he devoured in the keep. Something that might link back to what he might know. Madness comes from trying to make sense of something that isn't meant to make sense.

Daemon is starting to feel like a ghost and all Aemond seems to be chasing is a feeling. A comfort grounded in a reality he can still understand. The only constant between these two worlds is that both still seem to look down expecting something of him to prove. A dull-eyed tarnished, a one-eyed kinslayer.

Sellswords transporting beasts in cages become his best company. Most of them were simple men from somewhere well north. It's oddly familiar. The young prince earns his spot to travel among them only after winning a duel among their prized fighter. A man claimed half-giant with grizzled red hair. He nearly dies again dredging the man into a bonfire. A lesser worthiness, but a worthiness gained.

He finds it odd reaching castle gates that hang tattered but colorful banners, as if trying breathe life in this dying place. He hasn't forgotten his search, but he doesn't expect his uncle would draw to such a thing. Especially when he overhears the other sellswords meeting with another strange masked lord, runes exchanged under harsh whispers. Something depraved in the making, Aemond's guess. They stop to look his way when his looming presence is felt. Whatever bloodshed is about to occur won't have anything to do with him.

At least before chaos is to reign, he can take in good food and drink. Something better than roasted hides and berries. His long refined palate hoping at least these local country lords have pissless ale and tender roasted meat for all the merriment they're lauding around.

Not ten steps in he is stopped by a maiden that fills him a cup of something cold and not too strong. He's barely skimming the crowd, in all its oddness, when the most odd thing sticks out. A two-eyed foreigner with bone-white hair.

The gulp of ale warms in his mouth before he finally swallows it. A pit dropping into his stomach tells him to do several things at once, leaving him standing there paralyzed amongst a liquid crowd forced to move around him. A man in bloated armor berates him for standing in the way, triggering a sneer that stirs him forward.

Aemond's cup drops heavy on the wooden table before Daemon as he drops down onto the bench across from him. Expression entirely obtuse. Is it anger, concern, longing, ~~constipation~~? He says nothing.]

[ In all the known world, Targaryens are striking— hair and eyes and preternatural bearing, carrying with them the mystique of dragons and the allure of resisting fire, and disease. But here, they're nothing remarkable. Everyone looks strange. Those who don't are almost more noteworthy than persons with grafted limbs and flaming eyes, ornate masks, or bodies unrelated to humans entirely.

Just an old man at a table, watching a young man approach him.

Daemon stares at him. His gaze is clearer than it was when they tangled by the cold chapel, looking more like Aemond may remember him from that dramatic splash onto his radar, quiet and calculating and waiting to slice Vaemond Velaryon's head off. Settled, perhaps, as much as he can be.

The ale's alright. Fingers travel from the mouth of his cup to the neck, and he lifts it, a silent greeting, and (perhaps sarcastic) toast. ]

Nephew. [ He takes a drink. ] Welcome back.

[ Needling, of course. Got you again. But buried in there is relief that the mystic ways of this world have operated how he was told they would; Aemond lives again, and Daemon knows well that there is no chance he was only feigning death last he saw him. He has found no other familiar faces, nor heard any rumors. There is no talk of this place being an afterlife— death has ever been a bendable concept, and it's even less predictable now after having been 'shattered', but it isn't a destination for the dead.

Something very strange has happened to them both. ]

I hear gatherings such as these are honored as neutral territory by the inhabitants of this land.

[ Both an offering of a cease-fire, for the time being, and a joke. He's noticed it's a little suspicious in here, as well. But until then, there's food, and perhaps he'll hustle some runes off a mark or two. ]

[ Aemond's jaw twists as he holds his tongue. He does not drink, his cup still nearly full and the taste of it stales in his mouth. Having Daemon there grounds some truths that had started to feel more like fever dreams as the days piled on. There is a lurking relief that almost sickens him.

If he'd been intent on trying to kill him as soon as find him, he'd be doing that already. Customs be damned. Sitting across from him now feels like an offense to his own nature. His hands remain neatly laced at the edge of the table. It may be the one thing keeping him from lurching forward and trying to smash his uncle's head in with a pewter goblet.

Aemond blinks and his intent gaze falls from his uncle and wanders away to scan among the crowd. Stuffing down whatever tumultuous urge that threatens to overtake him. Even swallowing his pride looks like trying to snuff out a wild fire with an iron lid. In the way his shoulders slack off the tension to the shuffling down in his seat. ]

I see you too have been doing as the natives do. [ He sets his cup down though does not remove his hand from it. Fingers picking at the grooves of the design inlaid into it. It is, a tepid acceptance of what terms they might have. For here, for now. Whatever.

The interest sounds reluctant, even though Aemond is curious about it. He had very few encounters of people who'd actually met Daemon. Even fewer who could recant a pleasant encounter. It hasn't painted much of a picture or a surprising one.

One of the sellswords enters the courtyard catches his attention only briefly. The man looking likely to only for now to be looking for the same simple pleasures as himself. Aemond's gaze falls back on Daemon.]

I figured a man of your renown would have gotten up to something better than petty card tricks.

What renown?

[ He isn't anyone, here. Daemon has no reputation to uphold, and even if he did, it's not like he was ever above much of anything, back home. Always possessed of a more criminal cleverness than political savvy. (If one can believe the difference.) He's been trading in an education as much as in runes, and that suits him just fine, for now. An obscure traveler, making an effort to thread a needle of being forgettable enough to grant him privacy, but imposing enough not to invite predation. Here-but-not.

When he wants to make an impact, he will.

A commotion is kicking up, but it's mild; food being brought out on wide trays. Beside them, one of the talking jars is telling a loud story about devouring an old rival. Wax occasionally spills from a crack near its rim, sluggish and red. Someone across the courtyard begins playing a tune on a hand-cranked instrument, and a knight in heavy, ornate armor complains of bardic warbling only luring wild spirits from outside the castle walls. ]

You were unable to answer my question. [ By the way. His voice is padded by the ambient sounds floating around them, but he doesn't raise it any louder; just for them, this exchange. ] I still wonder.

[ Aware, of course, that every minute and word threatens to bait Aemond's temper, which he can see roiling beneath his carefully held posture. It's keenly familiar; he can feel it, a sense-memory of being just that age, and just that agitated, all the time. ]

[ There is time, Aemond figures, before things are to go awry. With the sun not yet set in a festival claiming to celebrate the stars. The light will be the mark as it inches away from the sky. What of the men and monsters do that surround them until them are paid little mind.

Daemon's answer sets off a displeased press of his lips, an answer that shouldn't surprise nor disappoint. He comes to rest his forearm along the edge of the table, leaning his weight into it in some effort to relax. His fist still remains clenched against the waxed wood. He drinks as Daemon posits an old question, pursing his lips as he sets the cup back down.]

About my lady? [ He asks as though it needs clarification but had not forgotten. ] If you seek to know her motives, perhaps you'd better luck asking her yourself.

[ It's not possible, given their circumstances. Alys is still, by his recount, still very much alive and in a world several layers removed from their own. If it is an absolute truth he seeks, Aemond is not the one to provide it. It does not mean he doesn't have his own thoughts, his own truths regarding the matter. Those are yet to be easily given. ]

She spoke little of your occupation of Harrenhal. I suppose you'd not thought her of any consequence then.

I took Harrenhal bloodlessly, [ Daemon reminds him. A contrast to the unhinged way his nephew collected severed heads when he and Cole arrived— the news surprised him, given Larys Strong's devotion to Alicent. Truly craven in a way that fits in with their collective ilk, he supposes; no love for his last blood, after losing a father and brother, no respect for Rhaenyra's children who are, everyone knows, his own nephews. ] I'd have only paid attention to a bastard wetnurse if I had use of her.

[ Which he did not. He left his hostages alive after relieving them of their wealth; as far as he knows, no harm came to the woman while he was there, though he supposes something could have gone awry outside the scope of his attention. War is a grim time for all.

And just in case Aemond feels a call to play the uno reverse card— ]

I prefer my bastard companions closer to home.

[ He knows, thank you. Nettles is a dragonseed, a dragonrider, a girl in line with Daemon's long-established tastes. There is no shame in a mistress, not even an low-born one; he once tried to marry a prostitute. But it is very strange, Daemon feels, that Aemond took a woman who was allegedly a bastard of house fucking Strong. And not only that, he used her to track Daemon down through some sort of divination, ensuring his attendance of a duel that took his life.

It's all very curious.

The food piles up. Roast beast, vegetables boiled in blood and salt, burnt sugar pudding, icy spirals of flowers for cooling the mouth. Girls come to refill cups of ale; one who slips her long arms over Aemond's shoulders has scars from wrist to breast, patterned like waves of rippling water. ]

How well that treated you in the end, I wonder.

[ He does recall at some point in his travels, hearing word of Rhaenyra's decree against dragonseeds. In retribution to those who no longer heeded her command. Men, by his account, sounded no less depraved or trustworthy. Like most lords of this war, shifted their colors to the side that served them best.

What Daemon had done with his own dragonseed is Aemond's guess. For as loyal he had seen him be to his queen, if would have delivered her the head of his bastard mate should he have been able to fly home. If she betrayed him along with the rest of them. Or if he let her go entirely. Either way, he had shown up without her.

The smell of food he had been looking forward to now sours his stomach. Aemond feels the fresh presence of a young maiden at his back. The tension of the table breaks as the discomfort of being crowded and touched throws him off kilter. Leaning in slight towards his blind side where a hand squeezes his shoulder before she retreats.]

The Strongs were traitors to the crown. She held no loyalty to them. [ He picks up once they've been left on their own once again. Under the sound of cracking beast bones as a snake dressed in fur robes tries to fit a large pheasant down its gullet.

Alys had been at his side when the news of King's Landing came amidst their own victory. It had been bloodless until that moment, the rest he may own up to. Betrayal was the only answer at that time. Recompense was needed. In his blindness would have taken her head too if she had not talked him down from it. Bewitched, they'd tell him he was. He ignored it. She spoke to something in him in ways few people were able to, saw him in ways others were unable.

Under the mantle he had taken in this war, little he has achieved was ever taken with a cold pride. Even as Daemon refers to it now, there is a regret. A sickness that stews inside. The day he returned from Storm's End, he only ever had one choice to make. That mantle now reflected in the eyes sat across from him. He hates it.]

[ Interesting.

No comment— Nettles has served him fine; if he'd permitted her, she'd have been there at Gods Eye, but after the message from Rhaenyra (and Mysaria, he knows it), Daemon had found himself shockingly unable to tolerate more grief. Embroiled in heartbreak over no longer recognizing the wife he'd devoted so much of himself to, mourning too many children, and still Viserys, even though his brother's lifelong dedication towards inaction had ruined the Seven Kingdoms, and destroyed all of their lives.

It had simply been the end. And he wonders if Aemond's witch hadn't sensed that, somehow. If she meant for the younger prince to be victorious, and over-estimated her young paramour's capabilities, or if she meant to send him to his death.

Alas, they'll never know. (Perhaps in that fabled other world, where Daemon and his dragonseed run away together.) Daemon watches him for a while, eating his food with impeccable table manners, not so much as batting an eye as the snake-person devours a bird whole. Far less elegant than a dragon swallowing a man. Shouldn't that snake be embarrassed. Honestly. ]

You look tired, nephew. [ The terrible insight of a man who has to some degree been Aemond, and who has had a hand in raising five boys. He snaps an ice flower between long fingers, letting the enchantment dust his plate. Men in masks and helmets mill about by the courtyard gate, loud about their attendance. ] Have you looked at all for your finger maiden?

[ The light wanes, he keeps an eye on it. Eventually picking at cubes of spiced meat off a skewer with a two pronged fork. Picking up his cup before the sentient jar knocks it askew with a flying hand. Every time he looks away from his plate or Daemon it is shrouded in a parade of obscurity. More sellswords in the midst, but not all they must have finished planting their captured beast in whatever arena it was meant to be fought in.

Trying to find a finger maiden had been no easier than finding Daemon. Though Aemond usually only ran on a single-track mind. One search took precedence over the other. That and the answers he'd been given were vague. There was no simple way to find or claim a destined maiden. They were only united through faith, guidance by grace.

If he'd been guided by anything, it had guided him here. In the middle of a doomed banquet. Plenty of maidens slipping onto the edges of tables, running their hands over scorned plates of armor. But none of them seeming to be finger maidens. Only the uncle he means to kill with a sword he's not so sure he even wants anymore. Funny how these things work.]

I'd mostly been looking for you. [ His eye falling back on Daemon once more. The tone of his answer seems to pull the weight on what good it's done him for doing so. Annoyed that he'd left in the first place. We have matters unfinished. Despite the fact that he picked a fight and lost (again), it's the abandonment it seems still pierces the deepest. And the gifted message that was left behind.]

Why?

[It's an earnest question. He feels stupid for asking, but it's been eating at him longer than he is proud to admit. It doesn't make any sense because he would have kept were it him. He should have kept it. ]

[ Daemon looks at him, and for a moment it seems like he might feign misunderstanding, and give way to talk of finger maidens. (Obvious answer for that one. Turn runes to strength. He is fucking fascinated.)

More ale. It's less fine as the evening darkens; the longer it sits on his palate the more thin it tastes, vague flavor broken down too quickly by the food. It occurs to him he'll not taste familiar strong wines or spices from Yi Ti ever again, and that is strange. The big heartbreaks are what dominate his thoughts and his dreams, and the small displacements trickle in, odd, surreal, finding ways to spark feeling. ]

Was it a poor gift?

[ Not quite cutting, but still a jab. He could have said Well I'd last left it with you for safekeeping and she found her way back, likening his skull to a weapons rack, pleasantly. ]

I don't know. [ Ah. ] I didn't want to think of any of it all anymore. You were more awake. And you are my blood. I would trust nothing else.

[ Does Daemon want Dark Sister back? Maybe. What he wants most is his family back; seven children cobbled together on Dragonstone, his niece-wife who will ever be the other half of him. His brother. His parents. His aunts and uncles, all of their dragons. He wants to not have grown up in a post-apocalyptic world, he wants to return to the Valyrian Freehold, he wants—

Who cares. He's dead. ]

Will you strike at me, tonight? [ When this shit kicks off. ] Or shall it be something else?

[ Whatever that answer is, it's not what he's looking for. If he likened his skull to a weapons rack, that Aemond can understand. That's a language he knows how to speak.

He grew up being the butt of jokes and japes. Being gifted the sword used to kill him could easily have been another. More fuel to his respite. Give him a pig with wings, he'll claim the largest dragon. Give him a sword that met his end, he'll want to find a way to make it hurt the worst. It'd be easier.

But Daemon makes it difficult to sustain that blind hatred. For so long he'd just been a little token on a war map, easily advanced and felled with a tip of the finger. A symbol of what'd become of Jaehaerys, Helaena, his mother. A grief he would have continued to scorch the Riverlands and onward for. That feeling had become all he knew. The idea of killing Daemon was a means to an end, a release. Without it, he doesn't know where it's all supposed to go.

It'd make things so much more simple if he was able to see all of that reflected back in his uncle's eyes. But he does not and it is not the answer he wants. He doesn't know what to make of that.

Aemond's lips purse as he makes a dissatisfied hum. Considering what would seem a gifted opportunity. A guidance by grace. ]

I've yet to decide. [ Aemond's gaze finds its way back to him. It's all very much still on the table, but. ] Something else, that I might like to wait and see.

[ The crowd erupts with a cheer somewhere over his shoulder. A drinking contest between two grizzled looking men trying to spout of the names of stars between swallowing cups of ale.]

[ Daemon remembers having his father, his aunts and uncles, his doting grandparents, and the hope of more cousins and children to be born. Viserys was not the only one to find comfort in a loud and happy dinner table that night, even though Daemon personally found it tainted by the Hightowers, who he always knew were vile traitors. (Maybe he'll do Aemond a solid, and describe the process of putting his grandfather's head onto a spike while tossing chunks of his body to Syrax and Caraxes.)

A mess of Targaryen children, half-blooded as Alicent and Rhaenyra's each were. Hope. They could come back from the slow, steady desolation of his father's generation, even despite Viserys' loathing of his own kind. Aemond had challenged the peace of the night, perhaps to see if he could tempt his uncle into a repeat of a violent reaction, and all Daemon had done was smile a little.

Familiar tempers. If it weren't for a couple of backwater cunts clinging to their shit faith and worse culture, they'd have been friends. And oh, what a terror that would be. ]

What do you imagine 'something else' might be? [ Faintly amused. Trying to picture Aemond arm wrestling one of the half-giants. ] Going to pledge a favor for the lady?

[ Beneath the din of sound, scrape-clunk!, the back gate is dragged closed, and barred. Daemon considers his recently acquired weapons; a sword he's been using, and a dagger he hasn't. The longsword is shorter and stockier than Dark Sister, certainly heavier, but still not in danger of being classified as a broadsword. No reason to completely change his fighting style. It's been interesting to research enchantments for it, though he hasn't done much in the way of compounding, as of yet. The dagger boasts blood magic, but he's yet to get a feel for it.

Both in reach. He drinks more ale, and keeps half his attention on the merrymakers all about them. ]

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