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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[ Deliberate it would seem. Aemond's attention returns to focus similarly on the pockets of the evening unfolding without the greater attention of those around them. A second look to the finer details he'd maybe missed before, revisited under his Uncle's lens. ]

'Twould be a bloodbath. An easy raking of runes for the lord and lady. [ How depraved. Even though Aemond does nothing to shield his enticement towards the idea. As if here (of all places) he'd still need to dig for an excuse to fight. When the occasions typically invite themselves. His eye is kept on the crowd, voice distant. ] If that is the case, I believe not one but two lords may be looking to reap such an opportunity from one another tonight.

[ A betrayal upon a betrayal, how quaint. It's starting to feel like home.

More than his scant recollections of Septon Barth's writings— which Aemond had found himself deferring to put a name to felled creatures unfamiliar. Some of them remind him of something he'd expect to crawl up from Sothoryos, others imaginings of demonic confessors of the Seven Hells, and the rest remained uniquely cursed aberrations of sorcery. ]

I've not killed a star-fallen beast, but I have felled others. Some lesser and some greater.

[ To answer his earlier curiosity. Equally curious to some day hear of his Uncle's findings among this accursed place. In a time where they might survive the night, let alone each other. Their differences pale in this moment. Too kindred among strange kind. Feeling that deep thrum in their veins that answer to the call of violence. That much they have in common.]

What say you, Uncle? Shall we keep aside our differences until the morrow. To show them that Targaryens aren't to be bested like beasts for slaughter.

[ A flicker of something triumphant in Daemon's eyes, but it's gone too quick to be properly identified— he's a difficult man to read, often enough. But he smiles after a beat, darkly pleased. Never one to turn down a devil's bargain.

He extends his hand to his nephew, accepting the accord. If Aemond clasps on it, he'll find his uncle's grip firm, and lingering just a beat almost too long. If not, he'll get an eyeroll and a laugh; either way, Daemon downs the last of his ale after, then swings a leg around to sit on the outside of his bench. At the ready. Any moment now.

The beast is ushered in through a fine enough procession, and some of the less drunk warriors — along with a few who are very drunk — line up to brag and swagger and declare their imminent victory against the creature. Its horns sway to and fro, agitated, the strange face set in the center of them snarling an groaning, bull-like body holding preternaturally still in contrast. Waiting, while the jutting growths all over its body seem to shift, as if tensing and relaxing, over and over. They call it an immature monster, but it looks fearsome anyway.

Above them, the lord and lady do their best not to look too eager. Blind to the bandits in their midst, who are shuffling away to the fringes to shimmy on better armor and drink potions to fortify themselves. Daemon unbuckles a clasp on the side of his asymmetrical brigandine beneath his armpit, giving himself a smidge more movement. Cheers and squeals go up as a swordsman clashes with the beast, and behind them over Daemon's right shoulder, a man moves in with a curved blade to prey on the shriveled form of a merchant too deep into his cups.

The beast crashes into barrells being used as a divider between the pit and the crowd. Daemon stands up. The snake beside them notices the merchant being killed, and begins to yell, but his hissing screams are lost under the din. ]

Go work on that gate if you can, [ Daemon tells the man-sized serpent as he draws his sword, his drawling voice dismissive. Get out of my way—

The marauder looks over at them, and he can see a curl of a vicious smile beneath the ornate helmet before he advances towards the Targaryens, the lot of them still folded in obscurity while attentions are so fixed on the monster. ]

[ The moment struck between them is brief, but does it linger long after Daemon's hand releases his. Aemond finds it to weigh mind a bit too long. A familiar feeling. A swelling of pride tugs away at his lips, as he turns away in his seat. Returning his attention to the yard, one arm draped off the side of the table. Fingertips curling and fussing restlessly against themselves as the rest of him remains still. Composed. Complacent to his surroundings.

His eye keeps towards the pit as an idle participant barely able to see the thrash of horns above the league of heads surround, but his attention remains on the lumbering shadows that move around in the periphery. The flickers of house-colored banners of the lordsworn guard. The melding of their shadows under the veranda leaves one man slumped against the wall.

At this point, he's isn't entirely sure if he's exempt from the under layer of violence at the hands of the sellswords. The customs of their arrangement were foggy (at best). He's soon to find out.

The pieces begin to fall, as expected, into organized chaos. His thoughts still and settle, tapping into the pulse of raw energy flowing around them. A woe ripples through the crowd as the beast threatens a breach through. A bannered guard casually moves to stand at the top of the stairs where the lord and lady remain.

Aemond's tucks his eyepatch away, sapphire eye nearly glowing under torches light. Falling in motion behind Daemon to slip off the bench and draw Dark Sister from his belt. It's then he spots the drunk-slaying marauder making his way to the edges of the table. Another approaching the side of Daemon from the other end.

Aemond sways his weight from one foot to the other, ambling himself up before hopping up from bench to table. Kicking over cups and half-emptied platters as he picks up pace to make contact, hopping aside as the edge of a curved great sword smacks into the edge of the table beside his foot. His blade scraping along the swords edge as he kicks down cuts the man from pit to throat where the seams in his armor are weakly linked. The man drops before his sword can get wrenched back out of the wood.

A spark of purple flashes from behind his back as the preternatural bull launches a volley of force that throw a wave of people to the ground. Shit's really kicking off now. A few of the ale maidens shriek, dropping their caskets to the ground to make way for the gate. Beginning the rush and crowd any of the lordsworn who remain there.

He steps off a bench only for a moment to wrench the decorated marauder's helm by its ratty plume, pivoting back onto it as he makes his way back down the row to rejoin his uncle as more draw and swell towards the violence.]

[ Daemon's nearest opponent is dead by the time Aemond swings round to join him, armor emptying itself in a shower of gold as it collapses to the ground. The jar-creature who'd been sitting with them is hollering about the violence breaking out, lurching to its feet and destroying the table in the process, while the snake-man attempts to make for the gate. It makes their corner almost sensible— goals attempting to be accomplished, while panic begins to spread like a wind through the bailey.

It doesn't last. Barrel splinters fly, purple sparks shoot out, the merchant rattles his last gurgling breath, but people begin to move towards them anyway, attempting to get out of the direct line of fire of the fallingstar beast. Only a few have noticed the number of sellswords who are neither joining in with the unhinged mood nor fighting the creature— instead they shove people back into the worst of the churning, and towards the beast.

A serving girl tries to run to safety with the lord and lady of the castle, but their men shove her back, flinging her onto the ground where's she's trodden on, then tripped over, a knot of people trying to scramble up and get out of the way of the creature, which has begun to buck wildly, both horns and all its legs flailing around in an attempt to connect its blows.

One of the mercenaries draws his sword runs towards the gate and the snake-man, but Daemon turns and slices him through the knee, severing his lower leg and sending him sprawling forward, blood spraying everywhere. He bashes the hilt of his sword into the face of the next man to approach him, and follows it through with a stab right under his helm, hitting him so hard beneath his chin that the blade of his sword shoves the helmet right off from below, slamming out of the back of his skull.

Daemon doesn't hop or weave around; he moves when he must, and fluidly when he does, but is methodical and relentless. Unnerving calm choosing where to unleash extreme violence, aimed with surgical precision.

The beast roars and the ground shakes, and Daemon feels every hair on his body prickle as magic cracks and oozes out, raising a few horrified men into the air and slamming them down again.

He wonders if the sellswords can actually control it. ]

[ The crowd begins to ripple and split, swarming around like rats. Aemond moving around them indifferently as some split off from trying to reach the gates in hopes to finding another way out. Hugging for the walls in hopes of reaching a door into the keep that is certainly well-barred from the inside.

As Daemon cuts forward, his nephew takes the rear. Snapping at any sword that moves in to try and fill the gap they've carved open. He tosses the helm in his hand to be held more firmly, using it to parry and deflect any blows before it loses its use. He remains quick on his feet, well-familiar with the ways these men have fought. Having watched them for days. Fought some himself. A lit of wildness and even a fringe of amusement in his eye, as he seems to follow steps like well-known dances.

Out of the corner of his eye, the beast barrels itself towards the thin of the crowd. Its ire still largely concentrated on the small number of fighters consumed with taking it down. One less as one in an ornate armor lands oddly on his neck with an audible crunch, dissolving into a shimmer of gold.

A crack of a pot shatters at the beast's rump, erupting into a ball of flame. It lets out another unearthly cry that bellows and echoes off the yard walls, turning and kicking off to thrust to chase the mercenary that baited it. Drawing it towards themselves and the people crowding a line of giant barrels in attempts to climb them for safety.

It is chaos in its finest. It almost feels as though no one's plans are going as intended. The guards at the stairs drawing their swords to begin in earnest fighting off a crowd in growing interest to simply get to higher ground before the beast turns their way next.

Aemond's blood is buzzing, sharply focused on his target ahead. Ducking aside the large, panicked jar as it brushes past. He pushes forward towards the marauder with fire pots still strung on his belt. The man too preoccupied with stepping out of the way as the star-beast tumbles into the barrels and whoever laid in its path. A gush of ale splashing into the yard. The prince strikes him from behind, cleaving from the waist to take the pots from his severed belt. Only distantly aware soon the beast rights itself from its mess, he'll be in line as its next target.

At the opposite end, a guard is thrown from the terrace above. The shabby pelted cowl of another marauder emerges from where he was to kick down a ladder into the yard for some of his compatriots to filter towards as means to escape.]

[ Mayhem, but Daemon is good at mayhem. He's always had a knack for thriving in the midst of chaos, be it the crowded and panicked streets of King's Landing or being the only target on a battlefield against an entire army. Even without Dark Sister, he has no trouble cutting down opponents, even if it requires a little more muscle to crack into their armor like crushing snails in their shells. He even gets a man who probably wasn't attacking him at all, just in hysterics fleeing the beast, but, well— tough shit, guy, don't go running around like that.

Runes gleam like snow, blood soaks overturned tables; the lord and lady of the keep exchange shrieks of argument with the sellswords who've betrayed them and continue to try and battle their way up the stairs, while the monster slams into a wall and shakes the foundation of the gatehouse.

Daemon yanks a woman out from behind the ruins of the jar's shattered form, clay fragments and gore spilled everywhere, and shoves her towards the broken back gate. Not a safe path, exactly, but at least she's out of the way of the advancing bull-like monster that's begun sizing up the remaining attendees in the courtyard, striking its feet on the ground and gathering strange light into itself. He looks over his shoulder, and sends a bit of magic Aemond's way— a glowing sword materializes, slashes at his opponent to knock him away, then vanishes.

Quite pleased that works. What an interesting place. ]

Nephew. [ He jerks his head words the beast; violet lightning strikes. Daemon circles his sword in his hand. ] Come on then.

[ Bossfight.

Assuming Aemond isn't down another eye by now, it shouldn't take long; the creature is riled, but it's been hit a fair few times by others already. No one seems capable of finishing it, though, their attentions having been unwisely split from jump, and having not predicted that the two white-haired strangers would cause such a problem. ]

[Aemond rolls a firepot in his hand after hooking the other off his belt. Reactively shifting away as a flash of light and movement drops a man approaching his blinded side. He spins around to follow it back to Daemon, though his vacant gemstone eye practically leaves his expression unreadable in this light. But the reaction is clear enough — the fuck?

The beast sparks again, Aemond close enough to feel the draw of gravity pulling at the backs of his legs. He steps aside, casting himself into the wide circle that his uncle soon enters. Finishing his previous thought to fling the firepot back towards a couple of sellswords, breaking at their feet and setting them ablaze as they try to ascend.]

Can't take it yourself? [ He jabs, chest light with breath. Dark Sister twirls from one hand to the other as he rejoins him in his advance.

The beast has life left in it, though by how much is hard to gauge. For as unworldly creatures go, it's difficult to tell its waning state when it only has one large bulbous eye and kicks around angrier than all seven hells. Kicking up stone and mud and debris into the air and flinging it about. Oozing something black from older wounds struck into the shale-like skin.

Its tail extends, sweeping in a viscous arc that sends Aemond skipping back a few steps. Barbed tail flinging up half a table that slaps into someone Aemond's not even sure is alive or dead (or even a whole person) at this point. He looks to Daemon across the yard, widening the distance between them and reaches for the last firepot. Intending to give his uncle the opportunity to strike once it's distracted.

The pot flies and bursts against the brunt of its shoulder, causing another stagger. The large obsidian pinchers rear around to face him, violet bulbous eye locking as its hooves stamp around through the smoke and mud. Aemond falls another step back, using his sleeve to sweep at some viscera smeared hair that dares to cling to his cheek. He takes his sword into both hands to ready himself for the charge. ]

Don't lose anymore parts.

[ That would be very inconvenient, to be hunted by a one-armed, one-eyed vengeful twenty-year-old. Daemon would have to tie one hand behind his back not to feel too unsporting.

The firepot hits, and the second the beast's attention swings to Aemond, the older prince moves. His blade swings at the knee joint of a leg, shattering it, and a heartbeat later he's darted forward away from the reactionary kick to strike hard beneath the shoulder. Daemon moves quick and sure— he's been ducking under dragon wings and feet and tails since he could walk, he hardly has to employ any effort whatsoever to dodge out of its way, some seventh sense long bred into him about navigating safely around gigantic and fearsome creatures. It means he can focus on hitting hard and sure, though the fact that he has no knowledge of the starfallen thing's internal biology is a hindrance. Is he hitting anything vital? Is he just tickling it? Who fucking knows. But it doesn't seem to like it, and the blade, despite not being Valyrian steel, cuts through violently under Daemon's swings and stabs.

He's forced back when violet energy crackles around them, singeing the soles of his boots, and he's taken the beast's attention when it begins to gather gravity to itself once more. Daemon slams his sword into the ground, catching into a strip of earth between cobblestones, anchoring himself as it tries to drag him back in with its mind.

It's walking badly, shaking its body back and forth on wounded half-crippled legs, sending out magic in a panic. Daemon feels himself being pulled forward, blade wrenching in his grip. He readies the dagger in his offhand and waits coiled and primed for the spell to tremble— ]

[Much to his uncles warning, the prince is sure to avoid the crippling snap of obsidian mandibles. Possibly even scoffing as he shuffles out from under its advances. The brunt of the attack is lifted off him, he flows around it, hunched low, as it’s body ripples and revolts. Daemon’s last blow to its leg really setting the panic into it. Aemond is sure he can feel it’s fury in the air.

The same eye begins to glow, sure enough the violet sparks begin to fly as it draws in power. The surge feels like it’s pulling at Aemond from his bones. Unlike his uncle, he does not find an anchor to stave himself from the assault. The young prince throws his weight back to keep himself from tripping as he is dragged forward. Dark Sister angled into his hands to drive the blade in deep under the momentous pull. He lands somewhere about the shoulder, blade driven up to the hilt of its marred and rocky skin. ]

The eye! [ He spits out. Not knowing where Daemon is on the other side of the beast or what part of it he is trying to attack.

The bitter taste of metal and char in rests heavy in his mouth. The force of energy surged around him feels like it coils from the inside out, crushing him against the beast as it does not stop drawing from everything around it. The beast is giving all it has left; a devastating blow or potential self-destruction. Aemond is unable to wrench Dark Sister back from under the violet pull, so he bends it upward and saws down again violently. Blade severing what left the beast had to hold itself up, it collapses under its own weight. Magic dispersing around them as it’s concentration is interrupted.

The beast is still on its last stand as he wrenches his sword free. Legs feeling like they’ve been set in aspic as he staggers back to allow the job to be finished. Though he can still feel the echo of magic broiling throughout him, he appears in good spirits. Lips pulled into a breathless smile. Blue eye bright and wild. As if he weren’t meant to be anywhere else than in the middle of the throes of absolute chaos. It hasn’t failed to liven him yet in these strange hours beyond death.

The night is not finished. There’s more blood to be paid. As his eye falls off from Daemon, he looks elsewhere to see where the stones have fallen in their absence and who he may strike at next.]

[ Enemy Felled!

Nice.

Daemon rises from a crouch in the center of the shattering particles of death and magic, shining strange and delicate, having allowed himself to be dragged in for the killing blow, gore slick all over half of him. There's a strange smell from the dagger, like something sick, but it fades from the air when he sheaths it and walks back to his planted sword for retrieval, cutting a path through the shimmering, fading orbs as he goes.

Sword yanked free, he makes his way to the stairwell to the inner keep. The lord and lady have barricaded themselves inside, and their remaining guards are still at their posts, brandishing spears at any who might try to climb up to safety— or to seek out revenge against the household that's set them up. Human opponents fall like glass cups kicked over, hacked in half or thrown headfirst onto stone, he forces his way up and jams his blade into the lock on the door, shattering it.

The lady screams. The lord hurls himself at Daemon with a shortsword, and it goes poorly; block, parry, dead. He gurgles from a throat wound, staggered to his knees. ]

Fattening your coffers, my lady? [ Daemon kicks her husband over as she claws at her own face through her veil, afraid and furious. ] Or something else, too? I hear much talk of trafficking unneeded bodies.

[ While Daemon advances on the lord and lady, Aemond takes a different path. Following after the escaping marauders who took to the ramparts in the ensuing chaos. Some he recognized, others he didn’t. They shared no fealty between each other but they did share a time across a fire together. Lucky enough for them, lately Aemond is no short of fury to spare.

On his way back, he tips the lever to lift the gate. Allowing the few who managed to survive the massacre a clear escape. Coming back around to follow the new path of bodies in some macabre treasure hunt that leads him back to his uncle.

Stepping carefully around the lord drowning in his own pool of blood. As though to not make a mess of his boots. Even if he is already covered in mud, viscera, and at least the blood of three more men than when he was last seen.]

Marauders are dead or left along with their lord.

[ The announcement sounds droll under the naturally soft cadence of his voice. Tipping a tiny crimson flask to his lips. Ignoring the unnerving feeling of the gash in his arm stitching itself back together again. The hand holding Dark Sister astride flexes and adjusts its grip with the renewed strength. The heat cools from his neck as he glances between his uncle, the dead lord, and lastly the lady—cowered and sobbing, her pretty nobles robes saturated and sullen.

Aemond can’t seem to find the sympathy. Well, well the consequences of her own actions.]

Has the lady given her favor?

[ Daemon has no instinct to step away from the blood, and without Dark Sister, doesn't own anything worth keeping clean— he's a mess, but he looks like himself in a surreal way. Ever a weapon too dangerous for those around him to use, denied by Viserys and kept chained by Rhaenyra, he is utterly at ease and free in an unnerving way, like this. His white hair is half red, the ends black with gore and dirt, his face is splattered, the dark of his armor glistens with tell-tale leavings of all and more.

Still has the audacity to look regal. Dick. ]

She's more embarrassed than frightened, [ he says dryly. ] Aren't you? Come now, Lady Bandit, what's your offer? This is the only chance you'll get. Don't mistake me for a man honorable enough to spare you overlong on principle.

[ Daemon has a sense about women who'll spin a deal. He ends up being right, her eyes visible behind her mask which has gone askew; a dark glint of a glare, but it's more resentful than hurt. Her big payday, blown up in her face. But there's still a chance to keep her castle, husband or no husband, and so she offers to be their most gracious host, her household dedicated to their visit. In payment, she explains, for saving them from the marauders and the beast. A quick, funny rewrite of history, that makes Daemon chuckle.

She also implies she'll fuck them, but Daemon's interest doesn't stir; it may be a while for that, yet. A consequence of death or a reverting of his tastes back to their most true, he doesn't think overlong of. ]

What say you, nephew-mine?

[ While Daemon is goading, the young prince takes careful measure to clean Dark Sister on what dry patch of fabric he might have remaining. A trickle of a smile curling at his lips that speak of triumph when the lady makes her offer. As if that would have been the plan all along. He only imagined it’d be somewhat less than it turned out to be. Not that he is disappointed in the outcome. His curled smile flattens once she rambles into what sounds like desperation. Lone pleas of a desperate woman.

Aemond looks up without an immediate answer. There’s no interest shown in the lady, which would seem contrary to his rumored appetites of taking bedmates after bloodshed. He does not look to her first but his uncle. There is something tries to lift from Daemon’s expression but fails to pluck anything from it. Be it the gore spattered across his face or his difficult nature.

Perhaps it is the post-mortem environ they’ve found themselves in or perhaps more it is the absolute surreal feeling twisting in his gut. Small grievances meeting small victories. What he would think of himself standing with his uncle now. To be regarded by him at all in such ways. And all that came to be to see it.

Only a passing beat before a noise in his throat sounds agreeable. His attention returns to the noble as he tucks his blade back into his belt.]

I want a bath. As hot as your lady-maids can get it.

[Which he is to say that he accepts the offer, with priorities to house services that pique his interests more than others. The lady does not seem to enjoy being talked to like house servant, but she should count her blessings. Calls for the door over yonder to be opened, attendant emerging to either tend the order or escort them. Given how many of their folk were trampled in the yard, the spindly looking girl is likely tasked to both.

Aemond flicks away a bit of something coagulated over the top of his hand and passes another glance at his uncle before excusing himself. Longing quickly to get out of this armor.]

Edited (wording here and there. look it was late and i was on my phone and i can do better ) 2022-12-21 17:11 (UTC)

[ 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?

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ooOoOoo post got a fancy reskin

😘 couldn't resist a lil zhuzh

👍 👍 👍

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