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Keeping Up With The Targaryens: AKOTSK Edition

Keeping Up With The Targaryens: House of the Dragon Edition

Fanfic:

haunt me, then (aemond x targaryen! oc, wuthering heights inspired)

me and the devil (aerion x baelor!daughter oc)

chapter 2: two graves, one gun

chapter 1: how did it end?

(Wuthering Heights, pg. 138): "Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?"

(also posted on AO3 here.)

Daella lives in a state of dreaming. 

She goes through the motions every day—wakes, eats, listens—but anyone can tell that drawing anything but a cursory nod from her is as easy as getting Sheepstealer to obey. When news comes to Dragonstone of Otto Hightower’s offer she urges her mother to take it - but there is no emotion in her voice, nothing to suggest of the girl who existed before Lucerys’ death. 

She complies without protest when they officially take the city, and she votes in favour when her mother polls her Small Council to spare Otto’s life, much to the displeasure of everyone else. “He gave us the biggest belligerent in this war,” she elaborates with dispassionate honesty, “to do otherwise would be to potentially anger Aegon and Alicent into further aggression.”

The sacking of the city is a surprisingly painless affair: the Gold Cloaks throw the gates open at the sight of their Lord Commander and the people offer no resistance, receiving Viserys’ little girl with a warmth only received for someone who rescued you from starvation. In any other circumstance, a victory as easy as this would fill Daella with ecstasy.

Instead, she flies over Maegor’s Holdfast like a winged omen, circling King’s Landing for hours before alighting at the Dragonpit. The act is as much a show of intimidation as it is a tactical choice, a reminder that unlike the rest of Queen Rhaenyra’s progeny, her heir is as willing to play executioner as she is emissary.

Daella leaves her dragon in the capable hands of the keepers and marches up the steps with an impassivity that matches the stone beneath her feet, unable to muster up even the most cursory of smiles for the staff. But they do not judge her, not do they begrudge her this show of rudeness, well aware of the losses this girl of nine-and-ten has suffered to arrive at this juncture.

The only time anyone sees a sign of life from the young princess is a fortnight in, when Alicent Hightower comes to the Queen Regent’s quarters, her brother Gwayne following her like an ever-vigilant shadow. She begs Rhaenyra to grant her kinslayer son clemency, the Dowager Queen’s face streaked with tears that have not ceased since the sacking. No one has to ask Daella before she vehemently voices her opposition, and what starts as a tense discussion turns into an argument upon Aegon’s arrival.

The former Green King is unshakeable, stating in no uncertain terms that he will not hesitate to burn the Keep down with all of them in it if Aemond is not spared. This takes his niece aback, and Daella is as impressed by his conviction as she is confused by this show of loyalty, for the circumstances that left Sunfyre’s rider crippled are no mystery.

“I do not care what you do with him after—send him to freeze and die at the Wall for all I fucking care,” Aegon snaps, “but you will give my mother this,” he adds tersely, his half-burnt face staring Rhaenyra down, daring his half-sister to contradict him. “Besides, this one,” he jerks his thumb at the now-heir, his voice never wavering in the slightest, “aided in killing and butchering my little boy. If my Heir-Apparent gets put to the sword for his crimes, so does she.” 

Those words do not go down well, and Daemon is halfway to drawing Dark Sister when Rhaenyra finally speaks, the Queen’s voice cutting through the growing din. “Aegon,” she turns to squarely face her half-brother, taking a long look at who was once a chubby-cheeked toddler eager to catch her eye. “Words cannot fully convey my sorrow and guilt for Jaehaerys’ death. I desired our brother’s head, and the gods played the cruelest trick of them all.” It is a truth none had dared to speak before, but one they all agree upon regardless.

“I know we can never get him back,” Rhaenyra pauses, her voice cracking as the remains of Arrax’s wings flash behind her eyes, “and bloodshed cannot be met with further bloodshed.” Aegon takes a moment to assess the honesty of her words, the anger on his face punctuated by a grief only echoed in the features of his older sister. And then, after what feels like an eternity, he nods in agreement.

Daemon begins to protest, but any issues the King Consort may have with this are quelled with a single look between husband and wife.

It is not the first time she has borne witness to such interactions, but it makes Daella wonder all the same, for she still does not understand how her parents can function as one entity at times, as if they were made knowing each other in their bones. Alicent cries tears of relief and Gwayne offers quiet thanks, but Queen Rhaenyra’s eldest takes her leave from a room which is too stifling for her liking now, the walls feeling like they are steadily closing in.

All her feelings erupt the moment she is safely behind the closed doors of her own chambers, and Daella screams until her voice gives out, this act the only recourse against the punishment inflicted upon her. Her dragon’s roars echo through the Dragonpit and the Red Keep, giving voice to the true depth of her pain and rage, and yet it is not enough. Because no amount of breaking goblets and ripping down curtains will change the fact that Lucerys is dead, and that the man who killed him will continue breathing his stolen air.

It is that injustice that takes her back to his rooms the second time, the guards letting the Heir through in the dead of night. The creaking door startles the prisoner awake and the tall man shoots up ramrod-straight, regarding her with a bleary gaze before she comes into focus. Daella does not give him an opening to speak, pulling her knees close to her chest before she begins.

“Did you know that we searched for ten days? I searched Blackwater Bay and beyond, and Mother flew all over the Kingdom and past the Narrow Sea to look for his remains.” 

“That is of no concern to me,” Aemond responds plainly, but they can both hear the doubt in his voice, his mask of impassivity faltering in the face of her raw grief. 

“Ten days,” she continues, her voice a hoarse croak, “of torturous hope, wishing against all logic and sense that somehow, Luke might have survived the encounter. That perhaps the reports were incorrect, the accounts of a tired fisherman with too much ale in him.” Oh, how fervently she had wished for that to be the truth. “Ten days,” her voice shakes, “of me combing the shores of my home, hoping against hope that my brother shall emerge from the waves, beaten but alive. It was only upon Mother’s return that my agony was put to rest - only for it to begin anew in another, crueler fashion.”

“Do you know what it is like to cremate your younger sibling?” She questions, reddened eyes spearing Aemond with a look so steeped in hatred it might as well kill him if it could. “Their faces are meant to be the last ones we see, their voices the last thing we hear before we depart this mortal realm. Yet there I was, tossing his first toy into an open pyre, lit by a torch because Arrax was not there to give his dragonrider the farewell he deserved. If the gods are just, they will let you send off Daeron in that fashion. Perhaps, unlike Syrax, Vhagar will get to pay her respects to Tessarion.” 

She knows by the way that he tugs on his chains that she may have crossed a line (and judging by the venom in his good eye, she certainly has), but such sensibilities do not exist in the fog of grief and rage, especially when one is face to face with their brother’s killer. “I do not suppose I need to tell you just what I would do faced with such calumnies,” he hisses, and for once she witnesses a sliver of the human that lurks beneath the facade of a reaper.

So he does have a heart after all. 

“And here I had thought that heart of yours had been replaced with another stone,” she spits back at him. “Tell me, did your lust for the throne outweigh your sense of loyalty once you learned of Jaehaerys’ death?” He had always been the better candidate, the competent spare compared to a drunken, whoremongering heir.

“You little fucking bitch—” Aemond growls, throwing his entire weight behind the chains as he lunges at her, but Daella is tantalisingly out of reach, just close enough to taunt him with the illusion of satisfaction. He continues to strain at his restraints, the metal creaking with each emphatic tug, but the iron chains stay their course. She can see the urge in his eye to strangle her and, for a brief moment, she almost wants to give him that. She wants him to end her misery with one fatal squeeze around her throat, the imprint of his fingers the ink signing her death warrant. 

But Daella cannot put her mother through such loss again, so she resists.

She curbs her own impulses every time she passes the ramparts of the Red Keep and stays her hand every time her eye drops to the catspaw dagger upon her belt. She thinks of the cliffs back at Dragonstone, of the sea that holds what remains of her little brother, and how easy it would be to succumb to either. Just an errant step off a crag, an ill-timed swim, and she would join Luke, Ser Laenor and little Visenya in the great beyond, no longer burdened by the punishment that is now living.

But hate and spite are strong motivators, and she will not give that one-eyed bastard the satisfaction of killing her too. And so Daella spends her days carrying out every duty meted out to her and when work falls short, she barricades herself in the Heir’s quarters, steeped in her misery away from prying eyes.

It is one such day when her presence is requested ‘by Her Grace the Queen.’

Not her mother, in a parental capacity, but the summons of a regent, an order she is duty-bound to obey. So Daella makes her way to the throne room, where Aegon sits in his wheelhouse by the Iron Throne. Dragged in soon after her is the family kinslayer, his chains draped around him like the coils of serpents, threatening to consume him whole with every step he takes. Yet he manages to stand with some modicum of dignity, his head held high despite the guards that ring him like a human noose, ready to tighten at the slightest provocation. 

“Prince Aegon wishes to see you both punished,” the Queen Regent begins with no preamble, making her daughter’s muscles tense in apprehension. “Prince Aemond Targaryen, you are found guilty of the murder of Prince Lucerys Velaryon and are found guilty of the slaying of Princess Rhaenys Targaryen at the Battle of Rook’s Rest.”

She seems to derive no joy delivering the following statement, Rhaenyra’s features twisted in a grimace as she forces out each word. “Crown Princess Daella Targaryen, you are found guilty of abetting the murder of Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen.” Aegon gives no reaction to this declaration: his face is an impassive mask, with eyes that reflect nothing but the cold steel of the throne he once occupied.

“As kin—and Heirs Apparent—of both regents, you had acted under the aegis of your monarchs. In light of this knowledge, you are both spared the penalty of death.” She hears a scoff from her right, the sound softer than Daella would have expected her uncle.

“At this juncture, I will take the sword over these onerous proceedings, Your Grace,” he says, causing Daemon’s face to twitch in anger as the older man reaches for Dark Sister, the King Consort's fingers curling around the hilt.

Daella expects the Dowager Queen to reprimand her son for his lack of courtesy, but the woman has no words to offer, only a tear-stained face and a stricken countenance as Alicent Hightower clutches onto her daughter’s arm for dear life. Rhaenyra too does not rise to the bait as she resumes pronouncing her judgment, albeit with a look that suggests that the Queen has pulled the short straw.

“However, measures must be taken to dole out appropriate punishment and after much discussion, Prince Aegon and I have come to an agreement on the terms of your sentences. The two of you are to be exiled to Dragonstone for the indeterminate future.”

At first blush, one would consider being sent home a generous trade in her favor, but Daella knows better. 

“In order for the Princess of Dragonstone to appropriately carry out her duties as Heir and gaoler to the kinslayer, she shall be barred from leaving the island unless explicitly requested by the Crown.” Gaoler to the kinslayer, the words register, the implication sinking into her stomach like ice blocks from the North. “She will only be allowed to travel to the capital for periods requested by the Queen, exceeding no more than one week per duration, and she will not be allowed to reside in the city until her ascension as Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms.” 

She’s being exiled for life.

It wouldn’t be that great a loss if it meant being able to see her siblings again, the pain of that impending separation a growing ache in her chest. It is the following part of sentencing that seems to cause Rhaenyra the most distress, and Daella wonders just what her mother has in store that could possibly make this worse.

“As a final form of punishment, both riders shall have to surrender their dragons, Baelon and Vhagar, to the Crown for a period of one year.” There is uproar from both condemned royals, Aemond’s eye flashing dangerously as Daella’s fists curl by her sides. But before either party can pass any comment they are both cut off, this time by her father.

“Vhagar was chief in killing both Prince Lucerys and Princess Rhaenys,” he points out, daring his nephew to give him an excuse to unleash violence. “And while it is clear that her connection with her rider runs deep, she is an old and highly volatile beast.” 

“And since this is an unusually cruel punishment for any dragon and rider,” Rhaenyra adds, looking upon her firstborn with maternal sympathy, “it is only appropriate that Baelon be separated from his rider as well, for the role he has played in the initial attacks on Casterly Rock, Castamere and the Westerlands.” 

“Those places were deserted castle holds!” Daella interjects, although she isn’t sure just quite what her plea will do to change her mother’s mind, who seems resolute in her ruling, much as it seems to grate on her. “Baelon killed no people, and he acted under my command.” 

“He has slain thirteen people through collateral damage, and that toll would not have been incurred were you not in command of that dragon,” Aegon retorts, the scarred mass of flesh that is the left side of his face twitching in anger.

“Aemond and Vhagar burnt hundreds of men—ours and their own—at Rook’s Rest in combat, and knowingly burnt thousands of innocents at Sharp Point!” She fires back, clearly aggrieved by the injustice of it all. Why should Baelon have to suffer, when his crimes pale in comparison to those of the Queen of Dragons?

“Which is why he is being condemned to life in chains, and you still have your claim despite goading your father into murdering my little boy, you insolent girl,” Aegon hisses in return, his hands gripping the armrests of his wheelhouse until his knuckles turn white. She has no recourse to that statement, no way to discredit his claim. 

And once the ire fades, she thinks that maybe this is what she actually deserves. 

(users tagged are under the cut - like or reply to be tagged in future chapters!)

After a misplaced joke by the crew led to Lord Bloodraven magically confiscating our recording equipment, the 'Keeping Up' team had to venture to a secluded cave to retrieve their tools, thus leading to our delay.

However, circumstances (and Lady Shiera) meant that junior PA Kevin had to be left behind as a toll payment - we'll miss you, Kevin.

Anyhow, onwards and upwards, where we meet the last of our rotating cast of characters - the lovely and talented Tanselle of Dorne!

because what they set up wasn’t just the bad guy gaining more power: they gave us a terrifying alternative, and a very good reason for why no targaryen ever took their dragon north of the wall.

they gave us an option that could fundamentally rewrite everything in the favour of the white walkers and showed why they were such an existential threat. because if they can take a literal dragon—a creature bound by magic and blood to a targaryen—and turn it into one of them, subject to the Night King's thrall, what chance do the humans have?

they also could have given us the ultimate deus ex machina.

viserion is now a wight. viserion is now a creature of ice. viserion is now susceptible to northern magic - specifically, a nifty little thing known as warging. and who out there has both a direwolf and the blood of the dragon?

jon being both a northerner and a targaryen — ice and fire — would have been a great way to execute his reveal not only as the prince who was promised, but also as aegon targaryen himself. and it would, in true jon snow fashion, be a reveal made only because the circumstances demanded him to play this hand.

imagine viserion at the final battle, laying waste to the human side with each exhale of icy fire. it all looks pretty bad - hopeless, even. except, for a brief second, the dragon stutters. just... stops in the air, as if paralysed by a greater force. neither side understands what is happening, but they cannot tear their eyes away. no one notices jon freezing in place too.

and then the dragon turns. his movements are halting at first, but he turns all the same. viserion, son of daenerys targaryen, cranes his long neck backwards towards his undead masters and lets out a giant plume of blue fire, an intervention not even the mother of dragons would have thought possible.

helaena: this isn’t a prison, it’s a zoo

aemond: so they can leave

helaena: no