#waveswallowed

Send my muse "❓+" alongside harsh hitting questions, scenarios, anything question-related really, but they can only answer with "yes" or "no". Nothing more, nothing less.

a quiet exhale is the only suggestion he's heard the question, fingers twitching towards his goblet only to belatedly realise it's already empty, along with the bottle upon the table. there are moments of happiness, that much he won't deny, but if he struggles to grasp those moments without the aid of a level of inebriation that ends with him passed out in his bed with no recollection of at least the last few hours of the night, he's not so sure it can count. even then, joy can quickly descend into misery between one drink and the next. he'd found a true happiness through his son, of a kind that had come as a surprise to him but that had been short–lived, stolen away as quickly as he had discovered it.

Send my muse "❓+" alongside harsh hitting questions, scenarios, anything question-related really, but they can only answer with "yes" or "no". Nothing more, nothing less.

Send my muse "❓+" alongside harsh hitting questions, scenarios, anything question-related really, but they can only answer with "yes" or "no". Nothing more, nothing less.

he doesn't remember exactly when he'd started needing copious volumes of alcohol in order to experience the numbing effect that only a few cups had once provided. nor does he know if the need for more comes from a learned tolerance to its effects or that the pains he finds he needs to numb in these more recent years will simply always require him to sink deeper into his cups. the sorrows he tries to drown now are ones he would not have imagined for himself when he'd first discovered the pleasure of falling into the oblivion that his favoured arbor red could provide. he knows well enough now that it only works in the way that milk of the poppy can ease pain without doing anything to aid in the actual healing of the wound. once the effects wear off in the morning, the pain comes rushing back and it takes another dose to get through another day.

but of course lucerys sees something other than. his nephew will see the same as the rest, one who indulges heavier than he should in any and every vice, and enjoys it. the amusement that curls the corner of his mouth upwards is hollow, fingers tapping against the rim of his half empty cup as the answer finally comes.

years had passed since last he had stepped foot upon dragonstone, surrounded instead by the burned and half ruined walls of harrenhal, relying on the slow drip of information that travelled the distance between them to learn anything of rhaenyra or the princes, and he suspected he was intentionally kept in the dark. the time apart could not erase his memory of the castle itself, the path he followed as he was escorted so familiar that he almost might have been able to walk it blindfolded. the death of king viserys could not be kept even from reaching harrenhal, for the support would be needed by both sides in the end, and the greens, foolishly so, thought they might yet sway the lord of harrenhal to their side. no reply had been sent to their missives, though reports would reach them in time of harwin's departure, and hasty travel.

he had been urged, initially, not to abandon summerhall for king's landing, and only once they had all come to the reluctant acceptance that he would not change his mind, they had urged him to leave the younger children behind, a suggestion he had not heeded or pretended to consider. the ghost of dyanna seemed to already haunt them in those halls, and to leave any of his children behind as he travelled to seek comfort from his own father would be incomprehensible. the funeral had been, perhaps, the easiest part of her death, having family travelling to them, so that he was not alone with the six children. the journey was subdued, and easier for it in many ways, and yet he almost wished that one of them might cause some difficulty that he would have had some distraction, or so that he might know the children were recovering some part of their usual selves. it couldn't be rushed, he knew that much, but it would offer a reassurance of a kind.

he never much minded the times when his father decided to drag them all away from summerhall to king's landing, the visits hardly infrequent in his childhood and only becoming yet more commonplace in recent years following the death of their mother. in fact, he was sure that if maekar trusted his children to be left at home without his supervision, he would be gone much more, though daeron was glad such things rarely happened, not wanting to be left responsible for all of them. what he minded when they travelled was the increased expectation to act the way all thought summerhall's heir should act, despite his reputation being already known widely within the realm.

he'd endured aerion in his ear for much of the evening with a patience his brother no longer deserved, held polite conversation when he had been engaged in it over dinner and, offered no complaints. it was nigh guaranteed that it would start to crumble before the end of the evening, a faintly trembling hand reaching to refill his cup, only his second of the night only to have the bottle moved firmly out of his reach by his father, in turn earning an unwelcome commentary from aerion, no correction following as it might if he had spoken about the younger children. he shouldn't have left the table, certainly shouldn't have lifted a different bottle to take with him, but he could apologise for it on the morrow. perhaps.

his scream could have woken the dead, a sound to rival the screech of a dragon overhead, the blood running hot from the gash in his arm, staining fabrics a bright red and eliminating any sense of independence the boy might have liked to claim he had, and would have sent him running for his father or grandfather, if he hadn't been reached first by the guards; something that was for the best or else he might have been found upon the stone floors for the pain threatened to take any strength from his legs once it finally registered. had he ever been wounded before, further than grazed knees and bruises from climbing where he shouldn't, he might not have panicked so, for it was a clean cut and not so deep, but to a boy of only nine years, it nigh seemed deadly, despite having witnessed knights surviving worse in tourneys.

the maesters had been sent for, along with a hurried message for his grandsire, for his father was away with daeron visiting some local lord, and despite the hot tears and the burning pain of skin torn open, the sight of the maester wielding a needle to stitch his wound closed had him reconsidering if it was really so serious as to need treatments, and his screeching had resumed in protest, loudly over those who might try to remind him that such behaviour wasn't suited to a prince. he had not quietened until his grandsire was there, and only once the two of them were left in the room, did he willingly hold his arm out for it to be taken care of.

he hadn't thought he would be found, or, at the least, not as swiftly as his grandfather managed to, thinking to take advantage of his own speed in running away and the vast halls that should have been able to easily hide a young boy within them, he wasn't very big after all. he'd successfully tucked himself into an embrasure, the corridor only lit by what filtered in through the small window and no guards currently stationed nearby, it should have been the perfect space to hide, for the next few hours, until the threat of tears was not so imminent and was overridden by a growling stomach, and even then he might only sneak his way into the kitchens, stealing a plate of whatever he might find to take back to his room, yet the sound of steps ruined any such plans, and his grandsire would have seen a head poking around the edge of the stone alcove, for as much as he could easily distinguish the sound of his siblings' steps from one another, he always found greater difficulty in telling his father and grandfather's gait apart.

he sank back against the wall, waiting for the older man to reach him, for it didn't matter so much if he saw the hot tears that spilled down his cheeks, his face flushed and splotchy, for it wouldn't be the first time, and unlikely to be the last, that egg's problems could only be lessened by luke, not because his father did not care, he knew that he did, but he knew that care was shared across his siblings in a way that didn't always make it easy to turn to him, and as much as he might love daeron, his eldest brother could do little, and all the rest were too young, like him.