( Daemon Targaryen x Valyrian!reader )
-SUMMARY. Daemon Targaryen returns to kings landing after years of silence only to discover that some things were never truly left behind.
She stood alone upon one of the outer balconies of the Red Keep once more, staring toward the dark waters of Blackwater Bay and wishing, with sudden painful intensity, that she were back at Dragonstone. Back home.
There, dark waves struck against the cliffs in a steady rhythm, white foam breaking like torn lace against black rocks and the sea swallowed every thought before it could even become a whisper.
The Red Keep always felt alive in its own strange way, breathing through its halls, watching through every window and remembering every grief that had ever lived within it.
She had grown up used to the silence on Dragonstone. King’s landing knew no silence at all.
Back home, there was only stone, sea, sky, and the old blood of the dragon, wrapped around everything. Here, people expected things from her.
The word had followed her all morning like a shadow.
The match had been decided by her oldest cousin, the king. She would marry Lord Aeygar of house Targaryen. A knight from a respectable house, loyal to the crown, capable, young, and eager enough to be grateful for the honor.
Everyone had looked pleased, so she had smiled too.
She rested both hands on the cold railing and let her gaze drift over the water, trying once more to imagine the life waiting for her.
She tried to shape his face in her mind, though she had only seen him twice and spoken to him once. He had bowed deeply. He had praised Dragonstone’s beauty, though he had clearly found it grim. He had looked at her with admiration and caution, as men often did when speaking to women of Valyrian blood.
He was handsome, had kind eyes, strong hands and broad shoulders built for a sword and a shield rather than dragon saddle.
She imagined those hands helping her mount a horse.
She imagined riding beside him through green lands far from the sea, where fields stretched instead of cliffs and the air smelled like grass instead of smoke. She imagined halls filled with sunlight rather than shadow. Warm chambers. Children laughing in corridors. A husband who returned when he said he would return.
A husband who stayed. The thought settled heavily inside her. Stayed.
It was such a simple thing, and yet it felt more precious than anything she could think of.
She tried to picture herself learning him slowly. His habits. His moods. The shape of his smile after years together. Perhaps affection could come quietly, like a soft slow dawn instead of a burning flame. Perhaps love did not always need to arrive as ruin.
Perhaps peace was enough. She needed it to be enough.
Because the other kind of love, the kind that consumed and confused and left a woman waiting at windows for footsteps that never came, had brought her nothing but misery and sleepless nights.
Her fingers tightened around the stone once more.
Years had passed since anyone had last seen Daemon Targaryen. Years since he had looked at her as if she were something he wanted and resented wanting. At first rumors of his adventures had come from the Free Cities, then from the Stepstones, and at last from nowhere at all.
No letters, no word. Nothing.
She had told herself she no longer cared.
It had been easier to call it childishness. Easier to say she had only been young, dazzled by danger and silver hair and the way he could fill every room he entered.
Now she was older. Wiser, perhaps. Old enough to know what men were, what marriages were, what love cost.
The knight would be steady, he would be good, he wouldn’t disappear.
She closed her eyes and forced herself deeper into the image. She pictured standing beside the knight before the hearth, his hand warm over hers. She pictured looking at him across a supper table years from now and feeling contentment instead of hunger. She pictured safety.
Then the sky screamed and her eyes snapped open.
The roar came again, so loud it shook through the stone beneath her feet. Somewhere inside the castle, servants cried out. Doors slammed. Ravens burst upward from the towers in a black storm.
Her heart stopped for one sharp beat.
Another roar split the air, deeper this time, ancient and furious.
She knew that sound before thought could form it. Slowly, almost unwillingly, she stepped toward the edge of the terrace and looked up. Something vast moved through the clouds and then red wings broke into view.
Long and monstrous, lean as a serpent and twice as terrifying, he descended from the gray sky in a circling glide. Membranous wings beat against the wind with terrible strength. His scales gleamed blood-red where the light struck them. Smoke curled from his jaws as he turned above the towers of Dragonstone like a beast reclaiming old ground.
The whole castle seemed to wake beneath him, and on his back…
Her breath caught so suddenly it hurt.
Even at a distance there was no mistaking him. The straight line of his body in the saddle. The easy arrogance of his posture. One gloved hand resting as though he commanded not only the dragon beneath him, but the world itself.
Silver hair whipped in the wind.
The years between one heartbeat and the next collapsed.
All the calm thoughts she had spent the morning building shattered instantly.
The knight, the marriage, the peace. All of it turned thin and foolish before the sight of him.
Her pulse began to race so violently she pressed a hand to her ribs as if she might quiet it by force. Heat rushed through her, hot and humiliating.
He had come back… After all this time, after making himself a ghost she had worked so hard to bury.
Caraxes gave another shriek as he lowered toward the inner yard, claws stretching for stone.
She should have turned away, she should have walked inside and remembered her pride, but, instead she stood frozen beneath the darkening sky, unable to look anywhere else, because the truth she had denied for years rose now, merciless and clear:
She had never forgotten him at all.
Caraxes flew through the gray sky in circles above the Red Keep while the city below transformed into chaos. Bells rang somewhere beyond the walls. Shouts echoed through the streets. Gold cloaks rushed across the courtyards like disturbed ants.
Still, Daemon never lifted his gaze, resting himself with the same effortless arrogance he always had, as though half the realm hadn’t spend years wondering whether he was dead.
The beast landed heavy within the courtyard, and for one terrible moment she forgot how to breathe.
Servants and guards surrounded the pair as smoke escaped from the dragon’s jaws. His long neck twisted sharply and grotesquely, even the sun was terrified as it hides beneath the clouds. And above him, ignoring all the noise and fear, sat Daemon Targaryen.
Not changed, not truly, but somehow a lot more refined. More handsome, muscular and with a longer hair covering his sharp features. A new scar cut deeply across one side of his throat, disappearing beneath his neck.
Her chest tightened painfully at the sight of it, and as if sensing her stare, Daemon finally lifted his head. Even across the distance between them, the force of his gaze struck her like a physical thing, everything disappearing as if for one suspended heartbeat there was only the two of them.
She searched his eyes for some trace of the feelings she remembered, but his expression remained unreadable.
Slowly, almost lazily, Daemon slid down from Caraxes’ saddle. One gloved hand rested briefly against the dragon’s neck before he turned toward the castle, toward her.
Heat rushed beneath her skin so suddenly she hated herself for it. Years, and still her body remembered him before her mind could command otherwise.
She stepped backward from the balcony as though distance alone might save her from him, even though she knew it wouldn’t.
The throne room felt smaller with Daemon inside it.
Viserys sat upon the Iron Throne with exhaustion carved deep into his eyes, one hand gripping the armrest while the other drummed slowly against cold, sharp metal. Lords aligning uneasily along the edges of the hall, pretending not to stare at the prince who had returned from the dead.
Daemon stood at the foot of the throne as though he belonged nowhere else. As though exiling himself had failed to remove him.
“You could’ve sent word,” Viserys said at last, deep in his voice you could detect anger.
Daemon’s mouth curved into a sarcastic smile.
“And deny you the pleasure of suspense?”
A few nervous smiles flickered through the court before quickly vanishing.
Viserys dismissed the hall soon after. Lords bowed themselves out eagerly, servants retreating behind heavy doors until only the brothers remained alone beneath the skulls of dead dragons.
Silence stretched between them “You disappeared.”Daemon glanced toward the towering windows. “I was not aware I required permission to travel.”
“For years?” Viserys’ voice hardened. “Without a single letter?”
Daemon said nothing. That silence alone was answering by itself.
Viserys exhaled heavily, rubbing a hand across his face. “You return at a difficult time.”
At that, Daemon finally looked back toward him fully. “Oh?”
The king hesitated, It was brief, barely noticeable. But Daemon saw it.
And suddenly something sharp and wary entered his expression.
“There is to be a marriage,” Viserys said carefully. “A match I have arranged for the good of our bloodline.”
Daemon’s gaze did not move from him.
The question came too quickly, and Viserys noticed, of course he did.
Something unreadable flickered across Daemon’s face before vanishing beneath practiced calm.
“A fortunate man,” he said lightly, almost too lightly. Viserys studied him in silence.
“She deserves stability,” the king continued. “Peace. Lord Aeygar is honorable, well-tempered, loyal to the crown…”
“A dull creature, then.” Daemon interrupted
“What?” Daemon spread his hands mockingly. “You list qualities fit for a hound, not a husband.”
“She is happy with the arrangement.”
The lie landed between them heavily.
Daemon smiled then, but, it was not a pleasant smile. “Is she?”
The king’s expression darkened instantly. “She is not yours to concern yourself with.”
Something dangerous flashed behind Daemon’s eyes, gone almost immediately but not before Viserys saw it. The air in the room shifted.
“She is our blood,” Daemon said softly.
“And she is to be wed.” The words struck harder than they should have.
Daemon looked away first. A mistake.
Viserys saw too much in that single movement.
For the first time since entering the hall, Daemon seemed genuinely unbalanced, like a man struggling to hold something violent beneath his skin and deep and hot in his blood.
When he spoke, again his voice had gone colder. “Then I wish the happy couple every joy imaginable.”
Without waiting for dismissal, he turned sharply and strode from the throne room. Viserys watched him leave with dread settling quietly in his chest, because he knew his brother.
And Daemon Targaryen had never worn jealousy well.
Rain had begun by the time she found him, soft at first, barely more than mist drifting across the stone balconies overlooking Blackwater Bay.
Daemon stood alone at the edge of the terrace, one hand braced hard against the wall beside him.
Even from several steps away she could see the tension running through his muscles, the rigid set of his shoulders, the unnatural stillness. Her pulse quickened uncertainly, and she considered turning back.
Instead she stepped forward softly. “Daemon?” He did not move.
Wind tugged at his silver hair, rain gathered against the dark leather stretched across his shoulders and only after several long seconds he finally spoke.
“You should not be here.” The words should have sounded dismissive, but they did not. She moved closer anyway.
“I heard shouting.” A humorless laugh escaped him quietly.
“Did you?” Now she saw it, blood.
His bare hand pressed so tightly against the stone that his knuckles had split open against the rough surface.
“Gods,” she whispered instinctively. “You’re hurt.”
At that he finally turned toward her, anger lingered in his eyes, raw and unsteady, but it was not the anger that unsettled her.
It was the way he looked at her, as though he had crossed half the world only to make sure she was still his.
Rain slid slowly down the sharp line of his jaw, neither of them spoke.
The silence between them felt enormous now, crowded with everything unfinished and unsaid.
And finally “Why did you come back?” she asked.
Daemon stared at her for a long moment, then his gaze dropped briefly toward the gold engagement chain resting against her throat.
Something dark flickered across his expression and when he looked back at her again, his voice had gone dangerously soft.
“Tell me,” he said, “Tell me you want him.” And suddenly she felt like her heart could disappear.
His gaze never left hers. “Tell me that every time he touches you, the thought of my name does not cross your mind. Tell me that when you stand before the gods and call him your husband, you will not spend the evening wondering whether I would have come for you if you had only asked.”
His jaw tightened. “Tell me you love him.” Neither of them moved.
“And if you can say it while looking me in the eye, I’ll leave.” A bitter smile touched his lips.
“I’ll get on Caraxes and disappear again. You will never hear my name, see my face, or be troubled by me ever again.” His eyes darkened.
“But if I walk away now, know that I will hate him for the rest of my life for spending every day holding the only thing I could never call mine.”
She opened her mouth ready to answer, but her response simply didn’t come. “That’s what I thought” Daemon muttered
“Why are you doing this?” Her voice cracked
“You are doing this to yourself” he shot back “the only thing I want is to be sure this is what you want.”
“You left.” Her eyes filled up with tears and she could have sworn Daemon’s expression softened
“You knew I loved you and you left me holding onto feelings you never came back for.” She continued, her voice trembling now
For the first time Daemon said nothing, but his expression seem to beg for forgiveness
“I know” and he took a step “I know, I’m sorry” just when he found himself in front of her, he lifted his hand to reach her waist.
The words seemed to cost him something, she just stared at him, searching his face for the arrogance she remembered, for the certainty that had always lived behind his eyes, but it was gone.
For the first time, he looked like a man who genuinely feared her answer.The realization hurt more than it should have.
“You should have come back.” She had to lift her head to keep eye contact.
“I know.” He sounded so calm but so desperate ant the same time it would acutely drive her mad.
“You should have written.”
A faint, broken smile touched his mouth and she realized how much she missed him.
Rain fell steadily around them, but neither of them move
Years of anger, longing, regret and unanswered questions seemed to hang in the space between them but suddenly, none of it felt as important as it had moments ago.
He was here, after all these years, he was here and whatever she had intended to say disappeared.
And just like that, she realized all the years, all the anger, all the distance between them had never truly mattered. She had loved him then, and Gods help her, she loved him still.
a/u: GUYS I have been working in this for a LONG time so I really hope you like it. Love you guys don’t forget to smile 😚
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