Chapter Text
Dinner starts well enough. The food is decadent and delicious, just as she remembers, and she digs in with relish—it’s hard to find Valyrian food of this quality anywhere else, and neither she nor Daemon are much in the way of cooks. If nothing else comes of this night, she’s glad that at least her children get to experience another true Targaryen feast, the likes of which none of them have had since their last residence in this home.
“Thank you all…for gathering here today.” Her father rises from his chair to give the customary toast, and the hubbub of chatter and clanging cutlery immediately ceases. “It has been a long time…since I have seen all my family…together like this.” He looks at her, then Daemon, then Alicent in turn, and his meaning is clear. “I hope that as we break bread tonight…and look forward…to a new year…we can set aside our past grievances.” He pauses then and clears his throat. Her breath catches in her chest as she waits for him to devolve into another coughing fit, but Viserys simply takes a sip of water and continues. “Let us…stand as one. I am ailing…and growing ever weaker. But it would be…my greatest joy…to know I will be leaving…behind…a family united.”
Everyone is silent, spellbound. Something about the clear effort it takes Viserys to produce every word makes each one impossibly moving.
Her father raises his cup. “To the new year!”
The toast is echoed around the room, by everyone from Daemon to Otto to Rhaenys, and she thinks, a little wildly, that if her father’s last act is to bring this prickly group of people together and force them to get along, then perhaps he will leave a legacy more enduring than anyone expected.
Unexpectedly, tears prick at the corner of the eyes. She has become many other things in the ensuing years, but she remains her father’s daughter, and somewhere in her list of priorities is also the goal of making him proud, the fear of letting him down, the vice-grip of worry that this truly might be one of the last days she ever sees him.
He wants a peaceful evening for what will likely be his last ever turn of the year? Very well. The company’s ceaseless politics can wait for another day—she will give him a peaceful evening with his family no matter how many insults against her honor she must swallow to make it so.
“Be nice,” she whispers to Daemon, knowing he will be able to read in her face just how serious she is. He’ll understand what she’s asking, and why.
The next half-hour of idle chitchat passes more easily than expected. Her father’s words seem to have inspired everyone, for all around the table conversation flows between expected and unexpected pairs alike—she even hears Daemon exchange pleasantries with Otto, and makes a mental note to reward her husband for that handsomely when they’re back in their own bed later tomorrow.
Her father himself seems to have found a second wind from his feeble state earlier in the day, and sounds almost like an approximation of his old self when he asks about her life and each of the children. He seems genuinely pleased to be with them again, the scorn she braced herself for over and over on the drive here entirely missing from his voice—perhaps he has taken his own advice. A night of moving on from the past and looking with hope toward the future, as the world turns one year older.
The spiteful part of her wonders how many years it took with no one but Hightowers for company before he started to miss his true blood, but she doesn’t really care anymore how Viserys arrived at this point, only that he did—and that perhaps, for the time he has left, they can spend it playing at some version of an amicable family. Too much has happened for the underlying tension to ever fade, but keeping it in the background instead of at the forefront of every interaction would be a huge victory in itself.
Daemon’s pained he’s dying, Nyra still rings in her ears—she does not want to waste any more time with the three of them on different sides, and she doesn’t think Daemon does either.
“Your children…they address you in our language,” Viserys remarks to her in what could probably pass as a casual tone to any other audience. She can’t tell what emotion he’s concealing—and hopes that it’s closer to pride than disappointment—but knows that his forced, placid calm only comes out when he’s hiding something. Her father is not so dissimilar to Daemon in that way, as much as both of them would like to think otherwise. “Muña and kepa.”
It’s strange, to hear her father speak the words. He doesn’t have an accent, of course not, but there is a clear clumsiness to the syllables that speaks to years and years of disuse.
“They do. The children are all fluent, and it felt right.” That is both the truth and a simplification, but she has no plans of sharing the challenges they’ve overcome in getting their family to this moment, four former partners and five children between them, but very much a house united.
“It’s nice…to hear Valyrian in our home again,” Viserys admits after a long pause, and her heart soars.
She thinks so, too.
“It’s lovely that you’ve been able to preserve your customs, Rhaenyra,” Alicent chimes in.
Seven different deeply uncharitable interpretations flash through her mind, but she, with some effort, discards them all in favor of accepting the lukewarm compliment as genuine. For her father’s sake, she will do everything in her power to get through this dinner peacefully.
“Yes, thank you.” It still feels strange, sometimes, to address Alicent with such formality when they were once closer than sisters, but whatever relationship they once had was dead and buried with her mother. “With so few of us left, I think it’s more important than ever now.”
“Exactly right, my darling girl,” Viserys agrees. “It falls to…all of us in this room…to continue forward the traditions…of Old Valyria.”
Alicent’s bland, pasted-on smile in response to that goes a fair way to assuaging the bitterness in her heart. Perhaps, despite the disagreements and the years away, she still remains her father’s favorite.
It’s almost easy, after that, to ask about Alicent’s work with the Faith—she very resolutely doesn’t think about her mother’s wreath, and if her grip on Daemon’s hand is near-crushing for several seconds, nobody needs to know but the two of them. Very little of Alicent’s response registers in her mind, but Rhaenyra does not interrupt or scoff or roll her eyes, and it is more civility than she thought herself capable of when she stepped into the manor this morning.
By the time the second course is served, the atmosphere could almost be described as jovial. Polite conversation at one end of the table, occasionally punctuated by boisterous laughter from the other end—the children, all of them, realizing they are not quite as dissimilar as their parents would have them believe.
But in a turn of events as predictable as the daily rising and setting of the sun, it is Otto who ultimately breaks the peace.
“Tell me, Rhaenyra”—and she hates, as always, the way her name sounds in his mouth—“where is your youngest son? I was hoping to get to know him as more than just a baby this time,” he says as the second course is being cleared away. His beady eyes look straight into hers, uncaring of the server attempting to reach between his arms to take his plate without disturbing him.
Joffrey was only just born when she left this manor, and he has never experienced kind of grief and scorn and scrutiny once pervasive within its walls. He is too young to sit through a dinner like this, anyway, but that’s really only a convenient excuse—let him live in his ignorance a little longer. Of her children, he is the only one who has grown up knowing nothing but a happy home, and she will do everything in her power to keep it that way.
“He’s at home, with a sitter. I don’t think he would appreciate a formal dinner like this,” she says instead of voicing any of that, expecting the conversation to end there.
Instead Otto frowns, one of his brows furrowing. “A babysitter? Surely he would do better in the company of family than some stranger.” Rhaenyra’s skin prickles at his tone, critical and condescending all in one. They never believed her capable of being a good mother—she didn’t believe of herself, for a long time, though those days have since passed. Perhaps Otto thinks if Viserys can be convinced she is a bad custodian of her children, he can be convinced she would be a bad custodian of the company—or, more likely, this is just another chance to poke at old wounds. “And I’m sure Viserys would have loved the opportunity to meet his grandson properly.”
It is cruel, to bring her father into this. Can they not have one meal without devolving into petty bickering?
“Your concern for the welfare of our children is touching, but unnecessary,” Daemon says when the silence stretches a beat too long, always her protector. She can fight her own battles, but she spent a long time fighting them alone—it is nice, to be reminded that she now has a husband who will fight them with her. “Joffrey will be fine with the sitter for one night. And there’s no need to be so fatalistic. I am certain my brother will meet our son again in due time.”
The response is more civil than even she thought him capable of. From the look on Otto’s face, he didn’t expect it either—his sour expression is a delight in itself.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is Baela who offers a more typical Daemon response. “Our sitter is more family that you’ll ever be”, hissed low in High Valyrian so none of the Greens will understand.
And they don’t, but the response it produces in those who do understand—hushed sniggers from Jace and Rhaena, a scandalized gasp from Luke, an amused snort from Daemon—is enough to make the intention plain if not the meaning.
“What did she say?” Aemond asks with a scowl. But his eyes are curious—jealous, even.
“Has no one ever taught you that it’s impolite to speak in a language others cannot understand?” Alicent chastises at the same time.
The very idea of Alicent taking that tone with Baela makes her see red, but she holds her tongue.
Daemon does not. “Take care how you speak to my daughter.” His voice is the very edge of a knife, barely-restrained calm that promises deadly precision if he chooses to strike.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rhaenyra sees her father rub at his temples in despair, and her heart seizes. It would be my greatest joy to know I will be leaving behind a family united. The idea is a fanciful one, if they can’t even keep the peace for a single dinner, for his sake.
For him, she will try to keep the peace. But she will not back down when it comes to her children.
“As I told you before, our children are fluent in Valyrian. You cannot expect that they will not use our language simply because you do not speak it,” she says steadily. Fluency in High Valyrian is as much a part of being Targaryen as the silver-blond hair—that Alicent and her brood possess neither is not her concern, nor the concern of her children.
“All the same…let us speak in Common…today,” her father interjects before Alicent can respond, and Rhaenyra’s stomach sinks. Clearly, he still has not changed his conciliatory ways. “So that…we may all…understand one another.”
She cannot speak against him, not now, when he’s as good as a dying man. “Yes, father. My loves, behave yourselves,” she says in the general direction of the other end of the table.
That’s when Luke starts to wheeze.
“Something’s wrong,” he says, eyes widening in fear. His hands fly to his throat. “I can’t breathe—I can’t breathe—I can’t—”
“Luke!” Rhaenyra wants to stand, to go to him, to call a doctor, to take them all far away from here. Instead she is rooted to the spot, fear clenched around her heart like a fist, barely able to take a breath herself. “What’s going on—Luke—” Her voice rises in panic.
Several things happen all at once—a clamor around the table, everyone half-rising from their seats; Viserys starting to cough again; Rhaenys pulling out her phone; someone screaming—but what she latches on to is Daemon, who takes one look at their son, the boy who looks up to him like he hung the moon and stars themselves in the sky, and leaves the room.
She can’t speak. Can’t move. Can’t do anything but watch as her lifeline in every emergency, the first person she turns to whenever something goes wrong, flees the room like it’s on fire.
Luke’s breaths have turned to panicked, half-choked gasps. “Muña—” he calls, and that’s what gets her out of her seat, legs moving like she’s being propelled by an unseen force from above. She’s by his side in an instant, touching every part of him she can reach, trying to find something to explain what’s happening.
“Luke, please, try to breathe. Try to breathe, dōna mēre [sweet one],” she pleads. His face is starting to swell, his cheeks reddening, the rest of his skin bloodless and pale. “Luke—” She feels useless, helpless.
Another scream. Helaena, she realizes.
Distantly, like the entire room is filled with water instead of air, she hears Rhaenys say, “He’s having an allergic reaction. I’ve called 999, they’ll be here soon.”
“No need.”
Daemon.
She turns her head to the entranceway to see him come back into the room with the same urgency as he left it, now with something clutched in his hand.
An EpiPen.
Rhaenyra doesn’t even have time to be grateful before Daemon is pushing her hands away from Luke and stabbing the EpiPen into his outer thigh.
“This will help. Just breathe,” Daemon says, more gentle than she’s ever heard him. He’s speaking to Luke but it helps her too, and she takes a long, shuddering breath. “Just breathe.” His eyes slide from their son to her, and she knows his next words are for them both. “It’s going to be okay, just breathe.” High Valyrian, quiet enough to be barely a whisper.
Nearly a minute passes. The entire room is silent, waiting.
Then Luke takes a deep breath, his first in far too long that doesn’t rattle in the back of his throat.
Then another, and another.
It’s working.
She gasps in shaky, delirious relief as his breathing continues to improve. Oh, Daemon. When everyone else, including her, was losing their heads, he was already problem-solving.
Every breath sounds better than the last, and the frantic beating of her heart finally starts to slow.
“I think I’m okay now,” Luke says after several minutes. His breathing is clear and unlabored, and his face and lips are distinctly less swollen. His cheeks are flushed, but with nothing more than residual adrenaline. “I’m okay now, muña,” he says, her darling boy, always looking to reassure her first.
She loves him more than her own self, and she was so close to losing him.
Only then does she consider how this could have happened—there is only one allergen that could cause an anaphylactic reaction in Luke, and she gave strict instructions about its exclusion for this meal.
“I thought I made myself very clear, when I accepted your invitation for dinner,” she says, curling an arm around Luke’s shoulders and looking directly at Alicent. “No peanuts, under any circumstances.”
Alicent looks shaken as it is, but any remaining color in her face drains away completely at that. “Rhaenyra—” she starts, her voice dripping with contrition, and it is as good as an admission of guilt.
And this, Rhaenyra cannot forgive.
Her son could have died. Luke, her gentle, sweet Luke, who cries to every Disney movie and calls her perfect when she is anything but, would have died if not for Daemon’s quick thinking and the mercy of the Fourteen.
“I’m sure…it was…a most unfortunate accident…my dear Rhaenyra. Let us not speak…of things that…did not—” Viserys descends into another coughing fit, and this time, she feels nothing.
She would have swallowed any insult against her honor for him, but she draws the line at this. If he will not even defend her when her own son's life has been threatened, there is no point in attempting peace any longer. Luke is her priority. Luke, and getting the whole of her family out of this fucking house.
Nothing good has ever happened to her under this roof, and today has been no different.
Daemon, as ever, is of the same mind. “Come, Luke, I hear the ambulance. Let us go make sure you’re okay.” He glances at the rest of their children, then at her, an implicit command in his gaze—get them out of here, keep them safe—and then switches to High Valyrian. “I’ll see you at home, ñuha vēzos [my sun].”
No one speaks out against his use of their language. No one would dare, as he levels Alicent with a glare that could peel the very skin from her bones, before lifting Luke into his arms and heading toward the approaching siren sound. He squeezes Rhaena’s shoulder as he walks past her, a fleeting but meaningful reassurance—she sees the way it calms their daughter, as she takes a deep breath and schools herself into a mask of indifference.
They know they cannot show weakness. She hates that this is a lesson they have had to learn so young.
“Kepa, will you be with me the whole time?” she hears Luke ask into his shoulder as they leave, and her heart flips in her chest. Jace was in an ambulance once after breaking his leg playing football, and Rhaena and Baela were right there in the labor & delivery room when Laena’s last birth went tragically wrong, but Luke has never even been to a hospital. Her sweet, spoiled, summer child.
She does not hear Daemon’s response—he’s through the archway and well out of earshot by then—but she has no doubt that he will, indeed, be with Luke the entire time.
He loves her boys as his own—more, even, as though trying to make up for all the fathers they did not have before he came into their lives. He will be Luke’s strength as he has always been hers—and only later, when they are safe at home in the room she designed for them, will he ever admit that he was scared, too.
She wants to be home now. In a safe space, where her children are not afraid to cry and be scared.
But first, she has to deal with this mess of a dinner.
Her eyes fall to Rhaenys. The Velaryon matriarch looks absolutely murderous—she is unlikely to stay here either.
Good. Let the Greens eat alone, as they deserve, no friends or allies save the shell of a man masquerading as her father.
“Rhaenyra, I never meant for this to happen, you must believe me. I swear it by the Mother herself. I have no idea how the peanuts were included—I gave the staff your exact instructions—” Alicent’s excuses sound genuine enough, but Rhaenyra no longer has time for them.
She sees Otto standing next to her once-best friend, a look of appropriately polite concern on his face that does not reach those slimy, scheming eyes, and has enough of an idea of how this might have happened to feel rage simmer in her belly.
The fucking bastard.
“We’re leaving,” she declares instead of dignifying Alicent with a response. “Now.”
“Rhaenyra…please…”
Her father’s pleas fall on deaf ears.
She knows Jace, Baela, and Rhaena are shaken by what happened, and her children come before everything, even him. Something he never seemed to learn as a father himself.
“Happy new year, father,” she says coldly, and leaves with her children in tow.
This is the family he has chosen? Alicent, her brood of children, and Otto Hightower, who conspired to kill a defenseless, innocent little boy?
Let him have them. Let Otto have his schemes, and Alicent her Faith.
She has a family she once never even dreamed possible, and company or no company, they are more than enough.