Chapter Text
Once they discover their connection, Helaena and Daeron waste no time exploring the possibilities and limitations of it.
There is nothing and no one in the dreamspace apart from them, at least not that they have found. Daeron wondered - worried, really - if other dreamers might appear. Perhaps they were brought together for some grand cause, one he’s sure he would be outmatched by in every way. But a few weeks pass and it is still only them, and his fear subsides. He is content to remain unremarkable, and more than content to have Helaena to himself.
The more time they spend here the stronger their bond becomes. It becomes easier to meet on purpose, until the connection becomes a well worn path they can find easily on the nights their minds allow it. Those nights are a welcome reprieve from the dreams that still torment them both. Daeron doesn’t know how he ever got by without her, and dreads to think how he will cope if their bond is ever severed.
In the dreamspace he can sense Helaena’s moods before she has spoken a word, and the same is true for her. Here they do not end at the limits of their bodies. Their minds fill the space, an intangible aura of emotions and sensations mingling until it becomes hard to tell where one of them ends and the other begins.
To Daeron’s mind, Helaena’s is pearly white and pale green, the colors of the lady’s lace in the fields around Summerhall. She is mint and rosemary, smooth silk, the strumming of a harp, the soft patter of rain on rooftops. Helaena tells him he is bronze and deep garnet, sturdy mahogany and plush velvet, a crackling fire in the hearth and spiced honey wine. When they are here together, the combined effect is much like returning home after a long day.
Much to Daeron’s relief, they can’t go so far as to read each other’s thoughts. It’s better, he is sure, that she doesn’t know how he thinks of her ceaselessly in their time apart. Better that she doesn’t know how he adores her laugh, how beautiful he finds the blue of her eyes, how jealous he is of all who are so fortunate to know her in real life.
–
Daeron drinks less, and so he dreams more. Long, restless nights plagued by nightmares leave him exhausted and irritable all day. His body does not take well to being denied the near endless supply of wine it is accustomed to. It is a different sort of awful from the way he feels when he is drunk, or the morning after, but awful all the same. His hands tremble, his skin is warm and clammy, he has little appetite and a headache is his constant companion. He avoids his family more than usual, feeling too fragile to endure his father’s reprimands or Aerion’s mockery. As for his sisters and little Aegon, he misses them but would rather not subject them to his volatile moods.
All of this is a price he is more than willing to pay to see Helaena.
But it takes its toll.
One evening, Daeron dozes off in a chair, tucked away in a dark, unoccupied bedroom. All day he has been wracked with chills, nauseous and dizzy. Wrapped in his cloak and feeling absolutely wretched, he can’t even make it up to his own rooms. Instead he takes refuge in an unoccupied bedchamber where he curls up in an armchair to rest and wait out the worst of it. At times like these he is at his loneliest, and longs for someone to simply keep him company…perhaps even to comfort him. He would like to believe Helaena would be that person if she existed in his time, but he doubts even she would tolerate him for long. In their dreamspace it is different. He is himself, but not. But better.
Daeron doesn’t intend to fall asleep. Sleep claims him anyway. It is fitful at first, but he gradually sinks deeper and deeper into the warm embrace of unconsciousness.
-
“You’re not well.”
He turns and Helaena is there. As always, he does not remember arriving, he is simply here.
Panic fills him and spills from his mind out into their shared space. All of him, his discomfort, his foul mood, the exhaustion that weighs on him day in and day out, all of it is on full display before he has a chance to rein it in even a little. Even his appearance here mirrors that of how he looks on the outside - disheveled, pale, red-eyed, trembling, with rumpled clothes and unkempt hair.
Helaena draws nearer and examines him closely. Daeron tries to will himself to move away but he is pinned by her concerned gaze. Concern for him of all things, as if she doesn’t have enough to worry about with the growing tension in her family. Yet the concern radiates from her, the feeling as strong in the air around them as Daeron’s shame.
“I’m fine,” he insists, fooling no one.
“Come here.” Helaena extends both hands out to him.
At those two gentle words, Daeron’s resolve turns to ash. He closes the space between them and dips down slightly so that she can place a hand on his forehead. “I don’t feel well,” he admits in a whisper, closing his eyes. “Not that I ever feel well, but…” He falls silent and lets out a breath as her fingers brush searchingly over his warm skin. They aren’t her real hands, it is not his real face, but the touch calms him all the same. “I did not want you to see me like this,” he admits with a tremor in his voice.
“You’re crying.”
“I am not.”
“You are.” To prove her point, Helaena cups his face and brushes tears from his lashes with her thumbs.
Daeron shudders. He lets his face rest heavily in the cradle of her hands, pitiful in how much he needs this, shameless in how willing he is to take it. “A prince of the realm does not cry,” he mutters. “His hand does not shake when drawing his sword, he does not pale at the sight of blood. He does not become ill from lack of drink.”
“A prince is just a man,” Helaena replies matter-of-factly.
“My father would disagree.” Daeron breathes out a bitter laugh. “I am his greatest disappointment, and one of my brothers believes himself to be a dragon in human form.”
He is about to say more when Helaena caresses his cheek with her knuckles, so unbearably gentle it renders him speechless and only a sigh comes out. Were he braver, or perhaps more foolish, he would turn his head and kiss that lovely hand. What little good sense he has left stills him before he crosses a line he doesn’t dare cross for fear of driving her away. Still, in the dreamspace nothing is secret. Affection and gratitude roll off of him in waves.
Helaena tugs on his sleeve and Daeron lets himself be guided downward and drawn into her arms until they are sitting as close as two people can be. Though the larger of the two, Daeron leans against her, his face tucked into the crook of her neck. Held. He has not been held since he was a child. Helaena even pets his hair, a bit awkward but so sincere, so wanting to soothe him, and that is more than enough. Daeron gives himself over. He rises and falls with her slow, steady breaths. He wishes he could disappear into her, to live in her mind forever.
“I think,” Helaena begins, “that our fathers see us as pieces of themselves. If they are disappointed, it is with themselves. Even if they do not know it.”
“Hm.” Daeron considers this. He can’t imagine his father seeing any part of himself in his troubled eldest son. They could not be more different. But then, none of Daeron’s brothers have turned out to be the son their father hoped for, though Egg’s fate, he supposes, is yet to be seen.
“May I confess something?” he asks. When he feels Helaena nod he continues. “I have, on occasion, thought about dying - not out of any particular desire to do so, but simply to lessen the burden on my family. In the end it is only a passing thought, and besides. I am selfish. Despite it all, I wish to live.”
Helaena has gone very still and quiet. At first Daeron thinks she is just thinking of how to respond. He feels a twinge of guilt at putting such a dark and heavy thought at her feet. As silent moments pass he feels increasingly unsettled. Daeron lifts his head from Helaena’s shoulder so he can better see her face. To his alarm, her expression is blank and distant. Her mouth is pressed into a thin line, her eyes gazing somewhere beyond him.
“Helaena?” He sits up and kneels in front of her. “What’s wr-”
“Do not even jest about such things,” she interrupts. “You are the only person I have ever met who - who understands, and you would leave me?” Her eyes dart up and finally meet his, wide and fearful, and for just a moment Daeron sees it, that flicker of madness, that inexplicable quality all members of their family possess, though some more than others, and each in their own way. For Helaena it is born of fear and sorrow. Daeron loathes himself for making her feel that way. He is unaccustomed to anyone sparing a second thought to his wellbeing, let alone caring so deeply.
“No. No, of course not.” He holds her arms and she grasps his in return. “Tis only a passing thought, nothing more. I would not leave you.” He gives her arms a reassuring squeeze. “I am sorry, Helaena. Should the thought cross my mind again I will strike it down in your name.”
Helaena nods, blinking away tears. They drift towards each other, pulled together like a seam, until their foreheads touch. They remain that way until their breaths and heartbeats are as one, thoughts and feelings weaving together like thread as their bond grows ever stronger. After what feels like an eternity, Daeron sits back and takes her hands. He is pleased to see that she is calm again.
“The gods are cruel, that we should be born in different times,” he laments.
“Or perhaps they are kind, that we should meet at all,” Helaena suggests.
“You are kind,” Daeron says warmly. “Are you sure you’re a Targaryen?”
“I am also a Hightower,” she reminds him, as if that explains it.
“Mm. That’s right. ‘We light the way.’” He cannot think of more fitting words for Helaena. Could it be, he wonders, that she would have been happier raised as a Hightower of Oldtown? To him the Red Keep has always felt an accursed place, not so dreary as Dragonstone but full of violence. Dragon skulls, a throne of swords. A place where good intentions shrivel and die on the vine.
“And besides,” Helaena continues. “You are also kind. You are,” she insists before Daeron can argue. “So is it really such a rare quality?”
I am also a Dayne, he thinks, but the memory of his mother casts a shadow over the very name, and he does not wish to make Helaena sad again.
“Our words are ‘Fire and Blood’,” he says with a little half smile. “Not ‘flowers and sweets’. Though can you imagine, a dragon breathing tulips on our banners?”
Helaena’s reserved, pensive nature does not easily give way to bouts of laughter, and so when he is the cause of it, the satisfaction is exquisite.
“Or soil and rain,” she suggests between giggles. “And not a dragon, but a three headed worm.”
Daeron starts to laugh too. “Our enemies would cower at the sight!”
They spend the remainder of their dream sharing increasingly absurd words for their own house, and then for any other house they can think of, having to pause for long stretches when they are laughing too hard to speak. Somewhere along the way, Daeron’s head winds up in Helaena’s lap, and her hand in his hair. Contentedness swirls around them like a breeze.
He does not know when he started feeling better, but by the time Daeron wakes his stomach has settled, his head no longer hurts, his shivers have subsided.
And he is smiling.