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The opening of the door created a ray of pale golden light in the perfectly black bedchamber. Viserys liked to sleep in the dark, and despite the chill of this late autumn, there was not a flame, not even an ember in the fireplace to shed the slightest light in the room.
"What is it?" he asked. He had not quite been asleep yet, but near enough that it felt the same.
"How are you not cold?" a voice replied.
Viserys fell back onto his pillows. It was very much like Daemon to answer a question with another question. "Many bedcovers," he answered.
Soft, bare footsteps approached him. No wonder his brother felt the cold sharply.
"Mind if I share?" he asked, though as usual, it was not so much a question as a bland statement, the same mechanical reflex that made one say please and thank you when they were accustomed to it.
Not that anyone had ever accustomed Daemon to say please.
"Are you having nightmares again?" Viserys teased.
"I haven't had a single nightmare since I was eight," Daemon pouted. Lucky little tyke. "I'm cold, is all."
Viserys shifted aside to make room for his brother. The mattress bent under his weight, though Daemon was a skinny thing, and small for his age. He would probably grow some eventually. Viserys himself had gained no less than six inches in the past year.
Daemon took place in the bedsheets, bringing a cold wind with him, before making a stern declaration.
"It's time I should be a dragon rider."
"Oh," Viserys simply said. Of course he wanted to be one. Daemon was fire and wind, of course the dragons appealed to him - even though his cradle egg had never hatched, no more than Viserys's. This new determination was likely his fault, however. His grandparents and Father had trembled when he had claimed Balerion three months earlier, but he had meant no statement or display by it. In truth, the old dragon had simply seemed the least likely to snap at him. It was nothing like he had been told. When they had taken flight, he had felt more like a flea between the imense dragon's scales than a commanding rider, and he had not cared to renew the experience since. But how could he tell his brother that? "Do you want me to accompany you to the Dragonpit?"
"I don't want a dragon of the Pit. I want Caraxes."
Viserys opened wide eyes. Caraxes was a beast of war, a willful creature more like to bite his little brother in half. Of course, none of that would sway Daemon. "Caraxes is Uncle Aemon's."
"It's been half a year, he needs a new rider," Daemon stated with a confidence that Viserys had always marveled at. "He flew back to Dragonstone after our uncle died. That's where I want you to accompany me. Let's sail there tomorrow."
Viserys scoffed, though he noticed that his brother knew him well enough to know he would not take him on Balerion's back. "Daemon, I am to be married in two days."
"Caraxes is more interesting than your bride. Come on, you know it. You'll be spending the next years waiting for her to finally be weaned, surely it won't change anything to delay a fortnight."
Viserys pushed his brother's head, since he could not properly slap it. "Aemma has a sweet disposition and a kind heart. It's a good thing I'm the one marrying her and not you. You would terrify her with your temper."
"She's a baby," Daemon sneered.
"You're the same age!" Viserys laughed.
"I'm eight months older than she is. And she would be a baby even if it wasn't the case. If you had to marry a girl, it should have been Rhaenys," Daemon muttered. Viserys let out an uncomfortable laugh. "She's a dragon rider, she's flowered already, and the match would unite Father's line and Uncle Aemon's."
Viserys wondered who his little brother was parroting. In truth, such a union had once been considered. It was Aunt Jocelyn who had told both him and Rhae of it, and it was Grandfather who had refused the betrothal. To keep the line of succession clear of confusion, he had said. For that, Viserys loved him. Boring, complicated matters of succession aside, Rhaenys was a more dreadful thing than Balerion sometimes. Always shouting, laughing, teasing, three years his senior no less. It had been less of a challenge to mount the Conqueror's dragon than it would have been to mount her.
"Rhaenys is two years wed to Corlys Velaryon," he answered instead. It was best for Daemon to think him braver than he felt, sometimes.
"Who am I to marry, then? It seems we've run out of cousins."
Viserys raised an eyebrow. Could it be that Daemon's discontent with his marriage was caused by jealousy? "I'm sure Grandmother will arrange a great match for you. To a golden-haired Lannister, mayhaps. Or a Stark - she's always been fond of the Starks."
"Piss yellow hair and cunts frozen hard," Daemon pouted, pulling the cover to himself. "No thank you."
Viserys frowned, though he could hardly hold back a twitch of a smile his brother could not see. "Who taught you to speak like that?" he scolded, though he did not manage to do it as harshly as he perhaps should.
"Mother spoke like that," Daemon shrugged. "And Grandmother will do nothing of the sort. She hates me. If she makes me a match, it will likely be to a goat."
Again, Viserys raised an eyebrow to both statements. Mother had been the bawdy sort, he realized now that he was old enough, even bolder than Rhaenys, but she was dead and he doubted his brother remembered much anything of her. Perhaps the flights. That was what Viserys remembered best. It was the only thing he wanted to remember. Flying was beautiful when it was with her.
"Grandmother adores you. Of course she does. She only has so many grandsons, and only one as spirited as you."
Daemon did not answer. For a long while, they remained side by side in the dark, Viserys's mind wandering between Balerion, Meleys, his wild cousin, his wilder brother, sweet Aemma, without truly landing on any of them.
"Viserys?" The bedsheets shuffled as Daemon turned to him. "If I were a girl, do you think we would have been betrothed?"
Viserys frowned again. Daemon was bold, and he loved that in him, but sometimes his brother liked to dance a little too close to the edge of the cliff for him to be comfortable. "You and your questions," was all he managed to scoff.
"Mother and Father were. And I'm sure they were not even as close as we are."
It was clear by the silence that he was still waiting for a reply. As far as Viserys recalled, he had always though he might marry Aemma someday, even when she was but a babe in arms. But Daemon… Daemon was his brother. How could he imagine marrying him? No one had ever told him he should. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe."
"Would you like it?"
Viserys let out an uncomfortable laugh. "Would you?" he retorted.
Again the bedsheets shifted, and he felt the heat emanating from Daemon's body at his side. Something in him froze when he felt his brother's hand pressing on his chest, but he did not move until he felt two warm lips lightly touching the corner of his own mouth.
He raised an arm as a shield to push his brother back. "What do you think you're doing?" he whispered.
Bold Daemon was kind for once, and steadily moved his weight away Viserys's forearm. "Only verifying something." Viserys heard him smirk that wicked grin of his. "Aemma may suit you, Brother. But she does not complement you. You are kind, Viserys, and generous and fair, but you need a consort sharper than you are to keep you safe."
"A consort?" Viserys muttered. The entire lower half of his face was afire with the touch that had not been a kiss.
"For when you are king."
"Father will be king," Viserys heard himself correct, stupidly.
"And who after him? Rhaenys is a girl, and she sealed her fate by marrying her Velaryon snake. When Grandfather dies, if he ever does, Father will sit the Iron Throne, and you shall be Prince of Dragonstone. So keep people you can trust at your side."
Silence followed Daemon's statement. Who had he been reading, who had he been listening to, to speak so at barely twelve? Viserys never thought about the succession, not of his own volition at least. Why would his grandfather ever die?
"I think you should go back to bed, Daemon."
"I am abed."
"Your bed," Viserys insisted coldly. It felt so unnatural to him. "And if you speak of this to anyone, I swear, I will feed you to the Black Dread."
Daemon laughed, but he obeyed, which made it a soothing sound. "So be it. It's not like he can do much beside eating these days."
A weight slipped off his mattress, and footsteps walked away. Viserys refused to look at anything but the ceiling until he heard the door open and close again. In the ray of light from the hallway, his brother's silhouette was drawn on the wall.
Daemon, Daemon, you headache of a child. Hopefully he would eventually grow out of it.