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“What makes you happy?”
Her teacher has proclaimed that it is circle time and Rhaenyra’s class has duly formed a lopsided oval that the same teacher, too far into term and far too frazzled from catering to the fickle whims of London’s richest families and their special little darlings, can no longer bring herself to correct. Positioned at one end of their oval, Rhaenyra can feel Alicent’s knee, knobbly, familiar, vibrating with nervous energy, pressed against her thigh; the girl huddled close enough for the sugar high of Alicent’s morning crepe to tingle on Rhaenyra’s tongue.
Their teacher clears her throat, sweeps her gaze across the group, and repeats herself. Brittle cheer chased by a lingering tang of desperation.
“What makes you happy, children?”
Miss. Florent does not, on reflection, look particularly happy herself. Eyes slightly manic, glasses askew, braid loose. Rhaenyra slides a hand over her own braid, meticulously sectioned and woven together by her mother that very morning to create a tight pattern of intricate swirls that swoop and sway against her back. A dragon’s tail. Like any dragon, she has had to defend her treasure already today, fighting off many a sticky hand as her classmates, envious and curious in equal measure, tried to fondle, stroke and pull at the silky silver twisting down her spine.
A chorus of answers dutifully ring out to soothe their teacher’s soul: My hamster. My dog. My horse. My mummy. My art lessons with Banksy. Visiting our holiday home in the Maldives.
Silence falls as the rhythmic chant reaches her neighbour, already coiling and twisting a strand of her hair around her finger, tight auburn locks against pale, squeezed skin.
“Alicent, what makes you happy?” A gentle coax of encouragement. Rhaenyra lends a less delicate hand, or rather elbow, nudged pointedly into her friend’s bony side.
“I like… I like to have tea with my dolls.”
A breath of relief from their teacher and a sigh of disappointment from Rhaenyra. Alicent’s mouth flickers from smile to frown and back again, a weather vane of emotion, unsure of whose approval to swing towards: the adult or her best, and perhaps only, friend.
Rhaenyra is no longer invited to have tea with Alicent’s dolls. The incredibly particular arrangement of her table; the frilliest of snowy white petticoats and painted on smiles of her numerous china dolls; the fixed ritual of serving the tea, then the biscuits and then opening talk around the latest events in her dolls’ social calendar runs too contrary to Rhaenyra’s own doll tea parties. Raucous, frivolous affairs often attended by an assortment of stuffed animals; her dearly departed goldfish’s ashes and her 22 year old brother. Catered for by the family cook with sugary delicacies and copious jam, the events have been known to descend into anarchy, especially when her brother pretends to slip rare golden nectar from their parents’ liquor cabinet into the tea. Drunk dragons falling headfirst into the jam pot had left Alicent aghast and appalled rather than a giggling ball of delight like her blonde host.
The teacher nods her approval, gestures for the circle to resume its ceremonial turn taking and a sea of eyes swing to Rhaenyra. The spotlight hovers on her.
What makes her happy?
“Daemon.”
All eyes swing back to Miss. Florent; bodies lean forward in anticipation, a school of infant fish contorting their circle further. Rhaenyra has been warned about this: not every answer can lead back to her brother; not every story needs to feature a dashing prince named Daemon; not every piece of artwork needs to include his silver hair, his violet eyes.
Frown lines have etched their way across her teacher’s forehead, faint and wavering, unsure, and her lips twitch once, twice, three times, shaping and discarding potential replies to her young charge. Better to finish her answer now, Rhaenyra decides, before Miss. Florent remembers how to teach.
“Everything about him makes me happy, even his toes make me happy.” Her eyes are wide, innocent; her tone unfalteringly earnest. She has recently been informed by the girls in her class that toes are, in fact, gross.
Daemon’s aren’t, though, especially when he lets her place her feet over his, when her hands disappear within his warm grip, so he can waltz her around Dragonstone’s dusty ballroom. Ancient stone fire breathers bedecked in their cobweb finery playing the role of captive audience as she is twirled across the dance floor until the room spins and spirals and the dragons dive from their perches and swoop over her. Until her brother has to hold her in place so she can catch her breath and she feels his toes wiggle within their cashmere prison, still dancing to the beat of the song that threads and weaves through their veins. They have never played music during their dance parties for two and yet the same melody has swept Rhaenyra up every time.
Now, however, she hears only a distant snigger, and her skin prickles under Alicent’s gaze, confused, alarmed, anxious. But Alicent is always like that, doe-eyed and glassy, and one laugh hardly matters. She’s a Targaryen. Even at six, she understands the social cache of that name. Her back straightens, her chin tilts and her lips part from their pout.
“Maybe most of my friends don’t know what it’s like to have an adult brother but I do and it’s better than owning a unicorn .” Her voice is smug, triumphant, declarative, and she delights in the weighty pause, the collective breath her class draws in before she delivers the final word, eking out each syllable of the creature’s fantastical name. She knows how precious the unicorn card is. She could only ever use it for Daemon.
Technically, she has two adult brothers but she’d definitely trade Viserys for a unicorn.
She’d trade Viserys for a normal horse. Maybe even a donkey.
Owning one would make her a shoe-in for the role of Mary in this year’s nativity, after all.
Her musings are interrupted; the clipped tone of authority finally restored to their teacher as she seeks to brush this latest interruption under the rainbow bright surface of their classroom carpet.
“I- well, just like Jeyne feels happy with her mummy, Rhaenyra is happy with a family member, too. How lovely. Family time is so special. Shall we move on?”
No, Rhaenyra thinks, not like Jeyne at all.
xxx
The home time struggle of bodies and coats; the eager calls of children to their responsible adult and the keen anticipation of an afternoon snack or a trip to the park presses around Rhaenyra as she perches on the step outside her classroom. The cool, damp stone soaks into her woollen tights but her gaze is unwavering on the school gate, a constant stream of uniformed nannies, Birkin toting mothers and black-suited chauffeurs flowing in and out.
He’s always five minutes late. He always makes sure Alicent and whichever Hightower relation or employee has been sent to collect her are only a speck of fiery red curls in the distance by the time he swaggers through the gate. Sometimes, she thinks he might be somewhere out there the whole time, his imposing figure magically concealed from view, watching her wait.
She registers his movement first, more feline than human with his long, languid stroll through the gates; then the suit jacket, impeccably tailored, slung carelessly over one shoulder and the shirt, freshly pressed this morning, untucked slightly, already clocked off for the day. As he nears, the details are finally shaded in and she sees the newest, unwelcome addition to the face she has mapped out with her eyes and fingers so many times over so many years, every valley and peak is a land of its own within her mind. A tiny furrow is nestled between his brow, a minute anxiety against the smooth, remote marble of his forehead.
Daemon has been fired again. Or rather, Targaryens are not fired , they are simply invited to seek other employment opportunities elsewhere. Her brother has the unfixed gaze of a man contemplating how to let down their father yet again. Their jovial, optimistic, unfailingly supportive father. Another familial connection scorched rather than forged deeper by the flames of his own child.
Rhaenyra launches herself from her lookout spot and wraps her arms around him; fingertips barely grazing against the broad expanse of his back; her face pressed against the silky sheen of his shirt and the warm strength of his abdomen. His body sags ever so slightly against hers, invisible to their audience but palpable to Rhaenyra, and she feels the heavy weight of his hands knot against the back of her neck, fingers toying with the strands of her braid.
“Hello, Princess, did you miss me?” His words are light, teasing and yet, deep within its timbre, there is the slightest strain to his voice, a note of discord that her ears prick against.
“Yes, but I gave up my unicorn for you.” She does not elaborate but the quirk of his lips, sensed rather than seen, and the bemused hum that rumbles from deep within his chest are sufficient.
While Rhaenyra understands the importance of money for funding her lifestyle of paint, tiaras and jam, she has never particularly enjoyed Daemon having a job. Not only does it impinge on their daily routine of pickups and drop offs at school but her parents have gone so far as to suggest that he might use his income to move out of the family home . Such a threat had launched Rhaenyra’s many and varied attempts at employment sabotage from turning off his morning alarm on his phone to hiding his favourite tie (purchased by his favourite sister, adorned with his favourite scarlet dragons). She would do anything if it means he stays. If it means his hand in hers as they walk home from school each day.
Released from his embrace, she claims his hand now as compensation, her fingers wrapped around his thumb, his fingers enclosed around hers pressing them to the warmth of his palm. A lock within a lock. His claim wrapped around her claim.
In the distance, she sees her teacher spot Daemon, a tell-tale pink tinging her cheeks, her hand lifting to smooth her hair, her lips parting and Rhaenyra is quick to tug her hand, his hand, their hands.
“Time to go home. My dragons told me last night that they want to have a tea party.” She declares: the authority in her voice and the steady pull of her small body coaxing her brother away from her teacher, and away from any discussions of ‘allowing Rhaenyra to branch out away from her family. To form her own personality’ All while her teacher quite desperately tries to branch into her family.
“Who am I to stand in the way of dragons who lunch?” Daemon cocks an eyebrow, laughter dancing in his eyes, and he casts Miss. Florent one, fleeting look, shrugging and feigning helplessness under the weighty demands of a six year old girl.
Only once they have left the school building behind, the chatter and calls of the playground fading into the mumble and grumble of the city; its old man façade nestled back into the grey stone blur of central London, does Rhaenyra ask the question which has sat on the tip of her tongue all day.
“Daemon, what makes you happy?”
There is no need to pause, no moment to think. It feels as though his response is spoken with the same, shared breath as her question.
“You.”