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Daemon Targaryen has never believed in magic, at least not in the strictest sense of the word — he knew magic had saved his family from extinction, but dreams had not made them kings, so there was no point in owing his life to meaningless imaginings.
Viserys was a victim of spending more time dreaming than awake, which had made him blind to the division he had created within his own family, to how he had fragmented the House of the Dragon until he had destroyed it from within.
Daemon was a realist, a trait he had to adopt because his brother had stolen all his dreaming abilities. Viserys' dreams had told him he would have a son, and in pursuit of this illusion, he had sacrificed everything he loved. His was a tragic sacrifice, only to realise that the son he so longed for was a myth, a hallucination, a cruel game of the gods. Viserys was not a dreamer, only a fool.
Whatever power they now had, they owed it all to the dragons, their most faithful allies. These majestic beings were the ones they had granted power, influence, and respect. Without the dragons, nothing truly separated the Targaryens from the common man.
Their blood was purer, their features finer and sharper, their beauty more ethereal, but these were all physical characteristics that gave nothing special to their cause. The beauty and grandeur of the ancient Valyrian empire would never be recovered; they were the last hope of what had once been a great civilisation.
Daemon loved those creatures more than he loved many people, perhaps the only exception being his brother and niece. His dragon was his faithful companion, his only companion. He had been exiled so many times from his own home that the only thing that had remained constant in his life was his dragon; it was the only being he would trust with his life with his eyes closed without hesitation.
Still, Daemon found himself wishing for Harrenhall's magic to invade him, to consume his mind and everything he had ever believed in. Not out of a masochistic spirit, not because he wanted to be tortured, not because he had developed a sadistic taste for pain.
The nightmares were starting to get annoying. He didn't sleep at night and daydreamed. All the people in his life tortured him: his mother, whom he had never gotten to know as he should have had the chance; his brother, who had never gotten to appreciate him, who had never gotten to trust him; even though Daemon would have killed for him without thinking, his second wife, who had died because of him, giving him the family he had longed for and hadn't been able to appreciate once he had it.
Seeing them, even in nightmares, filled a certain void in him, but the biggest one could only be filled by her.
He just wanted to meet her again, even if it was in his nightmares.
He would happily be tortured a thousand times more by the pleasure of touching her again, of feeling that she loved him again.
————
Rhaenyra had always been the most beautiful woman in the world to him. No one had ever been her equal anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, not even in the Free Cities, where Valyrian blood was not so rare. Daemon had known an abundance of considerable women, and yet his sweet niece had always far outnumbered them all.
It was not for nothing that he had named her the Realm's Delight, a nickname the common people had adopted, agreeing that his niece was as beautiful as she was sweet and generous.
He didn't mind others appreciating her beauty, even if he was slightly possessive. Rhaenyra had always been special to him. The one person, the one woman, who had ever had him bending his will to please her.
Many said Daemon was a fearsome, indomitable warrior, yet he had always followed Rhaenyra's every whim.
At first, Daemon had felt bad for looking at her with eyes beyond familiar. He knew the family history, he knew he shouldn't be upset by it—he wasn't upset by it in the slightest, which was a problem in itself—but he couldn't help but feel like a monster. Not because he was her uncle but because she was good. She was pure. She trusted him like no one had ever before, and he would eventually break that trust.
It was only a matter of time.
————
A younger version of Rhaenyra stands staring back at him. She is wearing her wedding dress, and her hair is braided in jewelled braids. Daemon can feel her breathing and hear her heart's racing beat, synchronised with his own.
“Why?” Rhaenyra asks, her eyes filled with tears, filled with pain. “Why do you insist on abandoning me? Why when all I have ever done is love you?”
Daemon wants to explain that he never wanted to leave her. That leaving her makes the air heavier and his chest ache. That leaving her makes him want to drown himself in alcohol and die. Leaving her is right, but he doesn't want to do the right thing.
He leaves because he doesn't know how to do anything else not to disappoint her even more.
And yet he tries. For her. Because she deserves better.
Because abandoning her is his way of showing her that he cares more about her than he's ever cared about anyone else.
————
Daemon cannot leave her for long, and that is how he condemns her to a life of suffering, uncertainty, and insecurity.
No one can love a man as unpredictable as him, not even her.
————
Rhaenyra had borne him his first child, though Daemon had been acting as a father for several years. Rhaenyra had hoped for a girl, having had three healthy, strong boys. She had always had a certain favouritism for women, wishing that all of her mother's pregnancies would be with girls she could call sisters.
Her sons were honourable lads. They had all his wife's best qualities: her good heart, gentle touch, and sound reasoning. Daemon had taken it seriously to be a good male figure for them, for they deserved no less, and he liked to see Rhaenyra's pleased smile as she watched them spar in the courtyard or learn High Valyrian in the hall.
He had never wanted to be a father. Children were irritable creatures, and he didn't have the patience to put up with them.
His daughters were fine, he supposed. They didn't get too close to him. Daemon didn't know if it was because they could sense he wasn't emotionally available to them during their years in Pentos or because of something else. He'd never bothered to find out.
Laena had assured him that she understood and that it was okay if his mind and heart were elsewhere, but Daemon knew his daughters saw him more as a stranger than a father.
He didn't know how to give a word of comfort. He wasn't prone to saying I love you. He didn't have the patience to put up with their cries, or listen to their conversations, or be a father. His daughters often reminded him of what he had left behind, of what he no longer had.
Rhaenyra had redefined that, too. The concept of love, of family. She had been patient with him, as only she could be.
She had looked at him with teary eyes and a bright smile when she had made him put his hands on her belly to announce that she was pregnant.
How could Daemon not want to be a father like that?
—————
Daemon begins to think that remembering the happy times with Rhaenyra is worse than the nightmares in which she despises him.
It hurts more to remember that there was a time when they were happy.
It's hard to remember that there was a time when he had everything, and now he has nothing.
—————
“I want another,” Rhaenyra asks.
Daemon is confused. He's not in Harrenhall but in the room, they share at Dragonstone. Or that they shared. It was the same room where they had argued and finally parted ways for good.
Rhaenyra is wearing nothing but a nightgown, her breasts showing through, and he just wants to touch her. He wants to feel her again, but he can't move. He is forced to stand in the corner, watching the scene without being part of it.
“I want a baby girl, Daemon,” Rhaenyra pleads, her eyes staring into his.
He had never been able to deny her anything, even if reason told him that continuing like this was not the right thing to do. They had lived five years of happiness on Dragonstone, but the bubble would one day have to burst; one day, they would have to realise that the enemies who took advantage of their happiness to plunge them into misery were stronger than they thought.
Someday, far away.
"Whatever you ask of me, my love," he managed to say, but his stomach turned into knots.
—————
Rhaenyra doesn't write to him, and he doesn't plan to write to her. They both share that stubbornness. It had been a problem in their years of marriage, but they had never taken it as far as now.
Daemon receives letters from Ser Alfred, from Baela, from Jacaerys. None of her.
They all ask him to return, see reason, and leave the disputes behind.
He would like to do so, but the only person he loves doesn't ask him to return. Maybe she doesn't want him by her side anymore. Maybe she's realised that she's better off without him.
—————
“Daemon!” The scream is deafening, the pain in her voice audible even from a distance.
Daemon feels his heart clench, and his stomach churn. Rhaenyra’s cry after saying his name makes him close his eyes and hold back his own tears.
He’s not in Harrenhall anymore. He’s back in Dragonstone, back home, where he feels like he belongs, but there’s a sad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’s back home, planning the war, leaving her alone as she struggles to bring their daughter into the world.
You left me while I laboured alone in my bed chamber.
Her words are like a sharp knife right now. The pain with which she’d said them, the way her eyes filled with instant tears.
Rhaenyra was excited to finally have a girl. He wanted a child with her, too, a girl who looked like his wife, had her eyes, features, and lips, whose hair was soft, long, and straight, like Rhaenyra's.
He had loved each of the children they shared, they had always been welcomed with joy, but there was a special joy in this pregnancy. That joy did not match Rhaenyra's cries now.
"Daemon!" she cried again, desperate.
Did she just want him to be as he had always been by her side? Or did she just want him not to plan war? What good would it do to be by her side if he did not secure Dragonstone from any future danger?
His place was in the hall, ensuring the safety of his family.
—————
Rhaenyra continues crying, and now Daemon finds himself in front of the Dragonstone maester, who looks at him with worried eyes.
“She is losing too much blood,” the maester announces, his tone pained. Everyone adores Rhaenyra, no one wants to see her suffer like this. They all remember what happened to the late Queen Aemma and they don’t want to see her go through the same thing. “We must make a decision, my prince.”
Daemon hadn't wanted to approach the maester. He didn't want to be given choices. He didn't want to make decisions. His brother had made a choice, too, and he'd chosen poorly. The maesters would not think of Rhaenyra, but of the child she was failing to bring into the world. They would look him in the eye and ask him to sacrifice the mother to save the child.
He couldn’t sacrifice Rhaenyra. He wouldn’t. Never.
“What do you suggest?” he finally asked.
“If we make an incision, the princess might—”
“No,” Daemon said immediately. “No. No. No.”
The maester stares at him as Daemon spirals into darkness.
—————
"I just wanted you to be with me."
Rhaenyra's image is bleak. Her nightgown is covered in blood around her stomach; her body is sweaty, and her face is tired. Her hair, always soft and silky, sticks to her face with sweat. Her eyes, always full of life, have none of it.
She carries the body of their dead child in her arms. She has dragon scales, and is far from the child Daemon had dreamed of.
Rhaenyra rocks her as if she were alive, and Daemon wonders, not for the first time since setting foot in Harrenhall, if he is finally mad. If he has succumbed to madness. If the lack of the woman he loves has finally broken him.
He wishes. That would be easier.
“I didn’t need you to go to war for me,” Rhaenyra told him. “I just needed you to be by my side. As my husband. I could have died, and you wouldn’t even have been there.”
The prince's eyes immediately fill with tears.
"I couldn't, Rhaenyra. I couldn't see you like that."
"Hold your daughter, uncle."
Daemon hesitates but holds out his arms for Rhaenyra to give him the small, limp baby. It's covered in blood, and his clothes are stained, but he doesn't care. This should be different. This should never have happened.
Rhaenyra should have her baby girl.
Rhaenyra should have had him by her side, supporting her, whispering that everything would be okay. He had left her alone, abandoned her again.
“I’m sorry,” Daemon said, feeling the words slipping off his tongue without him having any control. “I’m so sorry, my love. I couldn’t imagine… I don’t want to lose you. I didn’t want to be asked to make an impossible choice. I can’t…”
Rhaenyra looks at him with understanding, with love, with sweetness. Daemon wants her to always look at him like that.
“I know, my love, but you can’t keep running away from difficult situations,” Rhaenyra tells him. “Sometimes I just need my husband. Not the warrior, not the scoundrel, not Daemon Targaryen. Just my husband.”
————
Daemon swallows his pride the next day and asks for ink and paper to write to his wife.
His nightmares may be right. Rhaenyra may only need a husband, and he has only ever been a warrior. He has stood up for her right, for her life, and he intends to continue to do so, but what good will it do him if the woman he loves is lost in the madness of loss, with no one to lean on, no husband to anchor her?
He would rather die than see the day when Rhaenyra is not Rhaenyra.
So he writes asks for her forgiveness, and begs her to accept Daemon back as soon as he gets the army he has promised her.
And when the reply letter arrives, smelling of Rhaenyra, with the words in High Valyrian, Daemon sighs with relief.
All is not lost.