Chapter Text
❝ FIRE DESTROYS THINGS SO COMPLETELY THAT WE FORGET WHAT ONCE WAS BUT IT IS THE SEA THAT REMEMBERS, THAT HOLDS ALL THOSE SAME THINGS CLOSE.❞
──── early 115 A.C
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
LADY LAENYS VELARYON
LAENYS VELARYON SUPPOSED she had always known how she would die, why she would die—to bring something into the world bigger than herself. For she had come into the world screaming, and she screamed for her first year. All day and all night, despite her mother's pleas, the little babe screamed and screamed and screamed.
She would scream because he saw the end of the Dragons, the end of her family, the end of herself. Before she had even opened her eyes, the babe had been cursed with the knowledge that wherever she ended up, she would find herself already there. That before Laenys even knew who she was, she had known how she died.
And it was this moment, this part of her life that would see her gone. Laenys had known ever since the little flame flickered to life inside her, when she first felt it take a bit of her everything—her soul, her dreams, anything that made her Lady Laenys Velaryon, eldest child of Rhaenys and Corlys, and the wife of Daemon Targaryen.
Her dreams came as they always did to the taste of salt and ash on her tongue. In them, her dragon screamed in mourning; she had seen her death long before the maester's whispered of her failing strength, of how it seemed like life was just being sapped out of her. Day by day she grew weaker, day by day she grew more resolved in her death.
It always started like this, her dragon roaring in mourning, a cradle soaked in blood, a child with eyes of the palest lilac with molten silver flickered throughout. This child wailed beneath shadows of worn wings vast enough to blot out the sun that roared in victory—a roar so deep and menacing it chilled Laenys to the bone. This child was hers. Theirs. Laenys did not know whether it was cruel or kind, how the gods had shown her it all at once.
Despite the fact that they had practically seen each other grow up, that they had spent many years together, Daemon never believed Laenys when it came to her dragon dreams. He would say "Dreams are a women's business," the words sharp and cutting, though his gaze would soften when it would meet hers, see the hurt in them.
Still, Laenys had seen the truth buried there—that he had never truly seen her at her core. Never quite as he saw the pale dragon-maiden he had always dreamed of. To him, she was the sea made flesh—dark, unfathomable, untamed. Beautiful perhaps, but not quite his kind of Valyrian beauty.
And yet. And yet when the fire burned brightest would he look at her as if he'd been the one caught in her tide.
She had wondered if the gods had erred in giving her these dreams. Why her, when it would've been better suited to her kin that saw only crowns and glory. But only as her body weakened, and the fire inside her burned brighter did she understand. It was her purpose, what she had been created for. The dream had never been a warning, only a promise.
A promise of a future that awaited her, of a future that came after her. The sea may take me, she thought, but the flame I bear will burn brighter than anything I could ever have hoped for.
The air in the birthing chamber was thick with anticipation and fear. The voices of her ladies in waiting began to blur- the calling for the maester, for milk of the poppy, for gods that did not answer. Would not, for this was what they wanted all along, what they had sought in creating her.
Laenys heard none of it. Her mind muddled, battling confusion and fear. She had been in labor for days. Laenys did not know how many, for she had lost count as she lost herself to pain and the fear of what was awaiting her. Her whole life had brought her to this one moment in time, a blip in the grand scheme of things.
Yet, the pain did not lift for it would be something she would have to bear. So she groaned, she cried, she screamed praying for relief from this nonstop torment. When would this end? She thought. Must I suffer too?
As the dawn had begun to break on the third day did her labors finally show some progression. The Maester was maybe a candle stick away from cutting her open like her poor good sister, the Kind Queen Aemma, when her groans of pain had begun to turn into wails of exhaustion as more burthing pains came over her.
The midwives, her chief lady in waiting, and a couple handmaidens stood around her as the Maester peered at her but she did not notice, delirious in pain she was. It was the new pain that was splitting her into two, white-hot and searing that she did. Laenys had reached for Daemon's hand before she recalled that he had absconded from the room once he made sure she was alright and that she was all alone.
"I am here, my lady," a melodic voice said, but she knew in the shake of the voice that Celina Celtigar was worried, truly worried. Celina Celtigar was her chief lady in waiting, and had been by her side since Laenys had first bled. But Laenys was so delirious that she had instead seen her mother in the silver-blonde and blue eyes of Celina, "muna?" she hoarsley called, "I am so very scared."
Celina had to look away for a moment to collect herself before she went back to comforting her lady, she spoke in as high spirits as she could manage, "Princess Rhaenys is resting, my lady."
Rhaenys was forced to rest by Corlys after she spent three days without sleeping to support their daughter through her labors. When she had laid down to rest, she could not fall asleep because the worry for Laenys was so very strong that the Maester had to give her some milk of the poppy.
Eventually, it was when her wails became screams that Daemon burst into the room. Almost silently, Celina acquiesced the position at Laenys' side so Daemon could be with her and retreated into the background.
The Prince's face was that of a storm with emotions flashing across his face as he processed. The one that appeared the most was fear, raw fear. I fear he knows it too, that he knows this is where we part.
With one last push the pain alleviated when the babe she had been carrying for nine moons slid into the world. She panted and held still in fear with the silence surrounding the room unbearable.
"Daemon," she spoke hoarsely, "is she alright?" Tears had begun to trail down her cheeks in fear that the child that she carried had perished. Her husband's gaze flickered, and for the briefest moment, she saw the man beneath the steel. The man that had stolen her heart and she married.
The man who had once smiled at her across the deck of the Sea Serpent, the prince who had kissed her under Velaryon sails and promised to give her the sky since she already had the sea covered. But she was no longer meant for the sky he had provided her in the dragon she had tamed. The sea was calling and it was irresistible.
She thought she would die without ever knowing if the babe had lived until a cry rose into the air, sharp and piercing and alive. Celina exclaimed excitedly, "She is a beauty!" The feeling of relief immediately overwhelmed her as her heart clenched, a fragile breaking thing. The midwife cleaned off the babe, her babe, before handing her to one of her handmaidens as the maester spoke to Daemon in quiet whispers but not quiet enough for her not to hear.
It...girl. Your wife.....fear...she...long...the world.
Laenys tried to reach for her child, to see the flame she had carried for so long. But her vision blurred into light and the world began to tilt.
Once sitting, she had now collapsed back onto the bed as her pants became shallow breaths, and those shallow breaths became wheezes. Life blood pooled in between her legs and the quiet sobs of the servants, Celina, and her haindmaidens filled her ears. In the last moment of her life, Laenys Velaryon caught her lord husband's gaze and spoke weakly, the grip on his hand unrelenting, "Do not let her forget me....tell her the sea remembers—that it will always remember."
And as the tide of her breath ebbed for the last time, the once frightening dragon's roar became a lullaby, not of the end, but the beginning