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Aerion was a rather small child. Looking back, Daeron is almost certain that despite Egg’s constantly referenced diminutive size, Aerion, at Eggs age, was the same height if not smaller. None of their fathers broad shoulders and stature. A nest of white hair, soft and gentle and dainty features. Reminiscent of their mother The serene Lady Dyanna.
He was sharp, even in youth. Daeron will never claim otherwise. But he had an innocence. Wide eyed, gentle featured, quicker than a hare. He’d run through the halls causing havoc. He’d pester Daeron for stories, sit at his heels like a dog unabashed.
“Feckless energy that one.” Pointless, directionless and chaotic. Ultimately, Aerion started harmless. He liked fishing. When he was too little and short, small legs rushing to keep up with Daeron's slightly longer stride, he hadn’t been allowed to fish by himself. He’d plead with Daeron, and then with that budding arrogance threaten.
It had been cute at the time. Charming, pearly little baby teeth bared in a pantomime of snarl, small little white head. “Go with me or else!” Temper tantrums. Easily pleased and dismissed. Daeron had loved pleasing his brother once.
“Alright, alright. But we best hurry before I change my mind.” Easy to please. Harmless. Aerion had a beautiful smile.
The Aerion in front of him is not that.
Daeron thinks he has seen his brother go in pieces. Like Aerion has torn off thick pieces of himself in some mad chase to find scales beneath bleeding flesh. He’d find no success, there’s only blood there– and a human heart Aerion seems dead set on clawing out.
I dreamt I was flying. Aerion had said, too little, eyes too bright. And there were flames in my blood and in my mouth.
“Is this what you wanted?” Daeron finds himself asking, low. His head pounds something awful. His mouth feels dry. His brother is prone on his bed, bandages wrapped around him. His face is swollen and cut. Sometimes when Aerion smiled with blood in his mouth he looked like a serpent. It looked like he wanted more of it. It was no kind expression, it was glee bled to sadism. It was a woman's gentle hand in his own, bent back and sharp, careless and proud. This had started because of Aerion's brutality. It had borne from his bloodlust.
“You know me better than that.” Is the response, strangely dull. Quiet through a stiff busted mouth. Aerion is looking up, Daeron thinks. It’s hard to see with his eyes looking as if they'd been stuffed.
The cut along his own cheek and ear pulse with a dull sort of pain, like sympathy.
“Do I?” Daeron can’t bring himself to raise his voice. He doesn’t mean to be cruel either, that’s Aerion's job. Still, Aerion lets out a quiet little hiss like Daeron’s said something harmful. Like he’d poked his bruised face. It’s a quiet thing, quick and stinging. It's nebulous.
He steps closer, to look at his brother. Pale, looking closer to a corpse than he normally should. Death was here recently, and Daeron doesn’t know if he should be grateful that Aerion had been passed by. He sees a sliver of a pale iris, looking at him now through the thick of risen skin. He doesn’t recognize the look in his brother's eye.
“Our Lord Father was looming at your bedside.” Daeron says. Because he doesn’t know what else to say. He and Aerion have reached a point where they stopped talking to one another. Daeron doesn’t know what Aerion likes to talk about besides his dogged obsession with dragons that drives him closer to madness by the minute.
“I know.” Says Aerion. Toneless. Daeron doesn’t know how to talk to his brother. When he blinks hard, closes his eyes, for a moment too long he can see him. Younger, face still rounded and gentleness, the capability of it– still present.
He thinks of his brother now who had challenged an innocent man to a trial of seven. Who had caused Baelor's death, who had caused their fathers grief over and over again, who had shamed their house. Who had hurt them. Daeron, and Aemon and Aegon.
“Have you nothing to say?” And Daeron can’t help the sharpness of his words. Can’t help the quiet plea. He had asked, this morning, staring into Ser Dunc’s eyes–which had been furious in their blue– if he would take Aegon. Take his youngest brother away. He is tired and perhaps in the mood to drive all of his brothers away.
“He’s sending me away. Isn’t he.” It's dry. There’s no shame. The closest he can get is apparently resignation. Like a beaten dog. Daeron wonders if Aerion were to accidentally kill one of his brothers, like their father had– if he would feel even half as guilty. He wonders if Aerion is capable of it. If he was ever capable of it.
Aerion was a glad boy once. He had told Ser Dunc so, and that had been true. The boy was loving, loyal and excitable. But he never did show regard to things or people that didn’t strike his interest. When he’d run through the halls bowling over a pregnant noblewoman, he had to be coaxed into apologizing, and even so he only did because Daeron promised to take him out riding the next day. It hadn’t seemed cruel then. Only childish, and immature. Harmless, and oh, how much had Daeron overlooked as harmless because his brother had charmed him so.
“The free cities. Lys, probably.” Daeron informed him. Aerion exhaled, slow and measured. Daeron wondered if his ribs were broken or bruised.
“I suppose you all will be happy to send me away.” Liliting, a little drunken. Strange, coming from his prideful brother.
“You caused this.” Daeron reminded. A dragon felled and its unimaginable reach cut short. The future of the entire kingdom irrevocably changed due to arrogance and pride.
“So?” It was spit. Lisped, through teeth. Unrepentant always. Daeron kneeled gently by the bed. Something like grief filling him, dizzying.
He was usually too drunk to deal with all of this, and he was sadly horribly sober right now. He would remedy that soon. But not yet.
Aerion’s forehead is warm, clammy with a bit of sweat from pain. He rests his palm there for a moment, before smoothing his younger brother's hair back. Aerion’s first breath is hitched and the next a gentle release. Daeron can feel him ease slightly beneath his hand.
Aerion had always been an affectionate boy. A byproduct of his ceaseless energy no doubt.
“We all wished you were someone redeemable.” He smooths white hair back, it’s soft, if not a little sticky. “But you cannot change who you are, can you?”
“What spite you leave me with.” It’s breathed. “We are more alike than pleases you.” Daeron withdrawals his hand. Something acrid crawling up his throat. Like all cruelties Aerion deals, it’s casual. He stands, ready to leave, ready to find the bottle and drink himself stupid. When a hand snares around his wrist. “You would leave me? To Lys? To rot?” Hardly. Lys is far from the worst place to be sent to. But it’s a distance away. And it is not their home.
“What is being done to you is no choice of mine. Merely the result of your own actions.”
“Coward.” The hand still hangs around his wrist like Daeron is a prisoner kept from escaping, this shackle, his little brother whom he can’t shake free.
“You will be alright.” He says, because he is a coward, and cannot leave having only said bitter truths to his brother. He lacks the stomach for it. Aerion has no such qualms, because he stays quiet and when Daeron pulls away, the hand around his wrist gives with surprising ease. “You will be alright, Aerion.” The scoff he hears is wet and childish.
Daeron still remembers the child that hugged around his legs. That sat directly on his shoes like he was attempting to merge with him, melt into his very skin. Eyes wide as Daeron told him stories of their ancestors and the great beasts they flew upon. Whose first large fish that they decided to keep, he had shared. Greedy child that he was, in seriousness he had turned and offered half– the smaller half granted– of his boon. A child's greatest treasure caught by his own hook.
Before he can lose his nerve, or drown in an odd feeling of guilt, he turns quickly. Leans over and presses a gentle doting kiss on his brother's slick forehead. He never was good at having any sort of moral backbone. Daeron is a coward and a drunk afterall.
“Leave me.” His brother snarls. And it sounds like a plea.
– – –
Aegon doesn’t tell Daeron he’s going to run off. Daeron knows anyway because he’s not stupid. But because Daeron isn’t the cruel one he doesn’t address Aegon's lack of subtlety, out loud anyways and instead, kindly offers–
“Do you need a hand in shaving your hair, littlest brother?” Eggs hand goes up to his bald head, rubs over it gently and self consciously. He’s been doing it the whole time, ever since his hair started growing back. Aegon and Aerion are both smaller built than he, and they both have the Targaryen white hair, something Aegon despises for the very same reason Aerion adores.
Stupidly, Aegon had asked once. “Do I look like him?” And thoughtlessly and drunk, Daeron had replied.
“Of course, you are brothers.” He had been ignorant to the expression on Aegon’s face. It may be for the better that he didn’t glimpse it.
“Father doesn’t like me bald.” Aegon is saying quietly.
“But you think it suits you? And who am I to deny my littlest brother's joy?”
“You're nice when you’re not drunk.” Aegon is saying in that gentle child way of his, like the words aren’t something bigger and harmful. Daeron isn’t a mean drunk, but he’s a mindless one, and he’s absent and maybe miserable.
“My hands are steady when I’m not drunk.” Daeron corrects blithely.
“Do you think it suits me?” Daeron thinks Aegon shouldn’t be ashamed of the hair that grows from his head, but because he is not drunk, and Aerion lays pained in rooms away, he says instead:
“Yes, it goes with your nickname too. Egg.”
“My head doesn’t look like an egg!” The outrage is childish, gentle, harmless.
“It does a bit. A big egg. There’s nothing wrong with eggs you know.”
“I know that.” Aegon is puffing hands clenched around his head like he’s trying to ward off Daeron's teasing. He’ll be better far away from here, Daeron knows, with certainty. It’s too late for Aerion who still wants to climb back into the poisonous wound that is their home, but the fresh air and Aegon's knight, tall as a giant that one– will do his youngest brother well. Will protect this gentle harmless youth that Daeron should’ve cherished more in his other brothers. He is just starting to learn that it’s such an easily squashed thing, innocence.
Aegon is not Aerion, but his dreams of their future end much the same, in fire. Blotted away by something like madness and heat and searing ruin.
He takes Aegon's head in his palms, runs it over the fine hair. “We’ll need a wet cloth and some soap.” So the shave will be clean and smooth, no bumps upon his little brother's head, a farewell gift from Aegon's foolish, useless drunken elder.
He’s glad Aegon found Ser Duncan. And beyond this gladness is the sharp bite of shameful jealousy. That Aegon turned to this stranger for support and guidance and not him.
He reminds himself snidely, in a voice rather similar to their fathers, that he had passed out half dead from alcohol in an inn along the way and hadn’t even noticed Egg's absence until a dream had roused him. That he had ignored Aerion's harassment of their littlest brother, that Daeron never demonstrated himself as someone Aegon could turn to.
He thinks he met Ser Duncan in that inn. He thinks he saw a flash of that steady baby blue. It’s hard to know, the world had been shifting like dream sand and he had felt the awful pull of sickness and sleep and a resounding sense of doom. Get Away from Me
He runs his hand over his brother's head. Aegon leans into it trusting, despite the blade in his hand, despite the fact that Daeron knows he hasn’t done anything to warrant this trust, this care anyways.
Aegon lets out a soft hum. He’s a sweet boy, Daeron had noticed, peripherally, that he had become unhappy, skittish. Something bitter growing in his eyes. He hadn’t done anything about it because he had thought ‘oh well, that’s just how it goes.’ Even soft spoken Aemon had fled in his own way. Distanced and gone.
The light in his eyes is back as if it hadn’t almost been stifled out. As if Daeron hadn’t almost allowed it to be so.
“You seem happier.”
“I am.” Aegon has always been an unnervingly verbose child. Smarter than Daeron at that age certainly. Aegon and Aemon both took to knowledge like fish to the sea.
“You’re leaving then.” Egg freezes. Daeron can actually feel him tense under his hand. “I won’t tell anyone Egg.” He scoffs, trying to gentle everything with humor that isn’t present. By the seven he could go for a drink, so very badly.
“I want to leave.” Aegon says, serious and his little eyebrows are drawn together. He really is, stunningly young. “I need to.” A pause. “Our Father doesn’t understand.”
“He loves you.” Daeron corrects, because Maekar loves them dearly but he’s a wreck about it, just like their entire family. Stumbling blind.
“I…know.” Aegon says, unsurely. Like he doesn’t know, or he doesn’t know as Daeron does.“I love him as well but I can’t stay here. I want to squire for Ser Dunc.”
“And it will be so.” Daeron tells him. For lack of anything else to say. Aegon gives him a brief bright little smile before an impish look crosses his face. He has relaxed again under his hold.
“Are you going to finish cutting my hair? Or shall I only be half bald.”
“You treat your knight with this attitude?” Daeron tsks, manhandling Aegon's head to get to his other side, dutifully resuming his ministrations. Aegon lets out a little chuckle. It’s such a bright sound. It belongs far from here. “I’ll miss you a bit.” He says and the smile grows. Just a little.
– – –
They’re preparing to leave, there's the normal unorganized shuffling and checking and his Lord father, leans heavy at his desk chair.
“You’re unusually sober." He comments, not meanly but bluntly. Daeron knows where he got that particular trait from. He wonders if a younger, brasher version of his father ever got in half as much trouble as he for opening his mouth and incidentally spewing something stupid. Granted, Maekar has the Targaryen hair, so most probably would know who he is. Daeron can sulk unkempt in a corner like a common lowborn.
“Thank you.” Daeron says idly. “I plan to remedy that soon.”
“Daeron.” And it’s a sigh, heavy and worn. He had been young once too. Young even, when he’d had Daeron. Daeron is older than his father was when he had him now. Daeron can’t imagine caring for children, he can barely care for his brothers right.
His father is mourning something awful, and Daeron’s seen it, in little glimpses, enough to know that Maekar Targeryn will never quite stop grieving for his brother. (Daeron doesn’t think he will either).
“Fear not.” He says. “I plan a sober and miserable journey back.” Dour faces all of them. The cut on his face throbs just slightly. He knows liquor might chase the pain away. He ignores that particular temptation.
“What do you think.” His father says, haltingly and awkward. “Of Ser Duncan?”
“Tall.” Say Daeron helpfully. At the scathing silence he’s greeted with, and perhaps the slight sympathy to know that if he’s having an awful day, somehow his father is having a worse one– he continues. “Honest, like the knights of story. Just, truly. I suppose, a good man.” Very blue eyes.
“Virtues most of my sons lack it seems.” Said dryly, with an air of defeat. It stings a little, but only a bit. Daeron knows his father probably didn’t mean for him to hear that, knows that despite his qualms Maekar would lay his life down for every single one of them. This mad tournament for Aerion has shown that at the very least.
“Aemon and Aegon are quite sweet.” Daeron feels the need to comfort? Maekar glances up at him. His eyes are bloodshot, sharp and mournful.
“You don’t even defend yourself?”
“I hardly need defending.” A coward is what he is, and he knows it. His father knows it too. While Aerion has many vices, cowardice is not one of them. He’d taken after their father in that way, a bold audacity. Aemon is brilliant and brave in his own way. He’s not afraid to do what he pleases and it seems Aegon isn’t either. They all have such a clear path they know they want to follow.
Daeron wonders if it’s only he and Aerion who are aimless. His brother distracts himself with fanaticism, he with booze.
“Your sweet brother tried to… I don’t know…” Maekar sighs it’s heavy and defeated and the room feels vaguely claustrophobic. “He had a knife in his hand and he was walking towards Aerion while he slept.”
Daeron finds himself a mix of aghast and begrudgingly impressed. Aegon certainly is no coward. His second thought is gladness that Aegon is leaving, knifing a man in his sleep is such a thing to do.
If Aegon were to stay here Daeron wonders if that would have been the first step in his descent. In a spiral that Daeron would only now know to watch for. The first inch of cruelty on the knotted rope. Targaryens will make a man out of a boy. And the man would be everything violent and beautiful and rotten.
“They always hated that they looked a bit alike, didn't they?” His joke is in poor humor. His father knows it but doesn’t rebuff him, as he should, as he would.
“They’re brothers.” Maekar says, quietly defeated. What it would be, Daeron wonders, to be able to mourn your brother so easily and unconsciously.
Mourning Baelor is expected. It is reasonable and tragic. Daeron loved the man quite a lot himself. Mourning someone like Aerion is its own set of ugly contradictions. Maekar's children will never have the love for one another that Maekear and Baelor had. Daeron wonders if his father is just now realizing that. That simply being ‘brothers’ does not promise an ocean of deep love and support.
“Do not judge Aegon.” Daeron says, a bit audaciously. Counseling his own father. How out of character. He’s usually too deep in his cups to talk much wisdom to anyone. “Aerion was horrid to him.”
“I would not.” Maekar pleads. Like he needs to absolve himself of this guilt, to Daeron specifically. To his oldest son. “I love Aegon.”
“You can love someone and judge them plenty, Father.” It’s more pointed than he means it to be. He doesn’t mind that his father judges him, not truly. Because he does know Maekar loves them.
Maekar’s brow furrows in such blatant grief as he stands, strides around his desk. He is taller than Daeron, none of his sons have quite the height of their father.
He pulls Daeron into his arms fiercely. one hand on his lower back the other cradles the back of his neck pressing Daeron’s head into his collar, his thumb stroking the nape of his neck there gently. he holds him there, warm and firm for a moment. When he pulls back he surveys Daeron closely, hand still firmly on his shoulder gentle and warm and grounding.
“I do not look at any of my sons with judgment.” He says, sounding sure in a way that he hasn’t in the recent days. Steadier too, this is a universal truth to him. “I worry, and I anger, and I love, but it is not on me to judge any of you. By what metric would I? By what way could I? There is no scale, nor chart, no listing of things enough to contain my children. The list of virtues is too short, the list of vices perhaps not long enough.” There’s a brief spark of humor in his eyes at that, although it’s quickly dulled. “You were small once, in my arms and in the arms of your mother. Whatever judgement I could cast would only be unto myself.”
“You were a good father.” Daeron says, quietly. He doesn’t know the last time he got such an embrace from the man. He doesn’t know if it was for him, or for Maekar. “We do, all love you.”
“I know.” Maekar says.
“And we know you love us in return.”
“Good.” It’s said with unimaginable firmness and unimaginable fragility.
Daeron hates how their house is plagued by fire. He hates how sometimes, he will wake from a dream having heard his fathers hoarse screams in his ears. How Aerion, an older version by voice alone will call out to him and how he knows he will not be there. How Aemon will weep and mourn alone, and how Aegon will also be caught in the swathes of some great fire.
He climbs on his horse. Aerion is in a cart in front of them. Miserable. Daeron wonders if he talked to their father, or if they are both too shamed to do so. He wonders if Aerion will be alright, or if he’s lied to his brother. Selfishly, he hopes Aerion will be.
Selfishly too, he hopes Egg has gotten enough of a headstart before their father notices. That Daeron will have won him enough time away, so that the littlest prince might be a proper son for Maekar, untainted by the looming shadow that the dragons leave them in.