Work Text:
While Mysaria Saho does not make a habit of courting trouble, she has been courted—romantically, that is—on one or two occasions. Despite this, she cannot help but feel ill-prepared for the experience to come: of being courted, even in artifice, by Rhaenyra Targaryen.
She feels unbalanced. Off-kilter. It is not a sensation she is accustomed to, and that is by design. She chafes at Rhaenyra’s refusal to let Mysaria plan their weekend rendezvous, insisting that she, having extended the invitation, bore the responsibility of making the necessary arrangements. It’s all terribly traditional—which, Mysaria concedes, is one thing she might have known to expect when she first agreed to take part in this elaborate scheme.
What she cannot possibly expect is to shuffle out onto her balcony the very next morning, dressed in a too-large T-shirt and nothing else, to find the mangled corpse of what used to be a rabbit lying right outside the door. For a good minute, she struggles to comprehend what she’s looking at.
Eventually, her brain catches up. “No,” she says aloud to no one—to the purplish skies and rising sun peeking out over the horizon. She steps back inside. When she slams the door shut, she does it with perhaps a little more force than is absolutely necessary.
She returns shortly thereafter with a more manageable heartrate, a steaming tea, and her cell phone. She also now has underwear on, which feels important. Then she curls up on the sole chair—a sturdy wicker thing with thick cushions—and sips her tea in an effort to calm her racing thoughts.
How did it get here? Her apartment is on the seventh floor. More confounding still, it—the carcass—looks like it was mauled by a rabid dog.
There is no note, and nothing is broken—if it’s a message, its sender’s penmanship is deplorable. She snaps a picture before retreating inside once more. This time, she returns with gloves, a medical mask, and a small trash bag. Disposing of the carcass takes all of five minutes. It’s a small thing. Lighter than it looks.
With that taken care of, there’s little evidence that anything was there at all, save for a small smear of dried blood that vanishes from glazed-green tile after a quick scrub. It is still not her ideal Saturday morning, but it is by no means the worst she’s ever had.
Upon claiming her seat again, she dials Ven.
After two rings, she hears a telltale click! followed by a chipper “Morning, boss!”
Mysaria swallows her temper, knowing that Ven doesn’t deserve it, and tries for a more genial tone. “Do you ever sleep?”
“About as much as you do, I’ll bet.” Cheeky thing.
“Cute,” Mysaria remarks. She can almost see the way they grin and bat their eyelashes in response. “I need you to review some CCTV footage.” She could do it herself—closed-circuit means closed-circuit, after all—but it is, quite literally, what she pays Ven for.
“Sure thing!” A bit of shuffling on their end. “Which site?”
“My apartment.”
“Shit! Did you have a break-in or something? Are you okay? Should I call—?”
“Ven.” Loquacity aside, they know that when she uses that tone, it’s a sign to stop talking. “Everything is fine. An animal carcass was left on my balcony, presumably sometime late last night or early this morning. I’m sending you the image now. It’s a long shot, but if any perimeter-facing cameras caught something, I’d like to know.”
“Give me three hours, tops.”
“Sure.” She disconnects the call.
Naturally, that’s not the end of things. The moment she puts the device to sleep, she hears it: a knock at the door. It’s faint, but unmistakable. A curse dances on the tip of her tongue. She bites it down.
When she returns for the fourth and final time, it’s with an obnoxious bouquet of snapdragons—the snapdragons aren’t obnoxious; the amount of them is—and a hunch beginning to form.
An hour later, her phone buzzes with incoming messages from Ven: a typo-ridden text message and a damning screen capture. It’s little more than a snippet: ten seconds of hazy, grey-scale footage of the small outdoor balcony.
Mysaria watches, eyebrows raised, as a pale, winged creature plummets into the frame. The speed of entry is alarming on its own. It moves as though it fell from the sky having fallen asleep mid-flight. Its subsequent landing is no better. Mysaria feels a twinge of pity for the beast as its lithe, serpentine body collides with the ground—once, twice, thrice—before skidding to a halt.
A dragonspawn. It flails, all half-extended wings and twitching movement, before righting itself. It looks small in the feed, with its crouched stance and folded wings. Its eyes gleam when they meet the camera, and in its maw… freshly caught prey. The rabbit from this morning. Wonderful, Mysaria thinks.
After letting the slain creature flop down onto the tiles, it does not tarry. Its departure is relatively graceful, all things considered. Admittedly, the bar has been set quite low.
With a heavy sigh, Mysaria sets the phone aside and stares at the bouquet of flowers. This will not be my new normal, she thinks, even as she feels that in doing so, she is already admitting defeat.
— —
With the tranquility of her morning shattered, she can only postpone the looming confrontation for so long. After all, days off are a rarity given her profession, and today is most certainly not one of them.
After placing the flowers in a vase and preparing a fresh cup of tea, she can put it off no longer. She settles on the couch and rings Rhaenyra.
She picks up almost instantly.
If not for the morning she’s having, Mysaria might find it in herself to be flattered. “Good morning,” she greets pleasantly. She’s been very well behaved this morning. She’d hate to ruin it now. “I hope I haven’t woken you.”
Rhaenyra chuckles. The sound is rough, gravelly with sleep. It is also, unfortunately, endearing beyond reason. “I slept in. The fault is my own.” A bit of rustling on the other end. “Please do not apologize.”
“Alright.” A brief silence follows. Eventually, Mysaria comments, “The flowers are lovely.”
“Are they?” She can almost see Rhaenyra’s hopeful grin. “It occurs to me that I did not think to ask whether you appreciated such gifts.”
“Flowers?”
“Yes.”
“Not typically.” It’s a confession she might withhold under normal circumstances. Egos are fragile things; in the case of the Targaryens, the infirmity is congenital. Alas, their situation is anything but normal. “I find them… disheartening.” Mysaria pauses, then infers, “They were not just for me, though.” Being watched is not a new feeling—for either of them.
“It was a bit much, wasn’t it?” She sounds truly embarrassed.
“It certainly won’t go unnoticed,” Mysaria says. It’s not an answer. It’s a reminder—to Rhaenyra, to herself—that the gesture wasn’t for her, not truly.
“What might you prefer then, if not flowers?”
Their acquaintance has been short, but Mysaria remains no closer to discerning how much of Rhaenyra’s denseness is mere affectation and how much of it stems from a place of genuine care. “The flowers are lovely, Rhaenyra. More importantly, they send the right message.” Another reminder. Rather lacking in subtlety, all things considered.
“But you are not fond of them.”
Gods above. “No, I am not,” Mysaria admits.
Silence on the other end. She can almost see the other woman’s pout.
With an eye roll, Mysaria caves. “I’m fond of tea. And wine, but nothing expensive, please.”
Rhaenyra hums, clearly pleased with herself. “The films did not prepare me for a woman like you, Mysaria Saho.”
She is incorrigible. Mysaria is apallingly attracted to it. “I also abhor carrion.” She doesn’t know what possesses her to say it. As segues go, it is quite possibly the lousiest she’s ever conjured.
A pause. “I’m sorry?”
Mysaria sighs. Pinches the bridge of her nose. “I apologize. That was dramatic. The carcass I disposed of was relatively fresh.” The words tumble from her lips, lacking their usual grace. It’s as close as she gets to flustered. Of course it would beset her now.
“Carcass?” Alarm riddles her tone.
“I’m going about this all wrong. This morning, there was a dead rabbit on my balcony.” Mysaria hears a sharp inhale from Rhaenyra’s end. “Perimeter CCTV footage shows—”
“Syrax?” The word—name?—is said with a weary yet resigned tone.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Was it a dragonspawn? Yellow hide, green eyes?”
“It was a dragonspawn,” Mysaria confirms. “I cannot speak for its color.”
“I am terribly sorry.” Despite the minimal detail, Rhaenyra seems to need no further confirmation. “I thought I had trained this behavior out of her.”
“She does this often?”
“Did,” Rhaenyra corrects, then seems to think better of it. “Well, perhaps does now again. But she won’t. I vow it. Once more, I am terribly sorry. You’re not hurt, are you?”
Her concern is equal parts touching and confounding. “I’m fine.”
“Did she break anything?”
“Nothing was broken. She took quite a tumble onto the balcony, however.”
“Yes, she’s an exemplary navigator,” Rhaenyra agrees distractedly. “Her landings, however…”
“I saw.”
“She’s quite graceful when the destination is familiar,” Rhaenyra assures her, though Mysaria did not ask. After a brief pause, she clears her throat and adds, “I digress. It will not happen again.”
“Think nothing of it.” Oddly enough, she finds that she means it.
“Alright. I hope the remainder of your day treats you well, Mysaria.”
“I wish you the same.”
— —
The following morning, Mysaria need not venture so far as her balcony to learn that, despite Rhaenyra’s assurances, she has been visited by the dragonspawn—Syrax—once more. After waking, another grey-scale video snippet greets her, courtesy of Ven. The delivery timestamp is an obscenity to her sleep-blurred eyes, but it does not surprise her. Mysaria has long harbored the suspicion that they’re nocturnal.
She watches, nonplussed, as the winged beast crash-lands on the tile. To its—her—credit, it doesn’t look quite so violent this time. She only bounces twice before skidding to a stop on all four limbs. From her maw, a furry-looking mass is produced and deposited onto the ground. Then she leaps onto the railing, launches herself into the air, and disappears from the frame entirely.
This time, Mysaria does not make the mistake of stepping out onto the balcony without first assembling a fresh pot of tea. She also dons underwear.
Upon closer inspection, it’s a rat. Well, it was a rat. A quite rotund rat, though in Libreya, that’s to be expected. Messy, overlapping furrows line the carcass—bite marks. The fur around each gash is dark and stiff with dried blood. It’s also missing its tail. She’d really rather not think too hard on how that came to be.
For the second day in a row, she disposes of freshly killed prey before her second cup of tea. As new normals go, it is not her favorite. She debates calling Rhaenyra, but decides against it. They have plans this evening. Rhaenyra has said it will be private, just for them, but neglected to say anything more.
It makes Mysaria’s skin prickle with unease and something warmer, something to which she is conscious not to assign a name. Would she prefer it if they simply commenced with the theatrics outright? A part of her thinks she might. The other part of her… Well. It does not bear thinking about.
On Sundays, Mysaria’s work load is as light as it ever gets. Most of it can be done from her apartment. After a light lunch, she makes a visit to a nearby park. She favors it not only for its proximity, but its obscurity as well. It’s as private as a public location ever gets: no cameras in sight, few attendees, and equipment in such a state of disrepair, she might find it concerning had she ever witnessed a child within a stone’s throw of it.
For this reason, it is both irksome and absurd to have her visit cut short by the appearance of two tails within minutes of her arrival. They stand at the park’s edge, sticking out like sore thumbs—and not only because they, along with Mysaria, are the only ones there.
Their clothing is too neat. It fits their bodies—one lean, one broad—in a manner that suggests immaculate tailoring or custom make. One of them (the broad one) has hair as white as freshly fallen snow and not a wrinkle to show for it. Recognition sparks in the recesses of Mysaria’s mind, but the name eludes her. Their boldness does not surprise her. Their presence is meant to intimidate as much as it is to survey.
With their eyes upon her, she settles on the only bench around. It is a sad, frail thing. Its wooden planks are rotted and splintered, but they have yet to give way beneath her weight. Today, they voice only the faintest creak of protest as she takes a seat and messages Ven.
- Mysaria
- Two tails at the park. Nearest cameras you can reach? 1:46 PM
Today
Ven replies within seconds.
- Mysaria
- Two tails at the park. Nearest cameras you can reach?1:46 PM
- Ven
- kings and 8th has 2 alprs. gimm 13min1:47 PM
Today
Mysaria notes the time and begins a mental countdown. She also considers revising her assumption about Ven’s sleeping habits. Next, she messages Sara. The girl—whose first name is Anushka, but whose last name is not Mandal—had been placed in the older seamstress’s care after revealing she had some experience with fabric alteration and custom dress. Mysaria had hoped to visit with her today.
- Mysaria
- Can’t visit the girl today. Please keep a close eye. Will be in touch. 1:48 PM
Today
After ten minutes, she stands and makes to leave. The intersection of King and 8th is a short journey, and only a slight diversion from her intended route. She spots Ven’s car as she approaches. It is an old, unpolished sedan with several dents and a missing bumper. She doesn’t linger on it.
She does not consider herself fluent in these matters. Nonetheless, Ven has been clear about the importance of prerequisites concerning tasks within the realm of “TV hacker bullshit.” In this case, the primary prerequisite is proximity: Ven must be within range to work their magic. Something about RF waves.
It is a relief to return to her street, where refuge from the eyes that follow her is in sight. It is somewhat less of a relief, however, to find a fully grown dragonspawn waiting for her. It is perched on the overhang of the building, just above the main entrance. The walkway cuts a long, curved path from the street, so she notices it a bit later than she’d like. The moment she does, however, she stops in her tracks.
It’s Syrax. There is no mistaking her. Her yellow, scaled hide seems to glow in the afternoon sunlight. Her narrow skull is framed by conical, horn-like appendages and an elongated snout. Piercing eyes, green as emeralds, glimmer with an awareness that causes Mysaria’s chest to tighten with unease. They are not trained on her, for which she is grateful. They hone in on her pursuers instead, tracking their approach with a keen precision that is as impressive as it is terrifying.
When they breach the perimeter, Syrax bares teeth as sharp as knives and growls—a low, predatory sound. It reverberates throughout Mysaria’s entire body. When she looks back, the two figures are making a swift retreat.
Her heartbeat thunders in her chest. She fixes the creature with a disapproving look. “Can I help you?”
Syrax chuffs, then leaps down onto the walkway. She lands gracefully on all fours, just out of arm’s reach. Mysaria consciously suppresses the urge to flinch at their sudden proximity. She stiffens as the creature prowls toward her, nudging one thigh with her head before circling around to graze the other. Her tail trails lazily after her, dragging its ridged length along the backs of Mysaria’s bare calves. It’s almost as long as she is—not that it is a particular feat.
She—Syrax, that is—is a moderately sized thing, much smaller than the antiquated creatures from which her kind descend. Were she bipedal, she might only reach Mysaria’s chest. She looks up at Mysaria, still half-coiled around her legs, in an almost expectant manner.
“Do you live here now?” Mysaria questions pointedly.
Syrax trills. It is a short, high-pitched noise that ends sounding more like a whine.
Mysaria raises her eyebrows. “Impatient, aren’t you?”
Syrax trills again. This time, it’s louder.
“No need to be rude.” Mysaria makes for the front entrance. Syrax follows suit. At the door, she pauses. “Your mother will be hearing about this.”
Syrax just stares.
— —
Syrax is staring at her again. At first, Mysaria assumed the creature needed tending to. She placed water in a bowl and set it at Syrax’s feet. In another bowl, she offered slices of an apple.
Nothing. She remained perched on all fours in the center of Mysaria’s living room, simply watching.
She’s capable of blinking, at least. Mysaria catches her do it multiple times while sitting cross-legged on the rug, sipping a fresh cup of tea and munching on her half of the apple. At one point, she thinks she glimpses a third, translucent-looking eyelid, which is mildly unsettling.
“Food.” She holds up the nearly finished apple. She points at the fruit, then to her mouth. “Eat.” She points at the bowl. “For you.”
Syrax stares.
Gods. Upon finishing her snack, she texts Rhaenyra.
- Mysaria
- What does Syrax like to eat?2:22 PM
Today
She receives a reply within minutes.
- Mysaria
- What does Syrax like to eat?2:22 PM
- Rhaenyra
- What?2:24 PM
- Rhaenyra
- Keep her there pls.2:24 PM
- Rhaenyra
- I’m coming over.2:25 PM
Today
“Hear that, Syrax? Your mother’s coming.”
Syrax chuffs, unimpressed. She circles the coffee table, where Mysaria’s cooling tea rests, and curls up next to her. Her wings, already folded, compress themselves as Mysaria watches, then seem to meld into her ophidian torso with ease. Once settled, her form is almost perfectly ovular: fore limbs tucked in tight, hind limbs grazing her snout. Her flexibility is truly something to behold.
“How many bones are in your spine?” Mysaria wonders aloud.
Syrax doesn’t answer.
— —
When Rhaenyra arrives, it’s in a fit of nerves and... surprisingly casual dress. The baggy carpenter pants are one thing. The shirt is another. It’s certainly custom-made, if the familiar-looking dragonspawn is any indicator. In this rendering, Syrax wears sunglasses and a cartoonish expression of glee as she roasts a marshmallow over a campfire. Above her, the words “I came, I saw, I scorched” are printed in bold, stenciled red-and-black lettering.
The sight alone does away with whatever greeting Mysaria had prepared. Instead, all she can do is tilt her head, raise her eyebrows, and comment, “Cute.”
Rhaenyra seems to malfunction in real time. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks down. Blushes a truly precious shade of pink. “It’s— Well— Mysaria,” she whines.
There’s no fighting the mirth that has taken hold of her, so she does not try. With a poorly stifled laugh, she steps aside to grant the woman entry. “She’s in the living room.”
Mysaria hears the moment Rhaenyra lays eyes upon her. “Syrax!” Rhaenyra exclaims.
A happy trill sounds, followed by the leathery flap of wings as Syrax launches herself into her mother’s chest. Rhaenyra initially staggers back at the force of impact, but catches her with a quiet grunt. She chuckles as Syrax—sizable creature that she is—rearranges herself, using Rhaenyra’s entire torso for purchase. Rhaenyra hisses at the press of her talons, but otherwise demonstrates remarkable patience as she is mounted like playground equipment. Eventually, Syrax tucks herself into a neat egg shape, this time in the cradle of Rhaenyra’s arms. It’s a strange image. Cute, but strange.
“You don’t think she’s too big for that?” Mysaria remarks.
Rhaenyra has to lower Syrax and angle her neck quite awkwardly to meet Mysaria’s eyes. She manages to do both and look sufficiently offended at the same time. “I beg your pardon?”
Mysaria smothers another laugh. “Nothing.”
Rhaenyra appears unconvinced. Thankfully, a low purr from Syrax draws her attention elsewhere. “Syrax, baby,” she sighs. “What am I going to do with you?” She gives Mysaria an imploring look. “I’m terribly sorry. This is not normal behavior; I swear it.”
Mysaria plucks her empty mug from the coffee table and pads over to the kitchen. “I’d certainly hope not. After all, two visits in one day—a girl might start to get the wrong idea. Would you care for coffee? Tea?”
“Tea, please,” Rhaenyra replies instantly. “Thank y— I’m sorry, two ?”
— —