Work Text:
“I have torn off the whole of May and June," said Susan,
"and twenty days of July.
I have torn them off and screwed them up so that they no longer exist, save as a weight in my side.
They have been crippled days, like moths with shrivelled wings unable to fly.”
― The Waves
They say that the Targaryens are closer to gods than to men.
In another life, they say that because of their dragons.
In this one, they say it because the very forces of nature themselves are at their control.
The seas rise at their command. The winds curl over the mountains with a wave of their hand. The mountains move with a glare. The fires of the world spark with a snap of the fingers.
And sometimes, if you get a rather special Targaryen, you can find someone who can tackle all four with a wave of their hand.
---
Ever since the arrival of Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya Targaryen to Westerosi soil, wielding the power of hurricanes and bonfires and windstorms, everyone in the seven kingdoms waits with baited breath every time a Targaryen child is born to find out what element they shall wield.
Everyone knows the stories of the original three Conquerors: Visenya and her water, Rhaenyra and her air, Aegon as the one who could wield all four.
And while Aegon was special in his own right, he was not the only Targaryen who could do such a thing. With each generation of Targaryens, there is usually one that can wield all four elements.
Maegor was fire while Aenys was earth—thus his weak will was a surprise to many, considering the fact that those Targaryens who wield earth tend to be those with the strongest personalities, the hardiest wills.
Perhaps if they’d had other siblings, there might have been born one that could wield all four, but it was Aenys’ eldest that was the next to master all four elements.
Rhaena was the one who could wield all four, and yet she was passed over for the throne in favor of her brother-husband, Aegon, who developed his mastery of fire later in life—too late, truly, to have any chance of outmatching his uncle on the battlefield. Maegor’s mastery of lightning struck his nephew down.
For the next generation, it was Daella, though considering her shyness and her quiet, no one ever considered putting her on the throne.
For the next, it was Viserys Targaryen, though there were many that whispered that Rhaenys Targaryen’s mastery of air and Daemon Targaryen’s mastery of fire far outpaced the man that never used his powers for more than a trick, something to amuse his daughter.
Viserys prayed, of course, for a son with all four elements at his fingers, because that was the sign of a true ruler, an heir who could master them all.
But at age seven, Rhaenyra’s existing abilities with fire were expanded when she lifted herself into the air with a laugh, and all in the kingdom realized that she would outclass any sibling that came after her.
Still, Viserys wanted a male heir, because that is what the realm wanted, and killed his wife to achieve it.
It was only when Rhaenyra burned her mother’s corpse that Viserys swore to never use his powers again—not that he had been using them much to begin with, it must be said, but it was still a vow that all in the Seven Kingdoms became aware of.
So gazes turned to Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra Targaryen, who might be a girl, but who was her father’s sworn heir, and blessed with the powers that Aegon the Conqueror himself had wielded.
Even as her father married Alicent Hightower, who birthed four children in turn, gazes stayed on her.
No matter what powers that Alicent’s children might wield, they could not be blessed with Aegon the Conqueror’s strength.
1.
Aemond Targaryen, the third child, is the one who learns how to endure first.
Despite being raised on the stories of fire, of how that was the element that truly allowed the Targaryens to conquer Westeros, Aemond Targaryen, disciplined, studious, controlled, is earth.
Growing up, Aemond wanted to be a lightning bender. Wants to learn how to control one of the most powerful forces in the universe.
But when his eye is poked out in an unfortunate incident with his cousin, he finds himself with impaired vision and an ache behind his eyes and the need to prove himself because his father clearly doesn’t care about him as much as he does about his grandchildren, Rhaenyra’s children, the heir to Rhaenyra’s powers. Her second son, the fucking bastard, already is showing signs that he might be the next to wield all four powers, considering the fact that he’s practically breathed water since he was a child and yet it was a stone flying out of the cave-face when they were fighting as children that half-blinded Aemond.
But Aemond discovered a connection with the earth first, because the night beforehand, Aemond had gone out to the side of Driftmark and screamed and collapsed an entire cave. Fucking take that, Lucerys Velaryon. Aemond got to the feeling of stone grit beneath his fingertips first.
As Aemond recovers with a hole in his face and the knowledge that his father didn’t even bother to offer him, a prince, his son, any justice, he grits his teeth and he focuses on learning how to sense the earthen particles in everything so that he can anticipate them: the walls, the ground, the roads.
And then, once he masters that, once he is able to sense anything through the soles of his boots—thin fabric, now, rather than rubber, because he wants to be able to sense everything through the callouses on his feet, but not to give away every secret to people when they first witness him, so the normal-looking upper sections of his boots cover up the truth—he focuses on learning how to bend not just earth, not just stone, but more than that.
He becomes a master of the sword, a menace in training yard, and there are comments about the almost supernatural way that Aemond always manages to get up underneath of his opponent’s defenses.
Many attribute it to the earth under his feet, that he can do more with his feet and where they plant themselves than anyone else can.
But Criston Cole pays close attention and sees the way that Aemond’s blade curves in the air, bending just slightly beyond what any air ever should be able to do.
And when he spots Aemond turning the metal buttons on his jacket into darts to take out the eyes of bandits a year later, he doesn’t say a word.
2.
Helaena is quiet and everyone expects her to be water. To be sedate, easy to move, more in the line of Septa Maegelle than Visenya Targaryen.
After all, fire is Maegor, destructive, corrupting. Is Daemon Targaryen, so ready to reach for fire and its combustive qualities that he burned the smallfolk of King’s Landing, raining down destruction along with his gold cloaks, who were christened in the burnishing flames of his hands, a fire unto themselves.
Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that to bring fire into the world is to scorch the earth, to doom the family, to curse the family line. There is a reason why there was no fire among the conquerors save Aegon, who carried the other elements to balance out fire’s destructive capabilities.
Visenya brought steadiness, the legends all say. Rhaenys brought peace.
Fire is reserved only for those that wish to burn away entire armies in a blast of heat, to create a Field of Fire, to wreck everything and bathe in the ashes of the entire world.
But you can use any element to destroy, to conquer, can’t you? Visenya wielded water like a sword, flooding entire villages and bringing the Vale to heel by threatening to flood the Eyrie and then freeze it, and Rhaenys cut through her enemies with entire windstorms that threatened to drag the very breath from their lungs.
And fire is not only for destruction.
Fire is also a bonfire, necessary to clear the underbrush in forests so that new things can be born, so that the forest can renew itself, so that the bugs can have new places to live.
There is a reason why Aemon Targaryen had the gift of fire. Why they say that he was the greatest man to never be king. He was steadfast in his defense of his daughter, in giving the Seven Kingdoms its first queen, in believing in the ability of a ruler rather than magic and sex alone. He was a warm father, a steady heir, the sort of man that could have made quite the king.
And thus, Helaena is fire, burning like the freehold. Her gaze burns like her dreams do, her eyes searing like hot coals just as bright as her fingertips burn, bright enough to blind.
The first time that a boy tries to put his hand on her when she did not give him permission to touch, his fingers sear.
When her grandsire suggests betrothing her to her brother, a gleam of ambition in his eyes, the goblet in front of his hands catches flame.
And yet, Helaena can also watch the fire as well. Can measure it.
When her cousin Baela visits and leans forward to listen to Helaena’s thoughts about her caterpillars and Baela’s fingers curl around the flames in the fire, Helaena’s own mouth kisses the fire in Baela’s, sweet as a seared meringue cake.
Helaena breathes fire enough to burn the kingdom down, if they fail to listen to her, but she is determined to make her fire her own. To bend it into planes of light. To give her bugs something to fly toward.
She always snaps away the fire before it burns them, before it ever harms any of them.
She will not fracture them as so many have tried to fracture her.
The future burns, but she knows a thing or two about how to quench the flames before they catch.
3.
Aegon is water, quick, flowing, unable to focus, spilling his ache all over the place, unpredictable as the sea.
Someone destined to drown, he always thinks, and he knows that he's right. He is the boy who others might have wished to be king, the eldest son of the current king, but Rhaenyra mastered all four elements before Aegon was even born, a bright-eyed, bright-fingered heir to the throne while Aegon spat up on his mother’s gowns and proved himself to be a nuisance.
In this life he is nothing more than the wastrel, the drunkard, the laze-about who is good for nothing save drowning himself in his cups—
And Blackwater Bay, of course.
Sometimes, when the lords and ladies’ ambitious whispers get too much, he sinks down to the bottom of Blackwater, breathes in the water, and spends time with the fishes. He can't speak fish—he doubts anyone can—but they are better companions than people most days.
People want things from him. Want to slake their ambitions on his supposed claim to the throne.
But Aegon doesn’t want to give them anything. He doesn’t want to give them even the chance to take. He wants nothing more than the feeling of the water beneath his fingertips and his toes.
When he emerges from the water, he skates around on the water, twirling lazily, creating frost on the water surface whether or not they are in summer or winter.
They call him the Prince of Rust. All wasted potential, turning to naught but a blemish on the Iron Throne.
Once, Visenya Targaryen wielded water as a whip, as a weapon, summoned entire hurricanes to crush Storm's End and launch her into the Eyrie.
The nickname is supposed to be an embarassment. Aegon is an embarrassment to the crown, he knows.
But he cannot bring himself to care.
Others might have once wanted him to be an heir to the throne, but Aegon takes no pleasure from those who seek to find him in the sparring grounds or at his studies.
Rather, Aegon slips the hands of minders and Kingsguards and the like and laughs and dives into the Bay and drips water across the stones of King's Landing.
The water feels more natural than any movements that Criston Cole ever tries to teach him in the yard. His body aches to be with the water. To bring a rainstorm or a snowstorm wherever he goes. His father ignores him. His mother presses him to follow his grandsire’s ambitions with her hand tight around his jaw. He has never known a touch as soft as that of the snow sinking into his skin at the first blush of winter, the way that the water of the bay curls around his cheeks to cradle him close in its embrace.
(Some day, Aegon knows his body will sink to the bottom of the Bay. He will not be buried or burned. His body will feed the fish that he loves so much, and his ghost will be happy.)
4.
Jace and Luke are the perfect Velaryon heirs.
The fact that they aren't Laenor's seed is overlooked by the fact that they are good Velaryon heirs, with Jace wielding water as his father does and Luke being the likely next wielder of all four elements. Even Joffrey is showing signs of earth by the time that Viserys dies, paving the way for Rhaenyra’s reign.
But Rhaena has no elements to her name.
She has always felt somewhat out of place. Her sister is a firebender like their parents, has been since she was rather young.
Rhaena has always itched for the skies, but there has never been an element that called her name, that swirled around her fingertips as easy as breathing.
Rhaena has always known that no matter how much she ached to reach for the skies, that there was no guarantee that she might breathe the wind. That there was every likelihood that she might end up like Maester Vaegon, like Aemma Arryn, like other Targaryens who never developed powers at all.
There is said to be only one airbender currently alive other than her grandmother. It's just a rumor, though—there are just as many that say that the last Targaryen prince is a waterbender or a firebender or an earthbender like his siblings.
Airbenders are rare things, after all. The only that have existed since the Iron Throne was established have been both Rhaenys Targaryens, who some say would have made better rulers than their contemporaries.
But others have said that they didn’t have the sheer destructive power to properly rule a kingdom—Daemon Targaryen included.
Rhaena’s father wanted firebenders. Wanted children that could burn kingdoms and conquer dynasties. That is why he married her mother, after all, a firebender like himself, and why he eventually married Rhaenyra—for the way that they were both capable of burning like him.
But by this point, he would have settled for any elements at all in her at all, she thinks.
Rhaena still remembers her last conversation before her mother died in a bonfire, burning herself alive after her child breached rather than let her cut into her.
Her mother, Laena Velaryon herself, had been the one to pull Rhaena into her arms and run her fingers through Rhaena’s curls and tell her that no matter what elements she cradled in her hands, she was meant for something powerful. Something great.
And her mother was right, Rhaena thinks.
Because the week before her stemother's coronation, Rhaena trips off of the edge of a staircase.
But she doesn't fall—she drifts.
And then, hovering in the air, when she tilts her foot down in wonder—
She sails upward. She flies towards the ceiling, towards the skies, just like her grandmother did around Driftmark when she was a child, and Rhaena’s lips split into a smile.
Everyone knows the tales of the first Rhaenys Targaryen, who soared all the way to Dorne. Of the second Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen who Never Was, who is the only person in all of the world who was said to be able to match Corlys Velaryon in terms of his wanderlust, his ability to travel the Seven Seas.
After they married, after Rhaenys was denied the throne at the Great Council in favor of her cousin and his ability to harness all four elements—a justification for a man ascending the throne, even if it was thrown away as a consideration for a woman ascending the throne when the first Rhaena Targaryen carried the same powers—Rhaenys and Corlys travelled the Seven Seas, Rhaenys growing and expanding her powers to direct the sails of Corlys’ fleet around the world.
Rhaena has always craved to leave. Always craved the ability to run, to travel, like her mother did, like her grandparents did.
And now—
Gods above, now Rhaena has wings.
Rhaena can fly, can take off, can soar as far away as she wishes. She could go to the Vale, fly all the way up to the Eyrie like Visenya once had her ice lift her high through the drops of water hanging in the fog, fly across the Narrow Sea like her grandmother Rhaenys did, fly down to Dorne and whip up a sandstorm like the first Rhaenys did, fly across the Narrow Sea like Saera Targaryen is said to have summoned up temporary earthen pillars to allow her to seem as if she was walking on water.
And what is stopping her?
So while everyone else is focused on coronations and the like, Rhaena flies. Flies away from her family, from the expectations, from the fact that she knows that she is a disappointment to her father.
(Once, her mother had cupped her cheek and told her that it didn't matter that she was a late bloomer, that one day she would fly higher than any of them ever had. Rhaena had thought that her mother was conjuring up encouragement, metaphors, but now she thinks—maybe her mother knew.)
Rhaena could fly to her grandmother, could ask Rhaenys as many questions as she can, but Rhaenys is heading for the coronation. Heading for Rhaenyra and Daemon, and Rhaena doesn’t exactly wish to speak to her father right now.
So she flies towards Oldtown, to meet the only other airbender that might exist.
5.
Daeron is an airbender, but he grows up unable to breathe.
There are rumors that millenia ago, the Hightowers bent stone to craft the impossible Hightower just as much as the ancient Starks are rumored to have bent water in order to create the Wall. The ability would have had to have slipped out of both bloodlines at some point long before the Targaryens arrived, but Uncle Gwayne’s stories of magic certainly conjures up compelling ideas, up the sort of magic that could have crafted the Wonders of the World.
And if there is stone in their veins, it makes sense that one of Daeron's brothers in King’s Landing is said to be an earth bender.
Daeron thinks that no matter what element he would have been able to bend, his uncle would have called it unnatural, but air is the worst of all.
Air is worst of all, because Hightowers endure, Hightowers are stone, Hightowers do not ache for the skies.
Daeron was the worst child for his mother to send to Oldtown, because he is everything that a good, pious prince is not. He breathes and he aches to spin upward, to float, to fly.
Some Targaryen powers hatch in the cradle, but none of his siblings’ did. He's heard the tales in letters sent from his mother. Helaena burned a boy at age twelve. Aegon stayed underwater and scared his mother that he had nearly drowned at age ten. Aemond brought a cave down with a scream at their cousin Laena’s funeral when he was thirteen.
Daeron, as far as Gwayne tells the story, was found floating in the air above his cradle when he was but a babe. Less than twelve months old.
And ever since then, Ormund has found ways to chain him down, to pin him to the ground, to tether him to responsibility and piety.
His hands linger, heavy against Daeron's shoulders, holding him to the earth. He draped heavy fabrics over Daeron, and tied him down with rope at one point, and when even that didn't work to tether him down, Ormund found a creative—and effective—solution.
Every other airbender in Targaryen history has flown before the age of ten, but Daeron has never taken flight. His feet constantly ache to detach from the ground, to taste the wind, but Ormund put him in iron-welded boots to keep him on the ground where he is safe, where he can be like the rest of them, with braces connecting them up his shins so that he doesn’t have to worry about them sliding off of his feet. Ormund carries the only key, as he is the only one who is pious enough to be trusted.
Ormund cups Daeron's cheek and tells him, gaze earnest, that he has been given a gift. That the Hightower is the one place in the Seven Kingdoms that would teach him the truth about his powers. That the Seven's light shines on those that turn themselves away from temptation.
The air grinds against the inside of Daeron's bones, begging to be let free, for him to be let free.
But he knows that is just the temptation of sin.
That he was blessed with Hightower red hair, in the image of the Mother (his mother).
That he is here for a reason.
His only indication that the temptation might not be ill-natured is Gwayne.
Gwayne tells him that to ache for freedom is no ill. That to wish for more than the ground that others push him into is no ill to the soul, but rather just part of human nature.
Daeron sits in his rooms at the Hightower. He can walk, technically, but every step taken is taken in agony, the weight of iron bearing down on him.
(He has never had an ambition for the Iron Throne. He knows how red-hot iron can become when it stabs you, when it weighs you down, when it cuts into your skin and into your very soul, a reminder of the taint in your veins.)
And so Daeron prefers to sit, studying his histories as his cousin wishes him to, praying as he is supposed to, and knowing that Gwayne must be wrong. That he has to be where he is supposed to be.
6.
Daeron Targaryen arrives in King’s Landing for his sister’s coronation, and no one seems to find anything strange with his appearance other than his siblings.
The boy can bend. He can bend earth, just like his older brother.
He doesn’t speak much—not at all, in truth—and he might just be shy. There are earth benders that were meek, after all. Everyone knows of Aenys Targaryen and how his element didn't say a damn thing about his personality. Not everyone can be Baelon Targaryen or Aemond Targaryen, after all.
After all, Daeron Targaryen comes at Ormund Hightower's side and he has Targaryen silver hair and the ability to bend things. The ability to change the world around him. The ability to raise the earth.
But Helaena looks at him, her gaze sweeping over him, and she mutters, just able to be heard by Aemond: "The mantis changes its pattern in order to blend in with the bark."
And Aemond looks at the boy beside their cousin, who is small, who looks not a day over thirteen—despite their brother being fifteen by now—who has hair that their mother commented had lightened since he was a child, strawberry-gold to silver-gold, when hair usually darkens as one gets older, a boy who will not meet their eyes, and the moment that Aemond sees Ormund step away from Daeron to speak to Otto and their mother, Aemond grabs his siblings' hands and drags them toward Daeron.
Aegon protests, of course. "I don't want to meet the little twerp, what are you doing," he scowls, gaze dragged to the wine on the banquet table.
But Aemond knows that even his layabout brother will be important if this conversation takes an ill turn.
And surely, it does, when Aemond opens the conversation with a blunt accusation: "You're not our brother, are you?"
Aegon instantly turns interested at Aemond's side, just as Aemond was sure that he would. Aegon can never resist trouble. "How can the little shit bend, then?"
“My mother—” The boy who carries their brother's name swallows. “My father was a trader. He always said that he met my mother in a brothel in Lys.”
Aemond, who knows his histories, who studies, thinks—
There was a Targaryen princess, once, who spoke back to her parents, who ruined herself before the court, who wielded earth
But Saera Targaryen is not their mother, and thus, this boy is not their brother.
But why would a boy in disguise be sent in Daeron’s place? Who could possibly gain from his replacement?
“Ormund—he threatened my father,” the boy says, and he is close to weeping, his words choking in his throat. “Said that if you all did not believe me, he would have my father executed. Please—our people are just merchants. I couldn't stay no."
Aegon—Aegon, who never has a responsible thought in his life—is actually the one who says, a surprising amount of sympathy in his voice, "Let the kid stick around. But we should find out what happened to Daeron."
Aemond turns to look at him, a question in his eyes.
Aegon scowls. “Listen, just because I don’t give a shit if Rhaenyra is queen doesn’t mean that I feel like attending her coronation,” Aegon says, “And you wanna figure out where the fuck our little brother is and why they replaced him with a copy, right?”
Aemond nods. Aemond understands family duty in the sort of way that Aegon never has.
And as for Helaena—
Aemond turns to look at their sister, who is looking at the boy, who is playing with the beetle-shaped buttons on her gown in one hand as she usually does when she's thinking hard. Aemond can feel the press of metal against her fingers, feel the exact particles he'd have to take apart to reshape them into something new. He'd made those buttons for her as a gift, when he'd been practicing his newfound metalbending—she'd accepted them all with a slight smile, even the ones that were slightly misshapen before he'd perfected the technique.
"He is our brother," Helaena says, and she's not meeting any of their eyes, but there is a fire in her eyes that can be glimpsed even at an angle. A spark, just waiting to catch. "And if someone has hidden him away, we must find a way to help him find the sky."
And that's that, isn't it?
7.
They ferry Daeron's replacement—who turns out to be a boy named Samwell, a bastard boy that Ormund sought out after hearing rumors of him earthbending—to a safe set of chambers to live in. Helaena introduces him to Baela with a kiss and promises to be back for him.
And then the three of them set off on the road to Oldtown, Aegon teasing his sister about her lovesick face when she looks at Baela, Aemond parrying right back that when Aegon gets a happy relationship of his own, then he's allowed to make comments.
Aegon scowls at his brother, of course. Aemond's just as hopelessly single as Aegon is, and Aemond isn't even getting his dick wet at brothels. At least Aegon has known the company of a lovely woman for the night, even if it was for coin—Aemond's still as maidenly as any prospect they've ever shoved in Aegon's face.
But Aegon's annoyance peels away in favor of surprise when they bump into cousin Rhaena along the way to Oldtown.
Okay, at first he doesn't recognize her by name. Silver braids but dark brown skin—one of Daemon’s spawn, she must be, not as bad as Rhaenyra’s bastards, but still someone who he remembers Aemond mentioning being part of that brawl that led to him losing an eye.
Aegon can't help but crow over the fact that she's not at her stepmother's coronation, same as them. How many Targaryens are ditching the grand event of their generation? Other than their mother, Daemon, Baela, and Rhaenyra's brats, who will be there for her?
But when Rhaena looks at them all, he sees that she is exhausted, her eyes shadowed and red-rimmed.
"I—" She swallows, and Aegon takes pity on her, summoning her water from the river. She drinks greedily, with ache, with true thirst. "I thought I could fly all the way to Oldtown. But I—I got tired too quickly."
There is a twist of frustration to her lips, something that Aegon can understand.
“Your bending is like a muscle,” Aemond says, the corner of his mouth twitching, and to anyone who doesn’t know him, he might even sound condescending. Seven hells; Aegon thinks he’s being plenty condescending, because he knows his little twit of a younger brother well. “It gets stronger the more you use it. You needed to recover before you took another trip."
Aemond always likes to be the master at things, Aegon thinks. He always like to be the one who knows things, the one who is in charge, the one who gets to be the authority on a matter. He gets off on that sort of thing.
But Aegon can't be that frustrated when Rhaena looks half-grateful to Aemond, even if she did accept Aegon's water—take that.
Then Rhaena's brow furrows. “What are you all doing out here? Why aren’t you at the coronation?”
“Why aren’t you at the coronation?” Aegon parries right back, happy to poke and prod anyone when he gets the chance. Needling is what he does best at, after all, the only thing that can begin to make him feel anything compared to water.
“Because I wanted to fly,” she says, as if that’s a normal thing, but Helaena nods.
“You finally gained your wings,” Helaena says in complete understanding. “You emerged from the chrysalis.”
Aegon has never understood his sister, but apparently, she understands their cousin, because Rhaena beams.
And from there, it isn't much effort to get them down to Oldtown, is it?
Aegon makes a ship of ice that shall take them along the river to Oldtown. Aemond curves the river in just slight to adjust the current speed to stronger, and Helaena contributes warm air to push them along as much as she can without control over the wind itself.
Once Rhaena has recovered enough, she contributes her own wind to push them along.
8.
The lords of Oldtown are across the continent in King’s Landing for Rhaenyra’s coronation and possibly to push for Aegon’s reign. Lords Ormund and Otto Hightower are missing from the Hightower.
But there is a knight in the corridors of the main fortress who stops them—a man with copper red hair and bright eyes.
A man who looks over them, at the water caught in Aegon’s hands, at the fire caught in Helaena’s, at the tunnel slowly closing behind Aemond, at the way that Rhaena's dress and riding cloak blow in the breezeless corridor—and they expect him to stop them, to call out for a guard.
But instead, to their disbelief, a small smile spreads over his lips. “You must be my niece and nephews,” he says, gaze casting between Aegon, Aemond, and Helaena.
But then his expression sobers. “Well, my other niece and nephews.”
"Ser Gwayne Hightower," Aemond says, because he's the sort of prince that memorizes such things.
Gwayne nods. "I'm hoping that you four are looking for Daeron. You four might be able to convince him to leave when I could not."
“Tell us where to find him,” Rhaena says, chin tilted stubbornly upward.
“On the twentieth floor,” Gwayne says, “It is quite a climb.”
“Not for us,” Aemond says with a proud, stubborn tilt upward of the chin, and, well, it’s a short measure to create them a tunnel to make it up to the floor that Daeron lives on, and a good use of Rhaena and Aegon’s combined strength to add to Aemond’s earthen platform to get them up.
Then Helaena melts the lock on the door with one bright, blinding burst of light, and—
9.
Daeron’s eyes go wide at the four silver heads suddenly in his rooms.
He is seated, of course. With the pain in his feet, when is he not, these days?
“Who in the seven hells are you four?” Daeron asks, but he knows who three of them are, at least. He knows his own round cheeks, his own bright eyes, and he might not share the moon-pale silver hair, but Ormund has commented enough times about how lucky he is to be born without it that he knows to name it Targaryen.
So the three with pale faces and his own round cheeks or Uncle Gwayne's cheekbones, in turn, must be his siblings, and as for the fourth, the girl with bright, beautiful brown eyes and silver braids that catch the sunlight like beaten gold—
“Rhaena,” says the pretty girl with a sharp, bright smile, holding out a hand, and there is something about the way she moves, the way that her gown almost seems to catch and blow in the breeze, that draws the attention.
“And you know who the rest of us are,” one of the two Targaryen princes says, one-eyed gaze sharp as it cuts across Daeron. Daeron has heard enough of the stories of King’s Landing, stories about what happened with the rowdy princes who flaunted their powers in such a profane way, to know that this one must be Aemond One-Eyed. “You don’t seem an idiot like our brother.”
Said brother must be Aegon, who flops onto the chair next to Daeron as if he owns it, casual as anything, as if bending has ever been casual as anything. Did their septas and septons not teach them to bite down and ignore their powers? Are they really so consumed by the Targaryen blood in their veins that they do not know of true piety and the way that their powers corrupt them?
(Did someone not beat them down and chain them and take their powers away from them until they learned their lesson?)
“So, tell us,” Aegon says, “What element have you been shackled with? The rumors in Flea Bottom have been wild as to which of us sorry set you are a pair with.”
There’s a certain flippancy to his words despite the fact that he is casually pulling the wine out of Daeron’s cup and into his own, the arc of liquid glistening in the air.
Daeron swallows. He has never seen someone wield their element that close to him.
It doesn’t—it doesn’t seem a curse. It seems the most natural thing in the world, as casual as breathing to Aegon.
But that can’t be true. Daeron knows that the temptation to fly is an abomination. The call of his tainted blood rather than something gifted to him by the Seven.
The iron is good for him. He is sure of it. It has to be.
Because if it is not—
If Daeron’s pain was for naught—
It's impossible, Daeron knows.
Daeron swallows. “No powers,” he lies, as he has lied for years, because he has not bent in years, has he? Won't is the same as can't, to the Seven—at least, he certainly hopes so. “I do not have—I have no element. No connection to anything.”
There is no proof to the contrary. No proof that he is connected to these four princes and princesses who so flagrantly use their cursed powers in such defiance of the Seven.
And yet—here they are. Here they are, staring at him.
“Still doesn’t mean that you need to be stuck here," Aegon says, flippant as anything.
But Rhaena and Aemond are both looking at him with suspicion.
“Is that the reason why Ormund sent a boy in disguise as you?” Aemond asks, and his voice is sharp, “Because he views you as a disappointment?”
Daeron flinches. He knows that he is an ill excuse for a Hightower, that he is even an ill-excuse for a Targaryen, that he does not fit in either world.
But Helaena’s gaze darts up and down him, her head cocking to the side in curiosity. She doesn’t make eye contact with him, but it’s not as if she is looking down on him, like she is judging him—she doesn’t seem to be making eye contact with anyone here. “You’re not standing.”
It’s a simple observation. One that could mean nothing if he was someone else. If he was something else.
But he’s not someone else, is he? Daeron is himself and always has been. He is the boy who breathes the wind and yet cannot spin it back out, because he has been tethered to the earth, because to wish to dance with the wind is an act of sin—
Rhaena’s hand flicks. Air swirls around Daeron and Daeron’s body aches to reach out. To play with the air. To taste the wind on his own tongue.
Instead, he bites down on his own tongue, and he can almost taste the iron of his own blood. Of his own ache.
But it’s hard not to respond when Rhaena arches an eyebrow and says, “I can’t lift you. There is no way that you weigh that much.”
Aemond’s fingers flick out as well, curling under themselves. Daeron isn’t sure what he’s doing at first—he isn’t moving the earth, as they say that Aemond One-Eyed is so skilled at doing—but then Aemond says, brow furrowing, gaze stubborn: “I can feel the heaviness of metal around your ankles and feet. The particles of metal. There is only one reason why someone would do such a thing.” He snarls with the rage of someone who has only ever been taught of the supremacy of Targaryen blood, of Targaryen power, of Targaryen might: “They took your bending from you.”
Aemond spits it like it’s something profane. Like it’s an abomination instead of a sacrifice upon the altar.
Aegon arches an eyebrow, leaning in. Rhaena’s expression twists in horror.
“They cut your wings,” Helaena says, voice quiet.
And Daeron is supposed to be stone. He is supposed to be the Hightower. He is supposed to endure, to not crave anything other than what the Seven have given him.
But—
They cut your wings.
Not they grounded you. They anchored you. Everything that Ormund has been saying for so long. A prince needs to be grounded. Needs to be tethered to those he serves. Needs to not get distracted.
But: they cut your wings.
And Daeron’s defiance crumples.
Daeron breaks, a sob cracking itself against the back of his teeth, pain, ache, absence carving him up from the inside. He raises a hand to his mouth to cover up the sound, but he cannot stop the shaking of his shoulders, the water burning in his eyes, the ache finally making itself known.
He is the one auburn-haired head amongst the crowd. The one Hightower among the group. The one bender in the tower, not allowed to leave the Hightower, not allowed to fly across the cliff-faces of Battle Isle, not even allowed to float in his own room.
Daeron is alone. He always has been. Gwayne has been a breath of air, but just that, and how can a single breath matter when Daeron’s entire life he has had an iron band around his ribs, pulling him in, anchoring him to the ground and choking the life from him?
Daeron’s feet are anchors. They are cementing him to the ground. They are taking away everything that he has ever ached for.
He is trapped. He is imprisoned.
Daeron breathes the wind, and yet he is suffocating.
A hand lands on Daeron's shoulder and he flinches, turning his gaze upward—Ormund has always been clear about how he is not allowed to be weak, that he must be the Warrior, and he cannot be caught crying—but he finds that Rhaena is the one whose hand is resting on his shoulder, a comfort in its way.
Aemond stands there next to her, a steady presence, his posture absolutely perfect, a sharp edge to slice himself on. Helaena is there as well, gaze just as steady.
None of it is gentle, and yet, it manages to unspool something inside of his chest that has screamed to be let out for so long.
“They—” His voice chokes. “I’m not supposed to—the Seven say that it’s an abomination—”
It is Aegon, of all of them, who slides out of his chair and kneels at his brother’s side. At Daeron’s side, because these are his siblings, they each can feel their element around them, they understand the ache, in some way or another.
“Listen,” Aegon says, “I get it, the way that the weight of responsibility can crack down on your shoulders. I drank my cares away for a long, long time. Burned them away. Sank myself down to the bottom of Blackwater Bay and threw away my hours with the fish for as long as would distract me from what was happening. But we came here to give you a choice on whether or not to leave. A choice on whether you want to say fuck it and throw it all away."
You don’t have to fight alone, isn't what Aegon says, but it's what Daeron hears, especially when Helaena reaches out a hand, sweeping her fingers forward. A short, soothing burst of heat crackles across his skin, and the tears evaporate, the motion soft, gentle, understanding, the sort of thing that Daeron has never had.
So Daeron swallows, digs his fingernails in on his own palms, and gathers up his strength.
And he pulls up the ankles of his trousers to reveal the criss crossing straps of iron above the half-grown skin.
The skin is raw. Nearly flayed open. Daeron cannot remember the last time that the shoes were off, even in sleep, especially since the incident a couple of months ago when a servant caught him in his bed floating above the sheets, his unconscious mind giving him what his waking one knew he wasn’t supposed to have, that he wasn’t supposed to yearn for, and Ormund had ordered that his ankle be chained to the bed when he went to sleep.
Ormund had curled his fingers around Daeron’s jaw and soothed him with a plaintive this is for your own good, Your Grace. You must be tethered to the earth so you might remember the blessing of the Seven.
“Seven hells,” Aegon hisses, “What did they do to you?”
“It’s an abomination to indulge in the curses of the Targaryen bloodline,” Daeron recites, voice near rote, and then swallows, hard, before explaining: “Lord Ormund did not wish for me to break the Seven’s guidelines, so he provided me with these shoes so that I could not fly. Only he holds the key.”
“Fuck the Seven,” Aegon says.
“A butterfly should not be caged,” Helaena says, sounding near-revolted. “You should—” She swallows. “No one should keep you from a window. You deserve to fly.”
“No wonder the knight sent us to you,” Rhaena agrees, and Daeron nearly opens his mouth to ask who—
But then Aemond steps forward and kneels, that perfect posture bending, fingers curling underneath to place them on Daeron’s ankles.
The touch is shockingly light. Even gentle, for someone who entered the room with his hand on his sword, gaze sharp with a challenge.
“You do not need a key,” Aemond says.
“How? Ormund specifically designed these so that he could be the only person to unlock them—” Daeron begins, but his words grind to a halt as peg by peg, screw by screw, the iron straps and shoes begin to unravel themselves from Daeron’s legs, carefully, cautiously, not pulling at the skin as much as possible.
It’s not entirely without pain or ache—such a thing would be impossible, considering how the skin has grown somewhat around it—but when he clutches at the arm of the chair with white knuckles, Rhaena's hand slides from his shoulder and offers out to him to squeeze.
And he takes it, gratefully, and she squeezes right back as he bites his tongue against the pain.
And then, finally, the metal and shoes are removed. They leave divots in their wake, skin flayed raw, but there is air against his feet, against his ankles and heels and soles, and it feels divine in the sort of way that brings tears to his eyes.
“How in the seven hells did you do that?” Daeron cannot help but ask, not in horror, but in awed curiosity.
Aemond’s answering smile is more a smirk than anything, this sharp, proud thing. “After I lost the ability to see out of one eye, it became pertinent that I learned how to use my ability to sense earthen particles and minerals in order to help with the sense of balance that I lost due to the incident. And through that track, well—I was stubborn enough to figure out how to extend that deftly honed sense to become the first person to ever bend metal.”
“Not to brag about himself, of course,” Aegon says with a snort.
But Daeron cannot help but appreciate the level of dedication that Aemond must have put into honing his powers. It almost shames Daeron—every hour that he spent ignoring his powers, hiding them, Aemond put into honing them, developing them, making them sing.
Daeron’s feet are swollen, aching, but when he puts out a hand, Rhaena catches him, helps him up, helps him place one tenderized foot in front of the other, and he clutches onto the sleeve of her dress with white knuckles, with the ache of someone who has not been able to walk freely for so long.
But he still keeps stepping. Keeps moving. It takes everything he has, to bite his way through the pain, but he does it.
And it is both the hardest and easiest thing that he’s ever done in his entire life.
He is free. He is free of that fucking iron.
And his feet are in agony, the red-iron knives stabbing him as never before, but he can feel the air on his feet.
And so he steps, and the steps are wobbly, but they are there, and Aegon gives him a fierce, proud, fuck-the-world smile.
“We shall have to have a cane made for you,” Helaena says, “After all, a grasshopper cannot stand on one leg.”
“I could do it,” Aemond says, a stubborn glint in his remaining eye.
But Rhaena shakes her head. “Daeron can do it himself. Create himself a cane." She smiles. "All he needs is a breath of air.”
Daeron’s head whips up to look at her. Rhaena is looking at him with nothing but stubborn encouragement in her eyes, and he knows, in an instant, that she is made of air as much as he is.
All of his siblings have their own elemental powers. Water, fire, earth.
But Rhaena understands what it is to crave the sky. What it means to starve for something that you have never been given.
And she is offering the heavens to him without any words as to how it makes him a terrible person to want.
And there is a beauty to her, to freedom, to the bright light of her smile.
And so he lets himself follow the instincts that he has buried for so long. A breath of air. The currents around him. The weight of iron, lifted away.
Daeron breathes in and breathes out, eyes sliding shut as the air around him swirls, catches, tugs at his senses—
And laughter bubbles from his throat as he rises, her hand still in his, the air singing beneath his feet.
Rhaena is grinning right at him, right at his side, hovering in the air.
“Doesn’t it feel like the heavens?” she asks, and he thinks—it is hard to listen to Ormund’s words when I have never felt something that feels so right.
As they descend a few minutes later—apparently bending is a muscle that has atrophied in Daeron's limbs, though he is eager to try it again—Aemond says, ever-practical, "Are you going to need shoes?"
Daeron grimaces. He knows that he needs shoes to protect the base of his feet, but the idea of covering up the raw flesh again, taking away the ability to float in anyway—
But when he shakes his head, a tentative grasping at his own choices, there is a knowing glint in Aemond's eyes as he says, "Because I know a thing or two about wanting to feel connected to your element through your feet."
Daeron arches an eyebrow, but Aegon snorts. "Gods above, I've been stuck with some weird brothers."
"You're the one who sinks yourself to the bottom of Blackwater Bay to talk to the fish," Aemond points out, poking as Daeron has been told brothers do.
Aegon rolls his eyes as he summons water from the other goblet in the room. "One sister talks to bugs. One brother talks to fish. Another talks to books. I'm not exactly the weird one."
And then he redirects the water to form a cushion around Daeron's feet. It cools the raw flesh at first, a blessed feeling, and then Helaena says, "I can warm it, if you'd like."
And Daeron lets out a sigh of relief as a small spark of fire jumps from Helaena's fingers to heat up the water, warming it up to a heated cushion against his battered feet, and the pain simmers down to an ache for just a moment.
The pain is not gone, of course. Nothing could get rid of it entirely.
But for one moment, he feels some measure of relief, more than his cousin has ever allowed him.
10.
The door to Daeron’s room bursts open by the time that Gwayne makes it all the way up the steps of the Hightower to Daeron's chambers.
Out bursts the group of silver-haired teenagers, with the only one who is not his relation with her arm entwined with Daeron, his auburn hair the one spot of Hightower amongst the crowd.
But Gwayne doesn’t care about that.
Daeron is bare-footed, those cursed iron shoes finally off of his feet, but with what seems like water swirling around his feet and a few inches of air between the feet of him and the girl next to him and the ground.
It's an absolutely absurd sight to see in the Hightower, but Daeron is smiling from ear-to-ear, and it is all that Gwayne ever could have asked for his nephew.
Well, up until the moment that Daeron sees Gwayne and his smile somehow splits even further, bigger and brighter on his lips. "We're leaving," Daeron says, "And you should come with us, Uncle Gwayne."
Gwayne's jaw drops. "Excuse me?"
“Why not?" Aegon says with a shrug, "You’re the only decent adult any of us have ever met."
"Cole is rather decent," Aemond argues.
"What the hell? Introduce Gwayne to Cole. I'm sure you'd get a laugh out of that one." Aegon turns back to Gwayne. "There you go. Matter's settled. You're coming with us."
It's a casual order, telling Gwayne that he's being kidnapped by the gaggle of teenagers in front of him.
But Gwayne looks at them all, at Rhaena and Daeron's smiles, at the fact that his nephew is finally free.
They all look back up at him with bright, stubborn eyes, eager to leave, eager to escape, eager to fly, and hasn’t Gwayne dreamed of that, in his own time?
A life without Ormund. A life where Daeron gets to breathe.
And he cannot help but think he’ll do a lot better out with these five than he would otherwise, and the same goes in reverse.
So he smiles. “If you five wish to have an old knight supervising your antics, I can’t exactly say no, can I?”
Is it easy to keep so quiet?
Everybody loves a quiet child
Underwater you're almost free
If you wanna be alone, come with me
Everybody's got nowhere to go
Everybody wants to be amazing
Rylan, you should try to get some sun
-The National, Rylan