Chapter Text
The first time she sees a flash of white hair and violet eyes, it was over.
She knew, with all her heart, that she had to get her grubby hands on it.
The child staring back at her crib could only look down in wonder as she smiles up at him, all chubby cheeks and gummy mouth. His violet eyes blink when she raised her hands up and opened and closed her fists in a grabbing motion. Soon enough, he reaches down and lets her wrap her tiny little hand around his finger.
A grin full of wonder overcomes his stupidly cute face with his stupidly shiny silver hair that glinted against the light of her nursery like silk.
Yeah, that’s right, look upon me with wonder!
“Prince Aegon, Her Grace is calling for you.”
The ridiculously angelic boy looks away from her to the direction the voice came from. No, no, no, she can’t have him losing interest in her, damn it!
“I’ll go then,” comes his response, voice startlingly high pitched.
He starts pulling his finger away from her hand, but she remains steadfast in her grip. Like hell she’s going to let him leave her! Unbeknownst to her, her round little face was beginning to turn red with the effort of holding onto him.
Soon enough, he manages to ease himself out of her grip, and she internally rages.
Stupid princeling with his stupid hair and stupid eyes and stupid genetics.
There’s only one way she could make him stay.
She starts crying, a wailing, shrieking mess that made her acutely aware of how much lung capacity babies actually have. No wonder these royals have wetnurses to take care of their brood. Can’t run a kingdom with only an hour of sleep from a night spent soothing a little crying machine.
She sees him jump at her sudden cries, whipping his head to her with wide, panicked eyes and hands unconsciously reaching out for her despite not knowing what to do with a crying baby. He’s pulled aside not a moment later, much to her dismay, as another figure pops into view.
“Oh, my love,” a woman murmurs down at her as she gathers she up into her arms, flailing limbs and all.
Once she got a closer look at the woman, she is shocked to see and very much not exaggerating when she says that this woman with amethyst eyes and sliver-gold hair is the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen, in this life and her old one. The woman coos at her, and the sound is absolutely heavenly.
Not only were these people in her new life blessed with godly genetics, their voices could put sirens to shame. Talk about being unfair!
The cherubic boy is put in the back burner in favor of gawking at this woman, completely forgetting the fact that she should keep crying so all their attention remains on her.
“Daena, my sweet, what upsets you so?”
She wants to yell out, you do! You and your perfect hair and perfect smile and unfairly gorgeous hair that most girls in her old life would kill to have! Royalties aren’t supposed to look so beautiful, they’re supposed to look like an inbred mess!
Except, she’s quite stuck on the fact that this woman just called her Daena and addressed her in a tone so motherly that there’s really no questioning what her relation to this woman is. And what kind of a name is Daena anyway? It sounds like a name from—
“Princess Rhaenyra, the King wishes to see you and the Princess Daena.”
Good lord, was she hearing things correctly?
“Tell my father that I will visit him soon.”
She had brushed away the fact that one of the servants called the boy she’d been haggling earlier Aegon, because hey, maybe his parents were just die hard fans of Game of Thrones and took the opportunity to name their baby Aegon when he came out looking like an albino. It’s not that rare for fans to name their kids after fictional people.
But then again, the woman holding her (who she’s pretty sure is her mother) was addressed as Rhaenyra.
Now, once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern.
Being reborn into Westeros though? Like hell that’s actually—
A roar comes from the open window, and her mother turns to the sound with her in her arms just in time to let her see something big and grey and most definitely not a bird come soaring across the massive window.
“I see Laenor has decided to take Seasmoke out for a ride.”
That was a motherfucking dragon.
Seasmoke and Laenor Velaryon.
She takes one look at Rhaenyra fucking Targaryen looking down at her with disgustingly soft eyes and realizes with horror that she’s just been reborn into the House of Incest in possibly the worst era ever.
The first thing Daena does when she turns one and is finally capable of simple motor skills like walking is to look at herself in the mirror.
Brown hair, lilac eyes, and a face that looks the splitting image of her mother.
Daena is the most beautiful baby she’s ever seen. Hooray for Targaryen genes winning out!
The brown hair is as clear an indication as any as to who her father is (she side-eyes Ser Harwin Strong standing just a few feet away from her, hands outstretched and ready to catch her should she fall). It’s a bit disappointing to know she’ll never have that gorgeous Valyrian hairdo, but if her plans come to pass, her future kids can have them. Another win for her!
Hers fell across her face in waves that promised to grow into curls that she just knows are going to be gorgeous. Thank you for having such great hair, Ser Harwin. That’s one positive thing about having her status as a bastard so blatant on her appearance.
Daena turns away from the mirror and waddles her way to the Commander of the City Watch, aka her father — who she shouldn’t refer to as her father, but damn it, the man’s too sweet for her to actively try and dislike him.
Bringing her arms up in a ‘carry me’ motion, Ser Harwin complies and picks her up by her armpits, propping her up with one hand and smiling indulgently at her. He must be one of those dads, the ones absolutely wrapped around their daughters’ finger, because he doesn’t question it when she tells him one word.
“Egg.”
Yeah, she’d gone and nicknamed Aegon ‘Egg’. Sorry not sorry, Aegon V, your story will just have to be named Dunk and Gon.
Her not-father-but-is-actually-her-father complies with her silent demand and carries her out of the nursery, walking across the halls and being utterly ignorant to the stares they get. The brown hair is really their only resemblance, but it’s clear as any that he’s her blood father, nosy little pricks that they are.
They arrive at the other side of Maegor’s Holdfast in the wing Alicent and her brood occupy.
Aegon lights up when he sees her. How cute, she’s gonna have him kissing her feet by the time she’s three if he keeps this up.
“Daena!” He cries out in delight, abandoning the toy dragon in his hands in favor of running to her, impatiently waiting for Ser Harwin to place her down so he can grab her hands and drag her to his little nook. “Mother got me a dragon like Sunfyre!”
He proudly shows her the wooden dragon as big as two palms, painted in gold with pink membranes on its wings. Huh, it does kinda look like how she remembers Sunfyre was described.
Instead of focusing on the fake dragon he’s showing her, however, her eyes zero in on the figure sitting on a cushion and playing aimlessly with a bunch of wooden blocks. White hair? Check. Green clothes? Check. Pale purple eyes? Double check.
“Egg,” she calls, pointing to who she’s sure is Aemond Targaryen.
Aegon pouts at her blatant disinterest in his words and reluctantly follows the line of her finger to his brother. His face sours. “That’s Aemond.”
“Aem,” she repeats dumbly. Curse her short baby tongue, she wants to say full sentences damn it!
He grabs her hand, steering her away from Aemond, who’s now looking up at them with curious eyes, having noticed their combined stares. Daena huffs at Aegon, yanking her hand away from his so harshly that she falls back on her rump, rattling her tiny brain and sending waves of shock to her neurons.
Oh, damn her baby instincts, she’s about to cry.
Aegon hovers over her, panic strewn across his features. She hears the sound of armor clinking against each other and thinks it must be Ser Harwin coming to her rescue. Yes, save her from this annoying pain in her butt and the stupid water works pouring out of her eyes!
Before any of them can make a move to help, however, an unexpected savior comes in the form of Aemond Targaryen.
He shoves a toy block right in front of her face, looking at her expectantly. The strangeness of his offer is enough to halt her cries for a moment to accept the toy block he gave her, turning it around in her clumsy hands and wondering why the hell she’s so amazed by it.
Damn monkey baby brain, there is nothing exciting about a bloody wooden block that depicts a black dragon amidst a castle and—ooh, is that supposed to be Balerion? And Vhagar and Meraxes too!
Wait, she’s not supposed to like the wooden block!
She narrows her eyes suspiciously at Aemond, who’s returned to smashing two blocks together as if he hadn’t just masterfully stopped her crying. Damn him and his stupidly interesting toys. Daena doesn’t even have the same ones at her own nursery, there’s clearly foul play going on here. She’ll have to up the cuteness meter the next time she visits Viserys, the man’s so whipped for his daughter and granddaughter he’ll probably give her a throne made of gold if she asked.
Aegon sits beside her, looking put out at having been outdone by his younger brother.
He grabs his mini Sunfyre and hands it to her with no small amount of reluctance. “Here. You can have it.”
It’s as clear as day to her that he doesn’t really want to part from the miniature dragon, but his pride won’t just let him do nothing after Aemond gave her something while he hasn’t. Is it going to stop her from taking the dragon anyway? Of course not.
With a gummy smile, she takes the dragon from Aegon.
Gotta teach ‘em young that what’s theirs is hers. Can’t leave that one possibility that they might covet the throne. To hell with patriarchy!
But because Daena isn’t heartless (and Aegon’s sad face is making guilt creep up her chest, damn it), she leans in and presses a slobbery kiss to his cheek as thanks since she’s incapable of forming coherent words yet.
He beams at her, mini Sunfyre forgotten as he grabs her hand and babbles about his day and how much he’s missed her.
Aemond, at some point, managed to squeeze his way beside her, occasionally handing her a block he found interesting from the pile of blocks he has and ignoring Aegon’s glare for interrupting his time with her.
Daena smiles and ignores the way Aemond throws a wooden block at Aegon’s head after he kicked away the last one Aemond offered her.
Aw, they’re getting along, how cute.
Daena knows she probably shouldn’t, but fuck it, she wants her dragon to grow big and fast like Daenerys’s Drogon — at least the way he did in the show.
It’s easy enough to cut a small gash on the inside of her elbow, even with her clumsy two year old fingers. She’s not supposed to be out of her crib at this time, but what the nursemaids don’t know won’t hurt them. The tricky part was trying to find something sharp enough to pierce through skin, though luckily she managed to nab one of those earrings left in a dresser near her crib.
She stands in front of the dragon egg, placed on a pot of coals that’s supposed to keep it warm and whatnot. It’s a load of shit if she ever saw one.
Dragons are born from magic. And why do the Targaryens practice incest?
To keep the magic in their blood pure.
Daena uses the sharp end of the earring to cut a line on her skin, pointing her elbow to the dragon egg so the blood would drip directly onto it. Her stupid baby instincts are urging her to cry about the pain, but she’s gotten better at keeping a tight hold on her emotions throughout the past few moons.
Her egg is gorgeous, no doubt about that. A pure matte black lined with veins of silver-white along its body. If it ever hatches, Sunfyre is going to have some serious competition for the title of most beautiful dragon.
Her thoughts begin to turn muddled, the room spinning a little as the sound of sizzling blood echoes in her ears.
And oh, she’s starting to feel a little lightheaded. She didn’t cut that deep, did she?
…Fuck.
The last thing she sees before succumbing to unconsciousness is a large crack forming on the dragon egg.
The sound of a shriek startles Daena awake, eyes snapping open and turning her head to see a horrified servant standing in the doorway.
The sound of it sends soldiers running to the commotion, and lo and behold, Ser Harwin Strong bursts through the door only to stop as he takes in the image she must make. Daena looks down at herself and sees her white sleepwear stained with blood, a little of it pooling by her arm.
But what truly captures her attention is the small black dragon currently dozing on top of her chest, white veins like lightning running along its wing membrane.
It opens its eyes and meets her lilac gaze with its own red irises.
And Daena really shouldn’t be allowed to name anything, because she will end up naming that thing something edgy, like—
“Thanatos.”