Chapter Text
“Dear Diary,
Today was the tourney in honor of Viserys’s heir. He was there. And my own daughter betrayed me. I think Aemma and the heir died, I forget really. But DAEMON in dragon armor! I’m throwing up, literally.”
Otto isn’t throwing up, only gritting his teeth as he scribbles in his diary, his only friend, his boon companion. He doesn’t need friends. He needs Daemon.
His own daughter, that little tramp, threw it in his face. She knows how he feels, the long hours he spends staring into the fire, dreaming of Daemon. He was foolish enough to tell her, and now she is starting shit.
Daemon asked her favor. Otto does not know why, but he blames Alicent. Alicent who is always making nice with the princess and being attractive, prissy, and pleasant. And now perfect Alicent gave Daemon her favor. Like it was nothing.
“That audacious bitch,” he writes, and in his fury, his normally immaculate handwriting is hardly legible.
Otto has never wanted to be Alicent before. But he wants to painstakingly sew a garland, he wants to grant it to the dangerous dragon prince, and he wants all the courtiers to see.
He did not care that something good happened to Alicent. It should have been him.
It is because he can’t betroth her to Rhaenyra, he knew that.
“If I can’t have my Targaryen, I’ll take yours.” She is clever that girl, a true exemplar of Hightower pettiness. He would be proud if she were not encroaching on his territory.
He did request a betrothal between his daughter and their heir, after all. Not that she is grateful for it. It would be a prestigious match, and nobody can sniff out an opportunity like Otto.
And he certainly understands his daughter’s unconventional desires all too well. No need for her to suffer as he has. But foolish Viserys, who never could see things as they were, merely laughed.
“Oh, I wish! They would be perfect together. If only Rhaenyra had been born a boy, all our wishes would be granted.”
It was a slap in the face. Viserys is such a dumbass.
This is especially clear in how he doesn’t even notice the way Lord Corlys Velaryon looks at him. With wounded pride, yes, but there’s a longing behind it that frankly makes the small council awkward. In those early, happy days, everyone knew there was something between Corlys and Viserys, but all that vanished when Queen Alysanne betrothed Viserys to his cousin Aemma.
Corlys was related, but not enough. They really are freaks, these Valyrians, but damn if Otto doesn’t find it appealing. Viserys went blithely about his day, chatting about his new betrothed as though there had been nothing between him and the handsome young Lord of the Tides. It is a seething wound between the two Valyrian houses, one that will perhaps never be mended.
It shocked Otto at the time, but he has long grown accustomed to his adult baby king and his little whims. He helped Viserys issue an order that morning, for three miniature Unsullied armies and a scale model of Meraxes. The king took great delight in stamping it with his seal and demanding it be delivered to the Master of Toys.
It really is a shame, the king’s loneliness. Aemma was obliging enough, but Corlys has his own toy set on Driftmark, a sand ocean with lovely little boats and sea serpents who would dart through the waves. “If only the two houses had been combined.” Perhaps Otto should see to it.
If only Alysanne could really see into the hearts of men. She might have considered the rising Hand, a bashful second son, as a suitor for the splendid Prince Daemon.
Otto nibbles on his quill before continuing. “If only…”
Xxx
“I am such a dumbass! Hate myself so much ☹” Otto is supposed to be paying attention in council, but his diary is simply more interesting.
“Daemon is not that cute,” he wrote. Otto sighs. There is little point in lying to his diary, and himself. Lord Beesbury asks him something about tariffs, but he is too occupied in violently scratching out the line to notice.
“Why did I do it,” he writes, as Lord Beesbury sighs and explains the tax policy once again. “Why Why Why”.
It was as though he couldn’t help himself. He loves to fight with Daemon in the council, to see his eyes rivet on him in that sexy sneer. He loves to feel mortally offended and stand up in a rage, and when he stares down at Daemon it’s as if the world stands still. He even enjoys the uncomfortable stares of the other council members. It makes it feel that much more intimate.
He almost doesn’t mind the massive gulf between them, not when he can see Daemon’s breath quicken, his fingers tighten in frustration, all because of Otto.
Otto has risen high in the world, but he had never felt power like this. It reminds him that the prince very much knows he exists, that he is a central figure in his world. As long as he can stir a reaction in him, he still clings to hope.
His love is not generous. He will destroy Daemon’s opportunities, sow discord, and tear the House of the Dragon apart, if it means getting his boyfriend.
But he has gone too far. When he realized the implications of Aemma’s death, he panicked. Viserys loves his brother too much, and he knows too well the draw Valyrian blood held for Daemon.
“So unfair,” he writes. It is the one way he will never, can never compete. It would be little for the king to dissolve Daemon’s marriage with Rhea Royce and take his brother to wife. He had to separate them, just in case, and the little ‘heir for a day’ incident had been two great a windfall to ignore.
But he had overplayed his hand. Rather than an especially heated session in council, Daemon has been banished, sent back to Rhea Royce in the Vale. Perhaps they would make up their quarrel, and that bitch would have a dozen children, and live the life of domestic bliss with Daemon that he deserves.
But the council picks up when news arrives. Daemon has stolen a dragon egg, and run off to Dragonstone with that hussy Mysaria. It is so dramatic, so petty it takes Otto’s breath away. Otto thinks he knows very well who this action is supposed to offend. Not Viserys, who always forgives his brother, but him.
Daemon is practically inviting him over.
Of course, nobody can confront Daemon but him. The King offers and Otto can only frantically shut it down with some bullshit about his safety. It would mean several days by boat, there and back, and facing down a dragon and maybe some light burn wounds. But he starts practicing his best one liners right away.
He occupies himself on the boat with an old favorite, a book about a maiden and knight from rival houses who abandoned themselves to their passion.