Chapter Text
“FRONT PAGE NEWS: THE WILD PRINCE STRIKES AGAIN
Prince Daeron, eldest son of Prince Maekar, was spotted for the fourth time this month leaving Club Royal in the early hours of the morning alongside an unidentified companion. Sources claim the young prince departed Summerhall late at night without official clearance, once again raising concerns inside royal circles and PR teams regarding his increasingly reckless and rebellious behavior.
Witnesses described the prince as being in “high spirits” throughout the evening before disappearing into the city shortly before dawn. Throughout the period that has gone from yesterday’s night to today’s evening the Royal PR and family circle has decided not to comment on the situation. Neither has the prince we are talking about.”
Daeron was in the slow and arduous process of opening his eyes.
A difficult negotiation between his eyelids and the rest of his body, which seemed determined to remain exactly where it was, or at least thought it was: buried beneath something warm, soft, and pleasingly dark.
For a long moment, he could not tell what time it was, not that he wanted to know anyway. But seeing no sunlight piercing through the blanket pulled over his head, and the silence around him feeling heavy all around the room was enough to suggest either very early morning or very late afternoon. Neither possibility appealed to him. He would like to remain where he was for at least a thousand years. But then, he remembered, or well, not exactly remembered given the state in which he was found last night, where exactly was he?
He frowned into the cotton, which smelled like something familiar but not familiar enough to recall where he knew that scent from.
“What in all seven…”
A violent thump shook the bedroom door. Startled, he rose up as quickly as he could, falling over the bed and knocking his head on the ceramic cold floor.
“Ouch, fuck, my forehead”. Daeron mumbled rubbing his front with his sticky and alcohol smelling hand.
The sheets were tangled around his legs, twisted so tightly that for one disoriented moment Daeron could not understand how he had managed to end up like that. Forehead pounding, limbs trapped in sheets, his thoughts as thick and useless as stone.
He tried to put together the events of the night before for a moment, but a violent hangover headache surged through him before he could grasp any memory properly, forcing a sigh of breath from his lungs.
Raising his head from the floor proved to be a terrible decision. A very, and stupidly taken decision.
Waiting for him, as always, was the deeply disappointed expression of his lifelong educator, relentless critic, and most beloved father figure, Prince Maekar himself looking down at his firstborn, more with sadness than anger, or so Daeron liked to think.
I should have known, Daeron thought hazily for a second.
There wasn’t a world in the whole multiverse where he could be left alone to wander the streets of Summerhall City without facing the consequences the morning would inevitably bring. There was no escaping Summerhall’s castle walls, or at the very least, no escaping his father’s long list of spies scattered throughout the city.
His father was regarding him with a raised brow, and that was never a good sign. In all his years of living, Daeron had learned that a single lifted eyebrow from Prince Maekar meant he was in real trouble.
That made him shiver subtly, nervousness creeping through his tired, tense body. And with that came the realization that there would be consequences for his nightly escapades that last month, consequences unlike any he had faced before. This time, his father would not be quietly and secretively buying out newspapers or burying articles before they reached national print.
This time, Daeron would have to face the scrutiny and criticism of the entire country, and worse, of his own family.
Because he didn’t care much for PR teams and their carefully worded warnings about his "rebellious and unfit image.” But he did care, far too much, about how his family saw him, and where they placed him within the cold hierarchy of their approval.
Not that they knew, anyway. But Daeron deeply inside did care for how they viewed him, not his social image, but the personal depiction his close ones had of him, and what model he played for his younger siblings, especially for young Aegon and his innocent sister Rhae.
Feeling increasingly ashamed, he forced himself upright, pushing into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. His legs were sore and his back ached in a dull way that suggested he had not, in fact, slept particularly well, or perhaps had not slept much at all.
The pain finally made him aware of where he was. His brain clicked and understood he had somehow ended up in his room at Summerhall.
The room was too bright for his comfort. Morning light slipped through the heavy curtains in pale strips striking his lilac delicate eyes. Rays exposing the disarray around him, rumpled sheets, scattered clothing all around the room he could not account for, and the faint, lingering evidence of someone else’s presence in his bed that made his stomach tighten uncomfortably.
His throat felt dry. His mouth tasted of something he would rather not identify. And he felt a strand of hair fall over his eyes, making a subtle curtain that kept him from looking at his father in front of him.
Somewhere nearby, in between the wrinkled clothes, his phone buzzed again. Then again. And again.
Daeron didn’t look at it immediately. He did not want to reach out for it because he already knew what he would be finding.
Instead, he lifted his head and met his father’s gaze directly. He was found with a stern and cold stare that made his heart clench, not in fear but in acceptance of what he knew was to come. In the kindest possible scenario he would only get house arrest for a few weeks, and he really wasn’t keen on finding out what the worst case scenario could turn out to be.
I’ve really fucked up this time.
Daeron was fully aware of it now, in a way he wasn’t usually capable of after nights like these. This wasn’t the familiar, manageable mess of drinking too much or disappearing into clubs under the cover of the night. This was different. This was real.
Something that didn’t just threaten his reputation and his family's , but carried consequences that reached far beyond him, into the fragile structure of his family, into the careful image they had spent years, no, centuries maintaining.
He had brought someone back with him. Inside the castle walls.
He had had intimacy with someone within the castle walls.
And worst of all, as it slowly dawned on him, he could not remember how he had gotten them there without anyone noticing. But now that he put thought to it, perhaps someone had actually seen them, and had alerted the prince of his son’s activities throughout the night.
The realization settled heavily in his chest as he tried, and continuously failed, to reconstruct the night in full, or at least the basic memories that he needed to understand what he had really done and what limits he had crossed. There were large gaps, blank points where a memory should have been. But even without clarity, his mind offered him enough fragments to imagine the rest. And that was somehow worse.
He truly had overstepped limits that were so obviously set for a prince like him, because even if the whole palace and family had always kept a blind eye to his doings, this was something else entirely. Not only had he, very possibly, come home with a whore, but he had also endangered his siblings’ safety by bringing an outsider into the castle.
That made Daeron’s mind spiral on how a bad model and older brother he was to the younger ones in his family. That thought wasn’t what pained him, it was the realisation of who he was, for him and for his siblings.
Daeron felt it take root and spread all over his mind, suffocating, twisting every earlier fragment of guilt into something sharper and more painful. Not just reckless. Not just stupid. Not even rebel. Worse, he felt careless in a way that had consequences beyond him. His siblings, his beloved younger siblings, the ones who still looked at him like he was supposed to know what he was doing, like he was supposed to be the safe one to follow, like he was the example they had to follow. And instead he was this, they had this, a mess of blurred nights and missing hours and decisions that only made sense in the moment he made them and never, absolutely never, after.
He could almost hear Maekar’s voice already, not even speaking yet, just existing in the certainty of it, of what his words towards him would be: you are supposed to set an example for them, for Aegon, for Aemon, for Rhae, hell, even for Daella and Aerion. The idea of being an example made his stomach turn, it always had and it always would.
What kind of example left the castle in secret and came back with strangers in the dark?
What kind of role model drank himself almost to death daily?
What kind of brother turned into a headline instead of a person they could rely on?
His throat tightened as he tried to push the thought away, but it only came back worse, heavier, until it felt less like he had failed them once and more like he had been failing them constantly, in ways he had simply chosen not to notice.
When he really thought about it, there probably hadn’t been a day in years when his siblings hadn’t seen him drinking or appearing in the headlines for something he had done.
He hadn’t been there for Aerion when he had come out. Scared and new to a world that would be harsh to him. Yes, he may have given advice on one or another thing, but he never had had his brother cry on his shoulder because someone in school had called him faggot. He had never openly supported him, even if that possibly was what his brother had needed the most of all.
He had been present at Daella's first fencing match, because she had been begging for weeks for him to attend, but he barely remembers her stepping on the podium and claiming the trophy because he was so full of alcohol he could not even see past his eyelashes. And even if he had said sorry a thousand times, and she had forgiven him a thousand more, he knew these kinds of acts did not erase easily from a child’s memory.
Aemon never scolded him the way the others did. Never looked at him with open disappointment nor tried to force him into confessions he was not ready to give. Instead, he cared for Daeron in quieter ways, gentler ways that somehow made the guilt even worse. He was always there after the scandals had already happened, sitting beside him during dreadful family dinners when the silence around Daeron became too unbearable, changing conversations when reporters became too invasive, making excuses for him even when Daeron knew he should not. Aemon had mastered the art of caring without making it humiliating.
Sometimes, after nights like these, Daeron would wake to find a glass of water and painkillers left on the bedside table without explanation. No lectures attached. No disappointed speeches. Just silent understanding.
Aegon wasn’t much different, but he did have a care for Daeron none of his siblings had ever had. It was as if he was the older brother and Daeron the younger one. Always advising and controlling how much drink he had at dinners, hiding his cigarettes so he couldn’t smoke more than he already did. Aegon was the one that still had faith in him, the one that believed Daeron could still be saved from this circle of misery.
As for small Rhae, he loved him nonetheless, probably because she was too small still to understand and see how much of a failure her older brother really was. And Daeron was really trying his best so she would never have to see what he had become, he babysitted her almost every friday and they watched disney movies together. He really had thought he was improving his relationship with his sister.
But then last night’s incident happened, and suddenly he was no longer just a reckless or selfish son of the Crown, he was something worse. Careless. Thoughtless. An older brother who had failed in ways he could no longer excuse.
And the worst part was not the act itself, but what it meant in hindsight. That he had not considered them at all, not properly, not when it mattered. His siblings deserved better than this, they deserved an older brother who did not turn into a headline tale every time he left the castle walls.
He would have to account for the consequences now, in ways that could not be undone or explained away. Because they deserved a good brother. And he was no longer sure he had been one in a very long time.
A cough cut through his thoughts and pulled him back into the real world, and it was only then that he realized he had been spiraling for quite some time, long enough that his father had coughed to bring him back and gain his son’s attention.
Maekar did not raise his voice. Daeron realized instantly that it was always the worst possible outcome.
Silence sat between them for a moment too long, thick enough that it felt deliberate, like Maekar was choosing each word before speaking, weighing it, shaping it into something precise and unavoidable. Like he was calculating what to tell to the mess he had before him.
“Do you have any idea,” Maekar said at last, voice tired, “what it is you have done?”
It wasn’t really a question, but a truth posed as one.
Daeron swallowed, shifting slightly on the bed, suddenly hyper-aware of everything around him. The dull pressure behind his eyes, the tear that was making its way to Daeron's cheek, and the humiliating fact that he was sitting there like the evidence of his actions.
“Yes,” he managed. He never had that feeble tone, he was usually one to talk back to his father.
Maekar’s gaze didn’t stray from him. It remained, cold and unsettling.It wasn’t anger. It never was, not with him at least. It was worse, disappointment.
“You left Summerhall without clearance,” Maekar said clearly. “Again, it’s the fourth time this month”
Daeron let out a slow breath through his nose, because of course it was that. Of course it started there. It wasn’t about his actions, it was about what had made its way into the news.
“It was late,” he muttered. “I wasn’t,” He stopped thinking for a second, calculating his answer. "I didn't think it mattered.”
A pause. He heard his father sighing, almost unforgivingly. That pause did something worse than shouting ever could.
“It matters,” Maekar said simply. “It always does, boy”.
Daeron’s jaw tightened. The familiar nickname that his father used when he was really tired was what made the tear finally slip.
Another silence followed, heavier this time. Maekar finally stepped further into the room, sitting on the desk’s chair, closing the distance just enough that Daeron had to tilt his head slightly to keep eye contact.
He remained perfectly composed, as always, hands folded before his lap as if this were a psychology session rather than a collapse of his son’s life. Maekar was no fool, he knew Daeron’s activities would bring no good image to the Crown, but the moment where they stopped had finally arrived.
“I have spent years,” Maekar continued, “ensuring that your nightly movements do not become public. That your… habits remain contained and out of my home’s walls.”
Daeron slipped a short, humorless laugh before he could stop himself.
“Contained and controlled,” he echoed, his voice a mere whisper, “Is that what you call it now?”
Maekar’s brow barely moved, still arched and critical.
“You were seen,” he said. “Some paparazzi took pictures when you escaped Club Royale .”
That landed heavier than anything else so far. I really tried to escape them this time, he thought, it seems it wasn't enough.
Daeron’s stomach tightened more than he deemed possible. He looked away for half a second, he looked at his feet, all muddy and dirty, at his legs, and the red marks that formed in a similar to a mouth form all through them. He forced himself back up, and sat straighter on the bed, he took the sheets and covered his sore legs from his father’s view.
“It’s not like I set out to become a national emergency every time I leave the house, it’s not my fault these stupid men follow me everywhere I go” he said, sharper now. “I went out. I came back. Yes, they took some pictures, so what, they always do. That’s it.”
“That is not ‘it,’” Maekar replied. And his face now retorted into something Daeron had never seen. “Do not play the fool with me Daeron, we both know what limits you broke yesterday”.
Still calm.
Still measured.
But leaving place for something he could not exactly describe, maybe it was real anger.
Daeron felt something in his chest begin to press outward, uncomfortable and hot. He was sweating already.
“You act like I committed treason,” he muttered. Shit, shit, shit.
Maekar finally exhaled, not frustration, not anger. Something closer to restraint finally beginning to thin. He looked like he was trying not to explode in front of his son.
“You brought someone into Summerhall,” he said, there, plainly.
That sentence changed the ambience in the room.
Daeron froze slightly.
The memory, fragmented and incomplete, flickered behind his eyes. A face he couldn’t fully place. A doorway behind the garden. Warmth. Noise and sounds. Then gaps, all the gaps he could not reach.
His throat tightened.
“That’s not-” he started. He knew there was no denying it.
But Maekar continued, voice still leveled and stern.
“You brought an outsider into a secured royal residence. Into a space your siblings occupy. Do you understand, no, do you have any idea what that means?”
“Of course you don’t, you have never feared what could happen to our family a day in your fucking life. Daeron, I try so hard to keep you all safe from the dangers that royals face these days, after your mother passing, and you keep pushing and pushing, and think there will be no consequences.”
Daeron’s hands curled slightly against the bedsheet. He pressed his eyes, tears now falling without restraint.
“It wasn’t like that, dad, I promise” he said quickly, he was rumbling in a broken voice “I didn’t… I wasn’t thinking…”
“That is precisely the problem.” His father was now clearly angry, “you don’t think Daeron, you only ever apologise for the actions already done”.
The words hit cleanly. Daeron went quiet for a second, then let out a breath that almost turned into a sob again, but didn’t quite make it. He forcefully lifted his head and looked right into his father.
“So what,” he said, voice tightening. “I’m supposed to just never do anything? Never leave the castle walls? Never exist outside the keep unless it’s approved by all the palace, or actually, all the nation, since they like so much to comment on my private life?"
Maekar’s eyes sharpened slightly.
“This is not about permission, and I’m not scolding you for going out one night, you haven’t received the message son, I’m scolding you because your actions last night were careless upon your younger siblings.”
Daeron scoffed under his breath.
“No, this isn’t what you are doing here dad” he said. “It’s about control, and this restriction you have over me that I still don't understand”
That was the first time something shifted, subtle, but real. Something more dangerous: disappointment deepening into certainty. His father got up from his chair, made his way to Daeron’s bed and sat next to him.
“You think this is control boy?” Maekar asked quietly, almost whispering next to his ear.
Daeron opened his mouth, then closed it again. He really could not find the words between the sobs and tears. Because yes. Because what else was it if not control?
Maekar stepped closer again, and now his voice dropped slightly, still calm, still controlled, almost kind, but heavier.
“You are not a private citizen, Daeron. Every action you take is observed, recorded, repeated, and interpreted by whomever in all the nation. Whether you like it or not, you are part of a structure that does not bend for your impulses. You can’t control the Crown, but the Crown will always control you”.
The words settled somewhere deep inside him, inescapable. Daeron hated them immediately because they sounded true in the way only his father’s lessons ever did.
You can’t control the Crown, but the Crown will always control you.
It felt less like advice and more like a sentence already decided long before he had been old enough to understand it, as if it had been told to young Maekar, and young Daeron the first and his father before him. For a brief, uncomfortable moment, he wondered if that was all they royals truly were in the end, not people, not sons or brothers, but extensions of something ancient that tracked every mistake before it even became their own. And what terrified him most was not the idea itself, but the realization that part of him had already begun to believe it. Or worse, that there was truth in his father’s words.
Suddenly, Daeron felt the overwhelming urge to close the space between them and hug his father. The impulse startled him almost as much as the conversation itself. Maekar had never been particularly affectionate , not cold, never really cold, but careful with tenderness towards his sons in the way men raised for crowns often were, calculated. And yet, for one fleeting second, Daeron found himself aching for the simple reassurance of being held like someone’s son rather than someone’s disappointment.
As if having heard his thoughts, Maekar reached for Daeron and embraced him in a hug, the first one in many years, or at least the first one that felt real and not pre-planned. He supported his forehead on his fathers shoulder, and cried for some time before responding.
“I know what I am,” he said, too fast, not thinking.
“Do you?” That question landed harder than anything else.
Daeron’s fingers dug into his fathers back. He let go the second after. The look his father gave him was almost hurt.
For a second, the words he wanted to say tangled in his throat, he felt the urge to call out something about Aerion, about fairness, about how easy it was for everyone else to be human in public except for him, and how unfair everyone was to him.
It came out wrong. It came out very, very wrong.
“Aerion dates a rugby player, a man that supposedly is not fit for our station” he said sharply, voice rising now. “And everyone calls it progressive monarchy, modern image, whatever else you people want to sell it as. I go out dancing and clubbing and suddenly the Crown is on fire and the nation is against the palace demanding an explanation”
Maekar didn’t react immediately. He still hadn’t recomposed himself after the hug.
That silence again. I can’t with the fucking silence anymore.
Then, calmly, said , “This is not about Aerion, and even if it was, he knows his limits and how to maintain his social image in public”
Daeron let out a breath that almost shook his teary face.
“It’s always about Aerion when it suits you,” he snapped. “Or Valarr, or Baelor, or even yourself. Anyone who manages to behave correctly enough to be tolerated in the palace.”
A pause. Maekar’s gaze held steady. Daeron thought his father looked sad, and mostly tired from discussing with him.
“You are not being punished for going out,” he said. “When Baelor and I were young we were constantly scolded for sneaking away around the keep”
Daeron let out a short, humorless laugh.
“I somehow doubt your escapades made national headlines.” His joke did not reach what he was expecting.
“Daeron” His father stopped. “You are being held accountable,” Maekar corrected.
That word, accountable, made something in Daeron snap slightly.
“For what?” he demanded. “For living? For breathing? For not being perfect enough for whatever version of me you decided I was supposed to be when I was born?”
“Father, I’m not even the heir. Why does any of this suddenly matter so much?”
Maekar’s expression changed then, not softer, and definitely not kinder.
“You may not be the heir to the Iron throne of Britain, but you, and only you are my heir, you are the representation of my name, you, Daeron, are my legacy, how can you not see that all the efforts I put in you and your image are only so as to make you better than me!”
The pressure Daeron felt came all at once, suddenly, and overtook all of his thoughts.
“I did not choose a version of you, boy, I could never decide who you are supposed to be,” he said quietly. “I am just responding to the one standing right now in front of me.”
That hit differently. Daeron faltered for half a second, just enough for Maekar to continue.
“You are not careful,” Maekar said. “You are not consistent. And now you are involving other people in ways you do not understand the consequences of.”
Daeron looked away again.
“I didn’t hurt anyone,” he said, quieter now. A sole tear, almost dry, reached his lip, the saltiness to it gave him energy to continue.
Maekar’s voice stayed even, punctually faltering. “You do not get to decide that in isolation, in your room and in what you alone have decided is safe for all of us”
Silence again. Heavier this time.
Daeron felt something in his chest shift, not anger anymore, but something closer to shame trying to become anger again because it had nowhere else to go. All he really felt was shame, for being such a disappointment to his family.
And beneath it all, the faint, uncomfortable realization and truth Daeron had been dodging all along, Maekar wasn’t wrong, if anything, his father had been the first one to call out all of his mistakes.
The room suddenly felt unbearably small, all the words said condensed in that room, not small enough so as not to please him, but compressed enough to keep his discussion with Maekar in the ambience.
Daeron lowered his gaze to his hands, and he saw some kind of a cut in the middle of his middle finger. I’ll have to seek a maester to see to that later.
“I know,” he said quietly, as he had remained for the whole evening. The words sounded strange coming out of him. Smaller than he intended.
Maekar remained still, he had a seriousness that evoked a certain kind of fear and nervousness.
Daeron swallowed harshly before continuing, his throat as dry as a desert.
“I know I always make everything harder.” His voice faltered despite himself. “For you. For everyone. And I’m sorry I haven’t kept my image up to the royal standards everyone expects me to keep”
Another pause stretched between them, though this one no longer felt sharp enough to cut. He felt like this conversation was more silences with a few words scattered around than a proper and as his father always said “educating” small talk.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Daeron admitted. “I know that doesn’t fix it, but I didn’t.”
For the first time since entering the room, Maekar’s expression looked drained, not fully, not enough to erase the tension from his features, but enough for Daeron to notice it immediately. His father sighed quietly, the sound heavy with exhaustion more than frustration.
“I know you didn’t,” he said at last, more gently than before. His father knew Daeron had never been one to act rebellious out of cruelty, only out of desperation for something that felt like freedom. Freedom. A concept that royals had long forgotten in the Targaryen line.
Daeron looked away quickly, and analysed the room again, for at least the fiftieth time, teeth biting into his interior cheek, again as another wave of humiliation settled over him. The tenderness hidden beneath Maekar’s disappointment always hurt more than the anger would have. Because his father loved his sons so much that he had gone and done everything to keep them from any danger the modern and cruel world could hit them with.
A long silence followed before Maekar finally spoke again. Gods, this is awkward, Daeron told himself. Father never acts this way unless there is something troubling him.
“Baelor called less than an hour ago, the King wants to understand what has been happening” There it was, Prince Baelor, Heir to Britain’s Iron throne, the King’s Hand, had called. Demanding an explanation for the King.
That made Daeron tense immediately. I’m fucked. Really fucked.
Of course he had called. He could imagine it perfectly: the King awakened before sunrise, newspapers spread across his desk, PR advisors swarming the corridors of King’s Landing like restless animals.
“He wants an explanation,” Maekar continued evenly. “As do the communications teams and PR assessment. As do several members of the council.”
Daeron let out a slow breath through his nose. His hand scratched his lower back, as if this was a casual situation, but shit, it wasn’t. And Daeron was scared out of his wits, because yes, Baelor called daily, but the King didn’t, probably because of his strained relationship with Maekar, but still, he had made a call, even if he hadn’t been the one talking.
“And what did you tell them?”
“The truth,” Maekar replied.
That surprised him enough to look up. The surprise in his face must have been evident enough for his father to say “Don’t act so surprised son, what did you think would happen after appearing, half-naked on all the news’s frontpages this morning?”
“Hmnh…” Daeron felt like fainting.
Maekar’s gaze remained steady and focused on his almost passed out, somehow again, son.
“That you disappeared into the city without authorization. That photographs were taken. That speculation is spreading faster than we can contain it.”
Contain.
Always that word. As if Daeron was something to be controlled or even contained.
Daeron rubbed tiredly at his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, quieter this time. He would continue to say those words until they became his mantra. But right now he felt more sincere. “I really, really am…”
Maekar watched him carefully for a moment before speaking.
“This is no longer something I can resolve quietly on my own, I’m sorry too son.” His father rose from his place next to him, and started walking nervously around the room. “I really tried to find a better solution to our inconvenience, but it seems neither the King nor your Uncle agree with me on that…”
The words settled heavily between them.
A cold sensation settled in his chest.“What does that mean?”. Maekar remained silent.
“Father, please, what does that mean?”
“It means,” Maekar said calmly, “that I will have to speak with the King directly. And together, we will decide what consequences follow this.”
Consequences. He could already see the King’s disappointed look of pity he would be given.
He tried to laugh, to take some of the heaviness out of the room, but the sound died before it properly formed.
“So I’m being sentenced now?”
Maekar’s expression hardened slightly again.
“This is not punishment for the sake of the Seven, Daeron.” He heard a tired and frustrated sigh escape his father’s mouth “Do you still, after all this conversation, not understand that your actions have consequences?!”
“It certainly feels like punishment to me.” He mumbled under his breath. His father’s angered look should have given away that he had said something out of place.
“This is fucking damage control.”
That shut him up, for real this time.
Maekar stepped toward the window then, briefly glancing toward the pale morning light bleeding through the curtains before continuing.
“Baelor proposed the possibility of a public tour or some fucking invention he made up so you don’t end up in a boarding school or somewhere the King probably wants you to end”
Daeron frowned immediately. “Wait a second, dad, I’m almost twenty, he can’t send me to a boarding school, what in the Seven would the kingdom think then!”
“There are other places for people that our family discards…”. Daeron thought about his uncle Rhaegel, sent to an asylum at only thirty because he had gotten mad over his wife’s passing. No, no, no please, you wouldn’t let them take me there would you?
“So, a tour?” What even was a tour, the royal family did not tour around like they were puppets so look at.
“A diplomatic one,” Maekar clarified. “Appearances. Charity events. Public engagements. Several hospitals and schools. Possibly abroad.”
Daeron stared at him blankly for a second. His mind felt empty of everything they had talked about in the last hour. So his uncle’s solution, opposed to sending him to a fucking insane and mental asylum was to parade Daeron around the country to what possible end, make the people like him?
“You cannot be serious.” His tears long gone, and a mocking tone remaining.
“The Crown’s public approval has become unstable in recent months, the PR teams have noted the increasing disaffection for the royals by the youth and younger sectors in our country” Maekar said. “This situation or yours has only intensified discussions already taking place behind the closed council’s doors.”
“And your solution is to parade me around the continent?” To say he was shocked was an understatement.
“Our solution,” Maekar corrected quietly, “may be to remind the country that this family is still capable of discipline, stability, and unity. And you are our chance to have the opinion and support or our youth”
Daeron looked down again, exhausted suddenly in a way sleep could never repair, not even if, like in the movies he watched with Rhae, he slept safe and sound for a hundred years.
He began to contemplate what his close future may bring, charity events, pooling over his thoughts on Britain's youth with other important people, long and arduous nights in hotel suites that made him crave company he knew he should not want…
What have I gotten myself into this time, fuck Daeron, what were you thinking!
For a moment he repeated his father’s words in his head.
Unity.
Right. As if the Targaryen family had ever truly been united.
Because apparently even his breakdowns now had to become political opportunities for his family to claw back some semblance of stability or something.
“And if I refuse?” he asked eventually, though without much force behind it.
Maekar’s voice remained calm.
“You won’t.”
“You can’t”, he must have wanted to say.
The certainty of it stung because Daeron knew, deep down, that he was right.
As his father made his way toward the bedroom door, the conversation seeming all finished, Daeron allowed himself to breathe for what felt like the first time in nearly an hour. The exhaustion in his body had begun settling back into his limbs, heavy and unpleasant, and for one fleeting moment he convinced himself that perhaps the worst of the morning had already passed. As always, he never failed to be wrong.
Maekar stopped by the door.
One hand rested against the handle as he turned his head slightly over his shoulder, directing his attention back towards Daeron with an expression that immediately unsettled him.
It was subtle, so subtle most people would not have noticed it at all, but after a lifetime of studying his father’s moods and facecards, Daeron caught it instantly: the faintest trace of amusement threatening the corner of his mouth. Not warmth. Certainly not mercy. Something infinitely more dangerous. A smirk was making its way to Maekar’s tilted face.
And suddenly, against all logic, Daeron felt nervous again.
Maekar rarely looked satisfied after arguments, actually, never did. He looked exhausted, disappointed, irritated perhaps, but never, never, quietly victorious as he looked now. That expression alone was enough to make unease crawl beneath Daeron’s skin.
“There is,” Maekar said carefully, “one final detail regarding the tour that I forgot to mention.”
Daeron immediately frowned. The way his father said detail made it sound suspiciously unlike one, and made it sound more like a whole turning point in his future activities.
“What detail?” What detail could be so unimportant that his father decided to omit it during their talk.
Maekar’s fingers rested loosely against the door handle, playing with the door lock. Calm. Unbothered. Entirely too calm for Daeron’s liking.
“You will not be traveling alone.”
Something in Daeron’s expression immediately soured. I hate kingsguard, they never leave me out of their sight. Shit, they will have assigned me the oldest and most party-crasher old raisin.
“Wha-, Father…”
“Given the current circumstances,” Maekar continued smoothly, “it was decided that pairing you with someone more… um… stable would be beneficial to both the tour and the Crown’s image.”
Daeron stared at him in disbelief.
“Stable,” he repeated flatly.
Maekar ignored the interruption entirely.
“Prince Valarr will be accompanying you throughout the tour. He will direct the events and lead the royal PR team along with yourself”
Silence. Genuine, complete silence. Daeron simply blinked at him for a moment, convinced his still half-functional brain had invented the sentence entirely. I must be dreaming, maybe the pills have finally settled in.
He shook his head as if to convince himself he wasn’t in some kind of nightmare.
Valarr. Valarr.
Of course.
Who else would they possibly send?
The perfect prince. The nation’s favorite grandson. Royal goldenboy. Their polished heir to responsibility itself. Golden, composed, painfully respectable Valarr, who probably hadn’t done anything scandalous in his entire life beyond loosening his tie incorrectly once or hand-pick a flower from the royal gardens for his mother.
Daeron let out a short laugh of complete disbelief. It couldn't be true.
“You’re joking.” He looked at his father with stupefaction. “Father, how…”
“No.”
“You’re punishing him too, then?” Valarr had to have done something very, very badly so as to end up paired with his failed cousin.
For the first time in the entire conversation, Maekar looked almost amused.
“Valarr volunteered.”
Daeron had no immediate answer for that.
Which was unfortunate, because now he had to deal with something significantly worse than outrage: confusion. What reason in the whole, fucking, vast world could Valarr have to volunteer, and loose two weeks or something to accompain and co-lead the tour with Daeron? It doesn't make sense.
“Why,” he asked slowly, “would he ever do that?”. Daeron asked out of pure confusion and astonishment.
Maekar’s expression settled back into composure, giving the amusing moment an end.
“You may ask him yourself.”
And with that, he opened the door.
“We leave for King’s Landing tomorrow morning, be ready with your bags on the porch at three pm, ” he added. “Try not to create another international incident before then, please.”
The door closed behind him.
Daeron stared at it for several long seconds.
Then, very slowly, he dropped backward onto the mattress and covered his face with both hands.
“Oh, this is going to be a disaster.”
Daeron didn’t remember exactly how he got from his bed to the corridor to his sister’s rooms.
Only that at some point the castle stopped feeling like a prison and started feeling like something softer, quieter, less sharp around the edges, his childhood home.
Rhae’s door wasn’t locked. It never was.
He pushed it open without knocking.
Inside, the atmosphere was almost offensively normal.
Aegon was sprawled half across the bed like he owned it, one arm hanging off the side, while Rhae sat cross-legged on the floor with a set of nail polish bottles scattered around her like it was a matter of state deciding which color would fit her best.
Both of them looked up at the same time and found their brother, lost and tired looking as ever.
“Wow,” Aegon said immediately. “You look like you’ve been emotionally executed, or more like your energy has drifted away to hide in some dark corner around the keep”
Ah, how had he missed his younger brother, always the jester.
“Morning to you too,” Daeron muttered, closing the door behind him.
Rhae’s eyes narrowed slightly as she took him in wrapping her arms around him.
“You’ve been with Father, haven't you?” she concluded.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
That earned a small hum of satisfaction from her, as if she had successfully solved a puzzle. And rightfully for a six year old she looked at him with a proud expression on her face, almost grin-like.
Aegon patted the space beside him on the bed.
“Sit down before you collapse or start another scandal around Summerhall”
“I’m not- ” Daeron said automatically, but he still sat “...starting anything,”
Rhae immediately reached out and grabbed his hand.
“Hey- ”
“Relax, gosh Dae, what has happened to you?” she said, unbothered. “I’m stealing this.”
“My hand?” Daeron chuckled softly.
“Your ring,” she corrected, already tugging it off his finger. “It’s ugly anyway.”
“It was a gift from a friend” I mean, not exactly a friend but something close to it, he guessed.
“From someone with terrible taste, clearly.” The young girl removed the golden ring from his index finger and placed it in her nail polish box. hidden between cotton pads and coloured tints.
Aegon laughed from the bed. And Daeron turned his head to glare at him.
Daeron leaned back slightly, exhaling for the first time that morning without feeling like he was about to be sentenced again by someone.
Rhae was already inspecting his nails.
“Your hands look like they’ve survived some kind of war,” she commented.
“That’s because I have.” He did not have the heart to tell his innocent sister of his nightly activities. “Mm. Does emotional war against father count?”
“Unfortunately.” She clicked her tongue like she didn’t approve, then uncapped a bottle of nail polish anyway.
“What are you doing?” Daeron asked warily.
“Fixing you.” Ah, Rhae, how I wish all my problems could be fixed only by having my hands painted and splattered with nail polish.
“I don’t need fixing.”
“You were literally on the front page this morning,” Aegon added helpfully. “So I think you might be a bit broken.”
Daeron shot him a look. “Hey, that was mean!”
Aegon just smiled innocently.
Rhae started painting one of his nails without waiting for permission. She had chosen a dark crimson red that almost made Daeron vomit on how much it resembled blood at first.
“So…” she said casually, “are you actually going to tell us what happened, or are we doing the dramatic silence thing again?”
Daeron hesitated.
For a moment, the weight of Maekar’s voice pressed at the back of his mind again. Tour, consequences, Valarr.
Then Rhae squeezed his hand lightly. Blowing some air so as to dry his polished hand.
Not demanding at all. Just there.
So he sighed.
“Apparently,” he said slowly, “I’m being sent on a diplomatic tour for two weeks.”
Aegon blinked twice. “Like… exile but fashionable?”
“Something like that.” He could pretend all he wanted, but he knew deep inside that this was his last opportunity for his family to accept him.
Rhae didn’t look up from his nails.
“Have you been paired with someone for this tour?” His sister continued to blow on his hand. “Perhaps someone’s dearest cousin…?” When Rhae finally looked up Daeron was found with the amused and grinning face of his youngest sister.
Daeron stiffened slightly.
“Wha-, how have you-” There was no point in denying it. “…Yes.”
That got Aegon’s attention immediately.
“Oh,” he said, grinning. “That’s going to be unbearable for you, but it’s going to be worse for poor Valarr,” His brother was a laughing mess. “What in the world could Valarr have done to be paired up for this shitty tour with you?”
“It’s not funny, but truth be told, I have been asking myself the same question over and over” He really had asked himself continuously the why and how of the matter. “Father has implied it has been Valarr who has volunteered to be a part of this, not that I believe him of course…”
“It’s absolutely funny Daeron” Rhae corrected calmly.
Daeron leaned his head back against the wall.
“It’s not just that,” he muttered.
Rhae finally looked up.
Her expression softened slightly, just enough to stop the teasing.
“What is it, then?”
Daeron hesitated.
Then, quieter, said: “It feels like I’m being… placed somewhere.”
Aegon stopped smiling for a second.
Rhae went back to painting his nails, slower now.
“Yeah,” she said, agreeing softly. “That’s what they always do.” She was still too young to understand what being placed in the royal circle meant, but she had an idea what Daeron must be going through.
Silence settled again, but it wasn’t heavy this time. Just there.
Aegon eventually nudged Daeron’s shoulder with his foot.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I think you’ll survive two weeks of royal babysitting. Valarr is truly the best option they could have assigned you with”
Daeron let out a small breath that almost became a laugh.
“How comforting, brother, to know Valarr is your favourite choice.”
Rhae held up his hand to inspect her work.
“You’re staying for dinner,” she decided. “And we’ll watch Frozen afterwards”.
“I didn’t agree to that.”
“You don’t get a vote.”
Aegon nodded.
“She’s right. You look like the slightest wind will take you if you’re left alone.”
Daeron glanced between them. From lilac eyes to lilac eyes.
And for the first time all day, something in his chest loosened slightly at the sight of his siblings.
“Fine,” he said quietly. “But I’m not eating anything suspicious.”
Rhae smiled. “No promises made.”
Daeron did not go straight to his room after the movie ended.
He told himself he would. But he ended up simply walking off the exhaustion, letting the castle carry him back into something familiar, his room. But Summerhall at this hour felt different, quieter in a way that made thoughts louder, sharper, harder to ignore. Lonelier in some way, he guessed.
His steps slowed without permission in front of a door.
And eventually, almost without realizing it, he found himself in the library.
It was still lit with the portable led lights the staff left during the day. Not brightly. Not warmly either. Just enough to make the room feel suspended in between day and night, like time had forgotten to finish passing through it and complete its cycle.
The smell was what hit him first: old paper, ink, polished wood, the metallic tang of old lamp oil. Everything in here was preserved, untouched by the chaos of news headlines and cameras and voices that never stopped speaking about him.
Order and stillness. Things he was never quite able to become. And probably would never become. His gaze drifted before he even fully registered where he was looking.
The low table near the sofa area was scattered with magazines, left open as if someone had abandoned them mid-page-pass. Glossy pages caught the light in sharp, artificial and plastic reflections.
God, I must be really tired to be literally looking at magazines at three am.
Daeron should have walked past them. He really should have. He did not.
VOGUE.
The title was almost annoyingly elegant “Great Spring Sickness”. It was a classic spring number, number 209, print AC. He picked it up slowly, already knowing what he would find before he saw it.
And there he was.
Valarr Targaryen.
Damn, he does look good here. Daeron remembered the young and scrawny teen he had last seen two years ago, when Valarr was freshly sixteen. But it seemed he had finally grown into himself, and into the Targaryen traits he had spent so long trying to outrun.
And now there he was. Front page. Framed like something inevitable.
Perfect posture. Perfect composition. Perfect lighting that made everything about him look effortless, as if the world arranged itself more neatly when he entered a room.
Daeron stared at it longer than he meant to. It wasn’t jealousy. Not really.
It never quite became that. It was something uncomfortable. The awareness of contrast between them, between the family disappointment and the perfect heir.
Valarr did not look like someone who ever needed to explain himself.
Daeron did not look like someone who was ever allowed not to overexplain each detail of his private life.
He turned the magazine slightly in his hands, and for a moment his focus drifted, not to the image as a whole, but to the detail that always seemed to linger after people met Valarr in person. The detail that had impacted him first when Valarr had been born, blinking into the room for the first time.
His eyes.
That was what people always mentioned first, in interviews or gossip columns or hushed conversations behind palace doors. Not his title. Not his achievements. Not even his curious name.
His eyes. Only ever his mismatched eyes.
One lilac. One brown. Entirely real.
Daeron found himself thinking of them now, not as something he had seen on paper, but as something he was expected to eventually look at directly after all those years.
As if I could bear a single look those eyes posed on me.
To understand and endure. To accompany (even if it was only for two weeks) and to somehow, match the way Valarr’s eyes had an impact on people.
He set the magazine down more carefully than necessary, as if disturbing it too abruptly might make the image shift into something worse, alive even.
Then he left the library without looking back.
His room was dark when he finally got back to it. Having stumbled all around the castle before actually making his way back to his chamber.
It wasn't empty. Never really empty. Summerhall never was. But it was quiet in a way that brought a chill to Daeron’s back.
Daeron didn’t bother properly undressing. There didn’t seem to be much point in doing anything properly anymore, the consequences would still be the same in the morning. He pulled off what he could, let the rest fall where it wanted, and crossed the room like his legs already knew the way better than he did at that moment.
The bed took him without complaint. It almost embraced him with the warmth of a living being.
He sat there first, for a moment that stretched longer than it should have, staring at nothing in particular. Or maybe at everything at once. The walls were almost closing upon him, it felt a bit claustrophobic.
It was hard to tell what was happening when his thoughts were moving like that, slow, concentrated, refusing to settle into anything useful but those fucking eyes. He had forgotten how much of a reaction they brought out of him.
Valarr was there again, of course. And it wasn’t the eyes in specific, but the way he gazed and looked with them.
Not as a person so much as a leftover image in Daeron’s mind. A magazine cover. A name someone had said too calmly. That strange, unsettling idea of him that didn’t quite behave like other people did. Always composed. Always placed correctly in the world.
Always meant to be seen.
Father had truly outdone himself this time.
Daeron exhaled, shallow and tired, and finally leaned back. The thoughts now a vague image in his mind, compressed in something he still couldn't name.
The mattress gave slightly under his weight, familiar in the way only something you’ve never properly rested in can be familiar. Even if he didn’t exactly feel at home in this room, he would surely miss Summerhall, his siblings, the city club…
For a while, he didn’t really think. Or at least, nothing stayed long enough to count as thinking.
Just fragments passing through his head when he closed his eyes.
Duty. Tour. Maekar’s amused voice. That word again, consequences, like it had been waiting for him his whole life. Like all his actions had brought him and conducted him to this precise moment in time.
And then something else, slipping in underneath all of it without asking permission. Underneath all the pressure and intrusive contemplations.
Sleep.
It didn’t arrive cleanly. Nothing ever did when he was like this. It wasn’t that he felt angry, he knew he had to account for his actions, he just felt impotent, and not capable of being what the Crown needed of him, as always.
It came in pieces first. The room fading at the edges. The ceiling losing its certainty. The sound of his own breathing getting further away than it should have been.
Then everything softened. And somewhere in that softening, Valarr was there again.
Ugh, again, and again, and again.
Except not like before.
Not polished. Not framed. Not the version that belonged to magazines or corridors or conversations that stopped when he walked into them. Not the perfect princeling that belonged to everyone but himself.
This was stripped down to something almost wrong in its simplicity, and Daeron thought that was the most calming view he had had for a while in his dreams.
Just eyes.
One lilac. One brown.
No face around them. No expression to anchor them and for Daeron to understand. No context at all, just that impossible asymmetry, hovering in a space that didn’t quite behave like sleep or memory or reality.
Watching him intently.
Not doing anything else.
Just watching.
Daeron didn’t wake up, even as something in him tightened faintly in response. The kind of tension that doesn’t belong to the body anymore once you’re far enough gone.
The eyes stayed.
Unblinking.
Patient, in a way that didn’t really feel human.
Like they weren’t finished yet. Like they were still waiting to become someone.
Or like Daeron himself might be the thing that eventually gave them a face.