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syndrossi · 25 days

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Reverberate AU Concept #1

Aka "what if Resonant!Daemon woke up in the Stepstones shortly after the twins' conception, resolved the first Stepstones conflict in record time, and flew back to Runestone to convince Rhea to announce the pregnancy as her own?"

I may eventually throw these up on AO3, but for now, enjoy them on Tumblr in their roughly hewn form. (There's a second part/scene in progress but it's not directly related to this one.)

x~x~x

“No,” his son said, his first word and his favorite since.

His grey eyes were fixed on the spoon and its cargo of cooked peas in Daemon’s right hand. With his left, Daemon brought the other spoon to Rhaegar’s mouth, and his other son opened his mouth dutifully for a bite.

Daemon moved the full spoon back and forth, mimicking a roaring dragon descending, and brought it right up to Jon’s closed lips. His son’s stare found Daemon’s, deeply unimpressed.

“There are foods other than carrot,” Daemon informed him with a sigh.

He moved to feed the rejected peas to Rhaegar, but now his other son was in rebellion. Daemon tried another dragon maneuver, and his other son’s purple eyes sparked with delight, allowing access. Two more fiery whooshes of the dragon finished off the peas, and Daemon moved on to the finely-diced carrot, which Jon immediately demanded.

If Rhea were in the room, she would scold him for caving to Jon’s demands, but Daemon had never been able to deny them anything. She could be the villain instead, if she so desired. Jon made short work of the carrot, which Rhaegar ate more sparingly, his eyes drawn to the final bowl, which Daemon uncovered with a flourish.

“This,” Daemon said, dipping the spoons next into the gooey mass of blueberries cooked down to a thick, nearly jam-like consistency, “is blueberry.”

Blueberry was a new, messy favorite for both of them, Jon’s indignation over the insult of peas entirely forgotten as they finished the small bowl in record time. Rhaegar got fussy when he was left sticky, so Daemon was quick to wipe their faces with a damp cloth after.

With the completion of their meal came Rhaegar’s daily demand. “Zaldis!”

Zaldrīzes, the very first word his other son had decided to attempt. Far more ambitious than “no,” but certainly less intelligible.

“If we are to ride Caraxes, we will have to sneak past your mother,” he informed his sons.

She fretted about him taking them out in the waning last days of winter, which was a far bitterer cold here than they would have been in King’s Landing, but he had wanted his first year with them to be as safe as he could arrange. His brother had no reason to assign special guards for them at Daemon’s behest, though perhaps he would have.

At Runestone, he did not need to ask. Daemon had informed Rhea that the enemies he had made in the decisive victory over the Triarchy in the Stepstones might seek to target the twins, and they were promptly assigned their own knight to protect them, her cousin Willam.

It was not the Triarchy he feared, of course, but Volantis. The Free City seeking to steal his children as infants or toddlers now that they were known to the world from a young age was a possibility he would not risk ignoring.

“You must be at your most quiet,” he instructed, to solemn blinks from either. They were bright, even so young, at times seeming to understand him perfectly.

Daemon bundled them into thick furs, taking care to make sure their heads and ears were covered, until only small wisps of black and silver escaped along the sides of their round little faces. He grinned at the sight of them swallowed by the furs, nearly spherical in either arm, and crept out with his bounty, both utterly silent for the entirety of the walk to Caraxes’s enclosure.

There was a trace of warmth in the light breeze, a promise of spring, and the air lacked the bite of months before. When spring came, Daemon guessed, it would come quickly to melt the snow that remained on the ground.

Caraxes snuffed at his sons, and they both happily babbled at the dragon for the few minutes Daemon left them on the ground beside him to fetch his own personal saddle, as he’d taken to calling it. He secured them to it first before fastening the straps around his own chest, and when he was finished, he had one on either side of his back, peering over his shoulders.

Mindful of the maester’s many lectures on how much fresh air was acceptable for infants, he kept the flight short, guiding Caraxes along the northern shoreline before completing a wide circle around the outer perimeter of Runestone, landing back at the enclosure to a welcoming party of Ser Willam and his lady wife herself, her lips pursed in disapproval.

Daemon approached her unapologetically after dismounting, his two passengers giggling their glee at the ride, until her frown began to waver.

“I promised Jon he could have a dragon ride if he ate his peas,” Daemon said.

Rhea’s eyebrows crept up, her gaze shifting to his right shoulder. “And did you, Jon?”

“No!” Jon exclaimed, expressing far too much merriment in his betrayal for Daemon to do anything but smile.

“Rhaegar ate his peas,” Daemon said. “I could hardly leave one of them behind.”

Rhea walked up to him, her intention plain, and Daemon crouched so that she could reach each of their cheeks for a kiss. “You must not encourage your father. He is more than capable of doing so of his own accord.”

Daemon begrudgingly surrendered them to her for the walk back to the castle, their destination his wife’s solar with its large hearth, already radiating heat into the chamber. Tea, piping hot, was brought up from the kitchens, and once Daemon had finished unwrapping his sons from their layers of fur, and set them upon it with their beloved dragon dolls within reach, he poured himself a cup and settled on the floor beside them.

“Did you seek me out for a particular reason?” Daemon asked, knowing that as much as Rhea might fret about the dragon excursions, she no longer believed he would endanger them in any way.

“A raven arrived from King’s Landing.” She grabbed her own cup and sat in one of the chairs by the hearth, tossing him a rolled up slip of parchment. “From the king himself.”

Ignoring the twist of apprehension in his stomach, Daemon broke the seal and unfurled the parchment, scanning it quickly for any unwelcome surprises. The contents, however, though not particularly welcome, were not a surprise. “My brother has a new son. We are invited to King’s Landing.” He handed the letter to her. “He is still set on throwing a tourney for the twins, and plans to tie it with celebrations of his son’s birth.”

If there was one lesson his brother had learned at long last, it was not to celebrate births before they happened.

Rhaegar had crawled to Rhea’s chair to tug insistently at the laces of her boots. She scooped him onto her lap, holding him there as she read the letter herself. “Six moons. Spring will surely be upon us by then. The seas should be calmer.”

“Choppy water is little concern to a dragon,” Daemon said.

“It is to those of us who must travel by ship,” she retorted.

It would be at least two weeks by sea, and even in spring, not a pleasant voyage. Daemon hesitated, then said, “Come with us on Caraxes. The saddle seats two.”

The offer caught her off guard, her eyes narrowing briefly in suspicion as though she thought he was not being earnest. “You have not let me ride with you before.”

You have not asked, Daemon almost said, before remembering his very first arrival at Runestone—less than a decade ago to Rhea, but nearly two for him. He had been bitterly furious about the marriage, escorted there by his own father on Vhagar, as though he might try to flee otherwise. His new wife had borne the brunt of Daemon’s resentment, his interactions with her curt. When she had asked him if they might ride on Caraxes together, he had coldly informed her that such privileges were for Targaryens alone.

“Jon and Rhaegar will want you there,” Daemon said, by way of excuse.

“Zaldis,” Rhaegar said solemnly to her.

“Very well,” Rhea said, her expression now one she often wore in his company—as though she were not quite sure what to make of him. “It would be an honor.”

It was a matter of pragmatism as well. Rhea’s confession to treason on her deathbed had settled any doubts about her truly being his sons’ mother. Here, it was still possible that a whisper or two in King’s Landing about Lady Elys also being present at the family’s summer home at the time of birth could raise suspicion. The more amicable his relationship with Rhea in the eyes of the realm, the less likely anyone would be to question—or question successfully, at least.

Daemon retreated to the desk to write a response to his brother’s letter, a frown finding him midway through. His sons’ sworn shield, Ser Willam, would have to travel by ship, which meant they would be without protection for a time in King’s Landing. Viserys should be able to spare at least one of his Kingsguard until he’s arrived, he decided finally, including a request for such in his letter. He can have his damned tourney in return.

By the time he had finished, both of his sons had started fussing for their linens to be changed, which was one of the few tasks he happily let their nurse handle, taking a small meal of his own before rejoining them in the nursery. They were sleepy with milk when he arrived, fresh from the wetnurse’s breast, and he eagerly reclaimed them, kissing each soft cheek as he carried them back to the solar, where their cradle was kept.

It was an elaborate piece, with an intricate relief of two dragons perched vigilantly at the head of the cradle, sized for two babes, rather than one. He’d commissioned it the very day he had arrived back in Runestone to confront Rhea about Elys’s pregnancy, and if the woodworker had wondered about his confidence about having twins, he had kept his curiosity to himself.

It only saw use during the day, when his sons napped. At night, they slept with him. He had lain awake for most of the first few nights, terrified that he might somehow crush them in his sleep, but that fear had eventually subsided. The fear of someone taking them from him, however—that had not.

He watched them sleep from his chair by the hearth. They stalked you from the shadows before, and struck in broad daylight. Has it begun yet? Do they watch us even now?

One of the posts on his brother’s small council that he had not yet held—and subsequently been dismissed from—was that of master of whisperers. With the Stepstones claimed for now and its crown bestowed upon his brother, he had been promised a favor. A position on his small council would certainly be within reason.

But it would require moving his family to King’s Landing. Once, he would have wanted nothing more than to escape Runestone and return home. But even just the past year he had spent in the Vale, first anticipating his sons’ arrival and then raising them since, had shifted the castle from a hated prison to something almost like a sanctuary.

How do I protect you? He reached into the cradle, stroking the back of Jon’s small hand, which immediately curled around his forefinger in response, his grip strong. Daemon smiled. When will you first demand a dagger to wield?

He repeated the motion with his other hand on Rhaegar, who also instinctively grabbed for his finger. Daemon recalled the first few weeks after their birth, when his younger son would wail whenever he tried to hold him or even approach. That phase had fortunately passed. These days, Rhaegar happily demanded dragon rides and cuddles.

“You have trapped me,” he murmured, keeping his voice quiet so as not to wake them.

He could feel Rhea’s eyes on him from where she worked at her desk. All their marriage, she had built him up as a monster in her head: selfish, cruel, ambitious. When he had hurried on Caraxes to Runestone to find both Rhea and her sister in the midst of drafting their proposal to Corwyn Redfort, he had nearly flown into a rage. Instead, he had confronted her about all that she sought to steal from him, every moment he had mourned since rescuing them from the Vale the first time, equal parts fury and grief.

She had not looked at him the same since. Daemon wondered if she struggled as he did when he tried to reconcile his own hatred for what she had done to him before with her newfound tolerance. That first exchange had been—heated. Daemon’s infidelity, after all, had been the very reason for the pregnancy. Yet she had been willing to hear his proposal and forgo her own honor to offer the twins a life free of the stain of bastardry.

“Do you regret your choice?” he asked, turning to her.

Rhea regarded him with a raised brow. “Have I given you cause to believe so?” She rose from her desk to approach the cradle, gazing down at the twins with a smile that did not fully reach her eyes. “I feel guilty that I may have them, and my sister may not. It is—difficult on her.”

Elys had been forced to stay behind at the summer estate after their departure with the twins, though they had remained there for the first week. Daemon’s jaw clenched, and he shifted his gaze back to the cradle. He did not regret taking them for his own, but the pain and loss in their true mother’s eyes as they had been plucked from her arms for the final time reminded him uncomfortably of his own grief at their childhood having been stolen from him.

“When enough time has passed, I do not see why they should not know the company of their aunt.”

But enough time could very well be another year or two. First she would need to be safely wed, perhaps with another child on the way that would be trueborn and hers to keep.

By the shake of her head, he guessed that Rhea was thinking the same. She reached out her hand toward Jon, only to pull back at the last moment. “I cannot help but feel that I have stolen them.”

And yet you felt no such guilt in taking them from me. He swallowed that old anger, then wondered if it had been her reason for only seeking them out twice a year. Whether they would always feel stolen to her.

“Do not let that stop you from loving them,” Daemon said, earning another of those uncertain looks. He fought back a frown, misliking the sense of being constantly evaluated and reevaluated. “They deserve a mother’s love.”

“Though you would rather it not be mine,” she said with a hint of challenge.

“It does not matter what I want,” Daemon replied, feeling himself grow heated. “It is a matter of what they need.”

Their raised voices had woken Rhaegar, who was peering upward at them now, his purple eyes fixed on Daemon. They had darkened some since birth, from a lilac that had immediately recalled his uncle Aemon, to something closer to the darker violet he remembered. Rhaegar’s brow furrowed, the beginning of a whimper forming in his throat, and Daemon quickly began humming a lullaby as he rocked the cradle back and forth.

Rhaegar settled eventually, snuggling into Jon’s side, and they sat in silence for several minutes as Daemon continued to rock and hum.

“I do love them,” Rhea said eventually, voice lowered to a whisper so as not to disturb the sleeping infants again. “I had grown resigned that I would never have children of my own. To have them, but in a manner so steeped in dishonor, both yours and mine own—”

“They live,” Daemon interrupted. “They breathe.” He leaned in to kiss their tiny foreheads. “How can there be dishonor in that?”

Rhea fell silent, watching them for a time, before leaning in to do the same. As she pulled back, Jon’s eyes opened to fix upon her. The hint of purple in them at birth had since faded, almost lost now within the pensive grey. Rhea stared at Jon, as though trapped by his gaze, then leaned in to kiss his cheek as well.

Daemon overcame his reluctance and rose to give her space. “It is your turn to sing.”

#resonant 'verse reverberate au #resonant 'verse au concepts

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