Allen1996
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Chapter XII: Heart in a headlock
🕑 Added 2024-11-09 05:06:32 +0000 UTCThe hall of black stone was colder than it had ever felt before, as if the shadows of the ancient keep sensed the disquiet within. Daemon Targaryen, rider of Caraxes, he who was a warrior whose name the bards spun into tales of valor and ruthlessness, now stood before two gazes that pierced him deeper than any blade ever could. They were eyes he knew well, eyes that mirrored another time, another life, one where things were simpler, one wheee things were kinder. Baela and Rhaena. His daughters. His blood.
He had faced many foes in his time, foes worthy of song: would be kings, warriors, gazed into the eyes of dragons without flinching or backing down but nothing, not the steely resolve of the Hightower dogs nor the whispering menace of Otto, the cunt's machinations, felt as formidable as the disappointment etched in the eyes of these two. His breath caught, a weight he didn't often feel lodged within his chest, as their silent ire spoke a language he couldn't deflect with a blade.
For a heartbeat, he allowed himself to drift into memory, where laughter echoed like chiming bells under the warm sun of Pentos. Laena stood there, a smile that shamed the moon, her silver hair alive in the wind, her purple amethyst shining like the most precious jewellery. How fiercely beautiful she had been, their mother. How fiercely proud. And here, in this dim hall, Daemon could see her spirit in every curl and sharp glance of their daughters. He longed for her then, with an ache that stole his breath. She should have been here, guiding their hands, tempering his own failings with her gentler wisdom.
But wishes were for poets and fools.
"Father," Baela's voice cut through the room, breaking the silence with a jagged edge. He returned to the present, where shadows danced uneasily, stirred by a hearth that seemed too dim, too small. Her eyes burned, not with the fire of a dragon, but with something sharper. "You can't do this. This wasn't what was meant to happen."
He took in the set of her jaw, the way her fists clenched at her sides as if she wanted to strike the very air. Baela, who had always been more tempest than tide. Beside her, Rhaena stood quieter but no less resolute, a silent echo to her sister's fury. They were beautiful, the pair of them, fierce and proud, crafted of the finest parts of himself and Laena. He swallowed, wishing, yearning for Laena's voice, her touch, her certainty. Wishing she could see how strong their daughters had grown and how they now stood against him with the spirit of dragons.
"It wasn’t an easy decision, Baela," he said, each word weighted as if it carried lead. "But this is why, with Rhaenyra’s consent, I broke the engagement with Lucerys."
The flicker of shock passed over Baela's face like a lightning strike, brief and biting. "Rhaenyra knows?" she echoed, the disbelief twisting in her tone. "And she agreed?"
He nodded, a subtle dip of his chin that spoke of decisions made in dark hours when neither sleep nor peace would come. "Do you take me for a fool, daughter? I would not act against my wife in such matters."
Rhaena, silent until now, tilted her head, eyes the color of stormy seas narrowing. "You would , Kepa," she said, and a matching grin tugged at her lips, mirrored by Baela's own reluctant smirk. For a moment, just a breath, the tension wavered.
Daemon allowed himself a grin of his own. Rogue Prince, they called him, a name earned by blood and shadowed deeds. Permission of any kind had never been a thing he ever craved even when it came to his loved ones.
"Rhaenyra understands the necessity," he continued, voice steady, eyes fixed on Rhaena's. "She may not like that we break this promise, but the greater good, she knows, must prevail. I have not forgotten what I told you. You are my daughters, born of Valyrian fire, and I want only the best for you."
Rhaena’s brows lifted, doubt rippling in her gaze. "You speak as if you wish for me to wed someone of higher status than Lucerys," she said, her voice not quite a question.
At her side, Baela whispered, “Higher status,” the realization sinking into her expression like a bitter draught. Her eyes sought his, searching, dissecting the truth.
Daemon nodded once, solemn. "Not just wish, Rhaena. I do. Monterys."
The name left his lips like an offering, bitter but necessary. Baela’s jaw tightened, her voice a hiss. "Monterys," she repeated, the syllables tasting like ash. "He cares for nothing. He walks as though sleep takes him standing, as if the world is a bore unworthy of his attention. He—" Her voice faltered, choked by a memory that only needed half a breath to invoke.
Daemon’s heart twisted, the silence that followed suffused with memories they did not need to speak. They all knew the truth: Monterys bore the visage of Laena, as if the gods themselves mocked them with his indifference.
Rhaena moved, a touch of warmth in her sister’s fury, slipping an arm around Baela in quiet solidarity. The sight stirred something deep within Daemon, a sorrow that was both sharp and tender.
"Yes," he said at last, voice softened by an old grief. "This Monterys. The same Monterys who defied reason, who flew to the skies without wings of dragon or spell. The one who turned the heavens strange and summoned a star to fall for Lucerys’ sake." His gaze swept to Baela, willing her to see. "He has shown that he can care. He did, for Lucerys. If he did that for one he barely knew, he can be made to care more deeply for those who matter. For you."
A shiver seemed to pass through the room, a chill not born of stone or wind but of something older. "But it will take more than time. It will take both of you to bring him into our fold, to make him care about the Blacks, about you. It is more important than even the war against the Greens."
Baela stared at him, eyes narrowing with dawning understanding. "He unleashed power akin to another Doom, didn't he?" she whispered, words hanging in the air like a storm unspent.
Daemon nodded, the truth a heavy burden between them. "No dragon can face what he brought forth. That is why we need him. The future doesn’t lie in dragonfire alone. It lies in this power. It lies in him. This is why I seek this match for you, Rhaena."
"I know you may feel lesser because your cradle held only an egg that never hatched," he said, stepping closer, his voice a breath softer, his hands cradling their faces as he had when they were small and still thought him invincible. "But you are not lesser. You have always been my daughter. And you are worthy of this task."
They leaned into his touch, eyes closing for a moment, shields lowered. The quiet stretched, heavy but no longer suffocating.
"And what if he does not wish it?" Rhaena’s question came, fragile and determined in equal measure.
Daemon scoffed lightly, the rogue’s smile flashing like a blade. "The gods themselves would scramble for your hand, daughter. If Monterys is fool enough to see it not, then with your kindness, your cleverness, your very essence, you will make him see it. And he will not escape the gravity of it."
His voice dropped to a whisper. "I trust you, Rhaena. Because you are not lesser. You are the blood of the dragon."
The room shivered then, as if stirred by a great beast’s sigh. Stone trembled, a low rumble grew. Daemon’s arms tightened around his daughters, the only anchor against the sudden violence of the world. Through the shuddering hall, he turned to the window just in time to see the sea heaving, a towering wall of water, greater than Dragonstone itself, rushing towards them with a fury that seemed almost alive, malevolent.
He was too far from his draconian mount, too far to dodge, to escape, to save his daughters. Daemon Targaryen knew this and hated it, despised this helplessness. As the oceanic furry came closer, the Targaryen stayed proud. He didn’t panic. He didn’t curse at anything. The only thing the prince did was tighten his grip over his daughter, to hug them with all the comfort he could ever give in such a situation so that even in death’s throes, his love for them may absolve them of any fear and pain.
*scene*
A knife gleamed in the fractured moonlight as it carved through the air toward my head, slicing the dark with merciless precision. For most, this would have been a moment for panic—a heartbeat skipped, muscles tensed for an instinctual scramble or at least it would have been the case if it was anyone but me. Panic was after all a stranger, an idle acquaintance I’d long since discarded. Besides, this was Westeros, where knives in the dark were as common as lies at court.
Still, a knife aimed for the skull should be a source of concern, especially for someone like me. Glass cannon. That’s what it would be more accurate to call me, to seem me as. Unstoppable, capable of turning fortresses into rubble with a flick of my will, yet as fragile as spun sugar when it came to taking a hit. And that realization? That was why I’d prepared for this.
I wasn’t dumb. Well, not that dumb, I thought, recalling the storm-ravaged expanse of the Stormlands, now a landscape of splintered trees and scorched earth. If I closed my eyes, I could almost see the cracked remains of lives and homes, an Earth that had been blackened, cratered and torn asunder. A shadow of discomfort stirred at the back of my mind, but I brushed it aside. This was Westeros, after all—a place where murder thrived like ivy, creeping through castle stones and common halls alike. Here, death was the only true currency, traded in whispers and sharpened steel.
Death would mean peace, perhaps—a reprieve from the relentless absurdity of this world. But dying violently? That was a different story, a tale told with screams and burning agony, not the tranquility of an old man slipping away in sleep. And I’d felt that agony before. I could still remember my first death, the way my body had locked up, each nerve ablaze, screaming betrayal as life drained like sand through fingers. If only it had been a gentle poisoning, a slumberous end wrapped in fading breath. But a blade to the skull? No, that was the opposite of pleasant.
The steel tip trembled in the flickering light as it reached within a whisper of my right eye, halting so suddenly it might have struck an invisible wall. It had, in fact. The girl, her breath ragged, eyes wide with shock, stared as if the knife itself had rebelled. “What?” she blurted, a cracked sound in the stillness, raw with disbelief.
I raised an eyebrow, shifting my gaze to meet hers with the lazy disinterest that was my shield against most things in this world. “Did you really think it would be that easy?” I drawled, each word weighted with the kind of boredom probably only I in this world could muster in the face of an assassination attempt. Her eyes flared, fury joining the terror that burned within them. The knife was still in her grip, knuckles white with the strain, but she reacted as if by some internal command. She brought it down again, frenzied now, stabbing at any part of me within reach—my neck, clavicle, arms—anywhere that could bleed.
But all of it was pointless. The blade met the same invisible barrier, deflected with an almost mocking ease, each attempt turning into a futile dance of desperation.
True, yesterday had been the first time since waking up in this world that I let myself truly go, unleashed the tidal force of my power without restraint, that I stopped restraining myself, that I stopped limiting myself, that I’m a way, I allowed myself to fully breath for once but my little trick with gravity? That wasn’t some newfound weapon I’d pulled from the ether. No, it was an old friend, a game I’d played with during the long, idle days when boredom was the real enemy.
When life is a relentless cycle of dull banquets and political maneuvering and asinine expectations and duties, you learn to entertain yourself. And so, I’d crafted something that would guard me when I was at my most vulnerable: asleep. An invisible armor, a barrier so delicate and potent that it repelled anything I didn’t will to touch me. I called it Eternity.
Inspired by half-remembered tales from a past life, from a world that unfortunately felt now sometimes more dream than past, from a character called Gojo Satoru, it was my guarantee that sleep would not end in pain.
Eternity had two sides, like the double-edged blade the girl wielded. The first was a manipulation of gravitational fields, a shroud so dense it repelled anything that tried to pierce it, like an ocean current tossing driftwood. The second was subtler—spatial distortion. The air around me would bend, paths curving away from their target as if reality itself conspired to keep me untouched. Together, they formed a cocoon that kept death at bay.
Maintaining such a barrier should have been exhausting, an ever-present hum in the back of my mind, keeping me awake, wary. But manipulating gravity was as natural to me as drawing breath, so it required no more effort than a sigh. If not for that, I’d have spent nights keeping one eye open or else surrendered to the vulnerability of sleep.
The girl’s futile efforts, the frenzy of her movements, were becoming tiresome. Her ragged breathing filled the room, loud in the strange quiet that had followed my challenge. I could see the glint of her sweat-slicked brow, the way her expression shifted between determination and dawning realization. Part of me almost hoped she’d tire herself out so I could roll back into my blankets and drift away.
But no, the noise was beginning to grate. A small part of me, the one that knew the value of rest and resented any interruption, sighed internally. What a drag. It seemed sleep was over.
In a fraction of an instant, a pulse of purple radiated from me, saturating the room in an amethyst glow as if the light of dawn had been tainted by some cosmic hand. Everything froze, the breath caught in the girl’s chest, the knife suspended mid-thrust. The world stood still, locked in place, an illusion of time halted.
Well, not quite. Localized Gravitational Field Intensification. That’s what I called it, though I doubted the maesters of this world would understand even if I tried to explain. The scientists of my original world would probably call it bullshit. The concept was simple in theory: generate a field so strong that it bends spacetime around it. Inside, moments stretch and bend until time itself moves at a crawl. It wasn’t time travel—no, that was a fantasy even I didn’t entertain. But here, within this room, it might as well have been.
Of course, it was mostly nonsense. I could do what I did only because my grasp on gravity was unfairly absolute. A loophole in reality, an absurd trick I played when the need arose.
With a simple thought, I moved, though not with limbs or muscles but by the pull and push of gravitational currents. It was the laziest way to move, a float without effort, as if reclining on an unseen sofa spun from the threads of night itself. I rotated slightly, propping my head up with one hand, the other left to dangle as I drifted in front of her.
Our eyes met—hers, wild with terror and rage; mine, half-lidded, touched by the boredom of the chronically unbothered, probably showing that I didn’t give any fuck at all.
Electromagnetic levitation kept me suspended, an invisible force balancing the world’s pull, while directional propulsion allowed for the faintest glides. It was as easy as falling, as natural as sleep.
“It’s not every day someone tries to kill me in my sleep,” I said, voice lazily threading through the silence. “Although, after yesterday, I did expect things to shift.” The girl’s expression didn’t change, except for the rapid flaring of her nostrils.
“Now, tell me,” I began, eyes narrowing as the curiosity of a cat crept into my voice, “what made you think attacking someone worse than a dragon was a wise idea?” What had happened in canon with the dragon pit was honestly unrealistic. Dragons fallling to the equivalent of peasants?! It couldn’t, wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for George himself. There were a reason after all why the Targaryens were so respected, because they had a monopoly on what most saw in some Kind or from as beings akin to gods. None had ever tried attacking Balerion after what it did under Aegon’s orders. Why would it, should it be different with me who did something worse than any of the conquerors’ dragons ever did.
A lazy smile curved my lips, just enough to deepen the air of insouciance. “No, I think I already know.”
Her brows pulled together in a harsh line, eyes blazing even as she could not move a muscle. The answer was obvious in the hatred simmering in her gaze. She was here not because someone sent her, not out of duty, but out of something far more personal.
“Let me guess,” I continued, my tone slipping to something softer, almost taunting. “The Stormlands? You come from there, don’t you?”
I saw it then—something dark and familiar rippling across her eyes, the shadow of loss, the ghost of grief I knew all too well. It was like looking at my own reflection from long ago, a fractured boy nursing the remnants of a life that had been ripped away.
The confirmation was enough. “I killed your family, didn’t I?” The words tumbled out, not in cruelty but with the resigned air of someone stating the obvious. With a flick of my will, I released a sliver of the time-cage that bound her, allowing her to speak.
“You... monster,” she spat, her voice breaking like an old blade. “You’ve no place here. You are an abomination—worse than the usurpers, worse than anything. For all you’ve done, for what you are, you need to die. You need to die before you, before you bring more ruin upon us.” Her words, though venomous, cracked at the edges, splintered by grief and rage that had frayed over time. The knife still quivered in her hand, more an anchor now than a weapon. Her eyes burned, not with the detached resolve of a hired blade but with the raw hatred of someone who had lost everything.
“Do you truly believe yourself when you say you’re doing this for Rhaenyra?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else. I tilted my head, letting the silence stretch between us, a thin, sharp thread. “Why lie to yourself? We both know the truth. You’re here for one reason, and it has nothing to do with queen or crown.”
The fury in her eyes flickered, uncertainty swimming just beneath the surface. For a moment, she looked like a child caught in a storm, clinging desperately to the only thing she understood—her hatred. “I don’t need your pity,” she seethed, the knife rattling in her trembling grasp. “I don’t want your words. I want you dead. I want to look into your eyes and see the same emptiness you left in mine.”
I let out a sigh, heavy with something that might have been weariness. “You know there’s no chance of that happening,” I said, almost musing aloud, as if dissecting a puzzle. “Even if you had managed to find a gap in my guard, what then? You think the blood you spilled would wash away your own problems, you own sorrows, that everything would be fine after? The ones who matter on this cursed rock would demand your head, and you’d give it up without a fight. Tell me, do you think this room would echo with your triumph or your screams?”
The way she clenched her jaw, tight enough that I half-expected her teeth to crack, said she understood. The balance of power in Westeros was held by names and bloodlines that weighed heavier than deeds or justice. She wasn’t noble enough to be forgiven, not powerful enough to be feared. If she succeeded, her fate was sealed. If she failed, well, here we were.
“I lost everything because of you,” she said, voice softening with a tremor that spoke of exhaustion more than defeat. “Why should I fear death when there’s nothing left to lose?”
Ah. That sentiment. The reckless apathy of someone who had seen everything they cherished reduced to memories and smoke. It brought an old phrase to mind from a life that felt more like a fable now: ‘What is the point of fighting against the person on the other side of the barrel who only sees heaven?’
I knew that hopelessness, that burning need to strike out at the world’s injustice, even if it meant tearing apart your own soul. The urge to destroy, not for gain, but because it was the only power left in a world that had taken everything else. Once, I’d looked at this world with the same eyes, ready to rip it apart simply to make it quiet, simply to make it end. And I would have, had it not been for Rhogar. Maybe it was another reason why I found him more tolerable, why I stopped him from losing his tongue. He may never know that he saved the entirety of this world when he was no older than 14.
I regarded her with a gaze that didn’t soften, didn’t harden. It was simply there, a mirror reflecting what she already knew. “Did you come here hoping to kill me, or did you come here hoping I’d kill you?” I asked. It was more than a question—it was a challenge, an invitation for truth.
“I came to kill you!” she shouted, but the words trembled, a discordant note in the symphony of her pain. It was as if she needed to convince herself more than me, and the effort cracked something inside her. The room, still steeped in amethyst hues, felt like it held its breath.
I nodded slowly, almost as if acknowledging a sad truth. “I could, you know,” I said, my voice a lazy drift that did little to hide the seriousness behind it. “End it for you, I mean. If the world were kind, if justice meant anything here, you’d be back with your family, even if it meant in death. You’d have tried, failed, but at least you would have done something.”
A strange glimmer of something—relief, perhaps—bloomed in her eyes, just for an instant. It was smothered by the rage she tried to maintain, but I saw it there, under all the layers of hatred, anger, and grief. I didn’t need to dig deep; it was written in the sag of her shoulders, in the tears that had yet to fall.
“But you’re still here,” I said, breaking the silence with a shrug. “Still alive. Still able to try again, if you choose. Maybe next time you’ll get closer. Maybe next time, you’ll even succeed.”
Her voice cracked, brittle as dry leaves, “You talk as if you don’t care. As if what you did to my home, to my family, means nothing. You’re speaking to me like you’re human, like you’d kill me as an act of mercy. Like you’re kind” The tears finally spilled, unchecked, carving thin trails down her cheeks as she broke, voice hitching. “Why did you have to make a star fall? Why did you have to destroy a kingdom, kill everyone I ever knew? Why not Dorne? Why not King’s Landing with that usurper on the throne? Why my home!?”
Her voice wavered between anger and desperation, as if she were begging me to give her an answer that made sense, that could close the wounds and stitch her broken world back together. “Why?” she whispered, the word barely more than a breath. “Tell me why.”
I studied her for a moment, the weight of the room feeling as if it pressing against my skin. I sighed, a sound that seemed to cut through the frozen air. “I won’t lie to you,” I said, each syllable a deliberate choice. “There were no greater reasons, no grand purposes, no justifications that would soothe your grief. I did it simply because it’s what I wanted to do.”
Her eyes, once so fierce, dulled as the words sank in. Grief overshadowed everything, hollowed her out, and she stood there, a statue carved from suffering. The tears fell silently, her shoulders shuddering with choked sobs she refused to let loose fully, as if showing weakness before me would make her more vulnerable than she already was.
A flicker of something passed through me—a shadow of an emotion I couldn’t name and didn’t want to. It was gone as soon as it appeared, dismissed like an unwanted guest. The truth was unkind and bare, and that was how it needed to be. I hadn’t set out to kill millions, hadn’t intended to cause a genocide. But intent meant nothing when the sky had split and a meteor had fallen because I willed it. Words and thoughts painted the image of who we pretended to be, but actions spoke the language of truth, no matter how damning.
There was no use telling her it was a mistake, a miscalculation of hubris and power. That in the moment, I’d confused the laws of cool with the laws of reality. I wasn’t foolish or self-righteous enough to seek atonement or forgiveness. If I regretted anything, it was only the inconvenience it brought—the way it pulled me from the shadows where I preferred to linger, where I could watch this tragic dance of dragons and men that would occur in this era from a safe distance. The Stormlands had changed that.
I knew, in some cold part of my mind, that admitting this was a crime against whatever morality should exist. But it was honest. This world was one of ink and actors, and its tragedies didn’t hold the same weight as those of a world made of flesh and heartbeat. How could anyone truly care for a story, for words on a page, more than they did for a breathing, living thing? You couldn’t.
“Just like I told you,” I said, raising my hand so that it hovered mere inches from her face. A soft, purple haze coiled from my palm, swirling like the breath of a storm. “I could end this now. It wouldn’t hurt. You’d slip away without feeling a thing. There’s no shame in choosing that, not when the pain is too much.”
Her eyes, wide and damp with tears, locked onto mine, and the room held its breath once more.
“Or, you could live. Try again, try to kill me, or live to keep their memory alive. Because despite what you think, I didn’t destroy them completely. Not everything. You’re still here, aren’t you? The last remnant of who they were.”
A gasp, soft and sharp, escaped her lips. Her eyes widened in shock, disbelief shaking her frame.
“I won’t judge you for wanting to find peace, for wanting an end,” I continued, more words than I ever thought I’d give. “But death is final. It’s an answer that stops all questions,” except for people like me unfortunately I thought with a twist of irony how death had not stay final for me.
“The only promise the world makes is change. And maybe things will get worse, or maybe they’ll get better. But in the end, it’s your choice.” I tilted my head, voice slipping into something that almost felt foreign to me. “So, what will it be?”
Tears still streaming, she shuddered, a sound that was half-sob, half-whisper falling from her lips. “I... I want to live!.”
Of course, it was at that precise moment that the walls around us, no, the entire island began to shake. Couldn’t I relax for a moment?!
Comments
ThisIsNotCool
I'm predicting an actual God is about to throw down with him
MrLockwood
Honestly though, someone needs to poison this guy. A complete infantile psychopath with godlike powers is a danger to the whole world. Even someone with mindset of Argon or Corlys would be less catastrophic. Those guys at least would stop to think about killing millions of people, not just do it at a drop of a hat. And him not feeling a hint of remorse means he will do it again, because he didn’t learn his lesson. Also it’s funny how he think he can understand what that girl is going through.
Kevin Valentin
Ok so I'm a bit confused did he mean that he's immortal im a but rusty on Elden Ring lore but I thought they were only immortal due to the Rune lf Destined Death being taken does this mean that there is a Rune of destined death anf that there's other Elden Ring elements in the story or that Emperians just don't age
Based_Bass
Well he fucked up the Stormlands so I imagine the Stormgod wouldn’t be pleased
Arte
Part of me is wondering it is a tsunami created as fallout from the destruction of the Stormlands via meteor
allen 1996
The only thing I can ask of you is to wait for the next chapter. Saying more would be a spoiler
Dea
Is Monterys about to destroy the Drowned God?
