Disclaimer: The characters are definitely not mine.
This story takes place after The High Lord's Daughter. I read it two days ago, and although I understand that Daemon had to let go and had to get on with life, I just can't say I liked it. Especially when Jaenelle meant so much to him.
Anyway, I won't rewrite what I read, I'll just accept that he did have a life. I just don't think that he ever truly let go, especially not after knowing the voice in the abyss was hers.
So this story happens at the end. After everything…
Title comes from the group Sleeping at Last. The song Turning Page by them, the instrumental version, is the perfect background for this story.
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Sleeping At Last
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It is time.
He's been waiting this moment for a very long time, but that's okay. He always knew it would come.
He'd promised her he would live. And lived he had. He'd never promised anything after that, though. And somehow, he knows she knew that too.
He's had a good life, extraordinary when she was in it, and extraordinary when his daughter became part of it. But it's time to let go of his living. It's time to go to her.
He was the High Lord up until the moment his heart stopped beating; a seventeen hundred year rule that had showed him so much about death and life, so much about letting go, and cherishing what he had.
Now he's the High Lord no more, and it's odd to recall he's Prince Sadi again. Her Prince. Hers. She should have asked him to mourn her for a hundred years, a thousand hundred years instead of just one, but none of that mattered anymore. He promised her to live. To wait.
He knows the moment is close.
In the darkness that surrounds him, he feebly feels his daughter's hand. She's beautiful. He had not known he was capable of Dreaming once she was gone. Now she's the reason why Winsol is special. Why everything became special again when she was born. She's not her daughter, but he knows she approves.
His daughter hasn't talked to her for a long time, but that's okay, too. He knows she's there, waiting. He's the last Dreamer standing, the last one who knew her while she was alive, and she won't really go until there's no one dreaming the threads.
The darkness gets a little bit warmer, welcoming. He's sleeping at last, he's Dreaming at last. She's coming, and he's not afraid. He's never been afraid of this moment. If embracing the darkness means embracing her one last time, it's going to be the happiest moment of his existence.
And just like that, she's there.
She's more vivid than he remembers her. More vibrant. More alive. And he knows she's so much more than when he last saw her, one afternoon day from which she never woke up.
He smiles at her, slowly. She smiles back, openly. He laughs then, because she's really there. And she laughs, too, because how could he ever doubt she wouldn't be?
She's wearing the translucent dress he loved so much. He's wearing his usual white shirt and black jacket. She's not old, and neither is he. She is his Queen, and he her Prince.
She's his wife and he's her husband.
Friends.
Lovers.
One.
He doesn't feel anything. He doesn't feel how the darkness starts taking them in, making them into whispers. She's holding his hand and smiling, her sapphire eyes shining, and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. The only thing he's wanted to see since the day she was gone. And as the darkness finally takes everything but their love, he's finally happy. Deliriously happy. She'll never leave again. He'll never miss her again.
Now they have each other.
Now they have forever.
The End.