We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

-T.S. Eliot

Daemon waits on the stone bridge, the sea wind whipping against his face, as she approaches. In her cloak of grey, she would fade into the cloudy mist, were it not for her white-blonde hair. As her figure grows clearer, his eyes search her neck until he sees a glint of gold: she does not wear the steel he gave her. He knows not why he thought she might, yet he realizes now that he was counting on it.

Daemon had arrived first. He'd wanted time alone in the place he once called home before his niece came of age and inherited the Dragonstone Castle. He knew she would not mind. After helping his daughters settle in, Daemon set about exploring the fortress and its grounds. The halls of Dragonstone look different to him now that over a decade has passed. The rooms are somehow larger and more cavernous to his eye: a grim place to have resided more or less alone, he now feels, after spending ten years traveling Westeros with Laena and their children. The smell of smoke and brimstone over the salty air brings him back to his days as a young man. Life was brighter then – the air alive with expectancy, the future ripe with potential.

"Uncle," says Rhaenyra in greeting, her hood drawn o'er her head as if to shield away the gloom. Her pale tresses fall against her breast, wet from rain and sea. She speaks gently though her voice is deeper than he remembers it. His niece is pretty as ever yet Daemon scarcely recognizes her.

"Rhaenyra," he says, "I am glad to see you."

Daemon remembers the day he gifted her the jewelry he's been imagining 'round her neck. Rhaenyra had found him sulking atop the iron throne whilst the others drank and feasted outside, and she immediately set to work cutting through his dark mood. Daemon has always been able to rely on his niece to coax him back out of himself with her playful barbs, with the youthful grin he saw so oft he still considers it part of her face. She does not smile now.

He was anticipating the difficulty of seeing her on Laenor's arm, their comfort with each other, the three children he suspects were sired by the late Ser Harwin Strong. Daemon had not wished to see the private glances he'd once shared with Rhaenyra now shared with others.

And yet… despite the presence of the Princess's family, despite the presence of their guards, Rhaenyra appears very much alone – exhaustion in her countenance. Daemon remembers the fire that once lived behind those eyes. He wonders what she thinks as she takes him in. Although the years have scarcely bothered to touch his face, he recalls what his late wife said to him on the last night before her passing: "The man I married was more than this."

Laena. Daemon feels an ache in his chest as her image swims back to him, the white curls that gently framed her face, her quiet strength. She had deserved better than she got.

Rhaenyra is looking at him with compassion and… pity. Daemon has been imagining their first meeting for over a decade, and this was not the look he pictured on her face.

"Thank you for taking care of her," says Laenor, stepping beside the Princess and taking her arm.

"She fought until the end," replies Daemon. "She died as she lived." My brave girl, he thinks to himself, though these words feel too intimate to speak aloud. She does not lean into him, Daemon thinks to himself, noting the stiffness between the Princess and her lord husband as the waves crash about them.

"If we can be of any assistance," Rhaenyra begins and then pauses as if studying him, "with your girls. I know what it's like to lose a mother. The wound never fully closes."

All Daemon can do is bow his head. What else is there to say? A gust of wind sends the tide spilling over the rocks, and he turns, leading them back toward the castle that is no longer his. He is thankful for the roaring sea, for the footsteps of the men who escort them and their clinking of armor, for these sounds make it difficult to speak while they walk.

This is not how he imagined it. This is not how he imagined her. Since his niece was a child, the two of them had always managed to find their way back to one another, sometimes years between their meetings, as if no time had passed – the quiet familiarity between them simmering beneath their silence. Daemon now feels as if the cord between them has been severed. He has been holding his end for ten years, trusting that it would one day lead him back to her. He wonders what happened to her necklace. When was the last time he saw her in it? The wedding feast? No, she did not wear it then. He searches for her neck again in his memory. Ah yes, he thinks to himself, the pleasure house. He remembers running his fingers over her face – her eyes rapt – as he glanced the steely glimmer, pride swelling in his breast, as he leaned down to capture her parted mouth with his: she had worn the necklace underneath her boy's disguise as if she could not bear to take it off. That was the last time he saw her wear it.

Her mouth looks different now. It is not the lines on her face that disturb him – time has been kind to her as well – no, it's the downward turn of those lips, the frown he saw when he looked at her. Living there on her face. He does not need to turn around to know it is still there, that it has grown there for years – her face slowly stiffening with each day spent in King's Landing without a friend, her body hardening rapidly during the battles of each labor, the steady darkening of her eyes as she learned the games of court.

He has hid in his books for the past ten years whilst she slowly turned to stone, convincing himself first of his strategy and then later, his restraint. The man I married was more than this.

He turns to glance back at his niece and at once understands the root of his disturbance. It is not guilt he feels nor is it shame for how he must appear to eyes that have grown; it is not the time they spent apart nor is it the man on her arm nor is it the children on her hip. It is the simple matter that she is not looking at him at all.