111 AC, Runestone
The approach to the Runestone was as inhospitable as ever and Daemon Targaryen was absolutely certain that it was only likely to get worse with each step he took towards the Keep. A remarkable feat, truly, when the sky had begun spitting at him hours before, soaking him through to the very bone and turning his blood to icy slush. He would find no warmth behind the walls of the Bronze Keep and even less in the presence of his Bronze Bitch.
But he continued on nonetheless.
He had a daughter to meet. Or so he had been told.
Daemon could scarcely see how a babe could survive in such harsh environs, just as he could scarcely understand how he had managed to survive long enough himself to see that the deed was done.
There had been no benefit to his service of their marriage bed – no great swelling of love blooming between the two, or promises to honor the vows they made. He had felt nothing but contempt for the woman who occupied her desolate halls for all the long years of their fruitless, joyless, miserable, marriage. But now he was besieged by a new feeling, one that altogether surprised him and renewed his anger in full.
Because now, instead of storming in and strangling her as he should have done when he first laid eyes on her plain face, he found himself curious to see what she had waiting for him.
What little beast had crawled from between her legs?
Surely, it was not one of his.
He refused to believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. He would just have to endure the sight of his wife as well.
Daemon paused at the doors, scowling at the lack of welcome. He hardly thought himself a treasured guest, but even he was certainly offended by the lack of greeting.
At the very least, someone to open the damn door.
He stared up, lip curling at the sight of a fresh set of carvings over the top. Whatever compulsion drove these people to ruin their fine stone work – the only kindness he would pay to anything or anyone this far north of King's Landing – he would never understand and it seemed his time away had not rid them of it.
Daemon waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And only when he was certain he would rip the door apart with his anger, did it creak open and reveal a spindly little scullery maid with a knife griped tightly in her hand.
"What business do you have here?" Her voice was surprisingly strong for someone so small.
The second kindness he would give out, it would seem.
"Let him pass." A gnarled hand grabbed the door and pulled it back. A Maester appeared from the dark, nearly doubled over in two from the heavy weight of all his chains. His beard was dipped in bronze – that infernal, offensive, weak metal – and curled into a thin spiral. "Prince Daemon, Runestone is open to you."
"Maester Jiny, was it?"
"Janne, my Prince," He corrected, ruddy cheeks flushing ever so slightly as Daemon passed him by with only a brief glance. It was an unimpressive hall.
Smelled of sheep shit.
And women.
Dozens, it would seem, all cloaked in bronze and going about the household tasks without a single man in sight save for the Maester. It might have been something straight from his dreams, if he was not reminded of what was waiting for him in the far end of the Keep. The Maester moved to stand beside him, clinking and clanging and setting his teeth on would be done with this fool's errand. He would see the child with his own eyes and be off to King's Landing to share in his good fortune at the Stepstones.
"Where is the Lady Rhea?" Daemon asked, perfectly aware of the shock he must have sent through the hall. It was, after all, the first time he had asked after his Lady Wife.
"In her chambers," The Maester started, clear in his discomfort. "A word, if I may, before you see the Lady Royce."
Daemon was already on his path, although he did slow down just enough for the Maester to keep pace. He would not prolong this great and terrible inconvenience any more than he had to.
"Speak."
"The Lady endured great pain during the birth. By my honor, I would swear she was meant to die three times over before the babe finally emerged."
"They are stubborn women, Royces, surely you would know this in all your long years of service," Daemon said, turning to the right to approach the stairs. The Maester struggled to continue, but he endured.
"Yes, but My Prince, this was different. It was not by the strength of her will that she survived, but…"
"Speak plainly, Maester. I am in no mood for riddles." Daemon was in no mood for any of it, truly. He reached the top hall and turned left, remembering the way to Rhea's rooms despite his vow that he would never again grace them with his presence. The door was open and he could hear the sound of a soft voice inside.
Surely a sound so sweet could not belong to his battle-axe of a wife.
"She was overcome with madness," The Maester said, stopping so that his voice would not carry through the open door. "And sought to mutilate herself and the child with dark magic becoming that of a fishwife."
"Dark magic, you say?" Daemon dismissed him with a wave, growing tired of the old ramblings.
Dark magic would be a remarkable feat.
Something he was quite certain his wife incapable of.
Daemon walked into Rhea's room without bothering to announce himself. He would not linger long, only enough to lay eyes on the child and confirm for himself the sad truth of it all, and then he would be gone.
Rhea kept her back to him as she continued to murmur, bouncing back and forth on her feet. She was still dressed in her bronze armor, as she had always been on the rare occasions they were even within fifteen leagues of each other, and he found himself repulsed by the very sight.
"It certainly took you long enough, Husband," She said, keeping her back to him. "Have you come to meet your daughter?"
She turned to face him, holding the babe out just enough for him to see a tuft of white hair.
There it was.
The terrible truth of it all.
Daemon had hoped, perhaps foolishly for all his luck, that Rhea might have found some low born lord to warm her bed and rid him of his burden altogether.
"I have given you this, she will take your name and be a credit to your house. But I will give you no more. She is mine." Rhea said, fierce in a way that Daemon might have found attractive on another woman. Instead, the cold that threatened to freeze his blood, sank even further into him.
He leaned forward and looked down at the girl- his daughter.
What a little thing she was. Barely ten moon and tiny as if she was half as old, she gripped her hands into tiny fists as she squirmed in her mother's arms. She moved her right hand towards him, little fingers unfurling to show her palm, and he caught sight of the tiniest cluster of markings dug deep into the sensitive skin of her palms.
A remarkable feat, indeed.
"Does she have a name?"
He would know that, at the very least.
And then he would be off.
"Ophaella Targaryen."
"It suits her." The third kindness soon to be followed by a fourth. "I shall send a dragon egg."
Daemon turned to take his leave.
"I am sincere in my words, Daemon. I will give you no more."
"So be it."
Daemon left the room without looking at his wife and daughter again. She would give him no more and he would not demand it.
"My Prince," The Maester intercepted him, wringing his hands together in front of his stomach.
"I will hear not another word of this, Maester. Or I shall take your tongue and make a trophy of it."
A fifth kindness.
Far more than his Bronze Bitch ever deserved from him. But she had been truthful in her words. She had given him much, where no one else had been able to, and would do the same in return.
A dragon – born from pain and blood and sacrifice, as they all had been - and carved from the rocks of Runestone.
"But, you mu…"
Daemon stuck the blade in between his ribs and pulled upwards, nearly cutting the man in two from stomach to chin. He crumpled forwards, blood spurting from his mouth as the shock of the sudden move seemed to register on his face. He stepped back to let the Maester fall to the floor. Never one to let a promise go, he bent down to pluck the tongue from his mouth.
A final kindness to Rhea Royce.
He would give her no more.