the thing about dragons

chapter four (II)

in which Lyra and Ancalagon go on a trip.

part II

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warnings: bad life decisions, Otto doing Otto things, implied underage, runaways

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She's not mad.

She is worried, though. And definitely a little upset, because up until now, she spent all her life with her father; even if he was busy, even if he went away for few days, he would come back soon enough.

Stepstones mean he'll be out there for years, not necessarily able to visit, Caraxes or no.

Lyra doesn't want to be clingy, but she isn't sure she could deal with this kind of separation very well just yet despite her assurances to the contrary. The child lizard brain part of her was all but throwing a tantrum even since learning that Daemon was going to Stepstones for sure.

And sure, in the books and in the show both, Daemon dealt with it just fine. But this is neither show, nor books, but Lyra's reality instead. And reality had a nasty habit of being unpredictable sometimes; and so, Lyra can't help but worry anyway.

Going dragonriding certainly helps, and if she stabs the training dummy with more ferocity than usual... Well, they have more straw on Driftmark, surely.

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There's a woman in Driftmark that Lyra needs a moment to assign the proper name to from both her memory and the context. Her hair is black, peppered with grey, her eyes are very dark but shine purple in certain light, just like Lyra's, she's very tall, and in all honesty, she looks a lot like Rhaenys, just older. She wears Baratheon yellow but despite her attire, she seems very much at home at Driftmark.

Between the Baratheon colouring and the borderline inhuman Valyrian bone structure, the woman is certainly stunning.

Lyra decides the time it takes her—a whole week!—to realize that this is Jocelyn Baratheon, Rhaenys' mother, is frankly embarrassing, even if they barely interact at all. Jocelyn spends most of her time in library or in the gardens, embroidering, reading, and in general, preferring peace and quiet to the racket that children and dragons can rouse up.

But, Lyra thinks, it makes sense why she would live in Driftmark with her daughter. Her grandmother was a Velaryon, and her daughter married back into them, and before that, Jocelyn was married to Aemon, Lyra's granduncle. And with Jocelyn's nephew, Borros, being... Well, himself, Lyra figures it really isn't surprising the woman decided to move to Driftmark.

She figures she would too, if suffering Borros Baratheon's continued existence was the alternative.

Still, they don't really cross paths other than exchanging greetings at mealtime.

Maybe it's for the better. She won't admit it out loud, but Lyra feels a little cowed in Jocelyn's presence. She has that kind of aura of not being willing to deal with anyone's shit. Lyra respects it, and wants nowhere near it.

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Rhaenys easily agrees to letting Lyra stay at Driftmark, and Lyra gets an impression that Corlys doesn't get much say on the matter. It seems like he wants to say something about it—if Lyra were to make a wild guess, probably related to a certain huge black dragon harassing the Driftmark whale population and trying to rib Vhagar into a pissing contest as of recent, not that she'd know anything about it—but one look from his wife and he promptly shuts his mouth with a click.