PLAY WITH FIRE, helaena targaryen

002

PLAY WITH FIRE

  Celia had returned in better spirits than she'd left in. Darik had even quietly watched as his Mother had rushed his Uncle out of their family quarter, for the man had stayed the entire time she'd been visiting the Queen to give his nephew the company that the boy had not wanted. She'd turned to him and thanked him for reporting back to her, which meant she'd passed on their conversation to Alicent Hightower.

Reported. 

Darik heard his Mother say it so causally, as if she had been speaking to a spider instead of a son of hers. But her hand had pressed against his cheek and her thumb had swept underneath his eye and his young heart had forgiven her for the ache she'd caused him only a second before. It was easy in those moments to forget that she hated him. 

( Lady Celia did not hate her son. She had never hated him. He was hers, born from her womb as she'd screamed and begged for the Mother's help to bring life to him, and from the moment he'd been placed upon her chest, she'd known she felt what she'd never wanted to feel. 

She loved her babe that had grown quickly into a boy. Almost a man. And she wanted to keep him as close to her chest as she could. It was just hard to look at Darik sometimes. 

It was her husband that she hated. A man who had so openly disgraced both of their names. And their son had his Father's eyes. )

The doors to her personal chambers had closed in his face after she'd fetch herself a cup and declared she wished to rest. He had stared after her and dropped his gaze to the ground in thought, still able to feel the warmth of his Mother's touch. Then he'd grabbed his book and retreated back to his own chamber. 

He thought, perhaps, he was counting every moment that passed. 

His Father had promised he'd return. Had promised he'd bid Darik goodnight and speak with him before he'd sleep, and it'd been so long, it felt, since they'd done that. And the longer he counted the time going by in his head, the more silly Darik began to feel. 

His book slowly closed and was placed aside, eyes darting toward his doors. He'd heard nothing on the other side and his Father was usually loud with the shutting of doors, that infuriated Celia. Night was falling and Darik rested his head against his dark blue pillow. 

"Promises are words destined to shatter," He softly repeated to himself what Larys had once told to him. His Uncle always liked to pass words down. Most of what he knew, came from his Father's younger half-brother, which was not an issue for Larys was intelligent — he was just strange. "Words that fool people." 

( And had his Father not already proven he made promises to then crush with his own hands? Had he not promised himself, under the eyes of the Seven and in front of a Septon, to his wife, with devotion? A promise his Father had broken to Darik's Mother. Instead, he. . . well, in the end, it mattered not to the House of the Dragon what he did or did not do, did it? 

Sometimes, it was his Father he was angry at. Sometimes his Mother. Sometimes the Princess Rhaenyra. )

No light shined in anymore from his window. Only the glow of his candles on two opposite sides to allow him to see more clearly, which he could faintly smell the burning of as his eyes began to drift shut. 

But then a promise turned and came true as his door opened. 

As did his eyes as he forced himself to sit up, the boy of eleven glancing with only one dark-eye open and an effort to hold back his yawn. "Father?" He calls, now able to see the outline of his Father's muscular and tall frame, his dark-curled hair framing his face. And Darik was still a child. "Father!"