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Chapter Text

Six months of confinement. That was all it had taken for Daena to know what isolation truly meant. She had the company of her sisters, the Septas, and on rare occasions when Baelor allowed it, her cousins. 

Naerys, the poor girl riddled with ill health and all the misfortune of the world. Pious as she is, she proved to be a good companion to the elder of Daena’s younger sisters. Rhaena made peace with the solitude, Naerys might have been envious as Daena had been with her. 

Naerys got to roam freely. The court didn’t bustle with any more exciting news than their maidenvault, in fact their imprisonment had led Daena to seek her own entertainment in more creative ways.

Yet a cage was no less a cage for all she tried to distract herself from accepting. 

Another visitor of the vault would remind Daena of that. Laena Velaryon, the daughter of her beloved aunt Baela, a woman she grew up admiring, the both of them had. Laena was all her mother’s image, Daena and Laena were alike.

Daena was her younger by a decade, although no one would ever be what her late father and brother were to her, Laena had been one of the few in her life Daena strived to be like. Her capricious cousin with a wit she liked people to challenge.  

She donned a sword, like her mother before her. She sailed the seas, like her father before her. Her left arm was maimed with the scarring of someone made to ride a dragon, just like Daena. 

It was Laena who whispered in her ear that if it was absolution she sought from her imprisonment, then she mustn’t wait on someone like Baelor to allow it. She had to find it herself.

The advice had cleaved deeply in her head. Daena had a higher calling, she always believed it.

She was supposed to soar the skies and see the wonders of the world others couldn’t even fathom within their minds. Her former husband had to know this, he constrained her to a life of misery, his “higher calling” was no more than derangement. Daena was not the only one to recognize this, Baelor was a weakling. A spineless, self righteous, mad cunt of a king who refused her advances as his wife and disposed of her to add insult to injury. 

Her uncle, the Hand of the King three times now, knew this.

He advocates for her and her sisters, cautions Baelor on what troubles would surely unravel from him casting his sisters aside for his prayer books and the very faith their family wars against.

It was to no avail, Baelor’s piety persisted as well as Daena’s purgatory did. She was a determined girl, ever willful and daring in the same ways her brother Daeron was.

He would not have shunned her, he would not have secluded her from the world for his own sake and then lie and say it was for her own good. She lamented his death, not only because she loved him so. It was not only his life that was cut short when he died, but her own as well. Daena was no better than dead if this was to be her fate.

And Gods be damned, it would not be. Not for much longer at least. 

She had heard whispers from the servants that attended her. They made claims of Viserys’ ambition, alas surfacing through his stoic demeanor and hopefully getting rid of their fanatical king.

“All folly,” she thought.

Her uncle was an authoritarian, but he was not evil. Perhaps she was trying to convince herself of such to cajole her mind out of backing down from her latest planning. 

Six more moons had passed. An entire year of wallowing, an entire year of false comforting on behalf of those around her, and an entire year of Daena’s pleading falling on deaf ears. She would beg no more of her brother. She was instead set on he-who-actually-ruled. 

Her uncle Viserys. 

The hour of the owl had struck. A time usually reserved for sleeping to most who didn’t fulfill such a role as keeping the realm from falling apart. Viserys would most certainly be awake, she had made sure to confirm that too with the very person who helped her devise this idea. 

Her cousin Laena. 

She wore a white linen headscarf that concealed her wild silver mane. She had tied it back, using a black band of leather to keep it hoisted and in place. Most importantly, she had on the robes pertaining to a Septa. The fabric pleated all the way to her neck and down the floor, allowing no room for visualizing and it was convenient too. Daena would not be persuaded to remove the necklace her father had gifted her, even in the most extreme circumstances.

Tonight could end in great trouble for the girl, an item from the person who she loved best to endure it as she had been for the past year was essential.  

“Tell the guards you carry delicate information to update him on.” Laena advised, “if pressed on the issue, say it regards Prince Aegon.” 

Their difficult cousin who whored himself throughout the whole of King’s Landing and to the disgust of her older brother. That was all Baelor could do with him. Writhe in his own disgust and pray as he did that Aegon would have a change of heart. Daena should have been born a man, she thought. 

She would not be having to wander the halls like a fugitive as she was now. She would not have to reduce herself to the sympathies of others, uncle or not. It was a demeaning thing to have to go out of her way to seek him out and beseech him to intervene.  

“It would be a heartless thing to dismiss you,” Laena said. 

Men could be heartless creatures. She had come to learn that with difficulty. She was falsely misguided by her doting father, led into a similar delusion she ridicules Baelor now by Daeron.

Once she thought she might marry her late brother, but Viserys had other plans and he would answer for them tonight. 

For someone so astute, there was not a singular person in sight of the hallway that led to his chambers. Perhaps he might be absent and took to working in the council room.

That would make her outing a failed one, she could not risk being seen there. There was scarcely any time for her to be weighing her options, he had to hear her. 

From her peripheral vision, she could see dim lighting through the cracks of the grand doors. Daena felt a semblance of hope at this, an imagery of brighter days ahead on display. Beckoning her to come forward, to enter through, and have her uncle spare her from wasting her youth away. 

She approached with light steps, bunching up her heavy robes in her fist, and stood before his room with her heart pounding in her chest. She was on the verge of knocking when a noise interrupted that thought. 

There was a creaking sound, Daena couldn’t make much sense of it. It wasn’t alarming enough to send her fleetingly back to her prison, but it was enough to make her contemplate knocking. She came this far, a small disruption was not a valid excuse to coward. She cupped the door knob, waited a second or two more to brace herself, and slowly turned it.

It was unlocked. 

She pushed the door open, slipping through it from the smallest crevice she could create without drawing too much attention to herself. Daena stood in Viserys’ antechamber for what was the first time in ages. Time had made him a callous person, distant as a father who disowns his child would be. With only a few exceptions. 

Her cousin Laena knew of him - she never thought to ask how. Daena could put together that it wasn’t from familiarity at all, but proximity. 

Lord Oakenfist and Viserys were close, Laena’s mother, Baela, lived unlike Daena’s father. She may have overheard their discreet uncle’s habits through the grapevine. 

There was a muffled, distorted voice that ripped Daena from her thoughts. An eerily recognizable one, if it didn’t sound tormented. 

“Uncle, please.” It begged. It felt like a mockery to Daena, like a sorry joke for what she had come to do.

There was an elegantly embroidered curtain, reds and purples, with gold velvet cloths complimenting the lace at the center of it. At the corner of it was a tassel, she could draw the barricade back, lay bare whatever was happening to her eye but instead she hid behind the solid section of the drapes.

Daena was a curious girl, with much to explore, and no opportunity to learn. 

She had perceived her uncle as someone dignified. She would have been wrong to deny he was but he was certainly not so severed from their world to seek out the same adventures she did. It was difficult to imagine, but the begging voice wasn’t unanswered. 

“Quiet.” Viserys urged, his voice strained but commanding as it always is. “You will watch me take you,” He insisted, he had an unwavering grip on the figure beneath him. 

A mirror was propped adjacently facing the bed and opposite of where Daena stood. The anonymity of the third person in the room unveiled to her, as her cousin’s reflection appeared in the most disheveled form. Her wild, unkempt silver hair was loose and her head hung low while her lips were wantonly parted.

Above her was Viserys, unrelenting with his pace, his hand a makeshift tie for Laena’s locks to keep her gaze from being concealed, all the while he drew his hips back and forth.  

Daena’s blood ran hot as she observed the scene. The most respected man in the whole of the kingdom abed with the daughter of his very own sister, the future Lady of Driftmark, rutting into her and obscenely taking her as a whore from a pleasure house. 

“Is this not what you wanted, niece?” He spoke in such an arrogant way, even whilst rutting into Laena. The only thing distinctively different was the heavy breaths he took in between each word. The poor girl could barely manage any more than babbled, “yes, sir’s” that were drowned out by the headboard clashing against the walls. 

That was what Daena heard earlier, the creaking, the moaning, it was all settling in that she was spying on her own cousin and uncle coupling like dragons. Ferociously, without any constraint, freely. 

All Daena ever wanted was to be free again. 

The shock couldn’t be more prevalent. She couldn’t move, nor tear away from this. How did this arrangement come to be? Was she meant to proceed as if she hadn’t seen them? Perhaps she might use it for leverage against the prince. What scandal would arise from having the whole court know he beds Laena Velaryon, a girl young enough to be his daughter. 

Daena was even younger. She wondered what it would be like, as Laena clawed at the bedsheets, her body rocking in sync with the prince. What a sight it was. 

She felt a pulsing underneath the many layers of clothes, an aching that sought relief from every cry that left her cousin’s plump lips. 

Her own parted, just like Laena’s. Daena tried to close her legs as a means to satiate the pressure building at her core, but it only prompted her to slightly rock against the air like some perverse creature possessed. 

“My prince,” struggled Laena through her whimpers, “I am.. I am close. I can not hold it longer.” 

Viserys’ ministrations briefly staggered, and he withdrew from her open cunt that fluttered in yearning for him to return. 

Daena gasped quietly at this. Feeling delirious from only standing there as a spectator. She thought she wouldn’t be able to, getting off on watching.

It was humiliating, but her needs were stronger than her. She practically yanked back her own skirts, cursing the Septas for their dried up quims to wear such an inconvenient design, and her hand flew downwards in desperation. 

Daena seldom got a chance to alleviate herself but the Gods knew she craved. Gods, she craved .. and so did they apparently. Her uncle Viserys was, after all, a man. With the primal needs of burying his cock somewhere. Perhaps the next time he might make use of her rather than seek out Laena. 

She was pretty too, just like her older cousin, and she was bold, and valiant, and charming, all the same. 

“Have you forgotten our terms?” His hand came up from where he previously had it gripping her hips, then came down with a brute force to strike her right on her ass. The sound echoed and Laena jumped, her violet eyes shining from the illuminating candlelight, she turned her head to glare at him. Let it not be forgotten that although by name she was a daughter of the seahorse, she was a dragon all the same. 

“You will fuck me again. ‘Less you should wish to have an empty bed like before. I’ve been obedient, why do you deny me?” She demanded, but there was an ounce of frustration that bordered on pathetic. 

Viserys actually chuckled. Cruel as it was. A smirk curled at his lips, pleased by seeing her in such a state. “You have not earned it.” He announced, his deft fingers wrapping around his manhood to guide his tip against her entrance. It made her quiver. 

Daena couldn’t breathe, the walls felt as though they were closing in on her. The slowness of it all was agonizing, as if she were the one in place of her cousin. Her mind clouded with lust, she pressed her fingers to where she most needed and a sigh she had caught in her throat left her, and caused her to close her eyes momentarily but she opened them just as quickly to not miss a second. She examined his size - it was incompatible with the size of the opening it was rubbing into. 

How does it fit? Her fingers were not so large but Laena took him to the hilt and she exhaled a gasp, along with Laena, and even Viserys this time when he fully sheathed himself in her again. It almost made Daena feel a part of it all.

Like they were performing for her and she would be rewarded in the end. 

“Fucking hells,” muttered Viserys. 

His head tilted back, his eyebrows knitted together, but he worked himself in a way that only a calculated man like him could. He knew exactly what made Laena all but weep, the pace that made her back curl, the measured speed that had her legs so snugly wrapped around his torso shake. 

Daena thought nothing could compare to the gratifying artistry brought back to her by Daeron from his conquest of Dorne. She was wrong. No material in a book came close to what she was seeing now. 

She observed her swotty uncle, who knew he had it in him? Ages ago he lived in Lys, whatever lessons he learned there stuck, Daena thought to herself. She was glued to watching them through the mirror, pent up and excluded, the story of Daena’s life now.  

“Will you finish inside me?”

Laena spoke with such filth, it had made Viserys’ hips buck, her lewdness had a way of getting him going. 

His body pressed up to her more, his pretty flushed face buried against her neck, his pants could be heard, but he was trying to muffle them. Viserys was dutiful in every way he could be, as a son, as a brother, as the hand, and it seems so even as a lover. 

“Do not get ahead of yourself, niece.”

And Daena felt like he was talking to her directly. She winced quietly, forcing herself to move her fingers on her nub slower, it was ruinous. She didn’t have time to draw out her pleasure with such little privacy she had. She wanted what they had. 

Their hands joined together, Viserys pinned Laena’s arms to the headboard and proceeded with fucking her, here and there they would kiss, moaning out and encapsulated in their own world. 

Daena felt a wrenching sensation fill her chest. Something told her this was not the first time they shared a bed, far from it, she wondered about their relationship, if their’s was of the flesh or something more childish to believe.

Love, even. 

It shouldn’t matter to Daena who was getting off on watching. She backed herself into a wall to keep herself propped, the subtle hurt wasn’t enough to stop her, and she filled the gaps of it by parting herself open to slide in her index. Her body shook, thanking her for the opportunity to feel something inside where she needed it most, but her arousal called for more. Her fingers were not enough. 

She needed to be stuffed with a cock, driven into until she couldn’t remember her name, but she was forced to watch like some cuckold husband. What a compromising position to be caught in: dressed as a Septa, drenched in her own arousal, with her fingers deeply pumping into her and her jaw slack with pleasure. 

She could feel her patience wavering. As if in sync with the lovers in front of her, Daena felt a coil in her stomach, her eyelids screwed shut to let the wet squelching of her own cunt mix with the sounds of their increasingly intense lovemaking.  

“Please, please … uncle, please.” Laena interrupted in between kisses, her hoarse voice cracking in its debility. 

Viserys groaned, hips raised in response to this, ramming himself over and over, with such force to his thrusts it made the Velaryon jump. 

“Words.” He orders. A hypocrite request, he was full of those. One of his hands cupped her breasts, sneakily taking his thumb and forefinger to pinch at Laena’s nipple. 

Daena jolted at this like he was pinching her instead, grinding against her fingers, riding towards her edge and her other hand grappled the fabrics of the curtain that concealed her from them, she fought back the urge to answer him.  

This was the same adrenaline rush she felt atop of a horse: while hunting, while running down the open fields Daeron would take her to. 

“Please let me come.” Daena thought, moving in tandem with Viserys and Laena, biting down on her full lips to keep from crying out, praying to whatever Gods responsible for Baelor locking her away would rip the stubbornness from her cousin. 

The Gods must be in her favor. Laena yelped, shaking underneath their uncle’s lithe body, and she repeated aloud the same words Daena was thinking. 

“Please let me come, sir! Please. Please. I will do whatever you ask, but please let me~” 

Viserys must have finally taken pity on his niece - or in this case, nieces. Finally the prince obliged, pounding her without any remorse, as roguely like a nobleman takes his lowest wench. 

“I hear you.” His breathing labored, forcing Laena to look at the mirror again by directing her head to tilt with his free hand: “you may come, sweetling. Come for me.” 

Daena felt a spark ignite from her belly. Her walls tightened around her fingers that she writhed on, she could have died on the spot, and no amount of suppressing could keep her quiet. 

Laena’s mouth formed an “O” shape, crying out a string of profanities as she raked his poor back, her climax must have prompted Viserys’ who drove himself into her like a madman, exhibiting no control, moaning out as he buried himself as deeply as he could while he spilled himself. 

The room was burning hot, Daena’s mind was fuzzing at the millions of sensations, and she couldn’t find a way to stabilizing the spasms of her thighs. Her hands shook and she thought she might keel over. 

In the aftershocks of her orgasm, she searched for the nearest thing to grab onto. Unfortunately for her, that meant the drapes that she clumsily clung to. 

Immediate regret would follow Daena, when the whole thing came crashing down to the ground. Whatever measly servant in charge of it must have done a poor job. The rod that it was hoisted on clashed against the floor, exposing Daena with her skirts rolled up, and her hand snaked under it all, her cheeks felt aflame, at this horrific ordeal she knew she should have left alone. 

More surprise were the two being watched as Viserys reactively grabbed the bunched up blankets of the bed to make belief there was any dignity in the room, covering his body and Laena’s, who had a look of bewilderment in her eyes. 

They were still catching their breath while Viserys glared down at the girl with a rage that meant trouble for her. 

“What in the hells do you think you are doing here?!” 

Chapter Text

Daena Targaryen was no coward but she quivered like a girl afflicted with winter fever under her uncle’s hard set gaze. Daena, with her flushed skin bare, her skirts ruched, her chest heaving, her dark eyes wide and burning into his. 

She noticed Laena struggling to catch up and make sense of the scene, there was really no way out of this: Daena was spying on her uncle, bound by duty, fucking her cousin, known for being caustic and cocky. 

Not only was she spying on them, Daena got off to it.  Judging by her uncle’s voice and how he bore down on her, there would be a disciplinary infraction. “All of this was in vain,” she thought. 

She would be escorted back to her imprisonment, sentenced to rot until her tender flesh turned to thin and the gold of her hair dissipated into gray. The years would pass Daena if Baelor decreed it and he would. 

This was her final chance at reclaiming her freedom and she had lost it in a cloud of lust. Lust that Viserys came across to detect in her, lust that he expects an answer for. 

“Baelor would have you wear a chastity belt but he has not made you a Silent Sister yet,” 

There was a menacing sleight of tone in the way Viserys spoke but what could he possibly tell the pious King? 

Viserys couldn’t admit to carnal knowledge of Lady Laena, his older sister’s only child without incriminating himself. This turned the gears in Daena’s mind, perhaps not all was lost on her spying. 

“You ask me what I am doing as if you were up serving the realm. That is all you ever pretend to do, do forgive my ignorance. Privacy is not afforded to me as it is you,” 

Viserys couldn’t stow his vexation for Daena even if he tried. His face had soured with his ever present scowl and he sat upright, Daena realized this would be the first time she had seen his collarbones, they were well defined and prominent. Her uncle was a man of letters, not swordsmanship but he had a fine build. 

No wonder Laena complained of his hubris by day and warmed his bed by night. 

Whenever he opened his mouth though, Daena understood why her cousin did both.  

“It is right to deny you such a privilege. Imagine what you would do if left unattended. You will not pry your way into my life, Daena. I will ask you once more: what are you doing here at this late hour?” 

Daena knew exactly why she had come and she had a profound feeling that Viserys knew too. He wanted to hear it from her lips. 

“I want my freedom returned, uncle and I should not have to beg it of you. Baelor is king in name but you wield the true power. Tell me, why have you not intervened? Are you afraid?” 

“Are you afraid of me?” She challenged.

If the whispers of the scale of her uncle’s ambitions were true, it would be wise of him to keep her in the vault, to keep her estranged from the court and all those that would flock to support her. He already had her cousin in his hold. Could it be that all this time she had begrudged Baelor, it was Viserys who poisoned his ear? 

That cunning man. Sick and brilliant. He was capable of such crudeness. She could virtually admire him for it but the loathing ran deeper. 

Much, much deeper. 

“Afraid of you?”

 He repeated, satirizing this moment for how he perceives it: “What a foolish girl,” he thought.

“Laena, you are quiet. Do you hear your cousin? Has she gone mad?” 

His intolerance for stupidity was clear and this was a nonsensical act. 

Daena was too rash. Over the years Viserys had found her imprudence untamable, and though he disagreed with Baelor’s commitment at trying to, it was only a matter of time until someone came along to put her in her place.

Laena could have sided with him, Daena had to believe she would to quell her disappointment. She had not been told the truth of her relation to their uncle but at the very least, the older girl chose not to turn her back on her, Daena couldn’t say if she was surprised but she was thankful. 

“Who would not be mad in her position, my prince? She has not felt the heat of the sun on her skin for a year’s worth of days. I would be worse,” 

Laena would have served as a companion to Daena in the Maidenvault if she allowed it so. Baelor thought it would be easy to bind a worldly woman and sentence her to a life in the shadows but Laena did not budge.

Naerys had been married to her jailer, Daena, Rhaena, and Elaena were condemned to their durance, and Laena had been spared. 

With Lady Baela steadfastly refuting this and Lord Alyn’s support, her cousin was above the suffering, and now she had Viserys. 

It was all so unfair. 

She could tell Viserys valued her. For what reason was that? Daena couldn’t decide. Laena was heir apparent to House Velaryon, a skilled swordswoman and navalist, with a daunting resemblance to a woman he once adored. 

Whatever they had, Daena was sure it was transactional, Viserys could never stoop so low as to carry an affair he gained nothing out of but from the looks of it, he was listening to her. He cared for what she had to say and that was a rare thing for the Hand who saw most beneath him. 

Viserys had a pensive look on his face, the lines of his forehead and the creases underneath his eyes visible, he touched his chin and puffed out a sigh. 

“I will need time to think it over.” 

He talked as if Daena was not in the room, softly but still stern with the girl laying beside him. 

“She has been patient enough, Viserys,” Laena opposed. 

“Patience is not defined by fleeing in the night, disobeying a king’s word, as if I can simply undo it.” 

“You can if you wish. How much longer will you let him rob her of her life? What if it were me in her place?” 

“I have not allowed for such a thing. Baelor takes no advice that is unholy in his eyes. If it were you, Laena, it would not change a thing. I can not change his mind on this and you know it as well as I do. I have tried.” 

“I don’t believe you have tried hard enough.” 

Daena had enough of the bickering. 

“Enough!” Daena raised her opened palms in the air to quiet the noise. 

“Should neither of you come to a solution, I will tell. On the memory of my father, I shall tell. The good, reputable Lord Hand and the heir to the Driftwood throne, an outrageous tale, Baelor will condemn it.”  

Laena stirred to look her in the eyes, for a moment Daena swore there was fear in her cousin and Laena was never afraid. It was what Daena admired most of her, now Daena knew power, and Gods, did she like it.  

Viserys did too. He had the good of the realm in mind, as he always did but he was powerless once upon a time. As a captive in Lys, as a child with all the vultures for regents who ran his wife away. 

He didn’t flinch at her threat. He smirked, riveted by her boldness but she held her ground. Her heartbeat skipped under that calculating look of his. 

“Very well.” For a moment, Daena thought she won. 

She was wrong. 

“Tell your husband, Daena. Only you will have to admit to sneaking out of your Maidenvault. Do not think to leave out the detail that you fucked yourself to what you mean to accuse us of. I will dress, we will go to Baelor, and let us be done with this,” 

He unfurled the sheets from his body, there was no trace of haste or shame, Daena was fuming, what a frigid man. He had no compassion. He walked past her completely nude, he didn’t afford a glimpse at her as if it were her and not him, who wore nothing. 

Daena lost her composure. 

“It is your fault! Had I wed Daeron, I would have given him a son worth sitting the throne and I would be regent! But you mean to see us all as miserable as you are. You knew Baelor would not have me, he has never cared for a woman’s touch. You knew this but you saw to it that I became his bride, you are no one to arrange matches. From Naerys and Aegon, Baelor and I, is it on purpose? You have no wife yourself, uncle. She left you and your children and now you take it out on us all!” 

Viserys had only his robe on when the fury of a she-dragon took hold of Daena, at last, Viserys gave her something more than a dismissive expression. 

The back of his hand raised. 

“I am not your father, I won’t accept your disrespect. I will hear no more of your complaints nor will I let you speak  on what you know nothing of. One more word from you and I will strike you, niece. You will hold your tongue and I am escorting you back to your confinement. That is final.” 

Daena felt the tears of frustration collecting in her eyelids, a proper thought didn’t form, all she had felt was a searing anger. Skin met skin, not from lust but of rage, a slap echoed in the room. She overheard a gasp from her cousin, Viserys hissed, cradling the sting, she could have knelt to apologize but all was lost. 

“I see now what your problem is. You are going to learn respect, child.” 

Viserys grabbed her by the arm that dealt the blow, his grip harsher than Daena anticipated, it made her wince. He sat on the bed, dragged her down with a tug over his lap, she squirmed like a trapped mouse under the claws of a cat. 

“What are you doing?!” It wasn’t a demanding question, Daena felt terror. 

Viserys ignored her to speak with Laena who watched, dumbfounded with her hand covering her mouth, she was more quiet than Daena imagined her capable. 

“Roll up her dress for me. You have your little cousin to thank for ruining our night. I apologize, sweetling.” 

There was that nickname again. Did Daena recognize a softer tone? Viserys favors Laena, it was clear as day he did, he loved her, he had to, and it made Daena rue ever listening to her advice. Was this a set up? Look at where it got her. 

Laena made her way over, a glint of excitement twinkling in her deep set eyes, she always had a look of mischief. Pompous too, as to be expected by a young woman like her, she has never felt what it’s like to be a prisoner by her lack of a cock, if she did, she never showed it. 

Laena kissed their uncle’s cheek but surprised Daena when she kissed her too. 

“It helps to close your eyes.” She said, she barely allowed Daena to think of what she meant until she was exposed by Laena hiking up her skirt to her hips, Daena immediately closed her legs to preserve what little dignity was left for her. 

Viserys chuckled at this, his hand caressing the curve of her back. 

“Don’t be ashamed now. You already had your fix by watching us. You are not a timid girl, Daena.” 

“You sneak off in the hour of the bat, you make your way to The Tower of The Hand, you touch yourself in secret,” 

The first blow to her rear made Daena yelp, it was unexpected, her fingers dug into the bedsheets. 

“Uncle, please. I am sorry, listen to me. I meant no harm by…” 

Her pleading fell on deaf ears, another hit struck her, she flinched and stumbled forward, if it weren’t for her uncle holding her in place, she’d fall. 

“Gods, Laena, she is nothing like you. Two counts in and look at her. Already she claims to be sorry, yet we are hardly done, are we? Grab her arms, don’t let her move, this punishment is for her own good.” 

Laena did what she was told. She sat by Daena’s head, pinning her wrists down with calloused hands from sword training and steering ships, Daena searched for her affection but like all else that mattered in her life, it was gone.

She regretted imperiling what was between them. 

“Do not get carried away with her,” Laena requested of the prince. 

“I am never irrational, I only mean to teach her a lesson. I understand if you think this harsh but if I correct this now, it needn’t be an issue in the future, she will thank me as you have.” 

Viserys hit her a third time, then a fourth, and by the fifth, Daena was wriggling, tensed in pain, confused when the hurt from his palm made her thighs squeeze. 

On the sixth, Daena cried out, burying her face into Laena’s bare lap.

“No more, no more!” 

The prince stayed his hand from delivering another series of spankings. Daena made him mad but it meant nothing to him to abuse her, it was a well earned punishment, not a torturing. 

“Why should I stop, Daena? You have committed treason against The Hand of the King, you hit me: your uncle, the one who has looked after you since your father’s passing. Why did you do that? Help me understand.” 

Daena was aching. As she tried to pull her hands away from Laena’s hold, Viserys noticed this, clicked his tongue and shook his head to deny her. 

“Answer me first.”  

Daena whimpered, the tears rushed down her cheek, she felt humiliated. She found that thinking of Daeron and his eloquence and his resilience, would guide her through this. 

“I was… I am angry.” She confessed, like if that was a hidden secret that her uncle couldn’t discern. 

Laena and Viserys exchanged a look of acknowledgement. He humored her, with a precise touch he took the white coif that hid her wild mane. She knew why he did this but it made her feel at ease. 

“And?” Viserys ran his fingers through her hair. 

“Is it alright to disobey orders because we are angry?” He’s not known for warmth but the paternal instinct made its way to sweet talk the girl. 

“No…” was all Daena said, her eyes closing like Laena told her to do. 

The room was at a standstill until Daena spoke.

“You have abandoned me, uncle. Me and my sisters. A year has passed and you do not come. For hitting you, I merit all the bruisings from your hand but I do not wish to spend all my life shunned. Please , do not let him do this. You were a prisoner once and Laena’s father set you free. Do the same for me and I shall be indebted to you for a lifetime. Uncle, save me. I am sorry for what I’ve done today but to whom else would I have gone? It is only you I wished to see. Laena knows this,” 

Laena nodded, releasing Daena by the wrists. 

“I refuse to praise you more than need be. You are a smart man and Baelor is not. You told me that he plans to..” 

Viserys cut off Laena. 

“The both of you think I am above him, he is king and I am~” 

Laena didn’t let him hide behind that excuse. 

“A king who’d let the faith fuck us all over if it weren’t for you. He would much rather the company of Septons to his own wife that he means to set aside and annul their marriage. Tell her, she must know this.” 

Viserys felt Daena’s weight shift, the news might have devastated someone else, not Daena. 

“Then I would be free to marry again, won’t I? I would still be a princess of House Targaryen and any lord would be lucky to have me, I’d be out of Baelor’s way. Then he must let me go.” She made her point there, if she was shaking now it was from adrenaline, from the rush of hope she might climb on the back of a horse again or wield the bow Daeron gifted her. 

Viserys let her sit upright until she was straddling him. It shamed him to say it distracted his train of thought. 

“Daena,” he sighed her name like it was a curse. 

“Daena, do not get ahead of yourself. Another lord as your husband very well may be worse, Laena has not wed and it is not for lack of suitors. And who is to say Baelor will allow it? Or that I will?” 

Daena’s shoulders slumped, a roll of bedsheets hid her cousin’s body and a robe made Viserys decent. She couldn’t understand why he acts above needing companionship. 

“It would mean a great alliance for this family. Marry me to the Tyrells, my lady aunt won’t be far from me. Or you may return me to my grandmother’s house, my lady mother is a Harte in spirit and by blood. See to it that I am away from you, I will no longer cause you issue.” 

She knew it would satisfy her uncle to see her gone. Baelor is far too pious to ever sire a child, Rhaena isn’t far from him in her devotion, and Elaena is too young. Daena was who he needed gone, it was the perfect chance to be rid of her.

Instead, Viserys grabbed her hand in his and with a finger under her chin, made her look at him.  

“Away from me? No. There is another way, niece. It would be doing all three of us a favor and you could fulfill your duty to our house. All I ask is that you hear me as I have been hearing you,” Viserys counseled, knowing that the two girls were quick to work against his word. 

 Daena didn’t hesitate to answer. 

 “Anything you ask, uncle. Name it.” 

With all their shared nights, Laena knew the prince had at last a plan worthy of sharing. She laid her head on his shoulder, a smug expression on her lips. 

“It’s taken you long but I am listening, so long as it has nothing to do with marriage for me,” She established. 

“I will keep you from vows, you are not bound to me and I am not bound to you, we are what we are through will and want. Not through matrimony but by our own choice.” 

That was conclusive, let Laena sail the seas and conquer the unknown and tell him all about it on her return in the night, let Daena resurrect the court with her spirit and sit at his side and keep him alert through the day with her wild ways. 

His Visenya, his Rhaenys. 

“But I will have a wife. Daena. You will wed me in the tradition of our forebears. It will put an end to all the talk of a Velaryon bride. You asked me to save you … to set you free of your prison, this is the way how. Marry me and have your freedom restored to you.”