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Published:
2023-12-25
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2024-12-23
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69/70
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A Life, Redux

Chapter 69: Gael

Notes:

Happy holidays to all that celebrate! 🎄🎁😇

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Gaemon and Daena were the most beautiful babes there ever were, she knew in her heart; Daemon and everyone that saw them readily agreed. She could not feast her eyes on them enough and had there been no need to sleep, she would never part from them. Alas, there was.

The birth had taken a toll on her. She had been weak as a newborn babe for days, and just as sleepy and weepy. More achy, though, she would wager, and when Aemma came to visit with Daella at last, tears rolled down her face for most of it.

“They are fine babes,” Aemma told her. “The gods were kind to you, and I am glad for it. I would be loath to leave with you… unwell.”

Gael sobbed pathetically. “Leave?”

Her goodsister, her friend, did not look up from the twins. “For the Vale. Father is to set out soon and I will travel with him.” Her eyes darted up. “You need not worry, Vhagar will only join us later. At Darry, I think.”

“I was not worried about that!” she wailed. “Why do you need to leave ?” With Viserys gone, would Aemma not be safe enough at home?

Aemma watched her silently for a long time and when she answered, her words were measured. “I do not need to go. I want to. It will be… nice, I think, to see home after so much time away.”

“Your home is here, with us, ” Gael protested.

“It is not,” Aemma countered tiredly. “It never has been. I barely even know anyone here and with Viserys gone… Father wants me home for a while.”

The tears were ceaseless. “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I did not… I only wanted to help you! I only wanted the best for you!”

Aemma sighed and shifted her hold on little Daella. “That might be the root of it, I think. Everyone wanting the best for me. I do no know what is the best for me! I think… I think I may need some time to make that out for myself. Away from here. Away from… everything.” Everyone, she doubtless meant to say.

“Will you… will you forgive me?”

“I think… I think I might. Eventually. Once I… Once I’ve sorted some things out. I do believe you thought it for the best, but I need to learn for myself whether it truly was. For me. For Daella.”

Gael extended her arms toward Aemma and watched pain flash through her eyes before she sat down on the bed and let Gael embrace her. “I will miss you,” she cried into Aemma’s hair as she held on for dear life.

“I will miss you too,” her friend said and sniffled. “I will miss you more than you will ever know. It was nice having a friend.”

Gael squeezed her tighter and wept harder. “Don’t forget me! Swear, you will not forget me!”

Aemma’s laughter was decidedly wet. “I will not forget you, I swear. I never could.”

They parted with a startled laugh, tears still rolling down their faces, when an unhappy wail of a babe joined their own, wiping their cheeks with embarrassed smiles. Daella ceased her cries the moment her mother did, patting her cheek with a wide, gummy smile, and Aemma’s face transformed as she took hold of the small hand to press a dozen tiny kisses to it.

“Promise me you will come visit every day until you leave,” she begged.

Aemma took a deep breath and shook her head, regret shining in her eyes. “We are leaving with first light.”

Gael gasped, “No!”

Aemma’s gaze was once more determinedly fixed away from Gael. “Yes. I… I was so very angry with you. But… I did not wish to leave without saying goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” she repeated dully.

“Yes, goodbye. I am sure… I have a dragon. And there is Caraxes. You can… You can visit. And eventually, so can I.”

“I have a dragon too,” she admitted, on the brink of tears once more.

Aemma’s shocked eyes turned to her at once. “What?”

“Grey Ghost. Well, Gaelithox now.”

“Gaelithox,” Aemma repeated dully, her face turning blank.

“Yes. For the Dreamer’s dragon,” Gael explained hastily.

“You did not tell me,” Aemma said quietly, her shoulders slumping, her gaze drifting away. 

Heat rose to Gael’s cheeks. “No, I did not. It was a secret. Mine and Daemon’s.” 

Aemma frowned at that. “You two like to keep secrets too much.”

“We do not!” Gael protested, startled.

A single brow rose and Aemma scoffed. “Oh? You hid away instead of announcing that you were with child. You did not tell anyone you had a dragon. What other insignificant matters are there that you would keep to yourself?”

The urge to deny the accusation was immediate, but the guilt kept her mute and a sickening heat crawled up her neck. There were more secrets still.

“I see,” Aemma said quietly. “May you fare well, Gael.”

“Fare well, Aemma,” she replied disconsolately, tears rolling down her cheeks as her friend left, the door closing behind her with unforgiving finality, and she curled herself around a pillow, crying herself to exhaustion.

Mayhaps she had been a fool to tell Aemma. They had been so close to true reconciliation until then, she thought, but it would not be a secret for much longer and everyone was going to know soon. It was only right that she had told Aemma herself beforehand.

And yet, despite the attempts at reassuring herself, her gloom could not be broken, not even by her babes, not even by Daemon, when he returned from his duties. 

Especially not by Daemon.

“Aemma is leaving on the morrow,” she told him after he kissed her with a grin and watched his smile lessen.

“I know,” he sighed.

“You did not say anything about it,” she complained, her lip wobbling, fighting not to burst into tears once more.

“No, I did not,” Daemon agreed. “I did not wish to upset you.”

“Do you think me not upset now ?” There were tears in her glare, she was sure.

“You are upset now, when you could have been upset for days already,” he countered.

She growled at him, and the fiend’s lips twitched. “I am not a fragile little thing anymore! You do not get to baby me! You do not get to manage or pity me! Not anymore!”

Daemon watched her calmly, seated on their bed, amusement growing in his eyes. His eyes that she wanted to scratch out!

“You are not a fragile little thing. Of course, you are not,” he agreed. “And I do not baby you. Or manage you. The things I do with you, I would do with no babe, and you have proven yourself far beyond my skills to manage. I do pity you sometimes… But only the times you kindly remind me what a fool you wed in your unsuspecting ignorance. 'Twas a truly egregious trickery you were a victim of.“

“You are a precious great thing now, though, and I do get to protect you from pain. Especially if that pain cannot be avoided either way.”

Gael deflated and sank back into her pillows, looking at her husband resignedly, trying to pry apart the compliments from the insults. As ever, it was proving a challenge. “Daemon… You do realize I am angry at you, do you not?”

He hummed and nodded, feelingly. “Aye, I do. What a monster you wed, my poor, poor aunt. You are truly to be pitied, princess. There is no one else to suffer as you do.”

She covered her eyes and let out a helpless laugh. This was useless. Arguing with him was proving a challenge too, ever since their babes had come, and Daemon had changed.  

“I hate you,” she told him with a pout.

“Aye, you do, you poor great thing,” he agreed easily, his tone shifting to something lower, and her breath stilled, her cheeks and belly flooding with heat as he moved, and his scorching breath brushed her ear. “You hate me so much, your body is desperate for me mere weeks after you brought our little treasures into the world. You poor, poor thing…” There truly was pity in his voice. Pity and amusement. “It will be a moon yet, I fear, before the maester even considers giving you leave to do all the things your hateful body so desires for me to do.”

His chuckle was warm against her ear, his laughter only growing louder, as she pushed the beast away with an outraged screech.

“I cannot believe I wed you,” she growled out at him as he chortled on.

“Haha! Neither can I! Don’t you see? Don’t you see how lucky we were?”

She looked at him. 

Lucky.

Gael did not feel lucky. She felt blessed. Most of the time, she felt exasperated or torn or lost or even despairing. All of the time, she lived.

“I love you,” she admitted to the ogre she had tied herself to begrudgingly on a whisper.

His laughter died, and his eyes were incredibly soft, when he leaned over to brush a sweet kiss across her lips. “For that, I pity you the most. Was there ever a creature more deserving of pity than a wife in love with her husband, or a man in love with his wife? My, what a poor, poor, pitiable pair the two of us make.”

A foolish smile split her face even as she rolled her eyes at him. “You are just terrible.”

“Oh, I know,” Daemon admitted in a sing-song voice without even a hint of regret, “and you love it.

Gods have mercy on her, she did. She had not even known how much she had missed this Daemon until he had suddenly returned to her as if he had never left.

“You are a fiend,” she told him seriously, “but you are my fiend. Dragons are rather possessive of that which is theirs, you know?”

He rolled his eyes with a scoff. “You do not say. I would never have guessed.”

She ignored his teasing. “Well, now you know that this dragon is possessive of her fiendish nephew.”

Said fiendish nephew pulled a face. “I asked you never to bring my brother’s name to our bed, did I not?”  

“Daemon!” She threw away her covers and ignored the discomfort in favor of the attempt to strangle her laughing husband.

Poor, poor Gael, indeed.

 

It was a fortnight before she was allowed to walk, it was more than that before she was allowed to walk out of the Maegor’s, much less the Red Keep. 

Gael was past waiting and she was past caring. 

All and sundry knew Alyssa had taken her sons for a flight on Meleys before they lived a fortnight, yet Gael could not be allowed to so much as walk in that time.

She had not felt up to walking, she was not ashamed to admit in the privacy of her mind, but she had felt lesser than her sister for it. Daemon did not agree. He said she had fought twice the battle any of her sisters had and so deserved twice the recovery time.

There was more than one failed attempt at strangling him over the time of her lying-in.

Nevertheless, the day of her freedom dawned eventually, and with it at last came the time to present her babes to their parents’ and their grandparents’ dragons. At last came the day when Gael’s secret would come to light. 

At last came the day she could be certain there would be no more talk of leaving, of running away. No more catastrophe waiting to strike them all down.

It had been an exciting kind of secret to begin with, despite the knowledge of why Daemon had wanted Gaelithox to remain hidden, the family unaware of Gael bonding with him. It had been exciting, and it had been so utterly freeing to be able to escape for endless hours to their dragons when everyone had thought them to be in their chambers.

And yet, as her pregnancy had progressed and Daemon remained adamant in keeping this secret despite Baelon knowing, the secret had turned sour.

She had been elated when he had given her a strange look the first time she brought up introducing the babes to their dragons.

“I could walk there,” she had told him defensively at the look. “The cove is not that far, and the maester would never know. No one would ever need to know.”

He had scoffed. “The cove is not that far, true enough, but no one need to know? 'Tis a custom for the family to attend, is it not? I would rather not face your mother’s wrath at allowing you out of bed, if it is all the same to you. I would rather not have her in the cove at all. No,” he had shaken his head, “it will have to be the Dragonpit, and it will have to be once our good Elysar allows it.”

She had been so happy, it had not even occurred to him to hide Gaelithox from her parents any further. So happy indeed that she had forgotten all of her complaints of the forced bed rest for a time… arising her mother’s suspicion.

Gael was a dragon now and nothing, not even Gaelithox, had put her doubts at rest as surely as her mother’s suspicious eyes and lips sealed closed in resignation, but they would all know now. All, not just Gael and Daemon and even mother.

She was a dragon, a wife to a dragon, and a mother to yet more.

It had not been a full year yet since her world had ended when the talk of Daemon’s marriage to Rhea Royce had first started, and she had been irrevocably changed in it. It was only fitting that all know just how much.

 

The summer sun beat down on her, warming her skin and her heart, when she disembarked the carriage after her mother in front of the Dragonpit. She could see Vermithor and Silverwing through the massive opened gate, joining the dragons of the Pit for the occasion. Caraxes was not there yet. Caraxes was not to be there yet.

After Daemon took Daena from her nursemaid’s arms, he kissed Gael’s cheek, grinning like a fool, taking the opportunity to whisper in her ear. “Are you ready to cause some commotion?”

She breathed out, ignoring the fluttering of her stomach. “I should better be. There is hardly a path back now.”

They joined her parents and Baelon inside, her father not the least pleased by the delay.

“Why is Caraxes not here yet? You should have brought him in yesterday. Better yet, you should have kept him here.”

“I apologize, grandfather, but I did not wish to hinder Caraxes’ recovery by keeping him confined,” Daemon spoke evenly.

“He has had more than enough time to recover.” Her father’s mood turned sourer the longer they waited, but Daemon was uncowed, humming noncommittally as he returned to cooing at his daughter, and Gael had to hide her smile in a kiss to Gaemon’s pale head.

Caraxes swooped in through the massive opening with his wings folded tightly to his body, flaring them dramatically once through to land, conveniently blocking their sight of the entrance. She almost laughed at the visibly chuffed dragon, her control almost slipping as her father’s grumbling died a sudden death when the wings came down, revealing the ever-elusive pale dragon bathed in the sunlight coming from behind him.

There were shocked intakes of breath, as the Pit plunged into stupefied silence for a delicious moment, broken only by a single cough coming from the venerable Hand of the King.

“Ah, your dragon seems to have acquired a… friend, it would seem, my prince.”

Daemon choked on a laugh.

“Why,” her father’s voice was cold, “it appears dragons in recovery multiply. How… enlightening.”

Barth choked on a cough.

The Blood Wyrm ignored all and curled himself in the sun shining through the opening. Gaelithox lingered behind him, wary of so many dragons so much larger than him.

“It would seem we can begin at last, would you not say?” Daemon asked brightly and stepped toward Caraxes, humming the melody of the song of binding, jolting Gael into action as well, though a few steps behind him. 

Her throat was tight as she came to stand by his side once more, right in front of the red dragon that had carried her to her freedom. Her throat grew tighter as she beheld the dragon that had saved her life and decided to keep her despite the need for it. Grey Ghost had not been a queer dragon, until it mattered the most. Now, Gaelithox was as true a dragon as they came.

When Daemon started to sing, her voice joined his without hesitation, growing stronger, more confident as more voices joined in, tradition triumphing over shock and vexation, and the dragons drew closer and closer, until they formed a circle around their riders. Gaelithox and Caraxes were in front of them, but her parents and her brother were behind them, and their dragons did form most of the circle. She paid them no mind, not yet.

Gaelithox had not met her babes yet, and he was to be the first. The babes came from the mother, and thus her dragon had the right to see them first. Caraxes would be the next, but only if Gael did not climb her mount to escape the stares of her family for but a moment.

Tears sprang to her eyes when the shy dragon snuffled at Gaemon’s and then Daena’s head ever-so-carefully, closing his eyes to savor the smell of his new people. 

There was no hesitation or careful savoring for the Blood Wyrm, the red dragon seemingly eager enough to inhale the babes, unwilling to retreat until his rider pushed his maw away with a laugh. Repeatedly.

Her mother’s face was wet with tears when they turned to face their parents and their dragons at last, and Gael’s heart broke a little to see it. She approached Silverwing next.

 

Father gave her a disapproving stare when all was said and done and Gaelithox fled from the Dragonpit, his lips a tight line, but he could do little more with his wife pressed into his chest, weeping.

Dragons were nowhere near as intimidating as her parents, she found, and no fear as crushing as that of their disappointment.

“Mother,” she spoke softly, unable to say more.

“You truly do not need me anymore, do you? I truly am but a burden now.” 

Gael’s heart broke anew to hear those words. “I will always need you, mother, that will never change, nor my love for you. I just…” She thought of herself, a year past, and she thought of Aemma, and her words only a few weeks before. “I needed space… I needed time to…” Her gaze dropped to her son and she caressed his downy head. “I needed to find out who I am, besides your daughter. Besides being someone that will always love you and always need you. And I think… I think I did.”

She surely thought she did. Gael was many things now, not just a daughter, not just a frail princess, a lovely songbird to be kept in a gilded cage.

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