I —— MUSIC FROM BEFORE THE STORM

105 AC, KING'S LANDING.

She really had not meant to run into him— she'd been hurrying along the halls of the Red Keep to Princess Rhaenyra's chambers to meet the princess and Alicent Hightower, with whom she'd struck up a companionship over the past year she'd been at King Viserys's court. Morrigan had been late, her thoughts occupied with the letter from home that had arrived earlier that day, before the sun even began her ascent. It'd been written by her oldest sister, Cassandra, the eight-year-old's handwriting awkward and stilted where her mother's was clean and elegant. It's hardly legible, if Morrigan's being honest, but in a castle filled with gold and jewels, it's one of the most precious things to her.

Naturally, the first thing she'd done had been to read it over and over until she could recite the words by memory alone and then, she'd penned an answer. And after that she'd been so late to meet with Rhaenyra and Alicient that, for once, she'd dared to run through the halls of the Red Keep.

She'd been halfway to Rhaenyra's chambers when she rounded a corner and nearly ran head-long into him.

The first and last time she'd seen Prince Daemon Targaryen it'd been when she was almost ten and attending his wedding to Lady Rhea Royce. She'd been invited to the festivities with her grandfather, Lord Boremund Baratheon, and parents as guests of the Queen Alysanne Targaryen, her grandfather's elder half-sister and Daemon's grandmother, who she'd been told had arranged the betrothal between the two in the first place. She remembers thinking how little affection the bride and groom seemed to hold for each other— so unlike her own parents.

Now, in the halls of the Red Keep, just past sunrise, is the second time.

She would have almost not recognised him, if not for the fact that he's still wearing the golden uniform of the City Watch, and the knowledge that there is only one member of House Targaryen in the gold cloaks. Their commander.

On instinct and training, her body lowers itself into a curtsey before she even really registers it. "Prince Daemon."

Daemon's head tilts just a little as he takes her in. "You're the Baratheon girl, aren't you? The one who serves as a companion to the Princess?"

Morrigan isn't at all sure it's a good thing when the likes of Daemon Targaryen know who you are. She's heard plenty of stories about him— none of which are particularly pretty. "Yes, your Grace."

When in the Gods' name had he even returned to the Red Keep? The last she'd heard, the Council had been unsuccessfully trying to contact Daemon Targaryen in an effort to bring him back so that he might attend their meetings as he'd been requested to since his naming as the Head of the City Watch.

Surely someone must've taken notice— so why is the King's brother standing in front of her like he doesn't have a single care in the world?

"What's your name?"

Slowly, she rises from the curtsey she'd still been in, deciding it not enough of an insult to his status anymore if she does at this point, and looks up at him. "Morrigan, your Grace."

Daemon smiles at her and she thinks it's him trying to be charming, maybe, but all she can think of is how many false, lying smiles she's seen in the past months here at court. She doesn't trust any of them anymore, not unless she knows who is smiling at her— and least of all she'd trust one from a man like Daemon Targaryen.

"When did you return, your Grace?"

Daemon regards her with renewed interest at that. "Just now." He grins at her. "I heard there's a tournament in my honor being held soon."

And she must still be a stupid girl, even after she thought she'd outgrown foolish things long ago, because she says, "The tournament is for the King's unborn son."

"It's for his heir ." Daemon corrects her, and thinking back, Morrigan knows he's right. It's a tournament for King Viserys's heir, but it's also for the birth of his child— the birth of a son.

Not that anyone really knew whether or not the child would be a boy.

"Then it might not be for you after all, your Grace."

And the smile Daemon gives her this time is an honest one, crooked and a little scary and a little endeared, too. "We shall see." He says before taking a step to the side. "Well, then, I'll let you run along to my niece. I'm assuming that's where you're headed?"

"Yes, your Grace," Morrigan replies, watching as Daemon motions for her down the hallway, silently relieved that she's getting away with her implied disrespect without punishment.

She's barely gone more than a few steps when Daemon's voice calls out again.

"Oh— and Morrigan?"

She stops, sending him a look over her shoulder. "Yes, your Grace?"

"I'd like for this surprise to happen on my terms. So, no gossiping amongst ladies, understood?"

And there it is— that hint of something she'd been waiting for. The man she'd heard about, just a little, shining through in his eyes, his posture. His words are not a suggestion. She's not stupid enough to argue.

Not with someone like Daemon Targaryen, who did not need his dragon to make her vanish forever without breaking a sweat.

"Yes, your Grace," Morrigan replies before turning and hurrying out of his line of sight.

And she thinks nobody can blame Lady Rhea Royce for preferring her bed to be cold, rather than sharing it with her husband.

———————

There are few things Morrigan is envious of when it comes to Rhaenyra Targaryen— but one of them is the dragon she is able to climb onto and take to the skies whenever she wishes to. Morrigan sometimes finds herself waking from dreaming that she'd been on the back of a dragon, too, high up in the sky, the wild waves of the sea below her and the wind whipping her hair. It haunts her dreams, the way Storm's End does nowadays.

Morrigan often wonders if she'd been born with this longing or if she'd grown it here— she'd always loved standing at the cliffs, watching the Shipbreaker Bay from Durran's point, and had loved riding Elenei as fast as her horse could carry her. It'd been in those moments she'd at once felt the most alive and at peace she ever did in her life.

Maybe there's just something incomplete in her, yearning for the missing part.

She'll never admit this to Rhaenyra— not over her dead body— but there's something ugly and envious in her whenever the princess talks of Syrax. Of flying. Whenever she watches her with the dragon.

But, Rhaenyra is a Targaryen, and the Targaryens have their dragons to take them to the skies. The Baratheons, the descendants of the Storm Kings, they're bound to the ground by iron-clad chains, cursed to forever feel the wind on their skin and look up to the clouds without being able to reach them.

She wonders if Elenei felt this too, when she married Durran Godsgrief and gave her divine body and blood to a mortal husband, forsaking her own immortality with it. She'd been a daughter of gods and then, she'd been bound to the ground, forced to watch the wind and the waves and never reunite with them.

Maybe that's where it comes from— Elenei's grief and longing and homesickness, an inheritance even centuries later.

"Do you know when your father and grandfather are arriving yet?" Alicent asks, her voice pulling Morrigan back to the present where they're sitting together, waiting for Rhaenyra in their carriage.

Morrigan looks at the girl and shrugs. "They should be arriving any day now. I got a letter earlier from home and if I am assuming how their travel went correctly and there are no delays, they might even arrive as early as today or tomorrow." She replies, tamping down her excitement at the news.

She hasn't seen any of her family since she left Storm's End nearly a year ago, and Morrigan misses them like nothing else. It's the first time she's ever been away from home and she's felt like she left a part of her soul behind when she left them. It's gotten better with time and Rhaenyra and Alicent, but it's a never-ending ache in her chest.

Alicent smiles at her. "You must be really excited."

Morrigan grins back at her friend. "I am. I can't wait to finally see them again. It's been so long."

Morrigan feels only a little bad with the knowledge that Alicent's mother recently passed and all she's got left is a father who puts all his expectations on her with the weight of an anvil and she's here, excited about the visit of her grandfather and father.

Feeling bad for Alicent— and really, Morrigan does, she feels so much for her friend and her loss and grief and she knows it's still haunting her— is overshadowed by her all-encompassing excitement.

Above them, a dragon's roar sounds out, closer than Syrax's roars had been before, indicating her approach, and Alicent's whole body tenses up, fingers interlocked and picking nervously at the bed of her fingernails almost immediately at the sound.

It's not a secret Alicient isn't particularly fond of the dragons— she, like many, preferred to keep a healthy distance to the winged beasts.

Morrigan sometimes wonders what it says about her that all she can do is stop herself from running straight to them.

She gives Alicent a bright smile, hoping to distract her from her nerves just a little. "Let's go outside and greet Rhaenyra," she announces, reaching out and grabbing her friend's hand— simultaneously extending a comforting gesture and stopping the movements of her hands picking her cuticles raw— and rises from her seat.

She doesn't allow Alicent to overthink her words before she pushes the door open and drags her friend outside into the sun, just in time to look up and find Syrax's golden form approaching in the sky.

And in those moments, the dragon soaring above them, circling once around the grass field, she can see nothing else. Can think of nothing else. Her eyes fixed on Syrax's form like a moth drawn to flame.

Even after a year, the sight of the dragon— the only one Morrigan has ever seen, really, despite the fact that a mere short walk away from their very spot she'd find others— steals her breath with the awe she feels.

Then, Syrax's feet connect with the ground and she shakes her body before stilling, letting out a screech before beginning to settle down so that Rhaenyra could jump off his back.

Morrigan watches enraptured as Rhaenyra leans against Syrax's neck, her hands running over the dragon's golden scales. Syrax's head turns, her eyes meeting Rhaenyra's and the dragon croons for a moment before the Princess turns and makes her way to join them.

"Welcome back, Princess," Ser Harrold Westerling— who'd likely been watching the scene in stoic silence from the moment Rhaenyra had arrived to take Syrax for a flight— greets her as she takes off her gloves. "I trust your ride was pleasant."

Rhaenyra grins up at him. "Try not to look too relieved, Ser."

Ser Harrold gives Rhaenyra the no-nonsense stare he's known for amongst the three of them. "I am relieved. Every time that golden beast brings you back unspoiled it saves my head from a spike."

Rhaenyra rolls her eyes, still smiling as if it's the most outlandish idea that Syrax would ever harm a hair on her head while she walks past him.

And Morrigan supposes, to her it is.

She's seen the way Rhaenyra looks at Syrax, yes, but more than that she's seen the way Syrax looks at Rhaenyra— the dragons might be volatile and dangerous to any and all humans and animals, but there was a sort of devotion in them towards their riders that made sure that Syrax would never in her life intentionally hurt Rhaenyra.

Alicent smiles as Rhaenyra reaches them, her discomfort not detectable anymore outside of the carriage, in plain few of everyone else. "Syrax is growing quickly. She'll be as large as Caraxes one day."

Morrigan doesn't know if it's an estimation based on what Alicent has heard from everyone else, or if her friend has actually seen Caraxes herself— Morrigan has never caught sight of the Blood Wyrm the entire time she's been here. She has no idea if Caraxes ever was in King's Landing at all in the time she'd been here.

But maybe that'll change now that Prince Daemon is back.

Rhaenyra's gaze goes back to her dragon for a moment before she turns her attention back to them again. "That's almost large enough to saddle two," she points out and gives Alicent a look.

"I believe I am quite content as a spectator, thank you," Alicent says smoothly as they climb into the carriage.

Rhaenyra and Morrigan exchange a look, neither really surprised Alicent refuses any mention of climbing onto the back of a dragon. It's what she's done in all the time Morrigan knows her, after all.

Rhaenyra rolls her eyes good-naturedly and Morrigan's mouth twitches into a grin, holding back the laugh that tries to force itself out of her.

It's a well-established routine by now. Rhaenyra will try to coax Alicent into promising to go riding with her— a thing Morrigan had nearly fallen over herself to promise as soon as she'd asked her— every now and then and, every time, Alicent will deny without hesitation.

Rhaenyra is determined to wear her down eventually.

Morrigan is really just in it for the sight of Alicent on a dragon— it'd be a memory she'd cherish forever, if just for the look of horror on her friend's face.

And, maybe, a part of her is silently dreaming of a day when Syrax is tall enough to carry all three of them and they're together, up in the sky.

"Come on," Alicent says as the carriage jolts into motion, starting the journey back to the Red Keep. "What do you need to revise for your lessons with the Septa today?"

Rheanyra lets out a groan. "Boring stuff." She replies as Morrigan settles into her seat.

Today is a good day, she decides. Today is an exciting day.

Prince Daemon is back— and word at court is he always brings excitement and ruckus with him when he pays the Red Keep a visit— and her father and grandfather are set to arrive any day and Queen Aemma is about to give birth.

Yes, Morrigan decides as she falls into easy conversation with Rhaenyra and Alicent.

Today is a good day.

AUTHOR'S NOTE,
me, watching hotd and finally seeing my babies* again:

*the dragons