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The Rebel King

Chapter 2: Death is Only the Beginning

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Fire.

That's all Daemon could see when his eyes landed on the burning pyre of his father. Flames licking at the air as they blazed widely, never tame.

It was truly a shock to everyone - if not just him - how sudden could life end in the most unusual ways thought possible. One minute you could be as healthy as an ox and the other, you could drop dead like a fly.

Daemon struggled to understand that, even as Viserys whispered right to his ear that everything would be alright while the body of their sire became ash.

A burst belly.

His father - Prince Baelon the Brave - had died not in battle or in any other manner deserving of a royal from House Targaryen. He had perished because a gut of his had decided to pop out of nowhere like a bottle of Arbor Gold.

Life was strange indeed.

Beside Daemon and his brother, stood their immediate family. Their grandfather - King Jaehaerys I and his cousin - Rhaenys, with her husband, Corlys Velaryon. His sister-in-law and cousin, Aemma Arryn, carrying his little niece Rhaenyra in her arms, too oblivious to understand what was happening around her.

Him and Viserys were the only ones alone, huddled together, for they were newly made orphans now. Vaghar watching over them protectively atop one of the hill on the cliffside of Blackwater's Bay after incinerating his late's rider body.

"It was the will of the Gods, brother. There was nothing we could do." Viserys claimed through tears as if the Seven were whispering in his ear and he was their damned oracle, just repeating the words he was told like some parrot from the Summer Isles.

Daemon stifled back a sharp laugh as his own tears threatened to fall from his eyes but he refused. His brother may have the heart of a maiden, always desperate to see the goodness in things but he didn't. He saw the world as it was.

Cruel, unfair and unforgiving.

He was a warrior like his father. He was better than that.

'The will of the Gods? To die like this? What a joke!'  He would be sure to tell the Gods that when he left this wretched world.

That their sense of humour was impeccable, above all others.

Prince Daemon promised that day.

If he only knew that he wouldn't have the chance.

Not in that life at least.

 


Daemon didn't know what happened. He guessed that this is what death must feel like.

A void of endless darkness, for he could not see or hear anything yet he could feel himself whole.

Not living, just existing.

He surrendered to it, to the eternal pit of blackness that marked death - the end of someone's life road.

The last thing Daemon could recall was an instant pain that expanded from his back to the rest of his body as he crashed violently into the God's Eye.

His body went numb after that, as he felt life abandon his mortal form as he sank further and further into the bottom of the lake.

His vision darkening until it finally faded. The last thoughts he had were those of a bitter completion of a task well-done.

But what Daemon hadn't expected was for his ears to catch on muffled voices as he struggled to open his eyes that for some reason felt so heavy.

Then, he felt the water around him clear out as some unknown force gripped him, pushing him out, expelling him from wherever he was until Daemon sensed air, breathing and filling his lungs once more.

An unmistakable warmth enveloped him soon after, similar to that of a woman's body that he'd become so accustomed to during his long stays at the Street of Silk.

He certainly didn't expect death to feel so... soothing. He didn't ask, just welcomed it.

After that, Daemon continued to see darkness.

He couldn't know how much time he passed like this, just dozing off and standing still.

Time passed ambiguously around him, as he mostly sleep around, not knowing where or what was happening around him besides the faint feminine voice which he could hardly distinguish and the times he felt he was being fed by suckling on something fleshy he could almost recall as a teat.

He didn't know if he should feel elated or disturbed at the notion for he was a grown man above forty namedays.

The Rogue Prince could not recall how many days he spent like this, caged in this endless cycle of ignorance of his surroundings and vulnerability.

Until finally, something broke that monotony he had come to hate.

Daemon could hardly open his eyes at the time his everlasting peace was broken all of the sudden.

The sound of doors being blown off their hinges followed by screams and sounds of unsheathing of swords. The faint sound of steel slashes against flesh being a pleasant welcomed guest as the smell of blood, one he had been so familiar with, hit his nostrils, filling him with glee.

Glee that there was more to death than this boring dawdling.

The two figures in his line of vision, too blurry to discern, engaged one another until one, the bigger one, only remained. The spectacle, quick as it came, ended in silence.

Then, Daemon felt the cold touch of steel gauntlets hit his bare skin. It had to be bare, either how could he feel such bitter cold?

Daemon felt the mysterious figure grab him as another sensation hit him; the soft wool of blankets enveloping his body, giving him warmth again.

Then, things went into a blur again, too fast for Daemon to remember. He could only recall a myriad of sensations hitting him at once altogether, most of them too complex and quick to acknowledge but he still managed to discern some such as the smell and whines of horses, being fed crude food and sounds of a million voices around him like if he was in King's Landing buzzing markets.

But he could never know for sure, his vision still trying to accustom as the faint figures of people plagued him.

Then, the scenario changed again.

Daemon didn't have to be a sailor to know that he was on the sea, more probably on a ship, for he didn't feel the wetness of the seawater as the continuous sway and forth of the ground reached him. The sticky sea breeze layering his skin salty.

The endless crash of the waves, for once, a piece of music to lull into peaceful resolution.

It was not until much later that Daemon in frustration, through sheer will and strength, managed to pry his eyes open - to get rid of the cloud of ignorance that shadowed him - wanting to see what was beyond life and death by any means necessary.

A boost of euphoria followed such, too shortlived as he took with hunger all the details around him.

He was right.

He was indeed on the sea. The feeble rays of the moonlight blinding him in a haze for the first time in what felt like years.

Yet, Daemon could never forget the colour of the sea.

He could finally see everything clearly, getting shit surprised after seeing an unknown man's face covering his whole view when he tried to turn his head sideways.

Daemon was taken back.

He had expected to see Rhaenyra, his children, or his parents and brother in whatever kind of afterlife this seemed to be but never this.

Not this man, if he was one, who he'd never seen or met.

'Maybe he is the Father' Daemon concluded. Perhaps this was One of the Seven Heavens those septons preached about daily. The one of the Father.

Daemon had never considered himself to be a pious man but he would accept whatever thing fate had in store for him. He would take it, not like he had any other choice. 'Or perhaps he is the Drowned God' With the sea and all, it wasn't too farfetched to think so.

But Daemon would be lying if he said he wasn't disappointed in his choice of afterlife. He had expected to fall in with his Valyrians Gods of Old.

'At least, put me in the Warrior's Heaven... or the Maiden's' The former Rogue Prince thought lecherously, salivating at the thought of meeting and - maybe even - swept off her feet the Maiden herself. That itself would make an epic tale for the aeons to come.

Daemon knew Rhaenyra would demand the head of any woman or whore that dared to bed him before feeding them to Syrax but that didn't faze Daemon in the slightest now.

He was dead.

He loved his wife, truly he did. She would always hold a special place in his heart like Laena, for he gave all his complete love and devotion to them in their own time.

But this was the damned afterlife. They probably would never be going to see each other again, so what Rhaenyra didn't know couldn't hurt her and Daemon would be fibbing if he said the divine touch of the Maiden or a regular maid, in any case, wouldn't ease his... loneliness quite a bit.

'But beggars can be choosers, right?' At least that was what Daemon entertained for some moments before his previous notion about the afterlife were shattered like glass and thrown overboard when his eyes came to rest at a very familiar seaport on the horizon.

Myr

'No fucking way...' It was Myr. It had to be. No other Free City had those white pristine bridges and walls adorning their ports. So it was either Myr or White Harbour but the humid climate pretty much told which was which.

It was almost like the Myr he remembered, the one he had visited during his youth.

Gazing hungrily at the Free City, Daemon, at that moment, all but understood.

This was no afterlife.

This was something else.

A new chance at life.

 


It was the hour of the owl when the ship touched the harbour. In all that time, Daemon had managed to come to peace with his current predicament. He had a long time to contemplate and hold a grip on the situation he was in.

He wasn't dead like he thought.

He was alive. Reborn, even.

All this time Daemon had spent in the darkness he had been a babe, when he believed he was nothing but a spirit, wandering the unknown realms of death 'til the end of times.

Now he knew the why no one could remember their infancy.

It was such a dull time to live. That explained quite a lot of things.

Daemon noted that the man cradling him brought him to a large building in the dark of the night. The former Rogue Prince prayed that the man in his care wasn't giving him to a Red Temple.

He didn't want to become some sissy-robbed priest or be used as a male-whore for those Red God's fanatics. He would hang himself before some old cunt would try to bugger him in the ass like his nephew Laenor was so fond of, but not before finding the same man who delivered him here to rip him to anew.

He didn't do so thankfully.

Daemon almost sighed in relief.

Instead, the man took him inside some kind of estate, placing him at a table once inside as he went to speak to others individuals in the room.

There, Daemon learned the identity of the man who brought him here as well as those meeting him.

Ser Derrick Fossoway 

Some Westerosi knight Daemon hadn't the tiniest fuck of an idea as to who could be.

From his tiring classes about politics and history with his late maester Runciter, he could vaguely recall hearing about House Fossoway.

An insignificant House from the Reach. Strangely, House Fossoway must be now split into branches since the sigil in the knight's outer garment didn't look like a red apple, instead looking blackish. 

'Kinda like a rotten apple' Daemon wondered until he learned the man had been disgraced and probably was cast out.

The next one to make an acquaintance was Liomond Lashare. 

Another nobody from Essos. Captain of his own company of sell-swords. Besides that, there was nothing he could highlight from the man other that he was called the Lord of Battles.

Daemon briefly wondered if "Battles" was the name of a keep or a town.

Maybe he was overthinking and it was only a cheap moniker. 'Like the Crabfeeder'

The final one was perhaps one of the most interesting characters Daemon's eyes laid upon, for the man's skin colour already reminded him of Lord Corlys, Laena, Laenor and the entirety of House Velaryon except his cousin Rhaenys. However, what really took his attention was the ancient kind of armour the man was garbed in, complemented by those armoured gilded skirts of old.

The man was the Ebon Prince, Xhobar Qhoqua.

From where? Daemon didn't know.

Yet the man was a royal like him, if Fossoway calling him Prince in High Valyrian was the way to go.

Daemon gave special scrutiny to what the men were saying in the room, filling him with curiosity as it slowly pooled into dread.

The roots of the ongoing conversation in the room slowly turning from informative to borderline treasonous.

According to these people, he supposedly was - now - a member of House Blackfyre. A likely noble House that he had never heard from nor seen in his life. The only Blackfyre he knew was not a House but a sword. His late's brother sword, passed down to his ignoramus of a nephew.

Apparently, he was the heir and last known member of it due to him being related to some man called Maelys that had caused some great war to contend his former House's hold on the Iron Throne.

Daemon was surprised that this new House of his had instigated five revolts against the Seven Kingdoms in what appeared to be a short span of time.

Daemon was appalled, livid even, at the notion of another House trying to topple his.

Until reality finally dawned upon him at the newest implications being thrown like arrows at his persona.

'By the Gods... please anything but this' Daemon prayed that these imputations were false but he knew it was for nought.

The Gods had decided to bring him forth again in this world only to side him - pit him - against his own House, like some sort of sick punishment for his past life of debauchery and excess.

Which he would never regret by the way.

He was now born a claimant of the Iron Throne, therefore a direct threat against his beloved House and their crown, like his half-blood nephews.

Worst it all, he could predict he was gonna be used by these three fools as means to glory and riches beyond their wettest dreams if the way they were so jubilant about it told him something. 'These bastards leeches...'

But that piece of information gave way to more frightening thoughts.

Daemon was no simpleton but he trust himself to recall anything about a rebellion on Westeros, let alone five in quick succession, for the education he received from maester Runciter was considered top tier - only reserved for the royal family and their House.

At that, Daemon felt a rock drop on his stomach as a new wave of anxiety spread across his form.

This was not his time.

This was not the world he left.

'How much time has passed!?'

The former Rogue Prince was too busy trying to make sense of this overload of information when suddenly he saw the ebony man lifting him over his arms for all those in the room to see.

"By unanimous decision, I, Xhobar Qhoqua, rightful Prince of Tall Trees Town, hereby name this child to be known, now and forth, as Daemon of House Blackfyre, the Sixth of his name, rightful King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, true Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm." The Summer Islander proclaimed.

'So he is a foreign Prince forced out from his homeland too, eh' Like he twice was in the past. Daemon chuckled internally, feeling like he could relate to this man.

The moment he heard the word "rightful" and "Tall Trees Town", Daemon finished placing the last puzzle on the man's identity.

The dark-skinned man was an exiled Prince of the Summer Isles.

Following that, Daemon allowed himself to calm down a little. He was a Daemon again.

In the end, they didn't take his glorious name away. That would have been too much.

Then, the exiled Prince brought him to his eye level, taking a long and good look at him.

Daemon glared back, in defiance but also in curiosity, trying to determine the nature of this man as he exchanged looks from one fellow warrior to another.

Surprisingly, the ebony man's eye widened in astonishment before forcing him into Ser Derrick's arms and bidding his friends good night.

Not long after, Derrick would call out to someone as the two men left the room to continue their small talk elsewhere.

'To go drinking perhaps' It was feasible. Daemon would gamble all his golden dragons to that assumption if he had any on him.

As the men left, a woman - probably a wet nurse or a slave - went to retrieve him, lulling him to sleep. Daemon tried to keep awake but the strain of the day as well as these new revelations on his path finally took their toll on his small body.

The night fading into a quick blur.

 


The next day, the three former members of the Band of Nine assembled themselves in Fossoway's solar, to break fast as well as to clear out some issues in their new enterprise.

"All right, m'lords." Ser Derrick clear his throat after finishing his meal. "It's time to decide how will proceed with this from now on."

They all nodded, listening to whatever the knight wanted to say.

"No doubt, we all have our own business to attend to and I wouldn't want to continue delaying them so let's straighten this up before the magisters of the city start asking questions about the armed men outside their city walls." Fossoway openly suggested. The people of Essos might be accustomed to sell-swords armies roaming the lands and circling their cities but not for long periods of time. They would grow restless.

The magisters of Myr would start asking questions soon if those sell-swords continued to be there. Questions that Derrick would prefer to not answer.

"I propose that Daemon stays with me." Liomond advocated, wiping out any leftovers from his mouth and lips with his arm. "I got my own estate in Pentos which could be fitted to raise a child in any case a war breaks out between the Three Whores like they always do."

"What if he dies on the voyage there?" Ser Derrick countered swiftly, clearly against such a dangerous idea.

He didn't bust his ass like an ox to retrieve Daemon - risking himself to the Tyroshi archon and his City Watch, only for the kid to die days later in the care of another. Not if he could help it.

"Die?" Liomond's eyebrow rose up at him. "You did the same when you took him from Tyrosh!"

"I took a gamble doing that." Fossoway pointed out. "I highly doubt that luck could extend to you."

"Bah! You don't know that!" The Lord of Battles bickered, raising his voice. "You're just being irrational and mistrusting as always. In other words, a paranoic cunt!"

"Irrational? I prefer levelheaded." The knight shot back. "I haven't reached this far in life by trusting my well-being as well as my earthly possessions into another's arms. If you want a job well done you must do so yourself. I say he stays!"

"What do you think, Qhoqua? Who should be the one to take our kingling with them?" Liomond asked through gritted teeth, directing his gaze to the darkest-coloured man in the room. "Some shamed knight from Westeros... or a true battle-hardened sellsword captain that actually knows his way through Essos?

The Ebon Prince stood quiet, contemplating both choices for a moment before speaking out moments later.

"Both of you are good choices for Daemon to be raised." He began. "However, I agree with Black Apple's judgement. The kid is too young, he could tumble and die if a storm hit your vessel." Xhobar explained soundly.

The Lord of Battles grumbled lowly before another idea crossed his mind.

"Well, then I will take him by foot."

Xhobar sighed in annoyance. This man just wouldn't quit it, would he?

"Same thing with heat waves. Pentos is leagues away with no settlements in between here and there."

"Not to say the desert bandits and the damned Dothrakis in the lands above the Sea of Myrth." Ser Derrick followed Xhobar's comment, hammering the point home. "You would be dooming the child to death or slavery before he even hit his first nameday."

"The Ebon Prince is right." The knight asserted. "The little kingling needs to stay here, where he will learn and be squired by me until he reaches a certain age. I doubt you or any of your men know how to tend to a kid."

"What age, then?" Lashare conceded, running out of ideas to counter their claims.

"I say... nine namedays." The Westerosi proposed. "Of course, you are free to visit and check on him anytime."

"Ha! We'll be too busy gaining gold to do that but oh well..."

"Alright." Xhobar agreed, his deep voice marking an end to the former discussion. "Until Daemon hits nine, he will be allowed to travel and squire with us."

"The matter is settled, then." Ser Derrick accepted. "Good luck on your travels and try to not die. We are still in phase one of our project."

"As if! I was not named the Lord of Battles for losing them, Fossoway. Hope you don't rot away like the sour Apple you are." The Essosi captain mocked arrogantly before standing from the dining table. "See you on the fields, my brothers." The Lord of Battles farewell as he made his descent on the staircase to exit the room and the estate altogether.

Ser Derrick only rolled his eyes before gesturing with his hand to adieu him, turning to the Summer Islander after the echoes of Liomond's footsteps went quiet.

"My Prince..."

Xhobar stood up from the table too, spear in hand.

"I'll be visiting here now and then... my assignments usually don't take me to the far north or east as our esteemed friend."

Both men chuckled, they were probably gonna see each other faces sooner rather than Liomond's, who could be all the way to Ibben due to the variety of jobs he took.

"I guess you're right." Fossoway gave him one of his rare smiles. "Take care, ñuha dārilaros." (My Prince.) He offered one of his hands to the exiled Prince.

The Ebon Prince looked at the outstretched limb for a moment before accepting the gesture, shaking both their hands.

"So do you, Fossoway. So do you..."

Notes:

Vancelot here.

There you go, guys. Another chapter.

Hope you enjoy it. This fic is setting out to be a long run but next chapter we will have our first time jump to the near start of Robert Rebellion so be prepared.

Like the first chapter. I will be constantly fixing them up in case any misspelt words or something goes amiss.

I also added some details to the first chapter. Nothing too grand but if you wanna re-read it. Feel free to do so but I recommend you to check the story constantly.

Also, any ideas, constructive criticism, story error or pointers or comments are welcomed.

With that said, see you next time.