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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceMajor Character Death
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
House of the Dragon (TV)Warhammer Fantasy
Characters:
Ikit ClawRhaenyra TargaryenJacaerys VelaryonLucerys Velaryon (Son of Rhaenyra)Baela TargaryenRhaena Targaryen (Daughter of Daemon)Daemon TargaryenCorlys "The Sea Snake" VelaryonHelaena TargaryenAddam VelaryonBackground & Cameo CharactersSilverwing | Alysanne Targaryen's DragonOriginal CharactersJoffrey Velaryon
Additional Tags:
Crack Treated SeriouslyCanon-Typical ViolenceThe Dance of the Dragons | Aegon II Targaryen v. Rhaenyra Targaryen EraAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceCanonical Character DeathCharacter Turned Into a HumanIkit got isekai'd as Jace's twinSkaven Species (Warhammer Fantasy)Death to all GreensHuman ExperimentationScience ExperimentsIkit is his own warningSilverwing still has shit taste in male ridersPOV MultipleBackground RelationshipsBackground Character Deathshow canon onlyDragon RidersAnimal AbuseIkit is an abusive dragonriderTho he's fairly mellow compared to his SkavenselfGood Parent Rhaenyra TargaryenNo beta we die like LucerysDysfunctional FamilyCannibalismBlood and TortureCanon-Typical BehaviorBAMF Helaena Targaryen
Language:
English
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Published:2026-02-26Completed:2026-04-22Words:181,492Chapters:55/55Comments:1,270Kudos:749Bookmarks:160Hits:33,669
The Rat Prince of Westeros
SkilledWarriorKiwi
Chapter 31: Daemon
Notes:
x
Chapter Text
Harrenhall was a wretched place, vast and cold and damp. It seemed every night it was raining, even worse than Storm's End. Ceraxes certainly complained and Daemon himself wasn't much better.
Even so ravens came excessively and routinely, as Simon Strong constantly told even if his three fat sons all seemed to do was eat through hearth and home.
Princess Rhaenys and Meleys the Red Queen both dead at Rooks Rest, King Aegon apparently survived yet in such a state his brother Aemond acting as regent. Corlys being named Hand of the Queen. Food riots happening in King's Landing, with an attacking upon the two queens. Daemon just lamented the two hadn't been torn apart by the mad mob. Corlys then revealing two of his bastard sons- funnily enough only after the death of his wife so Rhaenys was not present to put the horns to him -Alyn and Addam of Hull. Alyn now firstmate for the Sea Snake's flagship while Addam managed to tame Seasmoke.
That Daemon had scoffed at, Seasmoke most likely mistook Addam for the long dead Laenor.
But it seemed that opened the flood gate, with the 'sowing of the dragonseeds'. Reportedly after countless deaths, the bastard son of Princess Saera Targaryen, disgraced daughter of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne, claimed Vermithor the Bronze Fury.
What is she doing? Daemon had thought after reading that. It did make some sense, Meleys had been their largest and now she was dead. Vermithor had been the last tame dragon upon Dragonstone after Seasmoke had been claimed by a bastard. Still, a whelp of Saera Targaryen. They could only hope this 'Hugh' did not turn out a worthless whore like his mother.
Upon Harrenhall that old fool Grover Tully finally had the sense to die, and his grandson Oscar Tully declared for Rhaenyra. Finally the mustering of troops proceeded as planned, after months of dithering and stupid infighting, mostly from the Blackwoods and Brackens as that was all they ever did for centuries on end.
Alys Rivers said as much, even if the bastard daughter of House Strong seemed more of the priestess to the great twisted Godswood of Harrenhal with her tonics and oddity. Even if Grover died conveniently under her watch, so he was still unsure as to her wants.
Just as the ruin of Harrenhall, where the visions dogged him. First of Rhaenyra, young and vivacious, then visions of his brother Viserys and the Iron Throne.
Honestly he was glad to see the end of his stay in Harrenhall, after he had to execute that idiot Willem Blackwood for what he did with the Brackens. There was punishment and retribution and then there was behaving like a Dothraki khal. So he died, as if anyone cared.
Yet Lord Tully now spoke true before the Riverland lords, and agreed to march for Queen Rhaenyra. Daemon would have preferred to execute the Blackwood with Ceraxes, simply because it was convent to have no remains behind, yet used Dark Sister for the act.
As Daemon walked back into castle to retire to his room, leaving the Riverlords to fuss with the Tully, he passed a large white rat sitting up on one of the crumbled statues. It blinked at him with green eyes, not even twitching as he walked past. He was sick of these visions, some poison in the water or the food. The quicker he was rid of Harrenhall the better.
He paused before an open door, noting the strange thick warmth emanating from within. It reminded him of Dragonstone, the stench of blood and sulfur near overwhelming, so he found himself coming to a half and looking within.
It was Helaena, naked and bloodied and bruised as if she had been severely beaten. Her hair was stained in blood and she was on her knees, hunched over. Her red-stained hands were clapped over her ears, nails digging viciously into her scalp. Her face was twisted up in agony, tears streaming from her shut eyes. Before her was Jaehaerys, body thrown across the ground and his severed head before Helaena's bloodied knees.
She was speaking in High Valyrian, her voice agonized and raspy as if she had been speaking for hours on end.
"Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone."
Over and over and over, a mantra of desperation.
And the source of her panic, towering over her with a hand gripping her nape, was a great man fully clad in twisted armour. He looked carved from boiling metal, glowing red-hot like molten steel, with a great horned helm that spiked skyward and eyes glowing white through his helm which seemed to be forged within his very face. He did nothing except stare at Helaena as she cried and begged in his grip.
Further in the room, nearly swallowed by the darkness, were stained altars and cauldrons of blood with so many mutilated bodies on the ground it was akin to a carpet.
He ignored that room. Helaena was worthless, one of the failures birthed of Alicent's Andal womb. He didn't even know why the idiotic ruin of a keep was assailing him with visions of her. The sooner she leapt to her death after the grief over her son the better.
His sleep that night was graceless as always, little wonder people spoke of the curse of Harrenhall considering the endless dripping that sounded throughout the rooms. It made him feel fit to go mad and the following days hardly aided that.
Ser Alfred Broome arriving shortly that morn was just another annoyance. The man plied him with praise and passive aggressive complaints, and Daemon hardly cared. A stupid fat old fool who muttered treason. Everything he did he did for her, even if she was too ungrateful to know.
It was a flurry of noise which he largely ignored as he instead focused upon making his army ready. Better arms and supplies, the keep ringing with noise when before it had been near empty. Of course while in his waking hours he could be kept busy and not even spare a thought but in his sleeping hours it was different.
And that night was the same, when he woke up in the lucid dream. This time when he left his room he entered a cozy dining hall, with candles and braziers lit while the smell of blood filled the air.
Rhaenyra, the younger one, was seated at one end of the table. Clad in red and black, hair loose with the Old King's crown upon her gleaming gold tresses. At the other end was a great rat in the shape of a man, hunched over yet would stand as tall as him. It was clad in blue armour, with strange twisted contraptions upon its back that hummed with arcane energy. The long snout was covered in grey fur and it had great green eyes that glowed in the night.
Despite that he recognized Ikit Velaryon, his second oldest good-son. Somehow Daemon just knew the great rat was Ikit.
As he crept closer he realized it was Lucerys's body sprawled out across the table. Nude, bloodied, hacked open and torn asunder so his organs were spilling across the table. His head was next to Rhaenyra, with a crown of red and black roses upon his hair and eyes shut as if asleep. It was offal that Ikit and Rhaenyra were eating, both with their hands and staining their fingers in gore. Rhaenyra was laughing, her face vibrant, as she said something in a strange low, hissing tongue Daemon could not recognize before she dug into Luke's chest and pulled out a chunk of meat. She ate it, blood staining her face. Ikit's furry muzzle was also red.
"What is this?" Daemon found himself saying. Strange, all other times he could not utter a word.
"Birthkin Lucerys," Ikit explained.
"You are eating him."
"Yes-yes. Dead is meat. Waste not. If I die-die then you eat me, good for clan. It is known. But maybe he will be reborn in my world as Skaven, as I in dragon clan," Ikit said, those great green eyes near transfixing. "Horned One is kin to Fourteen in a way. Chaos. Find mirth in this, yes-yes."
"Distant gods and worlds but enough they sense each other," Rhaenyra agreed. "I think fire and blood is across it all. Maybe Lord Arrax will take him to your Horned One. I bore my children from my blood and bone, it is only fair they give it back. What about you, Daemon?"
He twitched, now in the bed of his chambers and away from the cannibalistic dream. There was a lack of dripping water, but Alys Rivers was lurking at the foot of the bed with a lantern in hand so there was no peace to be had.
"Do you never sleep, witch?"
She wasn't even surprised he was aware, simply saying, "I am going to the Godswood."
It was desolate walk, the ruins of Harrenhall silent and only Alys had cast aside her lantern. Even then the full moon gleamed through the cracks and broken walls, casting a cold clear light over them as they headed to where the great weirwood was.
"There are omens here for those who seek them," Alys said quietly as they passed through an archway into the open air. She looked over her shoulder, saying, "You do not scoff?"
"I am no longer inclined to."
"I am pleased to hear that."
The weirwood lurked above them, the red leaves gleaming silver in the full moon with the white wood even more pale. Alys carefully walked past the twisted roots, expression pensive before she stopped just before the trunk. The face of the weirwood was pained as always as Alys stared at it.
"You want to know the greatest gift our queen gave to us?" Alys asked, turning around to face him. Her skin was porcelain white, hair black like ink.
"A gift?" Daemon asked, looking away from the weirwood to the witch. For some reason he expected her face to be bloody.
"Motherhood."
A scoff, "You sound like that council. That she is of the gentler sex and unfit for war."
"Oh us women endure. Yet she...she loved something unlovable and spared so many of us," Alys said. She gestured to the weirwood, "Come here if you wish to see. So you can be reminded your place and fate. The weirwoods of their own gods, old gods, and during a full moon the barrier between us is more flimsy. So touch and see."
Daemon eyed her before stepping towards the great trunk of the tree. The air was cool and still, even as he reached out to to rest his palm against the bark. It felt warm, alive, as the eyes oozed and crimson sap slid down his hands.
Twisting darkness, fields of corpses and torn landscapes. He walked past dozens of bodies only to see a great flare of light in the distance before a great explosion of light bloomed upon the horizon. The shock wave reached him a moment later, throwing him backwards in a bloodied puddle. More and more images flicked past; a dragon flying down towards Storm's End, a great fleet of ships burning on the sea, a cold desolate city with peaceful dead strewn across the streets, a young girl sitting before a bloody pyre with a blank stare, a woman clawing at a door and screaming hysterically, a brown furred ratman reaching out towards a great hulking monster, the High Tower with its green flame burning upon its zenith, the colossal expanse of the Wall rising high into the air with great tundras on either side, then Rhaenyra on the Iron Throne and cuddling a silver-furred rat as something peered down at them from behind the spiked back of the throne.
Daemon blinked, pulling back his hand and seeing it bloodied. His mind felt thick, like a chicken that had been over stuffed.
"Den mother..." Alys said almost dreamily from his side. "They say 'Mother is god in the eyes of a child'. And it would seem the children of the Horned One is such the same. His loyalty is to her, not you."
"I never presume to take the place of their mother," Daemon muttered, staring at the red sap staining his hands. The ratman. Silver hair. "What even is that boy?"
He turned, only to take a step back with an arm raised as he saw the dagger in Alys's hand.
"Oh don't fret," Alys said, a wry smile upon her face. "This knife is for me, not for you."
"What do you seek to do? Take your own life?"
"Aye. I am going to cut open my throat here, let the weirwood roots drink my blood," she said simply.
Daemon eyed her, "I thought you many things yet suicidal was not one."
"He approaches and I want none of it. I was used to the old gods who sigh through the wind and grow through the earth," Alys said as she glanced over to the trunk again. "Things are changing. It's growing more potent, things not of this place are watching. And I delved too deeply into one of them, so beautiful with his two heads and gleaming feathers. But no more. I want no part of it, I was too curious, so I will open my neck here and let myself seep into the old gods that I have served for decades. These other gods are too bright, too involved, too aware. I must go back to my own."
"So what is the point of that? These...visions. Or even the others in this keep," Daemon said, irritated. So much nonsense, and for what? To remind him Rhaenyra was queen? He knew that.
Alys smiled even as she sat down, leaning back against the trunk of the tree with her knife in hand. She looked up to the moon as she said, "To remind you that you aren't the mother. The Rat Prince is near."
"I see. The wayward prince returns," he said. Good. They needed Silverwing especially after letting two bastards take dragons.
"You aren't his den mother," Alys warned. "And neither will you be king. Accept that and move on least you be eaten by a rat."
And with those last words she raised the knife and sliced her throat open from ear to ear. He watched as Alys laid down on the ground, seemingly unbothered by the way her blood rapidly soaked her dress and splattered down across the white roots as it pumped out her throat in time with her heart. Instead she simply settled down and seemed to fall asleep, as her blood fed the weirwood.
After a moment Daemon shrugged and went back to bed. There was much to do on the morrow.
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