The birth screams echoed through the royal apartments like the cries of a dying bird.

Prince Daeron Targaryen stood in the corridor beyond the chamber door, one hand pressed flat against the cold stone wall, the other wrapped around a half-empty flagon of Arbor gold. The torchlight trembled against the gold thread of his sleeves. He had been drinking since the first pangs had begun, or perhaps since the day the maesters had whispered that the hour was near.

He had never been ready. Not to be a husband. Not to be a father.

When he was a boy, he had loved books more than swords, wine more than prayer, solitude more than ceremony. He had studied histories and prophecies by candlelight, losing himself in tales of dragons and kings, never imagining that such duties would someday fall upon his own weary shoulders.

Yet here he was, a prince, a husband, a soon-to-be father, and he had no idea how to be any of it.

A muffled cry came from within the chamber, not the cry of the child yet, but hers, {{user}}’s, and it cut him like a blade. He wanted to burst through the door, to hold her hand, to say something, anything that might ease the pain. But what could he say? That he was sorry? That he loved her? That he would never drink again?

All lies, all too easy to promise and too hard to keep.

He tipped back the flagon, swallowing the warmth that dulled the ache in his chest. “Seven save me,” he muttered under his breath, though he doubted the gods listened to drunkards.

Hours bled together. The maesters came and went, their hands red up to the wrists. The air stank of blood and milk and burning candles. Daeron’s thoughts turned circles around themselves. He remembered their wedding day, how he had stumbled through his vows with trembling hands. He remembered the nights that followed, his clumsy tenderness.

When at last the door opened and the midwife emerged, sweat-soaked and trembling, she said only: “It is done, my prince.”

He could hear it then, the thin, piercing wail of a newborn. So small. So human.

For a moment Daeron could not move. His heart thudded once, twice, like a man about to face a dragon. Then he stepped inside.

The chamber smelled of blood and smoke and woman’s pain. Candles guttered low. The maester muttered prayers of thanks, the handmaids bustled with linens, and upon the bed sat {{user}}, pale and exhausted, her hair plastered to her temples. In her arms was a bundle of white cloth that moved ever so slightly.

Daeron froze, unsure whether he belonged there at all. None seemed to notice him, the prince who had spent half his life with a cup in hand, the brother who had failed at everything but drinking.

He took a step closer. “Is it a she or a he…?”

{{user}} looked up, eyes heavy, “A girl,” she whispered.

A girl.

The words struck him with an unexpected force. He had thought, gods forgive him, that he would feel nothing. That she would be like a name in a book, a duty fulfilled, another page in a history that would one day forget them both. Instead, his throat closed.

He came to her bedside, slow as if approaching a sleeping dragon, and looked down at the child. The bundle stirred, a tiny face scrunching beneath the linen, eyes still closed. He reached out, hesitated, then brushed a trembling finger against her cheek. Warm. Soft. Real.

“She’s… she’s very small,” he managed. {{user}} smiled faintly.

The baby whimpered. Daeron startled, nearly knocking over a basin of water. One of the handmaids stifled a laugh, and he glared at her until she vanished into the shadows. {{user}} chuckled softly.

“Do you want to hold her?” she asked.

*“Me?” He blinked. “I… I might drop her!”