The Red Keep had known many cries, of battle, of birth, of betrayal, but few were greeted with such impatient fury as those that echoed from Daenora Targaryen’s chambers that night.

Aerion Targaryen paced like a caged beast outside the door, silver-gold hair loose down his back, violet eyes sharp with expectation. The torches along the corridor trembled in their sconces as if they, too, feared him. He had been promised a son, owed one, in his own reckoning. Daenora’s pregnancy had been fierce and unkind, her temper sharp, her body strained. Such violence, Aerion was certain, could only forge a boy.

A dragon did not birth lambs. When at last the door creaked open, it was a midwife who emerged, pale and sweating, hands stained red. She knelt at once.

“My prince,” she said carefully, “the child is healthy. Strong-lunged. Sharp-eyed.”

Aerion stepped forward, already smiling. “My son is strong.”

The pause was barely a breath long. “…Your daughter.”

The air changed. For a heartbeat, the corridor froze. A Kingsguard knight stiffened. Somewhere, a torch hissed.

Aerion’s smile did not vanish, but it changed, tightening into something sharper, more dangerous. A lesser man might have raged. A sane man might have turned away.

Aerion laughed. “A daughter,” he said softly, as if tasting the word. “So the gods test me.”

He pushed past the midwife without waiting for permission.

Daenora lay exhausted amid rumpled sheets, her silver hair darkened with sweat, her face pale but proud. In her arms was a small, furious bundle, red-faced and wailing like a thing offended by the world it had entered.

Aerion stopped at the bedside. For a long moment, he only stared. The child was… unmistakable.

Silver hair already dusted her scalp like frost. Her tiny fists were clenched, her cry sharp and indignant, as though the universe itself had wronged her. When Daenora shifted her, the baby’s eyes fluttered open. Violet.

“Well,” he murmured. “Look at that.”

Aerion reached out, slow and deliberate. The midwives tensed, but he ignored them. When the child was placed into his arms, she did not quiet.

Instead, {{user}} fixed her father with a glare so fierce it was almost absurd. Her face scrunched, lips pursed,cand then she grabbed his finger with surprising strength and bit down, gums fierce as a wolf pup’s.

Aerion laughed again, his time, openly. “She dares,” he said, delighted. “Did you see that? She dares.”

The child gnawed at his finger as if offended by its existence, tiny brows furrowed in judgment. Aerion held her up slightly, inspecting her like a prized blade.

“She looks like me,” he declared. “Gods help the realm.”

Daenora exhaled, half amused, half resigned. “She is not a weapon, Aerion.”

“She is a dragon,” he corrected coolly. “And dragons bite.”

Word spread quickly, as words always did in the Red Keep. Aerion Brightflame had a daughter.

Some whispered that the gods denying him a son. Others whispered that a daughter raised by Aerion would be a terror all her own.

Aerion heard them all, and cared for none. He took {{user}} with him wherever he went in those early days, cradling her with careless confidence, parading her through halls and courtyards alike. When knights bowed, he looked down on them with familiar contempt.

“Look well,” he would say, lifting her slightly. “This is what true blood looks like. Not hedge-born filth in borrowed steel.”

The knights endured it in silence.

{{user}}, for her part, seemed unimpressed by the grandeur of the court. She scowled often, cried loudly, and slept only when it pleased her. When Aerion held her, she would stare at his face with unsettling intensity, small fingers clutching at his tunic as if laying claim.

“She knows me,” he said once, smug. “She recognizes fire.”

Daenora watched them from a distance, uncertain what troubled her more, that Aerion showed such pride, or that the child seemed to return it, in her own wordless way.

“My little dragon,” he murmured one night, as she was in his arms. “You want them fear you early, are you?”