Chapter Text
Being the eldest daughter was bestowed upon you like a heavy weight. A blanket wrapped around your shoulders, one heavy and perhaps even water-logged. Not an easy thing to carry around, not simple in the slightest. But it brought forth some good.
You were undoubtedly your father’s favorite. The perfect child. Kind, intelligent, quick to guide your younger siblings away from trouble. Even Aerion’s cruel unruliness could bend to your will sometimes. Perhaps the gods thought it entertaining to burden you with the grief of being your siblings’ overseer. To force you into a fate full of septas and maesters pulling you from your own studies or duties to pacify your brothers and sisters.
Daeron never felt like a duty though.
The weight of comforting your elder brother was not a burden that felt like it might consume you. It was one you welcomed, one you sometimes sought. Years of playing together in shadowed halls, chasing each other through the gardens, laughing at silly jokes that another might not understand…it was never supposed to turn into momentary touches of comfort, stolen kisses that felt innocent until they weren’t, him warming your bed when he found it particularly hard to sleep at night.
You were never supposed to love him.
Not in that way.
But how could you be expected to deny him when he so often came to you stumbling and disoriented, sound mind lost somewhere in his cups?
You could never do such a thing.
“I do not wish for you to leave,” Daeron mumbled, his voice cracking and yet still muffled as he laid with his head in your lap.
Your fingers combed through his sandy locks, toying absentmindedly as sleep threatened to take you. The pillows behind your back were so very soft after all. And the warmth of Daeron upon you only relaxed you further.
“I am not going anywhere. I will not leave you, Daeron,” you managed to reply, humming softly when you felt his arms snake around your waist, holding onto you as if some force might very well pluck you right from his grasp. A humorous notion, you thought as you finally drifted off to sleep. His embrace was too comforting, delightfully familiar. It soothed you like none other, his touch like a secret lullaby.
“You will soon.”