I can't stop looking at this pic they look like they belong in a renaissance painting

"My Queen."

The Rogue Prince. The Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

and what if they just lived happily ever after? what then?

we have always been meant to burn together

"She is the job. She is the essence of your duty. Loving her. Protecting her."

I can't stop thinking about this line from the crown. King George is explaining to Philip what it really means to be married to the future Queen and the daemyra parallels are so strong, I can just imagine Viserys saying it to Daemon and I'm not fine I'm not fine at all

the way this man is so hopelessly in love and probably doesn't understand what he did to deserve this life and wants to spend every second proving that he's worthy of it

and you just know he looked at nyra with this face 🥺 like do you love the eggs baby? do you want more? I can get more. do you want the whole world? I'd give you my heart but it was always yours

Daemon Targaryen's Love Has Two Sides

-The first is unyielding and screams of destruction. What lords he would unseat, what atrocities he would commit, what worlds he would tear down with his bare hands just to see her smile.

-What wars he would start, and relish in the anguish of her enemies. Hand always resting on the hilt of Dark Sister or some other slender, deadly blade, he is ready at all moments to defend her. To protect her to his last breath. In fact, there is a part of him that yearns for the chance.

-This love is not kind, nor gentle, but she would be lying if she said she did not crave it. The possessiveness of his touch, the frenzied passion of his embrace, and the darkness...such beautiful darkness lurking in the fire burning behind his eyes.

-The second, such a stark contrast from the first, is soft and quiet, and never fails to surprise her in its tenderness. He takes her hand in his in a gesture of comfort and warmth before bringing it to his lips. There is not a single inch of her he has not kissed a thousand times over.

-Unlike the first, these kisses do not claim her. They are an act of reverence. Devotion to his greatest love, whose soul is so deeply entwined with his own he cannot be sure where hers ends and his begins. But he is not whole without her, of this he is certain.

-This love is rarer, admittedly, but it is that very fact that makes it so unbearably beautiful. It tastes of honey and spring, and yet, so too is it reminiscent of the crisp autumn air and a soothing mulled wine. It is running through the streets of King's Landing after dark, giggling in the shadows. It is the way he slowly undresses her, gazing into her eyes with awe.

-It is his hand on her swollen belly, and the unspoken promises of how he will care for their child.

-A little spark returns. The darkness of the first love, the unrelenting desire to protect his loved ones at all costs. The pleasure he will take in the suffering of those would bring them harm. It is a blazing love, one that consumes and threatens to end all things.

-But what a glorious ending it would be.

Emma D'Arcy I love you forever

"I need Rhaenyra."

"Daemon." His brother's voice is wearied and wrought with frailty. He looks an old man as much as he sounds. The crown weighs heavy atop his head, his silver hair faded to little more than wisps, a faint remembrance of their great ancestry. The sight stirs something of a sympathy, mayhaps a pity within Daemon, as well as the first whispers of grief. Viserys will not long live, and the Prince would weep for that loss were it strong enough to quell his rage.

"I know we've had our differences," his brother says softly, "but let them pass with the years."

What kind words, and so easily spoken by the feeble ghost of the man before him. The King knows his death is nearing, and this is no more than a desperate ploy to earn some forgiveness before he reaches his grave. Daemon isn't of a mind to grant him such peace. Not after the banishments. Not after the offenses. Not after Rhaenyra.

Not after Rhaenyra.

His brother's words are a sharp reminder. Years. Years have passed, though he's hardly to know it. Time has been uncertain for the Rogue Prince, with many a year feeling a month, and the midnight hour often disguising itself as a lifetime. It is only by sparing a glance at the princess, his princess that he can truly be sure.

She is now a queen in her own right. His heart cannot but swell with pride to see her carry herself with such regality, a self-assuredness accompanying her every step and yet not in the slightest diminishing her ferocity. She is the blood of the dragon, the blood of Old Valyria, a goddess reborn to take what is hers. A goddess he would gladly worship.

There was a time he would not wait to be given the chance, but take it, as he did those years ago during their adventures in the heart of King's Landing, but seeing her now, he cannot bring himself to do it. He wonders if her life is better for his absence. He would hope so, if not for his own selfish desires.

His brother's voice pulls him from his thoughts, away from the sight of his niece. "There's a place for you in my court," Viserys says, "if that's something you should need."

Daemon seethes, his lips forming the words before he can think to stop them. "I need Rh..."

He stops.

He shouldn't say it.

To the Seven Hells with shouldn't, he can't say it.

He can't bear to say it. There's too much truth in it. He needs her.

He's always needed her.

"...nothing," he grimaces. Unable to stomach meeting his brother's eyes, he forces his gaze down to the rough cracks in the stone. Nothing.

Nothing. The word tastes a lie, and an unconvincing one, at best. She envelops every thought, fleeting or otherwise, that finds its way through the labyrinth of his mind. His heart is hers, entirely, and it's only now that he understands the emptiness that permeated his life these last ten years.

"I want Rhaenyra," he had told his brother, knife at his throat. He remembers looking at the blade and thinking that death would be preferable to losing her, and yet he still considered it wanting. He had never thought himself naïve, but what other word spoke such truth?

His hand on the hilt of Dark Sister, ever the calming influence, he forces himself away from his brother, refusing to so much as glance at his would-be queen.

"I'm sorry for your loss, my prince." Otto's voice stops him dead in his tracks. Dark Sister calls to him, and though the temptation is difficult to resist, he manages.

"No matter how fat the leech grows," Daemon sneers, "it always wants for another meal."

He wonders, as he walks away, if it was the right course. Any of it. If he should have slain Otto Hightower where he stood. If he should have forced his brother's hand and taken Rhaenyra to wife all those years ago. If he should have done as she asked at her wedding feast and cut through her father's kingsguard.

"Take me to Dragonstone and make me your wife," she had said, venom in her words and something else he could not quite place. At the time, he thought she was merely tormenting him, taunting him with all he could not have. Now, he cannot but wonder if she desired him as much as he did her. If it was not a mockery, but a genuine plea, an admission of her deepest desires.

What life might have been had he only obliged.

As he wanders the beach, somewhat melancholy under the light of the emerging moon, he is vaguely aware of gentle footsteps behind him. There's no need to look. He felt Rhaenyra's eyes on him. He felt her yearning. It mirrored his own.

He does not know what this night will bring. But if the Gods are good, they will never again threaten to tear them asunder.

-I can't stop thinking about the way you can hear ten years of yearning in each stroke of the violins. Of longing. Pining.

-I can't stop thinking about the way the score is painfully melancholic and how it feels like every second of lost time and all they could have lived together had the gods been kinder. The children they would have shared. The loneliness they would have escaped.

-This score is the moment a lover's hand leaves yours. Their warmth is still present on your skin and yet somehow it seems cruel, a reminder of all that you desire, all that you do not presently have.

-And yet...

-And yet it also feels victorious. Through pain and torment, they have refused to yield. They have been forged in a fire that has hardened them to the world, but with each other...with each other, they are soft. They are safe. And they are filled with a happiness that has been earned one hundred times over.

-In this ceremony but especially this kiss, Daemon and Rhaenyra feel the emptiness of the past fade into the smoke as they are bonded as one, two souls never entirely whole without the other.

-And nothing captures their immeasurable connection quite like the vows, spoken in High Valyrian.

/ Blood of two / Joined as one / Ghostly flame / And song of shadows / Two hearts as embers / Forged in fourteen fires / A future promised in glass / The stars stand witness / The vow spoken through time / Of darkness and light /

-The Stars Stand Witness. There is something so profoundly intimate in this joining, this claiming. This is not the love of a single lifetime. It is something far more ancient.

-This is the story of two souls that have been connected through each and every life, not rooted in the soil, but entwined in the sky, in the very fabric of the universe, unburdened by all that is tangible.

-This is not the first time the stars have stood witness. It will not be the last.

-The Realm's Delight. The Rogue Prince. Joined as one. Now, and always.