To Take What Is Rightfully Ours

Chapter 21. Enjoying the honeymoon

Rhaenyra was having the time of her life in Essos. First of all, there were no court games, no spies, no Otto, or Alicent, or anyone else who could make it their mission to ruin her mood. Second of all, she had Daemon - who was her husband now! - all to herself, and it felt so good to have his undivided attention. Daemon had a lot of places he wanted to see and a lot of things he was eager to do. He was like a child who just found a big stash of candy so Rhaenyra allowed him to make all the travel decisions because she knew she would have a spectacular time as long as she was with Daemon. Also, it was hard to say "no" to him when he was so passionate and almost childishly excited.

Her blood came a few weeks after the start of their trip. Rhaenyra wasn't sad about it. After all, they did decide they wouldn't actively try for a child for a while and she was fine with that. She had rather a lot of things to do on their honeymoon and she preferred not to let the morning sickness or whatever discomfort came as an early sign of pregnancy ruin their plans.

While she was bleeding and couldn't do much traveling and have much fun, Daemon turned out to be a very understanding and caring partner. Rhaenyra couldn't quite experience that in the months before their wedding but now that they were with each other 24/7, she realized just how lucky she was to have Daemon as her husband. Not only wasn't he grossed out by blood (My little dragon, I have been to battles. That's nothing compared to what I've been covered in.) but also arranged for her to have a bath two times a day (because he knew it helped with the pain), brought her all her favorite snacks and entertained her by reading a book in different voices (the dialogues itself weren't funny but the way Daemon did characters was hilarious and Rhaenyra had a great time). All in all, the princess had the best moonblood experience in her life. And that prompted her to ask where Daemon learned to be so awesome. It didn't really matter but she was curious and she wasn't really surprised when Daemon told her that Iris taught him most of the things he knew.

Rhaenyra thought that she probably should have been jealous of Iris but she only felt grateful. It was obvious that Iris had a big part in making Daemon the man he was now and Rhaenyra was grateful for that. Iris was also Diane's mother and a big part of Daemon's younger years and she would never ask either Daemon or Diane to avoid mentioning the woman that was once so dear to them.

Daemon was reluctant to mention Iris to Rhaenyra at first. He had told his wife that he had let Iris go and he hadn't lied but Iris was still the mother of his daughter and he had a lot of fond memories of her. He was afraid Rhaenyra would perceive it wrong. But then he realized that his amazing wife was not only okay with it but genuinely interested in finding out more about his past, so he allowed himself to remember Iris and tell stories from the past that involved her from time to time.

They wrote letters to Diane pretty frequently about their adventures and she updated them on what was going on at King's Landing. Except for one incident of Otto trying to shut down the construction of the fort on Stepstones while Daemon was away, everything seemed more or less calm. Rhaenyra had an uncomfortable feeling that it might be calm before the storm but she pushed these thoughts away because she didn't want to spend her honeymoon worrying about something she couldn't control. Instead, she focused on having fun and getting to know her husband better while they could afford to be in each other's company all the time and weren't separated by royal duties.

'This might be your one-in-a-lifetime opportunity,' Rhaenyra was walking through the market in Braavos when the voice of a red-headed woman caught her attention. 'They offer safety, work, housing... I know it sounds too good to be true but I assure you, my sources do not lie,' the red-headed woman said to a short person with chin-length brown hair that she was talking to.

'I don't know, Yara- what do you say it's called again?' the person asked, obviously having trouble and not being able to make a decision

'Dragonstone,' Yara answered, and Rhaenyra snapped her head in their direction so fast she even got a little bit dizzy. 'An island to the east of Westeros.'