#imagine luke being a bastard that Rhaenyra had to send away

[nashiriel]

Not the original asker, but I would love more adventures with bb!luke and his dragon! I love luke being able to claim the cannibal because he tried to take his eye out, because the cannibal clearly took it a lot better than aemond. I was a bit confused tho by what rhaenys meant about being cruel or kind in not saying laenor would have given luke seasmoke? And why she knew daemon wasn’t enough? sorry if that’s a stupid question because I really liked the chapter!

Thanks so much, anon! I’m really touched that you liked the fic enough to leave this ask and that you’d like more of that verse!

Obviously the premise is inherently a bit cracky, but yes, the Cannibal definitely had a more 😍 reaction to Luke’s willingness to resort to knife crimes at the first opportunity than Aemond! Grey Ghost owes his life to the Cannibal’s utter WTF reaction when he looked down and realised that he did indeed nearly suffer GBH at the hands of a chubby-faced little moppet. But I don’t imagine Aemond will be amused when he hears Rhaenyra waxing lyrical to a raging Alicent about just how her little darling won his own massive weapon of mass destruction.

In terms of Rhaenys:

Whilst Rhaenys’ suspicions about their parentage means she has some bitterness regarding Rhaenyra’s sons, she is well aware that Laenor loved them dearly.

So her not voicing that Laenor would have obviously sent Seasmoke rather than the dangerous Cannibal could be due to kindness (“I won’t puncture the wishful thinking of a grieving child that his dead father is still watching over him and loved him enough to send him the dragon he’d wanted his whole life”) or cruelty (“I won’t acknowledge to this grieving child that my son loved him so much that he would readily have given him his own dragon if he could”).

As for Daemon, a large part of Luke’s anger in that snippet is the dual trauma of unexpectedly losing his father whilst also being expected to accept Daemon as Laenor’s replacement with absolutely zero time to properly process the loss. Whilst he might otherwise have internalised his turmoil a bit more and settled down given time, the sudden connection to the Cannibal means that his emotions have a sudden outlet in a murderous dragon who is capable of squaring up to Caraxes.

So the normally insecure and meeker six-year-old Luke is suddenly not responding well when a man he barely knew before he unexpectedly married Luke’s mother and took his father’s place is telling him to calm down and control himself, forming a very dangerous feedback loop with the Cannibal. Hence Rhaenys recognising that someone else - like an authority figure Luke already knows - very much needs to step in.

He also mentally ties Laenor’s death to the other traumatic events of that night - getting it thrown in his face that Laenor might not actually be his father by someone Luke thought a friend, having that friend nearly brain Jace with a rock and losing the friendship through knifing his eye, having Aegon who Luke might previously have looked up to calling him a bastard in a hall full of people…

To Luke’s childish, grieving mind therefore, he lost Laenor partially because he might be a bastard, and he’s already aware that people questioned his status as a Targaryen because he didn’t have a dragon. Thus there’s the subconscious, irrational, guilt that if Luke had only been able to claim the Cannibal beforehand, things would never have gone so badly wrong and Laenor would still be with them.

Which is then also feeding into the Cannibal’s behaviour. He’s already the absolute worst dragon Luke could possibly have; it is very much the potentially centuries-old massive dragon currently calling the shots in that relationship, and because he has absolutely zero experience in having a rider or being around humans in general, he essentially regards Luke as an extension of himself and reacts to any attempt to take him away or even to merely get close to Luke as he would another dragon trying to steal his kill.

And while Luke may be a little frightened and frustrated by this…not only does he finally have an unquestioned symbol of Targaryen heritage in the dragon he longed for, but it’s a dragon so big and powerful that he won’t ever have to fear him dying like Laenor. He knows in his very bones that the Cannibal would rather burn the whole island to the ground than leave him, and for an unsettled, grieving child, that’s actually a very compelling notion. So that too is influencing the Cannibal’s apparent disregard of Luke’s commands, and one can really pity poor Rhaenys for the absolute mess she’s now taking on.

#house of the dragon #lucerys velaryon #carrion #lucemond #cannibal the dragon #aemond targaryen #rhaenys targaryen #anon ask