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Rhaegar Targaryen kills Robert Baratheon on the Trident.  

He ducks beneath the powerful swings of the great hammer, avoiding one that could have crushed his chest in, and buries his sword to the hilt in his cousin's throat.  

The Storm Lord is dead before he falls beneath the water, and his best friend follows him soon after at the hands of Prince Lewyn Martell. 

Rhaegar Targaryen emerges from the bloody waters of the Trident victorious, hailed as a warrior to match the greatest knights of legend.  

It does not take long to crush the rest of the rebels, for with their leaders gone the few who remain mostly slink back into their holes. 

The last place of resistance is Storm's End, held by Stannis Baratheon to the bitter end.  

It falls of course - some knight or other buckles and lets the royal armies into the fortress. 

Stannis Baratheon and Jon Arryn are executed after a short, bloody battle.  

Peace officially returns to Westeros, and Rhaegar rides to reclaim the girl for whom he plunged the realm into war.  

Aerys slips and falls in his frenzy when he hears the news. 

The throne is unforgiving of such missteps, and he bleeds out before anyone dares to go near him. 

He is buried with unseemly haste, his widow shedding only a few tears for the sake of the brother she lost long ago. 

Elia Martell has her fickle husband king proclaimed King of the Seven Kingdoms throughout Westeros, and herself his Queen in the same breath.  

Her daughter is named Princess of Dragonstone, and those of the lords of the Narrow Sea swear their allegiance to their new little liege lady. 

Whatever her children's erstwhile father intends to do, she will not make it easy for him. 

Her status as his queen, the status of her children as his heirs, and the status of Visenya as Princess of Dragonstone have been acknowledged throughout Westeros. 

There are records in the Citadel, and even Rhaella has returned from Dragonstone to support them.  

******** 

Visenya's father returns to King's Landing with a heavily pregnant Lyanna Stark at his side.  

She is announced as his second wife, as if Rhaegar fancies himself the Conqueror come again.  

Dorne nearly revolts, outraged at the treatment of their beloved princess and her children. 

They are a proud people, and for Rhaegar to take a second wife after Elia bore him three healthy children is a humiliation they have not experienced since a Tyrell was made the Lord of Dorne.  

To placate them, Lyanna is styled merely Princess Consort rather than Queen of the Seven Kingdoms - that title is reserved for Elia Martell alone, already a Princess by birth. 

That creates unrest of its own in the North, but their new lord is young and afraid after watching his father and both brothers fall to the Iron Throne. 

Benjen Stark would not dare to revolt so soon after the North has been decimated for its rebellion - he is lucky that Rhaegar is besotted enough with Lyanna to wed her rather than keep her as a concubine or send her back to Winterfell in disgrace.  

Visenya would have made the girl go through the Walk of Shame and then sent her back to Winterfell like the ruined whore she is.  

She thinks her mother would have done worse, personally.  

There's a look in Elia Martell's eyes that could match the Red Viper at his worst.  

Her father's whore has gotten off far lighter than she would have in any just world. 

Lyanna Stark, of course, does not see it that way. 

She whines and complains how unfair it is that Elia Martell is Queen and she is only a Princess, that Elia Martell's children will take precedence over hers, that Elia Martell's brothers are allowed at court while hers is effectively restricted to the North, that Elia Martell has the Queen's chambers, and whatever else she can find to take offense at. 

Behind the backs of the Martell faction, Visenya knows she ridicules Elia for being weak and sickly, her children for being strange and silent, her people for being wanton and loose. 

She resents that her brother has taken a Crownlands bride and forgotten all about her - apparently totally unaware that Elinda Celtigar is there to control the Stark boy and several ravens have already been 'lost' on their way to King's Landing. 

Visenya cannot help wondering if Rhaegar was attracted to her because she was as oblivious as himself, who does not even realise that Elinda's loyalty is to the Queen who protected maidens during Aerys' rampage, rather than the King who abandoned them all to his father's tender mercies. 

Elinda sends long gossiping letters to her elder sister, Lady Alyssa Chyttering, detailing everything taking place in her new life.  

Lady Alyssa, of course, shares much of the gossip during the long hours that Elia Martell and her returned ladies-in-waiting spend sewing clothes for the poor of the city. 

If there are tidbits that sound more like a spy's observations than a young woman's chatter, well, that is surely just a coincidence. 

There is only so much that can happen in the North, and Lady Elinda is used to the busy, vibrant life of court.  

No wonder she is reduced to discussing the various bannermen of her husband's house and their various holdings, poor thing.

There is simply nothing else to speak about in such a dreary place. 

********* 

Rhaegar betroths Rhaenyra to the last remaining Baratheon.  

When Elia Martell learns of it, she loses her temper with her husband in private for the first and last time.  

Rhaenyra is the daughter of a king, and her own father sells her off to a traitor's brother as if she is nothing.  

After the first moment of rage, when Elia throws herself at her false husband as if to scratch out his eyes, when she hurls words at him like knives, Elia comes to her senses.  

She starts to weep instead, allowing herself to crumple against the king as if seeking his support, hiding the snarl that she cannot quite smooth away in his crimson doublet. 

"Rhaenyra is so young, Rhaegar," the queen weeps, all the venom folded down where it cannot be seen or suspected, "why must I lose my baby so soon?" 

Her husband holds her with the ease of seven years of marriage, murmuring comforting nothings to her as if nothing has changed between them.  

Visenya watches with wide eyes, clutching her baby sister to her. "Is 'Nyra leaving, Papa?' 

Her voice is smaller than a mouse's, her lips trembling as she gazes up at her father and her weeping mother.  

As always, Rhaegar is weak before his favourite daughter, and the tears of the wife he abandoned. "Not yet, darling. Lord Renly will come to the Red Keep to foster with you, and you shall have a new playmate. You will like that, won't you?" 

Summoning her shyest, sweetest smile, Visenya nods. "Yes Papa." 

Her sister smiles too, copying her as she does in all things, completely unaware that her future has been laid out before her. 

For a moment, one could almost imagine they were an ordinary, happy family, particularly now that Lyanna is in confinement. 

******** 

Rhaegar does not stop at selling off his daughter. 

His mistakes tore the realm apart, and now he is frantically trying to tie it back together. 

Viserys is promised to Rhea Arryn, Denys Arryn's only surviving child, and the legal Lady Paramount of the Vale since Jon Arryn's execution. 

Her uncle is clearly less than enthused about marrying her, but Visenya reminds him that there was a time Aerys thought to wed Viserys to Visenya instead.  

That brightens his outlook on the match, and he remarks that his castle will be so high up that it will be like riding on a dragon, and he'll be taller than all the rest of them.  

Daenerys, barely out of the cradle, is given to Edmure Tully, who was brought to court in Rhaegar's train, his clothes still stained with his father's blood.  

The little girl is a baby still, and cannot understand - but her mother is furious.  

Rhaella Targaryen lost her own childhood when her parents wed her to her brother, a move which also cost her her greatest protector, as Aerys' care for his sister curdled into resentment for his unwanted child-bride.  

Her entire life has been sacrificed on the altar of duty, and her son has spat in the face of that sacrifice. 

To add insult to injury, he now spends his own kin as freely as coppers in an attempt to pave over his own mistakes.  

She threatens to leave Westeros entirely, to live as a free woman in Essos and let Rhaegar to sort out the mess he has made on his own. 

Who could stop her, after all?  

She has spent the last twenty years as queen, and Rhaegar's recent actions have left him unpopular enough that his power is negligible.  

She stays, in the end. 

Not for Rhaegar, despite his pleas and commands. She loves her firstborn, but he abandoned her to pain and humiliation one too many times. 

For her grandchildren, who have lost enough that she cannot bear to deprive them of their only living grandmother too. 

For her younger children, who need her so desperately and whom she could not take out of Westeros without the king's permission.  

Elia persuades her to agree to the betrothals - they are good matches after all, even for royalty.  

The Reach is rewarded for its loyalty of course - Lady Tyrell's brother, Ser Baelor, is given Catelyn Tully as a bride. 

She lost her child by the attainted Eddard Stark when she heard of his death, and mere moons later she is remarried, but she remains stoic throughout her second wedding. 

Her sister is less composed. 

Lysa Tully, Lady Paramount of the Vale for a few brief moons, weeps all through her second wedding.  

Visenya does not blame her - Jon Connington is an awful man, who likes Visenya and her siblings simply for being their father's children, but despises her mother for being Dornish and for the high crime of being Rhaegar's lawful wife. 

Needless to say, Visenya loathes him, as she does anyone who dares to do less than worship Elia Martell as she deserves. 

The Reach is also granted the position of Master of Laws for its lord, which he comes to take up with all possible haste, leaving his mother to rule Highgarden.  

Lord Tywin, late as he was, did come to Rhaegar's aid at the Trident.  

He is named Master of Coin, and he brings his daughter to court with him to be one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting - a pretty, poisonous, golden woman who thinks Visenya doesn't notice how her necklines inch down whenever Rhaegar is around. 

Dorne must needs have its own rewards of course, for it remained loyal throughout the wars - and the next queen will be half-Martell. 

Visenya's infant cousin Morgana, Manfrey and Tia's new daughter, is promised to Benjen and Elinda's unborn son. A Martell bride for the Warden of the North.  

And Arianne is given Garlan Tyrell to be her Prince-Consort, strengthening the alliance between those realms who supported Rhaegar.  

That particular match is the suggestion of Elia Martell. 

She is no fool after all. 

She knows her histories, and can hear the repeating chorus of a female heir with an ambitious stepmother.  

The Dance of Dragons almost destroyed House Targaryen once, and Elia refuses for a second reprise to end in the same way. 

She gets to work before Lyanna's confinement ends. 

The people of King's Landing already loved her, and her children.  

Half of the loyalists are already loyal to Elia over any other Targaryen.  

It is almost child's play to build upon the foundation that Elia has already forged. 

Rhaegar is absorbed in his new bride.  

He barely pays attention when Elia whispers in his ear, gives her whatever she asks for to appease her for his abandonment.  

Her younger brother is named Master of Ships, his daughters legitimised, and Elia herself sits on the throne to give judgement, for the king has no Hand yet. 

When Rhaegar's first wife smiles and offers to let him have time away from the affairs of ruling so that he may spend that time with Lyanna, well.  

Their new king doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth.  

Perhaps he should have.  

Had he ever truly known his wife, he would have. 

********* 

Lyanna is delivered of twins, half a moon short of the full term. 

Her son is named Gaemon, his dark hair marking him the son of a Stark. 

Her daughter has pale blonde hair, and is named Rhaenys. 

Nothing could have been done to the babes when Lyanna came to the capital so late, not without Rhaegar noticing.  

The same does not go for the next child, not even a full year later - it dies before it could live, and it is subtle enough that no fingers are pointed even by the Stark girl. 

Elia Martell does not like killing children, even unborn ones.  

But she survived the birth of three children on pure spite and the force of her indomitable will.  

She'll be damned if she allows those children, won from the gods with her blood and sweat and tears, to be set aside for Lyanna Stark's bastards.  

Whatever Lyanna Stark was, she is growing bitter and disillusioned with court life by the day. 

She resents that she is not queen, that her son is behind two of Elia's own daughters in the succession, and a hundred other things.  

Bitterness is a dangerous thing.  

Lyanna Stark  is a dangerous thing. 

She already plunged the realm into war once, without truly trying.  

Elia does not want to see what the girl can do when she wants to.  

She does her best to limit Lyanna's influence, but that is a secondary concern.  

Her attention, when not on the Great Game, is on her children.  

She raises them to be exactly what their positions will require - all three will have to be perfect if they are to survive the storm that is to come. 

Elia's firstborn daughter is brought up to be ruthless, even with herself.  

Queen Rhaenyra lost her position because she indulged herself in the manner of an undisputed male heir.  

She could rule others, but not herself, and because of that she lost her throne, her supporters, her children and her life.

Visenya is brought up to know the delicacy of her position. 

Every day, her mother impresses upon her that she cannot indulge herself as her predecessor did.  

She must be above reproach.  

So she is.

Elia's second daughter is brought up to be strong.  

She will have to rule the fractious Stormlands, and pull them together as she adjusts to her new role.  

There will be no room for mistakes, because by the time Rhaegar dies, the Stormlands must be ready to support the true queen. 

It is a heavy burden for Rhaenyra's little shoulders, but it is a burden that she must bear. 

So she does.

Elia's son is brought up to be loyal.  

Neither Elia nor Visenya is pleased with Aegon's continued betrothal to his elder sister, but Rhaegar will not be swayed. 

For now, they make the best of it. 

And Aegon cannot think that the throne is his rather than his sister's, for that is how causes fall apart.  

He is raised to be a fighter and a diplomat, but not a ruler. Not a king. 

That is what he must be, what he must do for them to survive.

So he does.

They must be unassailable, for they are already in a weak position, supporting the cause of a ruling queen. 

They must be perfect.

So they are.

********* 

At Rhaenys and Gaemon's second nameday, Rhaegar declares a tournament to celebrate his children surviving the dangerous years of infancy. 

Lyanna appears in a flowing dress of Stark grey. 

She wears a crown of winter roses and holds the dark, sullen Gaemon on her hip with Rhaenys in the arms of her wet-nurse, smiling and waving to the crowds, both twins draped in the same grey as their mother. 

They cheer for her happily enough - she is young, and she is beautiful, and she is the bride of a king.  

It is enough for the common people of King's Landing and they give her the adulation she desires. 

Her smiles sour, however, when Elia appears in flowing red silks, and she and her children receive a roar that nearly shakes the earth. 

In fairness to Lyanna, it had been a passable effort to garner support, but passable is not enough in the Game when her opponent is Elia Martell. 

She is young and unprepared for her role, and were she any other woman in any other role, Visenya knows her mother would lend a few helping words.  

But Lyanna Stark ran away with Elia Martell's husband and got ten thousand of her countrymen killed, and now Elia must share her throne and her crown with a whore. 

She says nothing. 

They allow Lyanna her shallow, insignificant victories, and her more lasting defeats and mistakes.  

The Stark girl does not even realise half of the latter have taken place - but this is a particularly noticeable one. 

Almost predictably, the unofficial factions begin to solidify at the visual divide between Elia and Lyanna. 

The second day of the tourney, many of the Dornish faction also wear red, and several of those who favor young, wilful Lyanna wear grey. 

Gossip names them the Reds and the Greys, and Visenya knows that she is not the only one to note the similarity to the years before the Dance.  

There is another civil war coming, no matter what they do.  

All that they can do is set the foundations for their survival, and pray that it is enough. 

********** 

Life settles into something like a routine.  

Rhaegar spends his life, for the most part, ensconced in his books and scrolls, for the most part, seemingly unaware of the cracks in his court and his realm that grow ever larger.

The rest of his time is spent with Lyanna and his children by her, or with Visenya, his favourite child even now. 

Occasionally he will hold a family supper, where the entirety of House Targaryen will be forced to sit in uncomfortable silence and polite conversation beneath their patriarch's eye.  

Elia will sit at his right hand, as befits her station, with her children beside her. 

Lyanna will sit at his left hand, often holding it throughout the meal as she smiles gloatingly at the queen, her own children ranked after her.  

It does not make for a pleasant evening, for Elia's children resent Lyanna's for taking the love of their father, and Lyanna's children resent Elia's for their influence and proximity to the throne. 

Elia and her children had tried, for years, to mend the brink between Rhaegar's first and second families - not because they felt any particular affection towards their father's whore, but because it is simply easier if there was an alliance between the factions. It hadn't worked of course, but none of them particularly mourn that failure beyond the regret that war is now inevitable. 

Visenya and her siblings, raised by the smiling, sly Elia Martell, know to hold a blank face and polite courtesies whatever their opinion. 

Their mother was born a princess, and from the cradle was taught to fight the Game. Her marriage to Rhaegar was politics, and such is her strength and that of her children. 

Lyanna's marriage to the king was made of lust and rebellion, and a lack of all restraint or duty. 

Such is the temperament that she encourages in her children, who know only from exposure to the rest of the court how to leash their tongues or couch their words in seeming fair ones. 

Even Rhaella's calming influence from opposite Rhaegar cannot do much, for Viserys and Daenerys have little interest in peacemaking.  

Those dinners are torturous for all involved, the only thing Rhaegar's wives, children, mother and siblings all agree on.  

Still, it is but seldom that Rhaegar imposes this upon his kin.  

His time is spent buried in the library, or in Lyanna Stark's embrace.

He sits upon the Iron Throne rarely, for rule of Westeros has devolved mostly upon Elia Martell.  

She had delayed the naming of another Hand for several years, and then bent Rhaegar's absent eyes towards some minor noble or other who was under her control.  

When the king is not in court, the Hand gives way to the queen, who has never yet been cut by her husband's throne.  

Her face is the one which petitioners see, her voice the one pronouncing sentence, her hand the one which grants them mercy.  

The Small Council too is theirs, though it could be Lyanna's if she gave it more than a token effort. 

Ser Oswell's guilt at his abandonment of Elia and her children during the war keeps him neutral for now, but Visenya cannot trust that he will not make the same choice again - whatever his protestations. 

Varys' loyalty is for sale to whoever pays the highest price. It simply happens to be the Reds for now.  

Lord Tywin's son is Visenya's sworn sword, and the lord himself knows that he owes his renewed position at court to the queen, but he likes her no more than he did before the rebellion.  

Pycelle, of course, follows his owner like a lapdog.  

Lord Mace is a proud man who's son is betrothed to Arianne, and Lyanna's disregard of court politics rankles within his craw but he is also a Reacher who dislikes the Dornish on principle. 

The only Councillor who's loyalty is unshakeable is Prince Oberyn Martell, who has spent his life following his sister and will not cease it on the part of the girl who ran away with his goodbrother.  

It is a precarious situation, but somehow, they hold it. 

They have the goodwill of the commons, many of whom have been fed from the purse of the queen or the crown princess at one point or another.  

They have at least tentative acknowledgement from a significant part of the nobility, who have taken issue with the way Lyanna treats the position she won with so much blood, or who do not believe that Rhaegar's second marriage is valid.  

The position of the Reds is not strong, but it is solid.  

And the Greys have less of a claim than the Greens had so long ago, for Elia has a son where Aemma did not.

********* 

Gaemon grows up every inch a Stark.  

He has the long face, the grey eyes, and the dark hair.  

His twin, Rhaenys, is beautiful in much the way her mother is.  

She is wild and wilful and spoiled, with the Stark face and the Stark eyes, but Valyrian pale hair.  

Then there is Aelyx, with light brown hair and blue eyes and Rhaegar's bones beneath.  

He is disinterested in the court games and, quite frankly, in life.  

He is, however, the least objectionable of Rhaegar's get on Lyanna Stark.  

Where the other two spend every waking moment dreaming of the throne, Aelyx does not seem to have ever even thought of it.  

Visenya is not even entirely certain that he knows he is a prince. 

He has no drive, not the way that the rest of Rhaegar's children do, no ambition, no purpose.

Visenya wants her dues as Rhaegar's heir, and by extension, the throne. She wants justice for her mother, who has done nothing to deserve Rhaegar's treatment of her.  

Rhaenyra wants security and stability, always remembering those days in her earliest memories when everything was upside down and no one knew if they would see the next day. 

Aegon wants to be loved, for his family to be safe, and for them to be loved and to love him in return. 

Gaemon wants his mother to be Queen, and to be his father's heir, as he believes is his right. 

Rhaenys wants to be worshipped, and she wants power - and Visenya is fairly certain that she wants Gaemon. 

And Aelyx? 

Just wants to be left alone.  

It is a sort of rebellion against their whole screwed up family that Visenya can respect. 

Perhaps she would have tried it, were she less of a passionate person.  

She is too much a daughter of Houses Nymeros Martell and Targaryen to have such a quiet goal.  

Her blood runs too hot for her to accept anything less than her right. 

************* 

Visenya is one and ten when her forays into the arts of her namesake have unavoidable consequences.  

She tried a summoning spell, carefully supervised by her mother and her Uncle Oberyn in the privacy of Dragonstone. 

It would summon anything she wished it to, so she fancifully wished for a dragon, expecting nothing more than a petrified egg.  

Instead, the earth shook enough for all three to lose their footing.  

There is a rumble and a roar and half of the Dragonmont slides into the sea as  something uncurls from its long slumber.  

She can faintly see it outlined against the dusky sky, huge and black and terrible.  

For a long moment, she cannot quite understand, looking at it dumbly as she hears the faint screams of the island's people.  

Then Uncle Oberyn starts cursing in Old Rhoynish, and her mother only clutches at Visenya's shoulder. 

The Cannibal, she realises.  

He hadn't flown away and died after all.  

He had curled up and gone to sleep, and stayed there for centuries as the Dragonmont grew over him until there was no sign of his presence.  

But now she has awoken him.  

Great, dark wings unfurl from the dragon's back, and it throws back its head as bright green flames erupt from its mouth.  

They are the exact colour of the Killing Curse that so shaped who she was long ago.  

She knows him.  

The thought hits her like a bolt of lightening, and she wriggles out of her mother's grasp before Elia can react.  

Visenya runs through the castle and out onto the cliffs, her power lending wings to her feet to outrun even Oberyn Martell.  

As she reaches the cliffs, the Cannibal takes to the air, landing heavily before her.  

He is huge.  

Almost bigger than the Red Keep.  

And he is beautiful.  

Black as night, with eyes the same familiar green as his flames. 

He is more slender than the dragons in the history books, more serpentine, more elegant than the thick-set beasts the Maesters describe. 

He looks at her with those familiar eyes, and she looks right back at him.  

Visenya knows without looking that her eyes mirror his at this moment, the eyes of the girl who died.  

She takes a step closer to him, and he snarls, spitting a wave of flame at her.

It rolls over her harmlessly and she continues forward. 

This is her birthright. 

He has come to her.  

He roars, and she flings a hand out, her power whipping out to curl about his neck like a collar.  

Words that she has never spoken, or even heard, come bubbling to her lips, words of binding and of chaining.  

He will be hers.  

The Cannibal roars and tries to rear back, but she grips the invisible tether hard.  

"Lykiri!" Her voice is small and faint, but the flames sputter and die in his throat, and he thrashes against invisible bonds. 

Visenya takes in a deep breath, and remembers the tales of her namesake, the  great queen and sorceress. 

Was Vhagar tamed so? 

Was Balerion? 

Certainly the first dragons to be mastered by the Valyrians would not have submitted easily. 

She clenches her hands and imagines the bonds sinking into the dragon's skin, wrapping about his very soul. 

He roars and thrashes, choking on fire that cannot escape his throat, fighting the inexorable grip of the first true Valyrian sorceress to walk the earth in centuries. 

He is old and strong and masterless, the last dragon on the earth, but she is stronger. 

She has the knowledge and power of Valyria, and the magic of a world long lost, and she has a will to match his. 

For a moment, she fears he will break free, but then he collapses, slumping to the ground and panting, glaring balefully at her. 

She smiles, and walks forwards, placing her hands on his snout. 

"You are mine," she tells him in High Valyrian, "from this day until my last day. I bind you to me and to my line as long as it shall last. Your name is Elerax." 

He groans as the final chain settles about his soul, binding him to her, and the sudden rush of power through her is staggering. 

She sways on her feet, just a little girl really, a tiny slip of a thing, and then steadies herself. 

An incredulous laugh leaves her lips. 

Her mother is, of course, terribly angry with her for her reckless behaviour.  

Her father is ecstatic when his daughter returns to the Red Keep on the back of a real dragon.  

He thinks his precious prophecy is coming true, and she swallows a sudden upwelling of hate for him, a sudden desire that she had never laid eyes on Elerax.

******** 

A few moons later, dragon eggs are discovered in the ruins of Summerhall as Rhaegar has it rebuilt for Gaemon.  

Seven eggs, the ones that Aegon V sacrificed his family and half his court to hatch and failed.  

Elerax simply breaths flames over them, and they start to hatch where they lie on the floor of the Dragonpit.  

Mortal fire, even wildfire, is no match for the flame of a dragon, it appears. 

Rhaegar gathers everyone at court with even a drop of Valyrian blood to watch the hatching, though his own children are placed at the front.  

He wants dragons for himself and all five of his younger children, including those by Lyanna.  

Gaemon, Rhaenys and Aelyx have as fair a chance as Rhaenyra and Aegon.  

But dragons are no tame pets to mindlessly obey anyone, not even the head of the last family of dragonlords.  

The first dragon to hatch does indeed make for Aegon.  

It is black, with golden eyes and a golden sheen where the sun hits it.  

But the next ends up, somehow, in Oberyn Martell's lap. 

Visenya's uncle is of Valyrian descent, for that was the only reason her mother was chosen as Rhaegar's bride, but the sight of her uncle with the red dragon is strange indeed.  

Then the pale golden one ends up with Viserys, and the iridescent blue green one refuses to leave Rhaenyra alone.  

A deep purple one pours itself into Dany's waiting arms, and the pure white one follows it to play with Rhaella's skirts. 

Finally, a lithe, serpentine form the orange of the Martell banner evades Rhaegar, Rhaenys, Gaemon and Aelyx to twine itself about a stunned Elia Martell.  

Watching from her vantage point at Elerax's feet, Visenya cannot help her smug smile.  

The gods are with the Reds, for why else would all seven dragons ignore the king and three of his children for others with barely a drop of Valyrian blood? 

It is a sign, and she has not even had to weight the dice.  

She had not dared.  

Dragons are notoriously contrary, after all.  

******* 

The dragons grow swiftly.  

After three moons they are the size of small dogs, and their flames have come in.  

Aegon names his dragon Martaxes, for their mother's house, for the gold of its scales. 

The gold spreads as Martaxes grows, more brilliant and more obvious by the day, and soon it is as if Aegon's dragon is a living flame in the bright sunshine.

Oberyn, who's wit is less than half as sharp as his blade, names his Cobra, declaring it fitting for the mount of the Red Viper. 

Even his daughters cannot quite say the name without wincing, and Cobra quickly becomes known as the Great Viper by all and sundry. 

Viserys, who has always loved his mother, takes one look at the pale gold of his dragon and names it Rhaelys. 

His dragon is, he says later to Visenya in private, as elegant and graceful as his mother - and she deserves to have a memorial beyond whatever paltry offerings Rhaegar scrounged up - now, she will go down in history as one of the first dragon riders in a new age, and as the namesake of another. It is one of the only times Viserys ever thanks her for anything. 

Rhaenyra, dutiful, betrothed to the last Baratheon, and mindful that the restoration of a Great House rests on her shoulders, declares her mount to be named Fury. 

There is a hesitation to the name, but even when Visenya takes her aside and asks her later, Rhaenyra refuses to elaborate, and Visenya cannot bring herself to push. 

Dany, sweet and as sheltered as her mother and brother could manage, and who adores the niece who is the closest thing she has to an elder sister, names hers Viserax. 

She smiles up at Visenya as she does, declaring that since her brother took Rhaella, and Visenya herself took Elia, it is high time Visenya has a namesake. 

Rhaella, the only living Targaryen to remember Summerhall, spends a long time looking at the pure white of her dragon before she finally names it Jenny.

After that, she is quiet for a long time, her eyes distant and full of smoke. 

And Elia, the daughter of a thousand generations of Rhoynar and Martells, inheritor of their ancient grudge against their would-be conquerors, names her dragon Nymeria, against all of her husband's protests. 

What, she demands coolly of him, would Rhaegar know? He has never had a dragon of his own. 

He manages something about having spent his life in the study of dragons, but Elia simply asks him whether dragons shed their scales. 

Rhaegar has no reply. 

Calmly, his wife informs him that they come off in patches, as skin does for humans. 

She gives him one of Nymeria's with a smile, and tells him to put it in one of his precious books.

********** 

When Visenya reaches four and ten, she is given her own household.  

Her parents allow her to choose two of the ladies, but the rest they assign to her themselves.  

Visenya chooses Tyene and Arianne, of course.  

They are her favourite cousins, being the closest in age to her.  

As the future princess of Dorne, Arianne technically should have her own household, but she is willing to join Visenya's for a few years. 

Her mother insists on having Margaery Tyrell, Asha Greyjoy, Rhea Arryn, Lysara Stark, Elenda Connington, Larissa Celtigar, Alarra Bar Emmon and Minisa Marbrand among her ladies. 

A lady from each of the Seven Kingdoms, and two from the Crownlands. 

Most of them are bearable, if entitled.  

Arianne and Tyene, she loves dearly, and trusts not only her life but the lives of her siblings.

They are her most loyal companions, her confidants, her support in the manoeuvrings and plots of court,  and her dearest friends. 

As for the rest, well, she grows to know them. 

Clever Margaery, brash Asha, quiet Rhea, poised Larissa, lovely Alarra, and sly Minisa, one by one, fall under her sway. 

She cannot bring herself to trust them, but she can, slowly, trust that they all have some degree of loyalty to her, even Lysara, who's Crownlands mother has spent her life whispering into her children's ears.

And eventually, she likes them. 

The only objectionable one is Elenda Connington, Lysa Tully's only child with Jon Connington, and even then she is not truly terrible. 

She's just so...spoiled.  It's a little pathetic, and dangerous for such a sheltered, indulged child to be set adrift on the treacherous seas of the court. 

Apparently she was sickly, and rumour has it that her mother still fed her from her breast before Lord Jon sent Elenda to be Visenya's lady-in-waiting. 

Elenda is nine, so Visenya hopes for the girl's sake that it is simply a rumour. 

She knows good tales, to give her credit, for her mother would talk to her each night until she slept. 

It is a sweet story, and Visenya idly wishes that her own mother had done the same. 

Elia Martell loves her children more than life, but she spent their childhoods making silent war for them and had neither the time nor the strength to spend hours singing or speaking to her children as they slept. 

 So, instead, Visenya, four and ten and nearly a woman, lies in bed and lets Elenda Connington tell her stories until the younger girl falls asleep. 

It's nice, in a way. 

Reminds her, a little, of another world, a world where another red head did his level best to share the only thing he had with her - his family. 

**********

Two years later, it is Rhaenyra's turn to select her ladies. 

Her sister's entourage favours the Stormlands, of course, for that is the kingdom she will one day rule.  

There are also several Dornishwomen among them, because there are few that the Reds can fully trust, but Dorne is loyal to its princess. 

Rhaenyra's ladies are Deria Dayne, Morgana Martell, Roslin Frey, Desmera Redwyne, Brienne Tarth, Elenda Carron and Jocelyn Penrose. 

She quickly becomes close with Brienne Tarth, oddly enough.  

Deria and Morgana, their kin, are the ones upon whom she relies, but Brienne becomes something like a friend. 

Awkward, unlovely and better fitted for the practise yard than the dance floor, Brienne, nevertheless, quickly gains Rhaenyra's favour. 

It is odd. 

Rhaenyra is beautiful, poised, and as much the image of their mother as she can be, with the sly mind and strong will to prove it. 

Yet she adores Brienne, and the other girl quickly becomes her closest companion. 

At first Visenya is suspicious of it, wondering if there is some sort of plot on the part of the Greys.

But she quickly realises that Brienne is far too honest, far too good to be part of such a thing. 

Perhaps that is the attraction for Rhaenyra - there are so few truly good people at court that it is like a breath of fresh air. 

So Visenya steps back, not watching her sister's ladies every moment that she can spare. 

She marks them, of course, keeping their movements in the back of her head where she keeps all other such thoughts on the nobles who surround her. 

She marks Morgana's quiet apprenticeship to their Uncle Oberyn, the letters from the Twins that Roslin burns, Desmera's meetings with Margaery, and Deria's burgeoning friendship with Aegon. 

All of them, she remembers and holds close to herself with all her other secrets. 

Such is the life that one perforce must lead at court. 

********

The first eggs are laid when the younger dragons reach their fifth year. 

Rhaegar, of course, insists that he and his younger children receive eggs. 

He, much to Lyanna's disgust, takes one of Nymeria's eggs - a beautiful thing the colour of blood and wine and garnets. 

It does not hatch for some time, no matter how much fire Elerax and the other dragons breath over it.

Gaemon's, a colourless, pale thing laid by Jenny, hatches almost immediately. 

He names it Wraith, for it is silent as one, with bloody eyes and flames. 

Rhaenys refuses to take an egg from any Martell's dragon, no matter what, and so the black egg Martaxes laid goes untouched.

She takes an egg from Rhaelys instead, a soft, creamy one which had not warmed for her as Martaxes' egg had. 

When the dragon hatches, it is small and wild, and her bond with it is a weak, forced thing which she cannot fully control. 

She names it Lyaxes regardless, and to her credit, she seems at least to love it. 

Apathetic, uninterested Aelyx, finds himself with one of Viserax's eggs. 

It is a soft, dusky purple, so ashy as to be almost grey, and does not hatch for at least a full year. 

When it does, however, Visenya sees a spark of interest in her half-brother's dull eyes for the first time. 

She is almost relieved at that, for she had wondered if there was truly anything within Aelyx, or if he had simply been a walking shell his whole life. 

The weak fluttering of care quickly fades however, under the deeper consequences of Rhaegar's insistence. 

Now, thanks to her father's continued wilful ignorance, dragons are not merely the province of the Reds.

The Greys too, can now fight in the skies.

She supposes it was inevitable - it was too good to be true that the Greys would simply allow the Reds to monopolise the obvious, almost mythical advantage of dragons. 

But it will make the coming war so much harder. 

Now, all know that it will be a true Dance of Dragons. 

Westeros will inevitably be torn apart again, and this time, for the first time in centuries, it will not only be blood but fire. 

'There is no war', Visenya remembers the saying vaguely from her studies, 'so hateful to the gods as a war between kin, and no war so bloody as a war between dragons'.

She cannot remember who said it, but it does not really matter.

 It is true. 

Whatever havoc was wreaked on Westeros by the Blackfyre Rebellions, and the War of the Ninepenny Kings, and Robert's Rebellion, they will have nothing on the Second Dance. 

She knows it, and she dreads it, for those wars were fought only by men - this will be fought by dragons.

It is not all bleak, Rhaenyra reminds her, smile forcibly in place.

The Reds have the advantage of time on their side - their dragons are many times larger than those of the Greys, and it is something that they will not lose. 

Their dragons will always be older, more skilful, and larger, with more heat to their flame and more cunning to their dark minds. 

And, more importantly, it is not merely the Greys who have dragons from these eggs.

Not all the eggs have hatched - each dragon had spawned at least two eggs, if not more. 

The majority have been placed on what remains of the Dragonmont, House Targaryen rebuilding the horde of eggs that once they had. 

But Arianne now has a garish red beast named Chroyane, and Obara a black one she has not yet named, while Tyene has already proclaimed her pale golden dragon Maiden.

There had been quite the uproar that the Reds had placed three Dornishwomen on dragons - and two who were born bastards at that. 

But they still outnumber the dragons of the Greys many times over. 

The advantage is still theirs on so many fields. 

Now they just have to keep it. 

********* 

Rhaenyra and Renly are married in the Sept of Baelor the year that Rhaenyra reaches six and ten.  

It is a grand wedding, befitting that of the first child of the king to be married.  

Neither Rhaenyra nor Renly are particularly interested in each other, but both are very interested in Loras Tyrell. 

Visenya is sure that they will work it out.  

Her baby sister looks beautiful, in a gown of cream damask that makes her golden skin glow.  

The jewels gleaming from her ears and neck and wrists and hair and fingers are a gift from their uncles, but her hair is dressed in the Valyrian fashion because she is a Princess of House Targaryen and there are customs. 

She is wide eyed and happy, and every inch the bride on her wedding day that the realm expects.  

Perhaps, Visenya muses, it is that she and Renly are not in love, that gives her that confidence.  

After all, one can mend a friendship far easier than a marriage. 

Rhaenyra is also a very good actress.  

She is their mother's best pupil, beyond her siblings who are adequate but not as inspired as her.  

In the competitions that the sisters and their ladies held, the only one who could blush more realistically was Margaery Tyrell. 

Even that was a close run thing - Rhaenyra is simply wonderful. 

Rhaegar is as remote as ever as he takes the red and black cloak from Rhaenyra's shoulders and folds it over his arm.  

Not for the first time, Visenya wonders if he will even miss her when she leaves to live in Storm's End with her new husband.  

Their father sometimes hardly seems to realise that he has any children beyond Visenya and Gaemon.  

Renly smiles as he cloaks Rhaenyra though, and while their kiss is chaste, it is affectionate - and the smile that they share afterwards is true.  

Her sister, at least, can be happy.  

That is the hope, anyway. 

Being brought up as a royal hostage has made Renly more circumspect and pragmatic than his ill-fated elder brother, and he and Rhaenyra are determined to make the best of it.  

Perhaps that will be enough. 

********** 

Aegon vanishes from the celebrations on the second night, right after Rhaegar announces that his wedding to Visenya is set for this time next year.  

She had thought that it was merely the thought of wedding his elder sister that disturbed him so - she certainly feels ill when she thinks about warming her baby brother's bed.  

It's Aegon, her little shadow, who toddled after her all his life, who she practically raised while her father fucked Lyanna Stark and her mother ran the realm.  

But then, a few hours later when she grows truly worried, she goes looking for him.  

He is in the gardens, clutching Deria Dayne's hands and weeping into her lap.  

Ah.  

Of course.  

She steps purposefully on a twig, and her baby brother's head snaps up.  

"Senya!" He scrambles up, scrubbing at his face, and her heart breaks. "It's, it's not what it looks like. I wouldn't dishonour you, I promise." 

She pulls him to her, ignoring the tears that immediately spot the red of her heavy gown, shushing him and rocking him to and fro. 

There are a dozen others in her wardrobe, but she has only one brother whom she loves so dearly. 

A single dress is a negligible sacrifice for her darling brother.  

"Your Grace," Deria says, springing up now that Aegon's head is out of her lap, "I am so sorry, I never meant to-" 

Visenya cuts her off with one raised hand, still rocking her brother to and fro.  

"I am not angry, Deria," she says softly. "Aegon is easy to love." 

Besides, he deserves that kind of love from someone.  

The Seven above know that Visenya could never give it to him.  

"He is not mine to love," Deria says softly, the slightest catch in her voice.  

If there are tears in her eyes, it is lost under the starlight.  

The words though, catch and burn in Visenya's mind.  

"He could be." 

Aegon pulls away from her embrace, frowning up at her. "What are you talking about?" 

Taking a breath, Visenya looks into her baby brother's eyes. "How much do you love each other?" 

Deria flinches, but she says nothing.  

Aegon, however, seems to realise that there is something more going on behind her question. "More than anything," he says softly. "Deria makes the world worth living in. Every day, when I wake up and remember that I live in the same kingdom as her, I feel as if I have died and gone to the heavens. Even when I do not see her, the mere thought of her is what gets me through the day. She is the reason for the world to exist, that she should walk upon it and breath its air and drink its water." 

He ceases suddenly, his chest heaving. Then he comes forwards and takes Visenya's hands. "I promise, sister, we have never done anything. Deria and I love each other, but you are still my sister, and I would never dishonour you with an affair." 

Leaning forwards, Visenya presses her forehead to his.  

Aegon is almost as tall as she is, she realises with a pang.  

When did her baby brother grow up? 

"Don't worry," she says gently, "I am not dishonoured. I could not love you in the way that Deria loves you, and you could not love me in the way that you love Deria." 

Pulling back, she addresses Deria. "If I could arrange for you two to be together, would you take it?" 

Aegon's hands convulse about hers, and Deria goes rigid. "Senya, sister, do you really mean it?" 

Then he pauses. "I mean, no. You are my sister, and I could not betray you." 

"Aegon!" Deria's voice cracks with the sudden anguish held in it.  

"I want you to." Visenya says baldly. 

Then she outlines the plan that has come to her.  

The two should elope, and then flee to Essos on Martaxes. 

They should stay away until Deria has conceived and the union cannot be annulled. 

When they return, the king will be angry, but his power in Dorne is limited, and Elia Martell's brothers will protect the pair if she asks them to.  

Visenya cannot marry her brother if he is already wed - that would make her Princess Consort by the precedent her father has set, and would break the treaty with Dorne, for she would not be Queen. 

Her uncles would be obliged to go to war with the throne. 

"What do you get out of this?" Deria eyes the Crown Princess with obvious suspicion, and Visenya has to admire her spirit. "You'll be shamed before all the realm if Aegon breaks your betrothal in such a way." 

Visenya shrugs. "Could you really wed Edric? I love my brother dearly, but only in the way that I was meant to. You make him happy, and this will ruin your reputation, but you will have Starfall and you will have Aegon. And I will be free. Gaemon and Rhaenys are already all but wed, and Aelyx is far too young for me to be his bride. Whoever Father makes me marry will be better than that, no offence Aegon." 

Her brother laughs wetly and throws his arms about her, squeezing so tightly that she could swear a rib cracks. "Thank you, sister." 

********* 

Elia Martell, as she had suspected, is more than happy to support the plan.  

Her mother had never been happy with the idea of her children wedding each other, after all.  

She is a Martell, Targaryen blood or no, and she holds a proper horror of the worse Targaryen customs.  

It was she, in particular, who had curbed Visenya's forays into the worse parts of her heritage. 

There are few people Visenya Targaryen listens to, but her mother is the foremost among them. 

It takes them only a few days to lay down their plans, and then only a few hours to enact them. 

The wedding is nothing like Rhaenyra and Renly's grand one.  

They are not in the Sept of Baelor, but in a tiny sept that straddles the Merchant's Quarter and the beginning of Fleabottom. 

It is quiet and candlelit, and clean, if bare.  

The poor septon looks utterly gobsmacked when the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the Princess of Dragonstone, Prince Aegon, and Lady Deria Dayne, walk in accompanied by Ser Jaime Lannister and Prince Lewyn Martell to ask him to marry the Prince to Deria Dayne.  

He makes a few token protests about Aegon's betrothal to Visenya, but when Visenya is standing right there and encouraging the wedding, they fall rather flat.  

Deria's cloak is simply one she wears for evening feasts - lavender silk with white stars embroidered on it.  

It is a nice cloak, but no bridal cloak - the Dayne cloak is lying back in Starfall, and it would have been too suspicious to send for it.  

They have a beautiful dress for her though, the remnants of the ivory damask they used for Rhaenyra and a creamy silk that the Queen had ordered for a new gown but had donated.  

That, at least, they could give her.  

They also give her the Targaryen bridal cloak, for it was given to Elia's charge as the king's senior wife and it was a simple matter to leave it out after Rhaenyra's wedding. 

It is a strange, quiet wedding, but it is a wedding.  

When the septon pronounces them man and wife, the kiss that the two share is like a fire burning up the sept.  

Visenya realises that she has never seen a couple in love kissing in this life - unless one counted the king and the Stark woman, which she does not.  

********* 

The next morning, Visenya is not woken from her sleep by Tyene's gentle shaking . 

Instead, her door is slammed open, and Rhaegar comes storming in.  

He rips open the curtains and scans the bed with dark eyes, ignoring her scrambles to sit up. "Is he here?" 

"Father?''

The king storms away from her bed and starts looking behind the curtains and tapestries. "Aegon. Is he here?" 

Visenya slides out of bed and takes her robe from a pale Minisa, her hands trembling, her golden hair unbound. 

She sends a reassuring smile to her ladies, who are all in various states of undress and staring with wide eyes at the king, who has now torn open her wardrobe and is rifling through as if expecting to find Aegon behind her gowns.  

"I haven't seen Aegon since last night, Father." 

Rhaegar turns, and she flinches slightly as his eyes focus on her.  

He does not look much like his father as a rule, but sometimes when he is particularly angry, there is this sneer that twists his face in a far too familiar fashion.  

"Don't lie to me, Visenya."  

He comes towards her with heavy steps, and she swallows, backing towards her bed.  

He has never been this angry before, and never with her.  

She catches Arianne's gaze and flicks her eyes briefly towards the door.  

Her cousin thankfully gets the hint and starts chivvying the rest of her ladies out of the room, hopefully to find the Queen and inform her of what is happening.  

"I'm not, Father. I haven't seen Aegon since last night." 

Rhaegar takes her by the shoulders and looks into her eyes.  

"Visenya," he says in a soft tone which brings back memories of fire and ash and screams, "Just tell me where your brother is hiding." 

She swallows again, her mouth dry. "He isn't in here, Father. The last that I saw him was last night." 

The king is still for a long moment, two pairs of purple eyes staring into each other.  

"You have not seen him today." 

She nods, dropping her eyes.  

"Damnit!" 

He lets her go roughly, and she staggers a little, shaken.  

Never has he been so violent with her.  

He has always favoured her, even when he doted upon the bastard pups that the Stark woman whelped for him.  

"Rhaegar!" Elia Martell stands in the doorway, wrapped in a dressing robe of red silk, eyes flashing as she takes in the scene. "What are you doing?" 

"Where is he?" The king turns to his wife so suddenly that his pale hair flares out about him. 

Elia draws herself up, looking at him disdainfully as she crosses the room to stand before her daughter, shielding her from Rhaegar with her own body. "I have no idea who you are talking about, husband, and whatever it is gives you no excuse to act so to our daughter." 

Trembling, Visenya hides her face in her mother's shoulder, and watches from the corner of her eye as her father prowls closer.  

For once, she does not even have to act very much.  

He reminds her too much of Aerys.  

"What about the actions of our son?" 

The voice is deadly soft, so much like the voice that his father used to address Visenya in. 

"What about Aegon?"  Elia's voice, however, is as bleak and inhospitable as the deserts of Dorne.  

"This morning I awoke to a bloody sheet wrapped in the bridal cloak that my House has used for centuries, and your son's handwriting on a piece of parchment that read, 'for your records'." 

Until her last day, Visenya will wonder quite how she managed to stifle the laughter that is her instinctive response to that unexpected piece of information.  

Only Aegon.  

"And you thought it was Visenya that he had deflowered." The disbelief in the queen's voice is tangible.  

Rhaegar throws his hands in the air. "I would rather that than him eloping with the gods know who! At least if it was Visenya, they could be wed with no one the wiser. Whoever this girl is, it will create a scandal like Aegon the Unlikely's children." 

"Or like his father and Lyanna Stark." Elia replies coldly. "Can you blame your son for following in your footsteps? At least he has not started a war." 

She can hear her father clenching his fists, and the next moment is entirely instinctual.  

Pushing herself away from her mother, she springs between her parents just in time for her father's hand to make contact with her face. 

His rings cut into her cheek, and her vision blanks for a moment.  

There is blood in her mouth.  

For a breath, everything is still.  

Rhaegar looks at her in horror, seemingly shocked out of his mindless rage.  

Behind her, she can feel her mother's own rage building.  

The pain hits her like a runaway horse, and she shudders, then breaths in, reaching out along the bond to pacify Elerax as his roar shakes the Keep.

Calmly, she turns and spits the blood in her mouth into the basin that Tyene had set up for her morning ablutions.  

"Are you quite finished, Father?" 

Her mother produces a kerchief and starts to dab at the cuts on her cheek.  

The fabric is quickly stained red. 

Rhaegar takes in a shuddering breath. "Gods, Visenya, my sweetling, I'm so sorry." 

His hands flutter uselessly about her shoulders.  

Visenya pulls her head away from her mother's hands and raises one pale eyebrow. "Would you have been sorry if the blow landed on Mother?" 

Not for the first time, her father flinches. "Yes!" He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. "Gods yes. Elia, I am so sorry, I don't know what came over me." 

The Queen of the Seven Kingdoms ignores her husband in favour of going to her daughter's cabinet and rummaging through the ointments and tinctures there.  

"Visenya, sweetling," her father says, eyes suddenly bereft of the rage, "what can I do to make this right?" 

She pretends to think, knowing that he expects her to ask for time in Dorne or on Dragonstone, time he so rarely grants her. "Let Aegon's marriage stand." 

"What?" 

"Let the marriage stand." 

Rhaegar sighs. "Visenya, we don't know who he has wed. It will be scandal enough if it is a noblewoman, but what if he has bound himself to a commoner? And whoever it is, to allow it to stand will humiliate you." 

Sitting back down on her bed, Visenya daubs the bloody abrasions on her cheek as calmly as if she is applying powder. "I imagine he has wed Deria Dayne, as you would know if you had paid the slightest attention to him over the last four years. She is of good birth, her dowry is good, and she is rather a beauty." 

"A Dornishwoman?" Her father says and then sighs. "Fucking - Elia, your brother won't let this go, will he?" 

Coming over with a pot of the ointment Visenya uses on her brother's sparring accidents, Elia raises one dark eyebrow. "It is a good marriage." 

"And you never wanted to marry them to each other." 

Neither Elia nor Visenya says anything, but Rhaegar sighs again.  

"Fine. You win. Aegon can fuck off to Dorne and see how he likes Starfall when he could have had the Seven Kingdoms." 

He storms out.  

Elia and her daughter exchange looks, before the queen starts dabbing the ointment onto Visenya's cheek.  

It won't heal the marks instantly, but it will reduce the pain and make them heal quicker.  

That went better than they had expected. 

******* 

Rhaegar announces that his son has wed Deria Dayne just over a week later.  

The court looks at his firstborn daughter, with the bruising on her face barely hidden by powder, and whispers.  

Lyanna Stark looks triumphant, gathering her children about her.  

Then the king continues.  

Gaemon will wed Barbrey Bolton, and Rhaenys will wed Willas Tyrell.

Beside Visenya, Tyene sucks in a breath as if she has been stabbed, brushing one finger over the ring Willas gave her. 

She says nothing though. 

A Targaryen princesss outranks a legitimised Martell princess, and even though Maiden should grant Tyene more respect, Rhaenys too has a dragon. 

What could anyone, even Visenya, do after the king has announced it to the realm?

Nothing - all that Visenya can do is take her cousin's hand, and hope that it will stay the tears of rage glimmering in Tyene's blue eyes. 

Lyanna looks torn between relief and outrage that she had not been consulted.  

The twins themselves look dangerously unhappy.  

Visenya herself is shocked.  

So that was what took her father so long.  

Apparently he does listen to her, or perhaps accidentally striking her just shook him that much.  

Either way, she is not complaining - though she would have liked it if her father had chosen another man for Rhaenys. 

"What of the Crown Princess?" A voice asks, male, of course.  

She cannot see who, but it does not matter.  

The king leans back on the Iron Throne. "My heir is wise and insightful beyond her years, and will one day have to make decisions for all of the Seven Kingdoms. She shall choose her consort herself." 

All eyes turn to Visenya and she takes in a breath before releasing it. 

"As my king commands." She says, curtseying. 

********* 

The next few moons are spent inundated with men. 

Willas Tyrell, of course, is not among them now that he is betrothed to Rhaenys. 

It is somewhat of a pity, for he was lovely to look upon and good company - charming, intelligent and as talented a politician as his formidable grandmother.  

She would never have chosen him of course.  

A Lord Paramount would be an ill choice for a Prince-Consort, and besides, he has been in love with Tyene since they were all children at court together. 

She could never have hurt her dearest cousin in that way, regardless of what her father decides.  

He is Tyene's, now and forever.  

The betrothal to Rhaenys is only a fleeting thing, she is sure.  

In a few years, Lyanna's twins are going to run off together - it is as obvious as it had been that her brother was in love with Deria Dayne.    

There is Theon Greyjoy, whom she discounts almost immediately  - even had he not been a Lord Paramount's heir (his brothers had died a few years ago in a 'storm' that everyone knows was a slaving raid gone wrong), she dislikes him personally. 

Arrogant cad.  

He swaggers through the halls of the Red Keep as if he owns the place when he comes to press his suit. 

The Iron Islands are the poorest of the kingdoms, the least powerful, and yet he acts as if he is already king, as if she could do not better than him. 

He seems to think that, should she choose him, he could take the throne and rule Westeros as he pleased. 

She should like to see him try. 

Let him whore his way through King's Landing and the Iron Islands, and be satisfied with that. 

She will not give him a throne. 

Asha is the only half-decent Greyjoy, and the only one Visenya intends to spend any amount of time with.  

Then there is Lucas Blackwood.  

He's clever, handsome, a good warrior and properly respectful to her mother.  

The Blackwoods have a history with the Targaryens, and are more powerful than their nominal overlords the Tullys.  

She could do far worse than a house who's history with hers is long and who's loyalty runs deep.

However, if she weds a Blackwood, she'll then have to appease the Brackens and that is a rigmarole she refuses to become involved in.   

It is simply not worth it to get in the middle of that - particularly when it would drive the currently loyal Brackens to join forces with the Greys.

Petyr Baelish, a minor lord from the Fingers roughly of an age with her uncle intrigues her for a moment.  

He is sly and cunning and clever, the kind of mind she could desperately use, for Elia Martell will not be her advisor forever. 

But she just...dislikes him.  

He's slimy.  

And he's in love with one of the Tully sisters.  

She's fairly sure its the elder one, Catelyn Hightower, who by now has four children with Ser Baelor.  

Visenya is the Crown Princess of Dragonstone, and the daughter through many generations of Nymeria of Ny Sar.

She will not be second to some trout, not even for the most brilliant political mind she has ever seen.  

Tywin Lannister offers her what feels like a hundred golden haired nephews, each as arrogant and wealthy as the last. 

She smiles and nods and flatters each one, their names and faces all blurring into a vague idea of beaten gold hair and green eyes and Lancels and Jasons and goodness knows what else.  

Then she locks herself in her room with Ser Jaime and makes him give her his honest opinion on each one of his relatives.  

Between them, they decide that the only Lannister worth anything to her cause would be the only eligible Lannister Lord Tywin did not offer up - Tyrion Lannister.  

Dwarf or no, he has a keen mind and the type of ambition that would not get her die in a tragic accident after the birth of a son for the Reds to rally around.  

She declines the suit of each of Lannisters as politely as she can, reminding them that she could not pick all of them and it is hardly fair to choose one.

Besides, she already has Ser Jaime.

It would be favouritism for her to wed a Lannister when she has already had Jaime with her for her whole life.  

This last seems to placate the jilted suitors somewhat.  

Apparently this generation of Lannisters are rather in awe of their distant, Kingsguard uncle - Jaime could take time to see his family, but does not do so often, even when they are at court.  

He is her sworn sword, and that is his purpose and joy in life.  

He even forwent his own twin's wedding in favour of Visenya's nameday.

When Loras sheepishly approaches her at a feast and asks for a dance, she looks over to see her sister glaring daggers at her.  

Oh, Rhaenyra knows that Visenya would never take her baby sister's favourite knight away, but she's always been possessive.  

He apologises as he leads her onto the dance floor, explaining that with Willas and Garlan betrothed he is all House Tyrell can offer her.  

She dances with him, and then sends him back to Rhaenyra and Renly.  

The Tyrells are already tied to her twice over through her cousins.  

She has no need to ruin her sister's happiness - particularly not when her sister rides Fury. 

There are, naturally about five dozen Freys.  

She declines them all.  

Binding herself to a house with the reputation of the Freys would be foolish beyond belief.  

They need support, not houses fleeing their cause simply out of desire not to be associated with the Freys.   

Her cousin Quentyn arrives in court a senight after Rhaegar's decree.  

With him comes the flower of Dorne's unattached male nobility - Cletus Yronwood, Morton Wyl and half a dozen others. 

He himself makes only the most cursory attempt to court her, before admitting that he's already unofficially promised to Yvaine Allyrion.  

Her cousin is just here to make sure that Dorne is well represented.  

Visenya has far more fun than she had expected as they go on walks together and attend a few feasts side by side.  

Then she mock regretfully informs him that she is too fond of him as a kinsman to turn him into a husband.  

She hadn't expected to enjoy it, but she appreciates her eldest uncle's efforts to give her a break from the incessant pestering.  

Few of the lords are willing to face a prince with Quentyn's reputation in the lists, after all. 

The other Dornish suitors are all as loyal and high-ranked as she could have wished.  

Part of her does seriously consider accepting Cletus Yronwood's offer, particularly after he is so at ease with Elerax. 

But she is half-Dornish herself.  

For the Crown to marry into Dorne two generations in a row would upset the other realms.  

 In the end, after what feels like years of grasping men chasing her for her crown, she chooses Monford Velaryon. 

He is older than her, is no Lord Paramount's son, and has been married before (to Brienne Tarth's late aunt) but he is loyal.  

The Crownlands have always been loyal.  

He has the Valyrian look, so her children are likely to do so - she has learned at Elia Martell's knee how important one's image is. 

He is wealthy, his lands are nearby, and the Velaryons have a history of providing consorts for the Targaryens.  

There has not been a Crownlands marriage for some years, and they have earned a recognition for their unfailing loyalty. 

He is also very easy on the eye, gallant, and respectful of her.  

The parallels to the Queen Who Never Was do not escape her, but she refuses to allow history to repeat itself.  

She will do Rhaenys Targaryen the justice that both of them deserve. 

Visenya is not ashamed, however, to admit that she strings it out a little.  

Her mother had advised her to do so - both to gauge Lord Velaryon's sincerity and to ensure that a better prospect did not appear. 

She is young, and she is the future queen of all of Westeros. 

There is no need to rush into anything.

Visenya also enjoys being courted.  

He takes her for walks in the gardens, sailing trips on the Blackwater, dances with her at feasts, jousts for her at a tourney (though the victory goes to Garlan, who crowns Arianne), showers her wth gifts.  

They are beautiful gifts, of course.  

Strings of pearls, books of Valyrian history, exotic fabrics and curiosities from all over the world, poems written by his own hand, and many other things both wondrous and mundane. 

He even cheerfully accepts her offer for a ride on Elerax. 

The great black beast gives him pause, but she can sense that her companion favours him more than the others.  

Perhaps it is his Valyrian blood, but she thinks it is a good sign.  

After a moon, all but the most persistent of her suitors seem to understand that they have been outmatched.  

Those who do not are brought to understanding by the efforts of her uncles - both Oberyn and Viserys. 

After two moons, she goes to her father. 

Rhaegar is, naturally, ecstatic at her choosing the next best thing after her own brother (in the Valyrian view).

He sends out ravens to every corner of the Seven Kingdoms, announcing his eldest daughter's betrothal to Lord Monford Velaryon.

Visenya reminds herself that she could have done worse, and goes on with her life.

********  

The wedding is grander than Rhaenyra's had been.  

She isn't sure how that is possible, but it is achieved.  

Her wedding dress is a triumph.  

It is made in the Valyrian style,  high-collared and long-sleeved, though in Westerosi white rather than Valyrian red - that is represented through the bridal cloak draped over her shoulders.

The skirt is split to the side, in the formal fashion, rather than in the centre as she wears it for riding Elerax. 

The back panel is lengthened, dragging behind her for several feet and showing the billowing trousers she wears beneath - the finest, softest spider silk, woven over the course of two years by the skilled women of Dragonstone. 

Rather than being laced tightly, the white silk skims over her figure, clinging in a fashion than hints and suggests rather than rigidly displaying. 

She had half considered altering the design, draping the neckline about her shoulders and displaying her arms in the Dornish fashion. 

If she had worn a Dornish chiton, but sewn rather than pinned, and if the skirts had been smooth, split to display the traditional Valyrian trousers beneath. 

They could have made it work, she is sure.

And then she would have been wed with her Dornish heritage written all over her, reminding all of Westeros that she may be a Targaryen with a dragon, but she is also a Martell - and the Martells are far, far more deadly. 

Rhaenyra had pointed out that it might irk the ever traditional Rhaegar, and so the collar is high and split, and the sleeves are long and close in keeping with the oldest visual records that they have. 

She quite likes it. 

The close, narrow lines make her seem older, more severe, more removed from all about her. 

Her hair is pinned up, twisted away from her face in intricate knots and braids, to make the business with the cloaks smoother.

The hairpins used to hold it are tipped with rubies and garnets, all deep, clear shades of red that make it seem as if blood has been dripped throughout her hair. 

Besides these, her fingers are heavy with rings, and her ears are weighed down with the elaborate earrings her father gifted her. 

She is magnificent, she knows, deserving of her acclaim as the most beautiful woman in the kingdoms - the Sun of Westeros, the Throne's finest jewel, the Glorious Princess, the first dragon rider in two hundred years. 

She cannot fall to her predecessor's mistakes.

She cannot do as the Realm's Delight did.

Visenya tips her chin up as she looks into the mirror, squaring her shoulders and folding her hands. 

She will be Queen of Westeros one day. 

This is one more step on her path to the Iron Throne. 

She must, no, she will do this as perfectly as she does all else. 

There is no other option, as there has been no other option since her father laid eyes on Lyanna Stark. 

Almost in a blink, the king is leading her through the Sept of Baelor. 

The flower of the nobility is there, each one watching her with hawklike eyes. 

It is nothing new. 

That is how it has been since she was born, since she was proclaimed as Rhaegar's heir. 

She is used to it. 

So Visenya fixes her eyes somewhere near the man who will be her husband and places one foot before the other. 

She is perfect. 

She must be. 

She is. 

Lyanna is standing in the front, beside a triumphant Elia, her grey eyes dark as she watches Elia Martell's daughter marry the most powerful lord of the Crownlands. 

She knows as well as Visenya that the majority of the Crownlands will follow their unofficial Lord Paramount, particularly now that he is bound to their nominal overlord the Princess of Dragonstone. 

It is a decisive blow to the Greys, and one that Lyanna is welcome to counter with as many strategic marriages as she likes - but she will have to get her children to the altar first.

Beside Lyanna are all three of her children are sullen and silent, their eyes watching her enviously. 

They are dressed in black with accents of grey, a blatant statement beside the bright reds which Elia and her own children bear.

Monford's eyes rest on her and widen slightly, and it gives her courage. 

Her beauty, as her mother has taught her, is her weapon. 

And it is one that has never yet failed her in any battle.

So many weapons are at her disposal, and Elia Martell taught her to wield them all with as much skill as Oberyn Martell wields every physical weapon that comes to his hand. 

She has never yet lost a battle - even if it is a battle of words rather than of fists.

She will not start now.

Visenya reaches Monford and summons a brief, cool smile. 

She barely hears the ceremony as it progresses, giving her answers by rote. 

She does not roll her shoulders with relief as her father removes the weight of the bridal cloak, which had pressed her down like a physical reminder of all that relies upon her. 

She bends slightly to allow Monford to wrap the Velaryon cloak about her, made of silk so light that she barely feels it. 

She takes his hand and lets the septon wrap their hands in ribbons - the silver of House Velaryon and the bloody red of House Targaryen.

"Mother, Maiden, Crone," she begins, his voice overlapping with hers. 

And just like that, Visenya's life is forever bound to a man she hardly knows. 

She needs this, she reminds herself. 

She needs support and she needs an heir, and she needs a husband that the realm respects. 

She can do this.

As she has done everything else required of her. 

***********

 After the ceremony, she changes into a more traditional and less comfortable Westerosi gown.

Her stays are donned, laced to support the weight of the pure white damask, heavy and luxurious. 

The skirts of the gown pool about her, and the only reason she does not trip over the length is because of the farthingale keeping the outer skirt away from her feet. 

Instead of being high and close about her neck, the dress has a low, square neckline in the style shared by most of the kingdom, allowing space for a fabulous necklace of silver, aquamarine, pearls, beryls and one great ruby the colour of blood. 

Her sleeves too billow away from her hands, falling in heavy folds almost to the floor, displaying the gorgeous bracelets wrapped about her wrists, and the heavy rings adorning her fingers. 

Jewels flash from her in every place that they could possibly be - even her earrings and hairpins are changed, rubies and garnets exchanged for beryls and aquamarines and pearls.

She wears a crown, of course, the same worn by Aenys as Prince of Dragonstone centuries before, made by the first Visenya after her nephew-stepson's wedding.

It is a slender circle of black Valyrian steel, without seam or flaw, set with alternating rubies and aquamarines. 

A veil flows from beneath it, Dornish muslin so fine that it is almost invisible, a white so pure it almost glows.  

Spears and suns are woven into it, the pale silver bright against the white. 

For the sake of not starting a fight, a single three-headed dragon is woven in one corner, with a spear right above it, point down.

Visenya is the perfect Targaryen princess, but her mother is a Martell, and she has always loved her mother best. 

She allows herself this one gesture. 

For a moment, her eyes rest on the dragon, so unaware of the threat poised above it. 

Her lips curl into a smile, but she keeps it sweet and demure as she accepts Monford's hand and the two walk through the crowded hall towards the head table. 

It stays there as she meets her stepmother's eyes, who cannot quite keep the scowl from her face. 

Her half-brother sits sullenly, glaring daggers at the crown she has placed on her head, clearly envisioning it on his own brow. 

Rhaenys, the best of all Lyanna's whelps at the game, manages a tight, pained smile as Visenya's eyes rest on her, envy clear in her own eyes as they take in the beautiful gown and the crown. 

Aelyx, as usual looks completely bored and uninterested. 

She looks away from them, fixing her eyes on her mother. 

Elia Martell is triumphant today, as glorious as any daughter of the sun should be. 

Visenya draws strength from her, knowing that whatever comes next, her mother is there. 

She sits at the head table, now a wife, and smiles beatifically out at the crowded hall. 

Many of them, she knows, are egotistical enough to believe the smile directed at them, and she is glad of it. 

They will remember how she sat on the dais, seeming holy and untouchable in her remote beauty, and then broke the facade to smile at them and them alone.

"My people." Her father says, his own smile broad. "I thank you for joining me in celebrating the marriage of my firstborn, my heir."

A cheer shakes the hall, and Visenya feels her own smile tighten. 

Only a few hours, she reminds herself. 

Feasting and politicking and dancing, and then the bedding, and after that she can simply sleep. 

But she must see this through. 

She has to. 

She will. 

If she wants the Reds to survive whatever is coming, she must. 

And so, as she always does, Visenya fixes a smile onto her face and is perfect.

*******

She had talked to her mother about the bedding, and how she felt it would damage her standing to allow the entirety of the land's noblemen to grope her and derobe her. 

Elia had promised that she would find a solution. 

The solution, once the bedding is called for, turns out to be her uncles (on both sides), her Dornish cousins, and her brother (returned from exile with a visibly pregnant Deria) forming an impromptu honour guard about her and refusing to allow any other nobleman to touch her.  

She will take the calls about their Targaryen blood showing if it means that her gown is untouched and she isn't paraded before the better part of Westeros' nobility in her small clothes.  

  They reach the door of her chambers without incident, and she slips inside as her brother bars the door. 

Her rooms have been changed since this morning - everything moved to allow for another inhabitant. 

She tries not to show her discomfort at the strange unfamiliarity of her own apartments as Monford enters through the other door. 

His wedding finery is in disarray, laces hanging open, his hair ruffled and several of his outer layers missing. 

Visenya does not remark on it, but only nods to him. 

Her new husband returns the nod, and starts finishing the job that the eager women escorting him here began. 

His hands are quick and deft as he unlaces his doublet, and Visenya steels herself.

This is a first in any life, but she refuses to let her hands shake as she strips as much of her finery off as she can without aid.  

"My lord?'' She calls, and the man pauses in his own methodical undressing to look up at her with one raised eyebrow.  

A slight blush covers her cheekbones, and she sees his eyes note it. "Yes?" 

"Could you help me with my stays? Larissa tied them and she always uses sailors knots that no one else can undo." 

Her new husband laughs and comes over.  

His hands are practiced and nimble, and soon the stays are off. 

"Thank you." She says, and turns around to pick them up. 

He is closer than she had thought however, and she hesitates when she finds herself eye to eye with him without warning. 

A smile crosses his face. "Always a pleasure, your Grace." 

Daring, Visenya reaches out and places one finger across his lips, forestalling whatever else he was going to say. "Visenya." 

"Visenya." He whispers back, his lips moving against her finger.  

She pulls it away, but he catches it and brings it to his lips.  

"Call me Monford." He says, and then presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist, right over the pulse point.  

She shivers, and she knows he sees it, because a smile spreads across his face.  

"Monford." She says, and it is quieter than her wont, but firm - her mother would be disappointed were it anything else. 

He kisses her wrist again, and then she rotates it to press her hand against his cheek.  

It is smooth and clean-shaven, but she can feel the slight roughness of the weatherbeaten skin and the places that the razor rasped over a little too close.  

"You know, we can't take all night to do this." She says, rather more prosaically than she feels - she is only human, and he is a very beautiful man and the look in his eyes is very flattering. "Some of us need our sleep." 

Monford smiles again. "As my princess wishes." 

And he bends to kiss her.

***********

Her first child is born nine months later.  

A son - a beautiful boy with Monford's hair and her eyes, and the Martell nose.  

She names him Aemon, for the father of the Queen Who Never Was, and the old Maester at the Wall, who's letters are so kind to her, and for the Dragonknight who was good and kind and brave. 

Rhaenyra gives birth two months later, a son as black haired and blue eyed as any Baratheon, but his nose already clearly influenced by the Martells. 

She names him Orys, for the lord who was so loyal to the Conqueror. 

Aegon, of course, already has his first daughter.  

Asharei Dayne has inky black curls and pale purple eyes and already Visenya is sure that she will be the ringleader of her cousins. 

*********

It gets worse when Rhaenys turns fourteen. 

She chooses ten ladies - a household the size of Visenya's.  

By rights, she should have a smaller household than the Princess of Dragonstone, the future Queen of Westeros. 

At most, she should have had seven ladies, the equal of Rhaenyra's household. 

Even that would have been a little crass, for Rhaenyra was betrothed to a Lord Paramount, not his heir, and was the second daughter not the third. 

Rhaenys was expected to take six ladies at most, or even five - ten is a blatant statement that she considers herself Visenya's equal. 

It is not a subtle statement, and the Reds push for Rhaenys to lose at least two or three of her ladies. 

But Lyanna takes Rhaenys' side, and Rhaegar lets her have her way with only a token protest, as he always does. 

His argument is that Rhaenys is a dragonrider, and needs the aid to care for Lyaxes.

Rhaenys keeps her ten ladies - mostly girls from the North, such as little Barbrey Bolton, or Crownlands houses that lean more towards the Greys. 

There are no Dornishwomen, no Vale women, no Riverlands women, no women from any kingdom that supports the Reds. 

The only woman not of the North or the Crownlands is Alysanne Marbrand, Cersei Marbrand nee Lannister's second daughter. 

 It is a blatant statement of faction, and not one that is very popular with the scorned realms. 

Court divides further, and there are several brawls between members of the factions. 

Even Lysara, who has been Visenya's lady-in-waiting for over half a decade cools slightly to her. 

Visenya closes her eyes, and then smiles, and gives her husband a second son - Monterys, an heir of his own and a spare for the realm. 

He had to be a son, she knew, and she made sure of it. 

It had cost her much, for the gods do not account life cheap, but she had had no choice.

She has to do everything right. 

And she does. 

The furor of Rhaenys' choice in ladies-in-waiting dies down, drowned by the grand celebrations Rhaegar throws for his favoured daughter's second son. 

It buys them a little time, buoying up the Reds and reducing the Greys to a simmering resentment that does not quite boil over. 

  *********

A year later, Rhaenys gets her moon blood.  

Willas Tyrell is summoned to the capital for a wedding.  

Three days before the Tyrells are due to arrive, Rhaenys is nowhere to be found.  

Neither is Gaemon.   

Rhaegar is furious.  

He and Lyanna have a screaming match in the royal apartments, with him blaming her for her influence, and her blaming him for his incestous Targaryen blood.  

Visenya gives Aemon to Monford, and props Monterys on what little space there is on her hip with her stomach so rounded.  

She is rather enjoying the little domestic playing out in front of her, as are her siblings and her mother. 

At least when they have fights, they have the decency to have them in private.  

The royal apartments could be counted as private, she supposes, but they are open to both of Rhaegar's families and their attendants, so nearly a hundred people have access to them.  

Visenya is interested to note that her father never strikes Lyanna.  

He hasn't raised a hand at all to anyone since he accidentally struck her the day after Aegon and Deria eloped, not even to discipline his younger children (who sorely need it). 

**********

The Tyrells arrive in the capital to find it thoroughly in an uproar. 

Willas Tyrell is no one's fool, however.  

As soon as he realises that the scandal is caused by Rhaenys Targaryen running away with her brother, he comes looking for Tyene Martell. 

"Crippled Reacher as I am, I am yours, for as long as I live. Will you have me?" 

Tyene says yes of course, and the king is frustrated enough with Lyanna that he agrees at once when Elia broaches the subject of the marriage with him simply to spite his volatile second wife.  

It is another hasty marriage, but preparations had already been made for one so this one, unexpected as it is, is still grand enough for a princess.  

A chiton had been produced from somewhere in Tyene's wardrobe, as pure white as only she could wear, making her look like the Maiden come to life. 

They had the Martell maiden cloak, and of course the Tyrells already had the Tyrell cloak.  

At least, Rhaegar sighs with his head in his hands at the feast that night, all of the preparations didn't go to waste.  

Visenya's child kicks at that, and she thinks it shares her amusement at her father's predicament.  

The king brought all this on himself by running away with Lyanna Stark all those years ago.  

If he wants to find someone to blame for his children imitating Aegon V's children, he need look no further than the mirror. 

  ***********

Visenya has her third child by the time that Gaemon and Rhaenys reappear - the two have clearly followed Aegon and Deria's example, for Rhaenys is obviously pregnant.  

She is amused to note that Lyanna is torn between joy at the prospect of a grandchild and disgust at the origins of her grandchild.  

That is what happens when one raises spoiled princes and princesses, Visenya supposes.  

Her mother has no such issues.  

Elia dotes over Aemon, Monterys and Elaena with as much delight as she does over Orys and Lyonel, or over Asharei and Elia and Meria.  

Aegon seems to have the same propensity as their uncle for throwing daughters, though as far as she knows he is still hopelessly loyal to Deria. 

He doesn't come to court very often though.

Starfall is, he explains once, the kind of home that he always dreamed about - happy and uncomplicated and without a hundred scheming nobles around every corner.

More and more, he and Deria simply stay there. 

The vacuum of his position is filled by Monford, who takes the position of Prince-Consort of Dragonstone with an easy grace. 

He is confident in his status as Lord Velaryon, in his own manhood, enough that he does not seem to resent being consort to a princess.

The children he fathered on her are beautiful and, most importantly, as Valyrian as they come. 

To Westeros, it is also reassuring that her first two children are sons - they need only endure a female ruler for a single generation.

It is to this atmosphere, the position of the Reds strengthened further by their children and their politicking, the position of the Greys weakened by Aelyx's apathy despite Lyanna's best efforts, that Gaemon and Rhaenys enter.

Reluctantly, Rhaegar allows the marriage to stand - Willas is already wed to Tyene after all.

Even if he was not, what man would wed Rhaenys now with her brother's bastard in her belly?

It is a further blow to the Greys, for now Lyanna has only Aelyx to offer, where Elia has eight grandchildren.

**********

Time passes.

More children are born, alliances form and fall apart, and the quiet plotting of the Reds turns into a poorly hidden scramble for security between both factions as the Greys realise the depth of their treason.

Aegon and Deria have more daughters, hidden away in Starfall.

They come to court less and less, but seem happier each time Visenya sees them.

Rhaenyra and Renly stop sharing a bed after two sons and a daughter, though they still share a lover.

They work well together, slowly piecing the Stormlands back together, and raising the children they share to prepare for war.

Every time word comes of them, Rhaegar congratulates himself for making an excellent match, and how happy he has made Rhaenyra. 

The twins have a son named Aegon, and a daughter named Shaena. 

Both children have the Stark hair and bones, and though they have the Targaryen eyes the rest of their looks work against them. 

Even despite all Lyanna does, they are still never as deeply entrenched as the Reds.

The Greys read the signs too late, and started their preparations later still - foolish and arrogant indeed, when they have little true claim to the throne while Elia Martell's children live.

It doesn't help that Aelyx cares for nothing outside of his mind, and is all but deadweight to the Greys.

Viserys weds his Arryn bride, and flees court for the Eyrie. 

His letters to Visenya speak at first of his delight in the high, remote castle.

Then they speak of Rhea, her beauty and her wisdom and her sly humour. 

And then they speak of the children she bears him, with such glee that it pours from every curl of his writing. 

She wishes him well, and tries to push down the jealousy that rises in her throat at his happiness. 

Daenerys weds Edmure Tully a year after that, and goes to live with him in the Riverlands. 

She complains to Visenya of the sheer disunity she finds there, but buckles down like Rhaenyra to drag it into one mostly cohesive unit behind the rightful queen.

It doesn't take long before she too has her own children - four boys, one after the other, with their father's hair and their mother's eyes. 

Elia and Rhaella double down at court, with their children mostly grown and gone.

They sway undecided nobles, reward loyal ones, and do their best to weaken the traitors. 

Their work is, of course, perfect.

It has to be.  

Visenya begins to spend more time on Dragonstone and Driftmark, as her father ages and controls her less and less. 

Arianne and Tyene have long left her service to wed and rule their own lands, and she brought in her cousins Nymeria and Dorea to replace them. 

She is less close to these, but they are kin and loyal, and she loves them. 

As time goes on, more and more of her ladies move on, and each one she replaces - her household cannot be smaller than that of Rhaenys.

She still spends much of her time at court, refusing to lose even an inch of the ground they have gained so slowly and painfully over the years. 

And she must spend enough time at Dragonstone to truly rule it, not merely leave it to her steward - though Aurane is more than competent at his job.

For the province of Dragonstone is not only the island and its smallfolk. 

The Lords of the Narrow Sea owe their allegiance to the heir who claims the island seat, and so their complaints and grievances are brought to her.

But Driftmark is where her children are being raised, where she and her husband can pretend for a moment to be a mere lord and lady. 

It is, to what extent it can be, a home. 

At Driftmark, she can wear silver and aquamarine, and enjoy for a little time an escape from the constant perfection of the Princess of Dragonstone.

She can leave the ruling of the island to Monford, and simply spend time with the children she birthed in blood and pain, and pretend that they were born for love not for politics. 

She can spend time rambling along the beaches, or in the library without the intent and the vigilance that the Red Keep demands.

She can trust, even love, her husband and her children as she can trust so few others.

She can be a lady and a wife and a mother, and that alone, for a few brief, wonderful days. 

But she always returns to court. 

She must.

Aemon, her beautiful boy, her firstborn and heir, the pride of her heart, follows her from one place to another.

On Dragonstone, he claims one of Nymeria's eggs, so deep a red it is almost black.

It hatches then and there in his hands, a beautiful thing he names Meleys in remembrance of his mother's predecessor.

At Driftmark, he watches over his siblings, and runs and shouts and plays with them. 

He follows his father about, and watches the ships, and enjoys what little he can of his childhood, tantrums and all.

In the Red Keep, he is the ideal prince and heir to the Princess of Dragonstone, polite and well behaved and wise beyond his years.

Like his mother, he learned that he must be perfect.

And so he is.

*********

Rhaegar falls ill, having been caught by a rainstorm while hunting.

At first, everyone expects him to recover easily. 

It is a mere cold, and his reputation as a warrior still stands.

Yet he does not. 

He worsens and worsens and worsens, until all of Westeros knows that the king is dying.

The kingdoms hold their breath, waiting for the raven that will announce his death. 

Red banners and grey are sewn in secret, waiting for the coming tumult. 

Lyanna and Elia both spend most of their time at their husband's bedside, trying desperately to prevent the other from coaxing their child's name from the king's lips. 

After all, was not that how the Greens had justified their own rebellion all those generations ago?

The rest of their time is spent desperately coaxing lords to their colours, trying to solidify their faction as ascendant before Rhaegar breathes his last.

Visenya is called back to King's Landing from Driftmark, where she had just returned after a progress. 

She is tired, and wishes only to hide for a moon before she must re-enter court life. 

But she is dutiful and perfect, and so she saddles Elerax and makes the flight to King's Landing where she is greeted by the usual noxious tangle of politics. 

It is unpleasant, but she is used to it.

*****************

"Visenya." Her father wheezes, his hand grasping at hers. "My daughter. My beautiful daughter." 

She summons a smile. "Hello, Father." 

He looks as outwardly pitiful as he has always been inwardly.  

She tries very hard not to feel satisfied by that, and fails.

"Your children?" His voice is faint, and the words clearly cost him. 

Visenya's smile widens, and she softens her voice to a saccharine croon. "Not here, Father, I am sorry. Valarr has a cold, which he has most likely passed to his brothers and sisters. I did not wish to risk it infecting you."

It is true of course. 

Valarr is a little unwell, and in this condition, any infection would probably kill Rhaegar in a few days. 

But it is also a convenient excuse to deny Rhaegar something he desperately wants - to see his grandchildren before he dies. 

She still remembers the dark days of Robert's Rebellion, abandoned to Aerys' whims by Rhaegar for the sake of Lyanna Stark, and she remembers the thousand thousand tiny humiliations that her mother has suffered in the years since, sharing her throne and crown with a whore. 

It is, in a small, petty way, a kind of vengeance on the man who's selfish whims have made such a misery of her life. 

Her father droops a little, his eyes wandering away from her. "A pity."

"Yes, such a pity." She does her level best to keep her smile sweet and sorrowful. "But we did not wish to jeopardise your recovery, my king."

 A cracked laugh makes it's way out of Rhaegar's throat. 

"I will not recover."

She widens her eyes and summons a few tears that do not quite fall. "Do not say that, my king! All of Westeros prays daily for your returned health and strength."

Rhaegar only pats her hand, and asks her to tell him of her children. 

Her voice cracks a little as she bows her head to acquiesce to the king's wishes.

For all her twisted hatred for him, she still does not quite wish for him to die yet. 

So, not remorseful in the least for keeping her children away, she opens her mouth and tells her king all about them. 

About Aemon, her strong, thoughtful heir, so careful of his younger siblings and mindful of his duties. 

Monterys, her husband's heir, who lives in the water as much as he does out of it and worships his father like a god. 

Her eldest daughter, Elaena, as like to Elia as one could wish, with her dignity and poise and wily mind.

Rhaella, so sweet and gentle, and so clever, buried in books almost before she learned to walk.

Careless Valarr, who runs wild all over Driftmark, who stows away on ships because he wants to see everything that the world has to offer. 

And Daenaera, her youngest, blithe and beautiful as any fairy tale.

She speaks for hours, until her voice is hoarse, but she tells him only superficial things that she would tell anyone else. 

She doesn't tell him of how Aemon is so afraid for his family that he made himself ill after Valarr jumped from the cliffs at Casterly Rock during the progress. 

She doesn't tell him that Monterys watches Valarr with a wistful longing, and begs to follow his father on his voyages. 

She doesn't tell him that Elaena stole her namesake's book of poisons once, and marked all the ones that give a painless death, somehow finding enough for each member of her family and hiding them in a tiny box marked 'if we lose'. 

She doesn't tell him that Rhaella burned every book she found that mentioned her grandfather and great-grandfather, and burns every gift that her grandfather sends. 

She doesn't tell him that Valarr screams in the night, that the reason he is so desperate to leave is because he knows what is coming to Westeros.

She doesn't tell him that Daenaera has to be kept away from blades, that she hates the life she has been born into, that she is desperate to escape it because she has read the fairy tales and she knows the ugly fate of princesses. 

All she tells him are happy little anecdotes, in a soothing croon that leaves a blissful smile on his cracked and bleeding lips. 

 Rhaenys gives birth the day after she arrives, to a little boy with pale hair and dark eyes. 

She names him Rhaegar, as if that will ever garner her father's attention while his firstborn sits beside him, honey-coated tales of her own children on her lips. 

He lives for only a few more days after that, clinging on as he listens spellbound to every word that Visenya deigns to give him. 

Rhaegar dies with Lyanna Stark's hand in his - but Visenya's name is on his lips.    

And his eldest daughter, who hates him as much as she loves him, weeps until she laughs. 

***********

Nothing happens immediately. 

As soon as her father died, Visenya had sent out word for it to be proclaimed. 

Here, at least, she refuses to follow the path set by her predecessors. 

There will be no room for confusion as there was at the death of Viserys - Rhaegar Targaryen is dead, and he died certain that the right choice as his heir was Visenya Targaryen. 

The Greys quickly make themselves scarce, Gaemon and Rhaenys at the forefront. 

Lyanna, to her credit, is nigh inconsolable at Rhaegar's death, and Aelyx is so apathetic that Visenya is not sure he is aware of his precarious situation. 

She restrains herself from calling for her stepmother's faction to be thrown into the Black Cells. 

They have done nothing yet, and she knows it would be tantamount to suicide to echo Aerys so. 

Instead, they set aside their grievances silently, long enough to arrange his funeral. 

Both factions don somber, unrelieved black, with no hint of red or grey. 

Visenya eyes Gaemon across the table, and their smiles are taut, but neither of them wishes for a war quite yet. 

They hold their peace as Rhaegar is embalmed and readied for his pyre. 

As lords and nobles from around Westeros gather to the Red Keep. 

As the sprawling branches of House Targaryen spool in to bid farewell to their patriarch. 

After all, it would be far more convenient to have all of their allies in one place - easier to confirm loyalties and sway last minute allies. 

Neither side wishes for the bitter war of ravens that began the first Dance. 

Both she and Gaemon have sons, and she knows that both of them think of the fate of Lucerys so long ago. 

It is one of the only things she and her despised half-brother have ever agreed on. 

So they hold their fragile peace, as one by one, their family rides through the gates. 

His family was already present - Rhaenys having been at the Red Keep for her lying in.

Aegon, Shaena and Rhaegar are kept far away from Visenya, and though she feels insulted, she knows that she would do the same with her own children. 

Trust is not something that comes easily to a family such as theirs - not when both sides know that they are simply waiting for an excuse to go to war and rip Westeros in two once more.

Monford arrives first, with their children, Aemon's shoulders already tense beneath the weight of his new title. 

Rhaenyra is the next, riding through the gates with Renly beside her and Loras appropriately far away, behind Orys, Lyonel and Shireen - as befits a master of arms, entrusted with the protection and education of his lord's children. 

Then Daenerys and Edmure, with their four red haired, purple eyed sons, who smile so prettily at both Gaemon and Visenya that they give nothing away. 

Aelyx arrives after that - he had only been in Summerhall, but no one had expected Lyanna's apathetic second son to make haste even at his own father's death. 

After him, only a day or so later, come Deria and Aegon, with their five daughters and a challenging smile fixed on their faces every moment that Lyanna's brood are in their eyelines.

And finally, all the way from the distant Eyrie, comes Viserys with his quiet bride and their children. 

Visenya has only ever met Artys, for Rhea and Viserys tend to leave their progeny behind, in the closeted safety of the Vale, whenever they travel to court.

She does not blame them. 

But it is nice to meets Alysanne, Aemma and Arnold for the first time, all of her cousins with big blue or purple eyes and varying shades of blonde hair. 

They are sweet, sheltered in a way none of Visenya's own children could have been. 

And for now, there is a fragile peace. 

*********

It breaks after the funeral, of course. 

They burn Rhaegar on his pyre, draped in Valyrian robes of state, his hands folded about the hatchling that died with him. 

For the first and last time, all six of Rhaegar's children band together to set his pyre alight. 

And each and every one of them does their best to avoid the eyes of the others, not willing to see the familiar tinge of vindication at finally, finally being done with their sire. 

It is the closest thing that they have ever come to solidarity, this quiet, cruel relief at their father's death.

Visenya's coronation is scheduled for the day afterwards.

She knew that the Greys would try to make a move to stop it. 

After all, it is what she would do were it Gaemon being crowned. 

So the night before, cloaked in shadows and silence, she walks the length and breadth of the Red Keep. 

At every door, in every archway, she murmurs curses of entrapment, the complicated kind that rely on intent.

It would be a death blow to the Grey cause if she could have had them at her coronation, however unwillingly. 

But there is too much that could go wrong if they are physically there. 

So she settles for trapping them. 

Not for long. 

Just long enough for her to be crowned without interference. 

To be doubly careful, she sets another curse over the Sept - that no one may harm her or work against her while in its walls.

And so she is woken by Arianne the next morning without uproar. 

There is only the quiet of early morning, as her ladies (both those who served her when first she had her own household, returned to her service for this great triumph, and those who have entered her service more recently, replacing the women who left to marry and become mothers themselves) help her to dress.

Since her marriage, she has grown to favour the silver and aquamarine of her husband's house, softer colours that do not make her seem like some unearthly goddess but like a woman of flesh and blood.

Today, however, she is to be crowned queen, and so, for once, she is grateful for the mask the Targaryen colours provide.

Her hair is pinned and braided up, studded with jet and rubies and half a hundred other stones, all in varying shades of red and black. 

She is draped in inky black and deep red, harsh, dark colours that contrast with her own pale colouring until she seems carved from cold marble. 

The high collar and close sleeves of the Valyrian gown have starker lines than most Westerosi clothing, and the overall effect is of some cold, otherworldly being, too remote and perfect to come near.

She seems almost holy, like the statues of the Mother come to life.

Monford comes to stand beside her, dressed in his own colours but with a cloak of black and red overtop. 

A half-smile twitches the corner of his mouth, though it cannot hide the startled adoration in his eyes, and he twists his head to press a kiss to her temple. "I could have sworn I lay abed with a mortal woman last night, your Grace."

The terrible joke lightens her mood somewhat and she laughs, blessing the gods for giving her such a man to be her husband - for there are so few men in any world who would so easily take a subordinate role to their wife.

"Last night you lay with a princess. Tonight, Monford, I shall be a queen."

His arms wrap about her, and she leans against him gratefully. "All will be well, Visenya. The coronation is only a ceremony. You are already queen."

********

She is crowned without the expected explosion. 

Everyone in the sept spends the ceremony holding their breath, but the Greys do nothing.

They are not even there. 

It is a statement, but not a particularly heavy one - after all, no one had expected them to attend the coronation of a woman who's right to the throne they had spent decades denying. 

Instead, the Sept of Baelor is filled with loyal Reds, and all goes smoothly. 

The High Septon, hers for years even before Gaemon took Rhaenys as his wife, anoints her and crowns her without interruption. 

She stands at the head of the Sept, where she had stood all those years ago to wed Monford, but this time she is alone. 

She is not a bride now. 

She is a wife, a mother, and above all, she is a queen. 

"Queen Visenya Targaryen," the Septon proclaims, "First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm."

Every man, woman and child in the Great Sept of Baelor kneels before her, until all that she can see is bowed heads and white walls. 

"Long live the queen!'' They cry, each one wearing red or black. "Long live the queen!"

It does not feel like the victory that it should. 

The tension remains. 

She is still on edge, still waiting for something. 

This should have been her triumph, the culmination for everything, the happy ending of the story. 

Instead, it feels like the beginning. 

*******

It is after the coronation that the Greys finally manage to make their move. 

Visenya sits in state on the Iron Throne, draped in black and red in the Valyrian style.

The Conqueror's crown sits on her brow - a simple, unbroken circle of black Valyrian steel, set with bright rubies like blood. 

One by one, the Lords of Westeros swear their fealty to her. 

First is her uncle Doran, who kneels and speaks his oath proudly, to the Martell placed on the Iron Throne after centuries of careful manoeuvres. 

After him it is her sister and Renly, their eyes full of triumph as they take in the Red queen in her splendour.

Then comes Viserys, with Rhea at his side, in sky blue and silver, their oaths ringing through the room.

And then Tyene and Willas, their voices clear and full of unwavering loyalty to Tyene's beloved kinswoman.

Daenerys is next, kneeling beside Edmure, the two of them committing the Riverlands to her without hesitation. 

By rights, Tywin Lannister should bend the knee next. 

Visenya bends her eyes on him, seeing the uncertainty in those green eyes, waiting for something that has not come. 

She smiles. 

"Lord Tywin. " Her voice is soft, the Dornish drawl she learned from her mother barely evident if one were not listening to it. "Do you swear your loyalty to me, from this day until your last day?"

There is a flicker of revulsion in his eyes, and she knows he heard the echo of her Martell blood in her vowels. 

"Lord Tywin?"

For a moment longer, he stands, undecided. 

The silence stretches out longer and longer. 

Finally, he steps forwards and begins to kneel. 

Just as his knee touches the ground, the door bangs open, and Visenya cannot help the flinch as the backlash of a broken curse rushes through her. 

How did he do that?

He should not have been able to hide his progress from her. 

"Enough with this farce, " her half-brother says, dressed as if for his own coronation in black and red. "Visenya, you have something of mine."

The queen smiles, a slow, cold thing that does not touch her eyes. "Careful, half-brother. That sounds like treason."

"You," he says, glaring at the crown resting on her brow, "are committing treason by denying me my rightful throne."

Visenya, firstborn of Rhaegar's first marriage to a Dornish princess, Princess of Dragonstone in her own right for over two decades, rider of the most dangerous dragon ever to live, with six children and three sons by Lord Velaryon, crowned and anointed Queen, throws back her head and laughs. 

She laughs so long and so loud that those about her join in, and Gaemon flushes crimson. 

"I have proof," he declares, "that the marriage of my father to Elia Martell was unlawful."

There is a moment of frozen silence.

Visenya would be lying if she said that this was unexpected.

"And just what, " she calls, before the crowd can become too unsettled, setting the tiniest edge of laughter in her voice, "would you do to prove that, son of Lyanna Stark. Did our father not wed your mother while still bound to mine? Those in glass houses should not throw stones, surely."

A ripple of nervous chuckles goes around the room.

"Aerys," Gaemon declares with a nasty look in his eye, "had your mother as a mistress. Everyone knows that he had any woman of his court that he pleased. Surely that would cast your paternity in doubt...half-sister."

Once again, Visenya cannot help it. 

She laughs. 

"That is the best you can do? Do you truly think that this court has forgotten what Aerys thought of the Dornish? Find a better lie, half-brother, before I cut out your tongue."

"Any who do not wish to follow a false queen," he says loudly, "come to me. I will give you a king worth serving. A true, Westerosi king. Not some Dornish cunt."

Gaemon turns and walks out. 

"Watch yourself." She says, so softly that almost no one hears her. "The shadows are my domain, brother."

Calmly, she watches as Tywin Lannister and Benjen Stark follow him. 

Not unexpected.

Nor is the venomous look Cersei Marbrand shoots her as she follows her father. 

Baelon Greyjoy had never forgiven her for spurning his only remaining son in favour of a Velaryon, so she was not surprised by him either. 

Three Lords Paramount to her five. 

Not counting Monford, who was the de facto Lord Paramount of the Crownlands. 

A few other nobles follow Gaemon, mostly those she had already pegged as Greys. 

No surprises there. 

And, of course, Rhaenys with her children, Lyanna, and Aelyx. 

She is rather relieved at that - how much she would have hated having to try and get along with any of Lyanna's brood if they had suddenly seen the light. 

A flash of movement draws her eye. 

Lysara, who has been by her side for fourteen years, is walking towards the door, still wearing the crimson of the queen's own ladies.

"Lysara." Visenya snaps. The room startles at the sudden edge to the queen's previously soft voice. "You swore me an oath."

Her lady-in-waiting, who has been with her for half of her life, who has served her so well and faithfully, looks up at her with pained eyes. 

"I am sorry." She looks away, at Gaemon's retreating back. "He is my blood, your Grace."

Visenya cannot show weakness. 

She cannot. 

But this cuts deeper than any other betrayal could have. 

Lysara has been her companion for fourteen years. 

She has grown up with her, seen her wed and made a mother, greeted every one of the six children that she bore to Monford.

"If you walk through that door, Lysara Stark, you will not survive the night." 

Visenya prays that her friend will hear the warning in her voice. 

She knows what is waiting for the Greys. 

Lysara, if not one of her favourites, has been by her side for so long. 

She does not want that to happen to her companion.

Lysara's shoulders slump, but she keeps walking. 

No one else moves, not even Minisa, who glares at her fellow lady's retreating back.

There will be others who will side with Gaemon, she knows. 

Nobles who did not come to her coronation (of whom she has a list), those who are only feigning loyalty for now, those who's loyalty shifts with the wind. 

But here, she has all of her half-brother's most ardent supporters in one place. 

Closing her eyes, she feels for the threads of the trap she laid the night before, and pulls on them. 

Cries of shock and alarm sound through the door, and she smiles, standing from her throne. 

"That will be the natural consequences of turning traitor. Shall we go and see?"

Reluctantly, silently, the nobles of Westeros turn and follow her out.

In the hall, Gaemon and the rest of the traitors are all crushed together by nothing at all. 

They are frozen, their eyes wide and panicked.

There, in the centre, pale and still, is Lysara. 

Visenya swallows hard. 

Her friend's face is twisted in a silent scream, her hands clawing at her chest. 

There is no outward sign of what killed her. 

Visenya knows, though. 

Fourteen years ago, Lysara became the Princess of Dragonstone's lady-in-waiting. 

She swore to be a companion and a helpmeet, to help the princess carry the burdens of her station. 

And she swore, above all, to be loyal. 

They were not oaths that were often kept. 

But Visenya has long learned to wind magic through the oaths sworn to her and Lysara broke her oath by following Visenya's enemy. 

Turning away, she signals the guards. "Take the traitors to the Black Cells. And burn the corpse."

***********

The feast continues, somewhat subdued, but it continues nonetheless. 

Even if Visenya cannot feel it, this is Elia's triumph, and she refuses to take this away from her mother. 

Even if she just wants to curl up and weep for Lysara.

Even if she never wants to see another human face again. 

But she is the queen, and she cannot show such weakness. 

She must be perfect. 

So she is. 

She drifts through the crowds, remote and perfect, favouring them with smiles and attention, watching them preen and grovel. 

It is dull and mindless, small talk and politics and brown nosing. 

But it is necessary. 

She has shown them what she is capable of, what they stand to lose if they betray her. 

Now she must show them what they stand to gain by remaining loyal to her. 

Aemon, dear, dutiful Aemon, follows behind her - reminding the less enthusiastic lords that they need only endure a female monarch for a generation. 

He too smiles and politics, and she knows that she will mourn behind closed doors tonight for the death of her eldest son's childhood. 

He knows what is at stake, and just like she had, he has risen to the occasion. 

Is it, she wonders, truly worth it?

What does the crown do save to ruin the lives of those who wear it?

Will her Aemon too someday look at his firstborn child and realise that him or her was never ever able to be a child?

When will it end?

She bestows an absent, slightly pensive smile on Lord Crane, who is suddenly seized with the desire to learn to paint so that he might capture it. 

****************

  The next morning, the Black Cells are empty. 

None of the guards (loyal ones, vetted by Oberyn and then again by Nymeria) had seen a thing, nor had they drunk or dozed on watch. 

There is no sign of damage to any of the cells. 

No sign of secret passages either. 

No one has touched the keys since the gaoler brought them to her after locking the traitors up. 

Magic. 

The Greys have their own magician, as she had suspected since Gaemon made it to the hall without tripping her alarms. 

This will make everything so much harder. 

She allows herself half an hour, closeted in her chamber with loyal, blessed Jaime. 

The first ten minutes of that, she screams and rages. 

They had been so close, so close. 

It had all been going so well. 

And now this. 

How dare they?

She is so angry, angry at Lyanna, at her whelps, at the throne, at the Greys, at her parents for birthing her, at Aegon for abandoning her, at Lysara, at the whole world. 

She cannot breathe for the rage choking her, rising up her throat to spill out of her mouth at everyone ever born, even at Jaime, who stands there watching her calmly as he has always done when her hot blood rises beyond even her iron control.

When she cuts herself as she smashes a crystal decanter against the wall, he intervenes. 

It is why he stays during her rages, because he is one of the few who can talk her down when she has reached the point that she no longer cares if she is a casualty to her anger.

Jaime takes her hands and pulls her against him, letting her struggles and vitriol wash over him until she quiets somewhat.

He holds her, and lets her just close her eyes, pretending it is all far away, that she is not queen, that she does not have to still be perfect, that she is not about to fight a war. 

She slowly calms, listening to herself breath in and out, shutting out the world, and trying desperately to pretend that she is not wishing she had been his daughter rather than Rhaegar Targaryen's.

They stay like that until she can speak without screaming. 

Then she returns to the public sphere, perfect and composed, poised elegantly on her husband's arm. 

She sets a bounty on the heads of every Grey, but makes it clear that anyone who kills the children will answer to Elerax. 

However set they are to repeat the mistakes of the previous generations, she refuses to make this mistake. 

There will be no second Blood and Cheese.

******************

The first true battle takes place near Summerhall .

It is Gaemon's seat after all, though he had spent most of his time in court and left running it to Aelyx. 

He and his court are spotted by some travelling hedge knight who brings the news to the nearest castle with a ravenry. 

By nightfall the Reds are moving. 

Monford, Visenya's strong right Hand, leads them, while the queen herself circles above the marching army on Elerax. 

Aegon, Oberyn, Elia, Rhaenyra and Obara fly alongside her.

It takes them less time than it should to reach Summerhall - six dragons in the sky is a marvellous incentive for tired soldiers. 

They meet with Gaemon's forces a few leagues from Summerhall. 

Gaemon, like his elder sister, is circling above his army on Wraith, with Aelyx and his dragon hovering idly a little way off. 

On the ground, Tywin Lannister is leading his chosen king's forces, but Visenya has to wonder how he thinks he can possibly win. 

Six dragons are a truly formidable force, and the Reds have more dragons on the sidelines than that, for by now most of Visenya's children and several of Aegon's as well as all of their cousins ride dragons. 

After all, it is upon Visenya's island that the eggs are kept, and while the disposition of them nominally lay with the king, in practice he could do little once an egg was hatched and bonded. 

Besides, he could rarely deny Visenya anything.

The Greys have found a few dragonseeds, but what had gained Rhaenyra four riders gained them only three. 

Perhaps they would have had better luck had Visenya been stupid enough to allow them on Dragonstone, but she was not, and so they had had to make do with scouring the brothels of King's Landing. 

As far as she is aware, all three of her grandfather's bastards are currently in the North, currying favour with Benjen Stark. 

It is not a quick battle. 

In numbers they are closely matched, and Tywin Lannister is cunning enough to make up somewhat for the advantage that the dragons give the Reds. 

Somewhat.

Visenya has four more dragons than her half-brother, each one stronger, older, and better trained. 

No matter his skill, the Lord of Casterly Rock cannot quite compensate for it. 

He flees in the end, turning tail and escaping the battlefield just before Cobra manages to catch him in a gout of flame. 

Gaemon escapes with a few minor burns and a torn wing for Wraith, and Aelyx had hardly cared enough to truly dodge - from what she had seen, he is in bad shape. 

They had not been truly trying to win after all - when she takes Summerhall and burns it down again to prevent Gaemon (who knows it better than she ever could) from gaining a foothold, not a single soul is left inside it. 

She salts the earth upon which her bastard half-brother had lived for good measure. 

Summerhall is cursed. 

Her father has been an idiot to try and rebuild it. 

***********

The Stormlands do not all stay loyal. 

It was inevitable - they still remember Robert and Stannis, who rose against Rhaegar only two score years before. 

The Estermonts, who lost two grandsons to the failed rebellion, are the first to raise grey banners above their walls. 

They are not the last. 

Rhaenyra is wild with rage. 

All of her life, she has been raised to keep the Stormlands loyal, and she has failed. 

Even when Elia and Visenya assure her that she has done more than they could ever have expected - less than a dozen houses have turned traitor - it does not assuage her. 

She mounts Fury and burns Felwood to the ground. 

Then she burns Bronzegate. 

And another Grey keep, and another, and another, leaving a trail of ash and death in her wake. 

When she turns towards Greenstone, the Estermonts surrender as soon as Fury is visible in the sky. 

Renly only just manages to placate her enough to let them live - the last of his blood kin. 

For his sake, she refrains from torching Greenstone.

She still burns the lands about the keep, leaving them black and dead. 

A warning - a reminder of just how lucky they are not to be bones and ash like the Fells and the Bucklers and half a dozen other houses. 

After that, no more Stormlords listen to the whispers of the Greys. 

They may not be loyal, but they will not stray. 

Not when Rhaenyra is itching to torch another keep. 

**********

War, Visenya finds, is the same regardless of what world you live in. 

It is grey and dull and red and terrible. 

She had hated it before she was Visenya, and she hates it now. 

They spend their days rushing about Westeros from one battle to another. 

The Greys take Dragonstone, sacrificing one of their dragonseeds to do so, and quickly losing another after one of Visenya's maids poisons him.

The Reds take Casterly Rock in retaliation, and what Greys manage to survive run to the Marbrands. 

Visenya takes rather more pleasure than she should in confining the numberless golden haired Lannisters who had been so painfully present and irritating when she was being slavered over like a piece of meat by every noble in Westeros. 

She does not show it though - as loyal as Jaime is, they are still his family and she does not truly wish to hurt them, if only so as not to cause pain to her Lord Commander (the last appointment Rhaegar had made before his death). 

Placing Aegon as temporary lord, she flies out again to retake Dragonstone. 

She fails and is grounded for several days until she can heal the wound Elerax took. 

It had seemed a good idea at the time to mount scorpions on the battlements of her own fortress, in case she had ever been reduced to that alone. 

It is less of a good idea now that Dragonstone is no longe run her hands. 

Such a scenario had simply never occurred to her - it has been hers for so long that she had forgotten. 

The war does not stop for her failure though. 

There are skirmishes and battles all over Westeros.

The Stormlands are grudgingly united, and Dorne and the Crownlands have been hers for years, but the North, the Reach, the Westerlands, the Riverlands and the Vale are all tearing themselves apart.  

The Iron Islands, of course, are taking advantage of the chaos to raid and pillage along the coasts of all Westeros. 

They are claiming it to be in defence of the one true king, Gaemon Targaryen, but their claims are suspect when they attack their supposed allies as often as their foes. 

There was meant to be another battle near the Trident, but she had managed to stop it before it began.

She refused to echo Robert's Rebellion as well as the Dance.  

Elerax had landed her behind enemy lines, cloaked in shadow and silence.

It was long practiced by now - she would cling to his claw, and he would swoop down and deposit her, and none would be the wiser that the Red queen was invisible in their midst. 

She had slipped inside the command tent and found half a dozen of Gaemon's favourites. 

Among them had been Jojen Reed, his pet seer, and that boy he picked up at Horn Hill all those years ago (she is still smarting from the sting of him taking Randyll Tarly's heir from under her nose after she had worked so hard to secure the ornery man).

It had been a simple thing to slit their throats while they were still frantically searching for the intruder, and their forces had dissolved into factions and bickering. 

Rumour had it that Gaemon had been furious.

********

To the usurper on the Iron Throne, reads her bastard half-brother's script.

If we are to enact this Dance, then we shall at least chose our roles in it.

Let us play Daemon and Aemond, not Aegon and Rhaenyra.

Meet me at Harrenhal, half-sister, where this war first began.

No armies. No tricks. 

Just dragons, as the heroes of old fought.

Come and die if you dare.

Gaemon Targaryen, First of His Name, King of All Westeros, Shield of His People, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, Rider of Wraith

It is the work of a moment to reply, even as Monford protests.

"It is a trap, can you not see that, my love?"

She turns to her husband, seeing the fear in his eyes, the tension in his frame. 

Fear for her, she realises, fear of losing the bride he married for a crown and somehow, somewhere, came to truly care for. 

"Monford," she says softly, tapping the tips of her fingers on the pin of the Hand at his breast, "I must. Sometimes there is no way save to spring the trap. Trust me. I am the most experienced dragonrider in Westeros. All will be well."

Her husband leans down to press his forehead against hers. "Swear to me, that you will come back."

"I swear." The Queen says, pulling him down to reach his lips and claiming them in a fierce, desperate kiss. 

For a long moment, they stay there, entwined, clinging to each other in silence, before she pulls away and turns back to the letter. 

Monford sighs and steps back. "I shall leave you to your work, Your Grace."

Gaemon Targaryen, Visenya's reply reads - less insulting than his letter, but no warmer

It is not I who must dare. 

Have you the spine to follow through on your pretty words?

If, by some chance, you do, then p ray to whatever gods you worship. 

Death walks at Harrenhal, half-brother. 

Can you outfly it?

Visenya Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms

************

Wraith is larger by far than she had thought he would be - not even a fraction as large as Elerax, but certainly as large as any of the other dragons belonging to the Reds. 

"What is this, half-brother?" She demands, looking down upon him from her perch on her mountain of a beast. 

A smirk spreads across Gaemon's face. "You think you are the only one of our father's children to find your way to the arts of our forebears, usurper?"

He whispers in Wraith's ear and the white creature leaps into the air. 

By the look in her half-brother's face, he had expected her to be blindsided by the speed which they have attained, and at a disadvantage - surely the sheer size of Elerax should hinder them in this. 

But she spent her first life being hunted like an animal by a man so much crueller, so much more powerful, so much more than her bitter, envious half-brother. 

So she was ready, waiting, for him to move, watching his body, waiting for anything to react to. 

Elerax springs into the sky at the same moment as Wraith. 

The sneer slips off Gaemon's face. 

Visenya cannot help the smile that ticks the corners of her mouth. "Do you still believe you are fast enough to outfly death, half-brother?"

His eyes narrow, and Wraith darts at her.

Elerax rolls over in the air, lashing out at the smaller dragon like a cat at an annoying fly. 

So it begins, a dance of action and reaction that seems to last for an eternity.

In the end, it is but the work of a moment. 

His dragon is unnaturally large, and she can see the sorcery at work in her brother too - stronger, faster, his eyes keener and his aim truer. 

But these are new developments, spells that he must have worked in haste after he failed to stop her coronation. 

And neither he nor Wraith is quite accustomed to their new bodies yet. 

That is their downfall. 

She has never used her magic on herself for a reason after all - it is not natural, and the body knows that. 

Elerax's monstrous size was achieved through the passage of time, and he knows his own body well. 

For all of his ponderous weight, he is still quick, and more confident than Wraith. 

Gaemon, arrogant in the new power he holds, comes a little too close. 

She has not even to command Elerax to lash out, his poisonous green flame engulfing her treacherous half-brother before he can understand the signals his newly enhanced body is sending him. 

He barely has time to scream. 

Visenya knows the moment that he dies, watching his body fall from the sky, entwined with that of Wraith's. 

They hit the ground with a heavy, final thud, in the shadow of Harrenhal's black towers. 

Slowly, she has Elerax descend. 

Kinslaying was inevitable in such a war, and she had warned Gaemon what he chanced. 

Dismounting, she kneels by her half-brother's corpse. 

"It was always going to end this way," the queen whispers to the would-be king. "I am sorry, half-brother. Perhaps there is a throne for you in whatever hell you are burning in."

***********

After that, the war does not last much longer. 

The Greys had never had the strongest cause - less strong than the Greens had in times past, for Gaemon was only a second son. 

Even though the Greys had done their best to discredit the Reds, it had not held much water - Elia Martell had been blessed by the gods with a dragon before even her kingly husband, after all. 

And the Reds had clawed their way to the best starting position that they could have, years before the Greys had realised that they should be actively preparing for the war ahead. 

Their dragons are older and larger, their coffers deeper and richer, and their alliances were made earlier. 

It has taken decades of hard, back-breaking work, but now it is paying off. 

The West and the Iron Islands quickly fold beneath the threat of dragon fire. 

Tywin and Cersei are executed, and Tyrion made Lord of Casterly Rock, with Sarella as his bride. 

She does not care overmuch about his face or his stature, being more interested in her books - the key to their marriage was that Sarella's Otherys provides a threat to keep the unruly nobles of the West in line. 

Theon and Baelon too are given to Elerax's flame, the Islands going to loyal, steady, unpleasant Asha. 

She agrees to wed Quentyn, who is unlovely and far younger than her, but has Martell blood and a fresh hatchling to threaten the Islands with. 

The North devolves into civil war, with the Umbers and the Reeds and the Glovers and other prominent houses fighting for the remnants of the Greys under Benjen Stark, while the Mormonts and the Manderleys and the Boltons and others march with Benjen's wife and son beneath a crimson banner. 

At first, Visenya is reluctant to lend aid to any Stark, but she knows what is expected of her. 

She sends her mother and uncles North with ten thousand men, despite Rhea's pleas to let Viserys remain for her lying in. 

It takes them two moons to crush the rebels, and Elia personally condemns Benjen Stark to the Wall. 

His followers are grudgingly grateful that he was not executed, and agree hesitantly to swear to his son. 

Viserys returns to the Eyrie to find he has a new daughter, Arwen, crowned with her mother's deep golden hair. 

Only a few days later, word arrives that Daenerys too has given birth - twin daughters, Minisa and Rhaelle. 

The letter is accompanied by a postscript from Edmure informing the queen that her aunt is most wroth with her for already taking Rhaella. 

*********

It takes barely a day for the Reds to take back Dragonstone. 

Monford's ships have barely surrounded the island when Aelyx emerges, waving a white flag. 

He does not seem to particularly care as the Velaryon men stream past him into the castle, and his own men are dragged out. 

He listens silently as Monford informs him that he is being taken into custody for high treason. 

He simply holds out his hands, allows them to be bound, and says nothing. 

Afterwards, lying curled together in their bed, in the darkest silences of the night when all that they have done haunts them into sleeplessness, Monford admits that it had scared him a little. 

What kind of man would be so uncaring when facing death?

He had known what could happen to him, and he had not even blinked. 

Even when his dragon had been killed by Viserax, he had simply watched apathetically and then turned to follow Monford to the cabin in which he was to be kept for the voyage back to the Red Keep. 

Monford, a warrior and a general and a hardened sea captain, shudders when he thinks of Aelyx's flat eyes. 

What kind of man, or monster, is Lyanna's younger son, he asks the soundless blackness about them. 

Visenya, who grew up watching Aelyx's blank face across the table, has no answer. 

She does not know what goes on in her half-brother's mind. 

She does not even think he even lives in their world most of the time. 

  ***********

Rhaenys is different by the time that they find her, hidden away with her mother and children in Pentos.

For all Visenya's uncharitable thoughts about her half-sister only caring for power, Gaemon's death has clearly broken something in her.  

Even when they cut off the head of wild, mad Lyaxes and burn its corpse, she does nothing. 

She puts up no resistance at all, standing docile before the Iron Throne with blank eyes.  

Rhaenys even kneels and swears the oath of fealty when asked to. 

The only time she speaks unprompted is to ask to be with her Gaemon.  

Visenya is, she admits, tempted. 

The woman before her had always been her least favourite of Lyanna's whelps.  

Proud and ambitious as Gaemon had been, he had lacked the edge that Rhaenys possessed. 

She had always been vicious and grasping and cruel in a way that reminded Visenya uncomfortably of her late and unlamented grandfather.  

But kinslaying in cold blood is an inauspicious way to begin a reign.  

Rhaenys is exiled to a mother house on Tarth, the home of Rhaenyra's friend Brienne.  

A Red island will provide little in the way of opportunity for Rhaenys should she snap out of her grief, though Visenya doubts it somehow.  

Most likely she will draw some remnant of her tattered mind together and slip away to cast herself into the sea after a few years.  

Visenya cannot see Rhaenys living long without Gaemon. 

She sends Shaena to a comfortable motherhouse in Dorne.  

Orders are given for donations to be made to the motherhouse every year, and several septas handpicked by the High Septon to watch over the child.  

Visenya does not want her turning the head of some knight, or noble, or worse, one of Arianne's children.  

She wants Shaena alive and reasonably well-cared for, but unable to get any ideas about a station owed to her.  

That is the issue with Aegon.  

Visenya's nephew is old enough to have absorbed the idea that he is the Prince of Dragonstone, and resents it that Aemon has the island he considers his.  

He also calls Visenya a usurping whore to her face.  

She gives the boy one more chance.  

Kneel to her, and he will have a comfortable life in the Faith or the Citadel.  

Refuse, and he will be executed.  

Exile is not an option - there are too many opportunistic slavers and sellsword companies roaming Essos for her to ever sleep soundly at night if Aegon is there.  

The Wall is not truly an option either, for Benjen Stark has taken the Black on her orders.  

She really, truly does not wish to execute the child.

It would be quick and painless, but it would still have to happen. 

Thankfully, despite his stubborness, he is still a little boy and he is afraid.  

Aegon bends the knee, and stumbles over the oath, but it is done.  

She gives him into the care of the septry on Driftmark, where he can be under surveillance by her husband's people.  

Rhaegar, barely more than a tot, she sends to the Citadel.  

Her last living half-brother is sent with him,  and she hopes that Aelyx can control his nephew if he grows up to get any ideas or ambitions.  

Neither of them will ever be sent out to become the maester to a household. That was one of the stipulations in the letter she sent to the Citadel.  

But they will have what she hopes will be a good life.  

Aelyx certainly seems untroubled by the prospect.  

She isn't entirely certain if he is aware that his family had been decimated and punished. 

When she broaches the subject, the night before Aelyx and Rhaegar leave, her half-brother just pats her hand.  

"We share a father," he says placidly, "even though we don't like each other. I still have family in Westeros." 

Visenya musters a smile, turning her hand over to clasp his. "Aye, we are kin, Aelyx." 

She does not call him brother.  

No man born of any woman save Elia Martell can be her brother. 

Still, she comes to the courtyard as he and Rhaegar depart, watching from the shadows as their wheelhouse rumbles out of the gate.

Aelyx meets her eyes through the latticed windows, and raises a hand in farewell. 

************  

Lyanna is not subjected to the Walk of Shame, no matter how dearly Visenya wishes it.  

Her marriage to Rhaegar is made null and void, as is the marriage of Gaemon and Rhaenys - the Doctrine of Exceptionalism is abolished, which endears Visenya to the Faith. 

The twins and Aelyx, as well as Aegon, Shaena and Rhaegar, are no longer Targaryens. 

Each one is now a Waters. 

There is something deeply satisfying in that. 

It calms Visenya enough to listen to her advisors on the matter of Lyanna.  

They send the Stark whore back to the Tower of Joy, guarded by loyal Dornishmen.  

It takes all of ten days before she throws herself from her window and breaks every bone in her body as she hits the ground.  

Elia Martell knew her opponents after all, and she knew that Lyanna Stark loathed being trapped above all. 

Their enemy is gone, with no blood on their hands.  

 They give her back to her nephew, and let him bury her as he pleases. 

He never knew Lyanna - all he knew was that she had gotten two generations of his family killed. 

And he knows his mother's whispers, Lady Elinda who spent her married life weakening the North's ties to Lyanna Stark.

So he buries her in the crypts as befits a Stark, but without the statue her years as a king's bride could have afforded her. 

Her own kin condemns Lyanna Stark to an afterlife of nameless anonymity.

There is a dark satisfaction to that.

Behind closed doors, Elia Martell smiles at her firstborn with the satisfaction of a job well done. 

And Visenya raises a glass to her clever, sly mother, so quiet and so obedient that none ever suspected her.

Not even after she rode a dragon. 

*********  

Rhaenys, as Visenya had predicted, eventually gains enough of her wits to sneak out and throw herself from the cliffs.  

Her body is fished out mere hours later, and she is buried with what ceremony is due a royal bastard.  

Aegon is never truly content in the septry on Driftmark for he considers himself the rightful heir still, but he finds some comfort in religion. 

There is nothing else for him to do, for Monford keeps him closely watched.  

Shaena is bored by her life, for she takes after her grandmother, but her minders don't let her do anything that would upset the balance of Westeros.  

There is a close call with a knighted Sand, the son of some Spottswood or other, but it comes to naught.  

Rhaegar grows up knowing nothing but the Citadel.  

He reads widely, but has never left Oldtown and Visenya's spies report that he has no aspirations beyond adding another link to his absurdly long chain.  

Aelyx is less motivated than his nephew, but he seems content.  

There is little danger from any of them anymore. 

None of them have any known bastards either, so the likelihood of another Blackfyre line is slim.  

They have peace.  

******* 

In the end, Aegon and Deria have nine daughters. 

Asharei, Elia, Meria, Coryanne, Myriah, Aliandra, Dyanna, Cedra and Ceryse, the Stars of the South. 

Aegon is quietly insistent that he is not attempting to outdo their legendary uncle, but when Deria only goes on moon tea after Ceryse is born, many people are sceptical. 

Their daughters are brave and beautiful and every bit worthy of their grandmother's inheritance. 

Visenya is envious of her brother sometimes - he who walked away from the throne for love, and can live in secluded happiness on the high banks of the Torrentine. 

She wistfully watches him live his quiet, contented life, acting as steward of his wife's lands and letting her rule. 

He is happy, in a way that neither of his sisters, with their prestigious marriages and great castles, could ever possibly be. 

But then, she thinks, at least one of their mother's children should have the happy life in Dorne that Elia recalls so fondly. 

And she is glad for her baby brother, who looked their father and the world in the eye, and left it all for what he truly wanted. 

His daughters come to court, one by one, and one by one they leave again. 

They too, know where true contentment lies - and it is not in the power and glory of the throne. 

So Visenya sends her own children to Starfall and the Water Gardens when she can, and tries not to see the bitter disillusionment in their eyes when they return to the poisonous air of court.

What else could she do?

At least, at the very least, her brother and his daughters are happy. 

********

Rhaenyra's fourth child is born three years after Lyanna's death, though Visenya knows her sister and Renly have long since ceased to share a bed - they have an heir, a spare, and a daughter, and are content with that. 

The new child, a daughter as midnight haired as Rhaenyra, has strange, golden-brown eyes that resemble neither Renly nor Rhaenyra. 

Her sister names the child Jocelyn, and Renly claims her as his own. 

It is no true issue - Jocelyn has two elder brothers and an elder sister, and if Renly is satisfied to name her as his own, then who is she to gainsay him. 

Rhaenyra has always been so strong, so dutiful. 

She wed Renly and bore him three children, and though they are friends, there is no love there. 

She is never truly happy in Storm's End, Visenya knows, in the constant rain and wind of the Stormlands, so grim and dark to a woman who is more than half Dornish, who's blood is made of fire. 

Renly does his best, as does Loras, and her children, and she does her job beautifully. 

The Stormlands adore her. 

But she is still Visenya's little sister, and she knows that Rhaenyra's life is not the one she would have chosen. 

She can shower accolades and gifts upon her sister all she likes, but there are some things that the greatest power in the land cannot fix. 

Who is Visenya to begrudge her sister this?

What else could she possibly give her that would make her smile even half as true?

So Visenya merely smiles upon her newest niece and congratulates her sister on such a beautiful child, who takes after their own mother so much. 

If two pairs of eyes meet across the bundle of sleeping child, a knowing spark in each pair, well. 

Sisters always have their secrets from the world. 

What is one more?

************

Visenya and Monford have only one more child, born at the Water Gardens after the custom of the Martells, as Visenya has so long wished for her children. 

With all their previous babes, Rhaegar had insisted her confinement take place in the Red Keep, but she is queen now and her word the highest in the land.  

She leaves Rhaenyra to be her regent and takes her ladies and her mother to Dorne. 

Valaena's birth well nigh kills her, for she labours two nights and a day. 

She loses so much blood that it seems there is none left in her veins.  

When the babe is born, tiny and pale and silent, they think for a moment that it is dead. 

It does not wail as its siblings have done, and the grave silence sends a cold shiver of dread down her spine  

Two babes has she borne who made no sound, and both had died before they lived.  

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Visenya prepares to add a third to the count, letting her head collapse against the pillows and into her mother's embrace. 

Oberyn takes it though, her uncle who has attended the birth of each of her children better than any Maester, and lays it against her breast.  

He does something that she cannot quite see through the haze of blood loss and exhaustion and pain and grief, but then - oh then, a thin and thready wail.  

"A daughter, your Grace," her uncle says softly.  

Visenya was raised to be strong, to bear the burdens of seven kingdoms on her shoulders without faltering. 

But here and now, she simply turns her face into her mother's shoulder and weeps.