The Rebirth of the Dragons - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Rhaella Targaryen. 283AC

Rhaella cried. The Baratheon whoremonger killed her boy, her firstborn son her sweet Rhaegar was dead. It felt like an elephant was stepping on her chest, it felt like she would never know happiness again, her son was dead and she would never hear his beautiful voice again, would never hear the sound of him playing his harp in the morning, the sound of his laughter as he played with little Rhaenys. Her family was breaking apart, her firstborn was dead, her husband so beautiful and talented as he was in his youth. ambitious, cunning, diligent and he cared for the small folk. He had everything to be a great king and that idiot Denys Darklyn took it all away, leaving only madness behind, and now her little prince Viserys seems to be going the same way as his father, it would take a lot to steer him away from madness and maybe that was her reason to live now that her Rhaegar was dead. She would live for Viserys, she would live for her grandchildren Rhaenys and Aegon, she would live for the little one growing inside her, and she would even live for the bastard her husband made with that Maegyr girl.

When she was young and her uncle Aemon told her she would love her husband's bastard as her own son she didn't believe him, but when she saw that little boy who looked so much like her father she couldn't not love him; and when the foolish girl returned to Volantis she took the boy as her own son, so much so that the joke around the court was that the king made the boy but he was the queen's bastard.

And it was true, little Maekar was as much her son as the offspring of her own body. and the boy made her proud, he was as smart as her Rhaegar was at his age. At the age of four the boy spent most of his days causing trouble around the Red Keep with Rhaenys. but during his studies you could see his inquisitive, intelligent mind his thirst for knowledge of any kind, perhaps she could convince her husband to legitimize the boy when he becomes a man. Why was she trying to fool herself, her husband would probably be dead before the end of the year, depending on how bloodthirsty the whoremonger was her entire family would be dead, not even her move to dragonstone later this week would save her, at least she would be reunited with her firstborn soon. she thought.

It was late at night and Rhaella was in her room drinking, she drank a lot more since she heard her son died. She heard the door open and Ser Jaime Lannister said:

"Your Grace, Princess Elia is here to see you."

"Let her in." Rhaella responded.

Elia entered the room, Rhaella took one look at her and immediately realized that while Elia tried to look dignified like a princess should, her disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes showed that mother and wife were grieving just as much as the other.

"Good-mother." Elia said.

"Elia." Rhaella responded. "How are you dear?" She asked.

"Not well." Elia responded. "While it is no secret that there was no love as a husband and wife in our marriage, I still loved Rhaegar as a dear friend and the best father i could ask for the little ones."

"I'm sorry for not having a word of comfort for you dear." Rhaella said with sorrow on her voice, "while I lost my son, you lost not only your husband but also your uncle Lewyn."

"It is fine; I can't imagine what it would be to lose one of my children." Elia said. "And that's why I'm here, to never fell that pain, I came to ask you to take the children with you to dragonstone."

"And how do you propose we do that." Rhaella said. "My husband was quite forceful in saying that you and my grandchildren stay here." Rhaella touched her arm lightly when she said the word forceful.

"I have a plan your grace." Elia responded. "my servants were able to find a couple of bastards in the city, and while I find it distasteful to use orphans this way, the situation is difficult enough that I am willing to overlook my morals this time." Elia said her face with a look of disgust at her actions.

"Finding a girl that looked like Rhaenys was easy enough, finding a boy that looked like Aegon was a lot more difficult, we had to dye the hair of a boy with similar skin color, if no one look to closely at their eyes we should be able to pass then as my children."

"With that done we thought of a plan to smuggle the children out of the red keep, the night before you are to depart, Ser Alliser Thorne and Ser Jaremy Rykker together with one of my handmaidens and Aegon wet nurse will take the children and hide on the ship, they would inform you of where they are but would stay hidden until you reach dragonstone."

Rhaella looked pensive for a moment and then she said:

"I believe that plan could work but we could ensure it even more, Varys. she suddenly said. I know you are hearing our conversation so come out of wherever you are." A small part of the wall suddenly shifted and the spider came out, he said:

"Your grace was always aware of her surroundings."

"No I just know who you are Varys, knowing you it is quite possible that you have instructed one of your little birds to spy even on yourself." Rhaella said shaking her head.

"Ensure my grandchildren get out of the castle safely Varys, and I will tell what few men I still have in the gold cloaks that are loyal to me to help them reach the ships."

"It will be done your grace." Varys responded.

"Now leave us." Varys left trough the same hole in the wall that he came from. Rhaella turned to Elia took her hands on her own and said:

"I'll make sure the children will be safe Elia."

"Thank you good-mother." Elia responded.

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It is a beautiful morning. Rhaella thought as they moved through the city towards the port. Viserys sat in front of her looking outside the window with a bored expression on his face while little Maekar sat by her side reading a book about fireworks for some reason. she thought about everything she did during the last week, she was informed earlier that Elia's plan worked and her grandchildren were safely away at the royal flagship, her other plans also went well during the week, she managed to slowly abscond a large portion of the crown's treasury, over 2/3 of the available funds were siphoned away, either with the excuse of trying to hire sell swords from Essos or trough clandestine means, and the gold was already on its way to Braavos with a small portion of the remaining royal fleet.

Let the whoremonger usurp a broke crown. She thought with a smirk on her face.

Another plan of hers was put in motion when one of the few spies she had left passed word to Ser Barristan of where they would be going, men like him were hard to find and if they truly had to abandon their country and flee to Essos, it would be good to have him with them. a warrior of his renown and experience would be able to instruct the boys better than any tutor she could find.

The last of her plans was to send 25.000 gold dragons to Prince Doran in Dorne and instruct him to start building a merchant fleet; once it was completed the fleet would be sent to Essos and its income would make the backbone of the finances necessary to fund an army capable of reconquering Westeros if necessary.

"Mother why are we leaving the city." Viserys asked.

"I told you before, the city will be besieged soon, we will be safer in dragonstone." Rhaella responded.

"But why do we need to leave, there is no danger, father said when they come we will burn them all." he continued.

Rhaella suppressed a sigh. "Do we need to have another talk about discipline?" Rhaella asked. "I'm sure Ser Willem would up the intensity of your sword training if I asked." She continued with a smirk.

Viserys paled and started shaking his head.

"If your father was in the field commanding armies and you were in control here in kings landing would you 'burn them all' as your father said?" Rhaella asked. "Remember not only kings are talked about years after they died, but princes as well, do you want to be remembered as Viserys the dragon knight or Viserys bright flame." she said with a little steel in her voice.

He turned his head to look outside the window again with a pensive look on his face.

Viserys was a bright young child but he spent too much time with her husband, now that he would be away from that influence she would take a more active role in his education, a few moons hurting in his entire body from some intense training would do him good, but also some levity in his life; she would never ask his opinion in important decisions, never give him too much responsibility, she would even ask one of their sworn knights to take him to a pleasure house once he started showing interest in women. Despite what she said she knew he would never be like the dragon knight, but it would be better for him to be like Aegon the unworthy, better for him to be like the Baratheon whoremonger, to care for nothing more than fighting and whoring his way through the seven kingdoms than for him to be like his father.

"What about you Maekar, do you want to be like the dragon knight?" She asked.

"I just don't want to be another Blackfyre." Little Maekar responded without even looking up from his book.

Now that one will also need a different touch in his education, he was almost too smart for a child his age and while he loved to run around the castle pulling the cloak out of kings guards, hiding swords and generally just causing chaos with little Rhaenys. He also showed too much interested in talking about war, swords, bows; anything that can kill a man, with the knights around the castle. She would need to wait and see if those were just the signs of a mind devoted to warfare like his namesake, or if it was something different, something a lot less beneficial.

They arrived at the port and left the carriage to see half of the remaining royal fleet waiting for them, they were lead towards a man with strong valyrian features who was waiting for them at the foot of the ramp leading to the royal flagship, the Balerion.

"Your grace, the fleet is ready to depart at your orders." the man said going down on one knee.

"Grand admiral Velaryon." Rhaella said indicating for the man to rise to his feet. "What about my last minute additions?" She asked.

Lucerys rose to his feet again and responded: "The ship headed for Dorne departed two days ago, your grace. The rest of the cargo is as you wanted equally distributed through the fleet, and the more 'precious cargo' that arrived during the early hours before sunrise this morning is waiting for you on the ship."

"Good, let us depart then." Rhaella said.

They climbed the ramp and entered the ship, once inside she instructed Lucerys that she wanted the children take to their quarters and she wanted to talk to her guests, the grand admiral called two men and told one of the two to take the princes and their guards to their quarters while the other was instructed to take the queen and her guards to the royal quarters. as they walked towards the quarters Rhaella thought about how to flee dragonstone without being pursued by their enemies, Varys idea was a stroke of genius and she moved fast to implement it. If they had a chance to use it would ensure they kept most if not all of the fleet in their exile; and while the ships would be repurposed for a while it would be good to have those ships when it was time to retake their home.

They arrived at the royal quarters and she sent the man who guided them away with her thanks, she instructed most of her guards to stay outside and entered the room with only one of them, inside the room she found her grandchildren with their guards and maids, little Rhaenys was sitting between ser Alliser and the handmaiden Elia sent with then while little Aegon appeared to be sleeping in the arms of his wet nurse, when the occupants of the room saw her they all rose to their feets little Rhaenys ran towards her and embraced her legs and said:

"Nana, why did mommy send us away? Why didn't she come with us?"

She picked her granddaughter up on her arms and walked to the desk on the center room, sitting down she put the little girl on her lap and softly said:

"Your mommy wants you to be safe little princess. that's why she is sending you away."

"Are the bad men coming? why doesn't mommy wants to be safe and come with us?" Rhaenys asked again.

"Yes, the bad men are coming. And your mommy wants to be like Nymeria and Visenya, she wants to be a warrior princess and fight the bad men, that's why she isn't here with us." Rhaella didn't have the heart to tell the sweet little girl the truth.

"Can I be a warrior princess too? and can I play with Maekar, Ser Jaremy said I can't because we have to stay hidden."

"You can be whatever you want, if what you want to be a warrior princess when you get older you will be just that. now go play with your cat and let me talk with Ser Jaremy and I will tell if you can play with Maekar."

Her granddaughter jumped out of her lap and ran away after her cat, she looked at this scene for a moment with a soft smile on her face, she schooled her features again and called Ser Alliser and Ser Jaremy, both knights rising from the bench on the side of the room that they had sat again and sitting on the chairs in front of her desk.

"Now Alliser, Jaremy, how did things go with your part? any troubles I should be aware of?" She asked.

"No your grace." Ser Jaremy responded. "We were accompanied out of the castle trough a secret passage by Lord Varys, outside we encountered men from the gold cloaks who Lord Varys said were there on your orders, they escorted us to the ship through empty streets without a single patrol seeing us, once we reached the ship we were escorted to the royal quarters by the Grand Admiral himself."

"Good. And where are your rooms? Can you stay hidden until we reach dragonstone?"

"Your grace." Ser Alliser responded this time. "The Grand Admiral believe it would more prudent for us to stay in the two other rooms beside your own here in the royal quarters, no men would dare enter the royal quarters without being invited, because of this it would be the best place to stay hidden, anywhere else and we risk being discovered before reaching our destination. The young princes would of course be given suitable accommodations."

"It is a good advice, we will follow this plan." Rhaella responded. "Now let me hold my grandson; it's been too long since I could hold him in my arms as he sleeps."

284 AC

The last few months had been hard on Rhaella, a few days after they arrived at dragonstone news of the sack of king's landing reached them, even months later remembering it still set her vision red with rage at the atrocities committed by the Lannisters, her husband, crazy fool that he was, still deserved better than to die with a sword to the back by his own kingsguard, what they did to poor Elia was unforgivable, they would die slow painful deaths in revenge for what they did to her and the poor defenseless children. She asked Ser Alliser for the names of the boy and girl that died in the place of her grandchildren. Edwyn, Alanna. Those names would always be remembered by her family for their sacrifices. It broke her heart to tell the children what happened, Rhaenys cried for days hardly ever eating anything or even leaving her room, Viserys raged at everything and everyone, after all those months of her new approach towards his education his behavior was getting better but hearing the news destroyed months of work, he even tried to leave the castle and when he was caught he just keep repeating he was going to king's landing to burn them. Maekar also took the news hard, he was mostly silent for weeks and spent his days training the sword, a boy of only 5 shouldn't be doing that and he also shouldn't as Ser Willem said: "have a look in his eyes of a man going to war." If his days were spent training the sword his nights were spent holding Rhaenys in his arms, they would usually be caught sleeping in each other's room even without the eggs.

That was surprise but later she thought it shouldn't be remembering what her uncle Aemon had told her. the day after their arrival at the castle Maekar and Rhaenys found were she hid those dragon eggs all those years ago, they immediately took the eggs and started taking them everywhere they went, including sleeping with them. they even insisted everyone in the family should have one even the little one inside her, their reason was that there was six eggs and six of them. She took one of the eggs Rhaegar gave her, a green colored one, Viserys took a bronze colored one, Maekar took the blood-red egg, Rhaenys took the sky-blue one and they gave the black and silver egg to little Aegon, leaving the silver colored one.

The books were usually seen on either Maekar or Rhaenys hands as they took an avid interest in reading them, and what a surprise that was, books on valyrian fire sorcery, most of the books they had were thought lost with Queen Rhaenyra during the dance, those books were an absolutely amazing finding and even disproved a lot of myths about sorcery, valyrian fire sorcery could even be used to heal others, apparently heating up someone's body would cure most diseases, and in those of true dragonblood it would work even better being capable of curing blood loss, cuts, bruises and even hold the potential to cure grayscale.

She heard the door to her solar open and looked up from the documents she was reading; Ser Jaremy entered the room and said:

"Your Grace, the Grand Admiral is here escorting Ser Barristan."

"Let them in." She responded.

The two men walked in and Rhaella indicated for them to sit in the chairs in front of her desk, when they were sat she said:

"Ser Barristan, it is good to see you alive and well, we feared the worse when we heard you were taken to king's landing with the whoremonger."

"Your grace." Ser Barristan responded. "Baratheon tried to recruit me to his Kingsguard, i pretended to consider it planning on leaving the city to come here, once I was healed enough Lord Varys approached me and helped smuggle me out of the city, I believe even though he may serve in Baratheon's small council he is still loyal."

"That he is Ser Barristan." Rhaella responded. "As long as he believes we are the best chance at providing the realm with stability and prosperity, he will always be loyal. His loyalty is to the realm and the small folk living in it, and while it would be best if his loyalty was to my family, i can work with a man of his loyalties just fine as we want the same thing." There was a moment of silence after that, turning to look at Lucerys Rhaella asked him:

"Grand admiral it seems we will have another storm tonight, are we ready to "lose" a few more ships?"

The Grand Admiral looked at her with a grin on his face and responded:

"Yes your grace, we may even "lose" all but the necessary ships for us to leave for our temporary exile in Essos."

"Excellent, ensure that we do just that."

Ser Barristan not understanding what was being said asked:

"Your grace, why is losing ships a good thing, shouldn't we try to keep as many as possible?"

"One of Varys' plans, Ser Barristan." Rhaella responded. "Before we left king's landing, Varys arranged for the cargo hold of the fleet to be filled with wood, sails, ropes and other ship parts, ever since we arrived in dragonstone we been using every chance we have to send ships to Braavos while dropping this cargo on sea and pretending we are losing ships, the vast majority of the fleet is already anchored at Braavos and waiting for us."

"Now, Lord Commander Barristan Selmy of the Kingsguard, are you ready to swear oath to Aegon, sixth of his name, rightful King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm?"

Ser Barristan looked startled at that and asked:

"Lord Commander? King Aegon? Your grace, I thought prince Aegon was dead."

"My grandson is alive and well." Rhaella responded. "Elia hatched a plan to smuggle the children out of the city. And with the help of Varys and myself we enacted that plan, my grandchildren came to dragonstone with me. The children who died with Elia were decoys we sat in place so no one would suspect the children were with me. As for Lord Commander, we had no word from the tower for two months now. The only thing we know is that Lord Stark was seen going south to Dorne accompanied by his sister, supposedly to marry his intended, the Lady Ashara. We had no word of Ser's Gerold, Arthur and Oswell or the babe Lyanna was carrying. It is a reasonable assumption that the babe is dead as well as your brothers of the Kingsguard."

"Unlikely your grace." Ser Barristan responded. "Lord Stark is too honorable to commit kinslaying, he almost risked the rebellion by refusing to marry Catelyn Tully because he was pledged to lady Ashara, the babe is his kin and even before the marriage he would consider Arthur his kin. It is more likely that Lady Lyanna sent the babe here with my brothers of the Kingsguard for protection."

Rhaella thought about that for a moment before responding.

"You may be right Ser Barristan."

She felt a sharp pain, a pain she knew too well after so many pregnancies but continued speaking nonetheless and asked the knight:

"So, Ser Barristan, I ask again. Are you ready to swear oath?"

"Yes, your grace." Ser Barristan responded.

"Good." Rhaella said. "But before you swear your oath I have a task for you. Help me reach my bedchamber and call the maester. It seems the little one is coming today."

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She felt pain all over her body, it seems her time has come, at least her little girl, her little Daenerys would survive, she called for the maester to hand her daughter to her and call the other children in, she wanted to die with her daughter in her hands surrounded by her family, she held her daughter in her bloodied hands as the children walked into the room, Viserys looked enraged as he walked towards her, Maekar and Rhaenys were holding hands and crying, Ser Barristan was holding little Aegon in his hands and even the little boy of 2 name days who could hardly even speak was crying. She tried to get her frail voice to work, she wanted to say a few last words to her family but she was interrupted by Rhaenys that said:

"We won't let you go nana." She them turned to Maekar and said to him:

"We have to try it."

"We will Rhae." Maekar responded.

Suddenly the room started to heat up, she looked at the fireplace and saw the fire growing higher and brighter by the second, she turned towards her son in all but blood and her beloved granddaughter to see their beautiful amethyst eyes glowing, fire dancing inside them, they turned the hand that was not holding the other's upwards and blue flames appeared on the palm of their hands. they then touched her on her chest, right above her heart and she felt her body heating up, the fire in their hands didn't felt like fire, in fact she felt nothing at all from where their hands touched her skin, she felt the pain of her body start to go away, she felt her body go weaker until the children collapsed hitting the ground just a few seconds before she felt her own consciousness go away, her last thought was. Maybe I will get to see my children grow.