[Chapter Size: 4500 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Arctic, 299 AC.
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"By the gods, Winterfell has been taken!" Benjen exclaimed with grief and sadness. He was certainly happy to see Bran and Rickon as soon as he returned to the castle and found them entering through the gate in wagons; obviously, he had come by the king's orders, but he could not help but frown when he learned what had happened, as he listened to the explanations of why Jon had brought them there.
When we begin to speak about what happened in Winterfell, it will become clear how the Ironborn managed to conquer the castle through none other than Theon, naïve enough to open the gate for him.
The home where Benjen, Bran, Rickon, Arya, and even Jon had grown up had been taken and burned; this was frustrating.
Despite everything, Benjen soon set the bad news aside and embraced his nephews. Jon invited them inside, and so they went to the sanctuary beneath the castle.
Their arrival spread quickly throughout the place. His wives and children also heard of Jon's arrival, who was not among the army, but rather with a group of people he had brought from the south.
"Arya, I'm wondering where you went in such a hurry..." said the first queen to appear, Hiyori, with Daemon in her arms. She saw Arya and smiled, since they were both talking, until she suddenly made her eyes turn white in the middle of the conversation and ran off.
"I'm sorry for leaving like that..." Arya murmured.
Arya was still clinging to her brothers. Hiyori raised an eyebrow, looking at the two children with a different coloring from Arya's, but she could clearly see that they were relatives, nothing less than siblings. She would ask the questions later. For now, she turned to her husband.
"It seems you have a lot to explain, Jon," Hiyori murmured.
Jon nodded. "Well, let me introduce you. This is my wife and queen of Arctic, Hiyori of Yi-Ti, daughter of Emperor Oden, and in her arms is our son, the prince of Arctic, Daemon Arctic," Jon said, while everyone paid attention to the well-dressed woman and the child in her arms.
Soon Val and Seryna arrived, with Della and Joy accompanying them. Val, with her large belly, was also introduced. Barristan, of all three and of any others who might appear later, knew only Seryna, since it was Seryna who had been in the naval battle, and all who survived saw the woman in action, an image never to be forgotten: a woman holding a hammer, striking the king's men and sending them flying several meters away, far stronger than Robert had ever been. If he had not seen it personally in that battle at sea, he would never have believed it.
The third to approach was Ygritte with Loki, Brandon, and Lyanna, curious, as Jon introduced his family. His children were also together. Bran cast a peculiar look at Loki.
Jon noticed it, but kept it to himself.
The next group to arrive was someone who surprised Barristan Selmy. He looked as if he had seen a ghost when he saw Queen Daenerys approaching with a child in her arms and her lady-in-waiting, Missandei.
"I still haven't had time to explain everything," Jon said, anticipating it. "But this is Daenerys of House Targaryen, my wife, whom I rescued while she was exiled in Essos. We ended up getting married. This is our son, Prince Aegon Arctic," Jon introduced.
Everyone else, especially those who were in Arctic for the first time, looked on with curiosity and surprise at seeing that there was a Targaryen woman there as well.
"Princess… or should I say queen of this realm. You have your mother's face, and it makes me emotionally happy that you are here and alive... It is as if I am seeing your mother at this very moment, you look so much like her..." Barristan said, visibly moved, before kneeling before her.
"So you were in the Kingsguard while my mother suffered because of my father's actions, weren't you?" Daenerys said without hesitation, narrowing her eyes, her tone heavy with resentment.
The knight merely lowered his head, surprised by the tone, though he should not have been. "That is true. There is nothing to hide. We, the Kingsguard, were cowards at that time. Aerys, he was our king, and we allowed him to mistreat your mother."
Jon even looked at Daenerys to see what she would say. She held his gaze for a moment before turning back to the knight once more.
"You may rise, Ser. If my lord husband brought you to this realm, I will not judge you. But I will also not forget how my mother suffered, nor who could have saved her from the countless abuses my mad father made her endure," Daenerys said, her voice thick with emotion.
Had she heard those truths about her father while still in Essos, without knowing Jon, she would have said it was all nothing but lies. But today she recognized how cruel the Mad King had been, the monster who made her mother suffer.
"Still, I would like to hear good things about her. About that time when my family was in power. I heard a lot about them, I discovered the truth, but there is no one as close as a Kingsguard to tell it. The only memory I have of her is the crown my lord husband managed to buy from the Iron Bank, after my brother sold it," Daenerys said again, while baby Aegon's eyes seemed a little nervous at his mother speaking that way; even without understanding, her voice announced anger in her first words.
"Of course, my queen, but may I ask about your brother?" he murmured carefully.
"He is dead," Jon answered, in a simple and direct tone.
Barristan Selmy had no idea what had truly happened to Viserys. What had reached him were only fragmented news about the Targaryen siblings, who had disappeared after some time.
He did not know that Daenerys had become a queen in Arctic, nor that her brother had died in the Dothraki desert, trying to kill Jon, killed by one of the very guards present in that room. But Barristan did not need to know that now.
Barristan Selmy merely watched, saying nothing more, until someone approached them with long strides.
"Jon, don't tell me this is who I think it is," said the woman with violet eyes and more bronzed skin, approaching and glaring at Barristan Selmy with anger, while the knight froze for the second time.
"Rhaenys," the word left him almost without control. He knew very well where he had seen that face, even if he had only seen her as a baby that Rhaegar and Elia carried back and forth through the Red Keep when the girl was very energetic.
"Don't call me that," Rhaenys growled when she heard it. "You don't have that right, a man who sold himself to the usurper and did nothing while my brother and my mother were murdered in the cruelest ways."
Jon sighed. His temperamental wife already hated the knight — and not without reason, after having lost everything.
"You survived..." he murmured, still incredulous, and the entire place fell into complete silence.
"Yes, I survived. As you can see, I am Rhaenys of House Targaryen, daughter of Rhaegar Targaryen, sister of Aegon Targaryen, daughter of Elia of House Martell," she said. Despite the anger, there was a tone of triumph in her voice, as if Robert Baratheon, along with all his hounds, had failed to discover that she had been alive all this time. Not even the Spider knew.
"I survived because I was taken to Dorne in secret by my uncle Oberyn, who entered the Red Keep and managed to get me out of there before I was killed by one of Tywin Lannister's hounds like my brother and mother. You knew me as Nyra Sand, the bastard daughter of Dorne Martell," she continued.
Barristan Selmy could not help but shudder. It seemed that this day would bring more surprises than he could imagine in his entire long life. Both Elia's daughter and Rhaegar's sister were alive and living in that realm as queens with Rhaegar's last son.
"But I am no longer Rhaenys Targaryen. I am Rhaenys Arctic, by marriage to my husband," she declared, glancing sideways at her son, who seemed a little nervous at his mother's sudden fury.
"This is Jaehaerys Arctic. But in the future, he will be Jaehaerys Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne, being my first son with my husband. He will succeed King's Landing, the Crownlands, and Dragonstone, still under my husband's rule, even though he is not king, since Jon will continue to be one after conquering Westeros; he will have his place by right and will take the name Targaryen," she said with conviction before everyone.
Everyone from the south was surprised by that declaration, but not Jon's wives.
It was not a new matter for Jon's family. Jon had already summoned all his wives to talk about his plans, about what he intended to do after learning of his uncle's death. As heir to the throne, he would take on that conquest, for he knew that his children could do so after him. Thus, he would remove that burden from his descendants. He would end it in this lifetime.
Jon would do this not only for vengeance, but to conquer all of Westeros and create a single realm, delivering, for the first time in history, a capital other than King's Landing. Arctic will be the new capital, and everything beyond the Wall will become a new kingdom after ending the threat of the White Walkers and conquering the Seven Kingdoms.
It was decided that his third son, Jaehaerys, would assume the Iron Throne and rule King's Landing and the entire Crownlands as a new kingdom, Dragonstone included. All of this realm would be inherited by his children.
Jon had already planned this carefully. His third son would be the most suitable for such a position, as he was the son of two legitimate Targaryens, legitimate children of the heir to the throne. He would have his name changed when he took King's Landing, returning to being a Targaryen, so that the family would not be extinguished and the name would not be erased. It would be a new branch of the royal family of Arctic.
Jon would, of course, support his son with all his strength, while Loki would rule Arctic after him. Jaehaerys would live helping to govern the south in the name of Arctic.
But this was still a matter he would think through better with time. First would come the conquest. After that, he would have to organize all the Seven Kingdoms to integrate into Arctic in a way that would not bring future problems. The capital of the future Eight Kingdoms would be, without exception, Arctic, and King's Landing might even have its name changed, along with the Crownlands, as they were names too specific to royalty.
In any case, ruling an entire continent was something Jon would think about in the future. His gaze returned to Rhaenys, raising his hand as she stared at him, saying nothing more.
"My wife speaks harshly, but she speaks the truth, Ser Barristan Selmy. You lost and knelt before Robert Baratheon, and you achieved no justice for our dead brother, nor for Elia. Something for which I seek justice not only in the name of my wife, but also because we were kin. Aegon shared the same blood as mine. Elia was also my father's wife, being a mother by marriage, or at least that was what she should have been," Jon said, leaving the hall in silence as he stared at the knight, who lowered his head.
"And I made a great mistake in my decisions. When I lost the battle and was offered a place in the Kingsguard, I thought it would be a chance to try to protect them when we reached King's Landing. I planned to fight in the name of the princes. I just never imagined that, in the end, they would all be brutally killed, or at least that was what I believed. At the time, I was already bound by an oath and could do nothing more than follow the new king..." he murmured carefully to Rhaenys, then continued.
"I know I am not worthy to stand before you, but even so, I want to prove that I can be useful once again to House Targaryen," he said carefully.
Rhaenys had a firm gaze, and she never forgave easily. She held onto resentments, something from which not even Jon's mother escaped.
Still, she turned her eyes back to the knight. "I may never forgive you, Ser. To me, you will always be the man who surrendered to the enemy who killed my family and then served him, fighting for him all these years. My uncles always said you were a traitor. Perhaps that was implanted in my mind in such a way that I no longer have control over it, and I will always see you that way," she said honestly.
The Kingsguard and everyone around fell silent. Jon's wives looked at Rhaenys with concern, as did Jaehaerys. His youngest daughter, Visenya, was not even there, still remaining in the cradle, in the queen's chamber with her lady-in-waiting.
Rhaenys continued, with a caveat. "But if my husband brought you here, I will not question his decisions. I just want to make it clear that I do not like you and I do not trust you. I hope you understand that, Ser."
"I can understand that, Queen Rhaenys. I can understand your anger," Barristan Selmy said, bowing with a tone of remorse and apology.
Rhaenys said nothing, only stared at him.
"Rhaenys," Daenerys' voice sounded with concern, looking at her niece and sister by marriage.
She simply turned away. "Jaehaerys, stay with your father. I am not very inclined right now," Rhaenys said to her confused son, and began to move away from there.
All of Jon's wives looked at him, and he remained staring at Rhaenys' back. The family atmosphere had been broken there. Even Arya looked at her cousin with concern. She knew very well what Rhaenys was like; she did not even like her own family very much, despite not showing it openly. She did not have much love for the Starks.
"Come here," Jon said to Jaehaerys, who approached carefully and worried. He picked him up in his arms and looked at his son.
"Why is Mommy so angry?" he asked innocently, not understanding the implications behind Rhaenys' words.
"She is having a difficult moment. She remembered the past, when your uncle and your grandmother were unjustly killed. But don't worry, Daddy will talk to her. Stay with your brothers and also get to know the Starks," Jon said, kissing Jaehaerys on the cheek.
He set him down in front of Loki. "Take care of him," it was a command, and Loki nodded. Jon then looked at Arya. "Take care of the Starks and also the Reeds. Ask someone to arrange suitable accommodations for them."
Arya nodded, and the king's final glance returned to Barristan Selmy. "As you can see, my wife is a Targaryen and a hot-blooded Dornishwoman. I met her as a polite woman, but after getting to know her better, I know what kind of furious dragon she is, hidden behind a face that tries to be courteous. She may have been a little harsh, but I hope you understand her anger," Jon said in a low tone.
"I understand perfectly, Your Majesty. She did not lie in her words. It is expected that she feels anger toward the people who killed her family. I can only say that I truly wished to fight for her and for her brother when I swore the oath to Robert Baratheon. After Rhaegar was killed, I still had hope of saving them and did not even know of her existence at the time..." Barristan Selmy murmured.
Jon nodded and turned to a Kingsguard who was carrying his belongings. "Give me the chest," he asked. He took it and went to where Rhaenys was, leaving the group behind.
When he entered the room, he knew she would be there. He found her lady-in-waiting looking somewhat worried in the corridor, who had been dismissed after Rhaenys asked to be left alone. Jon simply entered the room.
Rhaenys was crying on her bed, looking at Visenya's cradle. She raised her eyes to Jon with deep sadness as he carried the chest under his arm.
Jon approached carefully, placed the chest at the foot of the bed, and sat beside Rhaenys. She said nothing, only lowered her head and continued to cry.
Jon's gaze went to the bars of the cradle, where Visenya slept peacefully. Her breathing was soft, and Jon could not resist forming a small smile as he looked at his precious baby, who could still fill his heart with happiness with just a single look.
"Jon… why did you bring that Kingsguard here?" Rhaenys murmured, her voice now weak, breaking the silence.
"I couldn't leave him south of the Wall, my love. He had saved my cousins. When I discovered that Winterfell had been taken by Theon Greyjoy and that he had killed the two of them, can you imagine how enraged I was?" Jon said, still looking at the sleeping girl in the cradle.
"We all heard. Your animals began to howl. We already understood that you must have been furious at that moment..." Rhaenys murmured.
"It was thanks to him that my cousins came out of Winterfell alive. The news of them being dead was false. Theon couldn't stop the escape, so he burned two other children to say that he had done it," Jon said.
"Still, they were children," Rhaenys murmured. Her past made that perfectly understandable. She might not like Barristan, but she was also against the death of children in that way. She was against any child dying.
"I know. I'm not saying that Theon Greyjoy did nothing wrong. In fact, he deserves to die in the worst possible way. Still, they were other children. Am I wrong for mourning the deaths of two innocent and unknown children less than I would mourn the deaths of my cousins?" Jon murmured with a sad smile.
He did not even know those children, and yet he had felt relieved to see that they were not his cousins when he saw the coffins. That had also made him feel quite bad.
"No, Jon. They are your kin, your family, no one can take that away... But still, they are children dying unjustly, after everything..." Rhaenys said, trying not to sob anymore as she wiped away her tears.
"Jon, I don't know if I can stand before a man who served the one responsible for the deaths of my brothers and my mother..." she continued.
"It's all right. I still don't know what to do with him. Just give me some time. I can't simply dismiss him. He did something that put me in his debt, and he has the desire to join the Kingsguard," Jon replied.
Rhaenys said nothing. She knew that, if she spoke, it would not be pleasant. She merely sighed, looking at the chest.
Jon noticed and looked at the closed object. "What is that?" she asked, curious, noticing that he had not brought it for nothing.
"I found this in my mother's tomb, in Winterfell," Jon said with a sigh. Rhaenys pressed her lips together upon hearing that.
"I broke a part of it by accident, but I didn't damage anything. However, I found the Targaryen symbol. I thought you might want to see with me the last things left by our father," he said.
"Left by our father… for your mother," she murmured.
"Yes. If you want, I can separate the things and later show you what's his without mentions of my mother..." Jon suggested.
He planned to do this as well with Daenerys and Rhaenys, if she wished. But at that moment, she had come burdened with sad feelings, and he wanted to cheer her up.
Rhaenys had mixed feelings: anger and affection. She remembered very well how her father treated her, the affection she received from him. Jon was a living mirror of that, treating his children the same way Rhaenys remembered her father treating her.
But there was still anger. Anger because he had chosen Lyanna. Abandoned her, her brother, and her mother. She loved Jon, loved him with all her strength… but that feeling was still there. The anger over Lyanna.
"No. I would like to see it," Rhaenys said at last, wiping away the last tears. She gathered her courage. "Even if it hurts, I want to know. I want to see it, even knowing the heartbreak of seeing letters to Lyanna."
Jon placed the chest on his lap and opened it. Rhaenys leaned against him as he simply snapped the lock with his bare hand.
Inside was the Targaryen cloak. Rhaenys could not help but take it with admiration, lifting it before her. The symbol of the three-headed dragon, red against the black background, was displayed proudly.
"So beautiful," she said, placing it over her shoulders and letting out a light laugh.
Jon kissed her forehead and smiled. "It looks beautiful on you," he said.
He returned to the chest, where there were several letters. Rhaenys looked at them, seeing that they were letters written to Jon's mother. That made her uncomfortable, and he began stacking them to the side so Rhaenys would not have to read them, until he found different letters.
Jon's eyes widened. Not even he had expected it.
"Rhaenys, look at this," Jon said in a low voice.
"Jon… this is a letter from..." Rhaenys murmured, more incredulous than her husband.
She stared at the seal, her eyes widening even more. It was nothing less than a letter from Elia to Lyanna. That left even Jon stunned. He had not seen that in the green vision. He could not observe everything his mother did during the pregnancy, and he did not know of any contact Elia might have had with Lyanna while the war was unfolding. Jon had seen Lyanna and Rhaegar's past, with a year of war seeming to pass in a single second before the heart tree at the Reed stronghold, at Greywater Watch.
"Do you want to see this?" Jon asked carefully.
Rhaenys stared at the letter her mother had written, her eyes trembling. "Yes. Let me see this," she murmured.
Jon opened the letter and began to unfold it there, before the two of them. For the first time, they discovered truths that even they themselves had not known.
Elia asked about the baby Lyanna was carrying, with affection, whether he was growing in a healthy way, leaving Rhaenys speechless. She was saying that, unlike Rhaegar, who said it was a girl, Elia specified that she agreed with Lyanna: it was a boy. And she made it clear that she knew everything. Even more, that she approved of the new child.
The letters continued to be unfolded, and Jon and his wife discovered that Rhaegar had already met with Lyanna and Elia at Dragonstone, shortly after the Tourney of Harrenhal, when Jon could not accompany her at that moment, following his uncle Brandon to King's Landing, before being strangled while watching his father die in the flames.
The two women had met and left this specified in the letters. The three had come to an agreement. Among the documents found, there was an official one declaring that Rhaegar would separate from Elia, annulling the marriage in name only. She would still be his bed companion and wife in everything except the title, merely to appease the Faith and prevent him from having two wives at the same time. Aegon and Rhaenys would still be the primary heirs to the throne, with Rhaegar even having more right than a possible male child of Lyanna.
The child Rhaegar truly expected was a third one he strongly desired, something he could not have with Elia, and for that reason he accepted the plan of marrying Lyanna.
Both Elia and Lyanna knew it was a boy, and they even discussed male Targaryen names, while Rhaegar still dreamed of the Visenya who would never be born, at least at that time, when there was a girl with the same name in the room where Jon and Rhaenys were.
There was also a letter, a diary from Jon's mother, written not to be delivered, but as if it were a confession, merely to pass her time, as she herself declared in the diary.
In it, she said she was very sorry, that Elia did not deserve to have died that way, and that she felt guilty for all of it and cried all the time. The pages of the diary bore stains of dried tears. Lyanna said she would name her son Aegon in honor of Elia's son, so that she would never forget him or her.
Jon and Rhaenys were left without words. His wife cried far more than before as she read the letters.
With each letter, she was overtaken by sadness and guilt. She had always hated Lyanna, a feeling her uncles had deeply rooted in her as she grew up in Dorne. Now, she did not know what to do.
Jon simply held her and let her cry on his shoulder, before hugging her and placing her on the bed. He too was deeply saddened by all of it.
Lyanna wrote about how she spent her time alone in that tower in Dorne, hearing the news arrive one by one: first her brother and father dead, then Rhaegar, and finally Elia, Aegon, and Rhaenys, all dead. All Lyanna could do was weep for her losses.
Jon knew of his uncle's fight against the Kingsguard who protected his mother, who had refused to let him pass. But he had no idea how she truly felt. She had poured everything into that diary. Jon would have his moment of reflection later; for now, he only supported his wife, who cried against his chest, softly, trying not to wake Visenya with her sobs.
In the end, Rhaenys said a word that surprised Jon.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I'm sorry for having hated your mother for so long, Jon."
---
Raccoon Here:
I am bringing closure to Rhaenys' anger. I did not plan to write such a large chapter, but it ended up that way in order to describe how things unfolded. I don't want to drag things out, but these chapters become long as I try to write the emotions in more detail.
I don't know if I will make a part about the rumors of a dragon landing in Winterfell in the next one, or if I will move straight to the end of the war. Should I make another chapter with Bran talking about the healing and the rumors of a giant dragon in the North, and Robb's reaction as he deals better with the Red Wedding? What do you think?
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