Chapter Text
As the palace of Summerhall was engulfed in flames, Princess Rhaella Targaryen laboured on the banks of the small, unnamed lake. She wept for those lost to the conflagration, and she wept as pain swept through her and caused the muscles of her swollen abdomen to clench tight.
Kneeling before her was her brother-husband, Prince Aerys Targaryen. They had never been close, despite their relation, and their relationship had only soured further when they had been forced to wed by their father Jaehaerys a year ago.
Rhaella gripped tufts of grass in her hands and groaned as another pain lanced through her. She panted, spreading her legs as her brother-husband urged her, his face paling when he glanced between her legs.
“You must push on the next pain, Rhaella,” Aerys urged, unusually gentle. Likely because it was his child being born as their family’s leisure castle burned.
The conflagration lit the night with a terrible, orange and green glow. Despite the pain, Rhaella wondered how the night had turned so quickly to tragedy. The King, their grandfather Aegon V Targaryen, had gathered their family to celebrate the impending birth of his grandchild, and hopefully bring dragons back into the world.
It was not meant to be, and their family had once again been struck by misfortune. How many times would House Targaryen suffer? Was it their own doing; were they accursed? Or was it another’s doing, an unseen enemy?
Rhaella braced herself as another pain swept through her, and bore down with a groan at Aerys’ urging. “That’s it,” he encouraged, eyes wide as he witnessed their child come into the world.
Rhaella panted and groaned, pushing with all her might, remembering what the midwives and maester had told her. Soon enough, the silent night was rent by the wail of an infant. Aerys caught their child as they slipped from her body in a gush of blood and fluid.
She levered herself up onto her elbows to look at their child, sobbing when she saw the sweet face and shock of pale, silver-gold hair. Aerys wrapped the babe in his cloak and handed the wriggling, crying bundle to her.
“A girl,” Aerys said, face alight with happiness and glee.
Rhaella smiled and opened her mouth to speak when another, sharp pain lanced through her. She grunted, clutching her babe tightly as panic shot through her. “Something is wrong,” she panted, staring at Aerys worriedly.
“No,” he breathed softly, peering between her legs, “Another babe,”
Rhaella gaped, crying out as another pain hit her. Twins? The maester had not predicted that. She turned and lay her daughter down in the grass beside her, hoping she would be fine as she birthed her twin.
The second child came more swiftly than the first, and Rhaella wept when her brother-husband placed their son in her arms. Aerys scooped up their daughter, glancing between the babes with the softest, gentlest expression Rhaella had seen on him in years.
“What will their names be?” she asked quietly, exhaling as her son rooted for her breast. She bared herself and smiled softly as he latched on swiftly and began to suckle.
“Rhaegar,” Aerys said quietly, watching with wonder in his eyes as he beheld their son feeding. He looked upon their daughter's sweet face and brushed gentle fingers through her downy, silver-gold hair. “And Visenya.”
Rhaella smiled slightly despite herself, “Thank you, Aerys,”
Aerys met her gaze and shook his head, “Thank you , Rhaella,”
Unbeknownst to the two new parents, their daughter Visenya understood every word shared between them. Her cries and whimpers had died down, and she now lay comfortably and silently in her father’s arms, peering about her with far too intelligent eyes for a newborn babe.
Visenya Targaryen, Princess of the Seven Kingdoms, was a very powerful witch reborn. Her former name had been Hadriana, but she liked her new one well enough. As she lay in her new father’s arms, she stared at the nebulous black cloud hanging over her father – Aerys’ – head with mounting anger.
The black cloud pulsed with malevolent black magic, and Visenya glared angrily at it as her own lashed out. The cloud undulated and writhed under the sheer power that emanated from her, and she felt naught but satisfaction as it skittered away, shrieking angrily.
It didn’t take long for Visenya to learn why she and her twin brother had been born on a riverbank. Apparently the majority of her family had , just before she and Rhaegar had been born, died agonising and fiery deaths. It would be an ill omen to everyone else, but Visenya was merely sad that so many people had just died.
She, her brother, and mother were bundled into a carriage and sent from the scene of the tragedy by Aerys, who in turn had been ordered to do so by his father, the new king, Jaehaerys. Several guards had been sent with them, to protect them from any bandits chance met on the road.
Time as a newborn was odd and blurry. Visenya was well used to it from her other lives, and yet it remained ever irritating as she blinked and woke in a rumbling, jolting carriage in her mother’s arms, not truly remembering when she had fallen asleep. A nipple was unceremoniously shoved into her mouth, and she fed with quiet indignation. She loathed breastfeeding, especially since she always remembered it.
Visenya peered around myopically, squinting at a plainly dressed woman with a headdress on, who held her twin brother, Rhaegar. Her mother noticed she was awake, and she peered up at her, blinking; her mother was stunningly beautiful, with alabaster skin and hair just as pale, though it held a silver-gold sheen. Her eyes, however, amazed Visenya, as they were a deep, sparkling amethyst. She idly wondered if her own would be the same, or she’d keep her emerald as she had in previous lives.
“Hello, my little dragon,” her mother whispered, brushing her cheek with a knuckle. It hadn’t been said in English, nor any other language she knew. It almost sounded lyrical, like Latin from Visenya’s first few lives. “You surprised me. I thought I was only carrying one child, a son. But I’m glad you’re here, too; I’ve always wanted a daughter.”
The language was so much like Latin, a language Visenya was very familiar with, that she caught the gist of what her mother was saying. She pulled away from the nipple in her mouth and forced her mostly unused face muscles into movement so she could smile, internally laughing when her mother’s expression morphed into surprised delight.
“Rest, my little dragon. We will be home soon.”
***
When she woke, Visenya found herself lying in a cot next to her twin brother. Rhaegar was an adorable babe, with a tuft of pale hair and cloudy, pale purple eyes, and he happily nuzzled against her and gripped her hand when she reached for him weakly, her newborn muscles protesting slightly. She had never had a twin before, and she felt as though they were connected in a way she had never been before to another person. It was almost as though she could feel what her brother was feeling.
Turning her gaze from her brother, Visenya blew out a weak breath of frustration. She hated not being able to see properly for the first eight weeks of life, so she closed her eyes and channeled her magic into her optic nerves. Once done, she opened her eyes only to frown when she saw nothing but pale red stone walls, tapestries and a fireplace. Was the kingdom she’d been born in...old? Like, feudal old?
Visenya huffed, annoyed but not surprised. Death did have a twisted sense of humor, and there was nothing that amused them more than watching her flounder in her new life in the beginning. Being a newborn was humiliating enough, she didn’t need her old friend laughing at her.
Rhaegar began to whine, and Visenya reached for him and took his hand. Seconds later, the door opened and their father strode in. Now she could see more clearly, she noted that her father was extremely handsome, but also very similar in appearance to their mother...and just as young. Her parents looked barely older than fourteen or fifteen years old.
Then again, that was normal in feudal times. Her other suspicion, however...
Aerys approached, his drawn expression lightening when he saw them and their clasped hands. Behind him, their mother looked worried.
“Are they okay, brother?” her mother said, and Visenya sighed. Yes, she had been right. Her parents weren’t only impossibly young, but also brother and sister.
She truly hoped they wouldn’t forcefully marry her to Rhaegar. That would be seriously unfortunate.
***
Visenya was both irritated and reluctantly amused by Death's decision to send her to this world, daughter of a prince and princess and granddaughter of a king. It was just like Death, who damn well knew she despised unnecessary attention, to plonk her in yet another life in which she was Princess of a realm.
It wasn’t hard to gather information, even as a pretty well useless newborn baby, by listening. Her mother murmured the names of their lost family at Summerhall, their family history, feeding Visenya and Rhaegar both despite Jaehaerys’ suggestions of a wet nurse, her voice smooth and lyrical despite the silent tears that streaked down her face. It also didn’t take long for Visenya to pick up the Targaryen’s mother tongue, High Valyrian; it was close enough to what she vaguely remembered of Latin from her first life, and she listened attentively as her mother listed their recently departed kin and ancestors.
It was hugely fascinating, how the Targaryen’s had survived the cataclysmic destruction of Valyria due to visions and prophecy, though Visenya had been hard-pressed not to cry at the mention of, yet again, prophecy. Did prophecies and foresight follow her through her lives? Was she doomed to an eternity of prophesied lives?
She seriously hoped not.
Days turned into weeks, and Visenya grew agonizingly slowly. Rhaegar, too, though he was smaller than her. Their parents marveled at her ‘robustness,’ and gazed anxiously at Rhaegar’s small stature. Despite that, her parents and grandfather’s worries were turned to other more pressing matters; namely, the war currently being fought on the Stepstones, what was left of something called the Arm of Dorne.
Mere weeks had passed since the Summerhall fire, yet her grandfather and father had duties to the realm they were in charge of. Her father, a squire, was to leave for the Stepstones with the lord he served in grandfather Jaehaerys’ army.
It was a tense several weeks in which her father was gone. Her mother barely let her and Rhaegar from her sight, and even the king checked on them every evening in the family solar. But in the end, the rebels from Essos that had backed the last Blackfyre pretender of the male line, Maelys, had been destroyed when Maelys was killed by a young knight, Barristan Selmy. Her father was knighted on the battlefield by his friend, Ser Tywin Lannister. Aerys would return home safe and healthy.
Yet more tragedy would hit the Targaryen family with the death of the Queen, Shaena Targaryen, who had fallen into a deep depression after Summerhall and barred herself in her rooms, barely eating nor sleeping. Her last rites were held in the Great Sept of Baelor, Aerys standing vigil for seven days and seven nights beforehand – as was custom.
Her grandfather was never the same after losing his wife, and the governance of the realm fell greatly to Aerys as Crown Prince, and the Hand of the King, Edgar Sloane; prior to Lord Sloane’s appointment, it had been Ormund Baratheon, who had been slain during the war (His son, Steffon, had thus become Lord of Storms End and Lord Paramount of the East).
At six months, Visenya delighted in stunning her family – small though it was – by saying her first word, which was ‘pa,’ as she lay in her father Aerys’ arms. Whatever black magic that had lingered around him hadn’t returned, and she’d decided to cling to him whenever possible to ensure it wouldn’t. As a result, she had become a daddy’s girl and was greatly adored by Aerys.
Aerys, when she spoke, beamed proudly at her. Her mother and grandfather, too, were beyond proud. A month later, after constantly using her magic to strengthen Rhaegar, he mumbled ‘ma,’ while feeding. Rhaella nearly wept, a beaming smile on her face.
By eight months, Visenya and Rhaegar both were crawling around their nursery under their mother and wet-nurse’s watchful gazes. Being a baby again with terrible motor function and hand eye coordination was absolutely detestable, but she did enjoy playing with her twin and being doted on by her parents.
Their grandfather the king also doted on them, as most of their family had recently perished and it was clear he drew great comfort by hers and Rhaegar’s presence. He would sit them on his lap during court, causing many of the courtiers to coo at them and wave. He would also occasionally rock them to sleep himself, murmuring soft words of love before settling them in their cribs.
Visenya and Rhaegar flourished despite the tragedy that seemed to follow their family. Visenya forced herself to walk despite her weak baby legs. She was sick of being lugged around by nervous servants or harsh Septa’s – the harridan of a woman was so unnecessarily rough Visenya had ‘accidentally’ whacked her in the eye the last time the woman had thought to touch her – which had ended with the Septa being tossed out when Aerys caught the woman smacking his infant daughter's hand.
Visenya almost smiled smugly at the woman as she scampered, cradling her favorite wooden dragon carving. She rarely went anywhere without it, nor did Rhaegar without his. Their parents allowed it, amused at how adorable their children looked when ‘flying’ the dragons through the air.
A few months after the Septa was thrown out, Visenya noticed that her mother was, well, growing fatter. Well, not fat. It was obvious that Rhaella was pregnant again, which was surprising as she knew that Aerys and Rhaella hadn’t married for love or any kind of desire, but then she overheard her grandfather mentioning a ‘spare heir’, and she knew that everyone wanted the new baby to be a boy to be the spare heir in case of Rhaegar dying young.
Visenya hoped it was a girl, just to spite the rampant sexists surrounding her; and in the end, she had the last laugh when Rhaella went into labor in early 261 and gave birth to a healthy baby girl subsequently named Shaera for Rhaella and Aerys’ mother. Their grandfather wasn’t happy that Shaera was a girl, though he did dote on his wife’s namesake just as much as he did Visenya and Rhaegar both.
“Baby,” Visenya said, grinning at Aerys’ shocked laugh.
“Yes, little dragon; this is baby Shaera, yours and Rhaegar’s sister.” Aerys perched her on his hip and kissed her cheek, his fine, pale hair tickling her nose.
“Way-gar baby?” She asked, purposely butchering Rhaegar’s name.
Aerys chuckled and nodded. “Yes, you and Rhaegar are still babies. But you’ll both grow into big and strong dragons, my love.”
“O’tay, daddy,” she said, resting her head on her father’s shoulder. Rhaella smiled at her from the other side of Shaera’s crib, Rhaegar peering at their sister with curious purple eyes.
At seventeen months old, she and Rhaegar had accomplished crawling, walking, and now were forming longer sentences. Well, Rhaegar was. She already could due to being a reborn witch on her...well, she couldn’t remember what number life this was. Sometimes she almost forgot she wasn’t supposed to be able to talk, and purposely dissolved into baby babble and gibberish.
A year after the War of the Ninepenny Kings, as many called it, Tywin Lannister overpassed his father, Lord Tytos, and brutally exterminated Houses Reyne and Tarbeck. When Visenya heard about the actions taken by Lord Tywin, she wanted to be spectacularly ill. Two Houses wiped out, women and children included, and for what? Because Tywin Lannister was insulted .
Visenya wasn’t stupid, however. She knew that in Westeros, power and strength and fear were the main motivators of many. Tywin Lannister was a stern, proud man whose only goal was for his House to be a power to be reckoned with. But that didn’t mean that he should have utterly destroyed the Reyne’s and Tarbeck’s. Even Aerys agreed, who was a close friend of Tywin’s.
In 263AC, their parents welcomed another son, Daerion, who was born healthy and robust with a very good set of lungs on him. Visenya, Rhaegar and Shaera adored him.
Visenya and Rhaegar and their siblings were taught by a plethora of people hired by their Kingly grandfather. Septa’s, Maesters, and other wise men and women over the years. But all too soon, their grandfather passed away from illness after only three years as king. When Jaehaerys had grown ill, Visenya had tried her hardest to be allowed to see him so she could try and heal him, but she and her siblings were kept far from their grandfather for fear of them getting ill, too, and after a few short weeks, Jaehaerys, the Second of His Name, died in his sleep.
Visenya and Rhaegar were three years old, their young sister Shaera only eighteen months and Daerion six months, when their father became Aerys II Targaryen. The coronation was a huge deal, and many Lords and ladies converged on the capital city of Kings Landing to pay homage to their new king, and much to her consternation Tywin Lannister was named Aerys’ Hand of the King.
Visenya had been primped and preened and stuffed in an oversized, itchy dress. Rhaegar, too, had been forced into itchy clothes and shifted every few minutes and scratched at his chest. It would have been amusing, if the harridan of a governess hadn’t chided them every five seconds, her beady eyes eerily watchful.
After the coronation was a great feast held in Aerys’ honor in the Throne Room. Aerys carried her and Rhaegar, and Rhaella cradled little Daerion while Shaera was toted by their cousin, Steffon Baratheon, son of Ormund and Lord of Storm's End.
Visenya smiled toothily at Aerys when he set her and Rhaegar down, internally beaming at the adoring look he bestowed on all of his children, touching their cheeks fondly before he turned to address the seated lords and ladies.
“I thank you all for joining us,” he announced to sudden silence, raising a goblet of previously tasted wine. “But before we commence with the feast and celebration, I would like to take a moment to remember my father, King Jaehaerys, the Second of His Name!”
“King Jaehaerys!” the crowd echoed.
“Grandfather!” Visenya cheered, beaming when her parents and Cousin Steffon chuckled at her antics.
Rhaegar stood on his chair. “Grandpapa!”
The laughter swelled again, and Aerys raised a hand. “Let the celebrations commence.”
Visenya turned to Rhaegar and helped him sit down, spreading cloth napkins across their laps like they had been taught. Rhaella smiled at her, amused. “Good girl, little dragon.”
Servants brought platters and bowls of food into the throne room, and a huge suckling pig that garnered much appreciation. She and Rhaegar were fed by their mother, who had been crowned Queen beside their father, and soon after finishing their meal were taken to bed by their nurse, Ailey.
Ailey was a young woman Aerys had hired to be her and Rhaegar’s governess. She was only twenty but had two children of her own. She was the daughter of a hedge knight and the wife of a petty lord with a farm in the Crownlands whose allegiance was to the Targaryen’s. She and her children had been moved into the Red Keep after the spectacular firing of the Septa.
Ailey’s daughters, Maegelle and Myra, were of an age with Visenya and Rhaegar and were to be trained as Visenya’s handmaidens, but they were her friends first. Their father had also mentioned inviting some children of his lords to the capitol to be their companions, and the Princess of Dorne and Lord Dayne had replied happily.
Ailey escorted Visenya and Rhaegar to their rooms and got them undressed and into a warm bath, sitting by the edge with a smile as they played about for a bit before she helped them wash and dressed them in nightshirts for bed.
“Goodnight, sweet dragons,” Ailey murmured, kissing their foreheads.
“Night, Ley-Ley,” Visenya mumbled, snuggling into her warm and soft feather bed.
Rhaegar mumbled sleepily, already nearly asleep. Ailey brushed their pale hair away from their faces and extinguished the candles in the room, only the low burning fire illuminating their chambers, before leaving.
Visenya heard Ailey speaking lowly to their guard, likely Ser Barristan, and closed her eyes as sleep claimed her.
***
Things changed greatly after her father’s coronation, though he remained a dutiful and doting father. He ensured that any free time he had was spent in the family solar with the children and Rhaella, with whom he was growing closer to, and their relationship had never been better; their children had bridged the gap between them, and Aerys and Rhaella could even be called fond of one another.
Despite this, however, they were of the same mind when it came to the age-old Targaryen tradition of marrying sons and daughters; it would not be forced upon their children to marry one another unless they desired it. No Targaryen prince or princess shall wed their sibling against their will, which was a relief for Visenya, who understood her parents' more serious conversations over supper, but she could not deny that something drew her to Rhaegar...something in her blood. Magic, perhaps, drawing them together…she didn’t know, but they were too young to put a name to it anyway.
Aerys’ plans for Westeros were welcomed and much needed. First and foremost, the capital city of Kings Landing was to be reconstructed, aqueducts and sewers added to ensure better living for the smallfolk. The commoners of the capital had always adored the Targaryen family, but this only solidified their love for them. The ideas came from a Braavosi merchant who’d mentioned the aqueduct in the Secret City, called the Sweetwater River.
Customs taxes and trade agreements were refined and lowered, bringing in such a barrage of trade that the usual markets at the Mud Gate by the Blackwater Rush were overcome. It was Rhaella’s suggestion that more markets be opened on the opposite bank of the Rush, an officer put in charge of overseeing the markets and trade.
Because of this suggestion, a town began to sprout on the southern bank of the Blackwater Rush unofficially called Trader’s Town. Traders from all over the known world convened to sell their wares, and barges charged a groat to take people across the Blackwater to the town. Soon enough, a bridge would replace the barges that could be raised for ships and boats to pass.
While all this was occurring, Rhaella and Aerys welcomed yet another child. Another princess, named Daena, was born half a moon early in 264 AC. The maester, a grey rat Visenya did not like whatsoever, proclaimed the girl wasn’t likely to live. She did, however, thrive due to Visenya’s interference and magic.
Visenya adored her siblings. She and Rhaegar shared a special bond as twins, but Shaera, Daerion and Daena were also doted on by her quite often. So often, it seems, that her father’s kingsguard fondly dubbed her “little mother.” She didn’t mind the nickname and wore it proudly. She doted on most children in her life, even the servants’ children; she had always adored children, and that would never change.
Visenya’s favourite pastime, however, was sitting at the base of the Iron Throne on her mother’s lap with Rhaegar as Aerys dispensed kingly orders and justice. It was fascinating to watch it happen. He was cool, calm, and kind...but also stern and firm in his punishments.
Thieves brought forth were offered the Wall – a great monolith of ice and earth built many centuries ago where the Night’s Watch operated – or the loss of a hand. Rapers were gelded without choice, then sent to the Wall unsympathetically. Unjustified murderers were sent to the Wall also.
Visenya didn’t like that the Wall was, in a way, used as a type of imprisonment and punishment. But Westeros did not have the concept of true prisons, and she was still far too young to suggest it without being declared a sorcerer by all and sundry; so, she kept silent and tucked the ideas she had away for a day when she was older.
***
Visenya was awed by the dragon skulls in the Throne Room. They sat along the walls with candles burning around them. She often gawped at Balerion’s skull, Aerys murmuring his history as Aegon the Conquerors’ beloved mount.
“His flame forged the swords of Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys’ enemies into the Iron Throne,” Aerys told her and Rhaegar, both of them perched on his hips, despite them being six years old.
She reached a tiny hand out and patted one of Balerion’s long, black teeth. “Big boy,” she said, grinning when Aerys guffawed.
Even serious Lord Commander Gerold Hightower chuckled.
Rhaegar giggled. “May I have a dragon, daddy?”
Aerys sighed, pained. “All the dragons are gone, son, and not likely to return in our lifetime.”
Visenya frowned. It made her sad that all the dragons had died. It hadn’t been their fault they were used as weapons of mass destruction. Dragons weren’t inherently evil, and she wished they were around. But any talk of bringing the dragons back was ended fiercely by their mother, because of the Tragedy of Summerhall in which so many members of their family had perished trying to do just that.
Several months after their conversation, their Grand-uncle Aemon was released of his Night’s Watch vows by Aerys in order to join Rhaegar and Visenya on Dragonstone, where they were to be educated on ruling and politics by their maester uncle. It had been tradition for a long time for the children of House Targaryen to grow up on the ancestral island of their House, but the lack of older family members in recent years had put that tradition on hold; Aerys had used his position to release Maester Aemon to reinstate in, wanting his children to experience what their ancestors had on Dragonstone; familial bonds and love.
Aemon Targaryen was the son of King Maekar I and brother to Aegon the Unlikely, who was Visenya’s great-grandfather, who had perished at Summerhall. Aemon was older, with thinning pale hair and slowly deteriorating eyesight. He was more than happy and honored to foster the twins on Dragonstone, and shortly after their seventh birthday they said goodbye to their parents and siblings and boarded a ship, the Queen Rhaella, and headed to Dragonstone.
Unbeknownst to anyone, it was on Dragonstone where the future would be irrevocably changed by the rebirth of dragons.