Chapter Text
The screaming echoed through the halls of the castle. The servants swore that the screaming reached the Gods. The babe had come, unpredicted and quickly.
Rhea Royce was on her horse before her childbirth, riding as usual in the quiet weather with the winds. She didn’t even have a belly pointing out. Her stomach kicked as she rode, yelping in agony. Had the men around her hadn’t been there, she would’ve given birth on the grass for all to see. The men had helped the heir get into the castle, calling in the maester and servants to help the Lady.
And there she was, giving birth to a babe who she didn’t even know existed.
Had she consummated with her husband, Daemon? Ah yes… She did. It was that one night where Daemon had come unexpectedly. Both had been so drunk on Red Arbor that they had actually bedded each other, and none of them remembered till this.
Rhea wiped her beads of sweat with the back of her hand, groaning in pain as the babe had finally gotten out of her. There weren’t any signs nor symptoms… Well sure, she had puked and vomited a few times but she had thought that she was ill from riding horses all the time.
Her brown locks stuck to her forehead and neck as she tried catching her breath. She looked over her, a maid, not even a midwife that could have been prepared, staring at the babe as she slowly wipes the blood off of the sobbing little infant.
“What is it?”
The woman managed to mutter. The maid looked up at the Lady, smiling nervously.
“It’s a girl, my lady.”
Rhea didn’t know how to feel. She never knew that she would really wield Daemon’s child by the way he expresses his hatred for her and their arranged, albeit forced, marriage. But now there’s a child. A girl. They have been married for a decade and more, and now there’s a child. An heir of Rhea’s.
There was a growing fear in her chest. What will happen to the child? She knew and understands how much the prince hated her and the Vale so now there’s a child that is going to forcefully bind them together.
She gently took the crying babe from the maid’s arms. She wasn’t even ready to be a mother yet. She had thought that her days as a mother would come much later, considering the prince. And the babe is a girl… As a woman herself, she couldn’t help but worry of the challenges her baby might have as she had.
The babe had small, little striking silver hair sticking out of her little head. Silver hair like her father. She bore a reddish skin upon being born into the realm. Her mouth wouldn’t shut as she wailed, announcing that she wasn’t dying nor dead.
A grin grows on Rhea’s greasy face as she looks upon the child. She was unexpected, sure, but she was still a harmless and innocent babe. She wasn’t really planning on reporting Daemon or the Court about this. Why would she? The babe would be in tremendous danger from Daemon and she wouldn’t be able to escape this hell-made marriage with the rogue prince.
She slowly put her forehead on the babe’s own and then slowly settled her near her chest, letting her hear the subtle rhythm of her heartbeat. The babe’s wailing calmed down. Her eyes were swollen and shut tight, as if refusing to show her mother her eyes. Stubborn. Like her father.
Her heart was racing. She didn’t know whether it was from stress, the birth, or happiness. But it hurt. Her entire body hurt. But deep inside her, it felt worth it, seeing the babe calm down at the sound of her heartbeat. She gently rocked her baby, smiling down at her as the babe slowly settled into sleeping. She was scared, no doubt. But she will never put her baby in harm’s way, even if it’s her father and Targaryen family.
Blood splattering, screaming and cheers, spears clashing, bones breaking. Those were the sounds of the tournament in the honor of Viserys I heir, who wasn’t even born yet.
A commoner and a prince battled on foot in the tourney. One second, the commoner was down and the prince roared with the audience for his “victory” and the other, the commoner stroke the prince into yielding.
How dare he?
In a fit of rage, the prince then went to do his duties as Commander of the City Watch… Slaughtering those in King’s Landing. In the end, he had gotten banished from King’s Landing into going to see his Lady Wife in the oh-so-boring Vale by the King, his brother.
How worse could his day go, truthfully? First he lost, then he went along, to have fun and actually make people fear the Gold Cloaks, and now he had gotten banished? By his brother, no less.
He wasn’t going to listen to his brother, clearly. He’s obviously not going to the Vale either and see his bronze bitch whom he had been married to for a decade and more.
He’s still a prince.
And he’s going to use that into claiming his own place.