KING'S LANDING, WESTEROS - 297 AC

RHEA'S NAMEDAY WAS something that wasn't greatly celebrated like you would with a king's nameday, but the people close to her always remembered it. Last year, her father gave her a very special present. The present was a falcon. Jon also owned a falcon, which he loved very much. So for Rhea's 14th nameday, her father shared that love with her by giving her one.

She had named the female falcon Meleys, after Rhaenys Targaryen's dragon. Rhea's favourite part of history was the Dance of the Dragons. Since she had learned of the Queen Who Never Was, she had started to admire her. She was fierce, loyal and in Rhea's humble opinion, should have been queen.

This year, her nameday was no different. She was nervous, but she always was. The only thing that would indicate that it was her nameday, was that she received presents and congratulations. And she liked it that way. She wasn't forgotten about, but she certainly didn't need to be the centre of attention.

When she woke up, Helene helped her get dressed, braided her hair into a low bun, congratulated her and pressed a small box into Rhea's hands.

"I wanted to give you your present before we broke fast," Helene told her, with an excited undertone in her voice. "Go on, open it." she urged when Rhea took too long for her liking.

It was a simple blue box with a bow wrapped around it. Rhea pulled at the bow and opened the box. Inside was a beautiful silver necklace, with the sigil of House Arryn hung to it.

"It is beautiful Helene, thank you," Rhea said, while Helene took the necklace and fastened it around Rhea's neck. It laid perfectly on her chest and filled her with a new sort of pride.

After admiring the necklace in the mirror for a short while, Helene broke the silence; "We should go break fast with your father, otherwise we might be late." They both quickly gathered themselves and walked with their arms linked towards the hall.

After they ate, Rhea's father beckoned her to follow him out of the hall. "I have your present in my chambers," He added as they walked side by side towards his private chambers. It was quite a long way to the room, so Rhea started to guess in her head what her present could be. Maybe an old history book, or maybe a beautiful dress.

When they had finally arrived, Rhea followed her father into the room and closed the door behind her. She considered taking a seat at his desk but decided to stand after seeing her father pull something from underneath his bed. He put the brown leather packages on top of his bed, and Rhea immediately made her way over there.

She carefully unpacked the leathers to reveal a gorgeous longsword. The blade was long and not too wide, just as Rhea preferred when fighting. The handle was leather with an eagle's head on the pummel, signalling its belonging to Rhea's house. It was fine steel, white as winter's snow.

"I had it made just for you. I know you will carry it with honour and strength," her father told her smiling softly at her reaction, "it only needs a name, which you will have to give it."

Rhea was starstruck. Sure, her father had always given her expensive and nice presents before, but this sword was something else entirely. She reached out to trace the design of the pummel and finally broke the silence.

"Heavensclaw."

Her father looked approvingly from the sword to his daughter, seemingly happy with the name she picked out. It was well-fitted, to Rhea and the sword. Rhea broke the strong eye contact she was having with the sword and turned towards her father, jumping up and hugging him tightly.

"Thank you so much for the best present father," she mumbled into his neck, while his arms snaked around her to tightly squeeze her back. Her father gave the best hugs. Every time Rhea would receive a hug from him, it would feel like she was hugging a bear. Of course, the bear wasn't a violent bear or anything. A soft cuddly bear.

"I am glad you like it my child." her father said after they had let each other go again. "And happy nameday."

Their sweet moment was interrupted by a knock on the door. Her father made his way over and opened the door just a bit, to see who was disturbing him. It was a guard named Rowan. Rowan was a newer guard who had only begun working in King's Landing for two months. Rhea knew this because she had asked Helene to inform her of all the people working for her father, and all the guards that protected them. It was so she could know people before they knew her, making her always have a slight advantage.

"My Lord, the king has requested your presence in his chambers. He said it was rather urgent," Rowan told her father, who was already imagining what kind of situation the king had gotten himself now. Her father quickly looked back to Rhea and asked with his eyes if she would be alright, and a way to say sorry. She was rather used to these requests from the king, so she sent a small smile towards her father, assuring him that she would be alright.

Rhea's father left with the guard, leaving Rhea all alone. She turned back to Heavensclaw and saw that there was also a belt with a sheath attached to it, so she could carry it easily. The belt was made from leather with a beautiful stitching pattern stitched into it. She quickly wrapped the belt around her waist and put her sword into the sheath.

The rest of the day went by as normal. She visited Meleys, went horseriding on her favourite horse, Willow, a dark brown mare and visited the library. There, she read in a quiet corner, on a windowsill. She was reading a book about the history of the Reach, and the current rulers. Willas Tyrell stood out the most to her, seeing he bred dogs and horses. And of course because of the horrible accident that he had suffered.

After finishing the book, she picked up another one to read to bed. This one was about the citadel and all the scientific research they were doing there. It would be the perfect book to fall asleep to, seeing as the maester's way of writing seemed awfully boring.

Rhea could feel the judgy stares of the women of court as she hurriedly walked past them, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone, so they couldn't start a conversation. A lot of people at court thought it to be wrong for a girl Rhea's age to not have a septa. She was taught all things boys were taught, she could fight and some people even thought she was supposed to be married already. Rhea was for that reason incredibly grateful that her father denied all marriage proposals and she was glad that she got taught things like a boy would, that way she would at least have a decent chance at becoming a good and honourable human being.

It was still not dark out, so she made a stop at her chambers and then proceeded to walk towards the armoury, where she would know that Gillian would be. Gillian was a King's guard and was a great friend of her father's. They had fought together in the rebellion and had stayed close ever since. This caused Gillian to automatically be the first choice of her father when picking a knight who could teach Rhea how to fight. Rhea usually had training every morning with Gillian, but yesterday he had told her that she wouldn't have to show up on her birthday.

When reaching the armoury, Rhea found Gillian sorting through the swords to see which needed to be sharpened. Upon hearing footsteps, Gillian looked up and when discovering who it was, smiled immediately.

"Little lady Arryn couldn't keep herself out of a fight for one day?" he asked teasingly with nothing close to annoyance on his face, contrary to the tone he was using.

"I can't if that fight ends with me beating you again, Gillian," she answered, just as smug as he had asked.

"How's the sword feeling?" Gillian asked Rhea, referring to the sword on her hip. "You knew about it? and didn't tell me?" Rhea shot back shocked and a little disappointed that he had known of her father's gift.

"Of course, I knew about it, I helped design it," he answered like it was the most normal thing in the world. "Should we give it a test run? See if you know which end to use when fighting?"

"Alright, but be prepared to be beaten," she said with newfound determination in her voice. They had kept score of the number of times each person had one a match between the two of them and wrote it in chalk on an inside wall just next to the entry to the armoury. There was a difference in the amount of tally underneath the letter 'G' and the letter 'R', with the G winning by a landslide, but Rhea was determined to at least make it even. That was her way of knowing she was as good as Gillian. And at the end of the fight, there was indeed an extra stripe underneath the R.

She did not see her father until supper. He looked exhausted and they ate together in his chambers, sharing what they both did today. Rhea told her about her win against Gillian and Jon told her about his day with the king. The king had gone on a drunken spree, declaring that 'nobody loved him the way Lyanna had' he was of course referencing Lyanna Stark, who had been his betrothed until she had gotten kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen and was eventually killed. Her father also told her about the state Westeros was in currently and asked her how she would fix certain problems. They did that so Rhea could learn to think on her own, and not just rely on others, like King Robert relied on her father.

Rhea bid her father goodnight and made her way over to her chambers, where she greeted Rowan, the nervous lad, as he was standing guard at her chambers that night. Helene helped her bathe and brushed and braided her hair into a simple braid while softly humming a tune to her.

She bid Rhea goodnight and left her chambers. Rhea waited until she couldn't hear Helene's soft footsteps any longer and when they were completely gone, silence engulfed her. For a moment, she just stared at the ceiling until she jumped up and pulled a bag from underneath her bed. In it were normal clothes and a coat. She got dressed quickly and grabbed her coin pouch and a dagger. She only had to wait until poor Rowan got sleepy enough to not see her slip by him.

Rowan must have been extremely tired because he had had to work at night for 5 straight days. Rhea of course did not actually feel sorry for him, because she had been the one to ask Gillian to put him at her door tonight.

And her plan had worked, before she knew it, she had entered the secret passageway nearest her room and began walking down it with a burning candle for light in her hand. Since the age of 6, Rhea had been sneaking into the passageways to get around the castle unbeknownst to people. Still, after ten years she had yet to discover all the passageways and was determined to complete the map that she had been working on.

When she came towards the split of the paths she knew one way, but she chose to go the other way. The passageway was long and eventually turned towards the right. The thing about the passageways that excited her so much that she would never know what she would come across. For example, she once caught Lady Falyse Stokeworth rather aggressively kissing a guard called Petrus and she caught a glimpse of Ser Boros Blount falling onto the pummel of his sword, which caused him a black eye. When asked about his black eye, Ser Boros had told people he had encountered an attacker in the middle of the night. So much for being brave.

This night felt different somehow. The passageway was extremely long, longer than any other passageway and seemed to have only one end. At the end of the passageway, she had to crawl towards the opening to see where she would have ended up. She ended up in a hallway that was remote and quiet. Nobody was around, not even the guards.

The rundown structure of the hallway told her she was probably in one of the unoccupied chamber hallways. The chambers underground were often abandoned because the people looked down upon sleeping underground. It made them feel like peasants, Rhea had heard a couple of ladies say once when she was supposed to be reading.

The quiet was broken when Rhea heard footsteps. She quickly dived behind a statue of an old King on a horse, not bothering to read which king it was. Because of the minimal light sources in the hallway, Rhea sat in a perfect shadowed spot. She could not be seen by others, but she could see the entire hallway very clearly.

The footsteps quickly became louder and Rhea could see two figures making their way towards one of the rooms on the other side of the hallway. They seemed to be in a hurry, but not in a stressed hurry, but more an excited hurry. Rhea wasn't stupid, she knew of lust and what happened between men en women when they shared the same lust.

The two figures came closer, seemingly almost reaching the door that they were aiming for. That was until the male figure pushed the female figure against the wall and started kissing her passionately. They had obviously kissed before and were probably lovers.

"Jaime slow down, inside," the female voice cried out, almost like a moan. Rhea knew that voice, she had heard it dozens of times before. When the two lovers broke apart, Rhea was shocked. It seemed like the world had stopped and she could only focus on them. Disgust travelled around her body when she realised who the figures were.

Jaime Lannister and his sister, the Queen.

......

word count: 2449

pip talks!

first official chapter and I am currently reading 'Only A Northern Song' by @dinosaureatsman so I had to give a quick shout-out to my man Willas because I am obsessed with him. I also totally did not write this when I'm supposed to be learning for exams in 2 weeks xD

enjoy !