playιng: [baby mine] - [betty noyes]

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mild nsfw content ahead!

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October, 280 AC- DRAGONSTONE

The first rays of dawn found the Prince and Princess in the bleakness of a new room, limbs tangled, and bodies naked.

The candles had caved in on each other hours ago, and the fire had consumed itself to less than embers. Yet despite the salty chill that pranced in through the windows, there was warmth in that bed.

They kissed and caressed their skins in between Elia's reading. She'd picked the book sometime after they'd fallen asleep. Though sleeplessness came to her, and so she thought it would be a good idea to tire herself out by reading while her husband slept. It was her copy of the History of Westeros that Rhaegar had gifted her months before their wedding.

He'd been awake for the past hour without saying anything until he'd grown bored, "Why don't you come to sleep? Besides, you'll strain your eyes if you keep reading in the dark."

"I cannot sleep," she said simply, leaning into his chest and pulling the dull and scratchy covers up to her chest.

His eyelids were half shut, and he peeked over Elia's shoulder to see what she had been reading. She had been reading the section that talks about northern gods.

"Do you believe in that," he asked. "In gods, I mean."

She didn't lift her eyes from the pages when she replied, "I haven't really thought about it. I suppose I do, but it's hard to believe in something I cannot see."

He shifted, and she could feel the bed moving a bit behind her, "You cannot see the wind, but you know it is there."

"That is different," she said, slightly annoyed he'd used such a predictable counterpoint on her. "It's easier for you to believe in these things. You are Targaryen, after all."

"How do you mean?" He asked, grunting as he shifted his weight to sit up on the bed.

She faced him and wrapped the covers around herself. "I mean, you conquered with dragons. You were given your place in society. My people had to flee and build and adapt. So it's easier to believe in things I can see and touch."

As she said this, Rhaegar took her hand and pressed it above the sheets between his thighs, "You can feel me, do you believe in me?" He asked, getting dangerously close to her.

"I do," she kissed him, and he set her book aside.

July, 280 AC- DRAGONSTONE

Princess Elia was as swollen as a melon in her sixth month of pregnancy. Though she was certain she was carrying a girl, many maesters stumbled over themselves to prove she was carrying a boy.

Examination after examination, they all attempted to figure out the gender of this baby.

They treated Elia with the same care and forethought a common goat would be treated to. They spoke about her as if she were missing from the same room.

For this current examination, they pricked the Princess on her finger and drew out a couple of drops of blood onto a bowl of water.

The maesters, all three of them, and the Princess and Prince of Dragonstone looked upon the drop as it settled above the water.

"Your Grace," one of the maesters began. "If the drop settles above the water, then it is a girl. If it sinks, it should be a boy."

Rhaegar fixed his eyes on the bowl. "These are old wives' tales. Regardless, we shall welcome the babe with love all the same." He put a hand behind Elia's chair as one of the maester's tended to her bleeding finger.

"I will take my leave now," Rhaegar dismissed himself. "I will see you in the evening," he squeezed her shoulder.

And with that, he left her with more tests to prove she was carrying a boy. She must be.

"The Princess cannot have a female babe, only a male one. The Prince needs heirs. Male heirs. We know this," he shook a finger in the air.

Elia had tried to fight the melancholy that would settle in her soul after every session. How terrible must it be to be still unborn and already unwanted, and all for the sin of being a woman.

She sighed loudly, sulking a bit in her chair.

One of the maester's, Kirth, perked up. "Do our tests bore you, my Princess," without even trying to hide his scowl. His entire face warped into a frown as he awaited her response.

"If I may," one of the older maesters spoke, offering a whisper of a smile to the Princess. "These tests may be time-consuming, but they are necessary. And I assume the Princess must only be tired due to her advanced stage in pregnancy." He chuckled and shyly looked among his peers, quietly reminding them this was a royal they were dealing with.

Elia nodded, grateful for him excusing her unseemly manners.

"It is true that pregnancy hardly favors me. Please be understanding of my condition, gentlemen." She spoke as solemnly as she could.

"Very well," Kirth said and continued explaining the test to his peers.

Elia shut her eyes, allowing his explanation to be the background of her thoughts, her worries.

She hadn't seen her mother in nearly a year, but through correspondences, she assured Elia she was as healthy as a newly born colt. Though through her uncle, Lewyn, she came to learn, her mother was in critical condition. She had suffered from multiple convulsions and would grow lethargic and confusing.

The Princess of Sunspear would speak her sentences out of place. It was a heart condition, and no Maester alive had managed to explain the reasoning behind her symptoms.

She mentally counted what she had: a sullen husband , a dying mother, and a home where, regardless of ladies and flowers she adorned it with remained gray and cold. She had her father, Oberyn, and his daughters, Ashara, Uncle Lewyn, her unborn baby, Arianne, Quentyn, and Mellario.

And of course the Queen who in writing has asked Elia to confide in her. The good Queen who had disclosed snippets of her own married life and offered courage to sweet Elia, for marriage to a Targaryen, was seldom a smooth affair.

In that moment, a legion of women crashed into that room, Ashara at the head of them. Her smile and chatter faltered at seeing Elia's glum state. Her head bobbed between the Dornish Princess and the Maesters and their water bowl and a balled up bloody linen strip. "What is this?" the purple eyed woman asked.

Elia's eyes softened in relief as Ashara approached her, placing one hand in Elia's and another behind her chair.

Though Elia was older than her friend, Ashara behaved as if the opposite were true. "What is this?" Ashara asked once more.

The other ladies now formed a sort of barrier, preventing the maesters from leaving. They looked at the bowl as if they had been dissecting a dog, and one of the oldest women, a noble lady from the Riverlands, spoke. "Aren't your experiments rather invasive?" she spoke with a casualty only a mother could muster.

Maesters looked to Elia then, for it was known the maesters had a considerable level of authority and impunity at court, especially moreso than Elia's dozen ladies. They waited to see who Elia would favor: the flock of women who spoke as a bawd would or the decent gentlemen assigned to her by the King.

"Perhaps we may resume the tests tomorrow." Elia stood, dipping her head to the maesters and allowing Ashara to walk her over to her ladies.

The women parted and engulfed Elia, cooing at her and her growing stomach and sweetening her up with kind words.

Elia resumed her mental list of things she had, adding her ladies to the list.

They pranced to a different hall and sat on cushions and on chairs under a window where the salt from the ocean below wafted in. A scented mixture of teas and perfumes and sweet pastries mixed with the clatter of dishes and cacophony of talking.

October, 280 AC- DRAGONSTONE

Born unnamed and unconditionally loved, Elia's first child had come into the world with eyes wide open. Eager to take everything in, the child made not a sound until her birth cord was severed. Then she squalled, a sound so melancholic it moved the Princess to tears. "Blood of my blood! My darling, my eyes, my skies!" The Princess proclaimed.

The attending maester took the babe and set her atop Elia's sweat-dampened breast. Elia cradled her princeling against her chest, taking in the sight of her.

How wonderous! Words failed her, and Elia could not find the correct expressions to convey her emotions. So the Princess sobbed loudly and uncharacteristically unabashedly.

Through teary eyes, she soaked up her daughter, her brown skin, her brown hair and the strand of silver, and her nearly black violet eyes.

The Princess of Dragonstone blinked away the exhaustion from her eyes, and with all the strength she had left gave one order.

"Call for the Prince of Dragonstone. Tell Rhaegar to come meet his daughter."

And in her final string of consciousness, she blessed her child.

Rhaegar barely seemed to mind anyone else in the room, too bewitched by his daughter and moved by the new surge of fatherhood.

He took the babe from the maester, "Rhaenys," he declared her. A name he'd set aside months before her conception, just for this child.

Upon his order, the maester tended to Elia, and a pair of wetnurses tended to Rhaenys.

On that night, two ravens departed from Dragonstone: one to Dorne and one to Castle Black.

In the morrow one Raven had arrived delivering the news of the passing of the Princess of Dorne and the succession of Sunspear.

•●•●•●•●•

April, 281 AC- KING'S LANDING

A host sailed from Dragonstone on the last week of March the year following Rhaenys Targaryen's birth.

She was expected at court, and despite the cautions of maesters against Elia's delicate health, they went.

Upon arrival, they were greeted by Grand Maester Pycelle and a small group of Septas.

They entered the Red Keep, where a small court had gathered awaiting their arrival.

King Aerys looked down on them from his seat of swords, his queen and his second son beside him. Perched upon his throne it seemed to Elia that the king appeared more animal than human.

It was known the King had gone mad in his youth, but even at the inception of his madness he held onto his humanity.

Her mother had told her that if well groomed, the King might have appeared handsome for the duration of a glance. Perhaps it is only his surname which makes him and his kin beautiful. A good name can hide impurities.

Perhaps that was true for Aerys, but Elia knew it was not the case for her beautiful husband.

Aerys beckoned his heir with a skinny finger that had a ridiculously long and unkempt nail at its tip. The prince strode to the base of the throne through the whispers from the small crowd.

"Rhaenys Targaryen, meet your grandsire," he held the babe out for his father. Rhaella indulged at the sight of her eldest and his firstborn. Soon it would be her turn to greet the pair.

Little Viserys ever the well-behaved princeling quietly pointed the child out to his mother.

Aerys took a single look at the child. Rhaegar moved her slightly closer to the King but he seemed to hesitate. "She smells dornish," he grimaced.

"Oh," Rhaella chirped. Ashamed or surprised, Rhaegar could not tell.

"She is dornish, father."

"You're meant to have Targaryen heirs." His fingers squirmed above Rhaenys' face. It was as if it physically hurt to touch the babe.

He pushed himself up from his throne and pushed past Rhaegar who still held his daughter out to his father.

"Behold," he looked back to his son. "Yet another confirmation of Aerys Targaryen's greatness! I have brokered an alliance between the Crown and Dorne. Here is living proof of their devotion and loyalty to the King!" He cackled.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

I'm back?!!! So how's everyone? Did you go to college, graduate, get married and have kids and got a divorce in the time it took me to update?! Oops this is kinda embarrassing after promising to upload consistently. 😬 anyway this chapter gave me like a year's long writer's block and it wasn't until I decided to write it out of order and do some more research (read got fanfics, go on tumblr and pinterest lol) did I finally get this chapter done. If you're still here, I sincerely thank you 🥹🫶🏼. Please keep supporting me and this work🙏🏼🙇🏽‍♀️ also idk why it ended up so fookin long but I split it into 2 chapters in the end.