If Lyanna was alive…
AU fic. At the end of Robert's Rebellion, the Targaryen Dynasty has been completely obliterated. Yet, Lyanna leaves the Tower of Joy alive, and the Last Dragon is alive and growing within her womb. How will she hide Rhaeghar's heir when she is now a Baratheon Queen? One-shot spanning over years, following Jon Baratheon as he grows up. Shamelessly L+R= J.
Disclaimer: Purely based off GRRM's work – Etcetera, etcetera.
A/N: And I've reworked the timeline a little to write this story.
The gates opened wide – wide as possibly could be – the day Lyanna Stark arrived in King's Landing. Crowds line the street, to see the woman thousands had died for. Snatched right out of the Tower of Joy, they whisper, with her kidnapper slain in battle later that day.
They see drawn back shoulders, high chin, and defiance in blizzard grey eyes. A horse instead of carriage like other high-borns. No-one sees the deep bruises underneath those eyes, the stiffness in her posture, or the favouring of her left side over her right indicating injury.
They say that the day Lyanna Stark wed Robert Baratheon, the red comets were seen in the sky. Ravens in flocks to the west. Wolves howling in the North. "Must be omens…surely good ones…"Because of her imprisonment by the Dragon Prince, and the gleeful speculation of the events in the Tower, the nobility reverted back to the barbaric practice of hanging the matrimonial bed sheets the morning after, the splashes of blood an insignia proclaiming the bride's purity.
No one ever knew of the hushed conversations, grey eyes calculating, and the small flask of goat's blood hidden beneath the royal mattress.
It was a complicated birth, they say, a premature birth. She almost dies. It's only fair. The kingdom bled for her, now she bleeds for the king. (Which king doesn't really matter, sly smirks).
Besides, the Targaryen dynasty is gone, gone, gone – with the Queen, the young prince Viserys and newborn princess' lifeblood emptied in painting the rocks of Dragonstone. Some wonder what the deceased infant Danaerys would have been like, had she been allowed to live. Which side of the Targaryen coin would have she landed?
Mercifully, Lyanna's infant is a direwolf through and through. Lyanna hopes she won't have to worry about the sides of coins for him. Lyanna sits beside the weirwood tree days later in deep and utter thanks, because she wouldn't know how to explain away violet eyes and silver hair.
Ultimately, it is Robert who decides the infant's name.
"Jon." he says, "Jon Baratheon – a good, strong name for a future king." That's the first time he tells Lyanna he loves her, he swears by the Seven that there will be no more whores and no more bastards. Lyanna is sceptical. How many bastards are there already?
The Seven are not her gods, but they will have to do. She hesitantly returns the declaration, and with those three little words Robert looks happier than Lyanna has ever seen him.
She commissions Varys to find Robert's bastards. He gives her an appraising look, and asks if she wants them 'dealt with.' She can't pretend she hasn't thought about it, several times. But she refuses to have the blood of innocent children on her hands. Vestiges of the renowned Stark honour remain with her, if nothing else.
She receives word back. There were five, but two have already died in their infancy. One girl is in the Riverlands, born to a whore. She sends the girl to the other one who is in the Vale, Mya Stone. She then sends a raven to Jon Arryn, commanding to have them stationed in good Houses and to be trained for high places, well, high enough for a bastard – handmaidens or the like.
There is a bastard boy from King's Landing she sends to Winterfell, a small lad she believes to be called Gendry. She asks Ned to treat him well. He may not be of Stark blood, but he is still tied to her. Later, she hears them tell of the "Bastard Stag of Winterfell". The bastards' mothers might hate her, but in the end, Lyanna is giving their children a life they would never have otherwise.
Varys asks her, "Why such interest in bastards?" She can't tell him the reason why is that those bastards have a better claim to the Baratheon throne than her son at the moment, and that she'd rather have them in a place where she can keep an eye on them. But when the Spider starts whistling a well-known folk tune, "Dragon in the Red Keep", Lyanna's glance shoots up.
That bloody Spider.Varys smirks knowingly (is there any other way Varys smirks?) There is a terse silence, both assessing the other. And then the laughter comes, and with it, tentative first bonds of…not friendship…but something else is born.
She gives birth to a girl, two years later. By then, it's already clear to her that Robert is in love with a Lyanna that no longer exists – a fanciful, wild vision of a girl that in reality died with a dragon on the Trident. Robert still hasn't realised it yet, though. Some of those warrior types are a bit dense, Lyanna bemuses.
They name the girl Myrcella, Robert's choice again. A beautiful little girl with a headful of black hair. But still a direwolf's grey eyes. Could it be that Stark blood outweighed all other lines? BloodoftheFirstMenandKingsofTheNorthandWinterisCom ingandWargsandDirewolves. The old gods are unforgiving, but the Starks were among their first children.
About a year later, Robert and Lyanna attend the wedding of Robert's brother, Stannis, to the Lannister cub, Cersei. Lyanna knows of Cersei, and knows that if she were not alive, it would be Cersei that Robert would have married. That would've been a second Doom of Valyria in the making. Stannis seems happy about his marriage– well, as happy as Stannis can seem – after all, Cersei is reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms.
But Lyanna only has to look at her taut smile, and Tywin Lannister's slight sneer at the proceedings, to realise that the marriage is not enough for this power-hungry family. She'll have to keep an eye on them (Maybe she'll find out if Lannisters really shit gold?)Robert gets drunk that night, and he is on her like a heaving auroch.
Lyanna tries to protest, pushing him and biting him. Not that it makes a gods-damned difference. After a while, she just stops.
There are no tears, Lyanna makes sure of that. If anything, she can't help but feel pity for this man, who despite getting everything he thought he wanted; it is all ashes in his mouth.
He says he doesn't remember what he did the next morning, but Lyanna sees the shame and guilt in his eyes.
The most painful memory of that night, Lyanna thinks years afterwards, is that her youngest son was conceived from rape. She tries not to think about it every time she looks into Steffon's Baratheon-blue eyes.
If she was asked, she would say that this was the souring point in their marriage. That it was the beginning of the end.
Jon's cousin Robb is visiting King's Landing. The nine-year old boys get along as if they were brothers – maybe in another life. They are running around, giggling and laughing, in the Queen's chambers while she sits with her brother. The younger Princess Myrcella and Prince Steffon, along with their Northern cousin, four-year old Sansa, struggle to keep up with the lively boys. Catelyn is at Winterfell still, with the babe Arya, and too heavy with her fourth child to travel. She writes to Ned of strange dreams, things that come to be, of weirwood trees and dreams where she sees from the eyes of animals.
Ned wonders what it means for the child she carries.
He is snapped out of his reverie when Rob and Jon knock over a torch, the flame singeing their sleeves. Robb cries out in pain, red burns already patterning his skin. Ned and Lyanna jump up, almost simultaneously.
But Jon, whose sleeve sports bigger burns than Robb's, appears unblemished. The little boy, with his mop of dark curls, is staring at the remaining flames in enthrallment. The blood in Ned's face drains a little, and he looks up to see Lyanna's grey eyes assessing him. Ned's own eyes, reflected back at him in the face of another, with a thinly-veiled threat.
Later that day, he is flipping paper. Leafing through the pages of a genealogy book – "Baratheon, hair black; Baratheon, hair black…Jon Baratheon, hair dark brown." He leans back on his chair. "Gods be good, Lyanna."
He confronts her after their evening meal. She motions for the servants and handmaidens to take their leave, citing a wish for family time with Ned, and their respective children.
When they're gone, and the children are playing out of ears range, Ned rounds on Lyanna in a quiet, but fierce, voice. "He is not a Baratheon. He is the gods-damned son of Rhaegar Targaryen!"
Her lips draw back in a snarl, "Be quiet, you fool! Ears are everywhere in King's Landing." Ned is silent, but his eyes are telling.
She continues, more composedly, "We will speak of this later. Not a word to anyone, Ned, or it could mean mine and my son's heads on stakes." This Lyanna is different from the sister he remembers. Ruling has changed her. This Lyanna less wild and impulsive, but instead is icy, hard, and savage in such a controlled manner that Ned is suddenly struck with the impression that she personifies the North better than her brothers ever could. She is a true Queen. And despite who might sit on the Iron Throne at the moment, her son is the true heir of Westeros.
The Last Dragon hidden in Stag's hide – oh the irony is almost too much.
After Ned leaves with Robb and Sansa back to his chambers, and Jon, Myrcella and Steffon have been put to bed by nursemaids, Lyanna sits with her untouched wine glass long into the night. She feels like weeping, because she knows at a single order, she could send her brother to the grave with the knowledge.
(Another) A/N: I'd originally planned this as a couple of thousand words. But it mutated…oops. Sorry about killing off Dany, it's all in the name of the story *throws hands up while running from lynch mob*
But yeah, we'll see how it goes. Reviews would be very much appreciated. I'll update sometime in the next week.