Rhaegar cannot breathe.
There is a violent ache in his chest. So brutally hurt that it has started to numb.
Above him is a grey blurriness. Around him are the swirling roars of the Trident. Shouting. Fingers scrabbling in the waters around his head. He cannot breathe.
Shouting.
Rubies?
When he blinks the blurry grey has turned into a vast whiteness.
He is standing, unhurt. Rhaegar looks at his hands. No scars from the impact of his mailed glove crushing against the force of Robert Baratheon's hurtling shield. His fingers are whole. He can still play the harp. Mother will love that. Mother always says that Rhaegar's are princely hands.
Rhaegar looks around. He does not recognise the stones and snows around him.
He looks ahead. A figure stands before him. Inexplicably he knows – he knows - that this is his child.
Rhaegar squints but it is of no use. He cannot clearly see his child. He can only make out a grey-eyed dark-haired long-faced figure. So Lady Lyanna's blood has won out, it seems.
He remembers Lady Lyanna taking his outstretched hand, her eyes trained on his horse with a delighted gleam, her eyes mesmerised more by the horse and its trappings than by Rhaegar himself. He remembers how Lady Lyanna clamoured for a horse of her own whilst lavishing attention on Rhaegar's destrier. He remembers how Lady Lyanna pleaded to go home, afterwards.
"Not yet," Rhaegar gently told her. The road is not safe for a lady round with child. "But soon."
Rhaegar remembers Lady Lyanna's stern eyes coldly regarding him.
His child in front of him says, "Today is my lord father's name day feast."
Rhaegar blinks. A boy. "Is it?" he hears himself ask. Rhaegar can feel a faint smile on his lips. "Tell me about your father."
"Father loves me well," Rhaegar's son says. "During the feast Father asked me if I should like to have more honeyed chicken. I told him yes. Then Father asked me if I should like to have more wolfberry cakes." Rhaegar can hear the excitement and the barely disguised pride in his son's voice. "I was sat on Father's table even though I am a bastard."
Rhaegar blinks again. There was no High Septon to approve a second marriage, but he is planning to legitimise his child when he becomes king.
"I am your father," Rhaegar tells his son. Surely it will be a comfort to his son, to know that when Rhaegar sits the Iron Throne there will be no talk of bastards.
But his son only says, "Are you."
They are now standing underneath a covered bridge, still with stone and snow around them. Rhaegar does not understand how they got here.
There is a chill slyly creeping up his spine.
"Father let me perch on his shoulders here," his son continues. "I was very small then. It was my name day. He told me I was a giant, and we laughed, and Father walked around and talked with his people and I was perched on his shoulders."
Dragons are giants, Rhaegar thinks.
They are now in a great hall. It is larger than Rhaegar remembers, and the banners look different. Rhaegar finds himself standing by the High Table, and his son sitting at the end of the table, saying, "Father assured my sister that the singer will return. My sister loves singers."
Will Rhaenys? wonders Rhaegar.
There is something not right.
It is quiet. It is cold.
Rhaegar has never seen snow before.
His son traces the long melancholy face carved on a tree trunk. When Rhaegar looks to his right there is a black pool, red leaves drifting on its surface.
"My father is kind and just," Rhaegar's son continues. "He tells us stories in the evenings and asks us about our day. But when Father dispenses the king's justice he puts on his Lord face."
But Rhaegar is a prince. "I am your father."
"Are you."
Rhaegar curls his hands into fists. His hands do not hurt. He remembers the fury in Robert Baratheon's blow. Where are they?
"Father tugged up my furs so that I will be warm," Rhaegar's son says, a blow to the numbing in Rhaegar's chest. "Father kissed me on my forehead during my name days and gave me gifts for I have no mother. Father smiled at my first letter. I showed Father my first teeth which fell off, and Father japed that we should string all my child's teeth in a necklace. Father told me that he was proud of my progress on the sword and on riding."
There is a wall of ice looming over them now, and Rhaegar's son is clad in black that Rhaegar has even more difficulty seeing him. "Father taught me to be brave, yes. Not to stop fearing, but to be brave. A man can still be brave even when he is afraid, Father said. That is the only time a man can be brave, Father said."
Rhaegar's son is holding a sword.
"What else did your father teach you?"
"Father taught me honour and duty."
Do I live after all? Rhaegar thinks.
"Is that so?" Rhaegar asks.
"Truly," says Rhaegar's son. "Father taught my brother to know his men. Father visits his bannermen, and his halls and table are open to his bannermen during his name day and other days besides. Do you know, my father invites a different member of his household each night to dine by his right hand so that they can talk to each other? Father also travels to deliver the king's justice himself."
Rhaegar wishes he did not ask questions. It is cold, and confusing.
The shortness of his breathing is starting to return.
"But what is the king's justice?" Rhaegar hears himself ask, nonetheless, thinking of his own royal sire. "Is it worth honour? Duty?"
"The blood of the First Men," says Rhaegar's son, "still flows in the veins of the Starks, Father told me. I have the Stark blood. Our way is the older way. When a man passes a sentence –"
Rhaegar wants to clamp his hands over his ears. Stop, he wants to shout.
They are under the covered bridge. Rhaegar's son is no longer in blacks, and seems younger again. "There's my lord father on the bridge." He points up. The voice of Rhaegar's son is full of pride, and love.
Rhaegar tries to catch his breath.
"It's my brother! We will play a chasing game." And off he darts after a blur of auburn.
No, Rhaegar realises, this child of his is not his son.
What has happened? What has he done?
Rhaegar steps out from beneath the bridge, and looks up, squinting, to see if he could glimpse at his child's father. Through the light flurry of snow, Rhaegar can only make out furs cradling a grey-eyed dark-haired long-faced figure. So Lady Lyanna has won.
Rhaegar shields his eyes, the better to squint at his child's father. Who is the man? Who – ?
Shouting.
Horses.
The roaring of the Trident around his head.
Rubies.
Rubies, rubies, rubies. Rubies in the waters, says the shouting. Rubies bleeding from the Dragon Prince.
Rhaegar cannot breathe.
"NED," comes the faint booming voice of Robert Baratheon. Give pursuit, booms Robert Baratheon. Chase the rest of the army, booms Robert Baratheon. Faintly. Faintly.
Faintly.
It is quiet.
It is cold.
Who is Ned, wonders Rhaegar. Ned? Who – ?
fin