A/N: GRRM's world and characters not mine. This is the first time I've ever published on here, I think my last edit was good but I don't have a beta so maybe lots of errors I missed. Please review...

The room was sweltering, so hot the healer was beginning to feel ill which spoke unsympathetic for the woman in the huge feather bed. She had been heavy laboring for more than a day now with no end in sight that the healer could make out. Due to the sickness that had induced the labor she looked half dead before the work had even begun, tears had poured from her eyes when the pains came and when they had gone she would be left in a fit of coughs that she was unable to rid herself of before the next pains had come. If her husband was not so well placed with such a well-lined purse the healer would have given up the cause the moment he saw the woman. There was no saving this woman, and he was more likely to get himself with the sickness than to pull a healthy child from her.

The mother was near gone and the healer would take death over staying in the boiling stench of sweat and sickness any longer, but the master of the manse near begged for him to try a bit longer. A servant girl was sent in to burn incense in hopes that it would make the room a bit more bearable, but it only made the room smoky and gave the stink a sweet tinge that roll the healer's stomach. Sickness, sweat, tears, incense smoke, heat, and a soft mumbling from the mother's mouth of 'please, please, please' were what greeted the somehow strong, healthy boy to this world. Before the healer could even look up to tell the mother it was done at last she was gone. He past the babe to one of the servant girls to clean up and left the room. He didn't have far to go, just across the hall to a sitting room where a tall man with yellow blond hair and beard, who was getting on up in size and another who was pale and bald but also a bit plump sat talking in whispers. Upon seeing him they rose to their feet.

"Your wife is gone, Magister," he greeted bluntly.

"And the child?" inquired the bald one.

"A boy, and healthy it appears." That seemed to please them both, though the yellow hair one was clearly mourning his wife. After that he asked to be paid so he could go at long last, they obliged and he was on his way out as the servant girl was coming out of the birthing room with the cleaned up child. Upon reserving the child they took up their whispers again. This time with his mind a bit clearer he could make out this and that.

"He has the eyes, not quite the same as the other but close enough."

"His mother's hair too."

"Again not quite the same but enough, I think."

Several turns of the moon later in a different place altogether a young woman of just barely six and ten began to weep as she sat down in the chair at her writing table while hugging her swollen abdomen.

"Oh Gods, oh Gods," that seemed to be the only words she could get out. In her mind she called them horrid monsters, vile beasts, creatures unfit to live any sort of life but that which would bind them in a cage. Those children were innocent, their only crime daring to be born to such a cruel world, a world that she had took part in creating for them, she and their father. She had never thought herself silly like those other girls until the news of her father and brother's deaths had come, that's when she finally saw silly is not a thing that girls are, it is a thing that children are, and she had been a silly stubborn child who had torn a hole in the world they all must live in, all in an attempt to get her way. But the Gods were making a joke of the world she thought she could have by sucking everything she loved in to that hole. She would dive in head first if the Gods would give her child a chance to survive.

So when Ser Gerold told her of the sacking of King's Landing she wept and wept, and then she prayed. For Elia and her children, for the queen and her remaining son, for the brother and father she'd lost and her brothers that still lived, for every person whose name she knew and every one that she didn't, she wept and she prayed. But even in the prayers that were meant to be repentance she was selfish, for every prayer that she prayed for another, she would pray for her own child. Visenya, my sweet Visenya, yet to touch this world yet already having lost your place in it.

She wept, she prayed, and she barely slept, that was all, she would not eat, she would not write, she would not read. She heard them whisper about it, about her health, about the fact that they had no maester for her. She heard them whisper plans to take her to Starfall but she was too far along to be moved now, they would not risk her child – Rhaegar's child, his only remaining child. By the laws of succession her sweet, innocent Visenya would be born the rightful queen. And when she heard them whisper this she would weep even more than what had become normal.

The morning before they came she woke knowing the three knights had been right, she had cried herself sick. Her stomach cramped and when she tried to stand it felt like someone was stabbing her in the back, every other three steps she took her core would ache beyond reason. She tried to eat that day but her stomach rolled weather from the cramping or the lack of eating she had done the past moon's turn she was not sure. By the next morning her core cramped more often than it did not. Shortly before mid-day she thought she heard horses approaching the tower but she was a bit busy trying to remember how to breathe to check and none of the knights guarding her came up. But then she was sure that that was swords clashing, men shouting, not just any men shouting but her dearest Ned.

At some point as she listened to Ned's voice she began to push to try and pass the cramping. All the while whispering to him, "Where are you, why is it taking you so long to reach me, Ned please, I need someone I love with me." The cramping came and she pushed and cried, and prayed. She could taste the salt from her tears and sweat, she was so tired, and she was heart, home, and body sick. Just one more push, she just knew it. That's when she felt the bed go wet at the juncture of her legs as if she had wet herself. After that the need to push doubled.

She throw off the blankets and pulled up the skirt of her shift. She pushed and pushed until she could push and pull. In those moments she was unsure of the passing of time, she didn't care. All that mattered was freeing her sweet Visenya. She called for help as loud as she could, "Please Ned, help me!" but no one came to her aid so she forced herself on ward. When she finally had her crying baby in her arms she laid back rocking the child and trying to remember any of the lullabies her mother had sung to them, but she could only remember bits of them so she just hummed and whispered "My sweet Visenya," over and over. She was bone tired and felt ready to break.

That was how they found her. Lying in a bed saturated with her own blood, mind gone from grief, cradling a crying newborn that was still attached to her, and mumbling "Visenya, Visenya." The room smelled of blood and roses, and death.

"That's a lot of blood," the short, lanky young man with brown hair and moss green eyes stated, the sound of his voice drew her attention.

"Ned! Howland! Come meet my sweet Visenya," her voice was cracked, it was nearly gone altogether. The two men looked to one another before Ned nodded and moved to his sister's side.

"Here hold your niece," she offered, he did as she told him, but quickly noticed something she had missed with her mind's sickness. The babe, 'her sweet Visenya', was a boy. "Her father named her; he did all this just for her." Ned didn't know what to say.

"She's beautiful, Lyanna," Howland spoke up; she beamed up at the little man.

"Isn't she? Her father won't mind that she doesn't look like him, because neither does Rhaenys…" with the mention of the other child her smile broke away. "Oh Gods, oh Gods, Rhaenys and Aegon are gone, they're all gone, Ned," she turned to her brother with fear and panic in her eyes, lining her unnaturally pale face, "Ned, promise me you won't let them touch her, promise me you will protect my child."

"Ly, I…"

"Promise me, Ned!" she begged.

"I promise, Ly, I promise," he answered her. With that the fear left her. She smiled and took hold of one of his hands in a tight grip before asking for the child back.

"Ly, I'm not sure if you have the strength," he began.

"If she has milk to give then…" Howland cut across him but was interrupted as well. For at that moment a bloody Ser Arthur Dayne stumbled in, the man was as near death as the woman in the bed, no threat.

"Is it a girl as he thought it would be?" Ser Arthur asked. Ned looked to his sister; she was back in her own fading world.

"No," he answered, "She hasn't realized that though." The knight nodded as if he had thought it would be a boy.

"The room down from this one Rhaegar kept his things there, their marriage documents, other writings, scrolls that were important for some reason or another, and your sister kept a written record of her time here in the top draw over there. It all belongs to him," he nodded to the baby, "He's the rightful king."

"Robert sits the throne now," Ned put in.

"We were going to take them to Starfall once the child came, and from there we hoped to make Dragonstone. Your sister made herself ill after the last news came, so I sent word to Ashara to have a wet nurse waiting. And if it's not too much bother, might you take Dawn back home?"

They had received word only hours before of a new fleet being built in King's Landing. Production of these Baratheon ships was going swiftly, they would have enough ships to sail in two maybe three turns of the moon, ships that would in three to four days of sailing be on the shores of Dragonstone carrying men who would kill her son and self. If this child she carried was strong it would be here to meet the same fate. But if the coiling in her abdomen was what she feared the child would be here sooner than it should be. From experience she knew that early arrivals did not bode well for the child's health. The Gods would take this child as they had taken others from her.

By the time she made it back to her rooms her breathing was labored and uneven, with sweat starting to run down the sides of her face and the center of her back. Out the window the mountain, the sea, and the sky seemed to be laboring this child with her. The sea rose high in the bay below as the clouds in the sky opened with an almighty down pour. The sound of the rumbling mountain and the booming thunder were only beat in their ability to induce fear in her by the churning and quaking of her own body. She had hoped that if she could just lay down, just rest, her body would stop working against her, but this was the child. This child would not wait for a fate written by others.

She would never be certain if she had called for help or if someone had just heard her pained cries, but at some point she wasn't alone anymore. The old Maester and the two servant girls helped as much as they could but the storm outside seemed to have move sway over the event taking place in her rooms than anyone else. As the sea rose so did the contraction, one crashing the shores of the island the other baring down on her body. It may have been days – it felt like days – but the Maester told her it had been five hours of the hardest work of his life when he was finally able to hand her the crying child.

This child, this healthy, strong, child was a beautiful baby girl, with wisps of silver hair and violet eyes. She was a survivor. Who would live with the weight of her family on her shoulders but she would not let anyone else completely write her fate.

"Daenerys," her voice was weaker than she thought it should be, "Her name will be Daenerys."

"Yes, your grace," a servant girl answered her as she also attempted to apply a damp cloth to the queen's brow. "I'll tell the Measter when 'e back."

She felt weaker than she had ever before. Her limbs were growing heavy and her head light, with spots at the edges of her vision.

"Viserys, where is Viserys?"

"That's where the Maester went, your grace, to fetch the little king."

"Ser Willem?"

"Aye, him too, your grace, now rest the little princess took your strength." She nodded but did not lower the lids of her eyes just yet, fearing she would not be able to lift them again once she had. She wanted to see her last remaining son once more. To tell him to watch over his sister, to stay safe, and find a new home even if that meant leaving the legacy of Aegon I behind.

But when the Maester returned with the little king and the loyal knight the queen was gone.