Disclaimer: I don't own A Song of Ice and Fire, and I make no profit writing any fanfiction of it. Further, I'd like it to be clear that in the case of any similarity between anything I write and the future work of any author writing the original work, that I hold no rights to any fanfiction. I make no claim to monetary compensation, and never will. For any intent and purpose, I cede any monetary rights to any fanfiction work to their respective authors.
(AN): Starting this one the day after posting Wildfire. Got the itch I suppose.
Elia
Thin fingers marked with sword calluses idly caressed the slight paunch of her stomach leftover from childbirth. Elia smiled faintly and snuggled back into the naked warmth of her husband, losing herself in the drowsy early morning warmth. They would be called soon enough to their duties. He to his Council, and she to her Solar and careful management of the ladies of the court. But for the moment, the Martell was happy enough simply to be.
Rhaegar had not always been so affectionate. The early days of their marriage had a polite civility, where Rhaegar had been kind enough but not truly caring, and Elia herself struggled to re-adjust herself to the distance of her family, her people, and her homeland given up for a pale prince who cared not at all for her sake. Carrying Rhaenys and Aegon had come out of duty more than any affection, and when the Maesters told her husband she would be unable to carry more children, there had been much talk of Rhaegar setting her aside for another.
But then came the war, and knives in the night before they'd smuggled out of the castle in the raining night and floating to freedom on a river barge. That night had been the first time her husband had truly begun to see her as Elia the woman, rather than as a Martell womb to carry out his prophecy, or another one of his duties. Shivering in the chill while trying to keep her children quiet, surrounded by defected Kingsguard in disguise had been the first night Rhaegar had looked at her with his purple eyes rather than through her.
Rhaegar had never stopped looking at her after that. And through fire and blood and a war of desperation, where he'd returned more often than not with crimson seeping wounds that she sewed up with shaking fingers. At some point between the steel and smoke – or perhaps because of it – Rhaegar had come to love her, and Elia had come to love him in return, and cursed her fragile health the most bitterly in all her life for preventing them from bringing forth life from her womb with that newfound affection.
The warmth behind her shifted with a sigh as Rhaegar left their bed, and with a sigh of her own, Elia glared at the early morning sunlight.
Water swished faintly as Rhaegar dipped a fluffy white hand towel in the slightly steaming water set out on their washstand. The smell of lavender filled his nostrils as he scrubbed himself down, and the King found himself idly hoping it hadn't been Oberyn standing guard outside to quietly deliver the warmed water for his and Elia's morning ablutions. Rhaegar and Oberyn respected one another well enough, but that hardly meant Rhaegar wished the Red Viper to catch sight of him and Elia tangled naked and sleeping together. Few men cared for the notion that their sisters might have sexual predilections.
"Elia." Rhaegar murmured as he switched the bowl he'd used for himself with the second and unused basin. Smirking slightly at his wife's displeased groan, the King shuffled aside to permit her access and pulled a brush through his long silver strands. The Targaryen King generally disdained the use of servants for the aid of washing and dressing, and outside of formal events with complex outfits, Rhaegar preferred to cloth himself.
Not, he thought as he pulled on a black leather jerkin, that Rhaegar resented Elia for having her lady maids assist her with nearly everything they could. Elia's health was fragile at times, but even if it weren't, there were fewer women safe in the Kingdom than his wife when she was with the Sand Snakes in her chambers and Oberyn at her door.
The King was certain that there was resentment in his court for the Dornish that were so obviously favoured by his family. Siding with Rhaegar in the war might have won Doran the right to be considered Warden of the South with little contesting. But with another Martell wearing the white cloak despite having a paramour and fathering eight bastards before joining the Kingsguard, those eight Martell bastards as the Queen's personal maids, and that Martell paramour as the Martell queen's lady-in-waiting, Rhaegar and his wife were at a political disadvantage.
Despite how much trouble it may cause however, Rhaegar struggled to force himself to care. If there was one thing that he'd learned playing the game of thrones as a Prince and a King, it was that true loyalty was difficult to find. For all their overly Dornish ways, Oberyn's family was loyal to Elia, and as Warden of the South, few men would be as astute and cunning a choice as Doran.
Still, sacrifices must needs be made. The distance of the Tyrells had slipped his mind for many years as pandering to one Great House came after the work of rebuilding the realm, paying its debts, and shoring up strength for a war in the North he hoped would never come. In his arrogance, Rhaegar had felt secure enough with support of the other eight Great Houses that alienating the ninth had never struck him as such a pressing concern.
As the Starks so often said in their dour way, winter was coming. And if the Reach decided to stand alone when the Others came south of The Wall and ice pressed in at all corners, that political rift may be enough to strangle them all.
Unity – and thus survival would be bought – even if blood and war ended up being the price.
The Young Falcon
"Here boy."
Bloodied steel flashed in the sunslight, accompanied by a mocking smirk as Jaime Lannister shoved his dirtied blade in the hands of his squire to clean.
"I'm not your boy, Lannister." Robert Arryn snarked back, the grin on the teen's face belaying any true offence. The first time Robert Arryn had appeared at Casterly Rock for his fostering, he'd been a nervous child of eight years and barely able to look the man he was squiring for in the eye.
It had taken Jaime all of a week before the blonde grew so frustrated he'd begun to take part in absurd antics simply to make the boy stop acting so meek. Piling too many books in Robert's arms to carry, giving him nothing for supper but five plates of potatoes, frequently excusing himself to 'shit gold'. The mud and bracken hidden under the sheets of the Arryn's bed had been the straw that broke the horse's back. And after the fiery Tully temper had finally lashed out with curses of 'piss-haired bastard!', Jaime had simply ruffled Robert's hair with a laugh.
From that night on, they'd settled into a relationship less of knight and squire, or guardian and ward, but rather one of teasing favoured uncle and long-suffering nephew.
"Then I am not a Lannister. The Lord of the Rock will surely be shocked and horrified to learn of it!"
Robert simply rolled his eyes before beginning to scrub the splatters of blood from Jaime's blade. Cleaning his own blade would come after, and then arranging for the dents in their armour to be repaired by one of the blacksmiths in service to the Rock. But first, the gaudy gold and ruby encrusted sword that belonged to the Lannister heir would have to come first.
As much as he was tempted to 'forget' to clean it as a jest at time, since the Lannisters would have little trouble paying for a reforging as the latest strike in the war of tricks he'd waged with Jaime over the years, Robert abstained. The pranks had become especially bittersweet over the past half-year, and the Arryn was reluctant to taste the nostalgic feeling again.
Not when he and Jaime would be separated by week's end. In a few short days the former Kingsguard had arranged a knighting ceremony for Robert, and then a departing feast before the young man would journey back to the Vale. Ostensibly out of pity so that Robert could finally have a taste of what it was like to be socially equal to the 'great Jaime Lannister' before the blonde inherited the Rock, but the Arryn had heard the barely muffled pride in Jaime's voice.
If the news had brought stinging to the corners of Robert's eyes, and if Jaime himself had looked a touch red around his emerald eyes at the impending separation, neither knight nor knight-to-be would speak of it.
They had announced Robert's imminent departure for home. But if home was where the heart was, why did he feels so conflicted about returning? The initial months after Robert's arrival had been filled with letters and ravens, with words flying fast and thick between the Rock and the Eyrie. As time passed however, the letters had dwindled. Robert and his father wrote to each other only every few months.
Robert and his mother wrote to one another not at all.
In one light, the distance between parent and child was shocking. As a boy, Robert had clung to Lysa Arryn. The Tully woman had been a comforting constant in his life, fussing over him frequently and cooing that her 'Sweetrobin' would never want for anything. As a boy Robert had proclaimed once that no one would ever harm his mother and that he would protect her from everything.
Yet Robert was no child any longer. The distant silences between his parents had grown through the years, and looking back on the memories the young man understood what lived in the unspoken spaces far better than a child had. As a boy, he'd simply assumed such relations between parents were normal. As a man, with the whispers of the court in his ears, Robert brushed the mystery away and finally knew why his parents stared at one another with such cold eyes.
Despite two trueborn sons that resembled their father so strongly, no love could exist and would ever exist between his mother and his father. The seething resentment that he could see clearly now spoke all too well that Elbert Arryn never forgot he'd married a soiled woman still in love with another man for Tully swords. Lysa had never been willing to even try to love her husband when Petyr Baelish was one of the Arryn's bannermen, and the hunger for the man was fanned all the more by his nearness.
If not for Robert's sandy brown hair and deeply Arryn features, with his young brother Brandon only slightly less obviously descended from the Lords of the Vale, the rumours of Littlefinger sowing seeds in Lysa Tully's field would be far louder than the whispers they were.
Robert hissed as he pressed too harshly down on the edges of the blade, pulled out of his increasingly sour thoughts by the sting in his hand and the faint speckle of his own blood smirching the gold as the price of his carelessness. The Arryn swiped the crimson beads off with a corner of the bloodied rag and shoved the Lannister blade in its sheathe before turning to his own much less fine sword.
The Rock had proved to be a finer home than the Vale had ever been. Not in terms of the people or the land. Robert still woke from his dreams at times, craving for the smell of mountains beneath the moon, the taste of clouds in his lungs, and the runes of steadfast Bronze Yohn serving the halls of his fathers.
But in terms of the family he had grown into, Robert had never known better. Lady Lorea had managed to care for him without smothering him. The gazes between the Westerling and her Lannister husband were filled with affection, rather than poison. Jaime was full of pride and demonstrative in a way distant, grave Elbert never had been. Tyrion was his whoremonger older brother, constantly trying to corrupt him. And Joanna was a closer and finer younger sibling than a dark haired boy he barely remembered in the fog of his past as more than a pudge of fat and tears.
As High as Honor were his family words, and Robert would do his best to adhere to them. The Arryn would return to the Vale, take up a sword and seat in his father's house, and learn how to be the Falcon in the Vale. Duty demanded no less.
Yet it was increasingly feeling like home was left behind.
Viserys
Folding white mail clad hands over well-polished moon-pale plate embossed with a stag of crusted topaz, Renly favoured Ser Barristan with a cheeky grin. The vaguely sour look the Baratheon got in return only widened the black-haired knight's white smirk, but the shuffling in of Rhaegar's Small Council precluded either Kingsguard warrior from making any comment.
Rhaegar, as King, sat at the head of the table beneath a finely stitched tapestry depicting the Aegonfort that had served the first Targaryen King so well in his War of Conquest. Indigo pools watched calm and cool as the other Lords made their way to their seats. Jon Arryn sat directly opposite Rhaegar, to make the subtle statement that he had the right and duty, as the King's Hand, to oppose even the King when poor consul was suggested.
Sinking down into the seat at his brother's right hand, Viserys mirrored Rhaegar's cool composure and watched with an unnerving Targaryen gaze as Tywin Lannister sat at the King's left, one space down to leave room for the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
Stannis Baratheon sat at the right of the man who had once fostered his older brother, teeth grinding in frustration at having to sit across from the Master of Whispers and having to endure the ridiculous faces his younger brother was making from his post by the door.
The Grand Maester sat between Viserys and Varys, red-stained teeth smiling with delight at the rich goblets of Arbor red set out to quench their thirst and encourage tongues to flow.
Rhaegar's distant gaze sharpened, pinning first his Hand. "What news?" It did little good to stand on ceremony when none on his small council save Varys needed or desired pretensions, and when they had ruled together for fifteen years. Except Viserys, who had replaced the aging Quellon Greyjoy as Master of Ship two years past, but whom was still his brother and stood little on affectation between them.
Wrinkles deepened as Jon sipped from his goblet of wine, wetting the dry mouth that so often accompanied age and narrowing still clear eyes. "There is little to say, Your Grace." The Lord of the Vale's length grey beard fluttered when he blew a sigh from his nostrils. "Our last work on remaking the Kingsroad to Moat Cailin was completed a fortnight past. Reports are that carts may pass comfortably by one another now, at speed all the way from the Neck to the Dragon's Gate. Prince Viserys ensured similar work on the Rosby Road was finished six months ago. Lord Tywin has always ensured the Goldroad is well-maintained. Just as he has with the Searoad. The Kingsroad south to Storm's End has been kept well by every Targaryen King since Orys Baratheon took seat there."
"The Roseroad deteriorates to little more than a dirt track halfway to Highgarden, Your Grace." Tywin pointed out, gold flecked green orbs stern and unrelenting. "And beyond Moat Cailin the Kingsroad is in Stark hands alone. They keep it well to Castle Black, but carts do not pass one another on it with ease, and the North has little excess gold to widen it."
"Then provide some." Rhaegar commanded, voice melodious and without the arrogance that had so characterized Aerys' during the Mad King's reign. "The highways are vital links of trade, the lifeblood of this kingdom, and required when armies must move at need."
Suspicion at the mention of armies flared quietly in the Lannister Lord's gaze, but the Master of Coin held his tongue, and nodded silently.
Contained and cold anger burned in Stannis' voice when the Baratheon spoke, a year long siege held as grievance years later, buried, but never forgotten or forgiven. "The Tyrells forget their duties to the Kingdom. The Reach has both the men and the gold to keep the Roseroad well, rather than two dried tracks in the mud."
"In spirit perhaps." Varys tittered, smiling behind a perfumed hand. "But they have never promised to give any King a swift highway, or any highway."
Pouring himself another goblet of the Arbor red, Jon muttered lowly "Something needs be done about the Tyrells."
"Indeed, something must be done." Rhaegar agreed in a clipped tone, only to turn to face his brother with a searching look. "I've heard that Lord Tyrell has a daughter. You and she are of an age. Perhaps a marriage would sooth their pride and heal the division in this kingdom. What say you?"
The expression Viserys made back was horrified. Mottled pale with sudden shock and red with sudden embarrassment, the Targaryen Prince of Duskendale smiled with a sickly countenance. "I fear that would not strictly be possible, Your Grace. I have already been spoken for."
Silence hung in the air as the Small Council stared at Viserys with varying degrees of shock. Varys had the most dramatic, with comically and purposefully wide eyes at the thought that such a thing as the marriage of the King's brother had escaped the watch of his little birds. Jon rubbed the wrinkles of his forehead with a longsuffering look at the foolishness of boys. Stannis looked disgruntled, mostly due to Marwyn spitting a spray of wine in a bark of laughter. Tywin's golden grey brows rose incrementally.
It was Rhaegar that scared Viserys, as all he did was smile sweetly with a look promising some painful drudgery in the near future for his idiot brother. "The Velayron girl, I presume." The King clarified. "As you've already said your vows, I'm sure you won't mind doing so in a few months for the people. A week after Daenerys' fourteen name day will do splendidly. I'm sure even Lord Tyrell will be delighted to attend. I shall leave the ravens to you, brother mine."
Robb
The tang of smoky ale was on his tongue as Joffrey tightened the muscles of his back and twirled Sansa through the air with a ring of laughter and flash of green silk. Setting his betrothed back on her feet, the Baratheon grinned roguishly and swung the redhead back into the spirited northern dance they were stomping out to the tune of windpipes.
Sansa flushed slightly from the combination of alcohol and flirting, but only gave an eye roll and a smirk to Joffrey. Growing up with the black haired heir to Storm's End had done much to disabuse her of the notion that Joffrey was anything near a perfect knight. Her betrothed drank too much, and swore too much, and was known for his appetite of the flesh.
Once upon a time, the Stark girl would have been horrified at the notion of marrying such a man. Her idealized lover as a child had been a golden prince, smooth of cheek and smelling of perfume, who kissed her hand and swept her away to his castle of roses and silks in the warm South, where he would serenade her with songs of love and courtly gestures.
Though Joffrey would one day inherit a castle in the warm South, with wealth abundant for all the silks and roses she could desire, and keep his square jaw smooth shaven, there was little else in him that she would have wanted as a child. Joffrey smelt like the Wolfswood, earthy peat and pines, rather than gentle perfume. The only songs he sung were tavern songs, bawdy and improper. The only kisses he gave were on the mouth, heated and longing, stolen in dark corners with lust darkening his blue eyes.
Seven year old Sansa would have been horrified. Twelve year old Sansa was not. The golden prince was a ghost she'd never met, with no name and an indistinct face. Her black prince was flesh and blood and warmth, with a heart she'd felt shyly galloping beneath the great ribs of his chest. And it made her feel powerful. That a maiden not just flowered could reduce a notorious whoremonger to blushed stuttering and nervous hands when she smiled just so.
Tilting her head up at Joffrey, Sansa curved rose petal lips up into an innocent smile, all dazzling warmth, and watched with delight as the black haired teen's cheeks grew red, and the apple of his throat bobbed with dry swallowing. She gave him a wicked grin as Robb cut in to take her hands, leaving Joffrey standing dazed and flushed alone.
"Teasing Joff again, I see." Robb mused, part humor and part annoyance in his voice, tones lowly and baring heard over the noise of the feasting hall. The heir to Winterfell had a boy's amusement at the harmless embrassment of his friend, and a man's instinctive anger at the notion that any man would come near to his innocent younger sister. Even if he was her betrothed.
"What are you talking about?" Sansa replied, blinking big blue eyes up at him with faux innocence. Looking at Robb was like looking into a mirror. The same Tully blue eyes, with the same wavy auburn hair, and the same lean angular features. They both favoured their mother so strongly, with little on the North written into the skin.
A muscle jumped in Robb's jaw as he clenched his teeth, tracking a simmering gaze over at where Joffrey had since taken to dancing a merry uncoordinated jig with Arya. He knew that his displeasure was nonsensical, as Joffrey and Sansa were promised, and he'd known for years they would be married. Joffrey would be departing in a fortnight's time, and now that Sansa had flowered two months past, Sansa would be going with him.
Not that the knowledge would prevent him from giving Joffrey a black eye, as he had once when he caught his friend kissing his sister, if the Baratheon came anywhere near Sansa before they were properly wed.
Sighing, Robb rolled his eyes at his sister before firmly passing her hands to his bastard brother. The flare in Sansa's eyes let him know that she was quite displeased he'd prevented her from swooning back over Joffrey for the evening, as the festivities were dying down. And even more displeased that he'd done it by passing her over to the brother she disdained.
Smiling apologetically at Jon's stoic face, he gave his brother a friendly clap on the shoulder before striding back to the High Table. His mother had long since retired, but his father remained sitting and watching the merrymaking with a grave expression.
Robb threw himself down in the seat next to the Lord of Winterfell, grabbing a flagon of ale and taking a great swig. The redhaired teen could feel the heavy weight of Eddard's eyes on him, and nearly spat his ale out when the man stated in a stern tone "It does little good to drink your sorrows away, Robb. Joffrey would have had to go home eventually, no matter how good of friends you became. Storm's End is not too far for love letters however, and Joffrey will never be more than a raven away."
The juxtaposition between serious tone and the absurd implications of Ned's words made Robb snort, and he knew without looking that his father's grey eyes would be dancing with laughter. "Why does everyone say that? First Jon, then Joff, and now you. I don't think anything I've done has given the impression that I spend my days mooning over the arse."
"The world must be small indeed if the observations of the three of us are the words of everyone." Eddard observed, pushing aside his half drained flagon of Northern ale. "And I would assume that we observe it because we know that your first kiss went to Joffrey."
Wood thudded as Robb jerked, knee slamming into the underside of the table. "First of all, why does everyone keep bringing that up? Don't you all get tired of the joke? And secondly," the redhead swallowed another mouthful of ale. "He was the one so drunk off his ass that he could barely remember where he was, much less who he was pawing at. I wasn't even awake at the time! Thirdly, I blame Jon. It's entirely Jon's fault."
Ned didn't even bother to conceal the amused tones of his voice as he stood and ruffled his son's red locks beneath weathered fingers. "And how exactly is Jon at fault?"
"Because he was sober."
Jon
The fire was banked low, coals seething red as the last titters of drunk women and men passed away into the late night. Jon Snow crooked his fingers into the white fur of his direwolf, scratching the pup curled up into his lap behind the ears in a lazy motion.
As the feasting and dancing had wound down, the buzzing and lightheadness from drink that had floated in Jon's brain receded, leaving the bastard with a clear head. The Hall of Winterfell was nearly empty, the only ones remaining in the nearly silent hall being a few inebriated servants, Jon, and his uncle Benjen, for whose return the feast had been thrown in the first place.
The ranger favoured the content looking ball of fur with an amused glance, scratching Ghost beneath the chin as he washed the flavour of alcohol from his mouth with clear water. "The Giant's Stair is well-named," Benjen stated after a pause, continuing his tale of one of his rangings beyond the Wall. Wind and ice have worn the edges away over time, but you can still see the cut of the stone. The steps are well-measured, evenly spaced, and smoothed. Miles and miles long, reaching up into the Frostfangs. No one knows truly how they came to be, though construction by giants is what most men believe, hence the name."
Raising a skeptical brow, Jon gave his uncle a stern stare "Have giants ever truly existed? Or are they just another story like the ones Old Nan told us as children?"
Barking up at the ceiling with laugher, Benjen shook his head. "Have they ever existed? Jon, they still do. They're not even such an uncommon sight beyond the wall. They are a warlike people, but they speak, and even trade with the free folk and Men of The Watch. There are many things beyond the wall that those south of it would think are merely stories."
"Such as?"
"The giants for one. The great hairy mammoths they raise for milk and meat are another. Folk that still speak in tongues of old. Skinchangers and wildings. Wailing on the coasts of Hardhome. Even snow that never melts in the Land of Always Winter.
"Have you ever been?"
"Ever been to where?"
A shadow passed over Benjen's face, and he turned away from his bastard nephew to stare into the coals of the hearth. "Once." He replied tersely, and would speak no more on it when Jon attempted to probe.
Realizing his uncle obviously did not want to speak on it, Jon changed his line of questions. "I hear the Watch in much changed from how it was. Is there any truth to that, or is it just gossip mongering?"
Benjen smirked cynically, grey eyes flashing back to Jon. "And how was the Wall ever, Jon Snow? What did you think it was, a brotherhood of honor and loyalty, where men give up everything to protect the Seven Kingdoms from White Walkers? Once, perhaps. But the Walkers have not been seen since the Long Night, and the Watch is little more than a living prison for most of the men. Rapers, thieves, and murderers that came to take the black rather than lose their cocks, or their hands, or their heads. "
Glaring with a sour expression, Jon clenched his jaw. "I'm not a little boy, uncle. You don't have to try and warn me away with scary tales about 'bad men'."
The ranger waved at Jon with a nonchalant hand. "You are a boy. A boy of the North aye, but a boy still smelling of summer green. Have you ever lain with a woman? Known love? Had any children? Fathered a few bastards on whores in Winter Town? I doubt it. Don't take the black so lightly Jon. You know little about it."
"I will never father a bastard! Never." Ned Stark's bastard bit out vehemently, fist clenched white and taut on the table. Simmering at the pitying look Benjen favoured him, Jon made to get up.
"Won't you?" the ranger sighed, sipping down the last drops of water from his goblet. "It's practically a duty to the watch now that Rhaegar is king. Ten gold dragons to any whore in Mole's town that bears a bastard for the Watch. The dragon leant heavily on the Old Bear to change the vows for new recruits, and with so much gold and food as a bribe, Mormont swallowed his pride and caved. No black brother may hold lands, or take a wife, but bastards flow aplenty these days."
"Why would the King do that? What happened to thousands of years of tradition and brotherhood? For the Watch to just bow down and accept the urgings of any king or kingdom like that?" Jon's tone was appalled, Ghost channeling his masters forlorn mood in a ball at the Stark bastard's heels. "And what about you, uncle? Have you fathered a bastard? How many times have you given up your honor for a quick roll in the hay?"
A long silence hung in the air as Benjen stared blankly into the distance, low red light playing off the scruffy curve of his unshaven jaw. Feeling embarrassed by his outburst, Jon lowered his eyes to his uncle's worn boots and opened his mouth to apologize.
"If you truly indeed to join the Watch Jon, you had best realize that there is less shame in having a bastard then you know."
(AN): And that's another five thousand words for this. A bit more world building, a bit more time passing. I'll touch on a few things.
"Things seem better for a lot of people": Because they are. Robert might have been a better king than Mad Aerys, but he was still one of the worst kings Westeros has ever had. He let the kingdom go to pieces, beggared the realm for his tourneys and other pointless glitter, and let corruption seep into every corner of his administration. He threw the door wide open, and did nothing when the vermin began to crawl inside.
A better King than Renly or Stannis would have been yes, because Renly would just be more ostentatious and accept the corruption as a fact of administration, and Stannis would alienate everyone he had to work with to make the kingdom run. Rhaegar on the other hand is politically astute, economically minded, militarily gifted, and personally charismatic. I suspect the only reason he lost the war was chance and Robert being more skilled in a duel than he was.
Robert and Brandon Arryn: Are sons of Elbert Arryn and Lysa Tully. Elbert lived in this timeline because unlike in canon, he didn't ride in with Brandon Stark calling for Rhaegar's head. Since he lived, Jon Arryn married him to Lysa Tully rather than do it himself. Robert was born in the same timeframe as Robb Stark, where Brandon Arryn (named for Brandon Stark, Elbert's friend) was born around a similar time as Arya. A young hothead, old Elbert cooled down and became very stern and dutiful after his best friend was burnt to death for being a jolly good lad. Robert was born early on because unlike Jon, Elbert was and is young. His seed is strong. Jon is so old, his sperm and the DNA in it is probably garbage that can barely swim.
Why you spend so long talking about roads mate: Because as the Romans knew, good roads are essential to a strong empire. It facilitates economic movement of goods, and makes movement of troops easy and quick. It's part of Rhaegar's stringent efforts to build up Westeros. So the economy is better, and roads make patrolling for criminals easier, so people are safer and richer than canon. It pays dividends. Unlike canon Westeros, where the Kingsroad North of the capitol is so shitty it's little more than two wheel ruts apparently.
The differences in the Watch: The Watch's political neutrality stems from back in the days of the First Men when there were multiple Kingdoms, and it was needed to ensure supplies and aid from everyone. After the Targaryens have conquered Westeros, it was little more than a holdover from those days. Useful during civil wars, but it means during times of peace that all aid to the Watch comes by the Iron Throne's approval or not at all. Hence, Rhaegar leant heavily on it to get them to change their ways.
The Gift was supposed to provide men and food for the Watch, with the Lord Commander as their feudal lord, yet it's gotten depopulated and the fields lie fallow. So Rhaegar sent promises of men, weapons, medicine, food, and gold. But in exchange old Mormont had to allow the men of the Watch to father children. They can't get married or hold lands, but they can take lovers (as they could before, technically, just like the Kingsguard) and father bastards without being oathbreakers. He even took it a step further, by promising that any woman in the gift that fathered a bastard would be gifted ten gold dragons from the crown, to encourage the whores to stop drinking moon tea. Children born in the gift take the surname Black rather than Snow, as they do elsewhere in the North to reflect this change.
Valaena Velayron: Viserys' long time mistress and wife that he married in a secret ceremony for love. Has blue eyes with the silver-gold hair of old Valyria. Youngest sister of Lord Monford Velaryon and Aurane Waters. Well known for the Scandal at Summerhall, where a tourney was held in celebration of the restoration of that palace. Entered the lists as a mystery knight and unhorsed Viserys in the final joust, and then crowned him as her King of Love and Beauty. Another OC.
Isn't Oberyn an Oathbreaker?: No. It's a legal technicality that Barristan no doubt would disprove of. He never married Ellaria, so he's not breaking his oath there. And all the children he fathered were born before he joined the Kingsguard. He also holds no lands and titles, save the honorary Prince of Dorne.