A/N:
Shit gets real in this chapter, trigger warning: sexual assault and full blown murder
Diana did not leave the room she was placed in for four days. Her entire body seemed to vibrate with the lack of fresh surroundings, she was caged and she loathed it. She paced back and forth in front of the hearth, her dragon egg causing leaping shadows around her. Lately her dreams had been of a red dragon, she blamed her room. It was covered with the Targaryen symbol everywhere she looked, red dragons on the curtains, the bed spread, the walls, even her dresses. The face that none of her old dresses made it to her room irked her, the black and crimson gowns she was left with were low cut and ostentatious, the unfamiliar guards' gazes had wandered down her chest too many times in these silks.
On her fifth day of captivity, it was the Spider who appeared to her. His simpering face hid a sly smile that made her skin itch. "Princess Diana." Varys greeted, "The wishes you to write to Lord Lannister."
"And tell him of how I am locked in the Maidenvault as if I were a princess of old?" Diana bit back, her temper rising.
"To tell him that he must swear fealty to the king, and present his son for the crime of insulting the crown." The Spider replied flippantly.
"And if I refuse?" She tested.
"Then the Princess Alysanne is to be gelded." The words slid from him like silk, and her blood went cold.
"She is the next Queen of Westeros." Diana replied tartly, "Aerys would not dare."
"The King has formed quite a distaste for the Princess, something about having dirty Andal blood." He shrugged, "He seems to think quite highly of you though. No, you aren't to be harmed, if you misbehave, your daughter shall bear the beating."
Her hands trembled as she scrawled the message on the scrap of paper the Master of Whispers provided her, and she reluctantly began to sign her name, "You are a Targaryen, Princess. The King would not be pleased to see you label yourself otherwise."
Not once had her marraige been recognised, and it sent a jolt of fear through her. She married into the West for protection, and it was being denied to her. They left her alone in her chamber for another week, until the King himself appeared.
"Sweet Sister." His voice crooned, it was barely past dawn, she had not even risen for the day when he barged into her room. "How lovely you look." His eyes raked over her thin nightgown, and she shivered.
"Your grace, allow me to dress and we may speak." She tried to keep her voice even, but a week of isolation had rattled her. Diana missed her home, her husband and her babes.
"No need to dress, it is not as if you were a maiden." He laughed at his own bluntness, and Diana knew something horrible was about to happen. "No matter, you are a bride fit to bear heirs nonetheless."
"What?" The word fell from her mouth, and the hungry gaze he pinned her with made her cold. "I am already married, Aerys. And you have been wed to Rhaella for longer than I have been Lady Lannister."
His palm struck her cheek the moment the name was spoken. "Do not speak that traitor's name! He stole you from me, all those years ago, but not again." Aerys stared at her with a rage that only seemed to grow. Madness danced in him as he grabbed her by the scalp, tears stinging her eyes. "Your marriage has been dissolved by the crown. And you shall be a widow soon."
Diana could not breathe, she could not even think. Her brother pinned her to the bed, enjoying the feeling of her shaking body. 'Tywin, I want Tywin.' She thought to herself, closing her eyes as to not see the horror in front of her. Her brother grabbed at her body through her nightgown, taking liberties only her husband had. Her mind shut down, reminding herself that if she did not comply, her daughter would suffer for it.
The King left Diana's chambers a few hours later, and the silent handmaidens only directed the woman to her bath, leaving her in the water to clean herself. She was sobbing as she cleaned her dirtied skin, scrubbing every inch of herself that she could reach. Bruises bloomed on her hips and wrists, her hair a tangled mess. 'I will burn him to the ground' She vowed to herself.
/*/*/*/*/*
She counted the days by marking the wall with a dot of hot candle wax, a moon had passed. A week after the first unholy visit from her brother, Diana had been dragged to the sept, and forced to don a maiden cloak and vow to be her brother's bride. Alysanne looked pale, Ser Whent holding a dragonbone dagger to her slender throat to ensure Diana complied.
Diana was a prisoner, despite the halfhearted Queenship, her only visitor her sister. She begged her every day to leave, to run to Dragonstone and hide from her husband. Rhaella always refused, her hand placed over the swell of her belly. With the true Queen with child, Aerys had focused his sexual and physical pursuits on Diana. The acts while horrid in nature, led to Rhaella visiting her sister, allowing them to rekindle their bond. Rhaella did not fully forgive Diana for the past, but they were working on it.
Then, one day the horrid routine was broken. She saw the lion banners in the distance when she broke her fast, and almost wept.
A moon's turn had passed, but Tywin had come for her. The troops gathered at the entrance of the gold road and the king's road, a flurry of roaring lions, leaping trouts, snarling direwolves, prancing stags and even a few soaring falcons.
A soldier escorted Diana to the throne room after she broke her fast, a servant serving as her handmaiden following and she was surprised to see Aerys atop the Iron throne, looking quite pleased with himself as a pyre was being built in front of him. "Fire and blood." He said easily, gesturing to the wooden contraption before him. "Today, I shall roast the wolves and lions."
"I want my dragon egg." She murmured, and the servant seemed happy to have an excuse to leave the throne room. Diana stared at her brother, the hatred she felt consuming her. "If you kill them, their men shall only kill you."
"They cannot kill a dragon!" Aerys snarled, "I shall only rise from the ashes, a beast reborn!" The doors to the hall opened, and members of court entered, what few loyalists remained. Rickard Stark was brought in once the usual faces had appeared, and Diana paled. Rickard had lost at least a third of his weight, his gaunt face revealing the horrors of the Black Cells. His son followed behind him, chained and weak, with Tywin Surefoot following him. Diana wanted to weep, seeing her Sworn shield starved and beaten, yet he only looked at her with such relief, as if he assumed the worst of her own fate. Soldiers strapped the Lord of the North to the pyre, and Aerys stood from his throne. "Allow the traitors in." He commanded, and footsteps sounded in the distance. The servant girl slipped to Diana's side, and the heat of her egg in her hands calmed her. There was a fog in her mind, the sense of deja vu that burned her soul. Two people would die today, she knew.
Tywin walked into the throne room, his eyes searching until they landed on her. He had Brandon Stark, Brynden Tully and Jon Arryn with him, but only stared at her, and the egg in her hands. She wanted to run into his arms, but the guard at her side would never allow it. "Tywin Lannister." Aerys spat, "Have you come to swear fealty?"
"I have come for my wife, and for the release of Lord Stark and his son." Tywin replied with a slight snarl.
Aerys laughed, "Did you not receive the raven? You have no wife. As my ancestors, I have taken my own Rhaenys and Visenya, my sisters and wives, Rhaella and Diana." Rhaella paled at his words and Diana stared at her sister. The room was silent for a beat, until the sound of a sword being drawn was heard.
"How dare you!" Brandon Stark raged, his eyes never leaving his father, who was half dead, tied to a log atop kindling.
"Kill them both!" Aerys snarled to his men, one who went to light the fire while the other raised a sword to Ned's throat.
"Please, your grace." Diana spoke before she could think, her mind racing as she held up her dragon egg, the only thing she could think to offer him. "The life of a dragon is worth more than two servants." She was reluctant to label them so, but the wording would appease her brother.
Aerys grinned at her, "Cut him loose." A moment of relief filled her as Rickard was cut free from the binds and led down to where his son and the other prisoners watched on. Diana looked at her sister, "Please, go to Dragonstone, take your son and run." Rhaella only nodded, and when Aerys motioned Diana forward, Rhaella and her kingsguard Ser Jonothor fled. Diana walked towards him, holding out her egg. Her fingers burned at the thought of giving away her prized possession, but moved nonetheless. When she was right in front of him, Aerys grabbed her arms, his long fingernails cutting her flesh. A nod to Rossart, and the pyre was lit before them. Brandon and Tywin leaped forward, but gold cloaks blocked their way. "Fire and blood." Aerys cackled, and pushed Diana into the flame.
She screamed as she fell backwards, the wooden kindling piercing her back and catching her clothes aflame. The heat burned around her, and her ears rang with the roar of the flames. The smell of her own hair burning filled her lungs, and Diana swore she heard the gods' voices, 'Fire and blood...two lives….fire and blood…" Everywhere she looked, patches of green and red surrounded her, she could not see out. Wildfire was used, it was the only way she could not see the hand in front of her face.
A scream filled the room, a grief stricken sound as Tywin slashed his blade through the air, killing man after man as he worked his way to the king. "No! I want Father!" A small voice rang through the noise, and a silver head zoomed past the fighting men and a body curled into the king's side. Lost in the flames, Diana realized with horror that it was Prince Viserys, running from his mother who was attempting to take him with her to Dragonstone.
Aerys revealed no sense of kindness to the child, "Bastard!" He snarled at the crying child, "You are no dragon! You have no seed of mine!" Diana's hands reached out in the flames, but it was too late. Viserys crumbled in the fire, his little body burning as the sharp kindling pierced his skull and came out through his eye. Diana stumbled forward, falling on her knees as she watched her nephew's corpse feed the fire that burned around her. Her hands, stained with her own blood, reached to cradle him, and landed on the dragon egg instead. It made an unholy hiss at the contact, 'One more…' It seemed to hiss, 'One more life to make the dragon take flight'
Her feet were cut and bleeding with each step as she stumbled forward, to where her brother stood. Aerys was surrounded by guards, his back to the flame as he yelled commands. "Kill them all! Burn them all!" Rossart was throwing something into the flames, causing the green to overcome the red in the coloring of the flames. Diana could only think of feeding the flames, and grabbed her brother by his overtly long hair, the same way he did when he took her against her will. Using the leverage, she yanked him into the flames, her burning hair setting him alight as she drug his flailing body into the flames. His screams gave her a sick sense of satisfaction, his skin puckering and peeling while hers remained unblemished. A cracking sound echoed, and the sound distracted her enough that with his last bit of strength, Aerys pushed his sister further into the flames. She fell on her back, his burning body pinning her down. A screeching noise she had never heard before sounded, and she felt a warm creature slither up her shoulder. She stumbled out of the flames, naked as the day she was born and hair a red flame as the last bits of her once proud silver name smoldered, a baby dragon on her shoulder.
A/N:
Holy shit guys, I wrote this whole fanfic with this one scene in mind, and I am so happy to have finally written it. Please, please, let me know what you guys think!
