"This is the best place we could think of to hide you" Rhaegar assured her, having ridden as fast as he could after receiving the news of the Rebellion starting with a battle at Gulltown. He still didn´t know how it ended up, but… he really doubted Lord Graffton could match the might of the Vale.
And disaster over disaster was starting to happen. First, his mad father had ordered the Kingsguard to enter battle, leaving only Ser Jaime Lannister and Prince Lewyn behind to apparently protect him and his grandchildren. His mother and Viserys were to be sent to Dragonstone to be kept safe in case everything turned sour, but Elia and his children were kept in the Red Keep while the Mad King sent orders to Dorne to send troupes to invade the Vale or… he didn´t even want to know the or. Anyway, he needed to ride immediately for the Capital, before he kills someone he shouldn´t have and shooed away the last few allies they had. Meanwhile…
"Are you sure now?" the Prince asked as his new wife approached him. She had given some news early in the morning, when they first arrived at the Tower.
"Yes, I´m positive" Lyanna said, putting both hands over her belly. "I don´t know why I bled when we were in the Islands of faces. It could have been one of those bleedings my mother said presented when she was pregnant with Benjen or… or it could be a more resent conception, I don´t know. But… But I can tell it now. I´m pregnant, Rhaegar."
"Hummm…" the silver haired royal rubbed his chin. They hadn´t had much fun since they left the Isle of Faces, but Lyanna had continued coming to his tent whenever the group took a stop. It could very well have happened one of those times. Then again… "It´s too early to be sure."
"I… I feel it, husband, you are going to be a father again" she talked with such a certainty that he couldn´t help but believe her. "I… I still want this baby to be named Jaeherys, for the Conciliator and the Good King. And… and for a mother name… would you mind if I still named him something northern?"
"Of course not, he is half-northern, after all. As much as Rhaenys and Aegon are dornish" the Prince kissed his bride on the forehead. "My love, the amilessë is decided by the mother, no one interfered with that unless with her express permission. It´s up for you to decide."
"I was thinking about Torhen or Benjen" she confessed. "Would have even considered Jon if that damn meddling falcon didn´t share that name with the King of Winter I admire the most. And for a girl, Lyarra would be fine, but considered Arya too."
"Arya?"
"For my grandmother, Arya Flint. She was a clanswoman… maybe not the kind of lineage a future queen should brag about, but…"
"Don´t be so sure, my mother always reminded me that we have Blackwood blood from her grandmother, Queen Betha. And that our blood is connected to the Old Gods through that." He smiled, remembering Rhaella´s lessons. "Elia also never let me forget that her paternal grandmother was a Uller, the House that killed Queen Rhaenys´ dragon. Always out of my father´s earshot, of course."
"He must have hated the thought of you marrying someone with Uller blood."
"Princess Loreza never mentioned that, he doesn´t know"
"Great for Princess Elia" Lyanna embraced him. "Rhaegar, please… save my brother. I know he can be a little bit stupid and credible, apart from nearly in love with that oaf Robert Baratheon, but… he is a good person. He is also… with Benjen… all I have. Him, me, Ben and this baby in my belly… we are all that remains of House Stark…"
"Lya…"
"Please" the girl begged again. "I… I don´t need you to assure me that he is going to live through the war, but I need to know that at least as a prisoner he is going to have some sort of… protection against whatever could befall him. Against what your father is going to do to him."
"My father won´t be stopped by anyone"
"Then stop him, stop him the best way you can. Take the Throne away from him, so he would stop torturing the Seven Kingdoms. Do it for me and for this baby" she put his hands over her belly, despite nothing being there to feel the new life growing in his wife. "For the children you already have and for the ones to come. So they would not be subjected to the torture your were.
"Lyanna… kinslaying…"
"You don´t have to do it yourself either if you don´t want, just make sure this is Aerys´ last war" he nodded, then put his hands over hers, right over the place the child would soon occupy. "And return to me save and whole, husband. Remember that now you have me as well as Elia praying for your return."
"I don´t know about her…"
"Believe me, she is still praying for you. You are the father of her children, they need you as much as they need her"
Rhaegar didn´t know how to tell her that the dornish princess probably hated him now for humiliating her in front of the Seven Kingdoms, but the girl didn´t need more things to worry about. Not with a child growing in her belly. He said goodbye to her and rode off himself towards King´s Landing, leaving the three knights of the Kingsguard behind to protect his wife and future heir. Venturing alone was dangerous, he knew, but he had to leave Lyanna with some escort loyal enough to take her to Essos if something went bad.
He rode for a long time without a rest, hoping to arrive to the Red Keep before things got even worse. And they were going to get worse, now that Maglor was sent away. The advisor was between the selected group of people that could make his father see reason, without him the court would be a mess of fear and dread, with burned bodies everywhere. And, when he entered the Red Keep, being received by an icy Lewyn Martell, he knew he was right.
"Welcome, your Grace" the dornish prince said, with daggers in his eyes. The prince tried to ignore him, but some part of him felt guilty. Guilty because of what he did to the man´s niece. "The King is waiting for you."
"Lord Maglor has returned from his assignment on the Vale?"
"Yes, but he was sent away almost immediately to stale the Rebellion" the dornishmen answered. "He is on his way with a contingent from the Crownlands to Summerhall, where some loyal stormlords are mounting a resistance against their treacherous lord."
Rhaegar tried not to wince at the thought of musical, sweet Maglor in a battlefield. The man didn´t have a violent bone on his body, not that he knew. And he should know, as the raven has been there his whole life. Teaching him to play the harp, to talk in quenya and Sindarin, chatting about menial or important court things, sometimes with Daeron by their side… or simply listening to the other man´s tales from his trips. He also knew that the advisor was well trained and proficient with a sword or two on the training yard, but that was hardly going to save him if he didn´t have experience in the battlefield.
"How could he have done something so cruel? Maglor cried in the last Blackfyre Rebellion, according to the soldiers that were patrolling the Red Keep during it. He won´t be able to stomach the horrors of the battlefield…"
"Not according Jonothor Darry" Ser Willem Darry said, approaching the others with a concerned look on his face. "Where are the Lord Commander and the Sers? They wouldn´t have let you come alone…"
"They did, I sent them away on an important assignment" the Prince answered. "Don´t worry, they will be there for the Battle" he bit his lip at the lie. "Tell me, Ser Lewyn, is my father waiting for me in the Throne Room?"
"Yes, but you won´t like what is waiting for you out there" the Kingsguard informed, letting him enter Maegor´s Holdfast. A place that now smelled as if someone had burned massive amounts of flesh inside it. Soon he found out why. The heir to the Throne opened the chamber of that damn iron chair and…
"No…"
Simply, no…
Not even he could have done something like that. It was sick. But at the same time… having pyres inside the Throne Room was something pretty much like Aerys. Specially if they were big, green, ferocious pyres with screaming prisoners inside, humans that shouldn´t have been alive at that point.
"Father…" he didn´t dare to say anything more, frozen by the fear.
"Oh, you are here, my problematic son. Great to know you already got that a dragon takes whatever he wants, but… couldn´t it have been in another way?! Like killing those traitorous northerners and insufferable stormlands cousins of us?!" Aerys groaned. "You should have burned them before they began their stupid Rebellion."
"Fa…"
"And now Baratheon is calling himself King! What a stupidity! An upstart lord from a bastard cadet branch, attempting to take what is ours… unbelievable!"
"It´s only because…"
"Not another word!" the Mad King interrupted him before he could even begin. "You caused this, boy, you better fix it or I will have your head along with Lord Arryn, his northern dog and his Baratheon bastard. And just to make sure you and the dornish do what I order, that wife of yours and her children are remaining here."
"Father, Elia doesn´t have anything to do with this. You don´t even like her company" he tried to make him see reason. "Let her go, please. And the children too. They are going to be safer in the middle of Dorne than in the Rebel´s destination."
"Oh, no. Do you think me an idiot?" just a madman, but that was not an answer that would get him out of there alive. "If I let the whore go, her brothers are going to stop sending troupes to us and I can´t allow that to happen. And if I let go the dornish mongrel and the babe, the fucking dornish are going to make a move for the throne. No, they remain here."
"As you wish, father" he bowed. He had a plan to sneak them out of the Keep anyway…
"And don´t even think about sneaking them out through that passage behind the wardrobe in your wife´s chambers" Aerys said, smiling wickedly. What?! How did he figure that out?! "Yes, Lord Varys found out about your latest plot to take your slut and her spawns to Sunspear. Don´t even think about something like that ever again."
"Of course… your Grace" Lyanna was right, he needed to overthrow the Mad King. If only this bloody Rebellion haven´t been on the line. "May I have a few moments with my wife and children before I depart?"
"Hummm, I suppose you can get out of here at first thing in the morning." Aerys waved him off. "Okay, get out of my sight for now."
"As you wish" Rhaegar went off towards his private chambers, connected with those of Elia. There he found her, looking over the Blackwater Bay from a balcony. Aegon and Rhaenys were nowhere to be seen. "Hello, Elia, where are the…"
"Don´t talk as if any of us mattered to you" the scorned princess said, turning around, her beautiful face contracted in an expression of fury. "How dare you? How dare you to come back after doing something like that?! Or even to do this?! I have been humiliated like no one before in front of the Seven Kingdoms!"
"Elia…"
"Don´t call me like that!" the dark haired woman walked towards her husband and slapped him hard in the face. He let her do that, grabbing her afterwards to embrace her. The Martell woman fought until she was out of breath and just sobbed. "Why? Didn´t I did my duty? Didn´t I satisfied your needs forgetting my own?"
"I never forced you to do anything you didn´t want"
"That´s not the point" she answered, growling. "What did I do to earn your scorn, husband? I have been good, loyal, a confident, given you two precious children… what has that Stark girl done for you?"
"She is going to give me a third child"
"Oh, wonderful. Should I make preparations for the Sixth Blackfyre Rebellion?" he didn´t answer, which make her suspect. "Don´t tell me you…"
"Yes, I married her in the Isle of Faces."
"You couldn´t, you are already married to me" Elia moved away, shaking her head. "But… but it won´t be the first time a member of your family takes more than one wife, no? and the doctrine of exceptionalism is still protecting you in case you needed that, no?"
"Elia, I´m sorry if this bothers you…"
"It does more than bother me" the Princess raised her chin high, then sighed, lowered it again so he couldn´t see her eyes. Eyes that have turned into steel. "In our wedding feast, Maglor told me that I was lucky to marry you. He really believed that… me too. And for a time, I continued believing that. But not anymore, not after this." She glared at him finally. "You have killed all my confidence in you."
"Elia…"
"I don´t have anything more to say, just go. Rhaenys and Aegon are with their nurses, you can see them in your way out" she turned around and walked back to her balcony. "Just make sure to come back. I might not want you by my side anymore, but… they need their father and I´m no one to take that from them. Make sure to come back for them."
"I will" he said before leaving the room. He promised himself to make up with Elia after the Rebellion was ended and Lyanna´s babe was born, he just… will give her time to breathe for now. And for Aerys´ tyranny to end. Maybe then she will forgive him.
Thinking about that, maybe this Rebellion could be useful to further his plans. If he only could try to gather Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark and Jon Arryn to explain everything that really happened… Without another thought, he grabbed a paper and started to write a letter in Sindarin. That way he knew his damn father or his minions won´t be able to read it. Besides, he knew one someone that could read tengwar, Sindarin tengwar, in Storm´s End.
-In the Stormlands-
"Woow, you won´t believe the problems I had to get here" Robert Baratheon said to his brother as he arrived in Storm´s End, still in the armour he used to fight in the Battle for Gulltown. "We had to fight our entire way out of the Vale because a self-important lordling from a port town wanted to deny us access to it. Heh, Ned even had to take the route through the Mountains of the Moon!"
"Welcome back, brother" Stannis answered coldly. He couldn´t believe the danger his eldest sibling put them all in. When he received the letter from Daeron following a formal one from the King… Dammit! Couldn´t he had been more careful?! "We are glad for your safe return to our lands."
"Bah, the only thing you are glad of is that I haven´t gotten us all killed yet" the irresponsible Lord Paramount of the Stormlands laughed at his brother´s face while said sibling gritted his teeth. Anyway, they entered the castle to go to the solar and plan a solid strategy for the war… if only Robert could keep himself still.
In reality, the only thing Stannis Baratheon wanted was to return to his studies in his normal live. As the elderly maester Cressen was the only person in the whole of Storm´s End to pay him a time of the day, the library and his lessons were like his refuge. He did his other duties, of course, but his favourite time of the day was his lessons with Cressen. But… there was a short time when it wasn´t. During Maglor´s visit to mourn for his deceased parents, he brought someone with him. Someone that recognized his intelligence, despite his utter lack of talent for music. Daeron was his name and he called himself a loremaster. He guessed it should have been some kind of maester, because he was really learned and smart. The man was also really bored there, so, while Maglor tried to reign in Robert and baby Renly, Daeron taught him Sindarin, tengwar and what he called ancient lore. Cressen said it was a collection of tales no one would believe, but… he liked it. And enjoyed Daeron´s attention. In fact, he and the man still exchanged letters from time to time, all in Sindarin.
"My lord! A letter from Prince Rhaegar!" one of the servants who cleaned the maester´s turret entered. The two brothers approached quickly and opened it, getting surprised when they saw what was written.
"What in the Seven Hells is written here? It´s just a bunch of stupid drawings in a paper…"
"It´s Sindarin" his younger sibling said, grabbing the letter from him, wondering how in the Seven Hells did Rhaegar knew he could read tengwar. All the eyes in the room were on him while he uncovered the message. "It says that there has been a huge misunderstanding and that he will explain it so you can all calm down. Also talks about an alliance to overthrow Aerys…"
"Nonsense" Stannis got the letter taken from his hands by Robert. "He takes my betrothed and says it was all a misunderstanding… Ja! The gal of that princeling" he threw the letter to the fire. "There is one way and only one way in which this Rebellion is going to end. And it´s with me over his dead body."
"Of course, my lord"
"I´m a King now! King according to Jon!"
"Then of course… your Grace!" Stannis was not an idiot. He knew that he was going to stay there in charge of Storm´s End while his brother went out there and caved some chests in. He would like to avoid this war, but… Robert was his liege lord and his duty was to follow his orders. He always fulfilled his duties.
Humm, wonder if Daeron was going to be alright. He hoped that, if his brother wins, his friend got to survive. He already had few enough…
"Now, about those Rebel Lords of Summerhall…"
-A few days later-
"What happened here?" Maglor asked when they arrived at the outskirts of Summerhall. They should have arrived a lot earlier, but a few ambushes of armed resistance from the Stormlands delayed their arrival. Tragically, once they arrived the loyal stormlanders have been crushed.
"My lord, my lord" a surviving soldier said after explaining the situation to him. "They… they were too many. The lords were captured and… and…"
"You don´t need to explain" the elf sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Dammit, this must be a nightmare. Lords Grandison, Cafferen, and Fell were our best chance to gain a foothold on the Stormlands and suffocate the Rebellion in it´s starts." He cursed between his teeth. "Prepare yourselves now, a full blown war it´s on it´s way."
"Lord Maglor… you didn´t participate in the Blackfyre Rebellion last time, from what I know" one of the Lords said. "Have you ever participated in a war before?"
"Thousands" the immortal answered, flexing a hand. He hoped he never need to become this elf again, but… Rhaegar needed Maglor the kinslayer, not the sweet Makalaurë he had always known. "I have commanded my men in enough wars to know where this is going… and I don´t think it´s going to be pretty." He breathed in. "The knights of the Vale are already in the Stormlands and he had all his lords controlled now. We will face even more trouble to arrive anywhere" he turned north. "Robert Baratheon is headed this way to reunite with the northern host."
"But… how… Ned Stark must have just arrived north…"
"Don´t underestimate the loyalty of the northmen, my lord" or their Avari ways, he said in his head. The First Men, after all, had interacted and worked with the last Avari in Middle Earth. "He is headed North, where the Rebel Army will reach it´s strongest. We need to intercept them." He pulled a map out, deciding. "Make route to Ashford."
"Ashford? Why?"
"There we will reunite with the forces of the Reach and manage to ambush the Rebels. And we will win."
-In the North-
"Thank you for this… and sorry for all the troubles I caused you. Your father… I´m sorry" Eddard Stark said to the daughter of the fisherman that lost his life in the sea trying to get the new lord of Winterfell there. She huffed, moving the oar she had taken since her father´s death to keep herself and the noble alive. "I will always remember this favour."
"Then get to your high palace and take care of your people" the girl took the gold he offered her in that moment. Gold that would last her for a lifetime. "It´s the best you lordlings can do for us."
"Take care in the way back"
"Haven´t I already shown you? I´m perfectly capable of taking care of myself" the fisherman daughter put the oar back into the water. "If sometime you go back to the Fingers, don´t contact me. I´m not willing to make the same suicidal adventure a second time."
"I wouldn´t ask you to"
"I doubt it" she went away.
Ned, for his part, turned away, lifting his hood just in case there were some Targaryen loyalists near. Fortunately, he didn´t find any on the way. He, otherwise, found true northerners willing to do anything to keep their lord alive. On the first village he stepped in, the Lord of Winterfell found someone willing to lend him an old but sturdy horse that could make the trip to his castle.
"Lord Eddard?" young guardsman Rodrik Cassel, the brother of the castellan of Winterfell, asked when his lord arrived in an exhausted animal. "Lord Stark! Open the door for Lord Stark!"
"Yes, Ser!"
The lord entered, being surrounded by his men immediately. All started to ask about the Rebellion, the battles in Gulltown and Summerhall, despite him not participating in any of them. It took him a lot of time to silence the questions, not really accustomed to lead like Brandon was, and afterwards went to the solar to write the letters calling his banners.
"So, you are back" Eddard lifted his head to see a very grown Benjen, much more than he remembered. "Brother, welcome home."
"Ben, glad to see you"
"And I you, specially without that boisterous oaf you call your best friend" the child said going to his older sibling. "I couldn´t believe it when you helped him convince father to give him Lyanna, he isn´t worthy of even…"
"He is an honourable man and will be a good husband to her" Ned answered as he ever did. "That he still wants to marry her despite her not being a maiden anymore shows it."
"Lya doesn´t want him!" the boy screamed, trying to refrain himself from beating some sense into his brother. "Because he is a whoremonger and drunk oaf! And he only wants Lyanna because it would make you his brother!"
"But… but he would have changed for her…"
"Of course not! He would have never changed! Otherwise, we would have never heard him with some whores in his bed declaring that he would never renounce to such pleasures! Me, Lya and Howland Reed!"
"Benjen, it´s enough of this lies!"
"They are not lies, you better get that into your thick head!" he stormed off, leaving his brother alone. Eddard continued with his letter writing, furiously. Benjen didn´t know Robert like he did, his friend was a good man. And he will be a good king. Honestly. Better than Aerys or Rhaegar would ever be.
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