one.
There's no dragon egg sharing her cradle, and that's more than alright, for Lady Rhea Royce would be damned before she adhered to her estranged husband's traditions.
Her babe, her sweet girl, daughter of silver and bronze, coos at her. Rhae does not know a sweeter song than this—not the cutting of wind as her arrow strikes true, nor her horse prancing through the cobblestone roads.
And she's glad, so very glad to have her.
That, of course, was not the case many moons ago, when her wretched prince finally found his way back to her house of runes, exiled to his land of rotting crabs and chastised once more by his brother.
There was never any love between them, nor will be. All they had and ever will have is hatred and distaste, and that's fine.
She's had a taste, was wholly unimpressed, and insulted, and hurt. She had thought to write him, afterwards, to inform him with sardonicism of her missing blood, well done, husband!, but thought better—knew better.
His niece—the child. She is not envious, nor spiteful. On the contrary—she pities the poor, impressionable girl, and thinks: let them be, I have what I need.
For Ysilla Royce—and she has made this very clear to any maester and wet nurse and kin who have questioned her—is the future of her house.
Let the dragons squabble over their seat and their line of succession; the Vale does not fuss over skirts or the crowns the women wear with them. Nobody would call a Great Council vote for the east-most corner of the region; she will keep her daughter, keep her to herself and to her house and to their ways.
Does her sweet, loving husband know of the child he has seeded in her? Rhea does not know for certain, and does not wish to rectify it. The less she sees of the disinherited, twice exiled prince, the better.
Her babe will have a future that befits her station, she will see to it.
two.
Ysilla forms words after eight moons since her birth—mamma!, as was expected—and rises to walk on stubby feet after three more. At two, she wails over her Lady Mother's barking laughter, the horse beneath her stable, safe. At three, she charms her household first and then the Eyrie with her big, doe eyes—bronze like their banner, untainted by the violet of dragons, unlike the golden silver of her crown.
It's at four that she learns 'accident' means more than soiled clothing or bruised knees or broken mirrors.
'Murder' enters her vocabulary at her Lady Mother's bedside.
It's been nine days since the Lady Rhae had fallen off a spooked Greymore, the circumstances of her fall unknown and in question due to the nature of the area she had traversed—countless times previously—and laid in for hours. Barren, flat, inhabitable; no snakes nor wildlife, no jagged rock or weapon from times past.
Her cousin Gerold had been the one to find her, and the one to explain to a quickly reddening Ysilla, as gently and plainly as he could to a girl that young, that her mother will never walk nor run nor ride again—if she makes it, he wanted to add, but did not dare once the sobs broke out.
So she sits there, a girl of four, and understands the words of her house for the very first time—we remember.
"Daemon," Lady Rhea had managed out, had made it as clear as possible with her last, aching breath. Her husband, her fool of a husband. "It was Daemon."
three.
She is sad, this girl of bronze and silver, that she could not enjoy nor wonder at the hall of songs, at the lords and ladies cheerfully stomping to their tune, at the pretty princess sat upon the high table, all smiles and laughter, clad in white.
A royal wedding. What a grand, marvellous event, directly from a fairytale she has only read about, dreamed about.
None of the these manage to grasp her attention from the bronze armour resting heavily upon her dainty shoulders, nor the churning of her stomach, upset and unpleasantly warm.
She's once had a septa tell her that her blood has fire in it, like the great beasts she's spotted once flying overhead.
But that cannot be true!, Ysilla's mind reels at her, shouts at her, for she is nothing like those great beasts, nothing like the man who sits at the very edge of the King's table—your father, her uncle, for she claims him as such, bites out, and steers her towards him.
Her little feet try to plant themselves firmly into the ground, tiny hands grabbing at her embroidered brown dress. She does not want to approach him, approach them—the people who sit upon the dais, looking down at all of them, looking straight at her, now.
The Queen stares at her, mouth parted, lovely in her green dress, and the King halts in his chewing, the food turning to ash and bile at the sight of the child. His Lord Hand is the first to budge Daemon from his revere, to call upon his attention, for he recognises the same slant of his nose as hers for what it is.
"Daemon Targaryen," her uncle's voice is brash, and cutting, and the hall erupts in murmurs at the audacity of it all. She hears them, all of them, talking about her, about her silver hair and the banner beneath she stands. "You will answer for your crimes against house Royce, against the Vale."
And maybe Daemon would have responded, would have quipped and used his wit to brush the accusations away under a rug, Royce pests crushed beneath the expensive weave.
But then he meets his daughter's eyes, wet and burning, and his heart thumps uncomfortably. She resembles him, resembles her, and a frown paints his mouth, jaw clenching. He is aware everyone is looking at him now, the wedding long forgotten; the crowd longs for his response now, his blood.
"You murdered my mamma," the girl chokes out at four, two moons away from her fifth nameday, and Daemon thinks bitterly as Rhaenyra's goblet falls over, just as Rhea Royce herself had: that bronze bitch always had to have the last word.
