Disclaimer - This fanfiction was not written by me; it belongs to the user William Dellinger on alternatehistory, by publishing it here I only intend to bring it to a wider audience and make it available for offline reading. I do not claim any ownership of the content.

Rhaegar I
Early 274 AC

The memories were fifteen years' worth of life compressed into one singular moment. There was a familiar pain in between my eyes, but not as sharp as the other download had been. There were images of people; a beautiful woman, blonde hair almost white, that I knew as Mother; a strong, handsome man I recognized as Father; a red haired boy I recognized as Jon, and a blonde one I recognized as Arthur. Other images followed, but those were the most important. A massive, misshapen throne, with a powerful, dominating man upon it. A walled city rising above a bay. All of them were interspersed with the acrid smell of smoke.

I had a bit of a break down. Full on, psychological, meltdown. Crying in a corner, knees to my chest, the smell of shit wafting through the windows, a completely alien world just outside the door with me trying to hold on to the last shred of reality I still controlled. I don't know how long I sat there, but the shadows shifted considerably by the time I looked up again.

A knock on the door interrupted my crisis. Fucking hell. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Pull yourself together. Act cool. It'll be fine, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. Like Fonzie, man. Be cool.

"Yes?" I gurgled.

A voice came from the other side of the door. "Ser Barristan, Your Grace."

Shit, fuck. I had a standing appointment with Ser Barristan, practicing the sword every morning. I didn't know where that memory had come from, which threatened to send me into yet another spiraling crisis. I hadn't made it this morning, mostly because I was busy being curled into a ball in the corner.

I looked down, seeing several bruises on the right side of my body, each one triggering a memory of practicing with Barristan.

"Uh–" Shit, the fuck do I say? "My apologies, Ser Barristan, but I fear today may not be a good day." That was good, right? Properly fancy and whatnot. Formal. Pretentious. Yeah, I could do this.

"With respect, Your Grace, the sword takes time. You've made great strides in a year, but it requires years of practice to master."

Shit, just go the fuck away. "I understand, Ser Barristan, and I thank you for your time and effort. Just a few days is all I need."

There was a pause and I hoped the hell he'd just go away. "Of course, Your Grace. I look forward to continuing our training."

"And I as well, Ser Barristan." There. I'd bought some time.

I started pacing around the room. There were clothes scattered around the floor of the room and various books piled on tables and chairs. It looked like a fifteen year olds' room.

Ok. First things first. I needed to write.

A quick peek out the door gave me a passing servant and an hour later I had several pieces of parchment and something to write with. I divided everything I knew into three sections.

Advanced technology. I didn't have much practical knowledge in medieval, renaissance, or industrial level technology. Steam engines were out. Look, I've seen diagrams of steam engines, I've read about steam engines, I've tried to figure out how they work, it just don't take. I could probably manage a printing press. That never seemed too difficult. Telegraph, though. A telegraph could make a hell of a difference. Semaphore flags, in the meantime. I'll need better roads. Canals? Canals are important, right? Big ditches with water in them. Can't be that hard.

Social changes. Going to have to break the monopoly on education. Need a standing army. Create a true merchant class to balance the nobility. A bank. Revitalize the Night's Watch. Easy peasy.

Man, I was so fucked.

Get back to work, man. Future knowledge. This one was a little tricky, as I haven't read the fucking books. Watched the show, and spent a decent amount of time reading the wiki, just for curiosity's sake. I knew I was in 274 AC, about eight years before shit went downhill. Mad King is being mad, Bobby B is probably fucking half the Vale, lot of important people hadn't been born yet. That was probably my strongest area, since I knew who would turn out to be bigger shits than the rest. But it was also my biggest problem. I knew that if I went and started making huge fucking changes to the timeline, all of that valuable knowledge would end up being useless. Best bet would be to affect the timeline as little as possible, preserving that knowledge. But could I do that? Let people die and suffer so that I would have a monopoly on foresight?

Look, I'm not going to sit here and bullshit you. I'm no hero. I learned that over the course of three combat tours in the Middle East. Heroes die and they take people with them. And I'm not wading into the moral quagmire that is this entire fucking planet. The only way to win the game is not to fucking play.

That was another option. Just not play the game. Sit back, live out my days as Prince of the Realm until crazy pants shuffled off his mortal coil. Or jump out of the window and end it all. I didn't want this, I don't think it's cool, and I sure as shit didn't volunteer. Maybe I'd wake up in bed and convince myself it was a dream. Maybe I'd just die. Either way, it'd be a damn sight better than living in this sociopathic wet dream.

Or maybe I'd steal money from the treasury, pack it off to Essos, fake my death, find a nice peasant girl, and leave this entire lot of backstabbing assholes to their own devices.

That didn't sound like an entirely bad idea.

I looked up at some point and noticed that the sun had gone down and the only light was from torches that someone – presumably a servant – had lit while I was scribbling furiously. A tray of what I assumed to be food lay on the table next to me and I peeked under the linen covering it. Bread, meat, cheese.

That presented another problem. I can only imagine – although I tried really, really hard not to – all of the bacteria present in virtually everything that contributed to constant rounds of disease–

Medical shit, I wrote in the margins of the overflowing piece of parchment. Boil water for surgery, cook food through, wash hands, sewers, some other shit.

–to constant rounds of disease in the population. But if I didn't eat, I'd starve to death, and I'd rather just swan dive out the window if I'm taking that option. Besides, I was in Rhaegar's body, which was presumably used to the bacteria. And, being the prince, I was probably getting better service than anyone else.

Right? Fuck it.

I had just finished the meal and hoping that queasy feeling was just a left over from the body snatching when a knock came at the door.

"Your Grace? It's Jon."

Jon? Jon Arryn? Jon Snow? Jon... Were there more Jons? I scribbled another note in the corner of my parchment. Write list of important people.

"Yes?"

The door opened and I hurriedly shoved the parchment into a book to cover them, just to be on the safe side.

Jon Connington walked in, of an age with me/Rhaegar, handsome and red-haired, with the beginnings of a beard on his face. He was smiling and there was a slight skip in his step, an energy that was infectious.

He looked around the room for a bit, making sure no one else was there. "Are you well, Rhaegar? You haven't left your rooms for three days."

Three days? Fucking shit. I needed to get a handle on this.

"Yes, I am. I've just been reading," I said, gesturing to the books and fiddling with them. There was something half remembered about Jon that I couldn't put my finger on. Something that stood out from the rest of the articles I'd read. You know, because I hadn't read the fucking books. Seriously, could they have not found someone – anyone – else to do this?

It wasn't until I looked up and saw Jon looking at me – or, more accurately, my nearly naked body. His eyes jerked back to mine when he saw me looking, his face carefully devoid of anything that might have given him away.

Oh yeah. Huh. How about that.

"Yes, just reading," I repeated. "I was actually about to go to sleep."

Jon nodded. "Of course," he said, turning back toward the door. "Oh, I spoke with Ser Barristan. He said he would accompany us on our little excursion." At my blank face, he continued. "Down into the taverns. You said you wanted to play your harp for a room."

Oh, fuck me with a prickly pear. "Oh, of course, yes, the harp. Right. Yeah," I babbled out. Now, to say I'm not musically inclined is a massive understatement. I can't carry a tune to save my life, and any instrument more advanced than a kazoo is beyond me.

I looked over to another table, where a harp lay, mocking me with it's strings and...and...whatever the fuck else those things were called. Knobs? Fuck it.

"Yes. Tomorrow night. Harp. Room. People...listening to me...playing the harp. Great. Grand. Wonderful."

Jon smiled and cast one final look over my body, his face completely innocent. "I'll see you tomorrow, Rhaegar. Sleep well."

Once he was gone, I sat on the bed. On top of everything else, I was going to have to learn how to the play the fucking harp. In a day.

"Man, fuck this place."