Battle of Helm's Deep and spiritual hunt, part 2
Author note: This chapter is going to show Rhaella as far more than just the fandom-dismissive image of her as Rhaegar's sad, passive mother and book Barristan saying nothing else of her personality outside "always mindful of her duty". Also, fair warnings for my headcanons about how the Tragedy of Summerhall happened. / Rogercat
~X~X~X~X~X~X
While it was impossible to know if Saruman had already learned that Dorne had taken out some of his Uruk-hai prior to the battle, it did not matter now. Rain and lighting was creating a dramatic background for the nightly battle.
"Legolas, anything else you have spotted?!" Aragorn called over the sound of brazen trumpets in the dark below.
"Apart from the men of Dunland as the Rohirrim worried about? Not at the moment!"
The enemy surged forward, some against the Deeping Wall, others towards the causeway and the ramp that led up to the Hornburg-gates. There the hugest Orcs and Uruk-hai were mustered, and the wild men of the Dunland A moment they hesitated and then on they came. The lightning flashed, and blazoned upon every helm and shield the ghastly hand of Isengard was seen. They reached the summit of the rock; they drove towards the gates.
"Let them have a taste of what awaits them," Théoden ordered with all the calmness he needed to show as a leader.
At his order, an answer came: a storm of arrows from both Rohirric and Dornish achers met the enemies, and a hail of stones followed by those who had other weapons and could not reach that far yet. They wavered, broke, and fled back; and then charged again, broke and charged again; and each time, like the incoming sea, they halted at a higher point. Again trumpets rang, and a press of roaring men leaped forth. They held their great shields above them like a roof, while in their midst they bore two trunks of mighty trees. Behind them orc-archers crowded, sending a hail of darts against the bowmen on the walls.
"Planning to break through the gates? So predictable when storming castles and keeps," Arash commented in an almost bored voice from his place, as the tree trucks, swung by strong arms, smote the timbers of the strengthened gate doors with a rending boom. If any man fell, crushed by a stone hurtling from above, two others sprang to take his place. Again and again the great rams swung and crashed.
"Enjoy some firelight for better sight."
A huge cauldron of boiling oil was emptied on the nearest attackers from above and then by dropping a torch, Arash set some of them on fire. Then, he finally did something had longed for: A huge boulder was lifted up in the air at his side, and the oldest son of the late Lewyn Martell showed his magical powers.
"Time for some battle dancing with Lady Yavanna for you!"
With Arash making the boulder spinning at high speed by literally running on top of it and then twisting it around to start rolling in the desired direction, the attackers found themselves pushed off the ramp.
"Get back up here, cousin, before the arrows hit you!" Oberyn was heard somewhere, pulling on the rope which was tied to his belt.
Running in front of their men, Éomer and Aragorn halted before the gates. The thunder was rumbling in the distance now and the lightning flickered still, far off among the mountains in the South. A keen wind was blowing from the North again, the clouds torn and drifting, and stars peeped out; and above the hills of the Coomb-side the westering moon rode, glimmering yellow in the storm-wrack.
"We did not come too soon," said Aragorn, looking at the gates. Even with Arash breaking off the attack, their great hinges and iron bars were wrenched and bent; many of their timbers were cracked.
"Yet we cannot stay here beyond the walls to defend them," said Eomer, "Look!"
He pointed to the causeway to show his point. Already a great press of Orcs and Men were gathering again beyond the stream. Arrows whined in the air, and skipped on the stones about them.
"Come! We must get back and see what we can do to pile stone and beam across the gates within. Come now!"
They turned and ran. At that moment some dozen Orcs that had lain motionless among the slain leaped to their feet, and came silently and swiftly behind. Two flung themselves to the ground at Éomer's heels, tripped him, and in a moment they were on top of him, all while the Third Marshal cried out in surprise and anger, twisting around his sword to defend himself. But a small dark figure that none had observed sprang out of the shadows and gave a hoarse shout:
"Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!"
An axe swung and swept back. Two Orcs fell headless. The rest fled in terror for the Dwarven axe as Éomer struggled to his feet, even as Aragorn ran back to his aid.
"Master Arash, you as well!"
The gate closed again after them, the iron door was barred and piled inside with stones, much of which Arash added some extra weight though some smaller rocks. When all were safe within, Éomer turned:
"I thank you, Gimli son of Gloin!" he said, gaining back some colour in his face after the earlier shock, "I did not know that you were with us in the sortie. But oft the unbidden guest proves the best company. How come that you were there?"
"I followed you to shake off sleep," Gimli responded, "but I looked at the hillmen and they seemed overly large for me, so I sat beside a stone to see your sword-play."
"I shall not find it easy to repay you," said Éomer in an honest voice.
"There may be many chances where the night is over," laughed the Dwarf, "But I heard in Edoras that you had a lady wife and a small one to come home to, right? Would be sad if another wee lad or lass got fatherless in this war. As for me, I am content. Till now I have hewn naught but wood since I left Moria."
None blamed Éomer for the faint blush on his cheeks at the reminder of yet another reason to remain alive, if everything went as planned Lothíriel was due any day now and he wanted both of them, mother and child, to be safe.
"I hope that she is alright at this very moment."
Up above the gate, Oberyn crafted a magical shield along all the Hornburg and the wall to block the incoming shockwave as the Dornishmen sent caskets of wildfire flying from the catapults, some of them sending off a few hay balls filled with burning coal to start the wildfire. The Orcs and Uruk-hai were given no time to react, before a massive amount of sickly green fire explored across various spots where the caskets landed. The magical shield protected the Hornburg and the wall, but the enemy found themselves rapidly reduced in number.
"Hah! Bet that Aerys would be choking in rage over how his wildfire instead is being used by us Martells for something else!"
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Old Palace, Sunspear:
In fact, Lothíriel had entered labour late that afternoon, and her handmaids had brought her through the portal to get some help from the Dornish midwives just as her husband had requested.
"This little one will arrive around dawn, for sure."
For now, the newest soon-to-be mother in the House of Eorl tried to just walk around the birthing chamber with two of her Rohirric maids supporting her between them, hoping that the movement would make the labour not be so outdrawn.
"That soothing harp music is pleasant to hear, Lord Ihsan."
The grandfather of the current Princess of Dorne smiled at the compliment he got for his music playing near a window, despite it being past midnight and it had been difficult for him to sleep tonight.
"Some mothers and their unborn children relax better at hearing soothing music, which I have used a lot whenever one of my own descendants arrived into the world."
Yet as he began to play some more music for her, Ihsan could have sworn that he felt something else around Lothíriel. A presence that meant no harm to her or the baby, but familiar from his younger years.
"So you are trying to finish what you promised to do at Summerhall and died for it….Maegor, the rejected Targaryen heir who became a Priest of Mother Rhoyne and joined up with your uncle, King Aegon V, in trying to force a end to the unwanted marriage between Rhaella and Aerys."
If Maegor was here and guarding Lothíriel, a complete stranger from another world, with such a sense of needing to shield her child from danger as a ghost here in the very heart of the Martell home, could it be that the unborn baby was Rhaella?
"I see. Because he failed to protect her at Summerhall, he must be trying to keep the ghosts of Aerys, Jaehaerys and Shaera away from Rhaella and give her a chance to be free from her past life as a daughter of House Targaryen. After all, those three were the people who ruined her life the most…!"
Changing the tune, Ihsan began to play a musical prayer to Mother Rhoyne to guide a mother and her child through a safe childbirth. But he did also play a protective chanting against evil.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
At Dragonstone, Rhaenys had arrived at the top of the volcano. Looking in disgust at Aerys, she threw him in front of the massive portal, Morgan doing the same with Jaehaerys and Shaera.
"The Prince that was Promised coming from the bloodline of Aerys and Rhaella? Just pure nonsense from that damn woodwitch friend of Jenny of Oldstone, which you two used as a selfish justification to force your own children to marry each other! You were afraid of the growing friendship between my grandmother and Maegor, the cousin of yours who had been rejected for kingship in 233 because of his young age and who his father was!"
Rhaenys had read it, all the details, in old scrolls found in the temple to Mother Rhoyne in Sunspear. How Naerys Martell, as a Priestess in that cult, had became a foster mother for the orphaned Maegor Targaryen, the only offspring of the short-lived marriage between Aerion and Daenora Targaryen, after that both Daenora herself and her widowed mother Alys Arryn fell ill and died from tuberculosis before the end of the first year of Aegon V's reign. How Maegor had sworn the oath of a priest to Mother Rhoyne after coming of age, and whatever he visited his royal relatives, seemed to impress the thirteen years younger Rhaella into imagining a far different life than a Targaryen princess.
"He had no right to influence her in that way! She was a royal princess, meant for her brother since birth! To keep the blood of Old Valyria pure!" Shaera snarled, looking at Jaehaerys for support, and he said almost the same:
"Our daughter was to be the mother of a foretold hero of humankind! And the blood of House Targaryen had been strained by all spouses from outside the family! To awaken the dragons once more, we needed to start the marriages within the family again….!?"
Rhaenys broke off his rant with a slap from her spear, leaving a long bleeding wound along his mouth. The same old thing, that she had heard over and over again.
"You feared that Maegor was her way of escaping what sort of life you planned for her, and married Rhaella to Aerys the same day as Betha Blackwood died from illness, making use of the crushing grief Aegon V, your own father, felt over the loss of his own wife, and ensured that he learned of the marriage too late to able to stop it, just as you escaped your own betrothals! Selfish! Selfish pair of offspring, selfish parents who were blind to reality!"
Around them, images began to form. Memories of Rhaella, from various events of her life.
I don't want to be married to Aerys, Maegor. I do not want to follow that barbaric custom from Old Valyria!
The voice of a young girl, who was horrified over what her own parents intended for her.
Maegor, dressed in the blue robes that marked him as a priest serving Mother Rhoyne, kneeling in front of Aegon V and Ser Duncan the Tall, inside the royal office, a heavily pregnant Rhaella sitting on the chair. Even Rhaelle and her only child Steffon was there.
"You plan to end the marriage between Rhaella and Aerys by faking her death in childbirth, uncle?!" Steffon asked in shock, a similar look on the face of his mother and Maegor, over what Aegon just had told them. The King had a sorrowful look on his face, as he felt that there was no other way to explain what he planned.
"I failed to protect Rhaella twice already, from being married to her own brother and from getting pregnant this young. It is well known that mothers in this age have a greater risk of dying in the birthing bed, because they are too young and their bodies are not ready for giving birth."
Rhaelle shuddered, catching the unspoken meaning from her father. Both of Shaera and herself had been several years older when having their sons, Shaera had been eighteen when Aerys was born in 244 and Rhaelle herself had been seventeen in 246 when Steffon had arrived as the new heir to House Baratheon. To expect Rhaella to survive childbirth at fourteen...
Her second brother and only sister were mad, blind for the reality that everyone around them tried to point out. Could they not see that their daughter risked death, in a manner that could go wrong in so many ways?
"Grandfather…" Steffon spoke up, "I do not want cousin Rhaella to die because of something that woodwitch has lied about! Aunt Shaera and uncle Jaehaerys are under her control, just as uncle Duncan is though Jenny!"
"I know, Steffon. If she ensnared my oldest son by some help of that woodwitch or just using his dislike against his Barathron betrothal, I do not know,, but that commoner was the start of ruining everything that Betha and I hoped for our children and grandchildren. And Rhaella risks to pay the biggest prize of us all."
Aegon used a key to open the lock on a large truck in a corner, Ser Duncan picked up a large basket from inside and placed it on the desk, letting Aegon reveal several dragon eggs which had turned into stone over the passing of time.
"I plan to use the words of that damn woodwitch against Jaehaerys and Shaera. If they are so desperate to make House Targaryen start marrying brother and sister to each other again, and force Rhaella to carry a child at this age to justify the idea of her child being the Prince that was Promised...well, surely they should not question the hope of the newborn getting a baby dragon to bond with, right? And that wildfire is said to be the nearest thing to dragonfire that currently exists."
Maegor paled as he realized the plan that Aegon had.
"The young mother dying from unforeseen blood loss during the attempt to hatch a baby dragon, and her body being lost in the resulting explosion as the wildfire proved too unstable to control, leaving behind a newborn baby and her widowed brother, with no sister to replace her as his wife."
For some reason, Rhaella seemed to not be scared at all over what her grandfather planned. Instead, she looked up to face her relatives with a clear gaze of pure disgust.
"I do not want this child that is growing inside me right now. It is a parasite, an unnatural monstrosity that could very well become a second coming of the King who you were named after, Maegor. Do you really think that I can love a child born from a marriage union that I never wanted from a young age? If I could…"
A fury sprang up in her eyes, and she said the dooming words:
"If I could have managed it under the watchful eyes of everyone around me at Dragonstone where they are loyal to my damn parents, I would have killed the child and driven it out from my womb with moon tea several months ago. If I could choose infertility, then I would gladly accept it as a way to escape being chained to Aerys, all because my parents have been swayed by that cursed idea about the Prince that was Promised."
Seeing how determined she was in this, perhaps her only remaining chance to escape with whatever help from the few allies she could have, Maegor rose to his feet and took her hands of Rhaella between his own.
"Then I swear to become the older brother of you, in a new identity for us both far away from Westeros, where House Targaryen have no power or ability to find us. No marriage shall happen between us, for all of that you are a granddaughter of my uncle and no one would have raised any questions about such relatives marrying, and you shall be free to choose your own path in life...little sister."
Those honest words, spoken in such a tender and soft manner, made Rhaella cry. But it was tears of happiness, and of increasing hope. And Maegor was right, he was the only person who could whisk her away without risking losing everything, Aegon was the current King, and Rhalle and Steffon had the Stormlands to rule.
"Let us pray for success at Summerhall, and that the baby inside Rhaella shall die in the cradle in the following months, if it is not a stillbirth or another one of the victims of the wildfire."
It had not gone as they hoped. Aegon V and Ser Duncan, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, had died inside the burning palace when the wildfire indeed went out of control. Maegor trying to escape with an exhausted Rhaella by carrying her in his arms while Rhaelle and Steffon teamed up to block anyone from seeing them, leaving the newborn Rhaegar behind in the birthing chamber.
"Get out! Get Rhaella out from this place before anyone comes here to see you take her away! Leave that little monster to burn!" the Dowager Lady of Storm's End screamed, before Steffon slammed the door shut so they could run away from the burning palace.
The black smoke and heat from the fire around them had been overwhelming as Maegor carried Rhaella as quickly yet also as gently as he could. For the fourteen-year-old princess who had just delivered a baby, it was almost too much.
"Grandfather...Ser Dunk…"
"Do not worry, Rhaella, I have promised to give you freedom, and Uncle Aegon will have my hide in the afterlife if I break that promise now in this moment when we must hurry to get you away from your parents! I am only regretting that he and the Lord Commander were up in the Great Chamber when the wildfire went out of control…!"
She could hear his regret in the strained attempt to hold back his tears, and understood. But they could not grieve yet over the loss of Aegon, they needed to get as far away as possible before someone saw them. Even with their dark grey mantles with hoods, meant to hide their revealing Targaryen hair to be seen from a distance, there was a risk of someone spotting the footprints on the ground.
"Over there!"
Damn, Maegor realized with dread. Did anyone see them after all? Despite Rhaelle and Steffon trying to keep the servants away from the birthing chamber by handing out drinks with a sleeping drug inside as a false part of the celebration of a successful royal birth?
A pain suddenly shot through his body, and he fell forwards.
"Maegor!" Rhaella cried out, seeing in horror that he had been shot with an arrow from a crossbow into one leg, and it was her own parents and the wood witch who had followed them. One soldier standing next to her mother Shaera was holding the very crossbow that had been used.
"Nice try stealing away our dear daughter for yourself, son of Aerion, but this is as far as you get. Rhaella is the wife of Aerys, and mother to his precious son. She belongs in the Red Keep as a proper Targaryen Queen consort, not as a beggar on some street in one of the Free Cities," Shaera said in a mocking voice.
Gritting his teeth from the pain as he turned around to face them, Maegor doubted that Shaera and Jaehaerys could have learned about the plan to try freeing Rhaella on their own. Both were clever, yes, but Rhaelle, whose marriage had been caused by Duncan marrying Jenny of Oldstone, could not have been the one betraying the escape plan. Nor would Steffon have done it, for he had never been accepting of his cousins marrying each other despite being brother and sister. It had to be the wood witch.
"Cousins," he said, using the family word that they hated to hear from him, "tell me: Is it really worth risking your own daughter's life and life-long health, just to try having a savior in the family? I think not. Rhaella is worth far more than a mere womb, someone who is a living person in her own right, not merely a puppet to use according to your own fake versions of grandeur and twisted desire for a sibling born from the same set of parents."
Not waiting for an answer, Maegor drew some of his blood from the wound on his fingers and placed his hand on Rhaella behind him. Exactly where her womb, now emptied of the child that she had never wanted in the first place, would be according to his lessons in how human bodies worked.
"Get your dirty hand off Rhaella! You are staining her with your mere presence!"
Maegor only laughed, as if he had lost any control of his sanity. And Rhaella could feel a growing heat inside her womb, not painful like the awful labour pains she had felt before Rhaegar finally left her body. Rather, warm and gentle like Maegor had promised to be to her as a true brother.
"Staining her? When she had to carry a child sired by her own flesh and blood brother? No...I am giving Rhaella the second-best gift I can give her at this moment, when I can not give her freedom: There shall be no sister for Rhaegar to wed, as per that unnatural custom you two have tried to back! Nor shall there be any female relatives close in age from the lines of cousin Vaella, or great-aunt Rhae and Daella for you to use as bride for him! Nor from the future children sired by Steffon! And any descendants of hers, male or female, shall also abominate the very idea of marrying their own siblings!"
When the meaning of his words seemed to dawn for Jaehaerys and Shaera, both their faces twisted into hate and disbelief.
"You...you dare to claim that there will be only males in this generation to come?! To deny Rhaegar a wife with Targaryen blood?!"
"KILL HIM!"
Against her horrified protests, screaming in horror for them to not do it, Rhaella saw the crossbows being ready for release.
"NO! PLEASE DON'T! MOTHER, FATHER! PLEASE, LET ME GO! I HAVE ALREADY GIVEN A SON AND HEIR TO CARRY ON THE TARGARYEN NAME! I DO NOT WANT TO BE MARRIED TO AERYS! I DON'T WANT TO CARRY ANY MORE OF HIS CHILDREN!"
But Maegor smiled in defiance, despite his incoming death, holding one of her hands as a silent comfort into his last moment.
"If I can not give Rhaella her promised freedom and will face the Stranger tonight alongside Uncle Aegon...then I will do him one final favor and bring along the very person who caused all this damn stupidity in the first place!"
Again using his own blood, Maegor revealed one of the few remaining water magic tricks that the cult of Mother Rhoyne had not lost over time. And the small-grown, albino wood witch of Jenny found her throat slashed so deeply that she almost was beheaded as she collapsed in a pool of her own blood.
"Rhaella...I am sorry for failing you tonight."
In the same moment as he said those final words to her over his shoulder, Maegor was shot with several bolts from the crossbows, each one hitting fatally as he fell backwards into her outreached arms, her horrified face being the last thing he saw with his eyes.
"Maegor! NOOOOO! No, no! Please, do not leave me! You promised! NOOO! Murderers! You are not my parents anymore, you are only a pair of murderers!"
Even as she was grabbed by the soldiers and forced to let go of the impaled body which was left to rot, the group bringing her along back to the burning ruins of Summerhall, Rhaella kept screaming for Maegor and crying as if she had lost her common sense. And at the sight of Rhaegar, in the arms of a nursemaid who had managed to save him from a death by fire, something broke inside her.
"I lost my true brother in all but blood...for this monster I never wanted?!"
The only thing that did not make her push away Rhaegar the same moment when her unwanted son was placed in her arms, was the overwhelming shock over everything she had lost this horrible night at Summerhall, when her freedom and a different life had been so close that she now felt it slipping away like fine smoke though her fingers.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author note: In this AU, Maegor Targaryen, son of Aerion and nephew to Aegon V, was orphaned at the age of two years and ended up being raised in Dorne under the care of Naerys Martell, oldest daughter of Maron and Daenerys Martell, eventually joining her as a member of the cult to Mother Rhoyne as he did not want to be a knight or other form of poor relative without lands or title to the royal family. This upbringing left him with abhorrence for the Targaryen custom of sibling incest, and by using his blood in a magical ritual on Rhaella's womb before his death, he tried to make Aerys and Rhaella the last brother-sister pair to marry, as a way to force a end to said incest tradition.
Yes, the Ghost of High heart aka the dwarfish albino wood witch friend to Jenny of Oldstone, was another indirect victim at Summerhall in this AU, though the last act of Maegor. Because she was the one to tell Jaehaerys and Shaera that the Prince that was Promised would come from the line of Aerys and Rhaella, this led to their unwanted marriage to each other and Rhaella's trauma over her pregnancy with Rhaegar at the age of fourteen in an attempt to make that come true.
Basically, Rhaella comes to associate Rhaegar with the Tragedy of Summerhall, and the loss of her grandfather Aegon V and Maegor, as well the trauma of barely escaping death in childbirth when she was fourteen years old. This leads to her never wanting to be around him as he grew up, and secretly praying for him to die despite that would cause House Targaryen to die out in the direct royal line. Viserys, born over 17 years later, did not carry the same association and she loved her second son much more in a motherly way, but her pregnancy with Daenerys proved too traumatic for her body after a lifetime of abuse in different forms and I headcanon that Rhaella did actually drink a huge dose of moon tea in a attempt to kill both herself and Daenerys in the womb by a massive blood loss, because she was the last, unwanted gift from Aerys
