Finding their own strengths

Haven of Umbar, 6th March:

In one of the courtyards, the Baratheon children were busy trying to figure out what sort of magic they had personally, not as a unit.

"Try being a little more smooth in your movements rather than waving your arms around blindly like that, Lyonel! Those fans are not a sword and shield of iron!" Argella called to her twin as she used the two steel warfans in her hands to aim a rather strong wind towards his face and the Crown prince of Westeros found himself wet all over again for the unnumbered time this morning thanks to said wind blowing the water over himself instead.

"I am not the one being trained by Holly in how to use a hand fan gracefully in public, Aea!"

Somehow, Argella was actually the one with the ability to control winds and air, rather than Lyonel who instead had been gifted with water. However, neither twin complained about it. Both water and air could have either mascusline or feminine touches no matter what sort of gender the user had, as proved in how storms and hurricanes tended to be a mix of both winds and water.

"Don't blow us around, Argella!"

Not far from the twins, Brienne and Sandor were having a training duel to see just how much the oldest daughter of House Tarth seemed to be able to defend herself and others near herself with the use of magical incarnations to add to her sword and shield.

"Come to me, Maat, and use me as your servant to ensure justice!"

Despite her own conflicted feelings about her body and appearance, not always helped by that her two younger sisters had gotten most of the more traditional feminine looks that seemed to have literally skipped over her, Brienne had always been strong for her age even before starting to train in order to become a rare female knight and now proved this true as Sandor found himself with a very formidable opponent who could actually match his own strength.

"Get him, Bria!" Shireen called in a slightly nervous voice as she watched the duel between the two sworn swords of her twin cousins, all while Rhea kept doing a different training with Aemon.

"Toss bigger pieces of ice, Aemon," the younger daughter of Stannis commented, as not even a noticeable big rock failed to break the magical shield around her. A new try from Eric, aided with the smithing hammer of Gendry, did not work either.

"Well, I may not have gotten some of that magical stuff like you, but I think it is better to avoid unwanted attention anyway if I am to become a blacksmith," Gendry said as Eric tossed back the hammer to him over the circular barrier where Rhea currently was.

"I can send over the metal needed to forge my armor and such, if you do not settle down too far away at the end of your three years as a journeyman across Westeros! We siblings should help each other, right?" Eric offered, trying to pull apart some rocks that they would use again for training.

"Elinor, how are your botanist powers going?"

The second Baratheon princess had remained near the flower beds so far, trying to see if it was only pretty flowers that she could grow, or if it could be expanded to trees as well. Myra was helping her younger half-sister with some fertile soil to plant the seeds in.

"I think I have managed to make the flowers bloom…..aaaaaah!"

Of course, because they had only awoken their powers fully very recently as a reaction to the danger which Sauron posed to Westeros, and therefore did not have years of secret training like the Martells, some form of mishap was bound to happen. After all, there was a difference between being born with a natural gift for magic, and actually knowing how to use it safely.

"Oi, Elinor! Do not ensnare us again with those bloody flowers as if they were ropes!" Sandor cursed as a literal sea of tall grass and uneven number of various flowers grew so hasty that it was even above the heads of him and Brienne.

"I am sorry, Sandor! I am sorry!" An anxious response came from somewhere in the grass despite that Elinor could not see anyone, movements revealing where the various members of the younger Baratheon generation tried to find each other, calling out names and wondering just how much grass there was.

"Oh, stop fussing over it, girl! Rather flowers with thorns than fire," Sandor muttered, starting to cut through the grass with his sword in order to see where everyone was. He really meant it in that he preferred how none of the royal children or their cousins had gotten any magic power related to fire, the memory of Gregor burning half his face as a child was still very alive thanks to phantom pains and whatever he saw himself in a mirror.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

On the other hand, Robert and Stannis was trying to convince Suleiman that their children must be sent home for their own safety, but the Sultan of Rûm turned out to have several answers as to why it would be a bad idea:

"Do you want those Wraiths on their flying beasts to try to kidnap your children again?! Behind your backs this time, and neither of you hearing about it before it may be too late? Magic powers or not, your children will still be targets because they are the heirs of the royal family of your realm, and Sauron will want them as hostages to use against you or as puppets for him to control! That is how he has kept control over the East of Middle-Earth for so long, and those Ringwraiths are just one of many ways for him to ensure that he stays in control from the shadows!"

He may be younger than the two Baratheon brothers, but Suleiman knew what he talked about. After all, he had only escaped such captivity by pure luck for his father when he pretended to not have slept with Suleiman's mother at all and thus she officially could leave his harem to be married to a trusted governor, when she was actually carrying the unborn Suleiman inside her body without it being visible underneath her clothing yet.

"Damn! Whatever we do, that Dark Lord will try and catch them, right? And back home, things are not looking great either…" Robert muttered, hating this sort of situation where he could not fight as a solution. The political side of being a ruler was something he had never enjoyed, not even as a Lord Paramount of the Stormlands before taking the crown, mainly because he was a man that was most alive when fighting physically and Robert knew that this side of his personality did not work well with the petty, day-to-day bickering to be found in trying to run a kingdom, no matter how charming he could be so enemies could be turned into allies. After all, as he had found out in many hard ways despite trying to be more active in the political side of kingship over the past years, him being a good general in times of war, did sadly not mean he would make a good king in times of peace. Robert was no fool, but his kingship had forced him to face some of his worse flaws in a more serious light over time.

"We are NOT bringing them along to the battlefield when we must fight those creatures! It is not a place for children! My daughters are only seven and four years old! And the youngest son of Robert is the same age as my youngest! Even with Sandor, Brienne, their natural siblings and septa Holly to defend them, they will not be anywhere near a true battle!" Stannis snarled with a furious look on his face, looking ready to actually punch Suleiman in the face if he even tried to suggest that.

"Lord Baratheon, a fist to the face is not the answer here!" Morgan Sand hurried to add in from his place a bit further away, despite that his translations between the two languages had been thrown aside for the time being, for the three men could read each other's reactions from the raised voices, the body language and their reactions.

"How about that they use their powers to help send our joined fleet on a faster speed for travel, and later stay under heavy guard on your ships?" the Sultan suggested in a neutral tone, and that seemed to be the way of avoiding a physical hit from Stannis.

"Give us some time to think this through….please."

The last word was rather strained, but Suleiman understood why. This was a difficult choice for the Baratheon King and his brother, both as leaders and as fathers. Robert was newly widowed with only one young daughter and son left in the Red Keep if he failed to bring home his other children, and Stannis could not know if his wife Selyse may have a third daughter or a long-desired son at the end of her current pregnancy.

Walking out on a balcony, the two brothers saw their children helping each other on the stone path below, trying to free a sibling or cousin from the remains of the flowers that Elinor had accidently wrapped around them.

"Selyse would never forgive me if Shireen and Rhea were kidnapped again on the way home, and I did not know where they had been taken. So as much I dislike the idea of having them near a battlefield…"

Stannis was gritting his teeth in frustration, and somehow, Shireen managed to hear it despite the distance to the ground.

"Father, please do not hurt your teeth like that!"

A simple request, but he was reminded of his grandmother Rhaelle gently telling him the same.

"Brother…do you not think there is a possible chance…that our children may be the key to victory? We have both fought those strange creatures, or orcs as Suleiman calls them, if they showed up in the Westerlands during our visits there before that great drought happened. If our children can help to delay their attacks on our soldiers, perhaps..."

Robert had watched his children as they trained over the past days, and he could start to imagine how their powers could be used to gain an advantage in battle.

"Bring your own children if you so want, Robert, but I am not letting Shireen and Rhae enter danger!" Stannis growled at him, clearly showing that for all his awkwardness around his daughters, he did have some form of paternal instinct to want them to be safe.

"Right, I get it, brother I will not talk more about it now."

But Robert knew that they could not delay the choice of what to do, for long. Suleiman wanted to leave Umbar soon, for he had made it clear that he intended to sail with his armada of ships eventually, with or without the Westerosi warriors.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

In the Golden Hall of Meduseld;

"Sister. Can we talk if you have time?" Aegon asked softly, in case he disturbed Rhaenys in the middle of her painting.

"Yes."

Putting down her brush, she turned around to face her brother.

"That meeting with Khamûl…you are affected by it in more ways than just him finding out who you once was, right?"

Her eyes were the familiar brown one, not the amber one that Princess Mara of Kemet would have when possessing her current self.

"Even if he fell into darkness and became a servant of Sauron…he did it to protect me and Neith, Aegon, as well our unborn sons at that time. If anything, what does that tell of Khamûl as a father loving his children? That his paternal love was so strong that he was willing to do anything to ensure our survival. All of this reveals that, compared to a Ringwraith and our own stepfather, Rhaegar Targaryen was nothing else than being undependable in the role of a father and husband? He forced Madre to become pregnant with us when she had needed more time to rest between both pregnancies, and then had the fucking gall to claim that she was unable to have a third child as the reason why he ran off with Lyanna Stark!"

Ah, Aegon realized, Rhaenys must have been reminded about their shared sore point that was the man who had sired them. Neither one of them had any high opinion about Rhaegar, not after how he basically had abandoned them and Elia at the mercy of Aerys while he vanished for months.

"Yes…compared to them, even with everything Khamûl has done as a servant of evil, he was no father at all."

Rhaenys took a deep breath, but she still could not hold back her tears. The memory of Khamûl as Mara remembered him, and her own memories of Théodred all through everyday of her childhood until now.

"Did that damn "Silver Prince" even care for us three at all as a husband and father, I wonder? Despite that Madre was his legal wife that he had wed in front of the entle court, and she risked her own life twice to give birth to us two? Or was he just waiting for a moment to find an excuse to toss us aside like we were worth nothing and replace us with a new family? A younger wife, easier to impress and control, that would fall on her knees in worship and treat him as if he was a gift from the gods, children that would look pale-skinned and more "proper" Targaryen than showing traits of the Martell family? No, Aegon, Rhaegar Targaryen may have sired us in the legal marriage between him and Madre, but he did not care for us at all, and he showed this by running off with Lyanna Stark. And if I ever meet a Westerosi that dares to claim that it is our Madre's fault that the marriage failed despite two heirs, then I will give a long sermon on his failures, including that he left us at the mercy of a abusive madman that was our own paternal grandfather, and why Rhaegar would NOT be an improvement over his father in the long run!"

Aegon could tell from her body language that Rhaenys needed this rant, to get it out of her system. So he stepped forwards, and took her hands in his own:

"Who can say where we will go? Who can promise what will be? But I will stay at your side, Rhaenys, as your brother. I will help you on the path that you must take as your promise to free your former father from the chains he is captured into. For all the evil things he have done, he was a different person once, and his fall into evil was triggered by the massive traumatic loss of everything that he held dear as the Farao of Kemet."

Their life here in Rohan was a far cry from how they would have lived as the children of Rhaegar, but both Rhaenys and Aegon had agreed several years ago that being a Targaryen Princess and Crown Prince would not be an enjoyable life. For Rhaegar had proved himself to not be reliable in acting as a true husband or father, or even as a helpful son, as poor Rhaella had bitterly found out during the Defiance of Duskendale when Aerys had been a prisoner for half a year and Rhaegar had never taken the chance during his absence to change Rhaella's living conditions inside Maegor's Holdfast or given her a chance to show what she was able of outside being a mother who struggled to have more living children.

"We will fight together, little brother. All of House Martell, House Eorl, our other allies and my reborn past-life siblings, against the Dark Lord."

Everyone had a strength of their own, but together, they would be more powerful than separate.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

Author note: As Brienne is the female reincarnation of a younger son to Khamûl who was intended as a priest, I thought that some form of white magic would match her

None of the Baratheon kids having fire as elemental magic? Well, think about it, fire is closely connected to House Targaryen, and their whole "conquest by the help of dragons" that Westeros experienced almost 300 years earlier. Magic based on water and wind seems more suitable for the Stormlands, and earth as a indirect connection to the very fertile soil of the Reach

Gendry not having any magical powers is meant to highlight that NOT everyone of the younger Baratheon generation will be a reincarnation of the children of Khamûl. Besides, if he wants to live a life as a blacksmith, having fire magic would risk him getting accused of cheating in his chosen profession and possibly reveal him as a bastard son of the King, especially if it comes out among the public that the royal children and the daughters of Stannis also have magical powers