Author's Note: Big thanks to StellaStarMagic for betaing this chapter. And for keeping the word count at a reasonable length lol.
Runestone, 98 AC
Pain.
Excruciating pain.
It clouded her mind and forced away everything else.
With her eyes shut tight and fingers gripping the soft fabric underneath her, Rhea could think of little else to relieve herself of this torture.
There was chatter all around her. Muddled mutterings, rapidly muffled footsteps upon carpeted floor, the creaking sounds of chairs being moved – it all sounded very distant. Eventually, she latched on to a single voice – it was the voice of a man and it felt very familiar. He was speaking to her persistently, his tone rather urgent. Throughout the confused clutter of her mind, she knew that he was saying something important.
Then a single word pierced through the fog once more.
Push!
So she did just that.
A new wave of unbearable agony washed over her body. Rhea screamed.
"Careful, my lady," warned the gruff voice, whom she now recognized to be the maester of Runestone. "Push too much so suddenly and you'll pop the little one's head off."
At any other time, Rhea would have found Maester Ruger's blunt demeanor to be amusing, especially when in court. But at this moment she wanted nothing more than to slap the grey-robed northman's face for placing that morbid image in her mind.
"Maester, she shouldn't hear such words!" The reproachful voice of her handmaiden, Mya Redfort, could be heard amid the noise.
"She need must be reminded of the risks," he insisted, "else the babe will be lost."
"What she needs is to be soothed for the birthing to go smoothly."
"Knowing the stakes is just as—"
"Enough, the both of you!" The loud and sudden voice of Alayne Hunter, her other handmaiden, nearly made Rhea flinch. "All your ruckus is making Lady Rhea queasy!"
Sweat lined her brows. Nausea swelled within her. Bile was rising deep in her throat. She had to grit her teeth to suppress the urge to vomit. Rhea wasn't sure for how much longer she could do this.
Harder. She had to push harder. It was the only way for the pain to stop. She had done her begging hours ago and it only served to make her voice hoarse and raspy.
Tightening her grip on the sheets, Rhea took several deep calming breaths and clenched her teeth once more. Then she dipped her chin to her chest, shoulders tensed, and pushed.
By the Seven Hells and back, this is unbearable!
"Excellent, lass. Harder. Push harder!" Maester Ruger urged.
Rhea cursed and growled at him. She didn't care that she sounded more like some rabid animal than a noblewoman of the Vale.
Another burst of pain rushed throughout her body, making her shudder from head to toe. Yet still, she pushed, feeling her lower half respond to her efforts, parting for the baby.
"I can see the head!" Alayne cried out.
Rhea felt someone grasp her hand, holding it firmly. "A little more, my lady," Mya said softly.
Rearing her head back, Rhea let out a long and bloodcurdling scream. Her back was almost arching and the heels of her feet dug deeper into the mattress as she pushed with all her remaining strength.
The loud wails of a crying babe soon greeted her ears and echoed across the room.
"It's a boy!" Alayne shouted in delight.
"Aye, and with a fine set of lungs," Ruger observed with approval. "This is a healthy one, my lady. No doubts about it."
Euphoria grabbed at her. A son. She had a son. Rhea dropped her head against the pillows with a relieved sigh. Finally, this nightmare is over.
"My lady!" Alayne suddenly exclaimed in shock. "Is she alright? Why did she… she…" her handmaiden stumbled over her words, "e-expel herself across the bed?!"
Rhea felt her cheeks redden in embarrassment at that. She twisted her head to the side and let out a pitiful whine against the pillow.
"Calm yourself, girl," Maester Ruger said dismissively. "Have you tried holding in your shit all day whilst in labor? This is perfectly normal by the Citadel's standards. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd shit up a storm more dreadful than the Stormlands once you enter yours one day."
"Ugh. Must you be so crude, maester?" Alayne retorted scornfully.
Paying no heed to their bickering, Rhea struggled to open her eyes. All she could see was a blur of lights once she did, which immediately made her head spin and kept her eyes shut. She was breathing heavily. Her body felt weak and numb.
"My son…" she croaked.
"Shh, rest easy, my lady. We shall handle him for now." Mya's comforting voice and gentle rubs across her hand calmed whatever anxiousness she had left in her.
Rhea further buried her face into the pillows with great, heaving breaths, feeling utterly tired and drained. Layers of sweat covered her bare skin, drenching the shift she wore and the bed she laid upon. Somewhere nearby, her newborn son kept wailing as her handmaidens and, presumably, servants tended to his needs.
She idly wondered just how exactly she was going to sleep through this mess and noise.
A large rough hand ran through her sweaty hair and grabbed ahold of the back of her head, gently tilting her forward. Then she could taste something thick and viscous being poured into her lips and she gulped it greedily down her throat.
Obscurity soon began to claim her thoughts and it wasn't long after that she fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.
When she came to, it was to the distant clamor of clashing steel from the training yard and the slow tolls of the ringing bell tower that heralded her return to the waking world.
Rhea groggily blinked and winced at the ray of sunlight that immediately caught her vision. The tapestries had been pulled back by the servants and most of the windows opened to let the sea breeze provide some fresh air into her chambers.
Well, in truth, it was her father's personal bedroom. But Lord Yorbert Royce had not occupied his seat of Runestone for more than a year now since he had accepted the regency for the infant Jeyne Arryn. He had moved into the Eyrie, bringing with him her little sister and most of his retainers to court. As his heir, Rhea had been left the acting lady of the castle in his stead and so had free reign to redecorate the lord's bedchamber to her own liking.
However, as her senses started to return to her, Rhea soon realized that she was not alone in the room.
Faint gurgles and squeaks emanated from somewhere beyond the front of the canopied bed. Then a voice spoke.
"Quiet, lest you wake this entire tower again with your yapping. And stop that drooling or you'll ruin your—" the voice let out a sound of disgust. "Ugh. How father ever dealt with Viserys and I as a babe I will never know."
Stiffly, Rhea propped herself up until her lower back rested on the pillows and her head was leaning against the headboard. She wiggled her legs and silently thanked the gods that someone had the foresight to change the sullied sheets. From this position, she could make out the outline of someone standing several feet away and facing one of the unlatched windows.
"Back from laying with your whores now, are you?" she said coolly.
Startled, the young man turned around and revealed in his arms her son, newly wrapped in swaddling clothes. Sunlight from the window behind him made his silver-gold hair shine. It flowed past his shoulders and highlighted his handsome face, lined with prominent cheekbones and a strong jaw. The purple eyes further marked him as a member of the ruling royal family of Westeros.
Daemon Targaryen, second born son of Prince Baelon Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne.
Her lawful husband by rights, and her consort.
Leering at her, his eyes wandering up and down, Daemon let out a sardonic smirk. "Hm, they certainly make for a more pleasant sight to gaze upon. I daresay even the sheep are looking particularly ravishing this time of year."
Had her lord father heard him utter those words to her, Yorbert Royce would have run Daemon right through with Lamentation, their ancestral Valyrian steel sword– prince or not. Her distant cousin, Ser Gunthor, would have outright challenged him to a duel for such a grave insult directed at her. Rather than show offense, however, Rhea merely snorted aloud.
In her sweat-dried and sleep-deprived state after being in labor all day, she could scarcely deny that her appearance bore more resemblance to a hideous hag that lured children out into the forest to feast upon them.
"And you stink of dragon dung, my lord," Rhea said in an overly sweet voice. "Caraxes ought to be mindful of where he shits or else the rest of the castle might start thinking you prefer sleeping next to that dragon of yours rather than your own bed."
"What utter nonsense!" Daemon retorted, even as he started tugging at the fabric of his doublet and sniffed it with a frown.
He was just six and ten when they were wedded and bedded on Dragonstone the year prior. The match had apparently been arranged by Queen Alysanne and her own father, and given with King Jaehaerys's approval.
She recalled how Alayne and Mya had gushed in cheer and envy when news reached Runestone regarding her husband-to-be. They giggled and whispered among themselves about how beautiful and dashing the prince must be and how lucky she was to be able to marry into the royal family. Rhea had to correct them several times on the latter part, as the agreed marriage contract indicated that Prince Daemon was set to be her consort rather than the other way around.
When she finally met the prince a month before their wedding, Rhea couldn't have been less than enthused by the prospect of marrying him.
Prince Daemon looked every inch the perfect Targaryen prince. Tall and lean, charming and daring. Having just recently been knighted by the Old King himself and entrusted with the famed Valyrian longsword, Dark Sister, for his prowess. A dragonlord of his own right, he had successfully tamed the ferocious red mount of his late uncle, the deceased Prince Aemon, at the age of thirteen. He was also hotheaded, dangerous and mercurial. There were even whispers of scandalous rumors surrounding his supposed dalliances with the serving maids of the Red Keep.
Being six years his senior, Rhea was quite unimpressed by his rogue antics and didn't hesitate to tell him so upon their first few encounters. It had greatly annoyed him, she could tell. He had mockingly called her a 'bronze bore', for being too interested in mundane matters such as governing her father's lands and hawking rather than spending time with him. She fired back with the moniker of 'dullard dragon', for his preference to draw blades and break lances with others rather than have an intelligent conversation.
She had met plenty of green boys like him at his age that tried and failed to court her. They were all wrought from the same breed; spoiled and hot-blooded lordlings that didn't know anything beyond fucking or fighting.
Regardless of their dislike for one another, they both did their duty in the marriage bed on the eve of the wedding and quickly refrained from doing so again afterwards once they returned to Runestone. That one night, however, proved fruitful enough to get her pregnant.
Her reverie was broken by loud whimpers coming from their son.
"What is the matter with you?" Daemon asked, peering down at the squirming bundle in his arms. Then he held the wrapped babe away from him and grimaced as the child released a long and continuous cry.
"He is hungry," Rhea said, unlacing and pulling down the straps of her shift. "Give him here, he'll be wanting to break his fast now, I imagine."
The high-pitched cries in the chamber were soon replaced with muffled suckling noises. Her son wrapped his lips around a nipple and kneaded her full breast with tiny grasping hands, nursing upon her milk hungrily. It was a strange sensation, almost uncomfortable, really.
"What a patient boy," she cooed, pulling him close to her bare chest and running her fingers through his mop of rust-brown hair, a similar shade to her own.
From the corner of her eye, she could make out Daemon settling himself comfortably on a plush highback chair positioned close to the bed. One leg crossed over the other as he poured himself a generous cup of wine from the pitcher left on the small table next to him.
"Oh, and by the way," he said casually, reaching a hand inside his doublet, "we have news from the capital."
Rhea pulled her gaze away from the nursing infant to glance at the letter he just tossed onto the bed. Much to her irritation, the seal on the letter was already broken though she could still identify the hardened red wax and the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen stamped upon it.
"Must you make a habit of opening my missives whenever it suits your fancy? They are a private matter," she said sharply.
"Why, I see nothing private regarding this one considering it concerns my family." Daemon shrugged and took a long sip of his wine. "I do reserve the right to ask the maester for any ravens he might receive, you know. After all, am I not your lord husband?"
"To my ever-growing regret, you are," Rhea muttered to herself before picking up the opened letter with one hand and reading its contents while tucking her feeding son in the other.
Her brows furrowed slightly. "There is to be a great tourney hosted in King's Landing?"
"Quite right!" her husband replied eagerly. "To celebrate the fiftieth year of grandfather's reign on the Iron Throne. It's to be held in three months' time and my father is graciously inviting us to attend." There was an intense glint in his eyes. "I cannot wait to cross blades with Dark Sister and best the finest knights the realm has to offer."
Rhea frowned. If she correctly recalled the previous conversations she had with Maester Ruger, she would need several weeks if not moons of rest to fully recover from her pregnancy, not to mention her son's need to be fed every so often. Just the thought of stepping foot on the deck of a ship and making the journey across the sea to attend a tourney she had little interest in was making her stomach ill already.
Oh well, I'll just send Gunthor to attend in my absence then, she thought. Surely the crown prince would understand that his good-daughter had plenty to deal with, like nursing his grandson upon her teats, to even consider leaving the castle. Besides that, her cousin would take far more pleasure in this tourney than she ever would and might even bring the champion's crown to House Royce by the end of it. She'd have to speak to him privately to do his best when presenting their house, and mayhaps knock her husband off his high horse in the tilts if he'd ever get that chance.
Rhea then raised a brow at him. "Best work on that lance arm of yours if you intend to win the joust, husband. From what Lord Tollett has told me of last month's tourney, you didn't fare well in that final tilt against one of Lord Corbray's squires."
"'Twas a stroke of luck on that boy's part and he knows it!" Daemon groused, barely a year older than said boy himself. "I can promise you that such a fluke shall never happen again, dear wife." He finished the rest of his wine in one gulp before standing up from the seat. "I'll be off, then. There is much to prepare and Caraxes is eager for a flight again."
"And what shall be the name of our son?" Rhea called out with a huge yawn, shifting more comfortably against the bed. Her words stopped her husband in his tracks halfway towards the door. "You have chosen one already, have you?" she asked innocently. It was one of the few things they discussed and agreed upon in the months leading up to the birth. "Would be a shame if you didn't because I already have a good Westerosi name in mind for him."
She lowered her gaze to check on the babe only to find him staring back at her in return. His eyes were now wide open and the sunlight made them glow a bright, beautiful purple. Rhea couldn't help but be entranced by them, by this little boy she had created within her own womb and was now holding in her arms after a challenging nine moons. It made her swell up inside.
Eventually, Rhea blinked and shook her head in an attempt to clear the sudden burst of emotions and drowsiness away. She glanced up and found Daemon having since returned to the bed and staring at them both with a deep contemplating frown on his face.
"Baelor," Daemon finally said. "His name shall be Baelor."
Baelor Royce, she thought tiredly, feeling her eyelids beginning to droop once again despite her best efforts. Future heir to Runestone and grandson of Baelon the Brave, Prince of Dragonstone.
Rhea welcomed the darkness of sleep as it swept over her.