Prologue Part 1: A Dream of A Dance
If anyone would have ever bothered asking her, Rhaenyra would have said that she never wanted to be a dreamer, especially knowing dreamers never saw good things; only death and destruction (despite what her Lord Father believed with his dream of a boy wearing the Conqueror's Crown that ultimately meant Rhaenyra lost her dear mother). Yet the Gods chose to make her a dreamer. Why her, she hadn't the faintest idea as all she could think of once she dreamed was just how much of a viper Alicent truly was, how weak and able to manipulated her father was, the evil lurking in her baby half brother, and how basically her father's family really screwed her over. She also saw Otto's many different plots to kill her and he and Alicent were conspiring to keep her weak, without allies, and under their full control. Definitely not the future she wanted for herself.
If you asked her, she would say that yes, she did want the crown as she really did feel as if it was rightfully hers. However, if fighting for it meant a loveless and childless marriage (and having to take a lover to have heirs) to ease a slight caused by her father, living with her former maid abusing her power over her, decades of loneliness and then finally losing five children and her dear uncle to the Hightowers and her own life all within a two year span of her father's death. Then she was going to say no and get as far away as possible.
So she wrote up a list of things to do. First, start with family. Since she knew House Targaryian was basically going to screw her over (more than they already had), then she was going to seek out her mother's kin in the Vale. Easy enough to do with how gullible the king was. All it would take is her mentioning how much she missed her mother and wanted to feel more connected with her through her mother's childhood home and siblings and she was set to start connecting with her Arryn kin.
Second, find herself a husband. She was only 13 but she knew the small council (aka Otto and Mellos) were already talking about who would be best for them to sell her "royal womb" off to, and she knew it would not be in her favor. She needed someone far enough away so she could avoid court (and therefore not have to present her minutes old babes to Alicent), who she knew could actually sire babes (hence Leanor was out), had a strong enough military power behind him to protect her and her children after her father died (as she didn't trust that the Hightowers wouldn't come after her even after her disinheritance and her father's death) and had a high enough social rank to justify marrying the King's firstborn child and a princess of the blood. She knew it was a bit of a tall order, but she also knew it was her best bet for survival.
Third, as much as it pained her, she knew that to survive, she needed to get disinherited. She loathed the thought of her whoring half brother taking the throne but also knew it was better for her to lose it on her terms then to lose everything when it gets stolen from her. If she could build a life of her own far from Kings Landing and prove over years that she had no interest in the capital or the throne, she and her family might be allowed to live as they would not be seen as a threat.
Author Note: This is my backstory. You do need to know this information to really understand how we get to the nightmare reunion and I prefer to do it sequentially rather than as flashback chapters, though there will be bits of reminiscing later.
