110 AC, Runestone
She was named Ophaella Targaryen and her mother labored for six days, eleven hours, and twelve minutes to bring her into the world.
It was a warriors struggle, to be sure, and one that ended in blood. But Rhea Royce bore the pain proudly, just as she had borne all others pains before it, and when it came time for the final push, she endured it with all the strength that was gifted to her by the First Men.
"My Lady, you cannot…" Maester Janne paused, blood slipping between his fingers as he looked between her legs once more. Rhea did not dare lift her head from the bed, too weak to do anything but push with all her might once again. Perhaps it would be this push. Perhaps all it would take was one more and she would hold her babe in her arms before she could finally sleep beneath the Gods eyes. "You cannot continue. I fear if we do not act, you and your babe will both surely die."
Rhea stopped hearing him long ago.
She stopped hearing the scratchiness in his voice that only came from talking for six days. She stopped hearing the hope. She stopped hearing the fear. She stopped hearing all but the sound of her own heartbeat pounding away in her ears and the flutter of life still fighting to get out.
They wanted to cut her open.
She knew it.
They did the same thing to her own mother, and then her older sister after that, and she refused to become the third Royce to die in the birthing bed at the hands of a man whose only concern was the child inside her.
Perhaps he hoped for a son to finally claim the Runestone again after his years of service to women.
Maester Janne stood up as straight as he could and moved from the end of the bed, chains brushing the floor. His hand passed over her stomach, fingers pausing against the largest lump. He was going to suggest cutting her open, just as he had done to her mother and sister, and she would refuse him just as they should have.
But when it came time to muster the words, to claw them from her own throat and save herself, she could not do it.
The small knife glittered in her peripheral and she still could not open her mouth to stop it.
Her hand dropped to the side, groping around at the underside of her pillow until she felt the cold handle of her bronze knife. The Maester did not notice her arm moving as he walked around to stand on her other side, speaking quickly to only Lady-in-waiting that Rhea had allowed to be in the room.
It was coming.
The cold bite of steel would cut into her stomach and the last of her blood would be gone before she even got to hear her baby cry.
She gripped her knife and pulled it down her side, the heartbeat in her ears drowning everything else out. Rhea turned the blade inwards until the tip pierced the soft skin of her stomach, drawing blood.
"My Lady!" The Maester gasped, dropping his own surgical knife to the floor in shock.
Rhea moved the knife across her own stomach in quick strokes, remembering the runes from when she traced them on her own mother's stomach all those years ago. The pink, puckered marks had faded in her skin and in her memory, but she would never forget them. As her house commanded of her, she would always remember.
She would remember the blood of the First Men that coursed through her veins.
She would remember the debt that she owed the Old Gods.
Her hand fell to the side after she finished, the last of her strength leaving her just as she mustered enough for one final push.
She gripped her knife, heartbeat steadying out as she opened her eyes and took a free breath for the first time in days. The babe was placed in her arms, hair as white as stone and eyes as purple as they came, and Rhea was certain she was looking into the face of the Old Gods and the New in full.
She was named Ophaella Targaryen and her mother labored for six days, eleven hours, and twelve minutes to bring her into the world but it would take far more to take her from it.