'We land only to eat and sleep; our shit can fall from sky.'
-Taken from 'A Treatise on Dragons' written by Rhaenar I Targaryen.
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True to Rhaenyra's plan, as soon as the Lords of the realm renewed their vows to the Crown and swore fealty to her, she flew to Dragonstone.
There she remained for nearly a year, seldom seen except when she took to the skies.
When she returned, there was a new intensity to her bearing. The bright dresses were gone, replaced by dark, practical riding leathers. Smoked eyes rimmed with black. It was remarked that she had left aflowery Rhaenys and returned a sharpened Visenya.
"Where is Ser Lorent?" her father asked that day. The Kingsguard knight had went with her to Dragonstone.
"Ser Lorent is gone," Rhaenyra said. "I shall choose his replacement."
With little deliberation, Rhaenyra chose Ser Criston Cole.
She knew him well enough — the handsome knight with Dornish features. She remembered how her brother had once wagered a small fortune that Cole would win the tourney on the day her mother died. The day everything changed~
Criston lodged in King's Landing ever since. When Rhaenyra asked why, he told her Rhaenar had instructed him to come to the capital and make his way in the world, and was determined to stay until he did so.
That confidence, coupled with the fact that Cole was the only candidate with real battle experience, made the choice simple. It did not hurt that he was striking to look upon…
Life resumed its course. Rhaenyra took her seat on the Small Council once more, at her father's side. Alicent had grown more assured in her duties as cupbearer, and the two girls returned easily to their close friendship.
The governance of the realm settled into a routine. Much of it was dull, but it left one with the quiet satisfaction of work accomplished.
With Rhaenar gone, the pressure to marry fell squarely on Viserys. The King had little desire to take a new wife, and he feared what new heirs might mean for Rhaenyra's claim. For a time, he was content to linger in grief.
That peace did not last.
Ser Corlys burst into the Small Council one day, fury plain on his face.
"Eight ships have now been lost. The last three flew my banner. The Stepstones have grown from a congregation to a pestilence, yet you sit here and dither about court business."
Ser Otto said, "If you have something to discuss, Lord Corlys–"
"I want to know what is to be done about my ships and my men."
"The Crown will compensate for your ship and crew and make an offering to the men's families."
"Again, I don't want compensation. I want to seize the Stepstones by force and burn out this Crabfeeder!"
"I am not prepared to start a war with the Free Cities," the King reproached.
"These pirates are not the Free Cities."
The King held his gaze. "Who do you think provides them with their ships and tender?"
Lord Beesbury said, "In all of its history, my Lord, the Seven Kingdoms have never entered open war with the Free Cities. Were that to happen, the losses would be incalculable."
Ser Corlys regarded the Master of Coin with open disgust.
"What reason does the Crabfeeder have to fear us? Rhaenar is gone. The King's own brother has been allowed to seize Runestone and fortify it with an army of gold cloaks. Daemon has squatted there for over half a year without even a protest from The Crown."
"I'll caution you, Lord Corlys, Prince Daemon is there by order of the King, and a seat at this table does not make you his equal."
The King intervened before tempers turned physical. "I have acted, Corlys. I've sent envoys to Pentos and Volantis to see if we might find common cause. Ships and men are at the ready. The Stepstones will be settled… in time."
Ser Corlys bristled. If only Rhaenar were still here. The Prince had always shown sympathy toward House Velaryon, as he had toward the other Valyrian families who crossed the Narrow Sea with the Targaryens.
More than that, Rhaenar's martial instinct would not have tolerated this hesitation. They needed his voice.
As Corlys felt his patience fray once more, Rhaenyra spoke.
"You have dragonriders, Father. Send us."
Twins after all! Corlys was delighted.
A heavy silence fell over the chamber. Since her return from Dragonstone, Rhaenyra had grown sharper, fiercer. It was as if she had come back with fire burning in her chest.
"It isn't that simple, Rhaenyra."
"It would be a show of force," she retorted.
"At least the Princess has a plan," said Corlys.
All eyes turned to her. Rhaenyra did not flinch. She would not yield to these ground-bound men and their timid thinking. "Sometimes it is that simple, Father. Princess Rhaenys and I would bring Daemon, of course. It would be a good excuse to bring him back to the fold."
Ser Otto recoiled. "Perhaps, uh, there's a better use for the Princess's talents, Your Grace."
The King nodded. "Why don't you sit the throne in my stead for today and receive the petitions? See to it the people have their needs looked after."
Rhaenyra hid a scoff. She would not expose division within the House of the Dragon, not here, not before the council. She would not press the matter further in public. But her father would hear of it later.
"You honor me, Father. Very well."
Viserys winced. No book in the world could prepare a man to raise a teenage daughter — let alone one who rode a living weapon of destruction.
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Trouble in the Stepstones came at an inconvenient time.
Pirates interfered with trade, and their presence drew the attention of rival powers. Complaints reached the capital, and with them came the expectation that the Crown would respond.
In moments like this, restraint was often mistaken for weakness.
House Velaryon was quick to act. Their fleet bore the cost of the disruption more than most, and Lord Corlys made certain the King understood what was at stake.
He was forceful, but not careless. Princess Rhaenys, as ever, shaped the argument with precision. Together, they shifted the question away from ships and battles and toward the image of the Crown itself.
The realm, they argued, had begun to doubt. The Queen was dead. A daughter had been named heir. The King's son was absent, and Dragonstone carried less weight without him.
Daemon sat in Runestone without challenge. Now a foreign power held ground in the Stepstones, astride the realm's trade routes.
None of these things alone spelled disaster, but taken together they suggested uncertainty.
Open war was not what they sought. Strength could be shown in other ways. A union between their Houses would bind dragons to fleet, and blood to blood. It would remind the realm that the old Valyrian line still stood whole, and that the Crown was not adrift.
Viserys understood the sense in it, but sense did little to ease his discomfort. He had avoided thoughts of remarriage since Aemma's death, preferring to occupy himself with rule and with securing Rhaenyra's place.
Yet the realm expected a King to remarry, to produce heirs, to remove doubt before it could grow. Laena Velaryon was an obvious match — and an uncomfortably young one.
That evening, Viserys spoke of the matter with Rhaenyra, circling it rather than naming it outright. She listened, then answered simply: he was the King, and he could choose as he wished.
The reply settled the question in one way and complicated it in another. What weighed on him as duty and consequence appeared to her as a matter of authority.
And so the problem remained — not of whether the match was useful, but of whether he could bring himself to make it.
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It should have been a time for celebration. Word came from Runestone. Lady Rhea successfully gave birth to a healthy baby boy!
It was said as soon as he was born, Daemon scooped the babe, declared it be named Maegor, and together took to the sky for the babe's first flight.
Problems followed. One of the monks reported that, under cover of darkness, Prince Daemon had swept through the Dragonpit and stolen an egg.
The egg was not meant for the child he was said to expect with his lawful wife, Lady Rhea. That egg had already been chosen and set aside.
This egg, instead, was claimed for the child he meant to have with his whore paramount, Lady Mysaria.
To compound the insult, Daemon sent word inviting the King to attend the wedding, declaring his intent to take a second wife in the fashion of Aegon the Conqueror.
Rhaenyra could only roll her eyes. The men of her family seemed doomed to childishness, each acting as though consequence were a thing for lesser blood.
But when it was confirmed that the stolen egg was the very one she herself had chosen for the brother who died alongside their mother, her patience failed. Rage burned bright behind her violet eyes.
Thus it was that when Ser Otto, accompanied by Ser Criston Cole — or Ser Crispon, according to Daemon's recollection — sailed to Runestone to demand the Prince answer for his crimes, Rhaenyra followed in secret.
She rode Syrax through the sky and descended upon the meeting unannounced.
A tale of mutual destruction. Daemon need only strike her down — deal with Rhaenar later — and the path to the Iron Throne would lie open.
A strong king, he told himself. A return to Old Valyria. Dragonlords, many wives, and no regard for those bound to the ground.
But he could not kill his niece. Not without Syrax and Caraxes locking in duel.
Nor, he knew, would killing Rhaenar change anything. And in truth, he took a bitter pleasure in every scrap of news that reached him from afar.
His nephew was living as he pleased, while Daemon himself lingered on Runestone, reduced to petty provocations and half-forgotten glory.
So Daemon returned the egg. His paramour made her displeasure known. He was to provide safety, not paint a target on her back. Besides, Mysaria could no longer have children, not after being raped by her father since an early age.
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Rhaenyra could never have guessed that her father would take her words so much to heart, nor in a manner that would shock the realm.
The King declared that he would take Lady Alicent Hightower as his wife. The announcement was made before the Small Council.
Alicent herself was stunned. Her father's careful maneuvering had borne fruit; all those hours spent in the King's presence, clad in her mother's dresses.
Rhaenyra was not pleased. Of all the women her father might have chosen, it was her closest friend…
Lord Corlys took the news poorly. The King had dishonored his daughter and diminished the worth of his fleet. He stormed from the chamber and soon after departed King's Landing altogether.
Not long after, he summoned Prince Daemon to Driftmark. There, he appealed to Daemon's hunger for glory and his desire to carve a path of his own, and together they laid plans to join their strength and scour the Crabfeeder from the Stepstones once and for all.
For they were both Second Sons. Their worth was not given. It must be made~