"Rhaegar loved stories. People liked to say he had read every book on Dragonstone before he reached the age of eight. It was only later that he decided to become a fighter, because of an old prophecy he had read. He believed he was the Prince that was Promised. The Prince would need to know how to fight, which is how he ended up deciding to be a fighter at all.
"He cared for Elia," Arthur continued. "He was kind to her. He was kind to most people he met. She loved him dearly. I do not think he ever loved her back. And when Aegon was born and the Maesters told him she could have no more children, I think that was the true end of it. Another one of his prophecies told him that the dragon must have three heads, you see, and by then he believed that not he, but his son, was the Prince that was Promised, and that he must have two partners for whatever lay ahead - King Aegon and his sister-wives reborn. But Elia could not give him his Visenya, no matter how badly they both wanted it.
"To this day, I am not sure if the Pact and Song of Ice and Fire is the reason he pursued Lyanna Stark, or if Lyanna simply caught his eye and his heart and inspired his obsession with it." Arthur paused for long moments, let out a sigh. "I do know that they met at the Tourney at Harrenhal when his father sent him in pursuit of a mystery knight known as the Knight of the Laughing Tree and he found Lyanna struggling to get off her dented chest plate. He covered for her and returned to King Aerys with only the shield in hand. After that, they would meet up in the Godswood in the evenings, and talk, and simply spend time together. A few days later, he crowned her the Queen of Love and Beauty. He doomed his House and the realm that should have been his, and if he realised that was what he was doing, he did not care. He was deeply in love with her by then, and she returned it just as fiercely.
"They exchanged letters for the better part of a year. It was during that year that Aegon was born and Rhaegar learnt that there would be no Visenya, at least not with Elia. His obsession with the prophecy grew, just as rapidly as his longing for Lyanna. In the end, he could not stand it, and she was heartbroken that her planned marriage to Robert Baratheon was nearing. They agreed to meet up in the Riverlands, en route to Brandon Stark's wedding to Catelyn Tully, and ran away together. Whatever you have heard, know this: there was never a kidnapping. There was never a rape. They left a note, though I cannot begin to explain how it was lost. They wed at the Isle of Faces, and ran to the Tower of Joy in Dorne, with not a care for the consequences their actions might cause. Lyanna, I can excuse for it. She was little more than a girl with her head full of songs of love and knights and princes, and a heart full of resentment for a man she had decided to hate because of the bastard he had sired."
Jon could not help but wince at that, reminded painfully of Lady Catelyn. For a moment, he could not help but be glad, whatever chaos had come to the realm, that Lyanna Stark had not wed Robert Baratheon. For all the he found the king to be more than a little embarrassing and foolish, he knew him to be a good man, and he knew he owed everything he had to King Robert. He would not have wished Catelyn Stark on any bastard, and it sounded like that meant not wishing Lyanna Stark on any of Robert's baseborn children either. Not that he thought Cersei Lannister could possibly be much of an improvement.
"Rhaegar, however," Arthur continued, eyes still faraway. If he had noticed Jon's wince, he did not acknowledge it. Margaery did, though, and gave his hand another squeeze, lifting it to her lips and pressing a brief, sweet kiss to his knuckles. "He was a man grown. He should have known better, but by then his mind was fevered with love for Lady Lyanna, and his obsession with prophecies, and he saw no more clearly than she did. We had been in the Tower for but two moons' turn when we learnt that Brandon and Rickard Stark had been killed by King Aerys in his mockery of a trial by combat. Lyanna... I think something within her broke at that news.
She became quieter, more subdued. Her guilt weighed her down. I thought she would never stop crying, let alone smile again. Then she realised she was with child, and that became the thing that sustained her, through everything that happened after. She loved her babe dearly. She sang to him at night, although she had not the voice for it, and told him all the stories she knew, everything she wanted to be for him, everything she wanted him to be for her. Lyanna Stark became a woman grown in that Tower, a woman I came to admire and respect and mourn as a friend and not just my Princess."