Chapter Text
Rhaenyra worried waiting for her vision to be fully created would work to her disadvantage, but she stood behind her decision to forge a sigil of her own before she spoke with her cousin in the Vale. If the rumors said she was the puppet of Daemon this was surely one way to put that to rest. However, pressing down on the quickly sanded handle upon the gold and red wax was still nerve wracking for the young woman.
The hawk of her mother’s sigil sat perfectly altered by the scales of Baelon’s whelping within its frame when she released the pressure and made sure the wax had dried completely. A bit of remorse hit her that she hadn’t added Caraxes’ winding neck about the edges of the circle as she had originally thought to but she reassured herself it was best. She and Baelon were both of House Arryn and House Targaryen. Blending the two seemed itself a sign to her kin. At least that was her hope as she handed her letter to the fastest horsem*n Lord Strong swore by.
Officially she would never change from using the three headed dragon of her house, but in private she felt the need to remind many her mother’s legacies was just as important as her fathers. It had been many turns of the moon since she had last seen the gentle clouds of the Vale. The walls of stone that laid the path to her mother’s home land had seemed impossibly tall to the young girl that had yet to fly with her dragon. Rhaenyra could only hope the bonds her mother had forged would endure the whispers she was growing more and more aware of.
In the week it would take for her letter to be answered, Rhaenyra could only stumble from one crisis to another in growing agitation to all that challenged her. Her gender was constantly being thrown in her face as she tried to speak against Lords that would not be heeled. Anger was becoming her constant companion as Syrax grew fan of wild caught whale upon the bay over the sheep she’d so delighted in devouring. Even Baelon had taken to screaming in the presence of the lords as she grasped desperately at any news of Daemon. Yet ravens were not as fast as a dragon to her annoyance. Horses were even slower to the growing twitch upon her brow.
She hoped for word from him as she sent her troubles toward Driftmark in search of answers before the situation spiraled beyond the hushed curses of passing Lord’s in the halls of the Red Keep. Trying to address the whispers that were coming to her nightly while she remained underestimated began a constant stream of effort. She pretended not to hear the sneers behind her back in an act of mercy as well as unease. Yet the longer Daemon remained away from her side, it seemed mimicking her father’s way of ruling did her no favors.
Moving the small council meetings to the gardens in hopes the lords would be less likely to spew their displeasure in public, saw Hightower’s puppets to squawk. But Rhaenyra found she needed to be within sight of her dragon the more they argued with her. Trying to give the appearance of a woman beyond her years was not hard in face and dress, but none seemed to see past the smiles of her youth.
Likewise, she found herself heaving her leg upon Syrax’s scales sans her saddle on more than one nightly ride in an image of her past. Baelon seemed to enjoy the cold breeze and the gentle nights stars. But the whip of the wind was all Rhaenyra found she could focus on, even when she should have worried about how she tied the satchel her brother’s fate was held by in such things.
It was not until she heard the warning bells on the worst day since Daemon’s departure that Rhaenyra really found herself overcome in running the kingdom. The screams from the streets below her balcony almost drowned out the heavy clattering of Lord Westerling’s armor as he rushed to her side. The small folk protest that had been simmering since Daemon’s departure had gotten beyond Flea Bottom to her dread. Steeling her nerves as her arms clung to Baelon’s crying figure Rhaenyra panicked a brief moment. Though to her morbid amusem*nt her worry lay in disappointing Daemon instead of losing her, or Baelon’s life.
Jerking open her wardrobe, as Westerling rattled information more to himself, Rhaenyra found herself leaving all her girlish days behind her with a determined step. Hiding her brother’s whelpling in the softest silk, Rhaenyra pulled at the harsh leather on the other side of her shelves. She had hoped her display on the kingdom’s criminals would dissuade exactly what her ears began to ring with. Strapping Baelon more securely to her chest, Rhaenyra turned toward the one man she found herself leaning on without Daemon.
“I’m going on Syrax. Get your men out of my way. My family has held for centuries and I will not be the one to lose it!” Rhaenyra declared, even as a small part of her cowered in what she found herself being pushed to do. But gone were the thoughts on the consequences of her decisions thankfully.
Hightower doesn’t want to kill you. He needs you. Daemon had told her off handedly in the chaos before he departed, yet now Rhaenyra truly doubted such. Had she proven she could not be controlled as he had once been able to? Or perhaps Hightower’s whispers were growing beyond his own control. Whatever saw such bold disregard for her rule’s order, Rhaenyra knew she alone had to address it. Even if she desperately wished for at least Daemon’s guidance on the matter.
“Princess…” Lord Westerling began with a concern lacing his tone, but whatever he seemed to be about to say, his eyes grew serious and his mouth closed. Rhaenyra couldn’t help but to take a deep breath born of her youth as she stupidly looked for his approval without voicing such. The only man she looked up to that remained in her vicinity, considered her a long moment. Whatever he found within her squaring shoulders she did not know to his nod.
“Yes, Your Grace.” He hurried to her chamber door as the sun began to rise beyond the screams of the night. Pulling her riding gloves over her fingers the running of armor almost settled Rhaenyra’s nerves. Her feet flew across the stone’s halls of her home behind Westerling’s dash, his sword firmly upon his grip.
Syrax landed on the garden’s terrace to a scattering of brush and stone neither cared for. Syrax made it known to her rider she did not like the smell of the area and wished to take her rider from it. However, Rhaenyra took a deep breath as she placed her head against the long snout of her lady.
“They think a woman and a babe easy targets.” Rhaenyra whispered in her ancestral language to Syrax’s grumbling of discontent.
“Shall we prove them wrong?” Proving it to herself would suffice at least she hoped.
Syrax’s long whip of a tail swayed side to side in anticipation as she curled a sneer across her fangs in her riders will. It was not a few minutes later Syrax’s teeth bit down on a racing man in the streets below.
Rhaenyra landed before her own gate as gold and white cloaks continued pushing back the ragged figures that began to swarm toward them. The storied homes of lower nobles caved in under the weight of her anger. The ground shook as she and Syrax swayed in the debris to solid footing. The screams of those inside did little to calm the rage brewing in rider and dragon. Without command Rhaenyra found herself screaming with her Lady in unison at the people’s retaliation. The torment of her parent’s deaths, and the worry of her brother’s life came crashing down from her shoulders in face of the resistance before her.
They surged against her hold of the realm to what? Did they not continue their lives after her world shattered?! Her left hand came up to cushion Baelon’s head against her racing heart as the other ground the reins of her Lady harshly.
Her scream nearly outpaced her dragons as a burst of flame sparked to life between her and the consequences of Hightower’s deceptions. All the tales of schemes Daemon had kept her safe from in the last months came tumbling from her mouth in rage. He stepped one foot away from her and they believed her helpless?! She reveled bitterly in the continued screams as men of armor and not scattered like rats from her jaws. Daemon had not believed her helpless…and she refused to be. She was Rhaenyra Targaryen. The eldest child of Viserys Targaryen! If they wished to topple her, they would have to do so with more force than they seemed to possess. If they had hoped to send a frightened young girl running, they were sorely mistaken. She warned them…
Screaming once more as Syrax dug her front claws into the uptorn cobblestones beneath her, Rhaenyra released all the despair in her soul. The frustration of being born a woman against men. The injustice of becoming an orphan before her adolescence had ended and even her resentment of the crying bundle across her chest rolled into the air between her and the dropping torches before her. Her men clattered to be behind her instead of face such jaws and flame as Syrax channeled for her pain.
The stone buildings sparked to flames themselves as wooden awnings and useless ornaments of architecture fell to the blaze of her despair. The screams she returned to the small folk no longer swayed her as they had upon Daemon’s departure. Not even Baelon’s flailing pulled his sister back from the endless stream of flame from her dragon’s turning head. Syrax burned everything within her vision, as she to suffered with her rider the injustice of the insignificant before them.
When at last barely anything stood within lengths of the dragon and rider, Rhaenyra found herself gasping for air as if she was the one to spit the flames herself. Her throat constricted on the smoke and ash that rained across the juncture of her keep and the city below. The shifting of armor behind her brought a sardonic snort to Rhaenyra’s lips. Syrax’s tail was at least given a wide berth in the men’s scrambling.
“Lord Westerling.” Rhaenyra dead panned in her command. Yet the lowering of the volume did not disrupt her brother’s gentle snore. It was rather amusing to his elder sister that the child that could not hear the destruction had no true reaction to such once her heart beat calmed beneath his cheek.
“Your Grace.” The call came after far too much silence. Turning her gaze from the arching chaos she unleashed as pillars snapped in their torment, she found the man covered in soot against the white of his cloak.
“These are my streets. Secure them by any means necessary.” She commanded.
