A song of Ice and Fire 1. Rickon Stark & Dorea Sand

The world seemed empty. Dorea walked barefoot through the orchard with only her thoughts for company and with the only sound being the hiss of the leaves as they collided with her Morningstar and the dull thump of fruit as it hit the orchard floor. Tiny droplets of juice from the blood oranges spattered across her face as she went, but she found she did not care in the slightest.

This soothed her.

There was little time for silence with seven sisters, so Dorea had learned to appreciate these moments when she could get them. In truth, there had been a large number of awkward silences in Sunspear since the arrival of the newly crowned 'King in the North'. King Rickon Stark had no more courtesies than that overgrown wolf that never left his side, and Dorea could sense even from across the room how painful it was for the Princess Arianne to try and engage him in conversation during every feast. She was certainly glad it was not her duty to keep him entertained.

Her Morningstar crashed against a bundle of green leaves overhead, and suddenly she heard a low growl from behind her. The sound of the wolf chilled her blood. She swung around just in time to see a perfect, ripe pomegranate land in the hand of the man they called 'The Wolf King'.

Their eyes locked, and Dorea could see the same restlessness in his eyes that filled every nook and cranny of her body. Peace made the broken restless, she supposed. But even that restlessness could not mask the anger that burned hotly and fiercely inside him. She could see it now that he stood before her.

She knew what that was like too. Elia said she did not know much about life, but Dorea knew what being the child of a murdered father was like. She knew how the quest for vengeance began to eat your soul and how the ghosts came out to play in your dreams.

She knew how the rage slipped inside your bones, hardening your heart to steel, and how it never really went away no matter how much vengeance you wreaked. Nothing could hide the deep fury of the children who had become the judges and the executioners of those that had played the game before them, and she was beginning to suspect that nothing ever would. The only thing left to any of them now were blood, ashes and more regrets than there were stars in the sky.

He broke the pomegranate with his bare hands and offered her the seeds.

She did not miss how his Tully blue eyes never left her face as she stepped forward and took a small handful.

She saw it all before they had even begun. She saw the war of men who were doomed to repeat the mistakes of those that had gone before them; men that had never known peace so they would never be comfortable with it. She saw blood; blood as red as the pomegranate juice that slipped from her fingers and stained her lips.

And as the sweet juice filled her mouth, she thought of the time her mother had told her to beware of a boy who would drag her through all Seven Hells.

But, in that moment, Dorea could not find it in herself to heed that warning.


	2. Ashara Dayne & Eddard Stark

Ashara had always been scared of the waves that crashed beneath the Palestone Tower. As a child, she used to have nightmares about slipping and falling into the rough current and being dragged away from everyone she knew and loved. Once her father had told her she was a bird, and she had tucked that secret in close to her heart. Birds had wings and they never had to fear the fall.

Tonight it was a different kind of nightmare that made her wake in a cold sweat, weeping and shaking and utterly alone. Her mind had been plagued by the murders of Elia and her friend's sweet, little children for weeks now, but tonight it was a different death that brought tears to her eyes. Her brother had long been a stranger to her, but now he was gone, and Lord Eddard Stark was here haunting the halls of her castle.

The closeness of his person made her wish for the time when her life was vibrant and not this dull ache of grey. She remembered his cautious eyes as they met hers at Harrenhal and how he had smiled at her- a quiet smile meant only for her- and how it had lost her her heart.

The child began to wail. Ashara covered her ears, begging him silently to stop, but he didn't. He never did. Eventually, she rose from her featherbed and crossed the room towards his crib. His cries echoed inside her head, causing it to throb violently. Glancing down at his red face, she wondered how all her hopes and dreams for the future had turned into a baby who would not stop screeching.

Moving away, Ashara stepped out onto the balcony. Breathing in deeply, she marvelled at how peaceful it was here. The waves bouncing off the rocks below her were the only sound that could deafen the child's screams.

It was here that Ashara came to the realisation that she was a bird with amputated wings. Each feather that had been plucked from her wings represented a person she had loved that had given her the power to fly.

And now she knew there was nothing left to do but fall.

Ashara had always been scared of the waves that crashed beneath the Palestone Tower.

For the first time in her life, they looked inviting instead.


	3. Rhaenys Targaryen

Rhaenys loved her father more than anyone else in the world, and people often japed that she was his constant shadow.

Her Septa told her that when she was born her mother had been taken ill and had been bedridden for over a year afterwards. During that time, her father had sat with Rhaenys night and day and told her stories. He always told the best stories, she thought.

It quickly became a tradition, and by the time Rhaenys had turned two, she was eagerly awaiting bedtime and whatever adventure he would speak of that night. As she curled up on his lap with sleepy brown eyes, he told her tales of magic and men, of valiant heroes and vicious hellions.

He proudly told her she was a dragon. The way his lilac eyes lit up as he said it made her feel like she was special. She liked that feeling very much. It burrowed itself inside her heart, and she found herself smiling whenever she heard the word.

One thing she particularly loved about her father was how he would stroke her hair until she fell soundly asleep, so as to make sure the monsters under the bed never harmed her.

* * *

Rhaenys hated the new baby and resented that he looked so much like her father when she herself did not.

Her Septa had informed her that Aegon would be king after her father, and Rhaenys's thoughts had drifted to her cousin, Arianne Martell, who would never have a brother who could take her throne away.

The night he was born her father had taken her to the highest tower of the Red Keep. With a wide smile on his face, he had held her tightly in his arms and pointed out the crimson comet illuminating the dark night sky. 'The Prince that was Promised', he called him, and jealously welled up in her chest when she saw the love in his eyes for the brother she had never even met. Her mother's screams still echoed in her ears as she asked why she could not be the 'Princess that was Promised.'

He had just smiled, slipped a handful of her brown curls though his fingers, and told her that the dragon had three heads. Rhaenys thought that sounded like a very strange dragon indeed.

After the baby was born, her father became more distant. Whenever she followed him around the castle, he would urge her to go and play, and instead of joining her in her games, he would lock himself inside a room and read scroll after scroll until day became night.

Every single night, she waited for him to come and tell her stories and every single night, he did not come. She shakily feared the monsters under her bed until finally exhaustion swept her away to the land of dreams. One night, just before her exhaustion had taken her, she wondered how she had just gone from being a whole dragon to just one part.

* * *

Rhaenys loved her mother, but it was her father she wanted.

Her Septa had murmured that he would be back, but, even at four years old, Rhaenys could recognise her half-hearted tone, and she did not miss how she could not meet her eyes as she spoke. It didn't sink in that he was actually gone until Viserys slipped a warm hand into hers and squeezed it lightly. Rhaenys had looked at him with watery eyes, and her uncle had solemnly promised to tell her stories every single night until her father returned. She loved him for that.

One day, Aegon's cries haunted the castle for hours upon hours. Her grandfather screamed at her mother to shut the baby up or he would shut him up for her, but nothing she tried worked.

While her mother had run off in distress to get some Milk of the Poppy from the Maester- who was currently needed at her grandmother Rhaella's bedside- Rhaenys had crawled into Aegon's crib. His red face was streaked with tears, and Rhaenys did the only thing that cheered her up when she was ill: she told him stories. Her heart ached as she told him all the stories she had learned from her father; of Aemon the Dragonknight and Florian and Jonquil. Soon, his cries stopped, and as he looked at her with his purple eyes that resembled her father's so much, she realised she did love him after all.

She told him that he was a dragon, and as he curled into her side, with his eyes heavy and his soft baby's breath warming her cheek, the thought occurred to her that it might not be so bad to be part of a dragon.

That night, she discovered that if she jumped into her bed from on top of the carved toybox her uncle Oberyn had presented her with for her last nameday, then she wasn't scared of the monsters catching her at all.

* * *

Rhaenys hated her father for leaving her here.

Her Septa told her that there was no use for her tears, and so Rhaenys had swallowed her sorrow, even though the smell of burning flesh still bit at her nostrils when the remembered the day the men from the North had come. It was three days later that her Septa had gone, disappeared into the night, with Viserys and Rhaella following soon thereafter. Her mother had pleaded with the king to let her return to Dorne with Aegon and Rhaenys, and the king's hard, mirthless laugh at her pleading chilled Rhaenys to the bone.

The next day was the first day her mother had suggested they play a game of 'Hide and Go Seek.' Her mother's brown eyes- the same as Rhaenys's own- were swimming with emotions that Rhaenys did not understand. Keeping her voice calm, her mother urged her to find her best hiding spot and to wait there until she came and found her.

As she moved towards her hiding place, she heard Varys whisper of plans to save Aegon. She didn't know what he needed saving from, but she did know they had not mentioned any plans about saving _her_.

It took over two hours for her mother to find her, and although Rhaenys was hungry and miserable, she did not move from her spot. She knew from her mother's eyes that this was more of a serious endeavour than it was a game, and she was determined to make her mother as proud of her as her father had once been. Mayhaps, she would not be as brave as a dragon, but she knew she would surely be able to hide as well as the sun did at night.

Her mother enveloped her in a hug when she found her, tears falling down her cheeks. Rhaenys said nothing, but she hugged her back more tightly than she ever had. Her mother gifted her with a black kitten, and told her how well she had done. With the kitten as her constant companion, she found she did not miss her father quite as much. She read to the kitten at night as it dozed in her lap, and Rhaenys liked that it did not seem to care how she kept stumbling over her words or how she made up her own story when she did not know what the words on the page said.

Rhaenys was sitting on her mother's lap when the anarchy began. Her mother leapt up with Rhaenys in her arms, and swallowing hard, she asked her quietly if she remembered their game. When Rhaenys nodded, her mother set her on the floor and with a kiss to her temple, she told her to run.

Without thinking, Rhaenys found herself in her father's chambers. She tried not to cry as she crawled under the bed, and, for the first time, she realised the monsters under the bed weren't the only monsters she had to fear.

Shouts and blood-curdling screams filled the air, and when the sudden high-pitched wail of a baby reached her ears followed by a hard smack and then deathly silence, Rhaenys vomited up everything in her stomach. Screams continued to plague her ears, so she covered them, closing her eyes, and shaking, and praying for this all to end. The kitten darted under the bed towards her, and sensing it was not safe, Rhaenys slapped her hand against the floor to scare him far away. The last thing she wanted was to see him get hurt.

The hand that gripped her hair was vicious and hard, and as Rhaenys was dragged, whimpering, from under the bed and slammed against the hard, stone floor, she felt a clump being ripped from her skull.

The man before her, a clump of her hair sliding between his fingers, wore the Lannister colours, and Rhaenys did not understand why he would want to hurt her. "Let me go," she ordered, in as fierce a voice as a terrified four year old could muster. "I am Princess Rhaenys of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and I demand you let me go."

His bitter laugh filled her with dread, and Rhaenys inched away from him, her hand sliding up to investigate her bleeding skull.

He reached out a hand to grab her again, but Rhaenys kicked him as hard as she could and ran to the door. She had almost reached it when that vicious hand was once again caught in her curls.

A multitude of curses escaped his mouth as she once again found herself slammed against the stone floor. The only difference this time was that his sword found itself grazing the outside of her dress.

She screamed for her father as the cold point of the blade licked her skin.

She cried for her mother when she realised what this meant.

She prayed for her brother as she finally realised what Varys was trying to save him from.

And as the sword tore her chest open, she wondered what was so important that it meant her father could not come home.


End file.
