— one —
WHEN NED STARK PRESENTS ELLARIA SAND A CHILD, SHE IS LEFT BAFFLED.
That is until Ned explains to her who it is and how Jaime Lannister, of all fuckers, saved her. She cradles the girl as Ned explains what has happened. Arthur is dead, Elia is dead, Lewyn is dead, little Aegon is dead, but Rhaenys is not. Rhaenys is here, in her arms. Rhaenys is safe.
Rhaenys Targaryen is alive and now Ellaria must ensure she lives, for her friend, for Elia.
So, the night after Ned Stark leaves, Ellaria begins devising her plan alongside the Maester at Hellholt, the only other person she could trust in these times. The first matter of attention is the girl's name. Rhaenys Targaryen was no more, a mere casualty of war (though the true casualty was the butchers daughter who ran to warn the princess and was caught by the throat by Sandor Clegane). Now the girl needed a new name. A Dornish name.
Rhaenyra, Ellaria decides, for the late Queen who would not let what was hers be taken from her.
And so Rhaenys Targaryen became Rhaenyra Sand, and within the next week she and the Bastard of Hellholt traveled to Sunspear to speak with her uncles, and Ellaria's former lover. They deserve to know, Ellaria had told herself. Elia, Aegon, and Lewyn were dead, but Rhaenys was not, they deserved to know. So, that is why Ellaria Sand was currently standing before Prince Oberyn and Doran, hand tightly clutching Rhaenys's.
"My Princes, could we discuss this matter in a more private area?" Ellaria prompts, eyeing the people roaming around them. Any of these people could be one of Varys's little birds, or Robert's informants. It isn't safe. They stare at her with narrow, inquisitive eyes. They trust no one, not even me. Not even Elia's friend. "Please," she adds after a moment of silence. "It is imperative."
Oberyn nods before standing, understanding the pleading look in Ellaria's dark eyes, and letting the love he held for the woman manipulate his actions. She had lost someone too, in this war, and yet here she stood, head held high, dressed in the dark colors of mourning, yet not completely distraught. Something had happened, something important.
Oberyn leads Ellaria and Doran to the elder Prince's study, closing the door and locking it behind them. Doran, on shaky legs, sits behind the large desk and Oberyn stands beside him protectively, eyeing the little girl clutching Ellaria's hand. His first assumption was that he had conceived a child with Ellaria, which would not have been surprising, but there was something about the child. Her pale hand tightly clutches Ellaria's and she looks much too light to be a product of one of the passion stricken nights.
Rhaenys's hood is pulled up and her head is tilted down, revealing nothing but the semblance of a face beneath the dark shadows. Ellaria had instructed her not to speak until she was told to, and Rhaenys, if nothing else, was an obedient child.
"So," Oberyn finally speaks, crossing his arms over his chest, "what do we need to discuss?"
Ellaria's stomach somersaults, bringing her dangerously close to expelling her breakfast. How did one go about revealing that the niece you thought was dead, actually was alive? Without any other ideas, she gently removes the three year old's hood, letting Oberyn and Doran deduce exactly who she is themselves.
The former is the first to realize. His face pales and he comes around the front of the desk before kneeling before the girl, taking her face gingerly in his hands. He could remember what Elia looked like at this age, skin deep olive, face round and happy. This girl, this child looks almost identical to his sister in every way except for her dark violet eyes that are now wide with the smallest bit of recognition lingering in her pupils.
"Rhaenys," Oberyn breathes out, pulling the child tightly to his chest. How? How in seven hells had his niece survived? He'd read the letters, heard the stories of how Tywin had presented his sister and her babes before Robert Baratheon upon a red cloak, bloody and dead. How? Who?
"Jaime Lannister," the bastard says softly, voice near breaking. "He reached the royal chambers as Clegane was brutalizing Elia, he found Rhaenys before the Mountain could. He saved her, Oberyn."
Oberyn doesn't answer, pulling Rhaenys up with him as he stands. He cradles the girl as he cries and Ellaria lets a tear slip down her face as she watches the man she loves cradle his niece, his last piece of Elia. Oberyn sees it, sees the tears begin to fall down his former lover's face. Their relationship had stalled due to the war, and he instantly regrets ever pushing the woman away. Grief was a lonely thing and he needed Ellaria and she needed him. He pulls Ellaria to him, letting her bury her face in his shoulder as they cry, his lips pressing kisses to her forehead. It takes time for them to calm down, and when they do Doran begins to plot. Rhaenys would become Rhaenyra Sand, they would pass her off as Oberyn and Ellaria's bastard. She would live here with the two, safe from the Lannisters and the Usurper who would no doubt call for her head if he knew she lived. She would be safe, with her cousins she could train, she could train and become strong so she could one day take back her throne as the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Oberyn finds himself unable to focus, though, mind drifting off to the man who saved his niece. Lannisters were known for paying their debts, but what Westeros didn't know was that Martells were equally as reliable.
Jaime Lannister had saved his Rhaenys, and now Oberyn Martell owed him his life.
• • •
RHAENYRA SAND IS A HAPPY GIRL IN HER YOUTH, AND HER DAYS ARE FILLED WITH WHAT RHAENYS WERE NOT.
Instead of a bedridden mother and an absent father, Rhaenyra grows up with two very present 'parents' who take the form of Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand. She runs through the water gardens on bare feet, dark hair flowing through the wind as she plays with the other children. Children her grandfather would have forbidden her to be near. Ellaria and Oberyn fall into the game as well, forgetting that their daughter is the Lost Targaryen Princess, pretending that she is in fact an innocent child they've produced from passion and love like their others. Everything is okay. But it's not.
Rhaenyra Sand may be a happy child, but when the memories of her life from before surface, she becomes Rhaenys again.
It's usually at night when Rhaenyra takes on her old name. She's wrapped tightly in her furs, sweat dripping down her body as she tosses and turns until a scream breaches her lips. A scream that brings either Ellaria or Oberyn or both to her bedroom in a panic, hair askew, eyes wide, hearts beating wildly. And when they look down upon the girl in her bed and she stares up at them with her dark violet eyes, they remember that she is not Rhaenyra Sand. She is Rhaenys Targaryen trapped in a lie.
She is Rhaenys Targaryen and she remembers everything.
She is Rhaenys Targaryen and she remembers watching her brother be taken away from her mother and smashed into the ground by a man taller than a mountain. She remembers her mother's screams and pleas and how strange her face looked after the giant hit her across the head and took a knife to her throat. She remembers the way the beast had forced himself atop her mother and she had run. She had run as fast as she could until Ser Jaime, her golden knight, had found her and had taken her away from the monster who harmed her mother.
Ser Jaime is what keeps Rhaenys safe, and as long as he appears in her nightmares, she knows she'll make it until morning.
As she grows older, though, the nightmares begin to cease.
As she grows older, the memories of her true parents fade away, and she begins to believe in the façade.
As she grows older, she begins to learn of the game that is played in the kingdoms of Westeros.
As she grows older, she begins to become a new person, only a semblance of what she once was.
As she grows older, hatred begins to fester in her veins at the Baratheons, but more importantly, at the Lannisters.
As she grows older, Rhaenyra Sand finds herself unable to hate one Lannister in particular.
Because Rhaenys Targaryen remembers.
And so does Jaime Lannister.
• • •
A Lannister always pays his debts, and Jamie Lannister owes something big.