twin flames | daemon targaryen

thirty-seven

Time was a strange thing, Rhaella decided as she stood on the balcony of her chambers in High Tide. Over twenty years earlier, she had arrived on the island of Driftmark for the first time, a moment in time that, unbeknownst to any of them, would be written of in the history books.

Aemma Arryn, the Queen Consort, her mother, had died seven months earlier, burning on a pyre alongside a son who had left the world as quickly as he had come into it. Rhaella had dreamed of both deaths before they came to pass and yet had done nothing to stop them. 

A girl of just three and ten, she had been too fearful of what she had seen and worried what it meant. The words of her great-grandsire mingled in her mind with the voices of Old Valyria that haunted her since she was born, and together they had prevented her from doing anything to stop the deaths of her mother and brother. How could Jaehaerys have known, though, what was to come when he had warned her of her dreams?

The Old King studied Rhaella carefully. She looked down at her feet, too nervous to meet the eyes of her great-grandsire.

"My King," Daemon started to say, his voice barely above a whisper. "I believe that she is Daenys the Dreamer come again. Her dreams are just as what Daenys's were described as—"

"We must never speak of it," Jaehaerys interrupted. Daemon paused, his mouth agape. Rhaella stared up at her great-grandsire in confusion. "We must not worry about the realm. The succession has only just been decided and our house continues to be divided. I fear that this would only worsen tensions and endanger—"

"But—"

"My child," Jaehaerys said, ignoring Daemon's protests as he turned back to Rhaella. "You may come to me with your dreams, should you so wish it. But I fear that these visions can never be made sense of, never unriddled, and it is best not to share them with others. What others would do to hear of these dreams is not something that we want to know."

Five days later, Jaehaerys passed in his sleep and Rhaella's dreams were then known to only two.

If there was one thing she regretted most in the entire world, it was not doing something to prevent her mother's death. She had known what would happen, she could have warned Aemma, could have warned Viserys. Even if Aemma's fate had already been decided by the gods, at least Rhaella's mother could have had time to say goodbye.

If she had been as strong as Daenys, perhaps Rhaella could have said something. But if she had, would anyone have listened? She was but the young second daughter of King Viserys who was deemed too kind and gentle and nowhere near the spitfire of her older sister. She would have been labeled as a young girl who had had a nightmare, who was jealous of her soon-to-be baby brother, who was confused and frightened, whose words held no merit when compared to that of the Grand Maester and the force of the Citadel.

Days after she arrived on the beaches of Driftmark, grief-stricken and shoulders heavy with the weight of her guilt, regret, and thoughts of what could have been, Rhaella came to know peace for the first time in what felt like forever.

Driftmark had become a second home, and the Velaryons had become a second family for the second daughter. Rhaenys and Corlys had taken her in as one of their own, Laena and Laenor quickly integrating Rhaella into their duo to make it a trio.

It was on Driftmark that Rhaella rebuilt herself, her grief over the death of her mother becoming integrated with her being. It was on Driftmark that Rhaella was entrusted by the gods with visions of the Dance of Dragons. It was on Driftmark, years later, that Rhaella had given birth to and had lost her children. It was on Driftmark that Rhaella began to understand that perhaps her role in the world was more than that of being the peacekeeper in the House of Dragons.