I Just Pray For Your Fall ||| Cregan Stark

one

Hello! Welcome to my newest HOTD fic and I apologize for how long it took to arrive. I've never written a character who doesn't start out as a Targaryen and is embroiled in their drama, so I'm testing the waters by writing a Tyrell.

House Tyrell was scarcely mentioned both in the book and in the show. In the show, there's a rider with the sigil of House Tyrell at the tourney for Baelon but that's about it. In the book, House Tyrell is neutral in the Dance of the dragons as the Lady Tyrell is the regent for her infant son and tells the Greens she is 'but a woman'. Iconic, if you ask me, which is why I decided to write the house!

Amara will interact will the Targaryens and will be part of the Dance but her main love interest is Cregan. He is honestly my favourite character to write from the series.

Anyway, this first chapter is kind of long because I wanted to give my readers a lot of backstory on House Tyrell. I did a lot of reading and research and I'm sure ya'll didn't do the same, so I wanted to give yall some background on the house and where I'm coming from on certain things. Please bear with me for this first chapter, as things definitely pick up afterward.

Thank you for reading.

Highgarden was, perhaps, the most beautiful of all the castles in Westeros. At least, that was what Amara believed, anyway. Biased as her opinion was considering she was the eldest daughter of Lord Carwyn Tyrell, his only child, and set to one day inherit the castle and its people.

Amara was aware, even as a very young child, that her inheritance could be easily stolen by a brother. Not one of the many 'well' concealed Flowers bastards her father had sired. But by a legitimate brother Carwyn was so desperately yearning for.

It wasn't for lack of trying. Amara had seen her mother put through far too much pain in her former years. Losing babe after babe, whether it be in the womb or the cradle. As grotesque as it sounded to an outside ear, Amara could not even count the siblings she'd lost in her parent's attempts at conceiving a brother. Some of the babes had been boys, some girls, but it never changed the fact that none of them survived.

There was something fundamentally perception-altering about Amara watching her mother sob because, for the fourth pregnancy in a row, her body betrayed her. Bloody linens and nightgowns the evidence of another lost child. Her perception of her father as someone strong and kind and always reliable for his people changed when she saw the anger within him that Cerys failed to give him an 'appropriate' heir.

After all, things were never the pretty picture they seemed on the outside. Tyrell's and by extension, Highgarden, were known to be honourable, virtuous, and charitable to their people. But that wasn't the truth, Amara learned that very early in her life.

From the moment she was born, Amara had a purpose. To be moved about the political chessboard of Westeros and strive to elevate her House to the best of her ability. It was true that unlike many of the other Great Houses of Westeros, the Tyrells had the weakest claim to their seat. Wardens of the South, the largest army at their disposal, the most fertile land in all of Westeros, and having become the second wealthiest of the Great Houses only overtaken by the Lannisters of Casterly Rock.

Many things to boast about. But unlike most of the Great Houses, the Tyrells had never been former Kings. Their House had been the stewards of Highgarden, stewards for House Gardener. But when Aegon conquered Westeros and the Gardener line was ended, the hereditary successor of Highgarden yielded to the Targaryen King. For their show of surrender, Aegon gifted the seat in the Reach to House Tyrell and gave them the titles they held all those years later.