chance for happiness

Chance for life

It was the 13th day of the 3rd month of the year 111.

Daеmon had been uneasy that morning, because although he didn't love his wife, Rhea Royce, Lady of the Rune Stone, she had carried his child(?) and had been trying to give birth for hours.

No, he didn't hold her hand or say words of encouragement, Rogue-Prince sat at the table and drank his fourth glass of alcohol. This was his first child in ten years of marriage, and he wanted to love at least a baby, if it wasn't to be with Rhea.

She was disgusting to him, only to him, because everyone else had said over and over again that Rhea was merciful and fulfilled the duties of the Lady of the Rune Stone with dignity. 'What kind of work is that? All sheep and bronze armour' - Daеmon liked to call his wife a 'bronze bitch', but when Rhea found out she was pregnant, her husband began to restrain himself a little (even if only for a couple of months).

'-You have a girl, Prince! A healthy, beautiful girl!'

The maester ran out to Daemon with a little girl in his arms, she was just like other children, if not for one thing - she had red hair, but what kind of hair? It was more like a fur on her head, something like a fox's, and the girl herself had cunning eyes.

At first Daеmon was excited and went over to the maester, looked at the little girl, and was scalded, the child was nothing like him or Rhea.

He recoiled and ran out of the room, the maester looked equally surprised, and the child just cried loudly, apparently sensing the true nature of his father(?)

Meanwhile, Daеmon flew into his wife's room, who had finally managed to sleep after a difficult labour, and gave her a look full of resentment and hatred.

-"You bronze whore!

Targaryen shouted at her at the top of his lungs, waking Rhea up, and then squeezed her neck until it cracked. The woman just started to choke.

-"How dare you betray me? Who are you to betray me?

Anger never left his gaze, like a fire that burned more and more.

-"Tell me who you're kissing, that child is nothing like me or you!

Daеmon was furious and then finally pulled away from his wife and said:

-"She is not my daughter and never will be!

With that, he ran out of the room and went to his dragon, Caraxes, or as he is popularly known: 'The Bloody Snake'.

Before he took to the sky, Daemon said one last time:

'I will never set foot here again.'

In a moment he was already flying in the sky on his dragon.

A month had elapsed since the incident.

Daemon had kept his word and had not reappeared, yet his brother, King Viserys, found his absence an affront to their family's honor. To rectify this, he dispatched Otto Hightower, his most trusted advisor, with a dragon's egg to Rune Stone. Following the birth of his niece, whispers of her questionable lineage reached the king's ears, but he dismissed them, holding his daughter-in-law in high esteem as an honorable woman. The gift of the dragon's egg was intended to secure his niece's future as a dragon rider and dispel any doubts about her heritage once and for all.

Otto found the journey to the Rune Stone quite exhausting and arrived late in the evening to find Lady Royce in a brown slip cradling her daughter, looking even better now than she had before she gave birth: motherhood had not so much added beauty as femininity, which she had lacked before. Her dark black hair had already grown to her shoulders, and her long, thick robe hid the signs of her recent pregnancy.

'Rhea,' the right-hand man said and touched her shoulders with his hands, to which the woman turned around and the sadness on her face instantly disappeared, she just smiled tiredly and replied.

'-Sir, I ask you to keep the noise down, because I have just rocked Lantysa to sleep,' the lady of the Rune Stone sat down on the edge of the bed with the child in her arms. The little girl had clear blue eyes, but there was something cunning in them, as if she were not a little future lady of the Rune Stone, but a little fox.

'Can I hold her?' Otto's eyes lit up at the sight of the girl and met Rhea's nod.

The right-handed man gently took the little girl in his arms and she opened her eyes, at first she even wanted to cry, but then she calmed down and looked at him with curious eyes.

'-How long will you be staying?' asked Lady Royce quietly, looking at her daughter and Hightower.

The latter just shook his head.

'I'll be leaving in the morning, the king sent me to deliver the dragon's egg,' he said, taking it out of his cloak and handing it to Rhea.

'What will happen when the dragon hatches?' she straightened her back and looked at him in confusion.

'It's better if it doesn't,' Otto said in a half-whisper.

The Lady of the Rune exhaled and nodded, knowing this without him saying it, for only the Velaryons and Targaryens, the families of ancient Valyria, flew dragons, and nothing could change that, not even Rhae's sincere desire for her daughter to have a dragon of her own, even though the thought of the creature evoked negative emotions associated with her insufferable husband, Daemon.

Where is he? Who is he with? These questions definitely did not bother the woman, her only concern now was her daughter, and everything else was not so important.

That night, Rhea felt calm again, she could never have imagined that someday a stranger (Otto) would become so close to her, she didn't know what was between them: love, passion, or just a feeling of attachment, but she knew for sure that she felt good with him, and her daughter had his eyes and hair colour.