Sweeter Than Evil ||| Cregan Stark

fifty-six

For all of the turmoil and pain Daenys had been through in her early life, the relative peace of the rest of it more than made up for what she'd experienced. Daenys never imagined her time in Valyria would become a distant memory for her but ever the victim of time, she slowly began to lose details of the terrors she'd witnessed.

Not feelings. Daenys would never forget how terrifying Valyria was and she wholeheartedly agreed and promised to uphold the ban on visiting Valyria. But things that she remembered so viscerally began to fade.

The good part was the horrors she remembered so clearly becoming hard to see in her mind. The bad part was that other things—happy things—from her earliest memories began to fade as well. Even good memories were to be the victims of aging and the passing of time.

There was a point in Daenys life where she could no longer recall clearly what Ser Harwin Strong sounded like. She remembered his features his kind presence, but the version of him in her mind was made when she was but a child. Even her own father's memory was shaky at best. At least she could look in the mirror and see him.

Daenys had to visit her brothers to see what would have become of Ser Harwin. All of her brothers—and her sisters—grew up exceptionally well. They grew up as strong, kind, and firm individuals. Jace ruled the sea, Luke ruled the sky from Dragonstone in Daenys' stead, and Daenys ruled the North from Winterfell. Even Joffrey got to grow up and marry the Manderly girl, who was pretty and kind and ever happy to be marrying a prince of the Realm.

Seeing her baby brothers and sister grow was something that amazed and saddened Daenys. Them growing meant she was aging and it saddened her to be reaching ages her father never got to see. He never saw how well she'd grown or what a happy family she made for herself.

By the end of her childbearing years, Daenys and Cregan had eight children together. They hadn't planned on having that many but that was simply how it turned out happening. Their method of preventing children didn't seem to work as completely as they thought it did.

After Rickon, Daenys took a longer break from bearing children but ended up pregnant again just before he turned two. That pregnancy was a little scarier because Daenys found out she was carrying twins. Rhaenyra chose to be present for that birth as giving birth to one baby was hard but having twins was an entirely different difficulty.

Thankfully, as scared as Daenys was, she made it through the birth of her twin girls without any major complications. It most definitely took more out of her than her previous pregnancies. Daenys was laid up in bed for longer and to her dismay, she didn't get to take her daughters into the sky on dragonback until two weeks after they were born.

In attempting to keep with the style of their names, Daenys' twin daughters were named Lyanna and Elaena. As babies, they were identical and Daenys wasn't exactly proud to admit that in some stage of sleep deprivation they may have been switched. They looked similar enough, what with the silver hair, that it didn't really matter. It was only when they got older and Elaena's silver hair faded into brown with silver highlights that the two looked a little different and there could be no further mistakes made.

After the girls, Daenys took a much longer break from bearing children. She put four years between the twins and her next baby. He was a boy with silver hair who Daenys chose to name Aelon. She was adamant there was to be no Aegon in her family lest she take the gamble.

After Aelon, Daenys was pretty certain they could be done having children. Five was enough for her and Daenys felt fulfilled with the children she had. The Great Keep was filled nicely and Daenys was pleased.

Then she got pregnant again and while it wasn't what they planned for, Daenys didn't mind another child. She was lucky enough to receive all the help in the world while she birthed and raised her children and with that help, as well as the presence of a caring father, Daenys was able to care for her six children. She was fine with that. A sixth child—another boy they named Benjen because of his brown hair.