The Burnt Prince-GOT SI (OC x Ashara Dayne)

Part 30

Chapter 30

TEN YEARS LATER

ELIA MARTELL

Much had changed in the city in the last ten years. The spiralling capital, the symbol of House Targaryen's power, had been a city cursed with a nauseating stench and infrastructure built without planning.

More specifically, that was the case ten years ago; now, the city has completed its reconstruction, a process that had lasted nearly a decade and cost the Crown an innumerable amount of Gold. But the effects were there. The spiralling, smelly shithole had been transformed into a city unlike any other in the continent, divided into ten sections, with two sets of walls separating the inner and outer city.

And now as she sat with the Queen on the balcony basking in the smells of the Sea, she found herself contemplating her own place in the city. There was a time when she had thought that she would rule over the city and continent as the Queen, ruling alongside Rhaegar Targaryen as he would unseat his father, the Mad King.

Alas, such a thought would remain merely a dream of hers. Rhaegar would die trying to put down a rebellion started by his father's egregious actions against Lord Paramount of the North and the Vale and would subsequently lose his life to his own second son, Daemon Targaryen.

A Prince thought dead by all, a person she had watched burn in fire with her own eyes. The rebellion would be put down, and the Seven Kingdoms would have a new King, and soon after that, the King would leave for a secret excursion with the most elite of his guards, only to return back after pulling off another miracle—no, actually pulling off two miracles.

Of all the people in the Kingdom, Elia was most acutely aware of the ailment that had kept her dearest friend trapped at Starfall, an affliction thought to be a more severe form of Greyscale that even scared off the stranger.

Even her own family members had thought her life forfeit, and they prayed for a kind death much like all those who had ever known her did. And yet she had persisted, clinging onto life for years, until a miracle healed her—one powered by a dragon's heart.

"There was a time when I hated being on the balcony because the smell was simply unbearable," Ashara remarked as she sat in her chair, a loose gown wrapped around her as a single servant served them both. Her belly is swollen, much like hers had been over a decade ago when tragedy had struck the Kingdom.

And she feared for her friend's life, fearing that the Gods may test the Targaryen family once more.

Ashara Dayne looked as radiant as always, her beauty only growing through the years, as she ruled alongside their new King, Daemon the Dragonslayer, tempering their King's more ruthless tendencies with her more kind and benevolent actions and interventions as she tried to temper her husband's strict actions.

"Elia. Elia," and only when her name was called did she break out of her trance and look up at her friend and Queen, who was looking at her with a frown.

"You are awfully quiet today," Ashara asked her, and as she looked at her friend's face there, her eyes landed on the last trace that remained of the ailment that had nearly taken her life.

A scar that started from her eye and went back, the skin over it tanned a dark grey and shaped like scales. Even the best healers and the maesters had been unable to do anything about it, and though it was a blemish in the eyes of many lords and ladies, she knew that to Ashara and Daemon, it mattered little. Nor did it concern the small folk of the city who adored their new Queen for her generous charity ventures, calling her the second coming of the "Good Queen."