A Song of Ash and Smoke | a continuation of A Song of Ice and Fire

𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

The leaves shuddered as the wind made its way through them, shaking the great weirwood tree. Jaehaera sat under it, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked up to watch the dragons play in the daylight. Their excited chitters and squeals delighted her. Dragonstone was alive with the sounds of growing dragons each day and night, but it no longer struck fear in her. Holding her round belly close, Jae pushed herself off of the stone bench she had been perched on, her favorite spot in the garden to sit. She came to this spot often, to listen to the songs of the dragons and think in the beauty of nature. 

Nightmares struck her every so often, jilting reminders of the past. There had been peace in Westeros for the past five years, but still they would wake her, visions of that night in King's Landing as she'd watched the city fall from above. It didn't matter now. Genyveve had led the smallfolk to freedom and once the city was vacated by Danaerys's sellswords, the smallfolk returned. They'd made a great effort to restore it, and much of it was - though Flea Bottom remained in the histories. The Red Keep no longer held a royal family, though it was still used for the city's governance. Jae had heard rumors that they intended to build an institution of learning, much like the citadel, but open to the people. The city was led by a group of people upheld by the small folk. It was a wise system, in Jaehaera's opinion. Genyveve was amongst that group, and she did well. No longer a child, but a woman grown now, she used her gift to preserve the histories, as her predecessor did, but also to bring the visions of the smallfolk to reality, to make the city theirs again too. Jojen had stayed with her awhile to help with the efforts to rebuild, but eventually settled at Horn Hill with his mother, Oshen, and his sisters and ruled the region as its liege lord.

The Unsullied and the Second Sons had returned to Essos, but that was all Jae knew of their whereabouts. Yara Greyjoy had disappeared after the Iron Islands were sieged by their unforgiving neighbors; the islands were now abandoned to their own smallfolk. Many of the nobles throughout the realm retained their highborn status, but it was reserved to their individual kingdoms. Some fashioned themselves rulers, others simply kept the titles they'd had. Many had allied themselves to each other in oaths to never harm their neighbors, to trade goods, and preserve peace. The North had been all but abandoned by its noble houses, having become overrun by wildlings. 

Jaehaera only wanted to preserve the dragons. They were innocent in all of this, unknowing to the damage they could cause. In the end, they were only animals - fiercely loyal, protective, instinctive. Dragonstone remained independent under her liege, but Jaehaera had forged a close-knit bond with the Prince of Dorne. They had forged a trade deal in which she provided him dragonglass, stones, and minerals mined from the island for gold and goods from Dorne - food, livestock, textiles. Smallfolk from the other side of the island had their own trades amongst the other regions. Jaehaera did not interact with them much. She had no taste for ruling and the smallfolk didn't need a ruler, only someone to negotiate trade. Jaehaera made her living from taking care of the dragons - visitors from all over the world came to the island to see them, to behold the resilience of nature and its beasts. Unhatched eggs were sold and fetched a high price. Even the scales and skins of molting dragons were a great commodity. Jaehaera refused to sell or attempt to overpower the dragons, though. They weren't slaves to be bought and sold, and their power was too great to be trusted in the hands of strangers. She let them live freely on the island, providing pastures to graze from. Prince Eran had made similar endeavors in Dorne, providing parts of the region where the dragons could come to hunt and settle away from people. 

Let the nightmares come, she thought. It was worth it, all of it, for everyone. The fall of King's Landing was not forgotten, but somberly held in the realms' memory as a stark reminder to continue moving forward. 

"Don't let us interrupt your reverie," a charming voice said from beside her, and Jaehaera looked up to see that Celralis had appeared. From behind him, a streak of white bolted into Jaehaera's side, and she looked down to see her son peering up at her playfully. A boy of three, he was sturdy and rugged like his father, though he took after his mother in looks. He had her same deep violet eyes and sweet-natured features in the face. It had taken Jaehaera by surprise when he came into the world, red-faced and squalling with a shock of silver-white hair atop his tiny head. It was just like his grandmother's. Danaerys would have loved this boy, Jae would think from time to time. The dragon queen had been given the final goodbye of the dragon warriors before her - a pyre set aflame to burn ashes into the morning sun. It was just Jaehaera and Celralis who mourned her, but it was what she would have wanted. 

Groaning comically, Jae rolled her eyes at the little boy. "Tyro, any closer and you'll suffocate your sibling."

Tyro grinned and patted her belly lovingly. "It's a brother," he claimed boastfully, his chest swelled in anticipation. 

"We shall see about that," Jaehaera teased him, sweeping him off the ground. 

Celralis stepped forward and held his arms out for the boy to leap into, easing the burden on Jae's stomach as he did. Jaehaera could not help but watch them, her family, as they played in the bright sunlight. Drogon soared over them, casting his shadow on the ground. She rubbed her belly. She liked Aegon for a boy, and for a girl, she thought... Dani. She saw her mother in everything she did, from the dragons soaring in the sky to the stones that lined the paths she walked around Dragonstone. She saw Jon sometimes, too, in the stoic night when the air was calm and steady. And every day, she saw the man who raised her - the sunlight as golden as his hair, and her son's laughter as infectious as his was. Her son was aptly named, she thought. 

The days seemed to pass at their leisure, but she held onto the guilt with each one. It would never leave her, but Jaehaera had made her peace with that. She knew Tyrion would be proud of what he saw now, what she had accomplished, and she did her best to live by that and do right by his memory. It was all she could do. Some nights, when she awoke from her terrors, she wished she could take it back. Other times, she awoke wishing that she had not survived it all. Looking at the world around her in this moment, she was grateful that wishes such as those could not be made true. All it took was one look at her husband and child, and the swollen belly before her to make those horrid thoughts wash away. 

She thought about the day she married Celralis, right here in Aegon's garden. The way he'd held her hands in his as the maester wrapped linen around them, looking down on her with the purest of love. It was that day she knew; her life must be worth something if anyone could still love her in such a way. When they'd stood unflinchingly, looking into each other's eyes as the maester cut their lips with his small blade of dragonglass and they'd brought their heads together to seal the bond between them in blood, she knew, this life was all she'd ever truly wanted - to love and be loved, to have a family of her own. The gods had seen fit for her to have it, and that in itself had to be a sign that she deserved this freedom that she had sacrificed so much for. 

She still thought of Jojen sometimes, too. Not in a manner of longing, but rather just simple caring for the boy who'd loved her first, who'd lived by her side for so much of her life, the boy she'd grown up with side by side from the cradle. She'd heard he would not take a wife, and occasionally she wondered why. But, she supposed, that was his choice and his truth and regardless of his reasons, it was for him to live by. In a different life, he would have been a stable and loving husband, and a devoted father. But nobody came out of the conflict unscathed, and maybe Jaehaera would always be his scar to bear. 

Jaehaera thought most often of Summer, though. She'd be ten now. The one wish Jaehaera desperately wanted to come true was the one where she brought Summer back - to see her grow up and see a world like this, where she wasn't confined by expectations and limitations. To watch as she used her gift to do something beautiful. Jaehaera left her buried in the crypts beside her father. Like all the others in the crypt, a statue stood by each one. She commissioned another statue of Summer, one to be kept in the garden, and she looked at it now, cherishing how it captured Summer's beautiful smile and those wild, unruly curls. 

Closing her eyes and lifting her face to soak in the warm sun, Jaehaera revered in the gratitude she felt, the appreciation for life that overcame her. Nothing this good came without fighting for it. The world still was, and always would be ugly in so many ways, but today she clung to the knowledge that the world her children would grow up in, one so different from what she'd known her entire life, would be one of change, and perhaps someday, betterment. At least she knew for certain, her children would not have to fight the way she did to achieve what she had, and that her children would never know the crossroads between duty and honor. She'd bore that burden for them, without even knowing it, and she would shield them from the weight of living with the choices she'd made. Perhaps someday, her children might feel differently. Maybe they would not be what she expected them to be. But that was the resounding victory of everything she'd fought for in the end.