You are the Best Thing (That's Ever Been Mine)

At eight years old Rhaenyra Targaryen is named heir to the Iron Throne, at sixteen years old Rhaenyra begs to marry Daemon Targaryen, at seventeen years old Rhaenyra marries Laenor Velaryon and has his son, Jacaerys, and before her nineteenth birthday her husband is dead. Worried for her safety and her infant son's, faced with raising her child alone, mourning, paranoid, and under constant scrutiny from her father's court, Rhaenyra is given an ultimatum, a promise of power, and the chance for a life she thought would never be.

A Fire and Blood!AU this fic explores Rhaenyra's chance at finding love again after Laenor is poisoned only a year into their marriage, with a heavy focus on portraying book accurate characters and dynamics but through an empathetic lens not possible in F&B's format, alongside highlighting Rhaenyra's relationships with all the important women in her life, how she might have grown to love her siblings in that canon, and examining the ways gossip can shape reality.