Chapter Text
i. “i envision her sitting outside that tomb, trying to find her kernel of faith as she wondered why it had to be her boy.”
Rhaenyra Targaryen, first of her name, rightful Queen of the Andals, and the Rhoynar, and the First Men dies with a curse upon her lips and a lament of grief and betrayal in her heart. Her last months alive had been the hardest she’d ever encountered and a part of her was relieved when she felt the blistering, ravenous heat lick at her skin for the first time before consuming her whole. At least she had died with her half-brother, her betrayer, shattered beyond help. He wouldn’t last more than two years on the throne he had took from her, and that brought her some respite in her last moments but still…
When had it all started?
A question she found herself turning back to again and again and again as she moved slidden throughout the abysmal darkness she believed to now be death. Had it been when Alicent took her father’s hand in marriage? Or maybe it had been long before, the very first time she entered her fathers small council chamber as his cupbearer and Otto Hightower—conniving and sly as he was—had smiled at her as if he knew.
She had been too young then. Too naive. Had he known then? Did he imagine her hanging from the sanguine walls of the Red Keep as his kin took her throne and smiled because he knew what would eventually—inevitably—happen with his meddling? Had he walked the halls of her castle—the castle of her kin and blood—and imagined the banner’s decked in green and gold of House Hightower? Had he been planning it since she was but a little girl?
That, she would never know, and she was somewhat glad. It was better to live in ignorance than to die knowing, she had solemnly learned throughout her ages.
Rhaenyra had lost much. Three sons, and two only the Seven knew where. Lost friends, allies and kin all to the unscrupulous hands of her enemy. Her thoughts inevitably turned to the auburn-haired friend of hers long ago.
Even now, dead as she was, she still thought of Alicent Hightower as a friend despite all the betrayal she had sowed against her and her family. Because of Duty, because of Sacrifice, because of Honour. They had shared many a-year together in their youth and well into their ages of young women. They had bathed together and learnt the histories of the realm, dreamt of Essos and the wonders across the Narrow Sea and ate cake as they languidly spent their days together in the sun, beaming down on Kingslanding.
Life had been good—so simple when she had just been but the Realm’s Delight and nothing more.
But age had come for them both and the courts of Kingslanding were not safe for any woman, no matter the status. A perpetual fighting ring where any moment of respite was a chance for the enemy to strike. Rhaenyra thought she had played well at that game during her years in the Red Keep.
And here she was, her body—or whatever she was now—swimming in the unfathomable darkness that encompassed her.
Death, she thought, was peaceful. She lacked the feelings and pain she had carried so long in life. No longer did her chest ache with every breathe taken and no longer she did feel the familiar emptiness, as if someone had taken a knife and carved out her heart. No longer did she have to suffer the pounding headaches fluttering behind her eyes as she listened to the nobleman around her table argue about the most tedious of things.
No longer did she feel the throbbing pain of betrayal that had sunk its claws into her very soul and refused to let go.
But Rhaenyra had not been infallible, she knew this, and she had had her part to play in the destruction that occurred. If she had been kinder to the small-folk the dragons would not have met such demise and her son Joffrey would still be alive in the arms of Corlys Velaryon. If she had not done many things and listened to what her heart had told her, maybe her fate could’ve been escaped but alas.
Death was peaceful, she thought.
If she was to be given another chance to do right by the wrongs she had done in life she would take it, but now she was dead and Westeros was no more to her.
Then, Rhaenyra Targaryen closed her eyes.
Death, was in-fact not the end, Rhaenyra quickly learned. She awoke under branches of green with the sun beaming down on her naked body. She lay there as stiff as rock, unable to move any part of her limp body for a long few moments. Gradually, she begun to slowly move, starting with wiggling her fingers and toes around and feeling the sensation of life arouse in them and working her way up. Eventually, after an achingly long time she reached a point where she was now able to sit up and that was when she took the opportunity to scout her surroundings.
The first thing she spied was that there seemed to be something odd about the forest she was in. Green shrubbery dotted around, circling the opening she lay in and long grass tickled her bare legs and arms from the ground. The picturesque image of a forest. Everything in it seemed normal, and yet…
The trees were much taller than any she remembered seeing before in any forest of Westeros.
It had been long since she’d journeyed into a forest and maybe her memory was failing her after all these years and the trees had always been this tall.
The next thing she took notice of was the white shift placed next to her, deliberately folded in a manner that suggested someone else had been in her company.
The next thing she noticed was that she was infact, not in her body.
She had subconsciously reached a hand upwards to touch her hair and was met with wavy ebony strands resting in her palm, the antithesis of her Valyrian ivory hair. She had been overcome with a distinct wave of fear she hadn’t felt since the day she received news of her lord-father’s death. As if she knew something had been irrevocably changed. And it had.
She sat there frozen for a time, unable to come to find a rational im her mind that would explain the change in her hair.
That was when she heard—more felt—the arcane voice sounding inside of her head. It was both soft as a child’s, yet held the weight of an elder who had seen much. It gave her a sense of comfort she hadn’t felt in years—as if the voice were familiar to her but it held the tangible taste of something ethereal and metaphysical. It was neither man nor woman, but instead the wind—floating through her head, holding invisible presence.
Rhaenyra, it said.
You have come a long way from your kin, daughter of kings. You sit in Mirkwood, one of the many forests of Middle-Earth, a land most unknown to you and your peoples. Only whispers of it remain, a land glimpsed beyond the Sunset-Sea as you may have heard in your stories.
She turned around in her seat, her gaze sweeping the forest around her to find the source of the voice but she was alone. A land beyond the Sunset-Sea? She had grown up with the tales of sailors voyaging past the edges of maps and coming back telling stories of a mystical, untainted land where myth became reality and magic was sown into the very fabric of the world. But they had only been stories and Rhaenyra had forgotten them with age.
“Who—where do you speak from? Show yourself to me so I may know who invades my thoughts.”
Then, Rhaenyra felt a soft beat of wind along her face and a caw of what sounded as a bird but when she turned around to look, she was met with an eagle, large in size and with the tips of its wings coloured white as if they had been dipped in ivory. It was staring directly at her with eyes softer than any animals she’d seen. As if the very animal were conscious of the world around it in a way only humans were. I am Manwë, most honoured of the Valar. Ruler of the wind and the air and all that fly throughout the sky. I heard your cries from the Halls of Mandos child, and answered them from the peak of the mountain Taniquetil.
This was the transcendent voice in her head having taken a form. All she felt looking into its eyes was a calm breeze, despite its animalistic appearance. She had the odd feeling that the eagle was smiling at her. Suddenly, and with a gasp, she was all too aware of the nudity of her body and tugged the shift beside her towards her chest in an attempt of some decency. If the being noticed the gesture, they said naught of it.
You have suffered much by the hands of your brethren and the song of sorrow in your soul was heard from all the corners of this world as you entered the Halls of Mandos. A mercy, you were granted a second chance by Eru Ilúvatar, the Lord of All and weaver of the Music of this world. Your soul has been fashioned a new body.
“A second chance?” She choked out. The eagle cocked its head to the side and the voice resumed again. Yes, a second chance child. A way to make up for the wrong’s committed in days now gone. A chance for love to bloom once more.
Love? What had love done for Rhaenyra but hurt her? Be it the calloused hands of her husband as he wrapped them around her neck or it was the unsullied touch of a younger, more innocent Alicent as they treaded along the path of what they did not know, but knew all the same. Love had only harmed her. She had sacrificed for it and it had made her bleed in return.
She felt the pity in the animals eyes as it gazed at her, as if it had read her thoughts. You have been hurt by those who swore to cherish your heart many times Rhaenyra, a fault on them, not on you. You are not cursed by love, child. I think you will come to know this soon enough.
”Are you the Seven? What deity are you?” She asked.
Not the Seven your people worship, I am of the mighty Valar, the greatest of the creation of Eru Ilûvatar. We govern the lands of this world and protect it. It has been a time since we communicated with your people, your straying was to be expected.
She frowned. This whole conversation was preposterous, really. All she had known was the Seven and the old Gods of Old Valyria and now she was meant to believe that there was in fact very real God’s who existed called the Valar?
It is a lot to digest, your condition is fresh and it will take time for you to adjust to the song of this world. With time you will understand but there is one thing you must know now.
Despite the eagle not having expressions such as a humans and the voice in her head carrying no distinct tone of expression, Rhaenyra had the subtle idea that what the being Manwë would say to her next would not settle in her well.
No longer can you live as Rhaenyra Targaryen, you must forsake that name and all of your old life. There is a reason why your lands of Westeros have been separated from the rest of Arda for so long. It must stay like that. For the safety of all.
The words do not register at first, despite the clear telling of them. It is incomprehensible what the being is asking of her. To forsake who she is? Who she is is all she has in this foreign land she’s awoken in.
Rhaenyra Targaryen screams.
In the time that it takes for her to stop screaming and calm down, the eagle has moved closer to her and Rhaenyra has dawned on the white shift that reaches her feet. A breeze envelops her with every turn of its body. Manwë does not speak in her head again. It is giving her privacy, she thinks.
Now, she resides by a tree lined with vines. The moss is soft under her feet.
This new land does not seem much more different than Westeros. She has already glimpsed a deer trying to quietly pass by.
She has also taken into account the difference in her features.
Her face feels more different, her nose no longer carrying the small bump it did before and her cheekbones feel much higher than before, her lips fuller and her ears—
No longer is her earlobe round and human…now it carries a sharp edge to it and points back in the manner of an animal. The eagle stares at her harder when she takes notice of it. As if watching how she reacts towards it.
Eventually, the silence becomes too daunting for her and Rhaenyra breaks the silence first. “What has happened to my ears? Have I become something other than human? I have a normal human form but…” there feels to be something intimately different with this body compared to her old one. As if its very core has changed.
You are correct. You possess the body of one the Eldar, or what you would know as Elves. They are people of legend in Westeros but here they are ripe in number. The Eldar are the blessed, undying creation of Eru Ilûvatar and thus live long lives. The bulk of the Elves reside in Aman, or what is known as Valinor, their home but a lot do live in Middle-Earth. Some even in these woods.
Elves had been creatures of myth in Westeros, barely anyone believed they had actualky existed. Rhaenyra shivers despite the warm weather. There was something scary with knowing that she was so close to encountering myths. And something enticing in it.
”They…where are they? Are they close by?”
The eagle stares again, this time silent for a time before responding. Yes. You are but a few meters from the entrance into Mirkwood. They are called Silvan elves, a subgroup of the Teleri Elven kind. They are not warm people to outsiders. They keep to themselves and are very apprehensive to outsiders. Even now they’ve taken in a group of Dwarves into their captivity but they offer them no comfort besides necessity. They sit in cells of stone now. I do warn you against going there.
Warn against going there? Rhaenyra shakes her head, scoffing. What else did she have but to go there. With her appearance they would know she was…”one of them” and thus would be kinder to her than the dwarves.
“Take me to them. I am an Elf in appearance, no? Surely they are not so cold to their own kin.” Flames burn in the forefront of her memory.
Yes, you appear as an Elf and they are not as reclusive to those of their kin but they are not open people I must warn. They will be cold to outsiders, no matter if they share the same race.
That is fine. Rhaenyra can suffer with coldness, she has her entire life. She has been cold herself, it is not so unfamiliar to her. ”That is fine…all I ask is for you to take me to them.”
The eagle turns a head towards the path on her left that runs deeper into the words, as if waiting for something. There is no need child, they are already here.
Rhaenyra shifts from where she sits and misses the arrow now lodged into the tree trunk behind her. The eagle gazes at her as if to tell her, I told you so, before departing for the sky. Rhaenyra takes this as her sign to run from the person attempting to execute her. And so she does.
In her new body, Rhaenyra finds that she is much quicker than before. The forest becomes a blur of green and brown in her peripherals. Her legs still feel slightly stiff and she trips one too many times but the more she runs the more natural it comes to her and soon enough she dares a look behind to see if her pursuer is still there.
They are.
Rhaenyra falls to the ground with a thud, her face being cushioned by a bed of moss. On her back and holding her down is the sure weight of another person. She dares a look behind and she is met with familiar auburn tresses and emerald eyes she thought she would never be graced to see again. The name of her old companion fell off her tongue before she could stop it, ”Alice—“
“Peded eneth lîn, edraith!” The woman barks out, her heel digging into Rhaenyra’s back in warning. State your name, trespasser!
Was she not one of their kind? Did the being Manwë speak the truth? Were they so cold even to their own?
The woman continued to speak in the other language but stopped once she realised the futility of it. Rhaenyra was solemnly shaking her head, attempting to wiggle out from under her foot but the woman seemed to weigh a ton.
”Do you understand me now, edraith?”
Rhaenyra in fact did. She shook her head, blowing a dark strand off her face. The woman was beautiful—breathtakingly so. The light shone on her auburn hair and set the edges aflame and her eyes—her eyes were cold cuts of the deepest emerald. The more Rhaenyra looked, the less similar the Elf looked to Alicent. Something tugged at the space in her chest, and old feeling long buried.
“Yes, yes I do.”
”Good. Now tell me what business you have in this place? Where have you come from?”
The woman was ruthless. For thirty minutes Rhaenyra sat there and relayed her story, leaving out the bits where she had died and come back alive and her conversation with the eagle/Manwë. The woman was visibly apprehensive but listened intently, loosening the hold on her bow.
Her untrusting demeanour did relax but she stared at Rhaenyra with an integrity that made her self conscious. Was there something on her face? After raising a hand to brush what must’ve been on her face, the woman finally speaks again. “Do you not remember where you come from Elf? You do not resemble any of the Sindar of Mirkhwood, any would recognise you, and none have come from Lothlórien in an age…”
”I…I don’t..I awoke in that patch of grass a few hours ago and was unsure of where to go.”
The Elf stares at her piercingly before removing her boot from her back and hauling her to her feet. Standing side by side, Rhaenyra could see there was a notable height difference between them. It seemed Elves were as elegant and tall as they were beautiful.
”I—“
”Your eyes, did your parents have them?”
Her eyes?
“My eyes….?”
“Yes, your eyes. They are much unlike any I have seen in any Elf. Most have blue but never the shade of lilac that you do. Did your parents have them?”
Rhaenyra feels a sort of respite knowing that not everything about her had been changed. In this foreign land and place that she knew nothing about, at-least there was something physical that reminded her of where she had come from. A memory of all she had endured, of her House, of her family and blood, of who she was.
”I…they did yes. It is a family trait.”
The woman hums, tugging Rhaenyra back into the opening they’d entered before and down the same path she’d spied earlier.
“And what is your name? So I can find this family of yours.”
Where were they? Three of her sons were dead and her last one was lost to the sea and the other in the grasp of her traitorous brother. Her father had died only a few years prior to all of this, her mother decades before that. Her aunt, Rhaenys, had died nobly atop her dragon Meraxes and her husband was lost above the God’s Eye having lost her trust.
Her family was in ruins, torn asunder by the soliciting hands of those who she should’ve been able to trust. Her family was gone, and Rhaenyra could not speak a word about it lest she anger the being Manwë. She didn’t know what inclined her to even listen to him—nothing was actually stopping her from revealing the truth about her existence to the woman behind her but still, this was a second chance given by the Valar of this world.
She wasn’t going to throw it all away for nothing.
”My family is gone. My father died long ago and my mother even longer than that, and none remain of my siblings. It is only me.” It is only her in this world.
The woman does not respond quickly after that but she treats Rhaenyra more delicately after that, instead of pushing her forward she guides her over the outstretched roots of trees and bramble. Out of sympathy or pity Rhaenyra does not know—she finds she does not want to. Pity is not something she wants.
”Then your name? If you have one.”
Rhaenyra frowns, contemplating with telling a lie or the truth. She has already given up the opportunity to speak the truth about her true coming to this land. She chooses to keep her name. She had so very little to remind her of her true origins, nothing but her features and her memories. She would keep her name.
”My name is Rhaenyra.”
”That is not an Elvish name.”
The woman falls silent after that.
They eventually reach the opening that Rhaenyra awoke in and where the woman chased her out of. Instead of an empty stretch of land, she finds multiple horses mounted by Elves. They have bows drawn and swords at their hips, ready for an attack. From whom, Rhaenyra silently wonders. Their cloaks all bear the same flag she can only assume is the Sindarin banner.
The Elf in the front of the entourage is what catches her attention. Just from a look she can immediately tell that is their leader. With the way the soldiers subtly surround him in a protective formation and his demeanour.
She has met many leaders in her life and they all have carried themselves in the same way. Shoulders back and eyes forward as if the world were not infront but below and nothing else seemed as significant as what lay infront of them. She can almost see Corlys Velaryon in him.
He sits on a dark mare, visibly well fed and groomed. He wears argentine armour that glistens in the light up above. His hair is pale blond—almost Targaryen like but lacks the gold—and looks almost silver as it catches the light. His eyes are a penetrating cerulean colour and feel as if they look not just beyond her, but past the new body she wears and into her very soul. His cheekbones are high and his nose delicately straight. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
He did not deign her a response as he trotted up infront of them.
Instead, his eyes skip right over her to the woman holding her arms, “Tauriel, man i edhel hen?” Tauriel, who is this Elf?
“Hîr nîn Thranduil, she does not recall how she has come to this place. She tells me her kin are dead.” My lord.
The Elf-man turns to look at her, his eyes scoping her out. There wasn’t much to look at, Rhaenyra thinks. She bore no fancy clothes and carried nothing with her. The horse neighs, dark eyes pointed at her.
Ah, can the horse tell I am unlike them?
”You say your kin is dead, if you speak any truth, tell me how their demise came about.”
Rhaenyra looks up at the man and ponders. How could she explain it? Explain that her first son died fighting stop his dragon at sea, that her second was eaten by another dragon and her third fell of her own dragon. How could she tell him that her father died from an incurable illness and that her sweet sister Helena had thrown herself out of a window in grief of her children?
How could she say any of this to them? They would look at her as a madwoman and frankly Rhaenyra was tired of people looking at her as if she was.
So she settles on a simple answer.
“They died by fire. Burned by a dragon.” She says.
Because they had. They were the blood of the dragon and they had burned each other until nothing remained but the smouldering ashes. They had come with fire and blood on both sides and set the land into chaos. And all that remained was nothing but a vestige of the mighty house she had come from.
The Elves on the other horses turn their heads to look at her, some with expressed disbelief and others with skepticism. Did they even have dragons in this land?
The Elf looks at her, his expression grave. “Dragon you say? Dragons do not burn for no reason.”
Rhaenyra pulls her lips into a thin line. “They do not, you are right, but long had my family grown corrupted in its ways. It seems retribution had come for all of the misdeeds they had done.”
“Then how did you survive? Fire-drakes spare none.”
Rhaenyra smiles sombrely then. The question isn’t humorous in any way, but she smiles nonetheless because she had survived? It has been less than a day since she had woken up and it only fully dawned on her till now.
The sky above has changed from its light blue to somber grey, the familiar formations of clouds echoes the soon arrival of rain.
Rain.
It had been raining the day she died. She had died praying that the rain would put her out and take the agony away.
“I did not survive. In body I have, but the flames took my spirit and my life’s purpose. Dragons leave nothing behind.”
The man responds and say’s something, what, she cannot know for as the first rain drop falls onto her skin, her screams envelop the area for all to hear. She subconsciously registers the woman behind her shouting in alarm, the soldiers on the horses drawing their bows but the Elf-man only stares.
She must look like a mad man, she passingly thinks, screaming at nothing but the rain. Her skin burns, and with every drop it burns even more until all she can remember—all she can feel—is the hot, golden flames of Sunfyre as she burns her alive.