(PRP) Of Namedays, Dragons, and Blue Winter Roses

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Vaella felt the cold sear her lungs as she stood waiting with her mother. She had been born in the long winter months, and it was her first nameday. Her father was away to bring back her gift. Her heart felt all a flutter in her chest as she waited.

She had not told them yet about the dreams though, and it plagued her. Her mother dreamed often of Highgarden and roses, her old home. Her father’s dreams were more cryptic. He seldom spoke of his, but she had heard her mother ask him one morning when he looked particularly tired if it had been the wolf dreams again.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Vaella Stark was the first of her name, trueborn heir to Jon Snow and Margaery Tyrell, and as it turned out her father who had been raised as a b*****d Stark was more than that. He was half Targaryen. There were legends that spoke what happened, that her grandmother Lyanna Stark was kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen that started the Great War. Others said she had left with Rhaegar of her own free will. But she could not tell what was worse, to be taken or to have gone willingly. Either way they had both destroyed a kingdom by tearing it apart by war-for love or for lust.

Her father told her as yet, that she was too young for the tales but that after this, her first name day, he would begin to tell her the story of her family. Today, he had began by saying that Lyanna had loved Rhaegar and that the wolf’s blood ran strong in her grandmother’s veins. It made her wilder and freer, less tempered than her father who was never rash.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

The Wolf’s Blood, he’d called it. It brought into her mind all the questions she had not asked. Vaella looked down at her dainty hooves and wondered how much wolf’s blood ran through her veins? Or was it more dragon’s blood?

Because when she dreamed, she dreamed of dragons. It scared her.
If she had dreamed of wolves, she’d have thought it more normal but dragons…was that a sign of the Targaryen curse of madness? Flip a coin for every two Targaryens, and one of the two would be mad. She was even named after two of them. A foal who had died young and a mare who had been deemed unfit to rule.

Her mother had told her that was the way of stallions sometimes, that just because they had ruled her unfit it might not have actually meant that. It could have meant simply that she was a mare and there was a stallion family member further down the tree who could rule the throne.

But her parent’s loved her, had waited a long time for and she did not doubt that they would give a kind lie to protect her. It did not help when others said there was much about her that reminded them of Rhaegar. It made her blood run cold in her veins, because she as of yet did not know who Rhaegar was or what he had done.

He had been solemn. He had been kind. He had been nice. He’d been evil. He’d left his wife to steal away Lyanna. He ran away with Lyanna for love. He ran away with Lyanna because she was young and he was drunk on prophecy.

But her father was born of that union of Stark and Targaryen, hidden away for years as his uncle’s Ned’s b*****d when Lyanna had made him promise to keep Jon safe. Jon had not even been the name his mother had given him, Ned Stark had changed it to be less Targaryen. And for years, he accepted the shame of having being unfaithful to his wife when he had never been. All to protect her father Jon.

But it came back to the coin. If Jon was good and part Targaryen, then didn’t that mean she was the reverse of the coin? Was she going to go mad? Would blood run true?
Her mother though, had a knack for knowing that something troubled her that she was not ready to talk about yet. But she remembered the words her mother would tell her each night before bed. “You are part Tyrell, your roots run strong and deep. You can weather whatever the future holds.”

She thought of her parent’s house words and smiled as she often did when she realized how well they fit together by two transitional words. “Winter is coming,” but we’re “Growing Strong.”  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

They would never know what really happened, at least not for sure.

Her father had finally returned with her gift, but first he would give her the story.

Her grandmother had been Lyanna Stark, only daughter of Rickard Stark. She was betrothed to the lord of Storm's End, Robert Baretheon. At a tournament held in honor for the spring that had come (but turned out to be false). Prince Rhaegar the son and heir of Aerys the Mad had won the tournament. When it was over, instea of crowning his mate with the laurel of blue winter roses he had given it to Lyanna Stark.

Eddard Stark, the uncle who had raised her father as his own (and who he still thought of as his true father) had told her father Jon half a hundred times that when those roses were given to Lyanna "all the smiles died".

Of course then, no one knew that it would later mean war.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

It had been a slight though for the crowned Prince Rhaegar to show favor to a mare who was not his wife or the the mother of his heirs. Some thought it meant that he had or would taken Lyanna as a lover. What it meant for her, as far as her father and older brother Brandon were concerned, was the death of honor and any future she would have.

Still, he was a Prince so there was little they could do except to retreat back to the North and keep Lyanna far out of his reach. For a time it was enough and the gossip at least seemed to stop.  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

But of course, the story hadn't ended there. She wasn't even sure if it had ended now really. War, turmoil and bloodshed later and there were still a question of the rightful heir. Others still spoke of Lyanna Stark in hushed tones.

All of that was known, all of it true. The rest they could only guess.

What was it that made Rhaegar crown Lyanna the queen of love and beauty instead of his mate Elia? Did he know that doing that would cause some offense? And if he had thought so, why had he done it anyways? Why then did all that time pass before something happened? Why did he let his father, the mad king Aerys rage on instead of stopping him?  

[Nyx Queen of Darkness]

Because that's what had definitely happened. Lyanna Stark had disappeared with Rhaegar Targaryen. Her brother Brandon had in a fit of rage rushed with his childhood friends to demand her release from King Aerys. But Aerys, who's blood ran in her veins, had long been mad. He was often seen mumbling to himself about this and that. He took offense to the slightest of things, what Brandon had done was not slight.

It made Vaella uncomfortable to hear what the mad king had done to Brandon Stark and his father Rickon. It made her sick to know that that was the blood that flowed in her veins. When Lyanna heard (if she had heard) what had she thought of the mad king, her future child's grandfather murdering her brother and father so brutally? Why had she not come forward when her brother Eddard raised the flags against the Targaryens?

Why was Lyanna silent?