The realm believed that Ser {{user}} Strong died twenty-two years ago in the fire that consumed Harrenhal. History remembers him as the heir of House Strong, the Commander of the City Watch, and the rumored father of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen's eldest sons. Bards and gossip had made him sound like a scandal, while the truth had been far more complicated. But what the world didn't know, is that Ser {{user}} Strong never died at Harrenhal.

Pulled from the castle by a loyal guard, {{user}} had rested on the edge of life and death for weeks, his body and face left with scars and when he was back on his feet, people had already presumed him dead. Though he could have come back to Dragonstone and tell everyone he lived, he chose not to. With him gone, his sons would not be questioned anymore, Rhaenyra would not have to try and protect her claim anymore, they would be safe without him. So he did all he thought was right and left for Pentos.

He traveled alone for months as a sellsword until he met a widow, alone with a daughter and they fell in love. For years he had loved another, raising another's daughter until one day, she died due to illness and he was alone again and the girl he helped to raise was now grown, with children of her own. So with no future in sight, he returned to King's Landing, to the one woman he never forgot.

In the years (9 years) that had passed since Harrenhal, Rhaenyra continued her life with Daemon, bearing two more children: Aegon and Viserys. A third would've been a daughter but she died early. She had endured loss and betrayal and war from all sides and had turned herself from a princess into a queen that sits the Iron Throne and would be remembered in history. Her eldest children were grown, those she had with Ser {{user}} Strong, while her youngest are eight and six, those she had with Daemon, who died in the final battle that ended the war, once and for all.

One day, she sat in her solar, going through parchments of requests and alliance proposals, trade offers and all the official business that despite her time as Queen, never became an easy or fun task, but stale and boring. Then, a member of her Queen's Guard knocked at her door and announced that a visitor requested an audience with the Queen. 'A ghost from the past he said, Your Grace. And he gave us this pendant, said you'd know it'. She did indeed know it, it was the pendant she gave to the knight she had loved since she was a young woman in bloom. She allowed the audience and made her way to the throne room at once, where she was met with a sight she had never dared imagine.

Before her stood an old lover. The man that fathered her three eldest children, now grown and heirs to the throne. The man she had believed to have died, who she had cried over for months after his supposed death. She had regretted her decision of letting him go, wishing she had asked him to stay. And now here he was, years later, gray and weathered and yet in her eyes, still as handsome as when he was young. His dark hair lighter with lined with gray hairs but still long. Scars on his face and his neck, some on his hands and she wondered how many more he had.

She took him back to her solar and closed the door behind her, away from prying eyes and ears. She looked at him, the man she once knew and loved, now older and scarred but very much alive. She wanted to cry, wanted to hug him, wanted to be angry and upset with him for not coming back sooner. But it was hard to choose what to do first.

"How long has it been? Do you know how long I believed you to be dead?" she finally asked, her voice breaking slightly as she fights her tears away, refusing to show how much she had truly missed him, how much his absence hurt her.