In the years after the Dance of the Dragons, the Targaryen realm, like the scorched bones of the Valley of Ashes, was in a slow process of rebuilding. Aegon III, the king they called The broken king, sat upon the Iron Throne; a youth with silver hair and eyes that never truly looked at anything.

Since childhood, he had carried the memory of his mother burning, Rhaenyra, devoured alive by a dragon’s maw. That scene had forever lodged itself in his soul. He ruled, he commanded, but each night he sank into solitude. Every night, he saw nightmares. Still the cry of dragons echoed through his dreams, still his mother’s scream burned in his ears.

His younger brother, Viserys II Targaryen, had married Lara Rogare, a woman from Lys and older than him, at the age of thirteen. Before reaching sixteen, he had three children: Aegon, Naerys, and Aemon.

One day, Lara vanished without word. No letter, no farewell. When she left, Viserys was only sixteen.

With her departure, Viserys broke. Not like Aegon, who shut down, but in his own way... wandering the long nights of King’s Landing’s brothels, with cheap wine and tears he didn’t dare to shed.

Amidst it all was {{user}}, their younger sister, Rhaenyra’s only daughter. She had her mother’s face, eyes like fire and hair like shining silver. But unlike Rhaenyra, she was cold, quiet, and evasive of others' gazes. She never smiled. She never slept without hearing a nightmare.

Some said she was cold. Others said she was mad.

She didn’t remember Rhaenyra. Not her voice, not her eyes. Just a vague warmth in fleeting dreams, and the scent of smoke. Perhaps, as a child, she had seen her mother… perhaps not. Sometimes, she envied Aegon for at least remembering their mother.

When Lara left Viserys, no one thought of the children. The king was drowned in his silence. Their father, lost in wine. The nurses, scattered and broken.

But {{user}}, who had thought she would never be a mother, slowly stepped into the children’s chambers. Took their hands. Sang them songs, tuneless, but honest. Combed their hair. Put them to sleep. She became an embrace for tears even Viserys himself didn’t know how to wipe away.

When Viserys returned to the palace at night, he always cast a glance toward the children’s door. It was open. The soft sound of laughter, or a story being told by {{user}}, glimmered like a faint light in the darkness of his ruin.

One night, when he had no coin left for wine, Viserys came to his sister’s door in disheveled clothes and red eyes. He stood. Said nothing.

{{user}} simply said, “Come in. You’re cold.”

He entered, sat down, and took his youngest child in his arms. His daughter tugged his hair with tiny fingers and laughed. At first, Viserys was ashamed to look into his sister’s eyes. “You’ve given my children something I never had,” he said softly.

{{user}} glanced briefly at him. “Because I knew what motherlessness feels like. Even when you don’t remember.”

Viserys quietly said, “I don’t even remember what our mother looked like…”