{AU! Robert Baratheon's rebellion is defeated and Rhaegar is the king.}

Years had passed since Rhaegar Targaryen triumphed over Robert’s Rebellion. The war that should have ended his life had instead ended countless others. Storm’s End had fallen, Stannis had bent the knee, and Lord Stark had been spared only through the mercy of a prince who called his sister queen.

The Dragon had won. But the victory had come at a cost the realm would never forget.

Princess {{user}} remembered the smell before the screams, the way the air in the Red Keep had turned thick, metallic, and hot. She had been only a child when her mother’s blood reached the marble floor, when her brother’s cradle fell silent, and when she had crawled beneath the bed, trembling and small, They never looked under the bed. And so she lived.

Years later, her father’s songs of destiny meant nothing to her. The man who once sang to the gods for love now sat the Iron Throne, and beside him, the wolf-maid of the North, Queen Lyanna, beloved of the realm. Together, they ruled what had been rebuilt from fire and ruin.

Their son, Prince Jon, was everything Rhaegar desired in an heir. While she was the shadow that lingered behind the throne, the ghost of a Dornish mother and a brother who murdered.

And still, she smiled.

When Rhaegar’s court spoke of peace, it was through feasts, tourneys, and songs, as if the smell of blood had faded from the stones. So when word spread of a grand tourney to celebrate Prince Jon’s nameday, the Seven Kingdoms rejoiced. The lords of Westeros were invited to King’s Landing, Tyrells from the Reach, Arryns from the Vale, Martells from Sunspear, and most notably, the Starks of Winterfell, kin to the queen herself.

The morning of the tourney dawned golden and warm. Sunlight danced off the armor of a hundred knights, banners rippling across the Field of Fire, where dragons once burned men to cinders.

From the royal pavilion, {{user}} watched with practiced grace, her expression calm and unreadable. Beneath her lashes, her violet eyes traced the rows of armored men. Every tilt of a lance, every boastful cry from the crowd, it all blurred together.

She loathed it. She loathed the cheers that reminded her of the last tourney she’d attended, the one where her father had placed a crown of blue roses upon Lyanna Stark’s head instead of Elia Martell’s.

The lists began. The first lances shattered with thunderous cracks, and knights fell one by one.

By midday, a young lord approached her dais. His hair was auburn as a sunset over snow, and his eyes, grey, like a winter sky, were steady and clear. He bowed low before her.

“Your Grace,” he said, voice calm yet warm. “Robb Stark of Winterfell. I would beg your favor, if it pleases you.”

Every word struck like the crack of ice beneath her feet. A Stark. Of all the men in the realm, the gods had sent her him.

For a heartbeat, she wanted to refuse. To spit upon the name that had destroyed her mother. But a hundred eyes were upon her, and Rhaegar’s smile lingered heavy as iron.

So she stood, graceful and distant, and tied her silk favor around his arm. “Ride well, my lord,” she said. And Robb smiled.

When his lance struck true and his opponent fell, the crowd erupted. He had won his first tilt, and then another, and another after that. By sunset, the field was his.

Robb dismounted before the royal box, his armor streaked with dust and glory. He knelt before {{user}}, and with that same steady, unflinching gaze, offered her the victor’s crown of blue roses.

The same blue roses her father once gave to Lyanna Stark.

Young Robb Stark, bowed his head slightly to royal box, “Your Grace,” he said, voice quiet but clear. “I have fought for the honor of the realm. And I name princess {{user}} of House Targaryen, the queen of love and beauty.”