— Small private salon of the royal family (264 AD)
The spring sun streamed diagonally through the hall's stained-glass window, casting kites of ruddy light across the long oak table. Rhaella served a cherry pie - Rhaegar's favorite - but the prince did not touch the food. His violet eyes followed the reflection of the sun in his glass of water, where the light broke into tiny rainbows that fluttered like dragonfly wings.
"Mother," he called, not taking his eyes off the glass, "why does the light dance but not sing?"
Rhaella put down the silver knife hesitantly. She knew that any question from this five-year-old was a probe into deep waters.
"The light... just dances, my little dragon," she replied, a little awkwardly.
Rhaegar tilted his head, letting a silver lock fall across his forehead.
"Then I will sing for her," he announced, as if revealing a secret no one in the world knew.
And then he began to sing a wordless melody, his soft voice mingling with the clatter of cutlery and the buzz of a stray bee circling the cherries. The song was strangely sad for a child, full of pauses that sounded like unanswered questions.
It was then that Aerys burst into the hall, her boots tapping on the marble. Her eyes swept the scene: Rhaella motionless, Rhaegar humming into a glass, the cake untouched.
"Have you feasted on air and light now?" he taunted, grabbing a cherry from the plate and crushing it between his fingers.
Rhaella clutched her necklace tightly, as if touching it would give her courage.
"He's just... joking, Your Grace."
Aerys ignored her. He leaned over Rhaegar, his breath heavy:
"Dragons don't sing, son. They burn. Or do you think Balerion conquered Westeros with harps and verses, lines?"
The word "son" was almost spat out.
Rhaegar kept his eyes on the glass where the light now danced in the shadows.
"Balerion had wings... not harps," he murmured, more to his reflection than to his father.
Aerys nudged Rhaegar, who hit the glass and knocked it over. The water spilled across the table and onto the floor, and for a moment the rainbow died.
"That's right. And you have neither." He said, turning and walking away after knocking on the door.
Rhaella watched the scene, trying to erase her own memory of Aerys' gaze. He had never been kind, she thought, but this... this went further. The fingers that had once caressed his face with hesitation now left traces of hatred on his son. Summerhall had burned Aerys's mind to a crisp, he was becoming stranger and stranger, more distant than ever. And Rhaegar... Rhaegar, his little dragon, was already showing signs of unusual intelligence. Rhaegar would be the firebrand the king couldn't control. That was why she hated him, she realized, not out of weakness but because she saw in him a mirror she dared not face.
She came to her senses when she heard her son speak softly:
"Dragons also protect their young," he whispered, "not just burn."
Immediately, the boy bent over the puddle of water on the floor, his cupped hands trying to catch the last traces of light. His silver fingers trembled, but not with fear - with excitement.
"Look, Mom!" he murmured - with a smile as beautiful as the sunset - and raised his hands as if offering something sacred. Between his fingers, the water flowed in glistening threads, forming something like the silhouette of a dragon, dancing in the air before crashing to the ground.
Rhaella smiled - something she realized she only did when she was with Rhaegar lately - and knelt beside her son. She carefully smoothed his silver hair, disheveled from the day's excitement, and wiped his wet hands with the hem of her own dress.
.
Marna, Head Cook of the Red Fortress POV:
Marna had never understood why the little prince appeared in the kitchen every Friday, sitting on the wooden bench near the oven and watching her knead bread like a cat watches birds. Until one day, the sound that announced the prince's arrival was different: a light dragging of small footsteps on the rough stone, followed by the faint clink of a heavy book being clutched to his chest.
Rhaegar appeared in the doorway, his face lit by the daylight. His silver hair was disheveled, and he wore a simple gray cloak, stained with ink at the edges, as you usually find in the young prince's clothes.
"Good morning, Marna," he greeted, climbing onto the wooden bench next to her, which already looked worn from constant use.
He opened the dusty book on the table, sending clouds of flour flying. The illustration showed a dragon-shaped honey cake with almond wings and candied cherry eyes.
"Can you make one like that?" he asked, his violet eyes shining like plums in the sun.
The cook let out a hoarse laugh and wiped her hands on the apron she wore over her thick dress:
"With all due respect, Your Highness, this is the stuff of a royal banquet, not a servant's kitchen. You'll probably need fine sugar from the south, honey from the golden bees of Highgarden..."
He interrupted, jumping up from the stool with determination:
"But you can try! I'll help you! I've brought..." He fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a silk pouch: "Anise and cinnamon seeds stolen from the master's cupboard!"
Marna opened her mouth to protest, but Rhaegar was already sitting on a stool beside her, measuring flour with his hands, leaving a white trail down his sleeves.
"Not like that, little one!" she grumbled, but without anger. "Cake dough isn't just any dough. It needs the right measure!"
Then she pulled out a carved wooden spoon and taught him to beat the eggs in a circular rhythm. Rhaegar imitated each move with the seriousness of a laboratory master, his tongue pressed between his concentrated lips.
"What if we put honey on the dragon's horns?" he asked, pouring the golden liquid in strings. "Then it will spit sweetness, not fire!" She giggled.
Marna watched, crossing her arms:
"Ha, a dragon that spits honey won't scare anyone, Your Highness."
"That's what it's for!" he replied, sprinkling cinnamon as if it were magic dust. "The worst fire is the one that burns inside, quietly... don't you think?"
The cook swallowed. Sometimes the way the boy spoke made her forget that he was only five winters old.
.
The next morning, Marna found the kitchen filled with a cloud of sweet smoke. Rhaegar was standing on top of three stacked buckets, using an iron shovel bigger than his arm to remove the misshapen cake from the oven, while other kitchen staff looked on helplessly.
"Look!" he announced proudly, showing a creature of twisted dough with uneven wings and a tail that looked more like a diseased snake. Seeing Marna turn, he promptly exclaimed, "I named him Meraxes, the Sugar Queen!"
Marna approached - not before gently reassuring the servants that all was well - and tried not to laugh. The smell of burning was strong, and the almond "scales" were black around the edges.
"You look more like a hedgehog after a fight with an inkwell, with all due respect," she said, poking at the dried crust.
Rhaegar ignored the comment and broke off a piece with his bare hands. The inside was surprisingly golden, and the smell of honey and cinnamon filled the air.
"The first piece always goes to the most important person," he explained, handing it to Marna in a cracked bowl he had decorated with drawings of dragons. "You're the Flour Queen, so it makes sense."
Marna stood paralyzed, the improvised bowl in her calloused hands. Queen of Flour. No one in this fortress of bloody ambition had ever called her anything but "woman" or "servant". She felt a strange warmth creep up her neck - not from the smoke of the oven, but from an emotion she hadn't felt in decades: being seen.
In the Red Fortress, that hive of political snakes, everyone whispered about the young prince. They said he was too precocious, that he devoured books of prophecy like other children devoured candy, that he might be the Promised Prince, reborn from the ashes of Summerhall. Even she secretly thought Rhaegar was unusual - there was something about those violet eyes that seemed to see through walls.
But right now, with flour on his nose and honey dripping between his fingers, he was just a boy. A sweet boy who made her laugh with his absurd inventions.
"Are you going to watch or taste, Flour Queen?" Rhaegar nudged, shaking the bowl.
Marna bit into the cake, surprised by the taste - too sweet, too cinnamon-y, but... warm...
"Of course..." she began, coughing from the burnt sugar in her throat, "...it's one of the best things to come out of this kitchen, Your Highness."
Rhaegar laughed.
"Next Friday, we'll do Vhagar! I'll bring nuts for the claws! " he announced, disappearing through the door with a blur of flour and enthusiasm, saying he was going to give a piece of the cake to the Queen.
.
Servant who was sweeping the corridors at dusk POV:
The servant watched the prince run through the corridors, a piece of the misshapen cake wrapped in a thin cloth, flour in his hair and honey dripping between his fingers. He stopped in front of the statue of Aegon the Conqueror, raising the cake as an offering.
"For you, Aegon!" he announced, placing it at the statue's feet. "So you remember that even dragons need a little sweetness now and then!"
The servant smiled, hiding behind a pillar. It was forbidden to leave food in the corridors, but she didn't have the heart to interrupt. As Rhaegar fled towards Rhaella's chambers, the servant approached. The cake was wrapped in parchment scratched with verses of children's poetry:
"Meraxes flew beyond the veil,
With golden wings of spilled honey.
Sky ablaze, red volcano,
Burned the darkness, saved the song.
Dragon of sugar, crystal and faith,
It will never die, for the tale will bring it to its feet.
In the cold night, it will shine without peer,
In the moon's lap, dreaming, dreaming.
Its flame is verse, sweet illusion,
It lives in the stars of the constellation.
And when the moon smiles, silver,
Meraxes dances, enchanted story!"
She thought it was silly, of course. But she put the paper in her pocket, feeling inexplicably lighter.
.
In Rhaella's Secret Garden:
As the sun set, Rhaella found Rhaegar sitting under the Targaryen family tree, drawing dragons on the blank pages of a storybook. He had ink stains like bracelets and was humming the same wordless tune he had at lunch.
"Mother!" he called, holding up a leaf against the orange sky. "Look! The real Vhagar!"
The twilight light filtering through the paper revealed a dragon with wings outstretched and claws of charcoal walnut. Rhaella sat down beside him, ignoring the dirt on her dress.
"It's beautiful, my little dragon. But... why are you smiling?"
"Because it knows that even if it burns everything, there will always be a piece of cake left over."
Rhaella didn't understand, but she laughed. It was a rare sound these days.
.
In the Fortress Kitchen:
Marna leaned against the warm kitchen fireplace, the last of the Sugar Meraxes slowly melting on her tongue. The sun dipped behind the walls of King's Landing, painting the sky in shades of rust and honey. A laugh echoed in the stillness of the twilight - light, crystalline - and she smiled inadvertently. Rhaegar.
It was strange, she thought. Within these walls, where even the shadows plotted, the prince with the violet eyes - sometimes so intense they seemed to pierce the soul - had conquered even the most hardened hearts. The stallholders saved crumbs of cake for him, the laundresses found excuses to leave old sheets in his path ("for hero's capes, Your Grace!"), and even the sternest guards lowered their spears as he passed and hummed nonsense verses.
Genius? Absolutely. Scary? Sometimes. But who wouldn't forgive a boy who turned flour into wings and fear into candy?
Marna sighed, wiping her honeyed hands on her apron. Rhaegar may be a walking enigma, a boy who talks to walls and sees dragons in pools of water. But in this fortress of ice and knives, he was also the only fire that didn't burn - it just warmed. And that, she knew, was worth more than all the prophecies in the world.
As she descended the service stairs, a young servant passed her, humming the same sad tune Rhaegar had made up at lunch. Marna did not scold him. After all, even the walls seemed to whisper verses that night.
.
As the moon rose over King's Landing, Rhaegar Targaryen lay asleep hugging his silver harp - a recent gift from his mother-, dried flour on his eyelashes and a verse scribbled on his palm:
"I'll be honey's fiery song,
Nestling winter with solar hymns.
My ashes, rebellious dragon pollen,
Will create symphonies in lunar chalices.
When my fingers turn to coals
And snow swallows all dread,
Each verse of mine - devoured harp -
Will be an embrace of lesser fire.
I'll leave harp seeds in the ground,
Comet sugar, flames of love.
And until death, that old harpist,
Will dance with me, poet-flyer!"
.
And in some corner of the devastated summerhall, a dragon's egg trembled every time the dragon prince wrote a poetry verse.