As Many as Hiding Places

A/N: AU where the Sack of King's Landing goes the slightest bit differently. I'm hoping to expand on it, but since I have commitment issues, it's a one-shot too. Would love any and all feedback :-)

Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.

Mother wants to play a game. Rather, she wants to play a pretend game, the kind of game where she wants Rhaenys to do something and think it's a game. But Mother is sweet and brushes her hair, so Rhaenys will play along.

"You must hide, my love." Mother is smiling, but it's like the smile she offers King Grandfather, and is no smile at all. Elia leans closer, hands on her shoulders. "Hide with Alys until I find you—and if I do not, only come out for the Kingsguard."

Her maidservant Alys stands near the door, looking into the hall. The nursery is soft and dim from candles. Mother closed every curtain and shutter. Probably because of the noise—the city is alive tonight, people shouting and caterwauling. When Rhaenys asked if it was a festival, her mother only shook her head, Aegon suckling at her breast.

Mother wears her Dornish silks now, as does Rhaenys. King Grandfather does like her wearing silks, so she only wears them to bed. They are soft, far softer than her other gowns.

She rubs her belly as it squirms, not quite sick but something like it. Mother rarely plays pretend. Still, she will play along. Rhaenys always hides better than Mother or Viserys seek. Her mother kneels down in front of her, and Rhaenys can feel trembling fingers on her shoulders.

"Make sure no one finds you. Let Alys help you hide."

A kiss to her brow, a kiss to her cheek. The princess laughs softly, feeling sad then, sad like the time she asked Mother where Father was. She misses him reading her stories as she falls asleep—he has not done this in years and years and more years.

Rhaenys tries to show her a real smile, but she must pretend a little too.

With that she leaves the nursery. Balerion waits on the trunk by the door, sounding sillier than usual as he mewls. She scoops him up, the kitten too tired to fight. He's half a devil, but Rhaenys loves him because he comes to her and no one else.

"Hush," she hisses.

"Come, Princess." Alys puts a hand behind her shoulders. It is too warm, too real for Rhaenys to say that no one touches a princess unless she says so.

Alys guides her upstairs—this is where Rhaenys would have gone so she does not argue. But something rocks and Rhaenys scrabbles at a wall for balance, the floor going still almost the same moment it twitched. She hears steel, the kind Father wore the last time she saw him. The time he kissed her cheek and said farewell, but nothing more. Alys prods now, when they reach the top of the stairs. Rhaenys would speak but for the tightness in her throat. They are near Father's chambers.

"Hide, Princess," Alys says, low and coarse, pushing open Father's door and shoving her through.

Rhaenys stumbles, holding Balerion tighter until he growls. The door snaps closed behind her. She's alone. It's dark, except for an uncovered window. Orange flickers through, throwing shadows.

But they are still Father's chambers. She has memorized every book, every corner. Father would read in the chair by the window, frowning, fingers at his cheek, pale hair grazing the pages. Her mother would lightly scold her for wandering in without so much as a knock, but Father never seemed to mind. Rhaenys closes her eyes. If she pretends, maybe Father will still be there, turning to her with a small smile, sighing in defeat as she squirrels into his lap.

Father's bedroom has been empty for what seems like years and years. She can almost forget the noise in the castle. Sometimes this happens when King Grandfather holds a feast, though she has not heard of anyone planning a feast.

Balerion twitches and she keeps him close, murmuring at him not to scratch. Under the bed, she thinks. It's dark and covered. She crawls under, curls up, wondering why Mother asked her to play this game.

Soon, Rhaenys does not want to play. She wants to run. But Mother said to stay and Alys told her to hide. The underside of father's mattress is boring. Balerion is restless. Below, everyone is shouting and stamping. Then the hall erupts in sound. Clanks, clatters, yells. Like a melee or what she imagines a battle sounds like.

The door slams open, cracking against the wall. From her hiding place she sees steel-covered boots. Hears heavy breathing, smells raw meat.

If I were seeking and not hiding—

The bed is wrong. She was worried and sad and it made her choose poorly. If she were looking for Viserys, she would look under the bed first. But where else? Just by the bed's thick legs is a wall of Father's books. It would come over her head if she was standing up. No light reaches behind them.

A sudden wave of shouts, something crashing—Rhaenys crawls and rolls to the space behind the books.

The boots scrape as the man kneels down.

"Mreeeow." A hiss, a squeak when an armored hand swipes at the space she had lain. Balerion yowls and spits as it snatches him.

Rhaenys is deep in the shadows, watching, crouching, trying hard not to breathe. She bites her hand when Balerion mewls, tossed like a toy into a corner.

Suddenly something clatters just outside the room and the man lunges to his feet, storming back into the hall, roaring about a princess. Me? Or Mother? What will he do? She is a princess, but he threw Balerion across the room. Across Father's room—Father hasn't been here for time beyond counting.

The touch at her elbow, and she bites her lip to keep from squealing.

A boy? A skinny boy, his eyes large and his cheeks sharp. A servant's son. He has a familiar face, but not a face she knows. He brings a thin fishbone finger to his lips. Shhh his eyes and hands say. When light flares from the window, she sees he has pale green eyes. As if she would fall behind a servant's order! But staying quiet seems like a good idea.

That is when the screaming starts. Below her feet it seems—near her bed—echoing between her ears. It makes her breath go quick and ragged. She knows that voice. The boy brings a finger to his lips again, then across his throat. Her teeth have bitten into her knuckles and her blood tastes like warm coins. Everywhere else she is cold and shivering. Mother's screams change, going from hoarse cries to short, sobbing ones.

The boy wraps a spidery hand around her wrist and tugs gently. Servant or not, she nods and crawls with him, her stomach sloshing what's left of dinner.

He leads her deeper into the shadows, ones she didn't know were there—her foot touches unfamiliar damp stone and she gasps, just as his other hand flattens against her mouth. Rhaenys bites down and he draws a sharp breath as he jerks back. He has no tongue! This makes her heart leap more than the man who threw Balerion. She's pulling, feet digging into the hard stone and scrabbling to return to Father's books. His mouth was open only a moment but she saw the black space where his tongue should be. Her arm stays trapped in his steely grip, wrist burning when she pulls too hard.

Rhaenys screams.

The sound bounces around her head, like she's in a small cave. Boots clatter in the hall and someone shouts. When he yells again about a princess, Rhaenys knows he means her, not Mother. The boy bares his teeth and yanks her to his chest, twisting around her to reach for something. It all goes black.

She giggles at the fear of it all. Endless black has stolen her, except for the boy pushing her against a wall, stones poking through her nightdress. A hacking, wheezy sound hisses near her ear. His horrid tongueless throat.

Mayhaps he means shhh. His palm cups her wet cheek, then she hears another pointed wheeze. "Hshhha!" Her heart booms but she chokes down her cough, chest heaving like she's raced Viserys to the Queen's chambers.

Soon he tugs on her wrist and she follows without a word. They only crawl a few steps before he pulls her to her feet, continuing on. At one point her forehead bumps against his chin. He's a head taller than she, mayhaps Viserys' age or a dash older. Rhaenys knows not where they are. Or where Mother and Aegon are. Years upon years and he stops her again. This time, she feels the side of his hand across her brow. She's about to swat it away when stones grind together and a window of light blazes open. His hand keeps it from scalding her eyes.

When the spots fade, it's only torchlight. They are in a stone chamber, the floor damp and cold under her bare feet. A bald man sits at the table. Finally, a face she knows!

"Lord Varys?"

He helps King Grandfather. Sometimes, he speaks to Mother and offers Rhaenys a smile. He wears dark clothes now instead of his bright robes.

"Princess." He does not sound happy to see her. Well, he never sounds happy, but usually he pretends more.

"Where's Mother?"

He looks behind her—Rhaenys turns to follow, and sees a leggy girl crouching on her heels, shaking a tousled head. Rhaenys rounds on her.

"Where is my mother?"

The girl's dark eyes narrow as Rhaenys walks closer. Her hands drop from her thighs to the ground, bracing.

Rhaenys yelps when Varys grabs her shoulder.

"Princess." His voice is low, sharp. Rhaenys' heart ratchets in her throat as she slowly turns around. His eyes are not kind, but not angry either. "Dangerous men have killed your mother. They have killed your brother, your father, and your grandfather, and will kill your uncle and grandmother." His hand tightens more. "But they will not kill you."

Her cheeks flare hot, even as her fisted hands go cold. Killed? She does not feel her feet.

His grip softens and his free hand goes to her other shoulder. When he speaks, his tone has less iron. He sounds almost sad. "This will cause you a great deal of pain, but it can only hurt you once."

It will be years before she understands what he meant. When Rhaenys is a woman grown and flowered, given to moments of contemplation, she will offer a small smile for the eunuch. Most with dark news treat the young listener as a maiden, easing in slowly, offering excuses and apologies, not realizing pain crushes softness regardless and gentle pretensions are merely sandpaper over a wound. Her smile is not without humor. The eunuch is the one who cut her deep with the truth, in one shattering thrust. It hurt. Gods, it hurt. But better a pain all at once than one scraped over fresh scars.

But this means nothing to her now. Rhaenys tries to understand—she knows death. Cats have died, one in her arms. Hunters and hawkers bring in game. Father goes away for so long it seems like forever but he comes back.

"Princess, drink this."

A cup is pushed in front of her face. She swats it away—why is everyone shoving or grabbing at her? Shoving and grabbing and leaving and dying!The ground scrapes against her hands and knees. Why is she here? Why did she leave the nursery?

She thinks Varys has picked her up, for suddenly she is high above the ground and the floor is moving. He places her on something soft, her back against pillows. A bed? He murmurs some words, then turns and leaves. She wants to shriek after him. Don't leave! Please don't leave! She wants but she can't. Her throat heaves and tightens. Pain is seeping through her chest, leaving her aching and hollow.

When her eyes open, someone is screaming. Screaming like they were hurled like a toy into a stone wall, or dragged into a gauntleted grip and squeezed until their ribs snapped. When the sounds grow raspy Rhaenys knows they are hers. Her dreams wait like sharks for her to fall asleep again. So she will not sleep.

The crack of light across the room widens. A door, only a door. Her hands bunch in the thin covers. Just the boy, his figure shadowed. She knows his eyes are green, and knows his mouth has no tongue. He also pulled her into the secret place before the man could snatch her and crush her in his steel-clad hands.

He stays silent because he cannot speak, she stays silent because there is nothing to say. But he hops into the bed beside her, palms her forehead as if checking for fever, and holds out a cup. The same one she slapped earlier, but she takes it now. Her throat is cracked. The liquid is warm, milky, and sweet. It fills the cracks, fills the holes in her heart just for a moment.

The boy takes back the cup and holds out something else. Rhaenys barely makes it out in the gloom, but it glitters a faint shape. She knows this necklace. A white-gold sun, and a dragon basking in its warmth. Its eyes are red rubies, its wings meet the sun's rays. She knows Father's gift to Mother. She remembers being little, remembers Mother smiling and saying how its eyes looked peaceful. Father had given his small grin.

As the room darkens again and she grows so sleepy, the boy eases away.

"Don't leave me," she croaks. "Please."

For a hazy moment she thinks he will and her eyes are watering because she has no way to make him stay, no voice to order him to stay because she is a princess, but a princess with no Mother and Father or King Grandfather. He sighs a whispery raspy sound. Perhaps a grumble, the kind Maester Pycelle gives when she asks him what's in every bottle he offers to Mother. Is Pycelle dead too? The Kingsguard?

In the gloom she catches a glimmer of pale green as he slides back near her side. His quick fingers work the necklace from her hands and loop the chain over her neck. She can smell traces of perfume and copper. But she feels warmer as it lays against her chest. Mother wore it when she bid Rhaenys to hide. When she last called her "love."

Days come, years go. She cannot count the hours so she counts the times the boy helps her to a privy, offers her warm broth and sweet drinks, and leaves for times that seem the longest of all. Before he leaves, he always puts Mother's pendant in her hand, gives a rasping huff and pats her hair. A promise, she supposes. He will come back.

When she wakes up screaming, he's usually there to take her hand. Not doing anything, just staying there, reminding her she's not in Father's room. Even if she dies a dozen times in her dreams, she will always wake up.

Years and years it seems, Lord Varys finally returns to her. She's curled against the boy, unsure if it's day or night. Varys wears dark leathers again, and a dusty black cloak hangs off his shoulders.

"Rhaenys." Something in his voice or face makes the tongueless boy sidle away from her as she forces her eyes open. "Have you ever seen a mummers' act?"

She nods, fingers plucking at Mother's necklace. "For my name day." Her voice is crackly in her ears. It hurts, but she can speak now.

He offers her a thin smile. "Today we are the mummers. I am a peasant, and you are a peasant girl. We are going to a ship. Would you like to see your city one more time?"

"Where are we going?" She has never left the city except when Father took them to Summerhall. In truth, she does not want to leave. This room is safe and sleepy. She does not always dream.

Varys strokes a thumb across her cheek. "Somewhere safe. But also beautiful. It is an adventure."

Adventure. She hears the word when Father reads her stories. Will she see Father again? No, you can't. Her throat catches, until a thought hits her—"Are we going to Uncle Oberyn?"

Mother said she trusted no one as much as Oberyn. Rhaenys remembers a dark face, a bright smile. He'd grinned and crowed about Martell blood drowning Targaryen—"more desert than dragon!"—then called her beautiful. She likes him very much.

But Varys' smile has gone crooked, like he is making a joke. "A more peaceful adventure than that, sweetling." The plump man is rummaging in his cloak before he pulls out a box. "If we are mummers, we must wear costumes. Hold still."

The box has something crumbly in it that Varys rubs against her face. Ah, powder! Three powders, she sees, when he sinks to one knee. A light one, a smoky one, and one a touch darker than her skin.

"Can I see?" she asks when he snaps the box closed.

He sighs and pulls out a tiny round mirror. When she tilts it to her face, the laugh erupts from her throat. She looks awful! Varys has made her look like she rolled in the dirt. Her face is thinner, her nose crooked, with the dark powder rubbed into the hollows of her cheeks. She is not Rhaenys at all, but a…a…riff-raff!. Her breath is beginning to stagger, but she cannot stop laughing. When the tears are dripping over her chapped lips, Varys holds her shoulder until her sobs trail off. He thumbs at her face, repairing some of his work. Finally, he pulls out an ugly gray cloak and drapes it over her shoulders. Ick! It's scratchy on her uncovered arms, and smells like the stables.

He clips a finger under her chin, though she squirms away. "Princess, for this role, you will not speak."

She nods at the time, but when he takes her hand and leads her through dark halls and darker tunnels, she feels her guts churning. A familiar steel-fingered hand takes her free one—despite the tight grip, her stomach begins to settle.

It takes hours or days or mayhaps weeks, but finally he stops, and something grinds in her ears. The side of the boy's hand once more lies across her brow. This time, she closes her eyes to slits when the true light blazes in. Sunlight, bright and hot—and burning? Her nose burns as well. It smells like a hearth, but also…wrong. Sick and sweet and dirty. When the spots fade from her vision and the boy steps away, she sees King Grandfather's city for the first time in ages.

It's awful.

Ashes and blackened wood are strewn in piles. A foot from where she stands, the stones are splotched in dark red. The boy stands at his other side now.

Varys reaches down and pulls her hood up over her head. "Remember this, Rhaenys."

He leads them past dark piles of wood—shacks, she thinks she's heard—and market stalls. The smell still burns in her throat, and yet, for the first time since that night, she can forget the hollow ache beneath her collarbone. There are too many sights for her to remember herself.

A group of people stand near a dry fountain. Some are men who stink, and some are women who smell too much of flowers. A couple of them turn to look at her but Varys pays them no mind.

"Who are they?" she pipes up. Then she sees a man pulling a cart, its load covered by a dark blanket. Except—"Why's an arm sticking out of the cart?" A sound catches her ears; she almost thinks the fountain isn't dry, until—"Varys, why is he not using a privy?—"

The boy gives a coughing wheeze. Varys jerks her to a stop, a small pain shooting to her elbow. She can't see his face with her long hood, but his grip is tighter and she feels him staring. Finally he gives a rough sigh and before she can squawk he grabs her waist and yanks her onto his shoulder.

"If you will not shut up," he hisses, "At least whisper."

She's sitting next to his ear, though he wears a hood. From this height she sees the street before them. Dirty. Stinky. Leaning down, she tries to speak softly.

"Why is it so ugly?"

A long breath—his shoulder sinks and rises beneath her. "They hurt the city too."

Does a city feel pain? She wonders if the stones ache, or if the houses cry. "Why?"

His head tilts. "Why do you think?"

Mother said Father was at war, fighting for his king. People fight each other. Perhaps they fight cities too.

"Because they don't like King Grandfather," she whispers after a moment of thought. Mother said they were warring against him.

It will be years before she understands Varys' second gift. He never offered names. Men murdered her family, featureless men with swords and surcoats all the same color. Their names are for her to discover, when she is older and sharper and can no more hate them than she can the names in a history book. Most of them.

His grip on her hip shifts as he stops, looking down three different paths. "Why do they not like their king?"

"He burned people. The wolf lords." The boy glances up at her, eyebrows furrowing, as if he can't answer a maester's question. Rhaenys leans over as far as she can, forearm bracing on Varys' other shoulder, whispering loudly. "I saw it."

"You did not," Varys says, voice prickling. He calls her a liar?

"I did," she whines near his ear. "Mother was very angry."

She just wanted to see the wolves. So she slipped into the throne room, imagining two giant direwolves standing before the king, their tails swishing. Did they wear cloaks? Jewels? Collars?

They were only men. And they died. Lady Ashara grabbed her when the screams began, dragging her face into her skirts. But she only used one arm, as her other hand covered her mouth, stifling her stomach that even Rhaenys could feel twitching. Rhaenys could still peek and see the wolf lords. Burning meat smells the same from man and aurochs, she learned. And grandfather…she thought he would not care if he was served man or aurochs for dinner.

Queen Grandmother was angry with him, she thinks. She left with Viserys for Dragonstone. The Mad King, Rhaenys has heard some say, always in whispers, sharp and hurried. Many were angry with him, angrier than Mother was with her when Ashara brought her to her chambers.

"They're wrong," she says. No, that's not entirely right. "They don't know."

Varys lightly squeezes her thigh, as if to show he heard. When she draws back into her thoughts, it is he who pries. "Tell me."

Rhaenys thinks back. Years and months ago. It was dinner, and Father entered the hall. Mother had nodded—it meant Rhaenys could go to him. She passed the head of the table, smiling wider as Father offered her his small one.

Then something snaked around her waist. Grandfather's arm. He dragged her to his side, kissing her forehead. His eyes were similar to Father's, but she could see her reflection only in the king's. King Grandfather smiled then, teeth yellow in the candlelight, beard shining with capon grease. He looked down the table at some lord.

"My granddaughter made a bawling girl of your heir!" A throaty laugh, as his eyes turned back to her. "Mayhaps you are a dragon," he said, slow and soft.

Rhaenys tried to breathe. This was about the boy. She'd kicked a lord's son who was teasing Balerion. Mother was angry, but Rhaenys didn't mean to cut his lip. She even apologized.

Nothing made a sound except for a clicking. His nails. She giggled. She couldn't help it—she could never help it, not when people were staring at her.

"I'm a girl, King Grandfather."

Click click. He kissed her forehead again, his front teeth scraping against her skin, the smell of bloody meat filling her nose. Father stood several paces away. He did not smile anymore, not even a little bit. To his right was the green-eyed Kingsguard, his fingers curled near his hip.

Grandfather tilted his head the slightest, smile growing. She shifted, stomach hollowing. Click. "Is that what your mother tells you?" He looked past her a moment, at someone else down the table. "You're not a dragon? Even under this Dornish hide—"

The pain made her screech. Grandfather jerked back from the noise, just as she jerked back from him. She tripped over her own feet, but Father caught her with an arm at her back, swinging her up until her cheek was against his chest.

"Will she squeal this much every time she bleeds?" Grandfather started to laugh, low and throaty.

She was bleeding? Grandfather looked at her, while she could only stare at his nails. Two were streaked in red. Rhaenys mewled at her burning arm. She doesn't remember much of what happened until she was in bed, and Mother and Father were speaking in his chambers above her. She couldn't understand the words. She dreamed though, for months and months, of the last thing she saw when Father carried her away. Grandfather's tongue, tipped in red, darting toward his wet talons.

"People say King Grandfather is mad. That's not right." She struggles to remember the word her mother used, the day Ashara left for Starfall, and that night when Grandfather cut her. "He's insane. And a bit angry."

Rhaenys startles at a strange sound from Lord Varys, breathy and throaty at once. A moment later she realizes he'd snorted, and chortles softly now.

The smell of salt is drowning out the reek of char. Rhaenys can see the ship masts, all but one of them with their sails tucked in. Her eyes start to burn. The ships make her think of Queen Grandmother. She left without saying goodbye, and Varys says she is dead.

They walk in silence, farther from home, farther from Father's chambers. Is Balerion dead too? Mother says cats always land on their feet. But now he'll be lonely—he only comes to her.

The path blurs in her eyes, but only a little. She still sees Blackwater Bay growing larger and larger. Her hands are shaking.

Varys slows. "Look back, Rhaenys. Look so you never forget this."

She twists around, grateful when he crooks his arm to better anchor her legs. Her knees are trembling too, though the day is warm.

Her home sits above the city, the color of sunset even in midday. It stands straight, but in her mind's eye it is crooked, hunched over in pain. Her fingers rub at Mother's necklace. In the light, dark red stains its deeper lines, flaking when she picks at it.

She smells salt more than scorched wood now. The char would burn her throat if she returned though. Rhaenys does not forget.