Disclaimer: I am no owner of anything in this story. Just a fanfic, y'all.

Prologue

Forward by Queen Synne

It is upon the urging of Grand Maester Samwell Tarly that I commit this story to paper. For the histories of the Citadel and for future generations to peruse at their leisure. I trust the Grand Maester with my life, as does my King husband, but the reasons for committing my story to paper elude me. It is not a story of grand battles between Starks and Lannisters. This story is no Song of Ice and Fire, another wonderful collection of prose put together by Sam that details the battles, wars, and intrigue leading to the destruction of the Wall and the fight for the Westeros Throne. There is no sea battles between the Greyjoy factions here, no Starks rallying the North to take back Winterfell from the monstrous Boltons. There is no Night King with an army of wights flooding through the North, intent to destroy this land I call home.

There is no Mad Queen in this story.

There is no defeat of the Lannister army by the flames of a dragon and screams of the Dothraki hordes within these pages.

There is no undead here, from the icy hordes or otherwise.

But, as my husband, his family and friends - especially Sam - are always quick to remind me, that doesn't make this story any less important. When Westeros finally achieved something close to peace, as bittersweet as it was, with a iron-clad support of the Warden in the North and an alliance across the sea in Meereen, there was still something to be done. As the dust settled over the battlefields, the soldiers left to lick their wounds and the dead were counted and buried, what was left was a battered and broken people. A people who yearned to believe in something again, to rebuild their shattered homes and mourn their fallen dead.

I do not see my story as something exceptional, especially in the face of such tales as the fallen Mother of Dragons, the noble children of Neddard Stark, the fall of the Lannisters and the rise of the Targaryens, the assassin Princess Arya (as an aside, don't call her that. The woman has a glare only rivaled by her sister!), and of the once-bastard of the North who became King. So many other stories, important stories to the history of Westeros, whereas mine?

I am simply a bastard who is the luckiest woman on the face of all the world.

And this bastard was the one who healed a sad man's broken heart, who loves him with all of her own. Who soothed the beasts through no spells but my own. Who traveled far beyond the shattered Wall and into the deep expanses of smoke, chasing the ghosts of the world. And now, a woman of many years, with many children to call my own, I am the Queen in the South.

A woman forever in love with my husband,

Synne Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Tamer of Beasts, of House Silverfist, Bastard of Lannister, and The Bastard Queen.

Author's Note: And in the next, we actually get to meet said future Queen.