PART ONE: WHEN THE SMILES DIED IV

Late 282 AC: King's Landing; Maegor's Holdfast.

Daria Sand's P.O.V

"Please, my dearest friend, you must take her, and take her now."

Daria Sand lingered in the narrow hallway, a spectre of herself, haggard and gaunt, shrouded in a nook of shade and red stone and cloying dust. The dead roamed down here, she thought. Prowled for living souls to haunt. The dead liked the dark as much as they liked dire deeds. Feeding on the desperation of hopeless men, the old maids tale went, and there was no place darker, no more a dire need, than what brought Daria down into the bowels of Maegor's Holdfast that night.

Her hands were twined together, knotted knuckle and weaving finger, wringing like wet bed-linens, fighting the urge to reach for her wand. What would she do with that wand?

She did not know.

Nonetheless, she did know magic buzzing at her fingertips brought her comfort. With the person before her, dressed as they were, begging as they did, Daria knew she would need all the respite she could get.

The woman before her was cloaked, hood drawn high and forwards, masking a pleasingly beautiful face. Something between the folds of her robe cooed, and with it Daria's heart thundered.

"My Princess, surely there is another way! The Targaryen army will reach-"

"It is because of the Targaryens that you must take her!"

The hooded woman spat the name as if it was poison most foul. Perhaps it was, Daria thought. Perhaps there was no other venom fouler than that of having Targaryen blood. The Mother knew, here and now in the dawn of a dying age, the Targaryen's had spilled enough blood to fill a thousand rivers. Worst still, it appeared they were intent on filling a thousand more before this day was done.

Brother killing brother.

Father slaying son.

Mother selling daughter.

And a King, touched by lunacy, resting upon on all these shattered bones.

If the Targaryens could not keep the throne, Daria was sure, they would see the next King sit upon nothing but ashes.

"I do not understand, mistress."

Elia Martell dithered, powerless to stay still, almost dancing, back and forth, left and right, around, flickering like the lit torch perched on the wall before them. Daria had not seen the Princess in such a state since the merry days of old, where, young, free, careless, she had accidentally broken her brother Oberyn's arm after getting too rowdy in a play fight.

She had spent days hovering at his bedside like a dragonfly, beside herself, apologies tumbling from her lips as swift as her tears had flooded her face. There had been no need. Oberyn, Daria knew all to well, would forgive Elia if she cut out his tongue, she need only flash her eyes at him.

Sweet Mother of Mercy, how did they, those children Daria so adored, those golden, hazy days of summer, turn to…

Turn to this.

One separated so far from home, obscured in the cloak of a servant, babe pressed tightly to her chest, begging for Daria to-… To…

"I caught him, Daria. I caught him."

Elia shuffled closer, voice dropping low.

"King Aerys has not made his displeasure at my daughters more… Dornish traits unknown. If she stays, she forfeits her life."

Anything but… But this. Daria would walk over mountains of broken glass if only Elia asked her to, and perhaps she too was like Oberyn, all too ready to leap. Yet, if she did what the Princess was asking of her now, if she did what she was begging…

She could not leave her mistress.

Not here.

Not now.

Daria had vowed to Elia's brothers she would keep the Princess safe.

She had vowed to Elia she would keep Princess Rhaenys safe.

So many oaths, tugging, tearing her apart.

What was she to do?

"Princess, King Aerys, as addled as he is, would not harm his Heirs children. Rhaegar will-"

The pleading stopped. In its cold wake came colder fury.

"And what will Rhaegar do, Daria? Where is my husband? I will tell you where he is. He has left. He has run away with a child. He has abandoned his own children here, entrapped, under the ever-volatile eye of his foolish father. We are hostages. Nothing but prisoners of war to keep my kin from marching to the King's door, and Rhaegar, brilliant Rhaegar, knows this. And still… Still he left. Do not speak to me of Rhaegar, Daria. For I find even his name sickens me these dark days. May he too, in his time of need, as he as forced his children to bare, standalone undefended. If The Father truly knows justice, he will make it so, and in payment I swear, swear upon all that is sacred, if Rhaegar will not protect his children, if he will not put them first, I will."

Devoured by her fury and frenzy and fever, Elia's free arm swept out the fold of her frayed cloak, arching in a long gesture to cast her vow to the sky. Daria saw her hand, long fingered, thin and delicate, bronze… Bloodstained bandage hastily tied around palm.

Her hand shot out, seized, brought the limb close. It trembled in her hold, quivered like a leaf blown free of its branch.

"Princess, you are wounded!"

Elia snatched her hand away, not cruelly, but as though she could not bear to be touched, that such a simple kindness in these trying times felt too foreign to remember. A hound whipped too many times often learns to fear the hand that feeds too.

Yet, this was not a hound.

This was no ordinary woman.

This was the Princess of Dorne, Elia Nymeros Martell, and in the grotesque face of pain and fear and death, she only stood taller, and that, this image of Elia garbed in a tattered cloak, hiding in the bowels of Maegor's Holdfast after slipping from her guards with the help of Queen Rhaella, would be forever how Daria would remember her Elia.

A Queen with no crown but more dignity, purity, grace, and strength than any man could hope to have. She was as Rhaegar feigned he was, true of heart. She was as the Wolf Lord of the North strived to be, a being of honour. She was as the Lannister's could never reach, compassion without motive.

She was as she always was, her Elia, that little girl Daria watched dance across the Water Gardens, who plucked oranges from the orange grove and gave them to the poor of Sunspear, who nursed sick kittens back to health. She was all that, Elia Martell, and so much more. She was that little girl, a woman grown, and three days hence, she would be dead.

Only the good die young, the saying went, and Elia was gone long before her time.

It was silent for a long while, a tense surge of ambiguity. Elia broke it eventually, no place left, even in this cool alcove, to hide from the darkness creeping like strangling vines across Westeros, her voice as light and pale as a flap of a baby birds wing.

Broken like one too.

"There was a man, a kitchen boy, I found him in Rhaenys's nursery. I-… He had a pillow in his hands, standing over her cradle… He was lowering it, and I-… I-… I did what I must to protect my children."

Daria's eyes slid closed, and she found it hard, so very hard to open them again as a great flood of air deserted her lungs. What had this land wrought for her charge? Only sorrow, grief and ruin. Surely, even King Aerys was not so far gone to… To…

But he was.

There was not a depravity the King did not indulge in these days. Sins of the filthiest sort. Rapes of every kind. Curses only the maddest of men could dream of. And this was where Elia, her Elia, placed her. Astride a burgeoning gorge, feet slipping on cracking earth. On one side laid a broken vow, another the death of the woman she loved best.

"You believe King Aerys ordered the boys actions?"

The question was redundant. Daria knew it. Elia knew it. If there was one person, only one, in this cesspool of the Crownlands, who would wish to see the only Dornish Targaryen perish, who had the power to see it through, it was he, the King.

Yet, she had to ask, because if he had not, if this was not by the Kings crooked hand, then Daria still had a chance. She could stay, and Elia would be safe, and-

"My servant overheard the King asking the kitchen staff if the spear had been snapped not but two hours ago. It was him, Daria. We both know this."

There had to be another way.

Any other way.

"He will discover what you have done. He will be angry. Mistress, Princess, my Lady, please-"

"And I will take a thousand cuts and lashes, I will burn in wildfire in his court of jesters and mockeries, I will take every humiliation he bears upon me with every speck of grace I have, if but my children will live. Daria, please, you promised me once, upon my birthing bed, that you would protect her come what may. The may has come, and now you must keep your vow as I must mine."

Sensing a faltering mind, Elia surged in closer.

"Aerys will not hurt me. His anger will be tempered and engrossed by Robert Baratheon and the Stark, for they have now seized the Stepstones and march closer by the day. He will be too paranoid and hectic to think much of the Dornish Princess locked in her tower. I will be safe… for a while. Long enough for my brothers to do what they must and arrive. But please, my daughter does not have the same time I do. Take her."

The world beneath her feet split open like a ripe fruit, and Daria plummeted into the void.

Here was her choice.

Her choice that would or could make and break an age.

She could refuse the Princess her plea, stay, and protect the babe, along with Elia, as best as she could here, as she had promised the Martell brothers, or she could take the babe, dash for Sunspear, and leave her mistress to the hands of the Crone, and see where fate would land, as she had promised Elia.

Elia would never forgive her-

Daria could never forgive herself if-

She chuckled. Loudly. Semi-sob, half-hysterics. Daria was only fooling herself, as if she really had a choice to begin with. She had given her word, an unbreakable vow, by her wand and her magic to protect that babe hidden in Elia's cloak, and she would see it through.

Even if it was the most painful promise she was ever going to keep.

Even if it killed her.

Because Elia, sweet, sweet Elia would do the same for her.

Elia would do the same for anyone, should they seek her help.

Daria nodded weakly, and sure as the sun would rise come morn, she felt the Stranger loom above them. One action, one slight tilt of her head, and history itself shifted beneath their feet like sand washed away in a tide.

If only Daria had known that at the time.

For the first time in many days, perhaps months, a smile lit up Elia's face in all the glory of a sunbeam peeking through a rain cloud. Shirking her cloak away from her chest, Daria saw what she knew to be there, bundled in old clothes and strips of torn bed-sheets. A babe, slumbering, cooing in their dreams.

A Princess unwise about the lengths a mother's love would go.

Gently, so gently, Elia slid the babe into Daria's lax hold. She was light in her arms, light and small and tragically beautiful, with that russet skin and dark curl, though, at a few months old, a strip of white hair was beginning to rear its ugly head at her temple, a brush of ice amongst the fire of her Martell blood.

Still, little Rhaenys slumbered on, and Daria had the strange urge to shuffle the babe awake. Look, child, she would say. Look child, look at your mother, look and remember. Remember the slope of her face, the warmth of her embrace, the brush of a kiss from her lips and remember, child, remember Elia Martell, and know what it is to be a Queen.

Daria did none of this.

Daria only held the babe and, silently, wept.

"Stay off the Kings road, for the armies shall meet there in three moons. When this war is finished, if I still breathe in Kings Landing, I shall find you and ride to you. If I-… If I or the Targaryens should fall, take her to Dorne. Take her to my brothers, Doran or Oberyn. I've sent a missive ahead of you, carried by my most trusted men. They know to expect you and Rhaenys, should the worse come to be, at Sunspear five days hence. Do not give her up for anyone else, no matter what they say, or what letters they bring. Promise me you will not hand my daughter off to any but me, Doran or Oberyn."

"I promise."

Only with one last wet oath did Elia finally relinquish her hold on the babe, fully leaving her in the safety of Daria's hands. She did not miss, so quiet, the groan as if doing so, letting go, pained Elia more than any dagger to the breast could.

"Good… Good..."

"What about prince Aegon, mistress? If Rhaenys has to-"

"Aegon is safest here for now. The roads will be dangerous for his Targaryen looks, and Aerys offers little protection, but protection it is, for Aegon. My daughter is not afforded the same luxury. Should the Targaryens fall… I have plans in place for Aegon."

Daria recalled the knock on Elia's chamber door, late into the night. She remembered the glimpse of fine silk, pale skin, and a hairless head, hushed words exchanged in the blanket of stars, lit only by the scones on the wall and a small open window, as Elia ordered her women away so she may have a private word. Her gut roiled.

"Mistress, no. You cannot trust the spider-"

"And yet, I must! For my children! Please Daria… Please."

Anew, she nodded. A sharp thing, up and down and end.

Suddenly, it was the end of everything.

No more words, oaths, or sweet nothings to give.

This was the end, and it was hard, and it was painful, and it was tragic.

Feeling the time of departure drawing nearer, Elia, with hands that trembled so viciously, reached up to her neck and unclasped her necklace. She thumbed it in her palm for a moment, felt the weight, the warmth, perhaps she felt the memories, as Daria did, of such better times, falling through the cracks of her fingers, never to be held again.

With one final stroke of her thumb, Elia reached for the babe and placed it in the folds of her swaddling cloth, right by her tiny, beating heart. The locket of a sun and spear glistened on the frayed cloth, inside, a lock of hair cut from two young brother's heads.

It was Elia's locket, custom made, one of three in existence, and forever would be, initialled on the back by the master craftsman who was now dead and gone. It was a gift, from Doran, before she left for King's Landing, he and Oberyn owning the last remaining pair, a lock of their sister's hair buried inside, so, no matter how far the siblings drifted, by land or sea or dragon, in some shape, by hair or spirit, they would always be together. Elia had not taken it off since.

Not until now.

The meaning was not lost on Daria.

Ducking, Elia pressed a quivering kiss to her daughters forehead. Damp with tears, full with love. Against the soft skin, she murmured.

"May life never break you. May strife never bend you. And may love be the only thing that makes you bow. I love you, my daughter. Never forget."

A staggering breath in, a stealing of a babes sweet scent, a sniffle, one last hard, enduring kiss, and a sharp yank away. She met Daria's gaze and nodded, refusing to peek down at the babe again. Shuffling her own cloak, Daria slipped the child beneath the folds and, a brief moment of hesitation later, began to descend down the maze of passageways to the bottom most levels of the Holdfast, where, in the crypts, a sewage channel would lead to the Blackwater docks. A secret corridor only Prince Daemon had known, often exploiting it to meet clandestine his niece, Rhaenyra Targaryen, to start a rebellion.

A passageway Queen Rhaella had told Elia of.

Daria only glanced back once.

Elia was there, lingering in the silhouettes and gloom, watching her babe be smuggled away.

Three torturous turns of the sun later, she was dead.

Seven turns after, Daria died too.

Early 283 AC: Maegor's Holdfast; King's Landing.

No One's P.O.V

Elia had the last victory, even if she did not have the last breath. Red and gold soldier's, on the whim of Tywin Lannister, flooded Maegor's Holdfast, daggers ready and keen in the chaos of a sacking.

They found neither Aegon nor Rhaenys.

Only Elia.

The Prince was safe, carted away by ship over the Narrow Sea to the exiled Sir Jon Connington in Essos.

The Princess was protected, hidden in a cloak, running for the lands of her mother across the Boneway of the Red Mountains.

Ser Amory, leading the men tasked with the death of the children, feared his Lord lieges anger should he come back empty handed. Two scullery children from the kitchens, around the age the prince and princess would be, fit his chore.

A hazardous and hasty change of clothes, a brutal smash of a fist and pummel, throwing the corpses to the Mountain to further mangle, with the promise of letting the beast of a man do what he wished with Elia Martell, and the slit of a milk maids throat sealed the lie.

Not even the Gods could recognize their faces.

They wrapped them in velvet, red to hide the blood, and took their prize to Tywin.

Robert Baratheon praised them.

The Wolf Lord howled and stormed from the keep.

Tywin…

Tywin smiled and bade them work well done in front of the new King, but cornered them alone after.

The youngest, a contorted heap now, was not dark enough, he said, to be the Martell Targaryen, even if the Baratheon was easily fooled. He ordered them from the city on horseback, ordered them to roads to Sunspear, for where else would the babe be secreted away, and promised, should they come back empty handed this time, they would no longer have hands to be empty.

Do not make me appear a liar, Sers.

And so they rode, and so they searched, and so they found…

October 1980: Forbidden Forest; England.

Daria Sand's P.O.V

The cold breeze of the forest did nothing to ease the sense of smothering air. Her clothes and skin, slick with sweat, clung to her skin in chaffing patches. She was vaguely aware of the rinse of warmth at her stomach, scattering out. She stumbled and ran, a babes wail echoing from her bosom.

And she ran.

And she ran.

And she ran.

Like the dunes of Dorne battering the walls of Sunspear, crashing, tumbling, rolling, she ran. Her long dark hair, broken free from braid, lank with dirt, whipped behind her like a horse tail as she flung herself over sharp rocks, around heavy trees, and down jagged inclines.

She stumbled.

She got up.

And she ran.

Daria had long since lost herself, unsure where she was now, or where to head. She did not know what time it was, what day it was, or how long she had been running for. She only knew she must not stop.

She had to run.

And run.

And run.

They had been so close. So very, very close. She had seen Sunspear on the horizon, the figures of the Tower of the Sun and the Sandship proud on the cobalt sky, the fat bellied Threefold Gate to the city, and they had nearly made it home, the babe and her.

And then she had to pass through the Shadow city, built against the walls of Sunspear, a labyrinth of narrow alleys, homes, and bazaars.

Daria noticed they were being followed two clicks into the city.

She tried to lose them, whoever they be.

She tried to run.

She did run.

They followed.

She ran harder.

They ran faster.

So many.

One.

Two.

Three.

Seven.

Seven men, and there, beneath their dusty cloaks, a roaring lion.

She made it only to the Orange Grove, on the very outskirts of Sunspear, when they caught her. A man with a dagger, pain, so much pain, someone yanking the babe from her arms as she fell to her knees, her yell, her cry, her scream as she fought to take the babe back, clawed and bit and kicked and-

The wail of Rhaenys as a dagger was raised above her-

A scream, tearing from her own throat, an outstretched hand as she was kept away, and-

"No!"

A flash of blinding light.

The aroma of magic in the air.

The men were gone.

Rhaenys safe… Abandoned on the ground.

Magic…

Not hers.

Daria was not strong enough for that kind of magic.

She did not-

The babe.

The little Martell, brushed with ice, and a heart of-

No time.

Daria teetered, she plucked up the babe.

She ran.

And ran.

And ran.

The trees were different now. Dark and ominous, long away from the sweet smell of fresh oranges. Still, she ran.

She ran.

And ran.

And ran.

And bled.

Tears blinded her as she turned a corner, dipped into the shrouded undergrowth, stumbled and slipped. She crashed to the ground, gasping for breath, gasping for life, grasping at the babe still wailing at her breast.

She could not see the stars from her back, only the dark forest, closing in on her, fading and aching and-

Every breath was a fight uphill, every pound of her heart another battle won, and time, precious time, meant nothing as she, slumped to the ground, tried so hard to move, just move, she was so close, so close to home, so close to keeping her promise and-

"Hello! Is anybody there?"

Rhaenys wailed louder, and fear seized Daria.

Was it the men who-

No.

A woman's voice, soft, lyrical, concerned.

A flicker of light, pale as the moon, slinking out the trees.

Edging closer, and closer and closer and-

"Merlin! You're bleeding! James, quick, head back to the castle, get Madam Pomfrey!"

The echo of running feet.

A gentle hand on her shoulder, another at her stomach, pressing, urgent.

Daria blinked and saw red hair, kind eyes, green like jade.

"Just hold on, okay? Help is coming. We'll get you fixed up in no time, alright? You just hold on for me. That's it. Breathe. In, out, in, out, come on, in, out, in, out. Please, breathe… Breathe… Breathe…"

It burned.

Everything burned.

Daria reached down and clasped the hand on her stomach, pulling it away. It was too late, she knew. Too late and too little and everything burned. But not for Rhaenys.

Precious Rhaenys.

Elia's faith in her would not be for nought.

With the last of her strength, Daria shifted the babe in her arm, still hidden in her cloak, held her out, trembling and quivering and shivering, bathed in her own blood.

"Her name… Rhaenys… Rhaenys Targ-… Please… Please… Take… Home… Take her home… Sunsp-… Take her home… Protect… My Rhaenys… Protect… Home… Go home…"

A bout of coughing seized her, wet and warm with blood, and the woman, the woman with such kind eyes, took the child if only to stop her from being dropped by Daria.

"I Will. I promise, but none of that. Shush now. Rest and breathe. James will be back any moment now, you'll see. Everything will be fine… No… No… Don't close your eyes… Don't-"

Daria tried, she really did, but sluggishly they shut, never to open again. She saw the Water Gardens, glistening in the sun. And oh, there they were, little Elia, splashing in the cool, crisp ponds. Boisterous Oberyn, climbing a tree. Studious Doran, sitting in the shade, tome open in his lap and she could hear the birds calling her home, sweet home, and-

They sang to her, the children she loved so, and it was summer once more, and well and warm and-

For the last time she ran, ran to them, picked up little Elia and twirled her above her head and, Oberyn laughed, begging for a turn, Doran shuffled over and she was home and-

A sputtering breath like bones rattling, one last lingering burn, and-

Still.

Silence.

The whine of a motherless babe into the lonely night.

James Potter, Albus Dumbledore, and Madam Pomfrey came too late.

Lily Potter rose from the ground, shaky on her own legs, twigs and leave sticking to her jeans, rocking something, a bundle, in her arms. She glanced up, blood crusting at her hands, rusting her fingernails, a dead woman at her feet, and met her husbands eye.

It was not the squawk of an injured bird or Phoenix as the pair originally thought.

Not a unicorn with a broken leg.

It was something much more.

"It's… James, it's a baby… A baby girl…"

Next Chapter Synopsis: Rhaenys Potter has had a hard life. An orphan twice over, and scorned by her adopted aunt and uncle, she's never had much of anything. Love, food, games or joy. But then she goes to Hogwarts, discovered magic, and everything seemed to fall into place… Until she accidentally hatched a dragon egg Hagrid won in a pub bet, a feat that the Wizarding world had not seen for a millennium.

Afraid the Ministry would take the only thing truly hers away, the only thing she's ever had, she did the only logical thing a lonely, frightened, eleven-year-old could.

She put the hatchling in a bucket, plucked up her wand, and she ran like the wind.

How she ended up in the desert, she had no bloody clue…

Story Notes (Ignore if you wish):

Part one: When the Smiles Died, is now finished! Part two: Fierce Fights and Swifter Flights, is coming up. Like part one, this is will around four-five chapters long, focused entirely between Rhaenys P.O.V and Oberyn's P.O.V, so yes, the Martells are finally coming.

I know there is still a lot of questions regarding Daria Sand, ones that have not been answered, but this is purposefully done. The character of Daria Sand will be explored throughout this fic, in little pieces. She was always, since I started mapping out this fic, going to die very early, but that doesn't mean her story is truly over.

As you know, the dragon Rhaenys takes is Norbert, or Norbertta as it is later discovered. I did this because one: this breed of dragon fits with a Martell like Rhaenys. The Norwegian Ridgeback is the only breed, in Potterverse, to be venomous. A bit like a snake, really, and I thought it would fit well with both her Targaryen side, and her Martell blood. Two: Norwegian Ridgeback is likely a play on Rhodesian Ridgeback, a South African hunting dog used, among other things, to hunt lions. Taken straight from the Potter Wiki lol. I think this, of course, speaks for itself lmao.

I've obviously messed around with Dragon law in the Potterverse in this, and this will all be explained in the coming chapters. Norbert's name will, too, eventually change, as the hatchling will only be called Norbert for a chapter or two by Hagrid. I'm still debating on what name to give the dragon, or to have Rhaenys give the dragon, though I do have a soft spot for Elia, as I like the poetry of, if only still in name, Elia is protecting her daughter still. That said, I am happily open to suggestions, so if you have an epic dragon name, send it on over! (If you want credit for the name, I will happily give that too.)

I'm also deliberating on whether keeping Aegon (Yes, Aegon is actually Aegon in this fic and not a Blackfyre, Jon will be Jaehaerys in this when we get to that point) by himself, or adding him into the pairing with Jon and Rhaenys. I keep flipping on it, so I thought I would ask you guys. So, what do you think? Add Aegon or keep him away from the pairing?

Well, that is it for today folks! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited and reviewed! Remember, if you have a moment or two spare, don't forget to drop a review! Until next time, stay beautiful! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21