While Dragonstone shakes from the storms and suffers under siege, the Queen screams. Rhaella tries not to, for her son's sake, but the pain is absolutely unbearable. It feels like she is being ripped into two by the babe she's bringing into the world, and she can't help but scream. No pain has ever compared to this, not ever, except... Rhaegar. The feeling of grief that overwhelms her for her first babe makes this birth seem like one of Viserys's scraped knees, for nothing can compare to the loss of your first child, or in Rhaella's case, her world. She cannot let herself dwell on Rhaegar though, because if she does she knows she will surely die too and while she may feel like she is dying she cannot die just yet. She has Viserys, her king, whom will need her if he's to grow to adulthood and someday win back his throne and this babe, who's screams Rhaella prays will soon join her own. They will both need her so Rhaella, ever dutiful, continues to scream, forcing herself to live for a little while longer at least.
Rhaella is half-lucid when the maester finally places the babe into her arms, yet it somehow resonates with her that her babe is a girl and that she hasn't died yet, unlike almost all of the babes that Rhaella has birthed before. The name Daenerys somehow occurs to her and while she's unsure if she has said it aloud when darkness overcomes her and if they'll even live to see the night through, she can't help but to smile at the rightness that settles in her chest when Daenerys is laid in her arms and her daughter's chest lifts with her ragged breaths. Rhaella Targaryen succumbs to darkness with her son Viserys's hand in her own and her daughter sleeping soundly in her arms, and while one son is missing from this scene there's still a part of her that feels joy at her little family's temporary safety and security.
When Rhaella awakes, she awakes to her son's whimpering and the sound of soldiers pounding on the door. To her pleasant surprise it is merely her Kingsguard knight, Ser Willem Darry, though the news he brings with him is obviously grave. "Your Grace, we must move now! The Usurper's men shall break through soon and we must get the royal heirs to safety!" He exclaims gruffly while the maester tries to interject that she is in no fit state to travel, she doesn't have much of a choice. Her children must leave this place so she will too. Eventually after arguing with the maester and Ser Willem, she is half-escorted and half-carried to a smugglers ship.
When they finally get on the boat, Rhaella is positive she's dying. The pain of just getting on the boat is overwhelming enough and she's bleeding profusely from attempting to move. She almost blacks out from the anguish of it all until she sees Viserys's terrified face and she wills herself to hang on a little while longer, to soothe her king's tears and make sure that it's not to Braavos they head, as it was suggested, but rather some place else. A place of peace and children's laughter. A place of sunlight and hopefully, safety. As darkness grasps her into its palms, a vision of a little Dornish girl dancing around the Red Keep with a black cat comes unbidden to her eyes and Rhaella is certain that no pain in this world, not even death, could compare to her grief.
In darkness Rhaella sees light, as her beautiful baby boy comes to her. Rhaegar's voice is as strong and clear as she had remembered and the sound of it makes Rhaella weep.
"Mother." He calls to her, the same quiet sadness ringing clear in his voice as it had since boyhood. "Mother." He calls once more and before she knows it she's hanging in his arms, sobbing hysterically into him. He was always so warm in her arms but now as she leans into him, he's cold, so so cold. "When you're dead you're cold mother. The sun doesn't shine on the dead." Rhaegar says warily and she steps back in surprise at his answer to her unspoken question.
It's a mistake though, since as soon as she steps back he's gone, disappearing as though he was never truly there to begin with. She sinks to her knees in her anguish. Her grief rings in her chest like a wound as a stern voice fills the air.
"Choose." A voice commands calmly and at first she's unclear about where the voice is coming and what it means until she sees. She's been moved somehow and now stands between darkness and light.
In the darkness her remaining children stand, Viserys and Daenerys. They look haggard and worn despite only being and a few years older and when she looks into their purple eyes at first she sees nothing but despair. This is only for a moment though. When she locks eyes with Viserys again, his desperate pleas ring in her ears, and she watches as the scene before her shifts once more. In the darkness she sees her first babe, cold and pale but okay overall. He's somewhat alive, or so he appears, and with him is his little Rhaenys and sweet Aegon. Beside him also seem to be two young men and a young woman, people she instinctively know are the young children she's lost. Her eldest daughter stands as the spitting image of her namesake, Rhaella's mother, Shaera. Her dead daughter has sharp violet eyes and a steely smile and seeing her laughing beside her brothers, as she should of in life, makes Rhaella's heart ache. She also cannot help but laugh in pure joy to see her two lost boys are just as alive as well. Sweet Daeron, who only lived a few month, has the same lively lilac eyes as he had when he was a babe, and seems to have all the joy in death his elder brother didn't have in life. Lastly, Aegon, not her grandson but her Aegon, is thick with muscle and has amethyst eyes that shine with lighthearted, unspoken laughter. Just seeing them brings tears to her eyes and she thinks her choice is clear until the scene shifts to one of light.
The light is harsh on her eyes but full of laughter and something like happiness. She sees a little Daenerys being chased by two little boys while Viserys and an obviously Dornish girl laughs behind them. The taller of the two is obviously Dornish, with his thick, black curls and copper skin but when Rhaella manages to catch his eye she sees Daenerys's violet eyes and to say she's confused is an understatement. The shorter boy is not as pale as Daenerys or Viserys, yet he is not as dark as the Dornish boy. This younger boy is rather somewhere between. His hair is a light brown, his skin is tan, and most surprisingly his eyes are Viserys's lilac, pale and beautiful. Rhaella tries to grab their attention and call out to see who they are, but before she can the beautiful scene shifts again and instead of beauty and childish happiness she's greeted with war. It is light and golden, yet heavy with the stench of blood. She watches as the Dornish boy from before stands before her as a man, managing to strike enemy after enemy down with his spear. Beside him, an unfamiliar man stands with a long face and sad, dark grey eyes in white armor drenched red with blood. The unfamiliar man battles well, but rather than fighting with a spear he fights with a sword and something about his lanky build and melancholic attitude is oddly familiar. Before she can place him though, the scene is ripped away from her eyes.
"Choose." Another voice repeats, this one oddly sounding like her father, the same man who never allowed her a choice in life. She wants to choose Rhaegar and his family, even if it means the rest of her families sadness. She wants to choose him because she wants an explanation to his choices and because she misses her firstborn and his children more than words can describe. She also wants to choose the dark because she wants to know the children she lost. She wants to choose him, his family, and his siblings more than anything but she also remembers the childish happiness from the scenes before and how Rhaegar, as well as all her children and even her grandchildren, looked more dead than alive and cannot. In a single swift moment she steps into the light, and before she can go back to consider if this is truly the choice she wants she awakens.
