A/N: Hi guys! So, just a quick warning about this story. First, its lore heavy, and by that I mean if you're not familiar with Game of Thrones you probably won't understand a damn thing about what is going on. Also, it's post-canon, that means spoiler alert (just in case) for seasons 1-7 and since season 8 isn't out yet I used my own headcannons and theories to fill in the blanks. If you have any questions, just leave a comment or PM me, I'll be happy to explain. Alright, other than that, I hope you enjoy! I'll be posting a new chapter every day so if you're interested, don't forget to follow!

Chapter 1
Lady Storm

Lexa woke up to the roar of Rhaegal, echoing around her. It wasn't close, though, but far above her, and softer than it would have been if he'd been near her. She must have been inside. The comfortable bed and warm, soft covers above her denoted the same situation. Why was she inside? The last thing she remembered was hunting a rather large group of bandits in the Westerlands. Was she already back home to King's Landing? No, there was something foreign about all of this, she could feel it even with her eyes closed.

It took her quite some time to finally open her eyes. The light was dim, only a small window illuminating inside. Though it wasn't very necessary, the fireplace across the room was lit. Lexa wondered for a second whether she'd been captured, but no, no bandit king, as they liked to call themselves, would treat her with such comfort, not after capturing the heir to the Seven Kingdoms.

She only had to look to her right to know where she was. There was a young woman seating beside her, looking at her with relief. A flicker of fear passed through her gorgeous blue eyes but disappeared almost instantly. Her blond hair was loose, with two small braids running along the crown of her head. Lexa had heard stories from her mother's khalasar – hers now technically, but she never thought of it as such – about the Night Land, where the dead ride the plains for eternity. She thought when her time would come, her father would be there to greet her, her mother too maybe. But perhaps she wasn't as much a Dothraki as she would like to be, and the Seven had taken her instead, bringing her to the Seven Heavens. How else could the presence of such a beautiful woman beside her bed be explained?

"Your Grace?"

She looked at the blonde when she heard her title. Her eyes were getting used to reality once again. She wasn't dead, then. She could feel the many bandages on her leg and arms. She must have taken quite the beating to have fallen unconscious. This, she imagined, was what happened when you went to war with a clouded mind. She weighed her options, but finally decided to ask:

"Where am I?"

"Clegane's Keep, Your Grace."

Lexa nodded. Clegane's Keep was close to where she remembered the bandits had been regrouping. She'd probably been taken there after she'd fainted.

"What happened?"

Lexa tried to sit down, and even though her muscles were tense and her arms painful she managed to heave herself against the wooden headboard. The blonde beside her extended her hands, though she wasn't sure whether she should be stopping her or helping her. Once Lexa was once again settled, she returned to her more humbled position. Lexa took this opportunity to inspect her clothes. Highborn, probably, as she wore a fine dark blue dress which seemed wrapped around the blond, with a leather belt around her waist. Lexa, however, remembered her lessons well. Clegane's Keep only had two potential heirs, both of which were sons.

"Your Unsullied soldiers found you unconscious on the ground, Your Grace. Our maester said you took a blow to the head. Your dragon protected you until they found you, apparently, burning anyone who would come near."

Lexa couldn't help but smile. Out the window, she heard another roar. Rhaegal was happy, his sister was alive. Her attention returned to the blonde who was still looking at her and waiting.

"I suppose I must be quite wounded?" Lexa asked, though she already knew the answer. She just wanted to hear the girl talk.

"You took a blow to the head, Your Grace, and multiple cuts on your arms, plus a rather deep one on your leg."

As the blonde talk, Lexa began to remember the fight. There were at least twenty bandits, and the Unsullied had yet to catch up with Rhaegal and her. She'd thought twenty would be easy, she'd faced worst. She remembered taking a few cuts on her arms. Rhaegal was fighting by her side, with the authorization to use fire only in dire situations. She didn't want to burn down the whole Westerlands just to catch a few thieves. The cut to the leg had come when a bandit had managed to sneak his way behind her, while she was fending off four others. He had only lived long enough to cut her calf before Rhaegal had bitten the upper half of his body clean off. The blow to the head, however, she couldn't quite remember. Probably given to her with a rock or a tree branch, because with any other blunt weapon she could think off she probably wouldn't be here anymore.

"And they asked you to watch over me?"

"Yes, Your Grace. Our maester has been quite occupied, tending to the people left wounded by the bandits."

Lexa smirked:

"Of course, a maester has more priority than tending to the heir to the Iron Throne."

The blonde seemed confused for a second, uncertain, but Lexa's eyes found hers and she saw a spark of amusement dancing among the emerald green of her irises.

"It was a joke, by the way. Lord Tyrion says I should relax more, and make jokes more often, but I still haven't quite gotten the hang of it."

At that, the blonde finally smiled, which made Lexa's heart flutter happily.

"So, are you to be my handmaiden while I stay?"

"I am, Your Grace."

She cleared her throat, as if unsure before she introduced herself:

"I am Clarke Storm, Your Grace."

The name clicked in Lexa's mind, and she finally understood Tyrion's insistence on her knowing every member of every house of the Seven Kingdoms, no matter how long that list may be. Clarke was the bastard daughter of Lady Abigail Connington, from Griffin's Roost, in the Stormlands. Right after the end of Winter's War, she'd married the new lord of Clegane's Keep, Lord Kane, a widowed man with already two children, a son and a bastard daughter of his own. Together they had a son, though his name escaped Lexa at the moment. And this was how a Storm had ended up in the Westerlands.

"Well, Lady Clarke, if you wouldn't mind sending my Commander for me, I must give my instructions to the Unsullied before I rest. And also have a raven sent to King's Landing. Make sure the Lord Hand knows I'm not to be mourned yet," she added with a smile.

Clarke stood up, bowing before she walked toward the door. Lexa's gaze wouldn't leave her back. Clarke stopped at the door, her hand almost on the handle, but turn around to face the brunette:

"I am not a Lady, Your Grace."

"I know, but I won't stop calling you so anyway."

Clarke exited the room but waited until she was far enough from the two Unsullied keeping the door to let out a breath. She quickly walked toward the maester's room, to let him know the Princess was awake. She gave one last look toward the door before she rounded the corner and sighed once again. Her mother had warned her to be polite and respectful, and to let her know if the Princess had been offended by her presence in any way. She was used to people being offended by now, of whispered behind her back, how her Lady mother and her Lord husband made no difference in raising their true-born sons and bastard daughters. But not only had the Princess not been offended at all, she called her a Lady, and said she would continue to do so. Really, she was something else.

Clarke suddenly understood why they called her the Green Dragon. Any person who'd never met her would say it was because she rode on a green dragon, which was true, but Clarke understood now that it probably had more to do with her eyes. How green and pretty they were. Her smile had warmed up something in her chest and Clarke feared what it may be more than she'd feared to stay in the Princess' room.
She'd been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn't even heard someone calling from her.

"Clarke!"

It was only when Octavia came to a stop beside her that she stopped walking altogether to look at her sister. Though they had no blood in common, no one understood her better than Octavia Hill, Lord Kane's bastard daughter. She wanted to be a knight, part of the Queensguard, and even though her father had allowed her to learn how to fight as if she had been his son, and even dress like one, he had yet to allow her to leave Clegane's Keep, even for a tourney.

"How is she?"

"Oh, she's awake. She wants me to find her Commander and send a raven for her."

Octavia groaned and followed as Clarke began to walk again.

"That's not what I meant and you know it! How is she? They say she's the best fighter in Westeros. She defeated Brienne of Tarth when she was only twelve and you can only join her Queensguard by besting her in single combat."

Clarke could hear the pure awe in Octavia's voice.

"Well, I don't know about that but Brienne of Tarth has been quite wounded since Winter's War, so it wouldn't surprise me if she'd bested her. However, I don't believe she'll be doing a lot of fighting any time soon, not with her leg anyway."

Octavia seemed to consider things for a second before she declared:

"This may be my chance then."

"Of what?"

"Besting her in combat! Become a member of the Queensguard!"

Clarke held onto her thoughts. Octavia may have been a bastard, but she was hound nonetheless, always finding her enemy's weakness and exploiting it.

"Maybe you should ask your father first, and give the Princess a bit of recovery time, don't you think?"

She shrugged.

"Maybe. But right now I need to find Bellamy. I need to train."

She turned around and ran back toward the inside court, where Bellamy and the master of arms were probably training their little brother Aden. Clarke continued on her way, trying to think as little as possible about that heat in her chest which just wouldn't go away.

Clarke had carried out the missions the Princess had given her, before helping the maester with the wounded who'd arrived at their castle earlier in the day. Now that it was almost time for supper, she'd been sent back to the Princess' chamber, to change her bandages and see if she needed anything. Though Clarke's initial thought was to also bring her something to eat, she was glad she'd thought it unsanitary when she found the door to the Princess' room unguarded. She frowned and knocked on the door.

"Your Grace?"

She knocked again, but still, no answer.

"May I come in?"

When no words came she tentatively opened the door. The room was dark and empty, the fireplace almost extinguished and the last rays of the sun barely filtering through the small window. One thing was for sure, the dragon was still above them, as she could hear its roar even from inside. Clarke sighed and went in search of her patient.

She wasn't a full-fledged healer, and far from a maester, obviously, so maybe she should not use that word to describe the Princess, but she was tending to her wounds nonetheless. Well, she should be, but since she hadn't found her yet she was still walking around with everything she needed to take care of the brunette.

She asked around to everyone she encountered, feeling foolish every time as most people looked her in confusion. Wasn't the Princess wounded and in the chambers? If she was, Clarke stopped herself from replying, she was damn good at playing hide and seek.

Finally, just as she was rounding the corner on the western side of the Keep, she found two Unsullied keeping watch at the bottom of the tower, with small steps slithering to the top of the Keep, to where most archers would stand in case of an attack – not that Clarke had ever seen it happen, but that's what Octavia had excitedly explained to her when she was seven and had first arrived at Clegane's Keep. Tentatively, Clarke approached the stairs, her eyes never leaving the Unsullied. Finally, she cleared her throat and asked:

"Is the Princess up there?"

One of the Unsullied nodded, his helmet slightly sliding forward.

"The Princess is with her dragon," he explained with a thick accent.

Clarke nodded.

"I need to make sure she's okay. Can I go up?"

Once again the Unsullied nodded.

"Princess says you can."

Clarke frowned and thank him, half confused as to why the Princess would allow her to follow her up. She walked passed the two soldiers and marched up the stairs. The sound of her feet echoed around her, but the higher she climbed the more it was replaced by the sounds of a roaring dragon, and words in a tongue she couldn't understand.

She emerged into the sunset air, one hand still holding a fistful of cloth for the Princess' bandages. She was indeed on top of one of the guards' tower, barely large enough to allow a full grown dragon to sit on it. The sun was setting behind them, turning the dragon's green scale dark but illuminating the bronze ones, making them shine like a sea of golden coins, the light dancing on the creature's body. Lexa looked ridiculously small beside it. She was standing beside one of its massive wings and was petting its head, which was as large as her. Clarke was stunned, not only to see this incredible exchange between a ferocious beast and a woman but also to see Lexa standing on her legs like she hadn't been wounded the same morning.

The dragon roared when it noticed Clarke by the exit of the stairs, and Lexa looked at her. Clarke took a deep breath. She was a Storm, she didn't fear dragons. She came from the Connington family, they never feared dragons, they used to be their friends.

"Your Grace, you shouldn't be out of bed." she declared.

Lexa smirked, but never left Rhaegal's side.

"I wanted to make sure my brother was alright. He'd been calling for me all afternoon. Plus, he saved my life, I needed to thank him."

Her hand came to scratch under its chin, and Clarke could have sworn she heard it purr. All of its dorsal spikes were happily moving and stretching, and it closed its massive eyes.

"Have you ever seen a dragon before, my Lady?" Lexa wondered.

"Not from this close, Your Grace. I saw them flying over Griffin's Roost, once, when I was younger. Over King's Landing too, but never from this close."

Lexa smiled.

"Rhaegal can be nice when he wants to. He doesn't like strangers much. Viserion was the one who liked hugs the most. Drogon only allows people with Targaryen blood near him or people my mother told him not to eat."

Clarke watched for some time, as the sun set behind them, and Lexa continued to pet her dragon as if he were a dog. She reminded her of Bellamy when they were younger, how he used to pet the hounds in the kennel like they were puppies, not monster trained to kill. But Clarke had tried not to be afraid of the hounds then, and she would not be afraid of a dragon now.

"I'm sorry You Grace, but you need to return to your room. You won't be able to heal properly if you keep walking around."

Clarke was afraid for a second that her words would be taken for an order, but Lexa only smirked and finally let go of her dragon. She whispered something to it, in a language Clarke couldn't understand and began limping towards the blonde.

"I apologize once again, my Lady. Please, take me back to my chamber."

Clarke took most of the Princess' weight on her shoulder, passing her arm around her. Rhaegal roared once again behind them, though it sounded less sad than before, more powerful too. Clarke slowly helped her down the stairs and back to her room, the two Unsullied following them from a safe distance as they walked through the Keep. As soon as she'd placed her back in her bed, Lexa thanked her, once again calling her "my Lady." Clarke had heard people snickering it behind her back and mock her with the name, but no one had ever said it like the Princess, like she meant it, like Clarke deserved that title and everything which came with it.

"You're welcome." she managed before she began her work in silence.