Chapter Two:

The Lovely Lemon Tree.

Arabella Fig's P.O.V

Running.

Breath steaming in the air like rain clouds on a spring morn.

The echo of a babe's forlorn cries.

They were so close to freedom. So close Arabella of House Fig, a lesser family hailing from the verdant Reach, could taste it on the tip of her tongue. The sweetest fruit she had ever bitten.

The sweetest fruit she would never bite.

It was not meant to be.

The Crone had slashed her yarns, threaded her needle, and their fate was ruthlessly settled like a card game was in an unsavoury tavern.

By treachery.

Dragonstone was overrun with defecting soldiers, baiting for blood. Targaryen blood. The moorings were cut off, blockaded, men laying in wait for a poor Lady of the Reach and a babe not yet cut her first tooth. As if they, in any form, could be a threat worth such reprisal.

There had been only one way out.

The Dragonglass hollows.

A hidden trail, from the kitchens to the quays, once used by fervent Targaryen Princes to meet secret lovers away from the eyes of their fathers.

A path Arabella only knew because she too, once, used it to meet her betrothed out from the prying eyes of her fellow Ladies.

It was their only hope.

A treacherous hope.

The caves beneath Dragonstone were a warren of jagged veers, winding bends, keen crags and snaking dips. In a frenzied flee for freedom, with turncoat soldier's nipping at her heel, and the hefty burden of a babe pressed to her quaking chest, the blackened reflections from the encircling dragonglass made it nearly impossible to tell path from dead-end.

She took one wrong turn too many, and the wrong sort of company arrived.

After all, she was not the only one to know of this path.

Her betrothed had known it too.

The betrayal was a thorny rose to hold.

They, these soldiers of traitorous heart, accosted them in the very core of the gleaming cavern, looking all their worth like a pack of rabid, sea salt crusted dogs howling for a bone to devour, right beside the glass arch, a beautiful edifice of serrated dragon glass and rippling shadows, lofty and striking and, in a certain light, Arabella thought, a little magical.

Ser Gilbar Estren, once a proud and loyal Targaryen knight, seized the lead in his motley band of duplicitous guardsmen. He broke away, took a step closer, edging, creeping. Arabella held the babe tighter to her chest, backed away until the knight stopped advancing.

Closer and closer to the glass arch.

Perhaps he hoped a familiar face would shift her choice.

Perhaps he thought his betrothal to her, a thing she had been so delighted about before, had bragged and preened over like a strutting peacock, would stay her hand.

Perhaps, but not at all.

It only strengthened her resolve.

Oh, she was so foolish.

A foolish girl with foolish dreams and a fool's errand to see a Princess to safety.

"Hand over the runt, Lady Fig. I will see you home, safe, myself. The King does not want more innocent blood spilled. Just that… Thing you have clutched in your arms. Hand it over and this too, all this, will be done with. One slice of a blade, quick and kind, and you can go home. Is that not fair of our King?"

Fair?

This man dare speak to her of fairness?

She had learned of what had transpired for the little Prince and Princess, Aegon and Rhaenys, for Westeros was a wind made of whispers, sealed away in Maegor's Holdfast, friendless and abandoned. They were Children.

Just children…

Arabella knew what this Baratheon's fairness demanded in flesh, and she would not let it, any part of it, touch a single hair on this babe's bonny head.

Arabella couldn't.

She had promised the Queen, the greatest and gentlest Queen Arabella had the pleasure of serving, gave her word in solemn oath on a bed of blood and death.

She would protect the Princess, come what may.

Our Word Is Our Pride.

The adage of House Fig…

A motto Arabella would die for.

"Your King. He shall never be mine. Not in a hundred winters, and a hundred more to come. So show us due respect, Knight. This is neither runt nor thing, Ser. This is Princess Haraella Targaryen, daughter of Queen Rhaella and King Aerys. You would do well to remember such, as you quite clearly need to be reminded of the vows you solemnly took."

He took another step forward.

She took a further stride back.

A dangerous dance of life and death.

"And you would do well to remember, my Lady, that there is no dragon King or Queen anymore. By this night's end, there will never be another one. Hand the child over. This is the last time I shall ask so graciously."

One forward.

One back.

A breeze whistled at her back, an ungodly gust of chill, ruffling the skirts of her sodden dress.

She thought she heard a whisper-

A voice-

Voices.

Quiet, muttering, murmuring and mumbling. Perhaps the Stranger was calling her to rest. Perhaps this was to be her last day of many days well lived. Perhaps it was a spell, for this keep was old, as old as the Targaryens themselves, and once, so long ago, magic had swam in their veins.

However, if this was to be her death, entombed in a tangle of glass and darkness, she would do it proudly. She would die as a Fig, having tried to keep her word.

Her spine straightened.

Her shoulders squared.

She met Estren's hazel eye.

"Never. No matter your perils or your bluster, you will not see Targaryen blood soak into this sand today. Not while I still have breath in my chest. I swear it. Look at yourselves. Look and see true. What would the Queen think if she could see you now? The Queen who lifted every single one of you up from the muck of Flea bottom? Without our Queen, you would still be nothing but drunkards and vagabonds dying in gutters. You owe her your lives, and this is the payment you give? She is yet cold in her crypt, and you wish to see her children join her? A pack of scurrying rats trying to abandon ship in the slightest hint of a storm. Ready to butcher a babe so the Stag usurper might smile your way… Men. You are not men. I am more a man than you will ever be."

His face contorted, flickering with rage and ruin. His hand slipped to his belt. The hum of a dagger unsheathing was scarcely louder than the pounding of Arabella's heart thrumming in her ears. Brave.

She was brave.

She was terrified, yes, but, she thought, that was the only time one could be brave, in the face of such terror.

She stood strong and true and bold under the tortured face of the Stranger.

"The Queen is dead. So is the Mad King. The Targaryens are no more. Yet, I suppose you are correct. You will be more a dead man than I will be, if that is your wish."

It all happened so fast. Too swift to see or comprehend.

Estren lunged.

Arabella scuttled back.

Haraella began to cry anew.

Arabella jerked.

A snag hidden by sand caught her foot.

She stumbled.

She fell.

Estren's dagger missed her by an inch.

She fell and fell and-

The whispers, the voices, high and shrieking and so loud it was all she could hear as-

She fell through the arch.

Something caught her.

A thousand hands pulling and tugging and yanking.

Through and back and up and away and-

A flash of blinding light.

A sudden thrust.

Falling once more.

Knees crashing to sand-

Not sand.

Floor.

Marbled floor.

Dizzy. So dizzy. The world whirling and rolling and-

Hands on her shoulders, gentle and soft.

A kind face staring down in amazement.

Old and wearied, with streaks of red in his greying hair and beard, so long it swept his own knees, and what strange caps, tall and pointy and-

"Well, Minister, I suppose that explains why the Veil has been playing up. It seems we have… Visitors. Hello dear, lemon drop?"

Haraella cooed in her arms.

Alive.

Safe.

Not for long.

She should have never trusted Albus Dumbledore.

Daeron Targaryen's P.O.V

Daeron Targaryen was a gentle child. Mild and mellow and a child who dreamed such pretty dreams. He would rather dash after a butterfly than pick up a stick and play at swords. They called him Daeron the Prince of Dragonstone. Viserys insisted upon it, you see.

"You are a Prince, Daeron. The Prince of Dragonstone. It is your duty to act as such. Now, brother, halt your tears and harden your heart. We have a long road to travel and no time for rest."

He was five. Only five. His brother had him slung over his back like a travelling pack, tight, a small sack of their meager belongings held in Viserys's free arms, the only things they could snatch before the servants had stolen it all, carted away from the nice house with the red door and the lovely lemon tree in the dead of the night.

Daeron could not stop the tears, they seemed not to obey his orders no matter how hard he tried, but he did manage to stop sniffling.

The kind man with a kind smile was dead. Ser Willem Darry, kind and thoughtful and caring and dead. He was an old man, sickly too, and Daeron, too young to understand, had watched him waste away until there had been nothing left but shapeless skin and bones.

No more pats on the head.

No more smiles.

No more red door and lemon trees.

Willem Darry died, and the vultures flew in.

"But we have to stay at the lodge with the red door and lemon tree! We have to, Viserys! I had a dream, and she comes here, and we play in the gardens and-"

They called Daeron the Prince of Dragonstone, yet, some servants whispered in shaded nooks, Daeron the Dreamer might have been more precise. At the delicate age of five, Daeron did not fully know what a 'Prince' was, what a 'Prince' was expected to do, or where this Dragonstone was, but he did know one thing.

Daeron dreamed and sometimes, only sometimes, those dreams come true.

He dreamt of Viserys with a red rose blossoming out his knee. The next day, he fell from his horse and scraped it.

He dreamt of shadows dragging Ser Willem Darry bellow a calm crimson sea, and soon, he was gone. Blood on the lungs, the Maester's said.

He dreamt of men with no faces, only antlers, hammering at his chamber window, the chamber he shared with his brother, who told him in such sweet words they could take him to see his mother and father. The Baratheon Sellswords, the first of many attempts, tried to break into their room to slay them that moon tides end.

Some meant nothing, just strange, strange dreams. A crown of blue roses, dropped in the snow, bloodstained, an icy hand reaching, stretching, spreading, the sound of a lone wolf howling in the void. A white lion cub, with slit reptilian eyes, abandoned on a hill, bleeding and battered, snakes hissing and lunging, gnawing at paws with too large claws, seeking a kill, but the cub puffed out immense waves of fire, its shadow a great dragon. A red haired man painting white marble azure, gilt veins like coiling snakes, glancing over his shoulder, panicked, so frightened of the mountain looming on the horizon, hiding, must paint the marble blue and-

Bizarre dreams for a bonny boy who dreamed, and dreamed, and dreamed.

However, there was one dream, just one, little Daeron adored.

A dream he never forgot when the sun rose, as he did most others.

He dreamt of the red door and the lemon tree, and a little girl. He dreamt of another Targaryen, a girl, like him, silver haired and pale and too thin, eyes the colour of spun Braavosi glass, and they played in the sunshine, and laughed, and she climbed trees while he chased butterflies and-

"There is no house to return to. They took it from us, Daeron. They threw us to the rabble as if we were urchins pleading for scraps at their table, and not the Heirs of the Seven Kingdoms come to-"

A long, suffering sigh.

Viserys was overflowing with them lately. So filled he could not help but let them out, Daeron thought, or else his chest would burst.

"We had to leave, brother. We could not stay. Sometimes dreams are only dreams."

Daeron wiggled and kicked.

"They are real! And she's really good at climbing trees and we-…We…We…"

It was the first time in gentle Daeron's short life where anger, hot and heavy in his gut, scorched him. It clogged in his throat, a cinder of all the words he wanted to say, and he found he could not get a single one out for fear of the heat suddenly burning in his belly.

They were real.

He knew it as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow.

He knew it better than he knew how to be a Prince.

The girl with green eyes-

His sister.

He dreamt of his sister, his tiny, tiny sister, and they played beneath the lemon tree and she would smile at him, and he her, and everything was brighter when she was there, and there was no Stags, no rain, no fear, no blood on the lungs or stealing servants.

Just he, his sister, and the lovely lemon tree.

Yet, they were leaving. Abandoning the red door and the lemon tree, and what if that meant he would dream no more?

No!

Viserys shirked him off his back after a rather vicious kick to the ribs, placing him down on the sandy backwater road out of Braavos. Their sack fell too, kicking up a plume of stifling dust and dirt.

His hands came down upon Daeron's small shoulders.

Heavy with the burden of being the older son.

Viserys was angry. Daeron could tell by the keen twist of his lips, the sleek of his eye, and the flared nostrils. Nevertheless, no shouting came. No fury or slur. He glanced down to him, his brother who suddenly seemed so very tall, crouched, eye to eye, lilac to lavender, and he must have seen something, perhaps the tears mounting on his pale lashes and, for once in a long, long time, Viserys's face softened.

"If it is meant to be, it will be. But we cannot stay. Without Ser Darry, the Stag will grow bold."

Daeron blinked at him.

"The mean Stag?"

Viserys nodded, silver curls brushing his chin.

"Yes, the mean Stag. He will come as he came last time, only more so. So we must leave in haste."

"But how will she find us if we're not there to greet her? She is coming. I know she is. I can feel it, and we can all play beneath the lemon tree."

Silence came, and then Viserys smiled at him. Bright and true, and he finally looked as he were. A ten-and-two boy, and not a haggard man bent and crooked underneath the weight of a crown they had no coin for, no army to guard, or land to rule.

A crown with no throne, Daeron was taught, was no crown at all.

And their throne lay a league away, sitting a usurper.

"A dragon will always find their nest, and we are dragons. Have faith, brother. Ser Darry told me Lady Fig was in custody of her protection when we fled Dragonstone. If there is one Lady who is fearsome, loyal and brave enough to see Haraella to safety, it is Lady Fig. In this I have no doubt, and neither should you. Haraella is well."

Viserys pulled away and plucked up their sack.

"However, if we stay here I do not believe I can say the same for us. We must move. Come."

Daeron trotted after his brother, a puppy loping, slinking his smaller hand through his. Viserys's grip was tense and bold. Perhaps he thought, as with their possessions and property, the servants would steal him away too. It took two strides of his own to keep up with Viserys's sloping gait, as the brothers kept to the shadows of the road.

"Are you sure she will find us? Even if we have no lemon tree?"

Viserys grinned down at him.

"As sure as I am that one day we will go home to take our rightful place. I promise you, Daeron. I will see us home, and I shall see Haraella with us too. We are dragons, and dragons survive through fire that would burn lesser men. This is only our forging, and it will hurt, and it is dark, and it is hard. But one day, we will go home, and there will be no fleeing, no hunger, no shame. We will want for nothing. I will be King, you will be Prince, Haraella will be safe, and all will be well in the world."

Daeron lit up.

"All that I want? Can I have a lemon tree?"

Viserys laughed at him, snickering like a sand snake slithering through the long grass, ruffling the curls of his head.

"I shall find and give you one as tall and grand as the Sept of Baelor, and you and Haraella can play underneath until your hearts content. For now… For now we keep on."

Daeron didn't know why he spoke next, or where the question came from, but it bubbled forth like a spilled goblet.

"What of lions? Do lions find their way home too?"

Viserys stopped mid stride. His face rolled dark, as dark as a night sky with no moon, his gaze ahead but not seeing, lost.

"Do not, ever, speak to me of lions, Daeron. They are foul creatures. Never trust them. They would quicker smother a man while he slumbered, and let his widow weep on his shoulder, than be true."

Hollow and barren and angry. Typically, when such a terrible temper struck his brother, which was becoming more often, Daeron would quieten and slink away.

But he didn't.

He thought of that hazy dream.

A white cub alone on a hill, being gobbled by snakes.

He thought of his favoured dream.

The lovely lemon tree and the lovely sister and lovely games.

The two bled together, mingled, mixed, blended, wine in water.

One.

Suddenly, the answer was important. So valuable to a young Daeron, he did what he never did. He demanded an answer as he tugged harshly on his brothers hand.

"But do they find their way home too? Do they? Do they? You must tell me."

Another long sigh.

"I imagine they do, yes. Pray to the Seven one never skulks into our den. You cannot trust a lion. Like cuckoos in a nest, they pretend to be a brother for only so long, all the while they steal away all you hold dear until you starve. Promise me, Daeron, no matter what, you will never trust a lion. Promise me, brother."

A cub wasn't really a lion, was it? Lions couldn't breathe fire. Nor did they have eyes the shade of inferno, pupil slit.

"I promise."

It was not really a lie.

Arabella Fig's P.O.V

She had failed. Failed the Princess. Failed the Queen. Failed her House. This land she had arrived in, by will or wish or magic she was still unsure, so peculiar and unusual and bizarre, was beyond her grasp.

But then he came.

Albus Dumbledore.

He had seemed so kind. A good man. A good man, with a kind face, and so much power… who had a way with words. He promised them safety. He promised them hearth. He promised them a free life, far from the clutches of the Baratheon.

It had seemed perfect.

How could she say no?

It was all she could hope for. All she could ask for the safety of Haraella, her charge.

Empty hollow promises, Arabella now knew.

He said exactly what you wished to hear, exactly when you needed to hear it, exactly when you were weakest to decline or see the lure he was waving in your face. A fisherman he was, Arabella thought. A fisherman who trawled in your mind, perused your thoughts, and promised you safety from all that you feared, all the while smiling so kindly.

He made her swear, with that strange stick of his, his hand in hers, that she would not tell Haraella of her origin. She would not say a word about this Westeros to the girl. No one could know, he said, that they hailed from a different land. He said it would be dangerous.

Dangerous for herself and the Princess.

They would try and use her, he swore. Use her to get to Westeros, new land for new acquisitions. Use her for her royal blood, which had so many uses to a Wizard or a Witch, so many potions, many of them dark and grim and deadly. Use her for her families affinity with dragons, because though the great beasts lurked everywhere here, they could not control them as Arabella had let slip the once great Targaryens had mastered.

They would use Haraella until there was nothing left to use.

He had been right in a way.

Albus did use her, used her royal blood, her families affinity for dragons, to win his own war, and it was all Arabella's fault.

He made everything else seem so dangerous, deadly, that you overlooked that, perhaps, there, standing before you with such a jolly smile and merry robes, he was in truth the most dangerous thing of all.

A man who had a way with words.

A man who knew exactly what to say to invoke fear, and make himself appear the only answer to your problems.

A man who knew precisely what chess piece to move to get what he wanted.

Yet, Arabella had not saw that in the beginning. She had only saw a kind old man who offered security in a world not their own, a world he vowed was so full of dangers.

She had taken it, swore it, on the condition that should Haraella already know of Westeros herself, she could speak to the girl of her home, and had not known by his magic, that golden light, she would never be able to break it.

She never stood a chance.

He made it seem so simple.

Of course Haraella, a month after their first appearance in a place they called Ang-Land, could not stay with Arabella. The woman did not know their ways, did not know how they worked or acted, and, he promised, Haraella was like them.

She belonged here.

She had called to the Veil, and the Veil had whisked her here, to safety, in her time of need. She was powerful, Albus insisted, that this alone was proof enough of Haraella's magic. Perhaps Arabella should have seen the first warning sign there, but she hadn't. She'd been too focused on looking over her shoulder for the menacing shadow of the Stag to see the snake in front of her.

It was only fair the child be given to parents who would understand her.

Parent who could teach her the strange, strange ways of magic.

They would love her, he promised.

Love and care and protect.

So…

Arabella gave her over, and it was the worst thing she had ever done.

Albus took Haraella, took her to that dank dark forest, and left her there. Albus said the Potter's, the family he had chosen to care for the Princess, would be more inclined to take the girl in if they thought they came across the babe by fate rather than intervention.

Wizards, he told, had a predilection towards destiny and prophecy.

They did. They found her and brought her right back to Albus, who swore he had never saw her before, but by the light of her hair and the cast of her eye, she could only be a Targaryen, a family destroyed by someone he called Grindlewald, a good family. A tragedy. The Potters soaked it in, took the child under their roof.

They could not see the lies the spider spun.

Arabella had argued, argued and begged until she was blue in the face, but he would not listen and she was powerless. She tried to speak to the Minister, to the heads of their magical school, to anybody who would listen, to tell them of what happened, what Albus was doing, but her tongue swelled and her throat closed, and the Stranger squeezed at her as soon as a word of the Veil or Haraella tumbled from her lips.

They didn't listen.

They looked to Albus for explanation.

Albus waved her off with the excuse of being a squib, as if that was enough to explain her stammering, flushed face as she fought, fought so hard, to get the words out that never came.

They bought it.

Just like that.

And Haraella was lost to her.

They thought of locking her up, in a place called Azkaban, this mad squib who raved, who, in her last effort to keep the Princess, broke into the Potters home and tried to steal the babe from her cradle.

She was a danger to the child, they stated.

A danger to the Potters, they declared.

Perhaps a follower of Voldemort, they accused.

A mad woman who needed to be thrown away.

Because, no matter the world you lived in, Arabella thought, a woman with an opinion in the eyes of men would always be seen as mad.

Albus quelled their fears with those perfectly, smooth, cloying words of his, and sealed Arabella's fate. Azkaban was no place for a Squib, he argued. Not one who simply thought she was doing the best to protect a young child from harm, no matter how wrong in her attempts she was or her how wrong who she blamed was.

An unbreakable oath, which Arabella would later learn was the very thing he put her under in the first place, would be enough to curtail her.

The Wizengamot agreed.

They made her swear again, in a sick twist of irony, to the very man she was trying to warn them about. Swear never to go near Haraella Targaryen, unless the girl came to her first. She would not speak, harass, or stalk the Potters. Worst of all, the killing blow, she was under Albus's care, she must do as he said, follow his guidance, and not stray from his side, all held together until either he or she were dead.

Arabella became a puppet.

Haraella was lost.

Lost by her own foolish folly of trusting a kind face.

Oh Rhaella, sweet, sweet, Rhaella… She was sorry… So sorry…

All Arabella of House Fig could do was watch the girl from afar.

Watch as she died and beg for forgiveness from ghosts that were sure to haunt her to her dying day.

Daeron Targaryen's P.O.V

They left Braavos in the galley of a big bellied ship, fed on the warm crusts of bread and butter skimmed from the casks of milk the ship was hauling, passage bought by peddling their mother's favourite ruby necklace.

Daeron had thought he saw his brother crying as the necklace left his hand, replaced by the so few gold coins.

He promised it was the sun in his gaze, nothing more.

That was the first time Viserys had lied to him.

For many years, the Targaryen brothers roamed the Free Cities. From Myr to Tyrosh, from Qohor to Lyse, back to Braavos and now to Volantis, Daeron roved and Daeron dreamed of the lemon tree and his sweet sister and the summer fun they had.

He was nine now. Nine and wiser to their plight. It was not safe, in these times, to be a dragon. They hid their hair under turbans or scraps of cloth they pilfered from market stalls. They concealed their purple gazes by stealing their eyes the ground as they walked, down and cast away.

It was never enough.

The Sellswords always found them in the end, Baratheon coin heavy in their pocket.

They always had to run.

Move.

Never stopping.

There was never another lemon tree but in Daeron's dreams.

It was better in the beginning, when the Targaryen plight was new and shiny. Magisters and Archons and Merchant Princes welcomed them into their homes, with feasts and fires and merry dancers who tumbled and pranced and made Daeron laugh. Viserys soaked it up, did the best he could, promised compensation in all the gold they could wish for when, and he sincerely meant when, he reclaimed the Iron Throne.

For a while, the Targaryen brothers were treated like Kings.

For a while.

Interest, like a waxing moon, waned. These people of fickle profits bowed their gaze away, and the brothers were left to roam alone.

Alone. Starving. With only a dream.

Arabella's P.O.V

Haraella Targaryen was her brother's sister, and Arabella wept.

The Potters were dead, and she, a child, was left, once more, in the cold for her aunt and uncle to take in as if she was nothing more than a stray alley cat.

Dumbledore placed Arabella in a small cottage near their home in Surrey, told her to keep watch, and she did. She watched and wept, and wept and watched.

Haraella was too thin. Bruised. Jittery. Scared. Arabella watched over her sometimes, in her own home, when the Dursley's left her behind. She could not speak to the girl, not properly, not under the unbreakable oath as she was, but she watched her about the house.

She was always watching.

Haraella was a child quick to smile, as Rhaegar had once been. She adored lemon trees, always buzzing around the one in Arabella's garden like a harried bumblebee, playing with an imaginary friend she called Day. Quicker still to kindness, as Arabella viewed one day, from the window of her bed chamber, as the girl took a broken baby bird in gentle hands, who must have fallen from her garden tree, and tried to nurse it back to life.

Arabella was sure it was her magic which made her succeed.

The baby bird had been a magpie. When it took flight, it was a dove.

She sang when she thought no one was listening.

Soft lullabies that, surely, the Dursley's never gave her.

She dreamt too, and Arabella was sure, so sure, one day, as she napped under her lemon tree, she had heard the girl mutter Daeron…

Yet, that was hopeful thinking.

Hopeful thinking of a hopeless woman who knew the small child didn't have many things to be glad for in this terrible world.

And still, Arabella watched.

It only got worse the older Haraella got, when she went to that school and everything fell apart.

Like her brother before her, Arabella watched as another Targaryen won the loyalty of another brash redhead, as Rhaegar had once won Connington's heart.

She watched her become brave and fearless and bold, as her brother had.

Arabella watched the war come trundling towards them, powerless under magic, Haraella in the eye of the storm.

Oh, so much like her brother.

Rhaegar had fought valiantly.

Rhaegar had fought nobly.

Rhaegar had fought honourably.

And Rhaegar had died.

And all Arabella could do was watch as history, that cruel, callous wheel, turned once more and the cycle began again.

Haraella had fought valiantly.

Haraella had fought nobly.

Haraella had fought honourably.

And Haraella had died.

Only, unlike her brother, she had not stayed dead.

She died a girl and rose a Targaryen.

With all the fury and fire of a wrathful dragon, and utterly mad.

She burnt it all down.

The school. The armies. Voldemort. Albus, who had thought so sure he had her on a leash, perished in his castle of stone. As if anyone could ever hope to contain a Targaryen in rage.

She scorched it all on the back of a silver dragon no one knew she had.

Fourteen years old, and she razed it all right down to the ashen ground.

They hailed her a hero. They named her the saviour. The Girl Who Burned, they called her. Albus's death, a beacon to the light, was a trifle to pay in the shadow of the peace Haraella had brought, or so they stated. Perhaps they were as scared of burning in dragon fire if they were to directly insult the girl.

It mattered not.

Haraella fled the battlefield, nothing but ash and slag, on the wings of her dragon, and locked herself and her dragon away somewhere no one could find.

Arabella would know.

She had searched.

Albus was dead in the blaze.

She was free from the unbreakable vows.

After so many years… She was free.

This was Arabella's chance. She was free to find Haraella, take her home and-

And she was gone.

Missing.

The new Minister, Shacklebolt, when Arabella had visited to ask where the girl was, told her he had called Haraella in a week before, only five days since the Battle of Hogwarts they were calling it, offered her medals and titles and platitudes for her service, only for her to march away, never to look back.

No one had seen her since.

Not Ron.

Not Hermione.

No one.

She had vanished into the storm that had rolled over Scotland.

Arabella had left the Ministers office, but she did not head to her prison masquerading as a cottage. She went down, through the winding halls, down to the very bowels of the Ministry, to the one place where it all began.

Because Haraella was her brothers sister.

A mirror reflection.

When he was younger, Rhaegar had been a sullen and serious boy, who read obsessively to the point it was a common jest in court to find the Prince lost between the pages of a tome. Then, one day, he fled. Ran from the castle. Disappeared into flea bottom.

No one knew why he ran. All that was left behind was a book, dropped, drooping on the floor where he had been studying. However, three days later, the Prince returned home, hale and hearty, although a bit dirty, and, for the first time in his life, he picked up a sword and laid down his book.

He had hidden in the rafters of the great Sept of Baelor.

A place he always thought of as home.

Whatever Rhaegar saw in those texts, Arabella was sure Haraella had saw the same phantom in the smoke of her fire. Like her brother, she had bolted.

Fled from herself.

Fled of what she could do.

Fled from what she had done.

They said Rhaegar had been good at killing, and that one enjoyed what one was good at. Arabella would disagree. Rhaegar had loathed it. Haraella was as skilled as her brother, and as sure as the tide would turn, Arabella knew the girl, the girl who had cradled a baby bird and sang such sweet sad songs, despised it as much as he.

There, if Haraella was truly missing, was only one place she would be, if she was not dea-

There was only one place a fearful child would run, a child who thought they had lost themselves to their own fury and madness, a child who called to the Veil in her time of need and had it answer back.

The one place all scared children ran to.

Home.

And now, here, with Albus dead, Arabella was finally free to follow.

She stepped into the cavernous room.

The wind whispered with the sound of a thousand voices.

The chill rattled her to her bones.

The Veil loomed above her, ominous and dark.

As so many years before, she would either die this day, or keep her oath that she had failed so terribly at upholding so far.

Daeron Targaryen's P.O.V

Daeron was ten-and-four when a ghost found him picking over lemons. Viserys had just returned to his side, after haggling in the local brothel for a bed for the night, and the brothers were making short work of getting their fill of the three silver coins they had.

If they did not find steady coin soon, Daeron feared their mother's crown would be next to be bartered for survival.

There was hope to be found, however, Daeron thought. For, if one could not quibble and cheat their way to a full meal and a hay pillow to rest a weary head in a place like Volantis, one could not do so anywhere in the entire world.

The Volantis market, as it often was, was crowded that morn. A child, lost in the sea of swarming bodies, wailed for their mother. A man was feverishly searching for his missing hound. Fishermen lugged nets of wiggling fish onto bloodied booths to be gutted and descaled. The whores from the brothels prowled in corners, fluttering eyelashes and beckoning men and women to their sweet perfumed embrace. The din of bartering traders raised to a crescendo.

This was Volantis.

Hands held against foreheads to shield from the blistering sun. The salty stench of sweat hanging hotly in the air. The footpaths flooded with titling stalls, barrels of nuts and dried fruit stacked as high as one could see, skewers of meat roasting over open fires, powdered spices resting in tarnished red and dusky yellow mounds, or bright green sacks as large as feed bags.

In all this fury and flurry and life, Daeron stumbled across the one stall selling lemons.

He picked one up, gave it a squeeze, and he saw the red door and lemon tree in his mind.

He had not dreamt of his sister in a long while.

Perhaps that was all it was.

Dreams of spring and warmth conjured by a lonely, frightened child.

Perhaps she was dead.

As his brother, Rhaegar, was. As his father was. As his mother. Skewered like the meat being sold, impaled by an antler.

Perhaps she had been dead all along.

"We do not have the coin for lemons, brother. Put it down."

Viserys whispered from his side. It was never a good thing to let the trader know one was low on coin. They took what little you had, otherwise.

They had learned that the hard way.

His hand stalled, thumbing the pale yellow flesh in soft strokes.

He shook it off.

Dreams were for children, and he was practically a man grown now. He sure felt like one, at the very least.

And still, he held the lemon tightly.

"I said put it down!"

Viserys barked. Daeron flinched, even if, by ten-and-four, he was already a head above his brother and a shoulder width wider. Viserys was lithe, tall but willowy, as their father had been, he proudly stated. Rhaegar had been tall too, Viserys had told him... Tall and big and the perfect target for Robert Baratheon's war hammer.

His brother had grown hard as time had passed. Hard and unyielding and, if Daeron was truthful, brutal. A man now. A man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and a meaner bite to prove it.

He was not lost though. Not yet. He had his spells of anger, certainly, and he scowled and sniped and snarked, but at night, in the cover of stars, when no one but his brother could see any weakness, he still let Daeron crawl into his bed, where, as he had done since Daeron was a child, he would tell him tales of Westeros, the Iron Throne, their family, and all that would be theirs one day.

The one day that never came.

Daeron delved a hand into his pouch and pulled a silver coin free, flicking it to the wrinkled, bearded man of the stall. He snatched it from the air, used his one good fang to nibble, felt the truth of silver on his tongue, and nodded.

Daeron took the lemon and walked away, Viserys close behind, hissing and spitting at a wasted coin.

It was not wasted, however.

Not to Daeron.

Perhaps he would cut it, place half upon his pillow, fall to slumber to the tangy scent, and once more, just once more was all he wanted, he would dream of red doors, lemon trees and his sister.

Just one more dream.

Daeron did not get a dream that day.

He got something much more.

Viserys calmed down by the time Daeron had talked their way to getting a fish for half the price they should have paid. He was, perhaps, even happy by the time Viserys had gained them a loaf of bread and a wheel of cheese for no coin at all, but a moment of aiding the man search for his hound. They were traveling back to the brothel they were presently residing in, right in the slums of Volantis by the ports, when the hysterical shouts started.

"Dragon!"

"Dragon! Dragon! Run! Dragon!"

"Death from the sky! Run!"

"It's in the sky! Dragon!"

They halted as the people of the market fled in panic, fighting to stay together in the flood of pushing bodies. Running and rushing and hurling. There was a sudden wind, strong and blowing and boiling, and Daeron, in fear, in amazement, glanced up.

Nothing.

Clear blue skies, the storm clouds of last night bleeding away on the horizon.

He glanced to his brother, confused.

He saw Viserys looking behind him, up, pale, wide lilac eyed, mouth ajar.

The wind picked up.

It knocked the turbans right off their heads.

There was a deafening roar behind him, loud and ferocious, a sound that could stop any mans heart.

Daeron span.

Daeron looked up, and up, and up, and up, and-

And Daeron's world shifted.

The Dragon's scales were as armour, gleaming silver in the hot sun, laced with ropes of gilt, broad wings stretched wide in the sky, sweeping down. It was not a beast born, but a beast carved, Daeron thought numbly. Perhaps hewn from mountains, so huge and great, abnormally graceful in the sky, pleased to slumber, until it had been chiselled free by an artist struck by madness. Its maw spiked and angular, a hundred jagged teeth shimmering-

There was a dragon in the sky.

There was a dragon in the sky, flying-

Flying right at them.

Viserys grappled for him, wrapped him close in an enfold, and dragged them both down hard to the ground, the wind from the winged beast almost beating them both over as it swept into the market.

Landing.

There was a dragon in Volantis and-

There was screaming. Yells of terror. Cries of mercy. All ran, fleeing, bolting, escaping, trampling over each other to get away from the dragon in the market.

It reared its large spined head back and roared.

Daeron peered over his brother's arm, peeked and saw it standing there, so large it nearly filled the market from tail to snout, standing tall, proud, huffing in great breaths, scenting the air, searching and-

A slit eye, amber like fire, settled on him.

The lemon he had forgotten he was holding fell from his limp hand.

Bouncing away unseen and elapsed.

The dragon bowed low, belly close to the ground, and hobbled closer, snuffling and sniffing.

It… Hobbled…

The great claws of its winged legs prowled, as fluid as water, as did its right back hind, shaking the ground with each tremendous step, but the left…

The left curled tightly, balled, refusing to touch the floor.

Viserys swore.

He tried to pull his brother away.

Daeron-

Daeron couldn't move.

Transfixed.

Like the tide was transfixed by the moon.

It came right before them, this beast of fire and death, its breath flapping their hair, hot and heavy, and-

The winding, thorny neck of the dragon slunk away, down to its flank, and then-

At Daeron's feet, with its great muzzle, it dropped something.

Nudged it closer.

It whined.

Pained.

Scared.

Again, it nudged what it had been carrying in its back leg closer.

Gentle.

Something rolled onto Daeron's huddled, bunched leg.

Daeron and Viserys, breathless, hearts pounding, glanced down as the dragon, anew, whine rumbling into an elongated hiss.

A girl.

There was a girl at their feet.

An unconscious girl, slack in rest, half her face blackened and charred, still smoking in places, blood steeping down her frail neck, soaking a strange shirt crimson and-

A girl with silver hair and-

Daeron could smell the lovely lemon tree, smell it so clearly it as all he could smell, and heard laughter, lofty like a ringing bell, singing in his ear, as green eyes crinkled as she darted behind the trunk, a butterfly resting in her hair, catch me, catch me, catch me, catch me-

The dragon whined again, higher, frantic, and urged her forward with its snout. The body rolled, closer, right onto Daeron's crumpled legs, right into his lap.

Viserys arms fell from him, he learned over his shoulder, peered down, and whispered.

"Haraella?"

The girls eyes cracked open.

As green as wildfire.

A.N: So, we have a little glimpse into Arabella and Daeron. I know not all questions have been answered, and perhaps I've added more to the mounting pile after this chapter, but, well, that would be poor story telling if there were no more riddles left to figure out at only chapter three lol.

Whose P.O.V do you wish to see next?

All that said, thank you all so much for the follows, favourites and reviews! Every time I find another email in my inbox, I swear a smile lights up my face. Until next time, Stay Beautiful! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21