Chapter Text
When Daemon secures victory in the Stepstones he sends ravens to all of Westeros. The ravens arrives to little fanfare in Runestone. His long ignored and reviled Waite pays no mind all the while her ward and son in all but name rages. Baelor Stone is his father’s mirror image. Down to the purple in their eyes and fire in their bones. But Baelor burns even hotter than his side. Baelor has been angry since the day he was born. Screaming in fury when he came into the world his birth mother died to bring him into. His curly silver hair and angry dark purple eyes and loud lungs had marked him from the day he was born. Their was debate about what to do with the child as his unpleasant father was somewhere in Westeros along with his crimson drake. And so out of pity Rhea Royce decided the would be her ward. Ravens were sent to the Eyrie and Kingslanding. Soon the proclamations were signed by the King and the Lady of the Vale. Rhea Royce is the one who named the boy and cared for him. Daemon did not even meet his son until he was five name days old. And by then there was no hope for any bond between the boy and his father.
Baelor Stone, son of a maid and the Rouge Prince, had a hatred for his father even from that young age. Raised in Runestone among the young Royces, children of Rhea’s cousins William and Gunthor, Baelor found his friends among those children. His place was amongst the mountains and the bronze of Royce. Rhea was the only mother he had ever known. He called her Muna, told by Maestor what it meant in the dragon tongue, and she had never stopped him. It was Rhea who saw his first steps and his first word. It was she who nursed him back to health in sickness and sadness when he cried for his Kepa. And so as Baelor grew the resentment towards his father grew and multiplied as the years went by. He decided the first time he saw his smirking father he wanted nothing to do with the dragons. All he needed was in Runestone and even if he could never be a blood member of House Royce he was still the ward of his Muna. She was all he needed. He loved her and her family alone.
The day Daemon met his son he was shocked by the purple eyes and the curly silver eyes that greeted him. The fire in those eyes was something that Daemon had seen in his niece. He decided that maybe this boy would be worth the trouble. But just as he began to greet his Bronze Bitch the anger in those eyes erupted and the boy jumped and before anyone could stop him he had stabbed a small knife down Daemon’s arm. Rhea had barely able to drag the boy back as the child angrily screamed that he would kill him if he ever spoke to his Muna that was again. After his arm was tended to Daemon flew away in anger and humiliation. He swore he would never have anything to do with the rabid bastard in Runestone. He ignored how his heart had skipped a beat when his wife had soothed the boy. He banished the thought of what their children would have looked like.
Baelor, known as Bael to those who loved him, would grow to be a fierce and wild boy. With a quick temple and tongue Bael would soften only for those whom he deemed family. But it was for Rhea Royce he dropped all of his anger and looked up her with adoration and love. Rhea Royce was the centre of the young boys life. It was for her he did his best to train. He had long decided he would be a warrior of House Royce. A knight who would bring glory to his adopted House. He spat at the mention of any Targaryens and never dreamed of flight. He prayed to the Old Gods. The godswood was sacred and the weirwood the only holy ground he would ever acknowledge.
Maestor Wallace had taught Bael what he knew of the fourteen flames but the boy had spat on the ground and said he would never worship at the altar of the dragons. Instead the boy spoke the Old Tongue and planned on the Runes he would get inked upon his skin when he was sixteen name days old. Daemon refused to call the boy kin and the boy wanted nothing to do with House Targaryen.
But six years after Baylor met his father his father, two day after the marriage of Daemon Targaryen and Rhea Royce was annulled, and two days of Baylor drowning in his rage the realm would learn one thing. Blood could never truly be denied in the case of the dragons. Fire called to fire. This was never more evident when the morning after the marriage of Rhea Royce and Gwayne Hightower, now Royce, was discovered. When the court descended into chaos with Otto Hightower and Daemon screaming for answers. Both in jealousy and rage. Silence would only come when a roar shook the castle to its core. All looked out of the window and saw green flame in the sky and the black beat who produced it.
Rage called to rage. And the Cannibal had heard the call and returned it. Baelor Stone would run to the window to meet the gaze of the beast who landed on the side of the castle. The bright green gaze would meet the dark purple and a bond formed. All of the Targaryens in the room would pale when the dragon roared again and Baelor Stone would turn to meet their gazes with a glare of his own. Rhea Royce raced to the side of her son with her new husband by her side.
“Look Muna.” Baelor pointed to the beast who dwarfed most of the dragons alive except Vhagar. The same dragon who’d looked at Rhea curiously through the window. The same dragon who would follow any of the wishes of his rider. The dragon who would burn down all of Westeros for the safety of House Royce if needed. “I have a dragon now. You don’t have to worry now. I can keep us and Runestone safe. I’ll burn down anyone in our way.” He hugs Rhea then. At eleven names his head comes up to her shoulder. Rhea embraces the boy exchanging concerned looks with her husband. Daemon Targaryen looks at the scene in front of him with anger, loss, and grief. Dark purples gazes meet as his son, who has claimed a dragon no one would ever be ridden, looks at him with a promise of battle and fire.