DANCING WITH DRAGONS | XXXI.
"YOU HAVE TO PROTECT THEM"
( 'THE PRINCESSES ' )

Alysanne makes her way trudged slowly into the castle and into a room where Daenerys lies still with the feeling in her gut that Bran wasn't going to be the only important person she lost on this night. She saw the blood-stained sheets and Alysanne placed her sword on Daenerys's bedside as she kneels beside her.

"Alysanne," Daenerys said softly, her forehead covered in sweat, despite the freezing temperatures.

"We won," Alysanne told her with a small smile, though it was forced.

Daenerys smiled, "That's good."

Alysanne took Daenerys's hand into her own, squeezing it gently, "You're going to be okay."

"I don't think so," Daenerys told her with a weak laugh, "My last pregnancy didn't end too well."

"This will be different," Alysanne told her, feeling another ache in her heart. She had just lost Bran and she'd be damned if she lost Daenerys as well.

"If they survive and I don't, will you take care of them?" Daenerys asked her.

"They?"

"Twins," Daenerys told her, "I have the worst luck."

Alysanne laughs tearfully, "I think my luck is far worse than yours."

Daenerys exhales a shaky breath, "I'm so sorry for everything."

Alysanne squeezes her hand a little tighter, "Apologize to me later. You'll have a lifetime to make it up to me."

"You have to protect them," Daenerys tells her, "Promise me that you'll protect them."

Alysanne shakes her head, "I'm not going to protect them, because you're going to be around to do that."

Meera enters the room with two wrapped bundles. Alysanne watches as they're both placed in Daenerys's arms. Unable to help herself, Alysanne moves closer to get a better look. The twins weren't identical, one had silver wisps of hair and the other had dark brown hair. Meera offers them both a polite and sad smile before leaving the room.

"They're both girls," Daenerys told her with a small smile.

"Have you named them?" Alysanne asked, looking at the girls.

"This," Daenerys says offering Alysanne the silver-headed baby, "Is Rhaella, named for my mother."

Alysanne took the newborn and held her, remembering how her mother had always told her to support the head. Rhaella's eyes were closed, but there was a small smile on her little lips. She was much smaller than a normal newborn should have been, but she had been born earlier than she was supposed to.

"And this is Alyssa, Alys for short," Daenerys told her, "I would have named her Alysanne, but I felt that would have been too obvious."

A laugh escaped Alysanne, "It would have been."

"I hope they survive the night," Daenerys tells her softly, "I fear that the cold might get them."

"I thought you didn't like kids?" Alysanne asked as she looked at the little baby in her arms. She wanted to hate them, she really did, but holding the small innocent baby in her arms she felt bad for ever hating them.

Daenerys smiled as she glanced up at Alysanne, "That was because I thought I'd never have them."

"That's not a good reason," Alysanne says with a little laugh. She's trying to keep herself together for Daenerys's sake. She couldn't tell Daenerys what she had to do to her brother, not when Daenerys herself was struggling to stay alive.

"Do you think I'd make a good mother?" Daenerys questions and the thought makes Alysanne laugh. She couldn't picture Daenerys as a mother. She was far too impulsive, and she had to reclaim the Iron Throne. She had no time to be a mother.

"No," Alysanne says honestly.

Daenerys laughs weakly, "I guess you're right."

"Tell me," Alysanne says, "What will you do when you take the throne?"

Daenerys doesn't miss a beat as she says, "I don't want to be Queen any longer."

"What?" Alysanne asked surprised, "But you've worked so hard. You're almost there, the only thing that remains is taking King's Landing."

"There are more important things, like family," Daenerys tells her, "I've lost so much fighting for the throne. Do I want to become someone consumed and driven by power?"

"It was never about power," Alysanne told her, looking at Rhaella who squirmed in her arms, "It was about breaking the wheel."

"I'm no longer in any condition to break the wheel," Daenerys says softly, "I may not even survive the night."

Alysanne gaze lifts as she looks at Daenerys in the bed. She looks weak, paler than usual, but to Alysanne she still looks more beautiful than she's ever seen.

"Don't say that," Alysanne told her firmly, "You will be fine."

"My mother died giving birth to me," Daenerys says thoughtfully, "It only seems fitting that I suffer the same fate."

"Daenerys-"

"Promise me that you'll protect them," Daenerys insisted, "I don't trust anyone else."

"No," Alysanne said, feeling the familiar pain in her chest from earlier, "I'm not going to promise that because you aren't going to die."

"If I don't make it through-"

"You're going to make it through the night. You're going to raise these girls and you're going to break the wheel!" Alysanne refuted a sob nearly escaping her, "You can't leave me!"

Daenerys smiled at her sadly and then she looked at Alyssa, "I hope she has your eyes."

She wasn't going to. She looked more like Jon, and though Jon and Alysanne looked frighteningly similar, Jon's eyes were grey and Alysanne eyes were hazel. However, Alysanne knew Daenerys was thinking wishfully.

"She won't," Alysanne told her, "But I hope she has yours."

Lyarra entered the room and there was a frown on her face, "Alysanne, can I speak to you?"

Alysanne nodded slowly, looking back at Daenerys. She held her arm out, allowing Alysanne to hand Rhaella back over to her. Strangely, Alysanne didn't want to part with the newborn. She followed Alysanne out into the corridor where Jorah stood patiently. Meera entered the room as they exited, taking watch over Daenerys.

"She lost a lot of blood before the bleeding clotted," Lyarra tells her, "She's extremely weak and it's far too cold for her condition."

Jorah cleared his throat and looked between them, "How did you all know she was pregnant? When did this happen?"

"In Dragonstone," Alysanne told him, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the wall. There was the temptation to bang her head against it until her skull caved in.

"Jon's their father?" Jorah asked, and Alysanne knew that he also felt betrayed about the pregnancy.

"Yes," Lyarra answered, wanting to talk less about the parentage of the kids, and more about Daenerys's health, "We need to get her to the Vale. They'll have a Maester who can treat her. The conditions there will be better as well. Warmer."

Alysanne exhaled, everything seemed to be happening far too fast. She hadn't even been able to mourn her brother and they were already planning to head further south.

"Then we move her south. Ready the troops," Alysanne said pushing herself off of the wall when suddenly she got a massive migraine. She grasped at her head, suddenly falling to her knees.

"Alysanne!" she heard Lyarra exclaim as she dropped to her side. She tried to focus on Lyarra's voice but was unable to as a series of events began to play out in her head. She felt like she was drowning, but she wasn't. It was like the visions she had during her dreams, only Alysanne was wide awake.

"Burn them all!" she heard shouted loudly as she saw King Aerys sitting upon the Iron Throne. The vision then showed Tywin Lannister storming King's Landing and the Red Keep. Alysanne saw as the bodies of Elia Martell, Princess Rhaenys, and Prince Aegon were laid before King Robert.

The scene shifted to something more familiar, the Tower of Joy. Her father and a few of his men rode up on their horses, only to be greeted by Ser Arthur Dayne and two other King's Guard members. Ned climbed off his horse and approached the men.

"Where is my sister?"

Alysanne's mind became a mess as she saw dragons tearing each other from the sky. The flying of the Blackfyre flags in fields during the Blackfyre rebellions. Her mother and brother being slaughtered at the Red Wedding. Her father losing his head. Torrhen Stark bending the knee and lying his crown before Aegon Targaryen. She saw the Doom of Valyria, the construction of the Wall. Every piece of history played itself in her head.

"Alysanne!" she heard called, "Alysanne, come back to me! Please!"

A gasp escaped her as Alysanne pulled herself from within her own mind. Breathing heavily, she grabbed on to Lyarra, trying to grasp a sense of reality. A relieved smile came over Lyarra's face as she tugged Alysanne into her arms.

"What just happened?" Jorah asked, kneeling down beside her. His face worried.

Alysanne looked between the two of them, a frown on her face as she realized what had happened, "I just became the Three-Eyed Raven."

"What does that mean?" Jorah asked.

"It means that she can see the past, present, and future," Lyarra answered, her hands rubbing over Alysanne's back as she tried to calm her. There was a sympathetic look on her face, and Alysanne knew that Lyarra already knew of Bran's fate.

Alysanne stood up with the help of Lyarra, "We need to get back to Winterfell."

"We won't make it back to Winterfell," Lyarra told her, "Daenerys will die if we try to make that journey."

Alysanne knew she was right, they needed to go to the Vale if Daenerys was going to make a full recovery, but Alysanne needed to go North. She needed to go to the Godswood. She had to learn.

"Then we head south," Alysanne said softly, "If Daenerys and the babies don't make it through-"

"They will," Jorah insisted, "Because if they don't, all this would have been for nothing."

After composing herself, Alysanne enters Daenerys's room to find her eyes closed and the twins in a makeshift crib. Meera sat in a chair by the twins watching them with a sullen expression. Alysanne's gaze dropped to the floor as she took a step closer to Meera.

"I never thanked you, for what you did for Bran," Alysanne said softly, "When he saw you, I'd never seen him so happy."

Meera didn't respond immediately, and Alysanne didn't blame her. What was there to say? That she had sacrificed her life fighting beyond the Wall for nothing?

"I would have done it again," Meera said, breaking the silence, "I know what you're going through. As the older sibling, you're supposed to protect them, and when you don't, when you can't, you feel as though you failed."

That was exactly how Alysanne felt.

Meera stood from her seat and face Alysanne, offering her a small smile, "I think the twins will survive the night."

"And Daenerys?" Alysanne asked softly.

"They say children are as strong as their mothers. If they'll survive, then Daenerys will as well," Meera told her, before leaving the room and closing the door silently behind her.

Alysanne took the chair and dragged it to Daenerys's bedside. Her eyes were shut, but her chest rose and fell with each breath that she took. Alysanne reached out and took Daenerys's hand as she had earlier. She exhaled as she looked at Daenerys.

"You have caused me so much trouble," Alysanne said with a small smile, "First you deal with the Sons of the Harpy, then you disappear on Drogon, and now this. Twins."

Alysanne laughs, "Then you had to name one of them for me."

She wishes that Daenerys could respond, but she doesn't. Alysanne looks at their hands, squeezing a little tighter as tears begin to form, "Why couldn't you tell me? If you had told me I never would have let you involve yourself. I was just – I was so mad, I never thought something like this could happen."

Alysanne was so unbelievably angry with Daenerys, but even her anger couldn't blind her from the fact of how much she loved her, how devoted she was to her. She wanted to protect Daenerys, hell she even wanted to protect the twins. But that wasn't her role.

This all seemed too familiar to Alysanne. Her aunt had died the same way, succumbing to childbirth, and she had only given birth to Jon. Daenerys had given birth to two babies after being told she was barren. Her chances of survival were lower than her aunt's.

There was also the promise. Her father had made a promise to Lyanna to protect Jon as though he were his own. Daenerys wanted her to make a similar promise to protect the twins. Alysanne couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. They thought that they were doing better than Rhaegar and Lyanna, but it seemed that all Stark and Targaryen romances were doomed.

"Are you crying?" she heard Daenerys's voice asked, weak and sleep filled. Alysanne blinked and used her free hand to wipe away her tears. Daenerys still had her eyes closed, so Alysanne had no idea how she knew she was crying.

"You need to rest," Alysanne told her softly, "We have to get you to the Vale."

"What happens when we get there?" Daenerys asked her.

"We take care of you and the twins," Alysanne tells her, "And then we plot on how to get Cersei off of the Iron Throne."

"I love you," Daenerys tells her, eyes still closed. There a hint of a smile on her face and Alysanne hates how it makes her heart flutter because she knew that no matter what Daenerys did, she would always be trapped in love with her.

___

They survived the night to everyone's relief. Alysanne didn't get any rest, staying up the whole night to make sure that Daenerys and the twins were alright. When morning came and everyone was fine, Alysanne made sure that arrangements were made for their journey south.

The twins were kept a secret from Jon, everyone that knew about their existence were sworn to secrecy. The lie was that they had found the twins, abandoned during the winter. Daenerys claimed to feel better, despite her body temperature being above average.

There also was the issue of Bran's body. Arya, Jon, and Alysanne were already certain that they wanted their brother to be buried alongside their brother Rickon. Only the lords of Winterfell were to be buried in the Stark crypts, but her father had been the first to break the rule, and he wasn't going to be the last.

"How do we tell Sansa?" Arya asked, softly as they stared at Bran's body, wrapped in cloth. While they were going south, a few men were returning North to check out the damage of Winterfell. With them would be Bran's body.

"I'll tell her," Alysanne told them, "I was the one who-" she trailed off, unable to say the words.

"It should have been me," Jon said looking at her, "This was my fight-"

"No," Arya said firmly, "This was everyone's fight. We all had a stake in this. Bran knew what was going to happen. He chose to save his family."

"Sansa might not understand that," Alysanne tells her, but Arya shake her head in protest.

"Sansa will understand better than any of us," Arya says, "The only thing she fights for now is her family. For us."

Alysanne glanced at Jon, who looked uncomfortable. He wanted to tell Arya the truth, she could see it in his eyes. She shook her head at him subtlety. This wasn't the time nor the place, but now Jon could tell whoever he wanted. Alysanne had already told the person who would be affected most by the secret.

As the men readied the horses and the dragons began to fly to their location, Yara came over to her.

"We head south," Yara asked, "Then what?"

"We regroup and make plans for our next move," Alysanne told her, "Jaime Lannister said that Cersei hired the Golden Company and now has your Uncle as an ally. Their forces are stronger than ours, rested."

Yara laughed, "Our forces? You're helping your Queen again?"

Alysanne's eyes narrowed because of course Yara knew about the drama between Daenerys and her. She had seen it as clear as day when they first met.

"I guess I am," Alysanne said with a shrug. Yara gave her a knowing look, paired with a smirk before turning back to her own horse. The war with the dead was over, now the war with the living could begin.