When Annabeth Chase closed her eyes for the last time, surrounded by Percy, Thalia and Grover, she thought she’d go peacefully to the Underworld and hopefully reach Elysium. She thought she’d see Luke again.
The gods had another plan in mind for her.
So she was reborn. At first, she thought that it was the Underworld. But she had been there. It was most certainly not the Underworld. It was a bedchamber, looking like those she saw pictures of in castles, fit for a queen.
A queen…
She opened her eyes. The first thing that she noted is that she felt so very small. She looked down at herself, and nearly jumped. She was tiny, in a baby’s body.
Her mouth gaped open, and she screamed, trying to talk.
The attempts to talk turn into cries and tears, and next thing she knew, she was being rocked by gentle, loving arms. A feeling that she hadn’t known in a long time, unless Percy counted, which she supposed he did. Someone murmured gentle words into her ear that she could not comprehend. Perhaps another language?
She looked up, only to be blessed with a beautiful sight. A woman was rocking her gently, seemingly very young and beautiful. The woman had white-blonde hair and purple eyes, something Annabeth had never seen before. Her skin was almost translucent. She was beautiful. So very beautiful.
If Annabeth was reborn… was this woman her mother?
A man came into the room. He too looked extraordinarily good: white hair to his back, despite being at the most in his twenties, indigo eyes that vaguely reminded Annabeth of when Percy would manipulate ocean water and translucent skin. At first, Annabeth believed them to be siblings, but there were major differences that showed her they were not.
They started speaking in a different language than the one the woman whispered in her ear. This language was more guttural, and Annabeth could not help but wonder if this was perhaps a more common language than the one her new mother had whispered in her ear.
Out of all their conversation, she could only make out two words that sounded suspiciously like a name to Annabeth’s American ears.
Daenerys Velaryon.
It sounded crazy and completely weird, indeed Annabeth vaguely recognised reading a series of books when she was younger involving a girl called Daenerys. What were they called? Then, suddenly, it came back to her.
A Song of Ice and Fire. A Song of Ice and Fire.
She quickly jogged back in her memory lane, trying to uncover all known lore about the fandom. She remembered that indeed Daenerys had had white hair and violet eyes because she was a Targaryen. That the Targaryens spoke High Valyrian whilst the rest of the land spoke Common Tongue.
Westeros.
Annabeth remembered when she wanted to live in that world, full of knights and sers and princes. Sure, it was a hard reality, with war and death, but in her eight year old mind that seemed better than her stepmother.
She wasn’t so sure now.
Her brain whirred. This was obviously not during the War of the Five Kings, for Daenerys only had one stillborn child and then was barren thanks to blood magic. No… it must have been before…
Then she heard another name that the man called the woman. This time, she was sure it was a name, because it reminded her of the TV show that was the prequel to A Song of Ice and Fire.
Rhaenyra.
Annabeth recognised that. There had been a Rhaenyra Targaryen roughly two hundred years before the War of the Five Kings. She could’ve become Westeros’s first queen, and instead she had been cruelly killed on the orders of her half-brother.
This woman was Annabeth’s mother.
And Annabeth would not let her cruelly die. Never.
Daenerys Velaryon… if her mother was a princess, an heir, then Annabeth, no, Daenerys must be a princess too. She must be perfect, almost like she was as Annabeth before Percy came in and disrupted her life. Always on top of everything, always calm, always cool, always collected. Because she cannot allow history to go down like it did in George R.R. Martin’s lore.
Rhaenyra Targaryen will become the first queen of Westeros.
And Daenerys Velaryon will be right by her side.
ns 18.68.41.179da2
