#my word counts in order of prompt: 145 -> 168 -> 250 -> 637 -> 570 -> 720

[syndrossi]

I'm not selfish by prompting more than once. I'm just giving you options. Write 100 words-ish of Jon meeting Rhaella -- be that a female!Rhaegar or a summerhalled!Rhaella-his-grandma or some other verse's Rhaella, 'tis your choice.

Okay, first a little snippet of Rhaella's POV in the AU ficlet I was writing for that (separate from the NYE ask game):

Dragons. She still had trouble believing that she lived in a time of dragons. Her son had one, she knew from gossip, and Daemon Targaryen’s own dragon was well known. And then there was her son’s twin brother, the one named Jon. Which of my babies would you have been? My little Daeron? It was not entirely the same, she knew. Prince Jon was dark of hair, like the woman who had birthed him and his brother here. How different would Rhaegar be? Would she still recognize him? Will he recognize me?

And now the definitely 100 words-ish 😂 of the prompt fill...

x~x~x

Worry stirred in Jon upon spying the distant, pale-haired figure of his brother alone in the godswood through the window of the library. At this time, Rhaegar should still be in arms training, and there wasn’t a Princesguard in sight, not even at the entrance to the godswood.

He slipped out of his lesson with practiced ease, opting not to employ the secret passage where his young cousins could see, and trotted across the yard to the godswood. His brother had been in plain view, which likely meant that he had intended for Jon to see him. Is there something he wishes to discuss in private?

Jon’s own Princesguard settled at the gate to the godswood, and Jon followed the familiar path to the heart tree. His steps faltered, however, as he drew near. It was not Rhaegar waiting beside the tree, nor even one of his cousins. It was a woman dressed in flowing blue silks that were too cold for the autumn weather, her silver-blond hair worn in a partial braid that half-reminded him of one he had seen Rhaegar wear once.

She even looked something like his brother, especially in the eyes and lips, though she was a woman grown rather than a child—and there was something of his wonder in her expression as she stared upward through the red leaves, taking in the beauty as the wind stirred her hair.

He watched her in silence, wracking his mind for who she might be. She was not Princess Rhaenyra, of course, who had returned home weeks ago. And they had met Lady Laena when she had come courting their father. And although Jon had not been a scholar of the Targaryen dynasty before finding himself here, Rhaegar had since instructed him in every last member of their family, living and dead.

A Velaryon, he decided at last. One of Laena and Laenor’s cousins, perhaps, come to try her own luck.

She noticed him at last, once he had turned to leave. “You must be Prince Jon.”

Even her voice seemed familiar, and there was a longing in it that stopped him in place. He turned back and gave her a nod. “I am. Who are you, my lady?”

“I am Lady Rhaella,” she said, rising to her feet to curtsy.

Jon’s breath caught. It cannot be. He stared at her, scrutinizing her features in search of Rhaegar, and finding pieces of both his brother and himself in her. The same could be said of Daemon, or Rhaenyra, he told himself. House Targaryen’s intermarriages ensured that even cousins could look as alike as siblings.

She was the wrong age. Rhaegar’s mother would have been nearing thirty. And I was nineteen.

He took a cautious step closer, studying her expression for greed or threat, but the intensity of her longing only seemed to grow, her hands clasping in front of her, as though to hold it back.

“Are you kin?” he asked.

“I am,” she said, her voice thickening for a moment before she cleared her throat. “I am your father’s cousin, daughter of his aunt Saera.”

She was the one who had been disowned, Jon recalled. And eventually ended up in Volantis. He tensed briefly, but the pain that the motion seemed to cause her made him relent, and he forced himself to relax. What if she thinks I view her as lesser for being a bastard?

Jon approached for a kiss to the cheek, and she dipped slightly so that he could reach, her lips pressing into his own. He was not prepared for the hug that followed, and she pulled back with an apology, blinking back tears. “I beg your pardon, my prince. I—you remind me of someone.”

She is. Jon stared at her in wonder. She must be.

Rhaegar’s mother. His own grandmother. And now their cousin.

He hugged her this time, and where her arms had been light around him before, as though frightened he might disappear, they tightened.

“Would you like to meet my brother?” he offered.

He felt her kiss his hair, something that no freshly-introduced cousin would dare, bastard or not. “Yes,” she breathed, and he let her hold him a moment longer so that she could compose herself. When he drew back at last, her smile was radiant. “I would like that.”