Chapter Text
Lyanna was Queen, and her throne was the king's lap.
People at court gossiped, as they are wont to do, of how the great King Rhaegar needed only to look into his lady wife's eyes to decide his ruling on a man's life, or death. They spoke of how she leaned to over to push back his silver hair and whisper her bidding into his ear, which he carried out indefinitely. They noticed the hand he rested on her hip, paid attention to how his face softened when he looked upon her, how she could twist his own emotions to sway one way or another. Ruled by his lady wife, they said. But how?
What did this woman do to him?
In truth, she did nothing and everything at once. A smile from her ruby-red lips meant a grin on Rhaegar's chiseled lips, a slight frown from her meant a deep grimace from the king. Some tried to find the good in this, insisting that she must truly please him, that he truly loved her and aimed to please her, but none could ignore how a flick of her wrist meant a hard fist coming down on the accused.
Some declared her a witch, a sorceress with a bag of kisses that she threw across Rhaegar's brow, spilling into his mind. If it were true, than it began at Harrenhal, her bewitching him. All recalled how abruptly the prince joined the tourney, how he felled the best and emerged victorious. He had looked a thing of dreams that day, their silver-haired prince, and his tale should have been a fairytale for the ages. To crown Elia, a woman who already bore not one crown, but two, to receive a third through her gallant husband- even the most hardened of men found beauty in that!
Yet none would forget how Rhaegar's gaze was fixed on Lyanna from the moment he withdrew his helm. All remembered how he rode past his wife, sparing her no glance of apology, how he stopped in front of the Stark girl to lay the crown in her lap.
And all who saw it would recall the wolfish grin that graced her full lips, how the tip of a canine tooth was bared, as if it meant to sink into the heart of the silver prince.
It chilled them.
Oh, and the stories weaved regarding their love afterward! The spell she cast on him was not strong, they all assured themselves, that he needed to see her to love her. He returned so seamlessly to his life in King's Landing- his wife gave him a babe, a son, and he looked happy enough- But he left. Her left to find her, that sorceress, that faery, that siren. They say Lyanna leaned out her window and sang her witch's song, that it drifted on the breeze to Rhaegar's ear a thousand miles away, that he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
It was unnatural, as Rhaegar's strength on the Trident was unnatural. Robert Baratheon was no weakling- he was a fierce, raging bull of a man who wanted a woman who bewitched him too. Rhaegar was strong, but not ferocious; there was an elegance to him that might have left him dead in the waters, were it not for the faery who tossed a lover's dust in his eyes. True, both men had vitality, but Rhaegar had magic. Thus, he felled Robert, and as soon as his blood began to stain the waters, Rhaegar cried out, "Bring her to me!"
He did not need to specify who.
He did not stir until she arrived, babe in arms, and only then did he walk into the Red Keep, where his father sat on the Iron Throne. "We're saved!" the king had cried. But the She-Wolf put her mouth to Rhaegar's ear, and he drew his sword, sending the glimmering blade right through his own father's heart.
Lyanna smiled for him, and he smiled back with the eyes of man who was mad with love.
Days later, Princess Elia was sent home to Dorne. The new Queen saw her off at the gates of the Red Keep wearing the crown that once belonged to her- one that Rhaegar himself placed on her head.
None could understand how a man so great bent so easily to a mere woman.
People looked to explain it, as they were baffled by this frightening queen's power. They reduced Rhaegar to a baser man, one who seeked pleasures of the flesh that his wife did well to give him. Bawdy tales were told of the queen, of how her claws bled his back dry, how her legs wrapped around him as a snake would its prey, how her kisses drew out the life from him. A man is a slave to a woman's wiles, they said.
But Rhaegar wasn't a slave to the pleasure between her thighs. He was simply a slave to her.
For it was she that he started a war for, it was she he killed his own father for. It was she that he cast away his faithful wife Elia, to vacate a spot for her in his bed, to erase any other woman in his life. They were all ghosts, flickering phantoms who passed him by, but Lyanna was a faery, glowing bright with the embers of her firey soul, hooking him in with a flash of those grey, grey eyes. She was a wisp, a wraith, a fleeting thing that he could not bear to lose. He bent to her will to keep her by his side, for what man would be mad enough to let go of a creature so magical?
Yet to the court, she was Wolf Queen, Dragon's Whore, and Sorceress. To Rhaegar, she was only Lyanna, the she-wolf of his heart.
With a touch, she dismantled him, tore down his defenses with no brutality, with only a soft breeze, a faint breath. With a kiss, she destroyed him, separated his mind from his body, sent a fire blazing from his head to his toes, until he grew dizzy with desire.
Rhaegar knew that none understood his affections for her; not even Rhaegar could wholly explain why she affected him so. Perhaps if they ever buried a nose in her tumbling dark curls, inhaled her sweet scent, breathed in her essence, they would understand. Perhaps if they saw her naked form silhouetted by the night, how ethereal she looked then with moonlit motes about her, some would understand. Perhaps if they had been touched, just once, by just a tip of her finger, felt the burn that seared his skin, known how sweetly it stung, how terribly it ached after her touch disappeared how long it lingered...
But none needed to be so intimate. If they only looked into the grey pools of her eyes, they would drown in the depths of them. What looked so cold, so steel-like, melted once you fell in them. When Rhaegar looked at her, he felt warm. His blood stirred for her. His lips yearned for her. His hands trembled for her.
So when she sat herself down in his lap, he held her close- For he may be king, but it was her who ruled him.