Chapter Text
An excerpt from “The Rogue Prince,” by Archmaester Gyldayn:
“When Prince Daemon heard his brother’s decree that the Iron Throne would go to his young niece, he quit King’s Landing and flew on Caraxes to Dragonstone. With him he took his paramour Mysaria, a whore and dancer from Lys. For half a year he remained there, and in this time, he got his lover with child.
With his concubine pregnant, Prince Daemon presented her with a dragon’s egg and sent a raven to his brother announcing he intended to take Mysaria to wife. This brought on the King’s wroth, and a small army was sent to Dragonstone. Lord Otto Hightower passed to Prince Daemon the king’s word; that he forfeits the egg, send away his whore, and return to his lawful wife. Should he fail to do this he would be deemed a traitor. The prince bent his will for his brother, but not without making his feelings on the matter known. For many years after, it was believed that Mysaria had indeed been sent to Lys and that the child was lost during a storm. In time, this would be proven false.
Mysaria never returned to Lys. She had left Daemon’s company of her own volition and carved herself a place in King’s Landing. In her dealings with the imps and eels of Flea Bottom, the dancer from Lys hid a secret that grew with each month. The bastard of the prince was safe in her womb. By the time Mysaria had secured herself a place as a whisperer, the child was born. A girl child, whom the whore named “Meera”, with flesh marked by her Valyrian ancestry. Upon her back, chest, and face, the girl had the scales of a dragon. Thick and cool to the touch, and impossible to cut or to pierce.
Meera Waters was born with features found only in the stillborn monstrosities that Targaryen mothers wept over. The means in which the dancer from Lys managed to bring this child to adulthood remains unknown. However, Septon Eustace suggests that it was through magics delivered by her Red God that made it so. The early years of Meera Waters’ life are cloaked in rumor and mystery as her mother kept her deep in the bowels of King’s Landing. A fitting nursery for Lord Flea Bottom’s bastard.”
Mysaria had thought herself unable to bear children. While most women would despair at such a thing, Mysaria had reveled in it. She took every effort to ensure it could never happen to her. Not after she had seen so many women cut down in their prime by the perils of childbirth. Her own mother had passed that very way, and she did not want to meet the same fate. When she was a young woman in Lys, she had spent good coin on a ritual performed by a priestess of Rh’llor to guard herself from the birthing bed. A ritual where she gave away her fertility to the Lord of Light as a sacrifice. This sacrifice had been sealed by dripping red wax from a burning candle in a circle over her abdomen with a single gold coin over her bellybutton. For five years Mysaria was spared from her monthly bleedings. The ritual had worked.
Until it didn’t.
So certain was she that no child could grow from her that she ignored the signs. Her aching back and fatigue were passed off as ailments due to stress. Any pain she felt was treated by a herb or oil. Though her symptoms were increasing and it became a growing concern. Mysaria drank many a cup of golden milk tea to remedy her aching and upset stomach. In hindsight, Mysaria thought her blindness had been born from denial more so than ignorance. By the time Mysaria had accepted her state, it was too late for the other tea to help alleviate this problem. She stayed in her rooms for days after realizing her condition. Mysaria survived through adapting to the lessons taught by her cruel teachers. Like coal turned to diamond, she shined best under pressure. There would be no quick solution to the babe that she carried. With moon tea out of the question, she resolved to find a midwife that could guide her through the process with discretion. In her searching Mysaria found herself doubting. Doubting that she would survive this and doubting her choice to leave Daemon’s side. She damned Daemon’s name in the night as she laid awake in terror. Mysaria had gone to him for love and protection, all she got was betrayal and fear. Lady Misery contemplated reaching out to her forsaken lover, but never did. Daemon had nearly doomed her by declaring her as carrying his bastard months prior. She left him for dangling her as a lure for his oafish king-brother. Left him. And now his lie was the truth, and she was alone in King’s Landing surrounded by the enemies Daemon left behind. Last she had heard of her prince, he was fighting in the Stepstones. He could be dead on the morrow. And even if he came flying in on Caraxes to legitimize this babe... the danger would die there.
The best life she could give this growing child was one where she was far, far away from King's Landing.
As she once did as a girl in times of helplessness, Mysaria turned to her Red God. Faith was not something she had much of by this time, but Mysaria felt a need for guidance. Something, anything, just to lessen this fear that grew with every day. She sought out a sister of Rh’llor in the depths of King’s Landing and together they prayed. When the prayer was said and done, the priestess smiled “Our Lord shines his light upon you, sister. He guides you down a path.”
Mysaria turned to the old priestess with hands folded over the bump her robes now hid “It has been long since I last looked to Rh’llor for guidance, I fear I can no longer understand him. Priestess, what do you think this path leads to?”
The priestess turned to her and said, “To prosperity, sister.”
With the priestess’ words in mind, Mysaria moved forward with greater confidence. Rh’llor lit a path that did not end in her demise. Perhaps even the child could live in peace. At least, that was what she thought.
Mysaria resolved to continue working towards her goal of living without selling her body. She made contacts and used what her lover had taught her to shift her business from trading skin to trading secrets. Something that Mysaria proved to be talented at. In a short amount of time, she had a base of operations working out of a Braavosi bathhouse and three prostitutes loyal to her who served as spies. One of whom was a woman named Talya, a whore and weaver from Lys. Mysaria took a gamble and put Talya right into Red Keep as a maid, a move which paid dividends as Talya became a favored servant of Queen Alicent.
The secrets Tayla whispered to her sold for high prices. Mysaria used her ill-gotten fortune to secure a midwife that once served Queen Alysanne. Although the midwife was elderly, she was knowledgeable and needed little added coin to swear herself to secrecy. Mysaria had decided by the sixth month to leave that babe to be raised on the Street of Sisters, raised by the septas that dwelled there. The child would be taught to read, write, and be given a home with the sisters. Not once throughout her pregnancy with you did Mysaria thinks you would call her “mother.” Her life was fraught with danger and deception, no place to raise a child. The dancer believed she would birth you with the help of an experienced midwife and leave you to be raised with safety and kindness. A greater gift than her mother had ever given her.
When her labors finally came, Mysaria would find her plans foiled by Targaryen blood yet again.
“Keep pushing m’Lady! Keep pushing!”
The pain was immense and all-consuming. Mysaria focused on a crack in the ceiling. A deep fissure in the white plaster that hung above her.
One more push, and you were out in the world. You were crying, the sound of you wailing piercing the Lady of Misery’s heart. She closed her eyes and waited to hear your voice drift from her. The midwife and her younger assistant had been given simple instructions. To take you away immediately. Whether boy or girl, healthy or sickly, she did not want to know.
The midwife was pale as she raised you up, swaddled in a clean cloth “M’Lady… it’s…”
Mysaria raised a trembling hand to stop her “D-Do… not tell me… Simply take it to a sept and leave the babe as I asked.”
“The babe, miss, they will not take her," the midwife's prunes lips trembled and her watery eyes shined "they will not understand."
Mysaria sat up with a clenched jaw, pain blooming as pushed away one of her maids who had been dabbing her forehead with a damp cloth. “What—” Then she saw you. Gods, she had promised herself not to look at you. And now, she could not look away. The midwife was right. On your temples, your shoulders, and the center of your chest… you had scales. Shining, iridescent scales of pale gold. Surrounding each patch of scales, like a border, was blood. You had blood slowly oozing around the scales. Mysaria's hand went over her chest, eyeing a small oval of scales that laid over your heart. Aside from this odd flesh, you appeared to be well.
“M’Lady, I have delivered babes like this one in my years serving the Crown. Though she is the only one to be born with a beating heart,” the old midwife could hardly look away from you “I know not for how long, but she breathes.”
The lady of Lys smoothed back her sweat-drenched hair from her brow. She took a breath and attempted to sit up without crying out “Agh… Y-You do not expect her to live?”
“It is uncertain, she is the first I have seen to be born alive”, the midwife came to the side of the bed with you in her arms “she appears to be in good health… but her skin. If these wounds remain open infection will come. I… I can stay to help care for her, but...”
No Targaryen babe with such features had ever survived infancy. Many, if not all, had been stillborn. Too frail to survive. Abominations that were granted a merciful death. These babes were seen as the price House Targaryen pays for their mastery over dragons. A sign of their pureblood. You were an anomaly. The midwife gazed down at you with wonder in her eyes. A dragon-touched babe in good health. Every beat of your heart felt like something of significance. And the color of these scales… Truly, you were a miracle. And a curse.
Mysaria healed while the midwife looked after you those first few days. She struggled to decide what to do with you. The former slave was slowly rising in power as a spymaster in Flea Bottom. Having a child would complicate everything. You would be a target used to get to her for your entire life. She knew it would be best to send you away and forfeit thinking of you after. But what life could you have with your bleeding scales of gold? Patches of gold scales would bring many eyes. Even if you were not identified as a bastard of House Targaryen, you could be killed simply for looking different. Someone could assume you had greyscale and end your life out of some misguided attempt at giving you mercy. Or perhaps a vagrant of Flea Bottom would admire your shine and try to rip the gold from your skin to sell. Maybe even skin you. The sept would not allow you to live among them. They may assume you to be cursed by an ailment or with some supernatural evil. One outcome that came to mind was that you would be taken to be a slave as she was. Sent to work in pleasure houses where men threw coin to lay with a girl simply out of a fascination with an exotic creature. As she agonized over where to leave you, it did cross her mind to present you to King Viserys. A thought she cast aside quickly.
The king likely wanted her dead, she doubted that he or his most ardent followers would welcome you into his hall.
Mysaria and the midwife went back and forth. The midwife insisted that you would not survive on your own. Her options were limited. The Red Priestess had said she carried prosperity with her. Had Rh’llor meant for this to come? Her greatest struggle with Daemon was his inability to understand the Smallfolk. How he would rather build a bridge just to burn it down that actually use the bloody thing. In all the night she laid with him and spoke honey into his ears, he still saw her as a toy. And she was helpless to stop him from doing so. You were a girl child, and a bastard. But you bore marks that not other in his House had lived to display or speak of. If Rh'llor had given you to her, then this may be her chance at prosperity. To guide you to become a leader of the people, one who is beloved by the Smallfolk and is legitimized by her King-Uncle through good deeds and infamy. She could act as your shadow. Safe in the dark and protected by her loyal daughter who would never, ever betray her as Daemon had.
Yes, her prosperity that she had carried for nine months. A babe that had lived through impossible odds. Mysaria had once believed in fate. She used to pray at dusk and at dawn before blood red candles and sing in the name of The Lord of Light, asking for guidance and deliverance from fear. For a time, she thought that deliverance had come to her in the eyes of Prince Daemon. But now… Now she knew that you were the reason that Rh'llor set Daemon in her path.
Her thoughts moved to what to do next. Where to go with you, how to raise you, who she could trust to be near you. The flesh of hatchling dragons is tender, weak. She would need to watch you with care until your skin did harden and your teeth sharpened for the battles ahead. Your cooing brought her to your side in the bassinet. Mysaria looked in to see that your eyes were open. Dark like hers, as was your hair. She could see Daemon in the way your pursed your lips and furrowed your brow.
She cradled you with arms unfamiliar to holding a babe. The gold that fell over your temples caught the light. Prince Daemon’s bastard, touched by the Valyrian Gods. Mysaria’s second chance at piercing through the walls of Red Keep and finding herself a place of power. The Lord of Light was generous. She stroked your cheek with her thumb and smiled.
A name for you came to mind. She felt a touch of warmth to her cold heart as it fell from her lips:
“Meera”