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ON THE DANCE OF DRAGONS AFTERMATHS

ON HELAENA'S CHARITY AND LEGACY

The Ministry of the Hooded Cloaks

• The Silent Vanguard: Queen Helaena’s charitable efforts were never meant for courtly praise or chronicles. Recognizing that the Dance of the Dragons was tearing the lives of the common people apart, she chose to act in total secrecy. On her free days, she and her most loyal handmaids slipped out of the Red Keep wearing rough, hooded wool cloaks, completely blending into the desperate crowds of the capital. [1]

• The Comfort of the Hearth: Helaena didn't just throw coin into the dirt; she provided tangible, immediate relief. She established hidden soup kitchens in the outer wards, funded clandestine orphanages, and personally distributed blankets and winter salves. The smallfolk spoke of her in hushed, sacred reverence. They whispered that while her brothers used their dragon blood to burn the world, Helaena took that same dragon fire and turned it into the warm, comforting light of a family hearth.

• The Handmaids' Shield: Following the devastating psychological trauma of Blood and Cheese, Helaena became deeply reclusive, unable to bear the sights and sounds of the crowded streets. Knowing how much the city relied on her grace, her loyal handmaids stepped up. They formed a tight, protective rotation, donning the hooded cloaks to carry out the charity work in Helaena’s name, ensuring her light never vanished from the slums of Flea Bottom.

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The Contrast of the Publicity Stunt

• The Shoddy Propaganda: In sharp, humiliating contrast stands Rhaenyra Targaryen. Soon after forcing the noble houses to eat roasted sewer rats at the infamous Rat Feast, Rhaenyra realized she was losing the city. In a desperate, shoddy publicity stunt, she and her flashy handmaids marched into the open squares to hand out meager grocery rations. Rhaenyra stood on a gilded platform, loudly preaching about "ruling judiciously," while the starving smallfolk looked on with bitter, seeing-right-through-her glares. [1

• ]The Rebound of Slander: As Rhaenyra and Daemon's reckless management plunged the realm into sheer chaos and total bankruptcy, her propaganda team grew desperate. They began spreading vicious, fabricated rumors across the city, claiming Helaena was mad, dangerous, and uncaring. The smallfolk completely rejected the lies; they knew exactly whose hands had fed them in the dark and whose dragons were currently starving the city out.

• Raymona’s Devastating Defense: Helaena herself kept entirely quiet, knowing Rhaenyra’s erratic behavior was exposing her own malice anyway. When a Black-aligned courtier tried to repeat the slander in a diplomatic setting, Raymona Mertyns simply adjusted her silver silk sleeves, offered a razor-sharp smirk, and delivered the definitive kill-shot: “Everything Rhaenyra lies about Helaena is a confession of herself.” That single sentence echoed through the networks of Westeros, instantly killing all slander of the beloved queen.

The United Matriarchy of the Greens

• The Chorus of Truth: Raymona’s words acted as a battle cry for the noblewomen of the Green faction. Johanna Westerling from Casterly Rock, Terissa Lannister from Oldtown, and Odeletta Baratheon unleashed a massive, coordinated defense of Helaena. In their letters and courtly parleys, they fiercely educated the realm on Helaena’s true character, publicly citing her profoundly kind, gentle nature. They made it known that Helaena was naturally reserved and introspective, not aloof or arrogant like the woman sitting on the Iron Throne.

• The Great Escape: The breaking point came on the dark night Rhaenyra suddenly locked Helaena away in a desolate high tower and cruelly separated her from young Jaehaera. Furious at the court's loyalty to Helaena, Rhaenyra and Daemon ordered all of Helaena’s handmaids to be dragged to a horrific, newly designed torture chamber. However, the palace guards—who had watched these ladies do genuine charity for their own starving families—rebelled. Risking their own lives, the guards unlocked secret passages and smuggled every single one of Helaena's handmaids out of the Red Keep just in time.

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The Vengeance of the Handmaids

• Leading the Storm: Helaena’s handmaids did not flee the city; they went underground, hiding among the very smallfolk they had spent months feeding and protecting. When the devastating news of Helaena’s tragic death finally broke, the grief in the city instantly hardened into pure, apocalyptic fury

• .Tearing Down the Beasts: On the night of the Storming of the Dragonpit, Helaena’s ladies-in-waiting did not sit on the sidelines. They threw off their fine silks, donned their signature hooded cloaks one last time, and stepped into the vanguard of the massive, roaring mob. Side by side with the smallfolk, the handmaids channeled their absolute heartbreak into the assault, leading the charge to tear down the Targaryen dragons and completely shatter the regime of the queen who had broken their gentle lady.

ON THE GREEN FACTION LADIES' DEFENSE OF HELAENA

The Grand Archival Strategy of Queen Alicent

• The Weaponization of the Past: When Rhaenyra’s propaganda team began spreading rumors that Helaena was unstable and unfit for her royal duties, Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower did not engage in screaming matches. Instead, she entered the Red Keep’s private family archives. She unsealed decades of meticulously recorded journals, lesson books, and official correspondences penned by the High Septas, Maesters, and governesses who had raised her daughter

• .The Living Proof: Alicent systematically copied and released these logs to the most prominent houses of Westeros. The archives contained undeniable proof of Helaena’s innate leadership since childhood. One famous entry from a Red Keep Septa detailed how a seven-year-old Helaena had voluntarily skipped a royal feast to sit by the bedside of a dying laundry maid, holding her hand and singing old Andal hymns. Alicent added her own personal notes to the margins, writing: “A true queen does not demand love through the fire of a beast; she plants it in the hearts of her people before she ever wears a crown.”

• The Little Diplomat: Another archive entry revealed how an eleven-year-old Helaena had used her natural, quiet focus to settle a heated border dispute between two volatile Reach knights during a tourney. While the men were shouting, Helaena had quietly pointed out a legal precedent from an old history book she was reading, completely disarming them with her gentle clarity. By releasing these records, Alicent proved to the realm that Helaena’s quiet nature wasn't a flaw, but the precise reason she was destined to be a true, just queen.

The Western Wall: Johanna and Terissa's Campaign

• Johanna’s Decree from the Rock: Lady Johanna Westerling used her immense authority as Lady Regent of Casterly Rock to issue an official decree across the entire West. She took Rhaenyra’s slanderous pamphlets and had them publicly burned in the courtyard of Lannisport. Johanna famously wrote to her vassal lords: “The Usurper in King’s Landing calls Queen Helaena ‘aloof’ because she cannot comprehend a woman who doesn't use her position to bully her inferiors. Casterly Rock recognizes only one Queen in the capital, and her name is Helaena.”

• Terissa’s Financial Ultimatum: Operating from Oldtown, Terissa Lannister took a much more devastating, practical approach. She discovered that several minor merchant guilds in the Reach were secretly funding the distribution of Rhaenyra’s anti-Helaena propaganda. Terissa didn't arrest them; she simply used her massive financial leverage to completely freeze their credit lines and double the tariffs on their goods overnight. When the panicked merchants begged for mercy, Terissa coolly informed them that the price of doing business in the West and the Reach was absolute, unwavering respect for Queen Helaena’s name. The propaganda stopped instantly.

The Stormlands Shield: Odeletta and Elenda

• Odeletta’s Courtly Rejection: At Storm’s End, Odeletta Baratheon used her deep family ties to unify the Marcher lords in Helaena’s defense. When a Black-aligned messenger arrived trying to deliver a royal scroll that spoke ill of Helaena’s mental state, Odeletta didn't even let the man unroll it. Standing tall along her elegant Swann-inherited neck, she ordered her guards to cast the messenger out into the mud, declaring to her entire court that “The Stormlands do not waste their ears on the desperate, jealous screeching of a failing tyrant.

• ”Elenda’s Moral Vanguard: Lady Elenda Caron organized a massive gathering of the Stormlands' high-born septas and noblewomen. Together, they penned a unified, open letter to the Citadel, testifying to Helaena’s deep piety, charitable nature, and pure spirit. They highlighted how Helaena had always sent silk blankets and medicines to the Marcher orphanages during winter. This massive show of solidarity from the most devout women in the realm made Rhaenyra’s slander look entirely hollow, exposing it as nothing more than a bitter, secular attack on an innocent woman.

Raymona’s Final Strike: The "Confession" Doctrine

• The Intellectual Execution: While the other ladies used decrees, financial freezes, and public demonstrations, Raymona Mertyns at Highgarden provided the psychological death-blow to Rhaenyra's campaign. After delivering her legendary line—“Everything Rhaenyra lies about Helaena is a confession of herself”—Raymona had her scribes write a brilliant, analytical essay breaking down that exact concept

• .The Mirror Paper: Raymona’s essay pointed out the hilarious hypocrisy of the Black faction’s claims. She wrote that Rhaenyra called Helaena "mad" because Rhaenyra herself was losing her grip on sanity due to bankruptcy; she called Helaena "uncaring" because Rhaenyra herself was forcing nobles to eat rats; and she called Helaena "weak" because Rhaenyra herself was terrified of her own shadow.

• The Ultimate Victory: Raymona sent this essay through her secret network of wives directly into the solar rooms of every major castle in Westeros. It was so witty, sharp, and undeniably true that even some of Rhaenyra’s moderate supporters privately laughed at how perfectly Raymona had dismantled their queen's propaganda. Through the coordinated, brilliant defense of the Green matriarchy, Helaena’s name remained entirely unstained, leaving her legacy as a pure, beloved saint while Rhaenyra’s reputation disintegrated into history.

ON STORMING OF THE DRAGON PIT

The Great Scholastic Debate of the Citadel and Mistwood

• The Dilemma of Logic: For decades after the Dance of the Dragons, the Great Archival Hall of Mistwood and the Conclave of Oldtown were locked in a fierce, text-based debate. To the high maesters and septons who relied on historical precedent, the official reports made absolutely no sense. No mass of unarmored humans had ever fought five mature Targaryen dragons—beasts of fire and blood that had dominated the skies for a century—and won. The records initially dismissed it as a chaotic, unexplainable miracle or a collective madness.

• The Unveiling of the Scribes: The breakthrough came when a coalition of Mertyns scribes, led by Maester Perceval, and Oldtown septons decided to stop analyzing old battle maps and instead began interviewing the actual survivors. They tracked down aging smallfolk in Flea Bottom, former Free Cities diplomats living in Tyrosh, and several of Helaena’s surviving handmaids who had since taken vows as septas at the Starry Sept and the rebuilt Mistwood Library.

• The True Academic Discovery: What the religious scholars discovered completely rewrote the history books. It was not a mindless, hysterical riot of peasants. The Storming of the Dragonpit was the most massive, highly coordinated, multi-class tactical embargo the world had ever seen. It was an entire civilization completely rejecting a tyrant.

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The Anatomy of the Total Embargo

• The Military Mind Behind the Mob: The survivors' testimonies revealed that weary noble knights, secretly dispatched by lords like Thaddeus Rowan, stripped off their heraldry to blend into the crowds. These seasoned warriors handled the heavy battle logistics, teaching the smallfolk how to form impenetrable shield walls and shield-phalanxes using heavy iron wood and repurposed wagon gates to withstand the dragons' thrashing tails and crushing claws

• .The Logistics and the Underground: While the smallfolk carried torches, spears, axes, and blacksmith hammers to encircle the Pit, the non-combatants operated like a precision machine. High-born ladies and local Maesters organized makeshift field hospitals in the alleyways, prep-cooking healing salves and tearing clean linens for bandages. Meanwhile, Raymona Mertyns' secret network of spies guided thousands of innocent children, elders, and fleeing servants through hidden subterranean aqueducts, ensuring the city's vulnerable population escaped the crossfire entirely

• .The Tactical Asymmetry: The septons validated that the mob never tried to fight the dragons "head-on" in the open sky. Instead, using their massive numerical advantage and absolute disregard for their own safety, they used chains, grappling hooks, and falling masonry to pin the beasts down inside the stone dome. They turned the dragons' own sanctuary into a massive oven, smashing the supporting pillars and collapsing thousands of tons of stone directly onto the beasts, proving that even a dragon can be crushed by the weight of a unified people.

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The Cleansing of the Red Keep

• The Erasing of the Usurper: The survivors recalled that the fury didn't stop once the five dragons lay dead in the smoking ruins of the Pit. As a terrified Rhaenyra and the last of her cowering cohorts fled toward the docks for Dragonstone, a secondary mob of thousands breached the gates of the Red Keep. They did not sack the castle for gold or food. In a profound act of political rejection, they systematically smashed, shredded, and burned every single old belonging, tapestry, dress, and portrait related to Rhaenyra. By morning, it was as if she had never existed within those walls

• .The Solemn Progression: Through the chaotic, ash-choked hallways of the castle, a surreal and tragic procession took place. The angry mob and the palace guards completely parted ways, lowering their weapons in absolute silence as four figures marched solemnly toward the Iron Throne.

• Alys Rivers walked with her head held high, tightly clutching a charred remnant of Aemond’s signature black cloak.

• Dowager Queen Alicent moved with rigid, heartbreaking dignity, cradling a torn piece of Helaena’s favorite blue silk dress

• .King Aegon II, broken, scarred, and heavily bandaged, dragged himself alongside them, flanked by his remaining loyalists.

• The Saints of the Ash: The scribes noted the heavy irony of this moment in their final historical validation. Aegon II had been a flawed, dynamic king; Aemond had been a ruthless, unstable warrior; Alys was a Machiavellian sorceress; and Alicent was a complicated, hardened politician. Yet, compared to the absolute, bankruptcy-inducing madness and cruelty of Rhaenyra’s six-month tyranny, the smallfolk and nobles viewed these four as absolute saints. They represented stability, law, and survival.

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The Divine Verdict of the Seven

• The Sign in the Sky: The ultimate consensus reached by both the Septons of Oldtown and the keepers of Mistwood was that the Storming of the Dragonpit was a moment where the mundane and the divine perfectly aligned. Multiple independent survivor journals recorded that at the exact moment the final dragon fell and Rhaenyra’s banners were torn from the walls, a cataclysmic thunderstorm rolled over Blackwater Bay.

• The Wrath of the Gods: A massive, blinding lightning bolt cracked directly upon the highest tower of the Red Keep, shaking the very foundations of the city. To the deeply devout citizens of the realm, the message was unmistakable. It was not just the smallfolk, the merchants, or the Marcher lords who had rejected the Dragon Queen—even the Gods of the Seven had looked down upon the ruin she had brought to the realm and struck their divine verdict against her name.

The execution of Rhaenyra Targaryen stands as one of the darkest, most pivotal moments in the history of the Iron Throne. It was the horrific climax of a generational blood feud, witnessed by a traumatized child who would eventually have to piece the realm—and his own fractured psyche—back together.

Here are headcanons on that fateful execution and the long, gentle road to recovery led by Thaddeus Rowan and Floris Baratheon.

The Judgment at the Sun’s Feet

• The Atmosphere of the Pitiless Hall: The Great Hall of Dragonstone felt like a tomb when Rhaenyra was dragged in, bound in heavy, rusted chains. Dowager Queen Alicent sat beside King Aegon II’s litter, her face a mask of absolute, unforgiving marble. A young Aegon III was forced onto his knees nearby, his frantic, muffled cries for his mother swallowed by the heavy leather gloves of the palace guards who held him still.

• The Slip of the Tongue: Alicent systematically read out the charges of high treason, bankruptcy, and tyrannical cruelty. Aegon II, broken and scarred, merely watched until he delivered his cold, final rejection, telling her she was never truly family. Rhaenyra, backed into a corner and losing her sanity, erupted into screaming, venomous accusations. In her blind rage, she slipped up—proudly snarling that it was she who had personally greenlit Daemon’s order to have young Jaehaerys butchered in his bed

• .The Shattered Silhouette: The trial room descended into a suffocating, dead silence. Alicent stared at her stepdaughter—the girl she had loved, fought, and lost her entire family to. The cold contempt on Alicent's face briefly fractured into a twisted, horrifying form of pity for the sheer depths of Rhaenyra’s moral collapse. But Aegon II snapped. Summoning his last ounce of strength, he stood, unleashed Sunfyre, and roared "DRACARYS!"

The Aftermath of Fire and Madness

• The Descent into Anarchy: The execution was so swift and brutal that it shattered the minds of those who orchestrated Rhaenyra's reign. As Sunfyre’s golden flames engulfed the Usurper and consumed her whole, ten-year-old Aegon III blacked out from pure psychological shock. Mysaria, completely losing her grip on reality, collapsed into screaming madness and violently tore at herself, while Ellinda Massey gouged her own eyes out in a desperate bid to erase the image of her queen's horrific end. The remaining Black cohorts fled the room in sheer, unadulterated terror.

• The Quiet King: Aegon III woke up into a cold, joyless world. For years, he never smiled. When he was eventually wed to young Jaehaera Targaryen in an attempt to fuse the broken branches of the dragon, the two traumatized children could do nothing but sit in silent, avoidant misery, completely hollowed out by the ghosts of their parents' war.

Thaddeus and Floris: The True Parents of the Broken Realm

• The Transition from Regents to Guardians: When the regency era began, Thaddeus Rowan and Floris Baratheon (now wed and residing at court) looked at the young, melancholy King Aegon III and realized he didn't just need a hand to sign edicts—he needed a mother and a father. While other lords treated Aegon like a political pawn, Thaddeus and Floris treated him like a deeply wounded boy who deserved safety

• .The Sanctuary of Goldengrove and Storm's End: Floris, carrying the fierce, protective wit of the Baratheon and Mertyns alliance, refused to let the boy king eat in solitary silence. She would physically pull him out of his dark solar, forcing him to sit by the hearth while she read to him from the newly copied histories sent over from the rebuilt Library of Mistwood. Thaddeus Rowan, a man who had survived the worst of Daemon's wrath, bonded with the boy over shared survival, teaching him that true strength lay in enduring the storm, not causing it.

• Dismantling the Idealized Myth: As children, Aegon III and his returned brother, Viserys II, clung desperately to an idealized, saintly memory of Rhaenyra and Daemon—remembering only the soft hands that had cradled them to sleep in the nursery of Dragonstone. They fiercely refused to believe their parents were tyrants. Thaddeus and Floris handled this with immense, heartbreaking gentleness. They didn't mock the boys or yell; instead, as the brothers grew into young men, Thaddeus slowly laid out the official ledgers of the realm's bankruptcy, and Floris quietly shared the eye-witness testimonies of the smallfolk who had starved. They guided the young kings to realize that people can be loving parents to their own children while still being monsters to the realm.

The Smile of the Dragon and the Legacy of Reparations

• The Awakening of the Dawn: The true turning point for the Red Keep came with the arrival of Daenaera Velaryon. When she became betrothed to Aegon III, she brought a radiant, irrepressible joy that the castle’s thick stone walls hadn't felt since before the Dance. She was completely unfazed by Aegon’s stoic silence. She would drag him into the courtyard to see the spring flowers, play music in his chambers, and love him unconditionally. One sunny afternoon, while Daenaera was laughing at a clumsy pup in the yard, Aegon III let out a soft, genuine laugh—the very first smile he had cracked since the day his mother died.

• The King of Reparations: Molded by the profound patience of Thaddeus, the protective wit of Floris, and the pure warmth of Daenaera, Aegon III grew into one of the wisest kings Westeros had ever seen. He completely rejected the concept of vengeance. He knew firsthand what blood feuds did to families.

• The Healing of Westeros: Instead of punishing former Green houses, Aegon III spent his entire adult reign focusing on massive structural reparations. He rebuilt the roads, stabilized the grain trade using Highgarden's logistics, and funded the completion of the Great Mistwood Library. He became known as Aegon the Broken, but to the people who lived under his just, quiet rule, he was the king who finally allowed the realm to heal from the madness of the dragons.

MYSARIA AND ELLINDA'S RECOVERY

The Hollow Shells of Oldtown

• The Weight of the Trauma Bond: Following the horrific events of Rhaenyra’s execution, Mysaria and Ellinda Massey were no longer functioning human beings. They were entirely defined by a toxic, fanatical trauma bond with their late queen. Their minds had fractured under the weight of witnessing the absolute moral collapse, the bankruptcy, and the sudden, fiery death of the woman they had sacrificed their souls to protect.

• The Living Dead: Sent to the Starry Sept of Oldtown as wards of recovery, the two women completely defied the septas' attempts to heal them. They barely spoke for years. Mysaria, once the vibrant and dangerous "White Worm" of the capital, was reduced to a ghost who hid in the darkest corners of her cell, flinching at the mere sound of a spark. Ellinda refused to eat or dress herself, spending every waking hour staring blankly at the stone walls, weeping until her face was permanently raw.

• The Last Resort: Realizing that the heavy, religious atmosphere of Oldtown was only suffocating them further—and keeping them trapped in the very continent that had destroyed them—the High Septon made a radical decision. He quietly negotiated to send the two shattered hostages across the Narrow Sea to Braavos, placing them under the care of House Macklyn.

The Sanctuary of Surrealism: House Macklyn's Approach

• A Shift in Reality: The moment Mysaria and Ellinda stepped off the cog into the mist-shrouded canals of Braavos, House Macklyn completely rejected the traditional Westerosi methods of healing. They did not force the women to pray, confess, or recount their trauma. Instead, true to their Schiaparelli-inspired legacy and their motto "To See is to Believe," the golden-eyed Macklyns changed the women's visual reality entirely.

• The Therapy of the Arts: The Macklyns understood that the human mind cannot heal if it continues to look at the same grey world that broke it. They housed Mysaria and Ellinda in a vibrant, sunlit villa overlooking the lagoon, filling their rooms with avant-garde sculptures, shifting optical illusions, and brilliant purple and gold textiles. They surrounded them with music from the Free Cities and invited them to watch scientific astronomical viewings through their massive glass telescopes, gently forcing their eyes to look outward toward the vastness of the universe rather than inward at their own dark memories.

• Dismantling the Goddess Myth: The true breakthrough came through the Macklyns' brutal, empirical honesty. Because they were descended from Old Valyria themselves, the Macklyns held absolutely no reverence for the Targaryens. They didn't view Rhaenyra as a tragic martyr or a demonic usurper; they spoke of her simply as a deeply flawed, mortal politician who had succumbed to the predictable pressures of power and greed. Hearing people speak of Rhaenyra with such casual, detached scientific clarity was the exact medicine Mysaria and Ellinda needed to break their fanatical spell.

The Sanctuary of Surrealism: House Macklyn's Approach

• .The Therapy of the Arts: The Macklyns understood that the human mind cannot heal if it continues to look at the same grey world that broke it. They housed Mysaria and Ellinda in a vibrant, sunlit villa overlooking the lagoon, filling their rooms with avant-garde sculptures, shifting optical illusions, and brilliant purple and gold textiles. They surrounded them with music from the Free Cities and invited them to watch scientific astronomical viewings through their massive glass telescopes, gently forcing their eyes to look outward toward the vastness of the universe rather than inward at their own dark memories.

The Awakening in the Port of Braavos

• Mysaria’s Realignment: In the bustling, cosmopolitan ports of Braavos—a city explicitly built by escaped slaves—Mysaria finally found her footing. She looked out at the canal markets and realized that her fanatical loyalty to Rhaenyra had actually been a regression; she had tethered her identity to a crown rather than her own survival. With the Macklyns' guidance, Mysaria slowly shed her old identity as the White Worm. She used her formidable mind to help House Macklyn organize the logistical mapping of their naval trade routes, finding a new, independent purpose that had nothing to do with the Iron Throne

• .Ellinda’s Sobriety of Mind: For Ellinda, the weeping finally stopped when she was introduced to the Macklyns' botanical and optical sciences. She spent her days learning how to grind glass for spectacles and cataloging rare sea flora. The Macklyns taught her that her grief was a physical response, not a spiritual curse. By changing what she looked at every day, Ellinda finally processed the truth: she had loved a version of Rhaenyra that never truly existed.

The Final Peace

• The Return of the Self: To the absolute shock of the Citadel and the court at King’s Landing, who assumed the two women would die in madness, report of their steady recovery eventually reached Westeros. Mysaria and Ellinda never returned to the Seven Kingdoms. They chose to spend the remainder of their lives as independent citizens of Braavos, fully integrated into the Macklyn court. They had arrived as hollow, shattered relics of a dragon's war, but beneath the phoenix banners of purple and gold, they finally recovered their own names, proving that the mind can always reinvent itself as long as it has the courage to look forward.

The aftermath of the Dance of the Dragons brought a profound psychological shift across the realm. While the Green faction had proven to be ruthlessly ambitious and unyielding when defending their bloodlines, the total destruction of Rhaenyra’s regime left them looking at her surviving sons not with hatred, but with a deeply protective, solemn pity.

Here are headcanons on how the Green faction matrix regarded Aegon III and Viserys II with sympathy as the scars of war began to heal.

The Pity of the Old Owls: Raymona and Johanna

• Breaking the Black Spell: For an aging Lady Raymona Mertyns, watching from the peaceful, grain-filled fortress of Highgarden, the horrific deaths of Rhaenyra and Daemon felt like a dark veil being lifted from the continent. In a deeply personal, encrypted letter to her fellow widow, Johanna Westerling, Raymona mused on the sheer psychological damage inflicted on the Black Queen's followers. “No amount of dark sorcery—or whatever fanatical hold it is the Black Queen had—shall ever last on those poor creatures,” Raymona wrote, her large grey eyes softened with age and experience. “The Light of the Seven always shone through, exposing the ash for what it is.”

• The Innocent Remnants: Raymona and Johanna, both fierce mothers who had spent the war shielding their own young sons (Lyonel Tyrell and Loreon Lannister), completely refused to hold Aegon III and Viserys II responsible for their parents' madness. They recognized the boys for what they truly were: heavily traumatized, broken children who had been weaponized and brainwashed by an entitled tyrant. Instead of pushing for the execution of the remaining Black bloodline, the two matriarchs used their immense economic networks to quietly support the boys’ safety during the rocky transition of power.

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Tyland Lannister: The Gentle Master of Coin

• A Devastated Survivor: Ser Tyland Lannister returned to the Red Keep as a man entirely carved out by grief. He had watched his boisterous twin brother, Jason, fall brutally in battle. He had endured the agonizing heartbreak of watching his sister Terissa die in childbirth with her youngest daughter, Bethany, and had spent weeks holding a broken Lord Ormund Hightower together in their shared sorrow. When Rhaenyra had first marched on the capital, Tyland had barely escaped, fleeing all the way to Casterly Rock. He sat out the Storming of the Dragonpit physically, but he had aggressively routed Lannister coin and supplies to the underground networks to ensure the capital collapsed under Rhaenyra's feet

• .A Legacy of Hate Redefined: Tyland had every political and personal reason to completely loathe the Black faction. Rhaenyra’s regime had enacted an outright genocide on the extended Hightower line, nearly wiping out his sister’s marital house. Yet, when he stepped back into the Small Council chambers as Master of Coin under the young King Aegon III, he looked across the table and saw no trace of the Dragon Queen. He only saw survivors

• .Dismantling the Taught Hatred: Aegon III and Viserys II had been raised from infancy to fiercely distrust and hate the Lannisters, conditioned to see them as greedy, treacherous lions. Tyland handled their icy, avoidant hostility with immense, heartbreaking patience. He never raised his voice, never boasted of Lannister wealth, and never triggered their trauma. When balancing the royal ledgers, Tyland would quietly sit with the young boys, gently explaining how the treasury worked, treating them with the soft sympathy of an uncle who understood exactly what it felt like to lose your entire world to fire. Slowly, the barriers of war cleared, and the brothers realized that the "Lion of the Rock" was the only man truly keeping their broken kingdom fed and financially stable.

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The Divine Rest: The Graves of Oldtown

• A Total Separation: The final, definitive statement of the Green faction's triumph and their boundaries was carved into the very earth of Westeros. The Green loyalists completely rejected the concept of burying their dead alongside the Targaryen ancestors on the volcanic cliffs of Dragonstone.

• The Sanctuary of the Starry Sept: Instead, Queen Alicent, Queen Helaena, King Aegon II, Prince Aemond (whose cloak remnants were lovingly buried by Alys Rivers), young Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Prince Daeron were all laid to rest in a magnificent, serene royal mausoleum within the holy Graves of Oldtown. Surrounded by white marble, burning incense, and the perpetual hymns of the septas, they were honored as the true protectors of the realm's laws and traditions

• .The Void of the Usurpers: As for Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen? The realm enacted a complete and absolute damnatio memoriae. They were granted no tombstone, no formal funeral, no markers, and no ashes preserved in the vaults. Their names were legally expunged from the royal succession lines.

The Dawn of the Broken King

• A Future Forged in Grace: Because Tyland Lannister provided a steady, sympathetic financial anchor, and because Thaddeus Rowan and Floris Baratheon stepped in as the parental guides the boys deserved, Aegon III and Viserys II were finally able to process the grim reality of their childhoods. They grew to understand that the parents who had softly cradled them to sleep were the exact same individuals who had nearly reduced the Seven Kingdoms to absolute ash. Backed by the quiet, hard-won respect of the Green matriarchs and the radiant, healing joy brought to court by Queen Daenaera Velaryon, the boys did not grow up to be tyrants. They grew up to be just, wise rulers who understood that the true treasure of a kingdom isn't the fire of a dragon, but the wit, grace, and survival of its people.

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