If the Battle of the Trident had torn the wings and claws from the dragon,
then with Tywin's help, the fall of King's Landing was the severing of its head.
In the second month after the capture of King's Landing, Eddard Stark marched south to lift the siege of Storm's End.
The Redwyne Fleet that had blockaded Storm's End by sea had already withdrawn.
Even the master of the fleet — Lord Redwyne himself — was preparing to send his two sons to King's Landing to serve as cupbearers.
Cupbearers, in this context, were simply a polite term for hostages.
Negotiations with the Reach were intensifying, and envoys to Dorne were already on the road. It could be said that Robert's Rebellion, which had lasted less than two years, was drawing to a close.
The dragons that had loomed over Westeros for three centuries had been reduced to a few leftover dragon eggs in their ancient lair.
Robert believed that with just the motion of a finger, he could sweep across Dragonstone and leave not even a scale behind.
The fighting was all but over. Now, it was time to claim what he had fought for.
Robert was about to hold his coronation ceremony in King's Landing.
To be crowned as Robert Baratheon the First.
When Mace Tyrell, Duke of the Reach, arrived at King's Landing with his sons, he found the battlements already flying banners of a crowned stag on a golden field.
The red banners of House Targaryen with the three-headed dragon had been cast aside like filthy rags.
Even the flags of minor, colorful houses fluttered proudly in the breeze,
as if mocking the Targaryen standard trampled into the mud.
"It seems the Targaryens are truly finished," Mace Tyrell thought with some melancholy as he approached King's Landing.
Three hundred years ago, the Reach had been ruled by House Gardener.
House Tyrell had merely been their stewards. It was only with the support of Aegon the Conqueror that House Tyrell had risen to rule the Reach.
That was why they had stood with the Targaryens. Although they had withdrawn their forces after King's Landing fell, Robert's reckoning was inevitable.
Stannis had already proposed marriage to a daughter of House Florent, their long-time rivals.
Mace's youngest son, Loras, was to be sent to Storm's End as a page. Burdened with such heavy thoughts, Mace's carriage entered King's Landing.
As it rolled into the Red Keep, he saw that it too had been draped with the crowned stag banners.
Yet the scene inside the court gave him pause — everywhere he looked, there were golden-haired men and women.
The Lannisters had already flooded the Red Keep. Of course, Lord Tywin had wagered on the winning side at the crucial moment, winning rich political rewards for the Westerlands.
His daughter, Cersei, was soon to become queen.
Just as Mace was stepping down from his carriage, a golden-haired youth approached.
From a distance, the young man had spotted the green and gold rose of House Tyrell.
"Lord Mace, King Robert's coronation will be held in the Great Sept," the young man said.
Mace frowned. He certainly knew that the coronation must be conducted before the statues of the Seven. But the summons he had received clearly stated the ceremony would be held tomorrow.
"Wasn't the coronation scheduled for tomorrow?" he asked.
"It is today, Lord Tyrell. You must have misremembered," the youth replied with a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.
Irritated, Mace climbed back into his carriage.
......
Across all of Westeros, the only place where the Targaryen dragon banner still flew was Dragonstone.
And even there, it was the only banner flying.
In the original timeline, Queen Rhaella, upon hearing of King's Landing's fall and King Aerys's death, hastily crowned her son Viserys.
But in this timeline, the unexpected arrival of three Kingsguard knights from Dorne, along with her son's sudden growth — as if he possessed the gift of dreamwalking — had given the woman who had lost her husband and son in mere weeks the strength to face her fate with composure.
She had ample time to prepare a proper coronation ceremony for her son.
Now, Viserys stood within the sept on Dragonstone.
It was said that the statues of the Seven there had been carved from the masts of the ships the Targaryens used to cross the Narrow Sea long ago.
The Crone's eyes were inlaid with pearls, giving her a look of boundless mercy.
The Father's beard was gilded, making him seem especially majestic. Layers of lacquer, gold leaf, and silver plating made the statues of the Seven shine with opulent splendor.
Rhaella held a golden crown in her hands.
In the original timeline, pressed for time, she had used her own circlet to crown Viserys. But now, with a month to prepare, she had a proper golden crown made for him.
It was not large, and embedded with seven gemstones.
Before the eyes of Elia and the other family members, the three Kingsguard knights, and some of the minor lords of Dragonstone, Viserys approached his mother.
........
Robert stared up at the statues of the Seven in the sept.
Even though he had known for a long time that he would sit the Iron Throne,
when the moment of coronation finally arrived, it still felt like a dream.
He glanced behind him.
At the very front sat his foster father, Lord Jon Arryn. Beside him, dressed in black and bearing his usual icy expression, was his good brother Eddard.
In blue robes sat the Tullys; in red, the Lannisters; and in green, the Tyrells.
His youngest brother, Renly, was beaming at him with bright eyes.
As for his other brother, Stannis — barely twenty and already with a receding hairline — Robert preferred not to think about him.
And there was Cersei, his betrothed, the woman who would soon be his queen. Truth be told, Robert thought Cersei was very beautiful. He wanted to bed her right away.
Slowly, he walked toward the High Septon.
The thought crossed his mind, "This High Septon is so fat. I'll never let myself get like that."
The thought amused him briefly, but he forced it aside. Under the watchful eyes of the gathered nobility, he knelt stiffly before the sacred crown.
.........
Back on Dragonstone, the coronation ceremony ran into a small hitch.
Viserys did not kneel before the statues of the Seven as expected. Instead, he turned toward the gathered Kingsguard and family members.
"My lords, last night I dreamed of my elder brother," he said.
"Viserys!" Rhaella whispered sharply, trying to pull him back on script.
She knew well that even Dragonstone's sept had septons and septas present. Viserys's behavior could easily be seen as disrespectful.
Rhaegar's former steward, Ser Remys, could barely conceal a sneer. But his expression was quickly noticed and glared at by Lyanna.
Even the Kingsguard knights, like Ser Gerold, showed clear disapproval.
In Westeros, ceremony mattered.
Viserys's casual treatment of it could only hurt himself. Even the goodwill he had built up in the hearts of the Kingsguard seemed to waver.
Elia Martell looked at him with deep worry.
Lyanna, on the other hand, seemed intrigued by his motivations.
"My lords, last night I dreamed of Rhaegar," Viserys said.