It rained on the first morning of Gendry's Rebellion. Of course, the rebellion wasn't known by that name yet. It was what the maesters would later come to call the uprising in their retellings of the event.

It rained over the bannermen and troops gathered on the muddy field outside the castle, prepared to join Lord Gendry Baratheon in his coming war against the cruel and mystical ruler of Westeros. In fact, the rain had poured down over Storm's End ever since the lady of the castle was whisked away by brutal means the day before, almost as if the lands cried with their lord.

It had rained another morning too. A morning, more than twenty years ago, when a young woman named Annara walked up to an orphanage in King's Landing. The rain splattered on the cobblestones, which made them slick under her worn boots, and the hem of her only dress dipped into puddles in the crevices between the uneven stones.

In her arms, Annara firmly held a little boy with dark hair, which stuck up from the knitted blanket--which was her only memory from a mother she would never see again--that she had wrapped him in, to shield her most valued treasure from the relentless downpour. Annars walked into the orphanage with her son, and she left without him. She put him in the arms of someone else and walked away. She whispered a promise into her son's ear before she stroked his puffy cheek one last time.

No one could see Annara's tears as she walked away since the rain swept them away. Soon Annara herself would be swept away as well after disease took hold of her starved body. And the promise whispered in the boy's ear would forever remain unfulfilled.

That boy was grown now. He was a lord, a husband, and a father. He was about to become a rebel against the crown.

Gendry knew now how Annara had felt that day. He knew the plight of his mother. Because he was about to do the same thing himself.

In the rain, he could hear the faint whisper of her voice, promising to come back for him. He'd never remembered his mother's voice before, but as he stood in the courtyard of his castle with the rain pelting him full force, he could hear it. A sing-songy tone and a Riverlands accent. Annara's promise was whispered in every drop that fell upon her son.

The promise rang in Gendry's ears as he looked down at the little being in his own arms. His most valued treasure. Blue eyes--that looked just like his own--peered back at him. Perhaps they also looked like Annara's eyes. He'd never know. To look at someone and see part of himself was something he'd never experienced before he met his daughter. Joreen was him, and she was Meera. She was everything.

His daughter's little head leaned against his chest and her hand clung firmly to his jacket. She held on to the only safety left in her life. Her mother was taken from her, and soon her father would have to walk away as well.

He didn't want to leave his daughter, but he had to. Because he had to bring Joreen's mother back.

Joreen whimpered as he tried to loosen her grip on the wet fabric. His lips reached down to kiss wispy dark curls in an attempt to soothe the girl and he whispered a last promise. The same promise that sang in the rain.

It was time for that promise to be fulfilled. It was time to sing the last verse of Annara's song.

"I trust you to protect her," Gendry said as he reluctantly handed his daughter to Stannis Seaworth. "You saved me once, Stan. Now I trust you with my daughter's life. Protect her while I'm away."

He would never have trusted anyone not called Seaworth with such a heavy responsibility.

"I will, Lord Baratheon," the boy, almost a man but not quite, replied dutifully. His dirty blonde hair was plastered to his forehead and his lips had turned blue from the cold. "I will protect your daughter in any way I can. I will protect her with my life."

A little arm reached toward Gendry as he gave Stannis a nod and then took a step back. A scream rang from the little body. A heartbreaking scream. A song of despair. Perhaps she'd inherited her grandmother's voice.

The scream grow louder as Gendry forced himself to turn around and walked away. Just like his mother had done that day more than twenty years ago. The scream felt like a sword that dug into his heart and dug deeper with each step. But still, Gendry kept walking. And his mother kept singing in the raindrops.

You be good, little one.

I'll be back for you soon.

I promise.

Author's Notes: So here we go! I'm kind of sneak starting this story, and will initially try for about a chapter a week to kind of get in the groove of it again. 

I've written so much other stuff since I last wrote this story, so perhaps my style has changed a bit. So I apologize if this story seems a bit different than the first two (hopefully the change is for the better though).

And just a note regarding Gendry's mother. I always wanted her to be part of this story somehow and I had a bunch of ideas of who she would be (I'm familiar with the theories of Cersei being his mother as she talks about a dark-haired child she had with Robert who died). Perhaps she would turn out to be some kind of secret nobility as well (Ashara Dayne was an idea I had). But ultimately, the only thing that made sense was for her to be just what she was said to be: a young barmaid who couldn't care for her son. Because I think that kind of story is just as compelling and important as the story of nobles and politics. Annara was a barmaid, but that doesn't make her any less important than anyone else in the kingdom. And that is the kind of stories I wanted to tell within this story: the stories of the people who were forgotten in the main narrative of the show.