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After The Dragons Danced (A Rhaena Targaryen SI) -- 01. The Aftermath
🕑 Added 2024-07-14 09:00:00 +0000 UTC7th Day, Fourth Moon, 131AC | The Dungeons of The Red Keep - King’s Landing
CORLYS VELARYON
He woke up from his dream, nay, his nightmare, gasping, with beads of cold sweat trickling down his brow and staining his weathered tunic. He sat up gingerly, the pain in his hip reminding him that he was no longer a young man, reminding him that he was broken. Scant light of the crescent moon streaked into his cell through its single window. The sky was cloudless, the glittering of the stars in the night sky clear to him. Corlys stood, supporting himself with his cane and walked slowly towards the window. He took a deep breath, the scent of the night air and the perpetual stench of the shit that riddled this city reminding him that he was alive. At least this time he was not smelling his own shit; Cregan Stark had the basic decency of placing him in one of the lordly cells in the dungeons of the Keep. Such cells were attended to once a day, and their captive’s chamberpot was emptied and the captive was fed.
The nightmares had become more vivid as time had gone on. These days, they would torment him every time he shut his eyes, trying to sleep. They were mocking him now. The nightmares were there to remind him of how much he had lost because of the bitch queen and her fucking war. It was the face of his wife, stern and strong and unyielding, that he saw most often. She appeared to him in the face she had when they had just married; young, lovely and full of life, the face of a woman just out of her girlhood with her entire life ahead of her. When he saw himself in those dreams, he was a younger man too, a dashing adventurer; just returned home from the voyages he had taken to the farthest reaches of the Known World. He remembered the words she had told him on the day she had declared in front of the entire court that they would be married.
‘We may return to the ends of the world together, my love, but I’ll get there first, as I’ll be flying.’ Like always, he smiled at the memory. That had been the day he knew he had found his queen, the day he knew he would make himself a king, as was his due. The folly.
The pleasant memory would only last a moment longer however, his wife’s jet black hair quickly becoming streaked with white and her beautiful face becoming lined and streaked with age. He would then see her falling from the sky, Meleys’ headless and lifeless body under her, smote upon the ground. The copper armour she loved to wear would then melt into her skin as the bronze and greenish-blue flames of his dead daughter’s dragon engulfed her, turning the red of the copper armour and the crimson of Meleys’ scales into the grey of ash. That was all that remained of his wife, Corlys knew, nothing but ash, as if she had never even existed.
That was all that remained of Corlys’ life and legacy in truth. All of what he had pursued so relentlessly since he had been only a boy was ruined and burned. The strength of the Velaryon navy had been cut down by almost half; even if the remaining half could still hold its own against the rest of Westeros’ fleets combined, it was a grave loss. Spicetown, the fishing village he had transformed into a thriving city more resplendent than even King’s Landing could ever hope to be, was now a ruin. High Tide; the crown jewel of his life’s work, the beautiful pale fortress he had built with his own bare hands with marble and silver, was a ruin as well.
And all of it was due to the bitch queen and her stupid war. He had been right in his assessment of her; she burned everything she lay her hands on.
Corlys usually did his best to avoid the uncomfortable thoughts of his ruin, but lately, he no longer had the strength to. He would be executed in two short days for treason. The young wolf’s words came back to him, unencumbered, ‘Aegon was an oathbreaker, a kinslayer, and a usurper besides, yet still a king. When he would not heed your craven’s counsel, you removed him as a craven would, using poison…and now you shall answer for it’. Aye, the conviction with which Lord Stark had pronounced his judgement assured him of his fate. Reflection was all that was left for him to do. So, he walked back to the small bed, put on his heavy woollen cloak over his head, glad of the warmth that the cloak brought, and lay down slowly, his knees complaining as he did so. He let his mind wander unobstructed, reliving the memories of his life once more.
Surprisingly, his memories took him back to his youth, when he was a younger man, still full of hopes and dreams and ambition. The form of Daella Targaryen appeared in his mind’s eye; the sweet, shy princess who was so unlike every other Targaryen he had ever met. None of the pride and senseless arrogance of her kin was present in her. Corlys cursed his ambition once more for rejecting her suit of marriage all those years ago. She would have made a splendid wife to him, Corlys knew, and a gentle, kind mother to any children they would have had.
But for a man like him, a woman who would have made a good wife and a gentle mother just wouldn’t be enough; instead, he pursued one who would also give him a throne. His mind went back to the day he was betrothed to Rhaenys, and how glad he had felt. His quest for her had succeeded. He had made himself a king. His children would be dragonriders, and one of them would be king after him. His blood would rule these lands for centuries to come. The displeased faces of Prince Aemon and Prince Baelon came to the fore too; the two of them had wished to combine their lines by marrying Rhaenys to Viserys. When his wife had told him of that notion once they were wed, he had scoffed at the notion derisively.
He did not scoff now. Perhaps things would have been very different if he had married Daella, if his wife had to have been a Targaryen. Even the spoiled, vain and sly Viserra would have been enough. He remembered the letter she had written to him, soon after he had returned from his final voyage, offering herself to him clandestinely to rid herself of the egregious betrothal the good queen had made for her. She had even promised him that she would steal Dreamfyre from the dragonpit, making House Velaryon a house of dragonlords for all time. Corlys had guffawed at her delusions then, and promptly fed the letter to the flames of his hearth. Even if she had succeeded in her ploy, his house simply becoming dragonlords was not enough for him. No, House Velaryon would become a house of Kings.
Oh, how his delusions shattered. The gods had seen fit to send his ruin in the form of a spoiled princess, a pretender queen named Rhaenyra Targaryen. Oh, how he loathed even the taste of her name on his tongue. How had he, Corlys Velaryon, enshrined in legend for all time as the Sea Snake, let a little slip of a girl not even a quarter of her age destroy everything he had built?
He had been glad, so very glad when Viserys had come to High Tide and all but begged for Laenor’s hand for his heir. Rhaenys had warned him that war would follow Viserys’ death; that no male child would sit idly by and allow themselves to be usurped by their older sister. He had laughed then. Whatever war would follow would be short and devastating for any who sought to usurp them, he had reassured his wife. They had Meleys, Seasmoke, Syrax, Caraxes and Vhagar on their side. All his grandchildren would be dragonriders too, he was sure of it. He had made sure of it. Laenor’s queer tastes had been accounted for; he had him lay with the beautiful Marilda and sire a child upon her, before the wedding between him and the princess was to take place. Sure, the methods used to coax pleasure out of his son were queer and ashaming for him, but what mattered was that it had worked. He would just have to do the same with his princess after they had wed, and all would be well.
It turned out that the princess had no sense of responsibility in even trying to sire trueborn heirs. She had her own desires, and she would fulfil them, regardless of the treason she committed. Corlys swallowed something foul and bitter when he remembered the first brown-haired, brown-eyed whelp was presented to him. He had not truly grasped the depth of the bitch’s entitlement at that time. When the dragon’s egg in the babe’s cradle hatched within a few days after his birth, he had reasoned with himself that it must have been the latent Baratheon or Arryn genes lurking in both of his parents’ blood that caused the boy to have such common features. So he gave him a storied Velaryon name, Jacaerys. A seed of doubt was cast in his mind however, when Addam was born soon afterwards, and his features clearly bespoke his Valyrian heritage; especially since nothing in Marilda’s colouring identified her as a dragonseed. The birth of the second babe he named Lucerys, caused that seed of doubt to begin to sprout. Soon thereafter he had his son lay with Marilda again, hoping against all hope for the second babe sired between them would have common features to put to rest his suspicion. His hopes were dashed into the sea however, for Alyn was born soon after Lucerys, again with silver hair and purple eyes.
That was when his hatred towards the bitch was truly set in stone. He did not even bother bestowing her third whelp with a Velaryon name, instead letting his son give him the common name Joffrey, for his paramour supposedly. He did not understand. His son claimed the bastards as his. The couple paraded the boys as trueborn heirs of the two most powerful families in the Known World. Laena was nothing but a doting aunt to them and even arranged to betroth them to her daughters. He had wanted to speak out; to travel to King’s Landing to disavow the boys as not being of his own seed in front of the king, but he could not. Those same dragons that he had counted on so staunchly as his support now had their jaws pointed firmly at his throat. Daemon would certainly not allow any shame be wrought upon his beloved niece. Laenor declared in no uncertain terms that he would turn against him, should he try to dispute his bastards’ parentage. ‘You can only watch as the entirety of your legacy is inherited by mongrels, father.’ He had said, a vindictive smirk upon his face, ‘I believe it to be sufficient payment for all the shame you have had me endure.’
He had tried to beget another son upon his wife then. Yes, she was in her forties, but Alysanne had given birth at forty-four and his grandsire’s sister, Alyssa Velaryon, had given birth to his good-mother at forty six. He had hoped it would work. It did not. It had been the only option left to him. Addam and Alyn were sired in secret; there was no way he could bring them forward, lest he put them and their mother in danger. Laenor had no care for them, he had never even seen them and there was nothing but hatred and contempt in his eyes when Corlys had informed him of their birth. The realm was more likely to believe that Addam and Alyn were his sons and not Laenor’s, and Rhaenys would certainly not be happy to learn that her beloved husband had sired bastard children out of wedlock.
So he quietly despaired for about a decade, doing nothing as his son and daughter died, and then forced to have the bastard whelp he had named Lucerys as his ward afterwards. He was a good lad, Corlys had to admit, and would have made a splendid lord of Driftmark, were he trueborn. The boy displayed the same enthusiasm for sailing that reminded Corlys of his youth, fighting and eventually overcoming the seasickness that plagued him. He had begun to tacitly accept him as heir after a time, and even took him on a few voyages.
After one such voyage, he fell ill with a fever, and his nephew Vaemond, had the courage to do what he did not. He went to the king, declared the bitch princess’ children as bastards, and put himself forward as the heir and future lord of his seat. He had gotten his head removed and his corpse fed to the bitch's dragon as a result of his foolishness. Vaemond’s sons and Corlys’ other nephews and cousins protested the decision, and some of them lost their tongues or their lives as a result. The rest of his kin looked in askance towards him, expecting him to answer the injustice done upon House Velaryon. He could not, and so most of them turned against him during the war he had bled and been beaten for. Many ships turned cloak and fought with the Triarchy when they attacked their blockade during the Battle of The Gullet. They were burned by dragonflame just as the Three Daughters’ fleets were. The large Velaryon family tree had been trimmed so vastly that now the number of scions of the house remaining in the world could be counted in one hand. And all of it was because of a bastard and her bitch mother.
Before the war, he had thought that at least all his sacrifice would be worth it. Jacaerys and Lucerys would marry their cousins, Baela and Rhaena, who at least had Velaryon blood from their mother. At the onset of the war he thought they would win; they had more dragons to deploy on the battlefield and more lords sworn to the bitch queen than to the usurper. They had the most experienced battle commanders in him and Prince Daemon. He hoped this whole mess would be behind him in a few turns of the moon. He had been soundly mistaken.
Lucerys and the usurper's son had been slain each in turn, sparking the war in earnest. The Riverlands were conquered soon after by Daemon and his dragon. At that point things looked to be going well.
That was until his wife died, sent by the bitch queen against the forces besieging Rook’s Rest, only to find two dragons; Sunfyre and Vhagar, lying in wait to spring the trap. From what he'd heard, she had not turned away from the onslaught of facing two dragons, instead choosing to go to her death whilst taking at least Sunfyre with her. She had almost succeeded, maiming the golden dragon badly, rendering him useless for most of the remaining war. Still, Rhaenys was dead.
That was his breaking point. He had decided to withdraw his forces and retreat to High Tide, leaving the queen and her bastards to fend for themselves in her foolish war for the throne. His wife and children were dead. His granddaughters were Targaryens, the daughters of Daemon, and the bastard boy who was to be his heir had been killed as well. He had nothing else to fight for.
Jacaerys had been the one who to change his mind. He offered him the handship, legitimised his grandsons as they deserved, and even let them claim dragons alongside three other dragonseeds. Addam succeeded in that regard, claiming his late father's dragon Seasmoke. Alyn unsuccessfully tried to tame the wild dragon Sheepstealer, in quite a reckless manner in his opinion, fortunately only coming away from that ordeal with only mild burns. Addam Velaryon was then named heir to Driftmark at the prince's urging, as was his due. Jacaerys had not been fool enough to even dare press Joffrey's claim to an inheritance he had no legitimacy to, not with the threat of losing the Velaryon navy for his mother's cause looming large. Finally, his actual grandsons had gotten their due, even amidst all the loss and turmoil. Prince Jacaerys’ actions in that regard earned him Corlys’ begrudging respect. He would have made a capable king, Corlys had to admit, a much better monarch than his bitch mother for sure.
Jacaerys did not live long however.
After his grandson had claimed Seasmoke, Ulf and Hugh, the two betrayers, had claimed Silverwing and Vermithor respectively, and the brown girl Nettles had tamed Sheepstealer, Jacaerys sent his brother Joffrey and his granddaughter Rhaena with Joffrey's dragon and three other dragon's eggs to The Vale. He then sent his two young half-brothers, Aegon with his young dragon and Viserys with his dragon's egg to Pentos. He did this to keep the four of them safe for the remainder of the war. On the way to Pentos, the ship they were on met the Triarchy ships sailing towards the Gullet to break the Velaryon blockade. Aegon, now the king, had barely escaped the Triarchy forces on his young dragon, flying back to Dragonstone in the midst of a storm of scorpions and catapults being fired at him. He came in haste, to seek help in freeing his brother Viserys from the enemy’s clutches. That was the only flight the little Aegon took on his young dragon before the dragon died from half a hundred wounds. Jacaerys and his dragon riders responded immediately, flying to put the enemy fleet to rout and try to rescue the young prince. In the chaos of the battle, Jacaerys, looking for his half-brother Viserys, flew too low and was killed. The Triarchy and his rogue kin reached High Tide and Spicetown, sacking both and putting them to the torch. The enemy was put to rout yes, but it was a victory with too much loss for it to be considered one, and Viserys was lost and presumed dead.
After that battle, the queen and her new Dragonriders took the capital, and that was when her foolishness was truly put on display for the entire world to see. Corlys laughed at the memory of her idiotic reign. Her downfall came from the common folk of the city, not Vhagar with the Kinslayer riding her, not even the dragonriders, Ulf and Hugh who betrayed her and fought for the usurper instead. No, it was from the common folk. A monarch had to be extremely foolish to rouse their anger. He had never thought a queen could engineer her own downfall in such a manner.
Her short and mediocre reign began to unravel when they took the Red Keep, only to find that the treasury had been looted. The usurper's Master of Coin, Tyland Lannister, was brutally tortured to find out where said gold had vanished to. He revealed nothing. Instead of sourcing coin by seizing the treasuries of the lords who had supported her half-brother, or borrowing from the Iron Bank to pay them back to once the war came to an end and trade was restored, the dragon queen, by the advice of his illustrious new Master of Coin, Bartimos Celtigar, imposed taxes on the common folk of the city, common folk who had suffered hunger since the Riverlands went aflame under the Kinslayer's and Vhagar's wrath, and the supply routes from the Reach had been seized by the usurper's youngest brother and the host he commanded.
As she deployed her dragonriders all over the realm to deal with The Greens; (her husband and Nettles west to hunt the Kinslayer on Vhagar, Ulf and Hugh south to destroy the usurper's youngest brother and his dragon), dissent in the city was sown. The illustrious dragon queen soon became known in the city as Maegor with Teats for furthering the hardship they had fallen on instead of trying to alleviate it. The usurper’s sister-queen then killed herself, and word spread throughout the city that Rhaenyra was the one responsible. The usurper’s toddler son was torn apart by innkeeps far south in the realm, and the denizens of the city were certain that the bitch was the one responsible for it.
The dissent came to a boiling point when the city folk stormed the Dragonpit by their tens of thousands and killed the five dragons that resided there, at the urging of a one-armed street urchin, who convinced the populace that dragons were the cause of their downfall, and only with the death of those ‘demons’, would they be liberated from the hardship they were going through. They were right, he supposed. Instead of flying on Syrax, who resided on the Red Keep’s courtyard, and turning away all who tried to storm the dragonpit, the queen fled the city after her last bastard Joffrey tried to do the same and died for it while she just watched. Despite himself, Corlys chuckled. Her bastards were truly mongrels. Even he knew that one could never mount a dragon that was bonded to another. Joffrey assumed her mother’s Syrax was familiar enough with him to accommodate him for a short flight; he was thoroughly disabused of that notion when Syrax shook violently, throwing the whelp from her back, sending him falling to his death. Syrax then went feral, destroying a part of the city with her flames before joining the carnage in the Dragonpit and getting killed by tens of thousands of smallfolk. Six dragons died that night, and more than a hundred thousand of the common folk who had killed them.
Maegor with Teats fled King’s Landing soon afterwards and went to Dragonstone, straight into the jaws of her usurper brother. Her only remaining child watched as she was devoured by Sunfyre, who had healed enough from his ordeal in Rook’s Rest and had promptly flown to seek out his master in Dragonstone, killing Baela’s Moondancer and the wild dragon Grey Ghost in his wake. Sunfyre died soon after however, from the fresh wounds he took fighting the two dragons.
Corlys had been in the Black Cells when he heard the news. Despite being near death from starvation and the injuries he had suffered during his imprisonment, he had found the strength to be happy of the Black Queen’s demise. Her dying in the most ignoble way possible served her right. She had had him chained and beaten for rescuing his trueborn grandson from her executioner’s blade.
When Ulf White and Hugh Hammer proved themselves traitors and turned their cloaks, she had ordered that all the Dragonriders deployed by Jacaerys be attainted for treason and detained. Daemon, in the Riverlands hunting Vhagar, sought to protect Sheepstealer’s rider instead of obeying his queen's word. He therefore sent Nettles away and went on to face the Kinslayer and Vhagar by himself, both dragons and their riders dying in the resulting duel.
The bitch queen had dared to order Addam be tortured to ‘ascertain his loyalty’. He could not have that, of course, so he forewarned his grandson, urging him to flee to one of the Free Cities and await the end of the war. The two Targaryen factions would all kill each other and all their dragons, he had reasoned, leaving his house, House Velaryon, as the only remaining dragonlord house. Addam could easily claim the Iron Throne for himself if he so wished, being the only remaining descendant of Old King Jaehaerys. And with him having Seasmoke, none would gainsay his ascension.
Addam, Corlys came to find out, did not share his vision. He was instead plagued by delusions of loyalty. Instead of finding solace in the East, he flew to gather fresh levies from The Riverlands to attack Tumbleton, where the traitor dragonriders roosted, ‘to prove myself to the dragon queen’, he had declared foolishly. Addam and Seasmoke died in that battle. Once Corlys was discovered to have aided Addam in his escape, he was seized, beaten as if he was some slave or a common born miscreant and then thrown into the Black Cells. He had languished in darkness there for weeks until Larys Strong pulled him out, telling him that the usurping King would have his allegiance, or Baela, now a hostage after her dragon had died battling the usurper’s, would be beheaded.
He agreed, thinking that matters would yet be set to rights since Rhaenyra had been fed to a dragon, and her foolishness had been vanquished with her. It turned out that it had not. A shorter, sadder reign of Aegon the Usurper followed the short, sad reign of her bitch sister. Instead of trying to unite the wartorn realm under his banner, as Corlys had advised him to do, he sought vengeance on all the Lords who had supported the pretender before him. His folly was even greater than his sister’s, and Corlys did not think that possible. The charred husk that was the usurper did not even have a dragon to enforce his will, and the attacks he made on the petty lords of the crownlands only served to rouse the rest of his sister’s remaining loyalists. The Vale had inexplicably finally found ships to sail their men down the Narrow Sea, Stark and his Northmen finally bestirred themselves from their frozen wasteland and marched south two years after Jacaerys had made the grandly named Pact of Ice and Fire, and somehow, the Riverlands respawned even more men to battle and slaughter the now waxing Baratheons, the usurpers greatest supporters whose forces were largely unbloodied. The usurper was left exposed, naked, with hosts marching from all directions.
War would come to King’s Landing once more, and at that point, he was truly tired of it. His time in the Black Cells had done much to make him weary. The madness had to end. And so, he poisoned the usurper and declared his namesake nephew king two days before the Rivermen reached the gates of King’s Landing. He had thought the war well and truly over, that is until Cregan Stark and his host of ten thousand reached the city soon afterwards and took it over.
That the young wolf harboured ambitions of conquering the entirety of the realm for himself Corlys could clearly see, veiled as his ambitions were by the pretext of preventing fresh rebellions down the line when the boy lords whose fathers were slain in the war grew into manhood. ‘Small babes become large men in time, and babes suck their mother’s hate with their mother’s milk,’ he had said. When Corlys had pointed out how Aegon thought the same and perished for it, Lord Stark accused him of regicide in view of the entire court, and had his men seize him and imprison him once more, to be executed soon enough. That was two days ago.
Seventy-eight years. Corlys had lived seventy-eight years and in all that time, he had never imagined himself becoming a Kingslayer and dying for it. Adventurer, sailor, builder, king, husband and father. He had imagined all those titles for himself. But never Kingslayer. The rest would never matter, he knew now. Only ash remained of the towns and castles he had built. He could scarcely walk up a flight of stairs let alone brave the seas aboard The Sea Snake. His wife was dead. His daughter was dead. His son was dead. Remembering them now brought nothing but pain and guilt. A parent should never send their children into the sea. And what had he given them for the entirety of their lives, apart from grief, pain and suffering due to his ambition. Laena, his pearl, the loveliest lady in the whole world, had suffered for almost a decade, betrothed to a Braavosi wastrel, before Daemon had rescued her and taken her to wife instead. Laenor, his son, his brave boy, the first dragonlord of House Velaryon’s storied history, died with an empty soul, ashamed to the point of plotting against his own father.
He was only left with Alyn now. Any hope of restoring his house to what it had been before lay with him. And there were the twins too, Corlys supposed, Laena’s lovely girls, but they were more their late father’s daughters than his own grandchildren. They were Targaryens.
Despite himself, Corlys laughed. Long and hard and throaty until tears streaked his ruddy cheeks when the realisation came to him. No matter how much he despised and mocked Maegor with Teats and her dolt of a brother for their follies, Corlys had truly been the greatest fool of them all. He had risen high, driven by ambition of legacy and glory and he had achieved all that. He had married a princess who would have been queen. He had had children and grandchildren who rode dragons. He had built a city on his dreary island, making it the greatest port in the Known World and given his house power never before seen. And yet, all that was gone now. In two days he would die, and Corlys Velaryon would die with nothing, he would die being nothing.
8th Day, Fourth Moon, 131AC | The Red Keep - King’s Landing
CREGAN STARK
Cregan Stark walked towards the godswood of the castle. Unlike the one at Winterfell, the one at the Red Keep had only a single weirwood tree among a sea of oaks and roses and other flowers. That had surprised him. He did not imagine that a castle built by dragon kings would even have a place of worship for the Old Gods. But he was glad of it. Still, he was itching to go back North. Winter was here, and his place was at Winterfell.
Every day he spent at this cesspit of a castle, he wondered why he had even come south in the first place. Oh, right, he harboured foolish ambitions of conquering the Seven Kingdoms. He had waited for the Targaryens to fully obliterate each other in their foolish war, before daring to bestir himself and marching his forces south. ‘They were still collecting their harvest’, he had told the dragon queen, 'The North was vast, and it would take time to gather their men’. All of it was a lie. They had been done collecting the harvest two moons before even Prince Jacaerys had landed his dragon in Winterfell's courtyard; and that was more than two years ago now.
It was shortly after the Princeling had left Winterfell once he had received news of his brother's death, that the notion of ruling the Seven Kingdoms occurred to him. Why shouldn’t a King with Stark blood rule these kingdoms, he had asked his half-sister. They had been kings for eight thousand years; they were kings before even the Valyrians had tamed their dragons and forged their Empire. If there was any man with legitimacy once the Targaryens died, it was them.
So he let the war unfold, anticipation swelling within him every time he heard of a dragon and their rider having fallen in battle. Normally, when Winter came, the old, the helpless and those without hearth, home and family, would venture out into the snow to go ‘hunting’, without any intention of returning, until spring came forth at last. This time however, he had held back all the men. They would have enough land to resettle once his conquest of the continent was complete. Food and hearth and home would be there aplenty for the Northmen once his conquest was done and the entire continent bowed to the Starks. Rodrick Dustin and his Winter Wolves had disobeyed his directives and marched two thousand men south, but alas, they were dead, and they were but only a small part of the armies he could raise.
Soon enough, the dragons died, and Cregan marched, to bring the whole continent to heel has he thought he would do. The rest of the realm was devastated. It would have been easy to conquer their castles, each and every one. A king with Stark blood would sit the throne, he had promised himself.
Arriving at court, his ambitions had been shattered thoroughly. King’s Landing was truly a shithole of cesspit and intrigue. Here, Cregan learnt that a king could be poisoned as easily as he could breathe. Men cared not a whit about the oaths they swore, be they knights or men-at-arms or even those meant to be the king’s closest advisers. They were all snakes, he realised, whether they were of the sea or not. They would never be safe here, should they even succeed in their conquest. He had no place here, he realised; the Starks had no place here.
He instead decided to give justice to those who had used a coward's weapon in dispatching a king. Whether he was a usurper or not, whether he was a pretender or not, a king should never be killed by such treachery. The Sea Snake, The Clubfoot and their cronies would pay for their crimes two days from hence, Cregan swore to himself as the godswood came into view. He had come to say a prayer to the Old Gods, asking for absolution for the blood that would be on his hands after the executions.
Shock was plain on his face when he encountered Lady Rhaena sitting in a corner of the garden, feeding her hatchling large chunks of meat. The pink dragon was already the size of a hound, not counting her wings, and with a ravenous appetite from what little he had seen of her. The sight of the dragon always gave him pause, and he was not the only one. Even the boy king had ordered his sister to keep the dragon out of the castle grounds and away from his sight, but it seemed that Lady Rhaena had no compunction of following such a command. He stood, planted to the ground as he watched the hatchling breathe pink flames streaked with black on the goat’s flesh in front of her, charring it, before savagely tearing large chunks with her black teeth.
The dragon was the first to notice him. She turned her small head towards him, her black horns glittering in the morning light, her eyes wholly focussed on him, as if staring into his soul. The Lady followed her dragon’s gaze, seeing him.
“Lord Stark,” she greeted, with a warm sultry voice and an inviting smile, “have you come to bask in the morning sun as I have? Winter has come, making it quite rare for the sun to come out, it would be remiss not to bask in whatever little sunshine we get.”
Remembering his courtesies, Cregan responded, “I have actually come to pray, my lady.” The dragon stopped gaping at him at long last, and returned to her food, the smell of the roasting of meat reaching his nose and whetting his appetite. He had not yet broken his fast, Cregan remembered.
The lady seemed to think on his words for a moment, “Oh, forgive me my lord,” she replied, after finding her words, “I seem to have forgotten that not all of us worship in the Sept like I do.”
“It is no trouble My Lady,” Cregan told her, her minor slight quickly forgotten.
“The weirwood is that way my lord. It is secluded from the rest of the garden, so I believe Morning and I should not bother you as you say your prayers.” she replied, pointing towards the direction he had already been told would lead him there. He began to walk towards it. Cregan did not desire to remain in the presence of a dragon. This one might only be a hatchling, half a year old, an infant in human terms, but on his march, he had passed through the Riverlands and had seen for himself the devastation the dragons had wrought.
“My Lord?” Lady Rhaena called out to him once more. He turned back to see her stood up from where she had been seated. Cregan turned to face her, “I would humbly request you to free my grandfather from captivity.”
Cregan stopped himself before he scoffed, “And why would I do that?” The snake had committed the highest of treasons; execution was the only outcome for him.
Lady Rhaena’s smile grew wider, but Cregan saw a flash of something fierce beneath her courtly facade, “You said it yourself,” she paused, picking the goat’s leg and holding it in her hand, the hatchling’s pink form immediately jumping on her shoulders to follow her food, roaring at her, or attempting to; the roars came out as squeals, “small babes become large men in time, and a babe sucks down his mother’s hate with his mother’s milk.” The lady held up the goat's leg before turning to the creature on her shoulder, saying something to her in a language Cregan did not understand. In a flash, the goat’s leg was bathed in gleaming pink flames, this time without any streaks of black, then the dragon tore into the flesh with her black teeth.
He did not see the goat’s meat burn. He saw pink flames consuming the Great Keep of Winterfell, and thick black smoke rising into the skies above the North. He heard the screams of the burnt and the burning, all of them begging for death. Cregan immediately understood.
Her charming and demure smile suddenly morphed into a deadly smirk as she walked closer to him, leaning forward and whispering in his ear in a voice as sweet as honey, “The Hour of the Wolf may be the darkest hour in the night, but the sun has never failed to rise, and with it, Morning comes.” The squeal the hatchling produced at those words was a great roar of an eldritch monster of the tales he had been told since he was a babe.
As quickly as she had leaned in and whispered in his ear, she turned away, walking gracefully towards the castle, the train of her dress trailing behind her and the hatchling flying above her.
Comments
Neyra
I'm glad you like it Diego. Yes to dragonlords acting like it. Do read on. I hope you like the rest.
Diego
Beautifully written. Loved the last part , it gave me goosebumps.
