Chapter 19: The Great Tourney of Dragonsreach Part 7
125
Prince Daemon Targaryen
One thunderous crack, and Prince Daemon Targaryen's delusions about his nephew shattered. He hated it, the delusions comforted him. To be fair, they barely clung to his mind throughout the sennight of sporting events and feasting, he didn't need the literal out of body experience of seeing himself flying out of the saddle after his nephew's lance shattered against his breastplate to move on from believing Aegon's prowess as a grand conspiracy. Rumor made the boy out as a demigod, making disbelief logical.
As they commonly say, feeling a hit to the chest all the way in your balls is believing, like his stones possessed greater inertia than the rest of him and tugged his sack down as he took flight. Never had he considered his perfect round and heavy testicles an impediment, for even in walking they added an extra swagger, but after feeling them tugging in a direction the rest of him isn't going sans the cradling of feminine hands added a new line of ponderance to this new raw reality he found himself in after feeling every pound of the truth on his chest.
Sometime after he realized that he wasn't dead, but before his balls and brain stopped rattling round in their containers he managed to mutter out, "Sword."
No one besides himself heard his faint cry, so after he worked himself back to his feet he called out again, this time shouting with the full power of his bruised chest, "Sword!"
This time his second heard him and brought him out Dark Sister after he picked up his heater shield - painted black with a red three headed dragon -off the ground.
"Prince Daemon wishes to continue with a contest of arms!" bellowed the crier, a man with hefty lungs to be heard with all the cheering going about.
A man might think Daemon crazed for requesting a duel with his nephew, the man who won the melee so handily he looked like the only full grown man in the arena, beating down untrained boys instead of the best warriors of Westeros. Perhaps the fall did more damage to his head than he noticed, but the Rogue Prince trusted two things above all others, the dragon Caraxes - a beast so fearsome he contended for the title of greatest dragon of the age against the much older and larger Vhagar - and Dark Sister in his hand. He felt power traveling from the hilt of his ancestral sword up his arm, soothing his body, metaphorically, but it felt a powerful metaphor, like invincibility.
He'd been the greatest swordsman in Westeros, and thus world wide, since before Aegon was even born. The defeat to Cole didn't count as the cunt cheated, hitting him in the back as he celebrated his victory over the downed man. Fucking Dornish mongrel. Daemon decided that if today was the day for his delusions to come to an end, then let them come to such an end that he never may ask himself, 'What if?'.
Aegon came down his zorse the biggest mountain of muscle and metal Daemon ever saw. The boy stood a hand past seven feet, and weighed thirty stone lean outside his wargear. Arms bigger round than his uncle's thighs, thighs that looked bigger round than his uncle's waist. Chest like an aurochs, shoulders like boulders, hands like bear paws, dressed in thick wool, riveted chain, lambskin backed steel gilt grotesquely with silver and gold - the decorations all skulls and suffering. The pauldrons and gorget like a golden rampart, the horned helm like a demon rising over the walls. His hands carried his Valyrian Steel sword and shield, the latter bore the golden three headed dragon of his cadet House, the latter hard to keep track of as it undulated seven times along its blade length making its profile more difficult to follow with the eye like a straight edge sword. The dark ripples of magical steel formed a mosaic of seven stars along mirror silver blade, as if a personal provocation to him.
His nephew looked unassailable as he strode across the lane to him, and Daemon found the will to break that image, running at the boy ready to put his every advantage to use. The Rogue Prince possessed a unique sense of balance and gifted athleticism that remained strong even past forty namedays. The combination allowed him to generate power from awkward and overextended positions, a nasty surprise for his enemies only made nastier by his precise wrist control of Dark Sister, able to easily change angles mid strike to slip under defenses.
Aegon parried his uncle's first strike with Chimera's Wail, the ringing of magical steel filling their ears. Daemon felt like his sword bounced off a stone wall, perhaps worse for the enchanted sharpness would at least bite into stone, but he smiled as he bounced off and entered into bad posture for a follow up, but follow up he did with great strength behind it. He felt glee as he angled the blade around Aegon's, practically feeling the coming contact already, when suddenly he felt as if a galloping horse ran into him, and his feet left the earth and his eyes found the substance rapidly closing in on him. He cradled his head in his arms and groaned on impact. He scrambled to get his nephew in his field of view and saw the boy nearly atop him. He raised his shield and felt a great force drive it down. He looked at his shield briefly and saw the point of Aegon's kite shield driven through it completely, now resting against the decorative black scales of his armor. Any hope of getting Dark sister into play ended when the tip of a sword filled his vision.
"Good fight." his nephew, spoke, then lifted the sword and shield away.
Daemon collected himself and rose to his feet as Aegon stepped back, then growled, "I didn't yield!"
"I hoped you'd say that."
Aegon's words filled Daemon with a sudden dread that overcame his the crying of his bruised body and even more bruised ego. He barely got Dark Sister between the wavy blade and himself, no longer able to put what little reliance he had on the shield after its structural integrity no longer remained intact. He had to shuffle his feet to absorb the blow as it felt less like a sword and more like a hammer on the receiving end.
Daemon danced, his footwork and the indestructibility of Dark Sister keeping him in the fight as his rage mounted. Aegon attacked him with a pace that looked completely casual, but maintained a constant pressure that kept him just on the end of the range of the much bigger fighter. As frustration mounted, Daemon saw a chance to dart in and attack. He thrust his sword high, up and over the lazily held shield.
Once again the older fighter felt victory nearing, then Aegon dropped low and caught the lunging Daemon on his kite shield, and in a feat of strength and mockery flipped the charging man up and over him, the massive fighter spinning around to smack the falling man with the flat of his blade on the helmet.
"Wow. Good fight. Good fight." his nephew chuckled at his expense and his ears rang and his body screamed at him to stop.
While Daemon collected himself, his nephew stabbed his sword in the ground and used the edge of his shield like a bench, slowly clapping his armored hands. He continued the nonverbal insult until his uncle caught his wind once again and struggled once more to his feet. The pair squared off once again, one completely fresh and at ease, the other shaking with fatigue and pain as the crowd booed him. Daemon swallowed the bitter feeling of inadequacy being so outclassed in his own field of expertise, and settled in to do his duty. Aegon needed to die, and he'd never get a better chance to do so again, not while his brother still lived and reigned.
If Aegon was some lay-about slob, a drunken loser, he'd never enter Daemon's mind, especially not as a threat, but before him stood the finest man in the world. How he loathed admitting that. His brother somehow fathered on the Hightower chit pure Valyrian supremacy. It disgusted him to no end, the idea of anyone in his family able to achieve completion with an Andal, but somehow the sullying of their family line created this monstrously gifted boy, and there is no way a boy this great will allow his inheritance to pass to a woman.
He needed the boy to become arrogant with the beating, and present an opening for Dark Sister to thrust into an armpit or the groin, one thrust to secure his future dominion. If he failed, it would be up to Caraxys to secure the throne. How he wished the world worked like the ignoramuses think it does. How he wished he could simply solve all his problems with a visit to a specific temple in Braavos, drop some gold off and let his problems disappear.
The Faceless Men don't work like that. The price of a man's life to them, is whatever is a price so dear to the purchasing party that they will never consider returning as a customer again, added to a fee that scales exponentially with difficulty. Even if Daemon somehow managed to afford it, the Faceless Men don't work on the customer's schedule, and simply guarantee that they are the victims future cause of death. Sometime, somewhere, somehow. They could wait till Aegon lived to see a hundred then strangle him in his sleep, mission accomplished, not at all caring that the customer is long since dead.
None of Daemon's contacts stood a chance of taking Aegon off the board. Assassinations are hard to pull off to begin with, and Aegon lives far from their sphere of influence in a castle he knows nothing about, protected by people ardently against his cause, served by people terrified of the man. Trying to get information out of the staff in the Blue Keep is like asking them if they'd like to be burned to death, or drowned. One maid went quite hysterical when he cornered her, and he nearly had to fight his way out of the situation when the household knights arrived. Aegon helmed a tight ship, and would do well on the Iron Throne. All the more reason to take the beating and wait for his chance. And take a beating he did, waiting for Aegon's mockery to open him up to a killing blow. And he waited, and he waited, and he waited until they hauled him off the field on a stretcher.
"Good fight." he heard his nephew let out one final jeer as they carried his battered body away.
His countering quip sounded no different than a pained moan, and Daemon felt his eyes welling up in shame. He failed. He never saw an opening. His body gave out before his nephews amusement, and the great Rogue Prince served as nothing more than a training dummy for the Young Dragon. How he hated that title the people foisted on Aegon. The Young Dragon, the future of the House of the Dragon. A future he failed to safeguard against him. Daemon passed out with that failure hanging heavily in his mind.
-Rhaenyra Targaryen-
"The damage looks worse than it is." the cheery middle aged maester of the Blue Keep announced to the room full of concerned royals in his healing ward of the castle, "Prince Aegon is a master of beating men half to death, so unless the Prince came into the bout with pre existing injuries or illnesses, then there is little to worry about. He shall make a full recovery within three moons, but should be able to travel and tend to himself within a fortnight."
"Three moons?" asked the King with a tone of shock, "Why so long?"
"It is merely a matter of age, your grace." the man explained with a kindly smile to the king, "Prince Daemon is no longer a young man, and the body's recovery slows as we age, a night of drinking may have once seen us up in the morning and about our business in our youth, but now sees us terribly ill even two days hence. Though Aegon gave him no grievous wound with his sword, the multiple falls for a man his age is simply dreadful, and he will likely need to stay abed while his back heals. Fortunately the blood of the dragon burns bright in him, and his back isn't completely blown out from such a heavy pounding."
The king nodded his masked and crowned head and commanded, "Do all you can to see him recover quickly."
"As you command, your grace." he bowed to the king and went back to his work, treating the various highborn with elite enough status to reside in the castle's healing ward.
They already called it the Great Tourney of Dragonsreach, and many knights and lords put their health and safety on the line for chivalry, glory, and gold. Remarkably few men died, though she attributed that to Aegon's domination. Few men wanted to give their lives competing for second place prizes. The tourney structure allowed far more men to leave it with something to show for their efforts, even if the 'bronze' level prizes mostly amounted to the value of travel costs.
The feasting, the music, the dancing, the plays, and circus shows all combined to create a spectacle beyond any Rhaenyra remembered, all held in the idyllic lands of Dragonsreach. Perfect weather, perfect landscapes, perfect architecture. It all carved itself into the hearts of the visitors as if they'd been given a glimpse of the heavens here on the earth. She chided herself for the small part of her that felt grateful to Daemon for getting so injured that they needed to extend their stay. No small part of her never wanted to leave, return to dreary Dragonstone, her future the much lesser Red Keep.
After remaining an appropriate amount of time with her sleeping husband, the crown princess navigated to her favorite location in Blue Keep to soak away the stress built up watching Daemon take a bloody beating for the sake of his fragile pride. In the royal floor of the castle existed an exquisite palatial bath filled with piped water from mineral rich hot springs. No wonder Helaena became so beautiful in such a place, already within less than a sennight she noticed her skin feeling softer, and her hair more lustrous.
She waited a time in the changing room for the servants to attend her, a pair maids always awaiting visitors since her arrival, but none came. Eventually she handled undressing by herself, an annoying and tedious affair, and she'd alert her brother to the negligence of the staff when next she saw him. Full bereft her gay tourney garments, she pushed open the door to the baths, and heard exactly why the serving girls where not at their positions.
"Oh! OOHH! OOHHOOOHHOOO!" a woman squealed in ecstasy, "You are so magical!"
Rhaenyra thought to give the women a piece of her mind, boldly entering, then freezing when seeing her half brother's impossibly broad back rising out of the pool, a pair of slender legs failing to lock around his wide hips as his hips and ass rocked back and forth with such power that waters below splashed out of the sides of the massive bath. The attendant not currently occupied sprawled out on the edge of the bath, her jaw slack and her eyes rolled back in her head. She couldn't look away, completely enchanted by the sight of Aegon's muscles rippling under his skin. Finally he stopped his efforts as the woman let out the most animalistic moan she'd ever heard, and the legs finally gave up their attempts to lock around his hips.
"It's not enough." her brother growled, the sound sending shivers down her spine and flexing throughout her soaking cunt.
He rested the fucked unconscious servant across another edge of the bath and looked at the statuary of the founders of their dynasty briefly before turning and locking eyes with her. If her presence surprised him, he didn't show it, instead he fixed her with the most intense stare she'd ever seen, and it felt as if her field of vision narrowed until only he filled her sight. They remained still, silent, staring at each other for an unknown amount of time, until finally he spoke.
"How bout it then?"
She couldn't find the words, but a half nod was all he needed. Her brother rose out of the bath, and approached, towering over her, his tower the first thing to come in contact with her, poking her sternum then sliding up the valley of her breasts till it rested against her face by the time he came close enough to lift her. Two massive hands engulfed her ass cheeks, pulling them wide and taking her into the air. She hadn't felt a mans hands dominate her ass since Luke's birth, the weight she gained stubbornly clinging to her backside making even Harwin's hands not enough. Aegon teased her holes with his finger tips while completely enveloping her cheeks. It felt divine to feel small again in the embrace of a man.
Rhaenyra's delight broke when she felt the head of Aegon's massive cock pressing against her vulva, realizing that he was about to drop her onto the biggest rod she'd ever seen. She needed to say something, to stop him before he brutishly tore her pussy apart, instead she simply moaned much like the previous woman the moment he pushed his member into her, stretching and filling her up like never before. It defied sense. Such a huge object should wound her, but instead all she felt was incredible satisfaction as she sunk inch by delectable inch inside her.
Her face twisted in shock when she felt her cunt snuggly embrace the base of his cock. She didn't understand how this could possibly be, both Harwin and Daemon could reach spots too deep and cause her pain in certain positions, but now all she felt was pleasure. Rather than give her time to speculate or question him, Aegon began rolling his hips powerfully, his hands on her cheeks pulling her back down as if the pull of the earth was not enough. Up and down he bounced her on his enormous phallus, and any thought of pain left her mind and not even two minutes into the experience she felt herself reaching a medium intensity peak, and other not even a minute later, then a huge climax flowed by rapid small peaks that built into another world shattering orgasm.
"Congratulations. Your having a girl." Aegon spoke, making no sense to her, but she smiled as he spined her around on his cock, his huge hands on her stomach and chest supporting her as he began railing her from behind with her feet dangling in the air.
She found it less pleasurable than the previous fucking, but still loved every second of it until he'd had enough and carried her on his cock up to the waterfalls coming out of the sculpted dragon's mouths, setting her back on a semi-smooth shelf at the foot of the ancestors' statues. He grabbed her behind the knees and hiked her legs up higher than she ever remembered getting them, something about the intense fucking make her more flexible. She expected his massive body to weigh heavily on her, but instead he framed himself perfectly to slam his cock down into her without crushing her against the hard stone and his harder muscles. In this position he easily brought her to climax over and over, his cock stroking the fullness of her cunt and seemingly beyond in ways that drove all thoughts but of him out of her mind. She felt him erupt inside her again, feeling intense pride at the volume and intensity of his orgasm.
He pulled back and out of her well fucked cunt, and she felt both relieved and disappointed that this incredible sexual encounter was at an end. Relieved that she hadn't passed out like the servants did, proud of her superiority both in status and womanhood. She expected him to help her up and down from this perilous footing, but instead he seemed to pin her legs farther back, bringing her cunt and ass up. She didn't understand why he needed to pull out for this until she felt his cockhead pushing lower down than her cunt.
Her eyebrows rose and her eyes widened.
"Aego---woooaaaaahhhh!" she let out a bestial moan as her brother impaled his cock up her ass under the watchful stone eyes of their ancestors.
She wanted to say something, but the alien sensation of her brother plowing her butthole filled her mind with a haze that only intensified when he began twisting the huge pink tips of her massive breasts. How did he keep himself from weighing down on her and thrusting without his arms providing a frame, she didn't understand. All she knew was that he now assaulted her with intense pleasure from her tits and her ass. Soon she felt something building, something global across her whole body. Slow and steady it built up until it exploded and she felt completely adrift upon a sea of pleasure, her mind pulled in by the currents deeper and deeper.
She finally came to her senses some time later, in a bed. She saw Aegon next to her, not holding her, but atop another woman. She saw her sister, her face twisting with pleasure, her purple eyes looking back at her. She'd have felt a fury in a similar position, but Helaena smiled at her and reached out a hand, taking hers.
They'd never felt more like sisters before.
Chapter 20: The Great Tourney of Dragonsreach Part 8
125
Queen Alicent Hightower
The Queen felt adrift on the day of the tourney finals, the shortest day of jousting in the event in which the team with the highest total wins breaks up and competes against itself for the individual grand prize. She should feel only intense pride as her sons placed first and third in this grand and exhaustive tourney, but the cheering of her hated rival Rhaenyra for her oldest son, and the polite applause when he knighted his younger brother after winning the tourney by striking down Lord Commander Criston Cole, only made her feel confusion and mild betrayal.
What had her children done behind her back to bring this about?
She observed the interplay between Aegon, Helaena, and Rhaenyra as the nobility of Westeros returned home - the royal family staying behind during Daemon's bed bound convalescence - and found herself growing more and more wrothful as suspicion crept in and made space in her head. Wide genuine smiles, lingering touches, the Crown Princess looked more a maiden in love than a mother of five. She laughed freely around her son such as right now.
"You laugh, but it is sincere." Aegon explained to the too close harlot at a family meal in the lord's chambers of the Blue Keep, "My disdain for the Dornish is a matter of the intellect, a reasoned position free from emotion. In fact, emotionally I'm quite fond of them. The pride and passion, I understand it." his head tilted towards her as his lip turned up at the side of his mouth causing Rhaenyra to gaze at his lips with a whorish longing that curdled the Queen's guts, "If I walked in their shoes, that defiance I so loathe would blossom in my bosom, just as in theirs. They've the right to self determination, to resist domination, and are rightly proud of their achievements no matter how serendipitous." the pair drew closer as Aegon's tone lowered throughout, "That said… I'm a Targaryen, and Dorne must be destroyed. This peace between Father and Qoren, it won't last. The Martells are merely bolstering their strength and waiting for us to become complacent. The renewal of the conflict is inevitable, as is its conclusion, dragon banners shall fly from the Red Mountains to the Summer Sea."
"So certain, as if you've foreseen it already. Do you Dream, Aegon?" Rhaenyra asked him, coyly, tone between humoring him and hanging off his ever word.
"Dream?" his countenance rose briefly, nostalgic, then settled into a familiar smugness, "No. I have Dreamed, and have a dream, but I Dream no more. My eyes see neither history, nor mystery, only the present, and I find it such a gift." he spoke the last with a rumbling hunger.
Soon after Rhaenyra took her leave and not long after that so too did Aegon. He returned to the larger family gathering hours later with a lightness in his steps she recognized. A lightness of the balls. Alicent retreated into a private chamber in the apartment she and her husband occupied and screamed into the throw pillows on a couch near the fireplace.
"Summon Aegon." he commanded Ser Criston after regaining her composure.
Her mind composed diatribes and tossed them aside with a speed expected of a woman who remained on top of the hierarchy her entire adult life, and when her son finally appeared at the doorway, her verbosity failed and she only asked, "Why?" in a tone of broken confusion.
For a young man known for his stoic composure, Aegon had a pair of very judgy eyes. He languidly stalked across the room and poured himself a drink before easing down into a leather chair.
"Do you know why men build castles?" he began and his mother cut him off.
"Spare me the rhetorical tricks! This isn't about me, it's about her! Why Aegon? Why?" Alicent shouted at her eldest as he gazed on her evenly, non reacting to her heated plight.
She admired that about him, Aegon's ability to school his countenance to the point he looked more like something carved of stone or ice than flesh. She'd seen him out solemn lords from the North, the most dour of kingdoms, and then cheer and out drink them. As admirable as it may be, it riled up her wrath.
"False security." he responded, unbothered by her tone, "It's the blows we don't see coming that end us, and this is just another in a long line of deceptions designed to prey on her feminine mind. Just enough tension to keep her from thinking me too tame, and thus a liar, and enough affection to bait the trap. I've invited her to blindfold herself in lust, and she tied the knots so willingly."
Aegon emptied his chalice, and provided the emptiness a look of lament more sincere than any he'd ever given a suffering or dead person. It caused her skin to crawl, those little gestures that let her know that he is capable of genuine human emotions, simply not for others. That alien mindset makes working with her son incredibly trying, for how can one reason with a man that counts two and two as blue?
"How could this have possibly been necessary? You have denigrated yourself, dishonored your wife, and scorned your children. Is this some disgusting plan to raise your son with HER as King? To avoid your sacred duty?"
Aegon leaned forward in his chair and fixed her with an unamused and unperturbed glare, "Speak not of duty to me woman, for the yoke I shoulder self selected is far beyond your ken. Necessity? Nay, mitigation. Preservation of my resources for the wars to come. You think this ends at the Iron Throne. I know it only begins there."
Alicent grit her jaw and furrowed her brow as she boiled in rage and then unleashed her vitriol in low growling, "You speak to me, ME, the woman who has been Queen for decades, the woman who raised you, the woman who bore you, as a half wit. As if anything is beyond my ken! Get out!" she commanded her son, "I can't stand to look at you."
The relief on his face as he rose from his chair caused her to cry after he left the room.
-Prince Daeron Targaryen-
The Great Tourney of Dragonsreach imprinted itself on young Daeron's mind. The beauty of the city, the chivalry of the contestants, the spectacle of scale, the variety of delights and entertainment. People said it's a once in a lifetime event, and all who missed it are forever lesser, and at the top of it all, his family, his brothers, Aegon and Aemond, champions. One day, he'd stand beside them in honor and glory. Daeron, though young, knew what he wanted in life, and he wanted nothing more than to serve as the master-at-arms for his eldest brother. He wanted to make Dragonsreach his home.
He visited the city-in-waiting as often as possible. Tessarion, his beautiful Blue Queen, eagerly made the flights, and often urged him to fly to this southern bastion. She loved spending her days in the foothills of the Red Mountains alongside the larger Dreamfyre and Sunfyre. His agile and graceful partner danced in the warm air and hunted rich game in idyllic bliss as he enriched himself in the martial culture his brother fostered amidst the beauty their father built.
The Blue Keep felt right and good in ways the Red Keep never had, and King's Landing a blight compared to Dragonsreach. Daeron intended to never return from his squiring with his oldest brother. Aegon commanded order where their ancestors tolerated chaos. He demanded beauty where they accepted squalor. He restored Valyria when they allowed it to slip away. Daeron wanted nothing more of his life, than to do his part.
Dragonsreach brought their family together and allowed them to be happy. All his life, Rhaenyra's presence in the Red Keep, increasingly infrequent, caused strife. Everyone came away the worse for her visits, but this time, this time in the Blue Keep, not the Red Keep, his family smiled, they laughed, they danced. He still loathed his bastard nephews, and wished they didn't mar the beauty of the gathering with their loathsome First Man features, but even they seemed slightly tolerable when their mother twirled in his brother's arms, face alight with joy and love.
It's why he didn't understand her reaction to the precious gift he brought her. She looked at it like he looked at a frustrating puzzle.
On the day of the family's departure from Dragonsreach, the entire royal family journeyed to the hot springs in the hills that served as nesting ground for the dragons, and upon his arrival he obviously ran off to find Tessarion in her usual spot. The long sinuous cobalt and copper beauty coiled under a rock overhang, and around new life. Seven scaly eggs, each different mixes of golds, blues, coppers, and pinks.
The sight saw him running back to get his brothers, and Tesarion easily trusted the three of them to take her clutch. Aegon carried four, Aemond two, and the joyful Daeron carried the final powder pink and copper egg himself.
"Come look, everyone!" he gleefully announced, "Tessarion laid her first clutch!"
No one ever really bothered to make a big deal of the older dragons, Dreamfyre, Meleys, and Syrax, laying a new clutch, and Daeron never heard of Vhagar bring forth new eggs, but he loved Tessarion and wanted to celebrate her achievement and honor her new status.
"Seven eggs?" their father mused as her rubbed his remaining gloved hand over the pink and copper egg in his arms, "A full clutch. Sunfyre must be as virile as his rider."
Daeron's jaw dropped at how close that statement was to acknowledging Aegon's army of bastards. People joke that in Dragonsreach, Aegon doesn't practice the Right of First Night, but instead the Right of Any Night, but their father never tolerated any such 'slander' of his eldest son.
Recovering, Daeron moved towards Rhaenyra and declared, "A blessed number! And lucky, six for my brother's six children, and another," he presented the egg in his arms to his eldest half-sibling, "For your next babe."
That's how they found themselves, awkwardly standing there while Rhaenyra looked at his gift like it somehow did her wrong. Finally, she took control of whatever bothered her before it caused a scene and smiled, taking the egg from him.
"Thank you, Daeron." she said while looking him in the eyes with an expression like she just figured something out, "For this gift."
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Obviously, the Great Tourney of Dragonsreach is a parallel to the Great Tourney at Harrenhal, but an inversion of the MC's role. Whereas Jorah destroyed that rose tinted nostalgia about the event in Path, Aegon creates it in Reborn. Jorah rejected the idea that before Harrenhal, the knights were more chivalrous, the ladies more beautiful, and the princes more perfect, but Aegon instilled all of that.
Of course, someone had to put Aegon's plans in jeopardy by fucking someone he shouldn't have, and this time he didn't pull out. The plot is now locked in to the finish, all that's left is execution and motivation, the hardest parts!
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Chapter 21: Just Smoke
Crown Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen
'It's all just smoke'
The typhoon of rage and betrayal in her mind quieted enough for her to function in the world when her brother's maxim sounded in her mind, putting a temporary end to punishing duality of her thoughts moving both faster than a swallow's flight and slower than a trailing snail in opposite directions trying to figure out both the sequencing and severity of Aegon's betrayal, and the consequences and shame of her own part in facilitating it, all the while repeating in her head over and over: 'I've given my body to a man who intends to kill me'
'Just smoke'
Her brother's favored chastisement for his brothers whenever he found them unduly focusing on matters of lacking or non importance, she'd noted it down for teaching her own sons, whom lacked a strong connection to her uncle-husband as a replacement father figure after the deaths of Harwin and Laenor. She'd fantasized about them learning about how a man prioritizes and organizes his time from him through her, but now after seeing the seven dragon eggs she realized that more than anyone, it was her in need of wisdom.
'It's all just smoke'
Like scales falling away from her eyes, now she sees. She'd allowed the beauty, the strength, the money, the passion, all of it to blind her to her brother's true nature, his true intent, and most importantly of all his true method. The knights, the castle, the ships, the gold, all of it meant absolutely nothing to Aegon, all of it just smoke, hiding away the truth. Fire and Blood. The egg now in her arms, one of seven, the maximum clutch size, something not recorded since House Targaryen fled old Valyria. Two clutches a year of seven eggs each, a sign of blessing by the Fourteen Flames.
She never saw a single egg from the violent couplings of Syrax and Sunfyre.
How many dragons had her brother stolen from the family during his years as 'The Knight of the Pit'? Worse yet, how many of them took after their mutant freak of a sire? How many were waiting for one of his army of bastards to come claim them? She had to pull herself back from that line of inquiry before the despair cracked her fraying façade. She simply thanked her little half-brother for the egg, and secretly for revealing that her peaceful life has just been the preface to nightmarish tragedy, and got on her fat yellow dragon to begin the multi-stop return flight home, using the time between stops to quietly weep and let the head wind dry her tears enough to recompose herself to pretend to be the same confident Crown Princess she was on the route in, an act that almost shattered when the pink and copper egg hatched during their stop in Tumbletown.
A thick and bullish dragonling busted out of the egg with little preamble. She hadn't even put the thing in a fireplace or on coals since the journey started. Rhaenyra bit back a scream when the ball of muscles and scales leapt onto her bed in the Footley Keep and rubbed itself on her belly, thanking whatever gods cared that she'd laid with Daemon several times during their stay in Dragonsreach before his public beating saw him bed bound. Her battered husband groaned in his sleep next to her, his limited body needing rest after their morning flight from Highgarden. He flung himself from bed when he wakened from his afternoon nap and saw the thing, his usual catlike agility unable to save him in his infirmity from landing on the hard wooden floor.
Urraxes the Pink Dread brought great delight to her father during their short stay in King's Landing, the little creature quite docile and obedient despite its youth and voracious appetite. The thought that her father might bond with the dragonling briefly brought her out of her melancholy, but he claimed no greater connection between them, and Urraxes continued cuddling with her stomach, the sign not missed by her father, who congratulated her and his post-beating forgiven brother for the conception of another scion of the blood.
She used the flight home to Dragonstone to order her chaotic mind, and settled on a plan. She needed Daemon's help to start countering her brother, but she needed to inform him in such a way as to minimize his satisfaction for being right all these years about her brother. After his hips healed enough, she intended to ride him thoroughly a handful of times across the space of a fortnight, and only tell him of her horrible realization with his belly full of wine and his balls drained of seed.
Then they'd begin the work of taking back their dynasty.
- Gregor Waters -
The boy wanted to rip the rough wool tunic off his back. He wanted to scream back at knights and men-at-arms screaming at him and a hundred other shaved bald bastards to keep running. He wanted to beat the asses of all the dumb pricks that got his hopes up that this group of boys herded down the coast from Oldtown were going to become princes. He thought they were stupid and wrong from the start, but they wore him down during the trip, and the sight of his father, the father of them all, atop his massive zorse, armored in silver and gold and silk, with Valyrian Steel in hands. His suspicions caved.
Then the tournament ended, and they'd all been dragged off in the night, razors taken to their silver hair, their clothes stripped and burned, replaced by roughest wool after their skin was scrubbed raw with burning soap. Any who resisted were beaten with switches, and Gregor knew better than to catch a beating after seeing someone else get one.
Now they ran each day, carrying stones, while grown men screamed at them and beat them if they failed to keep pace. Days they'd done this without explanation, until all complaints abandoned their mouths and settled down in their hearts. Today their running route changed, the men running alongside of them leading them into the hills, and how his legs screamed and his lungs burned with each rise.
Then he came, flying amongst the clouds on a golden beast. Sunfyre the Golden landed over the next rise, and as they ascended a piercing whistle came from up ahead, and nothing else happened for a time, until a shrill roar came from somewhere off to the right, followed by another and another until the cries came from all around them.
Someone screamed as a golden dragon flew over them, close enough to fan them with the wind whipped up by its wings. Gregor wondered how Sunfyre managed to get behind them, but then noticed the smaller form and yellow wings instead of pink. The dragon beat them over the rise, and as they reached it the boys stopped in wonder at the sight of many dragons flying amongst the hills to a spring that steamed into the warm air. Sunfyre stood tall and proud at the bank of the spring as seven smaller dragons of golds, yellows, creams, and pinks circled and landed.
If Sunfryre stood tall and proud, the boy's father stood like a monument of calm amidst, the scrambling, almost goofy looking dragons rolling and trilling for attention from the big gold dragon and his rider. A second whistle from Prince Aegon, made with his fingers in his mouth, sounded out, and the eager dragons quieted and stilled.
The knights and men-at-arms led them down into the canyon, calling for a stop a hundred paces or so away from the assembled dragons. Their father came forth, cutting the distance between them with steps that thundered in his ears, as if destiny came with him.
Aegon Targaryen was everything Gregor ever dreamed of becoming, and he knew that all the other boys that came with him felt the exact same way. Larger than any man he'd ever seen, not just in height, but in width. He didn't have shoulders like an ox, oxen wished they had shoulders like Aegon. The arms coming out of his short sleeved green tunic looked like they could squeeze four men to death in a single grapple.
He wore enough gold on each hand to keep Gregor's whore mother paid for years, though he only needed ten minutes to seed her womb with a brat no amount of moon tea could strangle before he moved on to the next of the dozen whores he'd impregnated that night nigh eleven years passed. In fact, three of those boys were here with him now, forming a small faction within this hundred boy cohort.
"My sons." when Aegon spoke, he heard it clearly as if he stood right beside him, but from all around him, the man not yelling, but instead as if all other sounds took step back from the power of his voice.
It stirred some primal terror in Gregor, as if he saw now a devil standing planely in the daylight.
"Any single one of you can step forward now, and claim a dragon." he continued, but not a single one stepped forward, Gregor felt rooted in place, "Do so and I will rip you from the back of your dragon and dash you on the ground in front of it while it looks on in helplessness."
The boy believed him. Aegon Targaryen wasn't simply some larger than life character, he was truly larger than life in body and deed, they'd all seen his dominance with their own eyes, no man can stand against him.
"These beasts know true obedience to me, and only a man who knows the same will ever be granted the privilege to ride upon them in my service." Aegon declared, "I offer you a path that is hell on earth, but to he who is man enough to walk it, who proves himself not only worthy, but better, the reward is further hardship. Seven of you will become dragon riders, and princes. You will rule land, command armies, and hold life and death for all beneath you in your hands. A lifetime of service to me, and my legacy. The rest will be granted one final chance to rise above. Those who fail, will have nothing but my contempt, if even their lives. Decide now if you seek the path, or leave, and prove yourself a mongrel dog unfit to stand amongst men."
Gregor didn't even look around, no one left.
Aegon raised his fist in the air and declared, "So it begins."
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Show of hands, who realized the 'biggest secret in the world' was that Aegon had hidden dragons. I'd put down a fair bit of foreshadowing, but no one ever mentioned it in the comments.
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