24 City Planning

It took almost a whole day for Kael to wake up after the previous celebrations, one might think that he overdid it just like before, but after a whole year of practicing magic and learning, he would've been a complete idiot if he didn't know how to optimize his own magic output.

Dragonfire would still cause him trouble if he did just like he did when he first rode Neltharion, but he discovered that he could borrow the magic from his dragon instead of doing it all by himself, which eased the backlash considerably.

The drawback was that both he and Neltharion had to concentrate to make it happen, it took time and was impossible to do it in battle because of that so far. More needed to be learned and enhanced until he reached a point where he could just use his dragon's flames as his own, and that was IF that was even possible, his current situation was already beyond the limits of being humanly possible, he couldn't warg on Neltharion, and he doubted he ever could consider how complex dragons were, but they were connected way more than any bonded dragon and their rider ever could be.

His men weren't that worried though, none of them actually knew how deadly his last backlash was, if Valanar or Vaela were here he would be hearing some really nasty words.

Right now, he was sitting by his desk with a pile of parchment, a large amount of ink pots and brushes of different sizes. With everything being solved by his men he had plenty of free time until his sister arrived, time that he decided to spend practicing magic and planning his future kingdom.

After drawing many sketches of different buildings, disliking them and throwing them on the floor before going back to draw another one, he was frustrated, even Hogwarts was drawn and discarded for being 'Too classic medieval'.

'Why can't I think of a decent building style for my kingdom?' he kept biting the end tip of his brush, with a frown on his forehead.

"Think, Kael... Think!" he kept drawing medieval-style castles with round shaped towers but none of it looked… unique…

'I don't want to just mirror Valyria, I want my own identity based on Valyrian architecture… how to do it?'

For hours he kept drawing different castles he remembered from his previous life, he even managed to draw Minas Tirith but he didn't like it 'Not enough room for dragons'

He then made some simple sketches of Skyrim's holds and castles, but he didn't like any of them, not even the Imperial City. "The center tower is good, but the rest? Not big enough for my people… the Nord holds have the same issues… and in all honesty I don't want to replicate Skyrim, it was a great game but not my favorite…"

He tried Dark Souls but after a whole day he just gave up "No one will be able to build this!... fucking Anor Londo is too complex, grand for sure but to build this would take centuries and an ungodly amount of money and resources… I can't spend EVERYTHING on one city and leave everyone else living in temporary housing for ten fucking decades!"

After spending a whole week drawing castles, almost giving up, he suddenly had a thought 'Why don't I use another universe style that is not based on medieval times… but would fit...'

He started drawing round buildings mixed with square and rectangular-shaped buildings.

The focus was to draw one different building on each parchment, some were grander, some were simpler, but all shared the same architectural design.

His grin started growing wider and wider as he kept drawing a Palace. He didn't want to copy King's Landing, honestly, Maegor's Holdfast was magnificent, and the Red Keep was a work of art, but he wanted his own thing, something that would be unique in this world.

Once he finished drawing the castle, he placed it on a pile of other parchments that were all the ones that he made following the same design style and started drawing a picturesque idea of how the view of the streets would be.

'This will capitalize on the green plains, it will become a landmark in Planetos… the latest movies suck, hell… even the ones that came before suck… but this one city was a legend when it came to artistical design, and it did fit my Valyrian-yet-not-Valyrian theme'

After that was completed, he drew a top view of how he envisioned the city. Honestly, he wanted a circle like Valyria and Tyria, but the castle was bordering the chasm just like Red Keep was by a huge cliff, so he went for the next best, and closest, thing to it, a Half-Moon shape around the deep hole that would house all his dragons.

'I won't be keeping my dragons away from my capital, the Targaryens made that mistake… well in my opinion the whole King's Landing was a huge mistake, they should've swallowed more of the land and taken over the Reach and Highgarden, that castle was already masterfully planned, huge and beautiful and had the best and most prosperous land surrounding it. House Gardener was gone anyway… why give it away to the fucking Tyrells?!'

After such a long-secluded time, Aren came in wondering what his liege had been doing this whole time, Kael barely went out like he used to, most of his meals were sent here. Once he came inside the Lord's tent, he was shocked at how messy it was. Balls of parchment were all over the place alongside empty inkpots, even the rugs on the floor were stained with black ink, and sitting by the desk was his disheveled Lord staring at a pile of parchments like they were his treasure.

"M-my Lord?" asked Aren, already a bit worried if his Lord was sick.

Kael jerked up from his desk, jumping in fright, and then turned towards him with an angry glare.

"You damn bastard, don't jump-scare me like that ever again!" He shouted in anger.

Aren had to hold back his chuckle, and got curious about another one of his lord's 'unique wording'.

"Jump-Scare?"

"You scared me, and I jumped… isn't that a jump-scare?" He said while narrowing his eyes, but letting go, he was in too much of a good mood to be soured by an asshole.

Aren started chuckling "Aye, I apologize my Lord, it was just that you have been inside this tent for almost two weeks, we started to get worried… but even so, I wouldn't bother you if I didn't have a reason to, your orders were clear. But… it's been two weeks, as I said, and we received the message that the Lady is already about to leave the Freehold on her Dragon."

Kael was aghast "T-two weeks? but I only started drawing this city a few days ago…" he then stopped and looked around his messy room and chuckled wryly "… or so I thought…"

"Drawing a city?" Aren was amused, but he was more curious than amused.

Kael nodded proudly and offered him a pile of parchments "Here take a look, I created different building styles for our future capital, I'm not living in a Savage's Castle for the rest of my days, and what's the point of fully taking over if I would have to tear it down and build it again to my liking anyway? It's better to start fresh… and more importantly… next to that chasm, to keep my Dragons always close by."

Aren laughed at the term 'Savage's Castle', he went there and saw all three castles of Skagos and had to admit, although Kingshouse was somewhat decent, they were in no way shape or form enough to house Dragons, and the rest of the buildings were not up to Valyrian standards either, they didn't even have sewers… his lord was right, it was better to start from scratch than having to demolish everything.

After taking the pile of drawings he kept looking at each one of them with a somewhat critical eye, he did know his lord could draw well since he made the maps of the center of Skagos and it was incredibly useful to them, but it was the first time he was seeing such level of art.

"My Lord! These are amazing! They remind me of Valyria… but at the same time…"

"… They don't, right?" concluded Kael with a happy smirk on his face.

Aren nodded repeatedly "This Palace is not as big as the Capitol thought…"

Kael snorted and spat on the floor in disgust "Why would I create things that huge just for me and my family? Just to have to walk a massive flight of stairs just to reach the privy?! NO! I refuse!" He concluded while crossing his arms "The stairs be damned Aren! Did you know the Wall has Elevators? WHY WE STILL WALK ON FUCKING STAIRS?!" he lost it, shouting the final words.

Aren Tharn started laughing out loud, his family was a Noble one and they had a modest tower for themselves and many other normal sized buildings, but he could still understand his lord's plight, just looking at Regallyon Tower was enough to make him gulp imagining how many stairs there were in there… for no reason whatsoever… there were just two Regallyons and in history there were just a maximum of five Regallyons in one generation, and that was thousands of years ago, during the war of conquest against the Harpy empire.

"I… actually agree with you, my Lord, if those barbaric First Men actually managed to build contraptions that replace stairs to go up and down that ice wall, we should've done the same."

"I know right?!" Kael exclaimed. "Once more of our forces come and settle the island, I want you to send one of those birds that the old castles have to the King of the Starks and tell them that we are from Valyria, and want to have a good diplomatic relationship with them, tell them that we want to study the contraptions at Castle Black, and we are willing to pay for it."

Aren nodded "Aye… should I omit that we took over part of their land?" He chuckled as he asked.

Kael frowned and started to think "tell them that a Dragonlord family from Valyria wants to have a meeting with them… I will go East after my sister arrives, so you will have to let him know that it won't be that soon, but when I get back, I want to have a meeting, I will tell him that I took over Skagos myself, and if they declare war against me, I will show them how dangerous a Dragonlord truly is"

"Your will shall be done, my Lord. I just hope we don't have to conquer the entire Westerosi North so we can have peace here, unless that is what you want."

Kael shook his head "No, those lands have no value to me, Skagos by itself has little value to me as well, if it wasn't for those volcanic formations that is… I don't think the North has anything like that, they don't even understand what Frozen Fire is… they probably have no source of it, which means no volcano."

Aren nodded as he kept looking through the drawings "This will be a beautiful city and castle if we manage to build it like you have envisioned my Lord" he said while looking at the picturesque art of how it would look completed, the final art.

"Aye, it took me weeks to put that together, I tried many others but they looked just like any other Westerosi castle, and we Nobles of Valyria can't have it like that, can we?" Kael asked with a mischievous grin.

Chuckling at his liege's antics Aren agreed "Aye, we have our own people, we might settle in Westeros but we are Valyrians, one should never forget one's roots, have you thought of the name of the city?"

Kael looked upwards, fighting against his body to remain awake after spending so long immersed in his work "Aye… I could've called it Valyria, or New Valyria.. but that would sound pretty bad, wouldn't it? So, I thought long and hard and I came up with a name that would fit our Valyrian roots"

"Oh?"

Kael grinned "It will be called... Valinor…"

Aren's eyes went wide "That's… a really good name!"

"Right?" Kael chuckled. 'Tolkien was great with everything he created; names included…' he eyed the piles of drawings 'As for the city… I have another George to thank for that, Naboo was a beautiful place after all...'

[The image that Inspired me]