134
----
118 AC
The Summer Sea
Vearron Maegyr
----
"Is it working!?" I quickly ask as I enter my room upon the ship, my witch shakes her head though and I feel a pit form in my stomach. "What good are you?!" I see the girl jump but I ignore her and her witch candle.
The twins we hired to use their ancient Valyrian bloodline have failed us.
One with me and the other with my Brother were supposed to keep us in close contact using the glass candles they have had in their family for thousands of years. But the damnable things stopped working a few days ago, and we will be approaching Volantis in a day or two depending on the weather.
"I think something might have happened... I have a bad feeling." I raise a brow and turn to the skittish witch who just spoke up. "We have never failed to connect our candles before... not for this long at least." The pit in my stomach deepens.
Could something have happened to the other witch.
They could talk through the heatless white flame of the candles when we were still in Slavers Bay.
It makes no sense for it not to work now that we are closer.
Except... maybe if Old Valyria is messing with the magic, we are dangerously close to the southernmost point of the broken Peninsula.
Or.
Something happened back at my manse to the other twin, so she is not using her candle to connect to this one's candle.
That is also possible.
But that is... unlikely.
Everyone knows what is at stake, we have unified behind the vision of ridding Essos of the Dragons. No one would have attacked the other witch that was in communication with us, it only serves to spread uncertainty in those who left to buy the Unsullied.
"The Dragonlords could have done something..." I mutter aloud and as I voice my concern I feel the pit in my stomach turn into a chasm.
That... would be bad.
"Do you think they attacked already?" The witch nervously asks with her head down and her hands clenching her dress.
Fuck I hope not.
"If they did then we are sailing toward a lost cause, we needed the Unsullied to help man the Scorpions." We also needed more scorpions, even with one on every rooftop I would not feel it was enough but they only made a few hundred of them.
We need a few thousand at least.
Shaking my head I turn back around and head for the door, I need some fresh air.
----
Staring off at Valyria I feel a mix of dread and helplessness.
Damn dragons!
They should have all died in the cursed lands before me.
My ancestors failed those of the future by letting the Dragonlords survive in the West.
It should have been obvious they would eventually want to return back to the East, to the lands that birthed them.
But instead of finishing them off like they did the other Dragonlords who lived in the Free Cities after the Doom, they just forgot about them.
I mean it should have been obvious when Aegon the Conqueror rode Balerion to stop Volantis from reclaiming the other Free Cities into a New Valyria Empire. The Dragonlord riding the Black Dread came to the East and burned all of Volantis' fleet along with many of the men on the ground. The Stormlord of the Stormlands would help finish off the rest of the army and Volantis would fall into the incapable hands of the Elephant party.
Dragons.
It's always dragons that come in and leave everything in ruin.
I swear to the fourteen that the damn beasts sh-
Thunder reaches my ears and the hair on the back of my neck stands up, my body shivers, and my eyes widen. Slowly raising my head I do not see a single storm cloud in the sky, just a bunch of white fluffy wool-looking clouds.
"Oh no..." The thunder increasingly gets louder and I notice everyone on the deck of the ship is now looking upwards toward the sky. "Dragon..." My knees grow weak as an enormous black beast dives from a large cloud.
Fuck.
"Don't just stand around!" The captain screams from near the wheel. "Man the Scorpions and ready your bows!" A bubble of hope appears in my chest as I look back down at the deck and see many of the sailors and Unsullied are now preparing to shoot down the dragon.
"There is another!" I turn to see a young boy pointing toward the east and my knees actually give out as I see a smaller but still large brown dragon diving toward the ships in the back.
We are doomed, just like the lands north of us, we are doomed.
"What are they doing?" The captain asks no one in particular as we all watch the dragons.
The black one started in the west and is making a line of green flames going down toward the south, in a large crescent shape. The brown one is doing much the same starting from the east and is heading toward the south like the black one.
"Oh..." My hope is banished as I see them connect their flames and fly past one another, drawing a half-circle around our fleet.
We are trapped.
We can't go back to the East.
We can't go toward the West either.
South is blocked, and Valyria is to the North.
"There are two more!" One of the sailors on another ship shouts in fear and I look up to see two, thankfully, smaller dragons flying higher up in the sky.
Circling up like vultures.
An impossibly loud sound leaves the maw of the black dragon as it flies low right over the top of the fleet from the south, I slowly stand back up using the railing for support.
"Why isn't it spitting any flames?" The young boy asks curiously, leaving me with the desire to slap the child.
Do you want us to die!?
Wait.
They aren't burning any ships... none at all.
My heart stops in my chest and my blood turns to ice as I freeze in place as the black dragon flies low overhead, the ship tilts heavily to one side as it passes over. Clinging onto the railing I pray to the fourteen that I do not slip overboard as I turn my gaze to follow the black dragon as it heads in a straight path to the coast of Old Valyria.
...
...
...
Why?
Are they not here to sink the fleet?
Did they come just to torment us?!
"They want us to head for shore." The captain speaks up as if he could hear my thoughts and I quickly turn to meet his gaze, but his eyes follow the black dragon as it heads toward the cursed lands.
"What?!" The captain shakes his head.
"They likely want to talk... and they can't land on our ships most likely." I open my mouth to deny the possibility but instead, find my gaze raising to look skyward once more.
Three dragons circle overhead.
The magic flames in the sea have already been snuffed out, but the intent has not been.
North was the only way left to sail when the flames burned upon the oceans waves.
Valyria.
----
118 AC
Valyrian Peninsula
Daeron Nymeros Martell
----
I hope they got the message and I didn't waste our time and element of surprise.
I could have burned half of the fleet by now on my own, let alone with the other's help.
But I still don't want to burn the Unsullied, I have hope they can be brought over to our side.
Whoever is in command here probably wants to live as well, and I can use that to get the Unsullied from them.
Hopefully, this works out.
Adjusting myself in the saddle I turn my gaze from the fleet out at sea and look back at Valyria.
Looks normal.
To be honest I was expecting lava and cursed magic spewing forth from the land itself like tainted blood or something.
It just looks like a beach.
When I was flying high earlier and looking, I could see a massive forest and it looked like any other forest.
Green and bountiful.
This... is not what I was expecting.
Not even close.
I am sure there are locations where it's dangerous, if there wasn't, someone would have reclaimed the Peninsula.
But it's also obvious that there are seemingly safe locations as well.
Which is... intriguing.
This has opened doors I never thought to check before.
What if some smaller Valyrian cities and settlements have remained mostly untouched?
I mean it would only take finding one cache of secret Valyrian magic scrolls to change all of my future plans.
If not that, maybe I could find some Valyrian Steel, I would never complain about having more of that.
Gaelithox also seems unbothered, and if he is unbothered, then I am unbothered.
We could investigate together.
Whatever hurt Balerion, assuming Valyria is where he got hurt all those years ago, its likely dead by now.
It was either a Dragon or a Fire Wyrm in my opinion.
Possibly some blood magic monstrosity, but that is far less likely.
With Gaelithox, I fear none of those possible threats though anyway.
He would just kill and eat anything that pissed him off, and I would help him do it as well.
A Smoking Sea is going through the middle of the peninsula, I could use my bending there against any threats.
* RUMBLE *
My bones shake as Gaelithox purrs and my attention turns back to the Sea where I see a single ship heading in our direction.
Whatever, I will think about this later.
For now, Unsullied.
Then I need to go find out how the Dothraki situation turned out.
Lastly, two more Free Cites.
Then there is just the matter of putting into motion all of my long-term plans which will take decades.
The Rhoynar Cities.
The Grass Sea Cities.
A new port city in the North of the Forest of Qohor, to get trade flowing over top of the North of Essos.
Lots to do... but I will make time for Valyria eventually.
----
118 AC
Dothraki Sea
Daemon Targaryen
----
That's a lot of horses.
Lowering the Myrish far eye, I open my closed eye and gaze off toward the horizon where a rather large Khalasar is currently riding hard in my direction. Slowly I tuck the far eye into a saddle bag on my left, knowing full well I will soon need both hands to hold onto the saddle.
Things are about to get bumpy.
Looking toward the North I almost feel a smile grow upon my face.
No Meleys in sight.
Looking Southward I actually do smile as I also do not seem Vhagar.
Seems I got lucky.
We split up to make sure we did not miss them, we had only a rough idea where they were and they needed to cross a few small rivers and we had no idea where they would do that at.
The plan was to meet back up at the small village we passed after a few hour's flight east from Volantis.
The meeting time should be in an hour... but I don't think I will bother with all that.
I can do this alone.
There are only tens of thousands of them, all riding through dense and tall dry grass, as far as the eye can see in all directions in fact.
This will be like the field of fire, a brutal slaughter.
I almost feel bad.
----
118 AC
Dothraki Sea
Rhaenys Targaryen
----
That fucking fool.
Smoke, so much of it that it covers the entirety of the south in my vision.
I know it is Daemon, he is the closer one to me and I also know my Daughter would not have gone ahead and started the attack without me.
Curse this hotblooded fool.
We could have led the Dothraki into a valley in the south, one of the many that head into the Painted Mountains.
But no, Daemon fucking Targaryen decided he would set the entire Great Grass Sea ablaze.
I have no doubt he will likely be successful in burning out the Horse Lords that were headed toward Volantis.
But how much of the Grass Sea will burn with them?
How many small settlements within the Grass Sea and upon the edge of it will burn or starve because of this?
Seven Hells.
I knew I should have stayed with him, I knew it.
He had a punchable smirk on his face when we had landed and made the plan to split up to search for the horde.
Whatever, the only thing I can do now is get there quickly and hopefully help stop the spread before it gets any worse. Burning strips of land in low-lying areas before the fire can get to them might could help, at least from what I have heard. If nothing else, I at least want to be able to say I tried to fix things before they got too far out of control.