Chapter 5: Wild Dragons P1

Aegon was so confused when he left King's Landing. That confusion didn't change when he set foot in Dragonstone. Even when he led his men to root out the corrupt officers in the parts of Dragonstone, that confusion persisted.

His woes started after Gael kissed him and confessed her love for him. While he had no trouble kissing her back, he was now suffering a mental crisis.  

He liked Gael, no question about that, but the incest part made him queasy. Even his own existence was weird to wrap his head around, considering he was the son of Baelon and Alyssa. His parents were siblings, and now he was supposed to follow in their footsteps by marrying inside the family.

Aegon knew why House Targaryen followed the custom of brother marrying sister. It was to keep the dragons within the family and not allow another family to usurp their dragons. There was also the fear of losing the ability to bond with the dragons should Targaryens breed with those they consider their lesser. Only the members of House Velaryon were considered a safe marriage by his family as they were a Valyrian house with substantial Targaryen blood in their family.

But even that was in jeopardy with House Velaryon exerting more influence in the Crownlands and a dragon under their command.

Under these circumstances, Aegon could see the advantage of choosing Gael as his life partner. If he married outside the family, he could end up creating more factionalism within the family. The Velaryons have already formed a faction, and Aegon feared the same would happen with Daemon once Lady Royce gives his brother children of his own.

He liked Gael enough to marry her even though he was squeamish about the incestuous nature of such a relationship. He also had to consider this from Gael's perspective. Her fear of being sold to some 'old bloated Andal' for political expediency was a genuine concern. Aegon liked to think he knew his grandfather better than most, and he knew the man wouldn't bat an eye to act against his own blood if there was a political advantage.  

Right now, his grandfather was looking to prop up his father's claim on the throne and suppress the rise of House Velaryon. To that end, King Jaehaerys would do anything to prevent another house in Westeros from gaining power comparable to House Velaryon.

Aegon had always wondered why his grandfather allowed Princess Rhaenys and Lord Corlys to marry. After all, Viserys could've married Rhaenys, and the succession of the throne would've been secure within the family.

Aegon shook his head and started to rub his forehead as it began to throb by going in circles about his concerns.

"My prince. Are you well?" Ser Reginald asked in concern.

"I'm fine, Ser."

"If you're feeling unwell, you might want to return to the castle. We can handle the traitors of the crown."

"No," Aegon said firmly, "My King charged me to dispense justice on those who betrayed his trust. I'll oversee that his will is done, Ser Reyne."

His sworn shield nodded and stayed silent like the rest of the men.

Aegon was sitting atop his horse, with fifty men behind him on their horses, overlooking one of the ports. They patiently waited for one of their own to report back to them before moving in on the officers. Aegon had arranged for a ship from King's Landing to sail into Dragonstone's port and charged a few men to bribe the officers. He intended to catch these men red-handed with their ill-begotten wealth.

"My prince. Someone is coming."

Sure enough, he could hear the sound of a galloping horse nearing their position. Thankfully, it was the man he had tasked to arrive by ship. Ser Patrice Brune was a distant cousin of the current head of House Brune of Brownhollow. The men of Crackclaw Point were Targaryen loyalists to their bone.

Although most of them supported Maegor, that era had passed. Queen Visenya was no more, and Maegor died a fitting death, like the traitor and usurper he was.

This left his major supporters in a quandary. The men of Crackclaw Point were now leal servants of the crown. Only time would tell whether the knight of Brownhollow was as loyal as he claimed.

Still, Aegon was willing to give the man a chance.  

"My prince." The brown-haired knight greeted him, stopping a few feet from Aegon.

"I'm happy to see you're here, Ser Patrice." Aegon nodded at the knight of Brownhollow. "I suppose you can lead us to the port."

"Of course, my prince. I posed as a local merchant in touch with Myrish glass merchants. I negotiated a small deal with the port officers for my ship to be in port for five days. I paid upfront, just like you said."

"Very good." Aegon grinned before turning to the rest of the assembled knights, "Now, let's put some heads on spikes."

Aegon didn't enjoy the task at hand, and he was careful to remove the corrupted officers without causing a huge scene in the harbour. The last thing he wanted was to scare off potential customers. But the last few weeks, he had been a learning experience for Aegon. He was slowly getting accustomed to the iron hand of power and law. It didn't help that he failed to uphold his morals when it mattered most.

The knight he killed intentionally weighed heavily on his mind, but at the same time, he also understood that no one would be giving him anything freely.

Now, he keenly felt his position in the royal court was precarious. With his budding romance with Gael, he'd undoubtedly attract the wrath of his king and father.

Therefore, he didn't shed tears for the executions he oversaw in Dragonstone. He was ruthless and gave no quarter to those he found guilty. He not only punished the officers but also recovered the revenue loss by attaching the officers' possessions. Most of the families of these officers were on the receiving end of his brand of justice, forcing them into crippling poverty and no roof over their heads.

Aegon knew most of those families would die of hunger or disease. In the worst case, those families might fall into the bottom end of society by making a living out of selling their daughters.

The stench of the rotting heads lining the pikes on the wall brought Aegon out of his musings as he walked along the wall-walk of the castle.

"How can men stand guard in these walls with this smell? Remove these heads." Aegon ordered.

He looked out into the sea as the men rushed to obey his orders. He could see the harbour in the distance and the relatively peaceful atmosphere in the castle. In one fell swoop, he had carried out two dozen executions across the island within a week. Then, he had to force himself to oversee the families of those corrupted officers being thrown out into the street.

It was more than Harry could bear, and Viserys hiding himself in his chambers with Aemma and Rhaenyra didn't help anything. Right now, he was feeling a surge of jealousy and anger towards Viserys more than Daemon.

At least Daemon had the skill to wield a blade like Dark Sister. Viserys, on the other hand, was blessed with the position of heir to Prince Baelon, but he was an expert in running away from his duties. Instead of helping him clean up, Dragonstone Viserys was content to hide in his room.

'It almost feels like the entire world is acting against me.' Aegon thought.  

But he couldn't curl up in a corner and curse the world for making his life incrementally difficult. That'd be the stupidest thing that could be done for someone in his position.  

Instead, he poured himself into his studies of Valyrian magic and dragon lore. Most of the scrolls in the vault often contained violent and cruel blood magic that left a bad taste in his mouth. It was pretty challenging to weed out some of the most brutal and most hateful magics from the treasure trove of knowledge locked away in the vault. Separating the despicable and useless magic from useful knowledge took time, but he occasionally found certain treasures.

For instance, he found a method to augment his pyromancy skills. The knowledge was lying in wait in an old dusty scroll where runic enchantments consecrated in silver functioned as amplifiers to his innate fire magic. Of course, there was the requirement of strengthening rituals every three years to be performed on a volcano. But that was a slight disadvantage considering the slew of blood sacrifices required for most Valyrian magics.

When he got free time in the evenings, Aegon went on a trek to the caverns of Dragonmont. He'd take sheep to the caves and present them to Sheepstealer.

At first, he found Sheepstealer very charming, but his defiant streak was faintly amusing. The dragon liked Aegon well enough to come out of his lair and feast on the sheep and pigs he brought. But it came to a point that he was starting to get tired of the routine because of the lack of any results. Despite spending months on the island, he could not woo Sheapstealer to bond with him. It was dampening his mood despite the success he enjoyed in his magical studies.

'Sooner or later, I'll have to devise a different strategy or concentrate my efforts on another dragon,' Aegon mused.

****

The glass candles were said to be one of the greatest Valyrian inventions. They were made of obsidian, but a rare few were built using emeralds. It supposedly had the power to give visions to a proper master of magic of lands thousands of leagues away. In the hands of a true master of magic, the glass candles supposedly could invade people's dreams and even see the past and future.

But Aegon didn't know whether most of these claims were true. After nearly an hour of staring into the black obsidian glass candle, nothing happened.

He managed to light the candle, but nothing else happened, which was a shame. Lighting the candle was an easy thing to do. All he had to do was focus his magic to form a rift between his palms, and the candle lit up. He used a similar method when he used pyromancy.

But activating some of the finer functions of the glass candle eluded Aegon.

'Hmm. What if I use the same trick to enchant objects with listening charms?' Aegon pondered.

He reached out with all his fingers, touched the obsidian on the glass candle, and used the enchantment.

Immediately, Aegon felt his feet being swept from underneath him. It was as if he was being pulled into the eye of a storm. Sounds started to bombard his ears, and soon, flashes of images flew past his eyes. The pain started to flare up in his body as the sensory overload simply beat down his mind.

He suddenly found himself face-first on the ground in stark silence. When his vision cleared, he saw a red sky and black smoke around him. His eyes widened when he saw hundreds of dragons flying leisurely in the red sky. He saw towers and grand palaces reaching as tall as the clouds. There was a sprawling city all around him as the fog surrounding him slowly receded, making Aegon see more and more of the city.

And then a terrible tremor passed, upping the building from the ground. The large, expansive trees, with roots as thick as the hindlegs of a fully grown dragon, uprooted themselves as the ground beneath them tore asunder. Steam rose from the fused stone roads of the Valyrian Empire. The ponds and fountains in the city boiled as steam rose from them.

Then, as one, the Fourteen Flames came alive as one. With one voice, they roared with the intensity of a thousand suns.

Dragons roared as they were burned away in the sky. The guzzling heat tore away the scales of dragons as miasma tore through the most powerful empire of Essos. Dragons found they were not fire made flesh, and they screamed, but so did Aegon. He was consumed by a pillar of lava that tore through the ground right beneath his feet.

Suddenly, the pain disappeared, and Aegon found himself standing before a giant red dragon. The beast towered over him, and he could only gape at its size. It was as tall as a mountain, its teeth the size of long spears. Unlike the dragons of Dragonstone, this one had two additional limbs in addition to the hind legs.

The dragon blinked at him almost lazily as it stared at Aegon like he was a fly.

"What do you seek, child?"

Aegon looked around at the all-encompassing sound that pressed heavily in his mind. It took him a moment to reconcile with the fact that the red dragon was talking to him.

'What do I say? What do I seek? Is this all in my head?' Harry worried privately in the confines of his mind. 'Am I going insane? Am I dreaming?'

"Your ancestors sought knowledge. But their thirst for knowledge turned into a lust for power. But they soon grew bored of power and sought immortality. Look at their fate now."

"The Doom." Aegon whispered.

"Yes. So, what do you seek?"

Aegon stared at the massive dragon, completely lost. He blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

"Your name." Aegon said.

He watched the dragon cock its head to the side as it observed him. He got the distinct impression that the dragon was amused. Seeing that the dragon was not turning him into a crisp, he became slightly emboldened.

"My name is Aegon Targaryen. What is your name, great dragon?" Aegon asked, gazing expectantly at the dragon.

"You want to know my name? You don't want the power to rule the world, the knowledge to build great cities, or the spirit to live for centuries?"

"No. Your name will suffice." Aegon said.

The dragon lowered its massive head and stared at Aegon.

"Interesting. Then, take my name along with my flames, Aegon Targaryen."

The gigantic dragon opened its jaws wide, making Aegon step back in fear. Suddenly, he was consumed by pure white flames, but one word resounded loud and clear in his mind as his feet were swept from underneath him.

Harry found himself in the vault holding the glass candle. The flame on the candle was no longer yellow; instead, it was now bright silver.

"Gaelithox, guardian of the sacred flames," Aegon whispered, and the candle flickered as if happy.  

****

Appointing new officers in the harbour and the keeper of keys in Dragonstone was supposed to be Viserys' job. But as usual, Aegon was saddled with duty while his brother wasted away in wine, bards, plays and queer company.

He didn't complain about his brother's lack of interest in ruling Dragonstone, but he did his duty. It took quite a lot out of him, but he hired new men and promoted some he felt deserved a raise in stature. The dragon keepers who watched over the eggs received a pay raise for their good work.

In Dragonstone, the dragon keepers were his steadfast allies and a source of good information. Through them, he learned whom to trust and who to hire. Ser Reginald was also adept at sniffing out lazy bums and lickspittles. He called it his 'lion senses'.

Once Aegon had replaced the harbours and ports of corrupt officers with loyal men, he turned his attention to inviting merchants from across Westeros and Essos.

His plan to attract trade from the Narrow Sea was not to give any offers to the merchants or ship captains in the first phase. Dragonstone could ill afford to bleed any gold or silver that it received as port duties while they were restoring and building new harbours and ports on the island.

Instead, his grandfather, on his recommendation, offered tax breaks in King's Landing to the merchants who used the ports in Dragonstone. He was very careful to whom he extended his offer. When the delegation of merchants met with him in Dragonstone, there was only one merchant each from Braavos, Tyrosh, Lys, Myr, and Volantis. The rest of the merchants he met that day were all from Pentos.    

The Pentoshi were deeply pleased with the preferential treatment their merchants received. They were the chief spice traders, and his grandfather had an amicable relationship with the Free City of Pentos. They were so happy with the Crown's tax breaks that the Prince of Pentos officially sent a delegation to Dragonstone with an invite to visit their city.

"I don't think this is such a good idea, brother." Viserys said.

As usual, his lazy older brother was the naysayer.

"Why not? Grandfather sent us to develop Dragonstone. We can't do that without the help of our natural trade partners. The Free City of Pentos is our closest and favoured trade partner from across the Narrow Sea. We cannot ignore this invite without causing offence to the Prince of Pentos." Aegon explained slowly and carefully with a lot of patience, but Viserys shook his head.

"You can go in my stead, brother. I trust you to handle such matters, and besides, you're the architect of this entire enterprise. You should claim the credit for the success, not me." Viserys smiled at him and gave him a proud look.

Sometimes, Aegon wished his brother had an ambitious bone in his body. His brother trusted too easily and blindly without any reservation, and that could be a problem going forward.

"You do not understand, brother. It's not about who gets to claim credit. You are the heir to the throne after our father. One day, you'd be king, and the Prince of Pentos expects to meet the future king of Westeros."

"I don't think this is such a good idea." Viserys muttered distractedly.

"Oh, come on, brother. We can bring Aemma and Rhaenyra with us. Surely, they've never set sights on a beautiful city like Pentos. This would be a good opportunity for them to enjoy Pentoshi hospitality, meet new people, hear new songs and watch new plays." Aegon touched on the familial angle to get Viserys to agree. "It'd be like one grand family adventure."

When Aegon saw the spark of interest lit in Viserys' eyes, he knew he had succeeded.   

"I guess it'll be wonderful to travel as a family and enjoy the sights." Viserys said thoughtfully.

"I'll try my best not to let the talk of trade and other courtly duties affect Aemma and Rhaenyra. They'll surely have a wonderful time, and I hear Pentos has a warm sun this time of the year. Surely, Aemma and Rhaenyra would enjoy some warmth on their skin."

"You have convinced me, brother." Viserys said with a chuckle. "Now, enough talks of trade and politics. Tell me of your attempts with that wild dragon."

"I'm afraid there is nothing exciting to report," Aegon muttered as they walked along the castle's wall-walk, enjoying the sea breeze.

Now, wasn't that an understatement? He thought being blessed by the Valyrian god of flames would make that stupid dragon bond with him. But nothing in his life was ever so simple. If anything, Sheepstealer avoided him like the plague these days. The dragon won't even be enticed to come out of its lair even if he offered sheep.

"Come now, Aegon. Why are you insisting on forcing yourself by pursuing a wild dragon? They have become accustomed to their freedom and alienated themselves from bonding." said Viserys.

"I fear you might be right." Aegon sighed, seeing the sense in his brother's opinion. "I might've wasted months on a failed quest."

"Fear not, brother. You'll find a strong young dragon in the dragonpit. The next time we visit the capital, I will accompany you and help you find a suitable dragon." Viserys smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"That'd be for the best, I think." Aegon said gratefully.

Whatever the faults, Viserys was the owner of a kind heart. It was an endearing quality that was abundant in his brother. It was one of the reasons why he liked Viserys, but it also made his brother vulnerable.

"Perhaps this might also be an opportunity for you, brother." Aegon said thoughtfully as they climbed down the stairs from the wall walk to the castle's training yard.

"What do you mean, brother?" Viserys asked with a raised eyebrow.

"You've been dragonless for too long. This might be the ideal time to seek a new dragon for yourself. We could seek dragons from the pit together." Aegon suggested happily.

Whatever Viserys was about to say was drowned out by the terrifying roar of a dragon in the sky. It was immediately followed by painful screeches from another dragon.

Aegon could only gape in utter bafflement and fear as he saw the familiar form of Sheepstealer crashing into the training yard of the castle, kicking up a dust cloud.

"What in the name of the Seven is happening?" Viserys shouted.

Aegon concurred with his older brother's sentiments. He also wanted to know what was going on, but the dust cloud and an injured wild dragon in close proximity shifted his priorities to getting out of this alive.

"We must escape. That dragon will cook us alive and eat us for lunch." Aegion said with fear.

"Climb up the stairs and retrace our steps through the wall walk. We can take refuge in the tower." Viserys suggested.

"Sounds like a good plan." Aegon nodded.

Before they could take a single step to proceed with the plan, a giant shadow fell on them, and then the stone beneath their feet trembled. Aegon couldn't help but let out an audible gasp as a gigantic, black-as-night dragon settled itself on the wall of the castle, blocking their path. Its massive hind legs crushed the stone underneath.

Aegon and Viserys exchanged a worried look and slowly backpedalled, careful not to attract the attention of the mighty beast before them.

There was no doubt in his mind about the identity of the foe that they were facing. It was the bane of all dragons in Dragonstone. The Cannibal had graced them with its terrifying presence.  

AN:

For artworks: https://discord.gg/Nw2JH25fJf