Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
To be honest, I hadn't expected much to have changed when it came to my rooms. They were plenty large as they were already. There was an annex for Ser Ben and there was a separate area for my new household staff to stay in, even if I had never actually had any of those in the first place. But things were different now. For one, instead of my things being left as I had left them, they had been packed and moved to the Lord's quarters.
The chambers annexed to this one, which Mother had occupied before, were empty now. She had moved out and given me the Lord's chambers. It was some gesture, but I did not know what to make of it. These rooms had been Father's. I only knew them as Father's. And then Mother had only moved out some of his things. The decorations were still his. The axe above the fireplace was still the one that had saved his life when his fleet had been attacked by pirates on his first voyage—when the ship had been in danger of being overrun and he had lost his sword. The axe had just fallen near his feet like a gift from the gods themselves, and then he had reached down, taken hold of it, and buried it straight in the skull of the pirate that had been about to kill him.
The dressing table still sported scale models of the flagships he had taken on each of his voyages. The first one, the Sea Snake, had been his Father's and not truly his. But then she had suffered in the first voyage and had limped back to Driftmark rather than sailed with the same aplomb that she had once done under Grandfather's stern scowl. She had been retired then, the son retiring the father's flagship until she had been used to say goodbye to the old man when he had finally died.
The second ship of the lot was wholly his. It had been the flagship for one and a half voyages before a storm in the middle of the second one snapped her down the middle. Luckily, Corlys Velaryon was the sailor that songs were written about. He said he sailed half a ship through the storm; Vaemond had a contrary recollection, but his was nowhere near as cool, so we let Father's stand. The third had returned at the end of the third voyage, a ship that Corlys had ended up taking over during the voyage.
She had been the flagship at the end, so she was immortalized here. But she was no flagship worthy of the great Corlys Velaryon, and then came the fourth. This one was built with Essosi shipbuilding techniques, as seen in how it was larger than the others by no small margin, standing a head and shoulders above. It was aimed to project Velaryon power and to be more useful in gathering the treasure that formed the purpose for the voyages.
But then he had found the cons of using the Essosi shipbuilding techniques without the expertise very early on. The ship had bogged and slowed them down. Repairs needed at every docking had added months to their journey alone. A less stubborn man would have abandoned the ship halfway in and cut his losses. Father pushed through and then retired the thing the second he made port at Hull. He had immediately commissioned a new one in the usual style, but taking into account some of the lessons learned from the Essosi-inspired build; disastrous as that had been, it still had brought some lessons of its own.
"What are you doing?" she asked, stepping into the room.
I turned to look at her before waving her over.
"Is there a reason you're squatting right next to a perfectly good seat?" she asked, before squatting down right next to me.
"It's Father's," I said, and that was explanation enough. Because while I knew I would have to get over it eventually, I was still hesitant to touch anything else.
"You remember the stories around each of these?" I asked. There was no ambiguity as to what I was asking about. The ships were the only things of note in sight.
"He told us every night after dinner for a year. You wanted to hear about every voyage over and over again and he could never say no to you," she said.
"Can I tell you a secret?" I asked.
"Always."
"I never actually cared all that much about the voyages after the second time. I just noticed how happy he got when he got to tell us about them," I said.
She looked over at me before nodding.
"I think he got so happy because he felt he was making you happy," she said.
"You think so? I think it was more about getting to relive it. He was never happier than he was at sea. I saw it when we sailed to the Stepstones. A man his age had no business being on deck as often as he was," I said.
"He wanted a tenth, do you know?" she asked instead.
"Did he?" I'd never heard anything about that.
"Mother told me when you were in Storm's End. It was right before she got heavy with me. When the question of the succession had come, he had delayed his journey, and then when she was too heavy, he could not stomach the thought of being apart from her for so long, and then I was born. She said the sea was his first love, but we—you and I—were his second. A greater love," she said, hand reaching out to take mine. We were silent for a while before I broke it with something on my mind.
"I wonder where he would have gone for a tenth," I said.
"Truly? Surely you should be able to guess that one quite easily," she said. I tilted my head at the ships, drawing a blank.
"Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, the greatest sailor to ever captain a ship. Where do you think he would have gone on his final voyage?" she asked, turning towards the map of the known world on the other end of the room.
"Valyria?" I asked. It was the only thing that made sense to me. Maybe he would have wanted to go West of Westeros and find whatever it was that was there to find, but he was not that kind of man. He wanted to go where many had gone but none had ever returned, and return.
She nodded.
"He wanted to be the first man to return from Valyria. He was going to secure House Velaryon's legacy for generations with wealth unimaginable, and Valyrian steel," she said.
"He wanted us to have a sword of our own. Something to match Blackfyre or Dark Sister," I noted. This one I knew about. He often wrote about leads he was chasing in Essos in his attempt to buy one. I didn't have any idea where one could be found in this period, so there was nothing I'd been able to do to help him except for the words of encouragement I wrote back with.
Laena nodded and we remained there, staring at the map, sat next to each other. She leaned down, head coming to rest on my shoulder as I studied the section of the map that was marked out as Valyria. Valyria was an interesting place, because it could refer to the empire itself, the peninsula, or the single island-city that had been home to the Doom. The city of Valyria itself was a no-go. It had been the center of the Doom. Whatever caused that disaster was smack-dab right there. But cities like Oros and Tyria were said to still be inhabited.
Of course, there was still the Smoking Sea to consider. If Valyria itself was the greatest danger, then the Smoking Sea was a close second. How would one even do it? What had been Father's plan? Because if you wanted anything worth anything, you had to pass through the Smoking Sea, and in that case, how? How did he expect to sail ships made of wood through that? While it wasn't the sea made entirely of boiling water that its name made it out to be, it was still a volcanic, chemically poisoned, super-heated maritime hellscape.
Maybe he wanted to double-layer the hull itself. Create a sacrificial outer shell that he could afford to lose during the journey to allow it to survive the worst of it. Sailing during the winter would probably be even better. Winter storms would be a danger outside the Smoking Sea itself, but within it, the colder temperature could render the worst of the volcanos inert or something. Perhaps he would have—
"Stop it, please." Laena cut into my thoughts.
"Sister?"
"I can almost hear your thoughts from this close. You're wondering if you could do it. You want to do it," she said.
"And if I did?"
"I would tell you not to risk it. I would tell you the same thing Mother told Father. You have everything already. Why lose what you have and need chasing after what you neither have nor need?" she said. I paused at that, stopping my instinctive reply. She did have a good point.
"You're right," I conceded, and we were silent for a time.
"But it is an interesting problem, don't you think? Valyria. Well, not Valyria herself. Whatever sleeps on that island need not be woken. But the people of Tyria had good amounts of wealth left over, and there should be some amounts of Valyrian steel there. Easily enough to make a sword or two if we get a Qohorik blacksmith to reforge it."
"Excuse me? Reforge it? Valyrian steel does not melt, brother. You know this," she said.
"That is the case most of the time, but the blacksmiths of Qohor have spells that let them melt and recast it. Think about it. Even just regular trinkets could become a weapon that defines a legacy if we find enough of them," I said.
"And how do you know the Qohorik blacksmiths can do as you say?"
"Just something I heard while at war," I said. She gave me a look that said she felt more than slightly doubtful about the story I told, but she said nothing more for a while.
"We'd still have to cross the Smoking Sea," she said.
"If we double-layered the ship's hull and added a layer of copper besides, we could see a ship survive the journey. Face masks like what those plague doctors had for the plague, with wet rags to filter the air. We could seal the lower layer of the ship with wax around holes around the door. We'd need oars, of course, in case the winds disfavor us while there and then we could have—" I stopped myself as I noted the look she was giving me.
"So I guess we're going to Valyria then," she said with a sigh.
"I never said we were for sure. I was just saying what I think we could do to help make it possible," I said.
She nodded with a fond smile on her face.
"You've already started working on the problem, and if there is one thing I know for sure, it is that you never leave a problem half-solved. You'll want to see if it works no matter what," she said.
"If I did, I wouldn't be able to take Igneel," I said.
"What happened to his ship?" she asked.
"We'd have to build a new one for him specifically, and then we'd have to have people to sail it with all those safeguards I mentioned earlier and probably some that I haven't thought about. I doubt Igneel would have much trouble with the Smoking Sea, but something in Valyria had done something to Balerion. I wouldn't risk him in that."
"And somehow you think risking yourself makes sense?"
"Well, I can have protection from the environment. The plague mask and suit that were used all those decades ago could work for staving off the worst of it. You can't exactly seal a dragon in an airtight suit. Won't work. Then there's the matter of feeding. Whatever happened to Balerion might be a result of the food he ate while there. I doubt any living things still there haven't been irreversibly altered by the conditions around the Doom. I can pack rations for myself and whoever comes with me. Packing rations for a dragon—one Igneel's size especially—would be a tall ask if not just outright impossible," I explained. That wasn't even going into any of the other considerations like where he would get water to drink or how we would manage steering his carrier through the Smoking Sea.
"So it's not an option for us then," she surmised. I said nothing, just looking at the map.
"Mother would have your head if you did it."
"She'd swallow her anger if I succeeded, and if I failed, I'd be too dead to care about it either way," I said.
"Is that so, hmm?" Her voice came from the door and we snapped our heads to it in unison. I looked behind her to see Ben shrugging like there was nothing he could do.
"Your father contemplated that foolishness for years—decades, maybe. All his voyages were building up to that one. He wanted to be the man to do it. The first man to sail to Valyria and return. History would have remembered him as the greatest man to ever set sail. His legacy would have been set in stone," she said, and then she walked deeper into the room, stopping next to the scale model of the ships.
"And you talked him out of it," I said. She chuckled.
"Only a fool can think they managed to talk Corlys Velaryon into doing or refraining from anything. I just told him what he already knew but had not been ready to accept," she said.
"Which was?" Laena asked.
"His legacy was right here in front of him. A genius son and a beautiful daughter. What else could he ask for? And he agreed," she said.
"I don't have children," I said with a smirk. She chuckled.
"You have a loving family that would hate to lose you to your own risk-taking," she said after.
"Won't be much of a risk if we take all the right measures," I said.
"Then take those measures and send Vaemond," she said. A logical suggestion, but not one I could countenance.
"You share more in common with your father than I think you or him ever realized," she said, leaving the ships to come towards Laena and I. I turned to face her more fully, stopping looking at the map for the first time since my attention had been drawn to it. She grabbed a hold of my face, eyes meeting mine.
"And that is why I know that no matter how much you might hate it, you will heed these words when I say them. Remove Valyria from your mind. There is nothing for our House there. We have gold aplenty, and if you want a Valyrian steel sword so badly, I am sure as resourceful as you are, you will find a way to secure one," she said, and that was that.
We were silent for a while before I felt my curiosity rise.
"So what brings you here, Mother?" I asked.
"I went looking for Laena, and when I couldn't find her, this seemed the obvious first place to search," she said. Laena flushed by my side, and I felt her body fold into mine as she leaned against me.
"So why were you looking for Laena?" I asked.
"I wanted to see if she would have wanted to see the old castle tomorrow. It has been a while since I made a visit," she said.
"All three of us could go tomorrow. Make a whole day of it."
"As long as it does not become as tedious as today did. I thought Hull was draining; if I'd known how bad it would have been in Spicetown, I would have just stayed in King's Landing," Laena said, and we shared a collective wince at that. Spicetown was an order of magnitude larger than Hull was. And that size difference came with all sorts of knock-on effects. There were more people, and more people in total meant more people doing each and every business. I had to accept so many swords that I was sick of them by the time the day ended. Of course, Spicetown being a more diverse bunch had meant more diverse gifts. In addition to swords, I'd received bows, war hammers, spears, maces, and some of every weapon I could think of.
"I think I'll have to say you guys will enjoy that without me. I have many letters from the Stepstones that I feel I need to get to tomorrow," I said.
"Well, if you already had plans then I'm sure we'll be fine without—"
"No, Mother. Laenor will cancel whatever plans he has since it's been so long since we've gotten the chance to do something as a family—just the three of us," Laena said by my side, speaking over Mother's acceptance. I looked over to see her glaring daggers into the side of my head.
"Yes, now that I think about it, I could just move a few things around and get to the letters later on." Laena's smile could have put the sun to shame as I spoke, and looking at it, there was no way I'd made the wrong choice. What would I not give to keep that smile on her face? I wondered. The scary part was that I couldn't think of anything.
A/N: Another chapter bites the dust. Some family bonding time and a hint as to where things will go in the future. Next five chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.