Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter, coming in right on time. Next three chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXX- LAENOR VELARYON, 120 AC (SIXTH MOON)
The crowd roared, and I allowed it to flow through my body. In one ear and out the other as I sat on my horse and waited. My opponent on the other end of the field did the same. He offered me a nod before slapping his faceplate shut. I did the same and once the horn was blown, I spurred my horse forwards.
It raced along the soft earth, feet following feet with a surety and security no human could manage in this condition. I reached my opponent in the middle of the field. My lance caught him cleanly across the top of his chest, just above where he had lowered his shield to in response to my feint. He hit the ground seconds after I had passed, and I only directed my horse to turn when I had reached the end of the field.
My opponent sat in that dirt for so long that I feared he might have lost consciousness before he pushed himself to his feet much to the relief of the watching audience. I took my victory lap once it was certain that I had not just killed a man in a tourney meant to celebrate a birth. I removed my helmet, holding it underarm in one hand and lifted my lance to the heavens with the other, and when I passed the royal box, I offered a bow to Viserys and then a wink to the celebrant, the Princess Rhaenyra. The little bundle she held in her grasp fussed but she ignored it in favour of sending me a death glare.
What a shame. Now that things were so solidly in her favour, I would have loved to take her side—it would have made life so much easier for me. If only she was a more stomachable person.
Still, it was on to the Last 16 for me, and that would be the last bit of jousting I would be doing today. I rode off to my tent with my squire following with his hand filled with spare lances. I hadn't needed more than one for any of my tilts today. When I had last won a tourney in King's Landing all those years ago, it had been close. I had had to rely on Igneel's power more often than not.
But I had grown since then, and now here again, it seemed that while I had grown, everyone had stayed the same. I would win the thing with ease this time. Sadly, Laena was back home so I could not crown her. Even Mother had not made the trip back for this tourney. When I reached my tent, it was to find a man that I did not recognise there.
"Who are you?" I asked, dismounting, and handing the horse off to Aegon while taking the spare lances from him. He would see to it that the stable hands fed and watered her for a job well done. The Sand Steed from Yronwood was performing excellently and had more than earned the reward.
"Garett, my lord. I work for the Lord Hand," he said. Nobility. Minor nobility most likely with the lack of mentioned last name. Or perhaps a bastard. But Reach Lords were the type to care about such things. Otto would not stomach a bastard in his service most likely.
"Garett of House..." I asked.
"Cobb, my Lord."
"Cobb. So what brings you here?"
"The Lord Hand would like to invite you to join him for a cup of wine at the Hand's Tower," he said. I did not scoff, but it was a close thing. Did Otto Hightower think I was some boy to be summoned at his whim? I was tempted to refuse the invitation as a matter of principle, but I did have things I wanted from Otto. Things that only he could give. Or rather, things that would be easier to get without him whispering poison in Viserys' ears.
"Tell him I will join him after I take my dinner tonight," I said.
"My Lord, he would much prefer that—"
"That will be all, Garett of House Cobb," I said, dismissing the man and gesturing towards the exit of the tent. He had the good sense not to speak further, and the even better sense to not allow any of the hatred he felt for me to show on his face as he left.
"You can come in now, Aegon. There was nothing interesting for you to eavesdrop on this time," I said, and a few seconds later, the boy was walking through with the most innocent expression I had ever seen on his face. He had clearly been practicing.
"You called for me, my Lord?" he said.
"Just come help me take off my armour so we can get out of here," I said, spreading out my arms like I was expecting a hug.
"My Lord?" he asked as he began with my gauntlets.
"Yes Aegon?"
"I wanted to ask, my Lord. If I might..." he said before trailing off as I turned my head towards him. There was a faint redness to his cheeks. How odd. Was he being shy? That was odd. Odder than odd, in fact. Aegon was many things, but shy was not one of them. Not when Laena wasn't in the room at least.
"Spit it out, Aegon. We haven't all day," I said.
"The Squire's melee. The other boys, they..."
"They call you a coward for not participating," I said. He looked up at me in shock. I tried not to chuckle. Aurion, damn the bastard, was right. A glass candle was fucking cheating. Of course, using it to spy on some squires for entertainment was not what he had in mind, but there was only so much time I could spend watching my enemies. Contrary to what I might have expected, they did not spend every waking moment plotting against me. Most of the time, they were eating or sleeping, or shitting. Or fucking. Things I cared little and less to see after the first few times.
"Yes my Lord."
"And you wonder why I forbade you from entering," I said. This one I needed no glass candle for.
"I do not mean to gainsay your orders, my lord."
"But you still want to show them what you can do," I summarised. He nodded vigorously.
I weighed the idea in my head, not for the first time, but I did so love to see him squirm.
"I will be honest with you, Aegon. My reason for not entering you was simple, Aegon," I said.
He looked up at me, those purple eyes near painfully bright.
"I do not know if you will win. And until I am certain, you will not be participating," I said.
"But—"
"That is my will, Aegon. Now that will be the last I hear of it," I said. He was glum, but he still did the job of removing my armour well enough.
"Now come. I mean to fly for a while. Sunfyre misses you, I am sure," I said, cheering him up a bit. But the thought of the melee would not leave his head.
'You enjoy your silly games far too much for my liking,' Aurion said from within my head.
'You're just jealous because you can't play any silly games,' I said back.
'Watching your silly life suffices, I assure you,' he snarked.
'If you want, I can find someone else to pass you on to, you know? Perhaps Aegon here. Maybe you can try your hand at being King. Or fighting for it, at least,' I threatened.
He went mute at that. I couldn't quite suppress my chuckle at that. Guess he didn't like the reminder that I could see into his head just as easily as he saw into mine now. He might have talked a big game about just wanting to be alive, but Aurion Belaerys was not lacking in ambition. Not anymore at least.
----
Once again, I was the first to arrive for family dinner. Viserys would come in soon, I knew. He always endeavoured to be early for these things, but the trials of hosting so many Lords weighed on him. Alicent would come in with the children as late as she could afford without actually being late, and Rhaenyra and her husband would come in last, uncaring for the rudeness. Viserys would tolerate it, and the rest of us preferred it. The less time we spent in her presence, the better.
I sat at the table, pushed the plate in front of me away and took out my journal from my pocket. This holiday in Westeros had sparked my creative spirit into overdrive in a way that I hadn't gotten to experience for years now. And so I spent every free moment I could designing the thing that had given me my start in this world: ships.
We had made several advancements in the years since I had last personally designed a ship, and the goal was to incorporate as many of them as I could into a new class of ship. Citybreakers, I would call them.
Every time I war gamed in my head, I ended up in situations where my enemies retreated to their cities. No one with any sense would face the Velaryon Navy at sea. For one, our work to police the waters had caused a lot of navies to fall into disuse. There was no need for anyone in my part of the world to send out their sailors to clear the pirates when I handled that for them for free. And that free service gave my men valuable ship to ship combat experience and allowed us to troubleshoot every aspect of naval warfare.
A smart enemy would see all this, and the fact that we could bring dragons to bear as well, and would hole up in their city instead. Force the navy to fight where they could not bring their years of experience to bear: the ground. While burning a city to the ground was well within our capacity, that would be pointless. A massive waste. Instead, if we had ships with counterweight trebuchets that could pummel their ports from a distance and destroy their naval fortifications easily, then we could easily deploy the legions on smaller ships that would make land and push into the cities from there.
Of course, taking a city even with that would be hard, but it would still be easier than doing anything else. Other than burning it all with a dragon and wasting my time. The main issues with the trebuchets were obvious though. There were reasons no one in this world had bothered so far.
For one, they would need to be massive so the ships would have little space for anything else. Our experience building the dragon carrier would help in that regard. We could build big and sparse in a cost-effective way (as cost effective as a massive ship could ever be, at least). And then there was the issue with the dead weight. It would shift during each launch and would capsize anything not built to spec. Once again, experience with the dragon carrier would help. Igneel's sudden takeoffs and landings were basically the same thing and we had ways of dealing with those. Actually, the only issue that the dragon carrier experience didn't help with was the small issue of aim. For that we had to...
"Laenor," my thoughts were interrupted by Viserys' boisterous entrance. At his side, two members of the Kingsguard. The white shadows looked over the room before filing in on either side of their charge.
"Your grace," I said, rising and closing my journal. He gave it a curious look that I chose to answer.
"A ship, your grace. Something my mind seems to keep turning over," I said.
"Oh? And I told you to call me cousin, Laenor. When it's just us like this," he said.
"Of course, your grace," I said with a small quirk of my lips that he matched.
"Now tell me of this ship," he said. On another man, this curiosity would have seemed untoward. Like he was trying to find out my secrets. Viserys, bless his soul, was just curious. He would have been perfect for another world. A simpler one. An honest one.
"Just something that I imagine would be even better for carrying Igneel," I said, flipping to the drawing of the improved dragon carrier rather than the implement of war I was working on. Viserys did not care much for war in the first place, and I was well aware that anything I showed him could make its way to the ears of someone who would be able to figure out what I was planning with enough clues.
He looked at the drawing and made an impressed sound. I was sure he didn't understand half of the subtleties but he still sat and allowed me to explain how I was adapting the double layered hull to allow Igneel to take off even faster and to bear even more weight. The dragon carriers had become a key part of any war strategy. The one I was showing him now was already being constructed. In a matter of weeks, I would be back on Bloodstone, and from there I would be heading to Dorne. Looking around and chancing a quick check at the time candle against the wall, I decided this would be the best time.
I did not want to inform Viserys in an official way. I was not asking for permission and something like that would create the impression that I was. And I did not want him unaware. I knew just how it would look if I went and did this without letting him know. I knew just what Viserys was using me as, but while Daemon had taken every opportunity to make his life more difficult, I would not be doing that.
"By the way, Cousin," I said, drawing his attention from the drawing to myself now.
"I received a messenger a week before I left Bloodstone," I said.
"A messenger?" he asked, straightening.
"Yoren Yronwood seeks to crown himself King of a newly unified Dorne," I said. He started at that, eyes sharp now.
"He means for me to help him. I have agreed to do so. Not House Velaryon. Just me and Igneel. I'll burn a few castles, make their work easier and leave," I said.
"Is that wise?" he asked while his Kingsguard tried to pretend like they were not listening.
"It can be. A fractured Dorne has served Westeros as much as it can, but the raids across the marches are becoming serious enough that the Reach will petition you soon if they haven't already. I know my cousin Borros means to lead a sortie into the sands themselves in the next year. If I do not do this, then the chances of war coming to these Kingdoms of ours are too high," I said. A different King would have answered this problem in a different way. If I brought this state of affairs to any other King, then there would be only one thing on their minds. Conquest. But that was not the way of this King.
"And will the raids not be worse if they unify under another King?"
"Yronwood intends to be a King in reality, not a Vulture King writ large. He would sooner join hands with Westeros than raid across the borders. And with him on the throne, there will be a force preventing or at least substantially reducing the raids from that end," I said.
He leaned back against his chair, thinking it through. Now for me to push.
"It would be a coup, Cousin. The Throne does not raise a single hand. It sends one dragonrider, and binds Dorne to it for an age. Yronwood wants amicable relations with the rest of Westeros, and even better, since his throne will be formed at the end of dragon fire, he and his descendants will never forget the power of House Targaryen," I said. Velaryon, I amended mentally.
"Will he bend the knee?" he asked. I didn't like that gleam in his eyes.
"No. He will be unpopular enough as it stands. Bending the knee will see the Kingdom fall in years. Aegon already proved it. Dorne cannot be conquered. Her people are too different. Hard in a way the North is not. They will never bend. And there is no need to keep them broken when it serves us little. Dorne will not be a vassal, cousin. But it can be a friend," I said.
"You call me cousin easily when you want something," he said with a smile.
I spread my hands out in the universal 'you've got me' gesture. Of course, that was the obvious manipulation for him to catch so he could ignore the not-so obvious.
"It is the right decision," I said.
"Indeed. I will not stop you, Cousin. You know the man better than I do. But when Dorne rises again, anything that comes of it is on your head," he said.
"I will burn every Dornish castle from Blackmont to Spottswood if they dare. I will salt the earth that their ancestors once walked. I will make the vengeance Aegon and Visenya reaped upon them look like mercy," I breathed the words and knew them to be true. Dorne would come into the fold.
"Then you may go ahead. I will not inform the small council until you are gone, lest Otto and Lyonel wear your ears down with their constant arguments," he joked.
A/N: And so we get a chapter over and done with. One (or two) more in KL and then back home and then Dorne eventually. Laenor is planning something with Dorne, of course. Next chapter comes on here by Thursday night at the latest, but Wednesday night/Thursday morning most likely. Next three 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.