King's Landing
Today was the day. King Jaehaerys's grand hunting competition, held in honor of Prince Valerion's nameday, was finally setting off.
The lavish feast in the Red Keep had left the attending nobility nursing heavy hangovers for the entirety of the following day. After a full day of rest and recovery, the lords and ladies were finally prepared to depart King's Landing and make for the Kingswood.
Given the sheer volume of the hunting party and the notoriously abysmal condition of the capital's streets, the gathering point had been strategically set in an open field just outside the city walls to prevent massive gridlock.
Not wanting to miss the departure window, most nobles had left the city early. As the morning progressed, the clearing outside King's Landing swelled into a massive host of several hundred people. The crowd was a mix of heavily armored knights and extravagantly dressed lords, all mounted on sturdy, well-bred horses.
At the rear of the staging area sat dozens of lavishly decorated carriages, surrounded by personal servants and handmaids tending to their respective noble houses.
Once the nobility had fully assembled, a detachment of heavily armored guards suddenly surged from the city gates.
Leading the vanguard were several towering knights clad in gleaming silver plate over chainmail. Dark cloaks emblazoned with the red three-headed dragon billowed behind them as they rode, holding their Targaryen banners high. They charged toward the gathering crowd like a rushing steel river.
Seeing the royal banners, the waiting nobles knew the main procession had arrived. Sure enough, two massive white wheelhouses—the signature mobile fortresses of the royal family—rumbled into view at the rear of the column.
As the royal vanguard passed the waiting nobles, the lords and ladies spurred their mounts, falling into line behind the Crown's procession as they began the trek toward the Kingswood.
Just then, two deafening dragon roars echoed from the direction of King's Landing behind them.
Roar!
Screech!
The two cries were distinct. One was a booming, earth-shaking rumble that carried a deep, ancient weight. The other, while not as overwhelmingly loud, was sharp, piercing, and terrifyingly aggressive.
The marching host turned to look. Rising from the walls of the capital were two colossal, winged silhouettes.
Taking the lead was a beast of brilliant platinum. Its scales caught the morning sun, flashing with blinding radiance. While not the largest dragon, its movements were incredibly fluid and agile, eating up the distance between the city and the host in the blink of an eye.
Following closely was a massive dragon covered in dark, cyan-green scales. Due to its sheer, mountainous bulk, its movements appeared slower and more deliberate than the platinum beast. Yet, its titanic size inspired the kind of primal terror one might feel watching a floating mountain.
As the dark-green leviathan passed over the column, its immense wings blotted out the sun, casting the entire host in a fleeting, terrifying eclipse.
These two beasts were, of course, Bahamut and Vhagar, ridden by Gaemon and Baelon, respectively.
To avoid inciting mass panic among the gathered nobles, King Jaehaerys had forbidden the entire family from taking to the skies. However, for the sake of security, he had permitted Prince Baelon to fly Vhagar as an aerial escort.
Gaemon, on the other hand, was flying purely because he absolutely refused to ride in the wheelhouse.
His reasoning was incredibly simple: the carriages of this era offered an agonizingly miserable ride. Without any form of suspension, dragging a heavy wooden box over rutted, unpaved roads resulted in a bone-rattling nightmare. Being "shaken to death" in a carriage wasn't just a figure of speech in Westeros.
Even the royal wheelhouses, which were built to the highest possible standards, were a torment Gaemon outright refused to endure when he had a perfectly good dragon at his disposal. So, he had mounted Bahamut to make the journey.
To stay with the slow-crawling ground host, Gaemon was forced to severely throttle Bahamut's speed, gently cruising through the clouds above the procession.
Under normal circumstances, a journey to the Kingswood from the capital took roughly a day's ride. As dusk began to settle, the massive hunting party finally reached their destination.
As the exclusive hunting grounds of the Crown, poaching in the Kingswood was strictly forbidden to anyone outside the royal family. By law, any commoner caught hunting in the forest would have their hands chopped off, and the stolen game seized.
Despite the brutal punishments, the desperate reality of poverty drove many to risk their lives, sneaking into the woods to poach just to survive. Furthermore, the dense, sprawling terrain of the Kingswood made it an ideal sanctuary for outlaws and fugitives fleeing the King's justice. Because of this, traversing the woods was usually a tense, cautious affair for ordinary travelers.
The royal procession eventually established their camp in a large clearing near a freshwater source.
High above, Gaemon and Baelon took their dragons on a wide, sweeping patrol around the perimeter. After confirming the surrounding woods were clear of threats, they brought their mounts down in an empty clearing a short distance behind the main camp.
After dismounting, the two princes were met by a detachment of royal knights, who escorted them back to the camp, saving them a long walk through the brush. By the time they arrived, the army of servants had already erected the sprawling tent city.
The first structure completed was, naturally, the King's royal pavilion.
Pitched in the exact center of the camp, the massive tent covered well over a thousand square feet. Inside, it was already bustling with nobles gathering in small factions, eagerly discussing the upcoming hunt.
Baelon and Gaemon walked through the heavy canvas flaps one after the other.
As they moved toward the center of the pavilion, the surrounding nobles instinctively bowed deeply. The terrifying image of the two princes commanding those airborne monsters was still freshly burned into their minds. Seeing the riders in the flesh only reinforced the deep, instinctual awe and fear they held for House Targaryen.
Both Gaemon and Baelon were completely used to this reaction. Even the seasoned guards in the Red Keep, who saw the dragons every day, still felt a primal dread whenever the beasts took flight.
Once inside, Baelon was quickly pulled aside by Prince Aemon. Gaemon, meanwhile, obediently made his way over to Queen Alysanne and took a seat beside her.
"You little menace," Alysanne scolded lightly, though there was no real heat in her voice. "You've only just learned to fly, and now you refuse to travel any other way. Too good for the royal wheelhouse, are we? We're spoiling you rotten."
She knew perfectly well that his eagerness was just the novelty of being a new dragonrider, but as a mother, she still felt obligated to rein him in. If she let him do whatever he wanted, the boy would become completely unmanageable.
---