Early 99 AC, Tarth Mountains
The sounds of Mīsaragorn's and Liāzmariña's wings flapping and their screeching were echoing as Mīsaragorn landed down with a heavy thud onto one of the few flat areas on the mountains of Tarth.
His eyes swept across and smiled as he looked down towards the west where Evenfall Hall was located. Even from here, the famed clear blue waters of Tarth could be seen.
His eyes roved around and he could see the high meadows and the shadowed vales that the island was famed. He heard Liāzmariña land next to them and saw Gael smiling beautifully as she spoke inaudibly to her dragon from atop Liāzmariña's back and he let off a sigh.
Gael got off from Liāzmariña and Aegon could see the wariness in the she-dragon as she peered over to them despite Gael soothing the smaller dragon.
He climbed down Mīsaragorn's back and tapped him gently on the scales when the dragon craned its neck and growled softly at him.
« Don't unsettle Liāzmariña » Aegon said as he met his dragon's great big eyes.
Mīsaragorn growl grew a little louder and Aegon pinned him a hard gaze « Mīsaragorn… » Aegon began warningly. Mīsaragorn relationships with other dragons weren't the best save for one – Meraxes.
As a drakeling, Mīsaragorn had been the smallest and the few interactions he'd had with other young dragons hadn't been the best at all from what he'd been able to piece together over time.
And then, of course…there was Cannibal.
The beast had almost caught Mīsaragorn and Aegon during one of their first flights over the Dragonmont and only through chance and some skilful flying by Mīsaragorn had they been able to avoid the maw of the great black beast.
Never again had either of them, alone or together, approached the Dragonmont from that side or anywhere near where it was known the Cannibal feasted.
Mīsaragorn huffed, his huff blowing his hair slightly but Aegon smiled at the acquiescence « Thank you. We'll hunt in the Shivering Sea for some whales. » Aegon promisedand he laughed when Mīsaragorn let off a deep low rumbling growl that was pretty much as close to a satisfactory purr as a dragon could get.
He tapped Mīsaragorn's scales one more time before he walked away towards Gael.
She looked a little hesitantly at Mīsaragorn before she looked towards Liāzmariña who looked ready to fly away in a moment's notice but Aegon smiled at Gael.
"Don't worry, Mīsaragorn won't harm her." Aegon assured her and she looked sceptically at him before she looked at Mīsaragorn who pretty much began to curl into himself. "See?" Aegon said with a teasing smile.
Liāzmariña seemed more relaxed when Mīsaragorn curled into himself and Gael smiled warmly at the sight before she practically clung onto his arm and dragged him away towards the cliffs that overlooked the western coast of Tarth island.
"Tell me everything about the royal procession!" Gael practically demanded as she led him away, her narrowed eyes boring into him "Your letters were entirely without detail!" she said and Aegon laughed before he launched and weaved a story that keep them talking for hours to come.
He talked about the seemingly endless blooming fields of the Reach, the sea of tilled land and countless livestock one could see in the distance as they made their way through the Reach.
He talked about Highgarden and its white stoned walls, the impressive and beautiful stronghold that was more akin to a palace than it was a fortress with its gardens and courtyards though he mentioned that it was deceptive in its beauty for it was not an easy castle to take with its maze like gardens and thick walls that would be difficult to bring down without dragons.
Again and again he would talk and answer her questions when she posed them as he spoke of all the castles and keeps that he'd visited, from the insane wealth and splendour that were within the bowels of the mountain that Casterly Rock stood upon, to the impressive fortress of Riverrun that was near unassailable without huge losses or trickery.
Throughout all of it, he had felt at ease, the worries of tomorrow melting away as they existed in the here and now and with a smile he continued on as he neared the end of the tales he had for her.
He ended with his story about his time at Storm's End and his duel with the Baratheon Heir and was touched to see her angry on his behalf as she tightened her grip on his hand when he spoke about the near fatal strike from the young man.
It was sudden when Gael leaned forward, his eyes falling towards her puckered lips and for a moment and he froze before almost by instinct he leaned away, a feeling of aversion rising from within that warred with a feeling he tried to stifle to death.
"Gael…we cannot" Aegon said to her with a pained look on his face as he carefully unpeeled his hand from hers, her face shocked before it morphed into face stricken.
"It's only a kiss." Gael said with a fragile tone to her voice, her body hunching into itself as if to physically reciprocate her mental withdrawal from his rejection.
God…he was such a fool. It should never have gotten to this stage. Never.
"A kiss is never just a kiss, Gael. We cannot cross that line." Aegon said quietly as he got up and walked a distance away from her. He couldn't.
"But…" Gael began and he turned around and saw her looking at him with a hurt expression before her eyes widened and her face split into a tentative smile as she got up as well, closing the distance between them.
"If you're concerned about dishonouring me, do not be concerned. We are to…" Gael trailed off, her voice dying on her lips.
Aegon looked at her sadly, conflict brewing in his stomach as he hardened his resolve "marry?" Aegon finished for her and she looked at him with surprise etched into her face and Aegon smiled wryly, his expression soft as he spoke
"I know that our fathers are plotting to marry us to each other"
Gael looked at him with conflicting emotions on her face and he knew what she was thinking. He almost wanted to flee than to have this conversation, to do this to her.
"But I have no intentions of marrying you Gael." He finally said without the intention of cruelty yet it was cruel all the same, his voice teeming with a sternness that he did not feel, a resolve that was cracking under the weight of her hurt expression and the near betrayed glaze her eyes bore.
He wanted to sweep her into his arms, to apologise to her, to soothe her but it would only make this more confusing for her.
"Why?" Gael asked in a crushing whisper deepening the small crack in his resolve.
Aegon grimaced and looked pained as he turned away from her entreating gaze, a gaze that seemed to beg him to change his mind, a gaze that spoke so much of her vulnerability in this moment. He couldn't. He wouldn't.
There was so little left of his old life, his life that he'd been happy with, a life where he had meaning. Where he knew how the world worked.
Where he knew what he wanted.
And all that he had left were his painful and all too real memories…and the values he was taught and the morality that he was brought up with.
Values and sense of moralities that he had to already shed in significant amounts and that he would need to shed more in order to truly numb himself to the realities of the world he'd been made to re-incarnate into.
A world that he was cruelly afflicted with without rhyme or reason or meaning with all of his ever reminding memories of a blissful, insignificant life no longer available to him.
…a world where he knew he would end up having to kill in order to simply survive.
His hands wouldn't remain clean.
Not even being a prince would allow him the luxury of his hands remaining clean.
But with the choice he made, he would be travelling the world with seas infested with pirates and slavers, and find himself in places crawling with murderers and rapists and that was easy to live with. Of what he might do to those enemies, for himself or for innocents, in the name of decency…or in the name of self-interest.
Hands stained, yes, but with the blood of few of the truly wicked.
Insignificant. Meaningless. Easy.
Free.
Free from real responsibility, free from the realities of this world where he knew he could make a lasting difference, free from the deep binds of humanity.
He found reasons to live in Mīsaragorn and he had forged a purpose to live for – discovery, knowledge, magic – but that meant that nearly all of his sense of morality, his values, had to take a backseat in the name of pragmatism and simple survival.
And this…this was not necessary to his survival, this temptation of irredeemably separating from his old values and morality instead of bending it or ignoring it as he would have to in order to survive. It was a vice that he should not wish to accept.
A bind that he could not afford to have.
He closed his eyes momentarily, his mind warring with itself. No…he would live his life as pragmatically as needed and there were lines that he would not cross.
And Gael…his aunt…was a line he would not cross.
"Is this because you want to sail the seas?" Gael blurted out, unwilling to stand the silence that crept between them. "Seven have mercy, you can sail the seas all you wish, you can even take me with you!" she said hastily, almost desperately and he had to use all of his willpower to resist the wince that burbled from within.
'He didn't deserve her…and she didn't deserve the mess he was'
He smiled dimly at her. He could lie to her. He could tell her that it was the sole reason why he didn't want to marry her. He met her gaze and realised then and there that there was only person here that he knew he could never truly lie to.
He broke away from her gaze.
He would fall back to the easy choice, the easy half-lie.
Finally, after moments of silence "You are my aunt, Gael." Aegon said as he stared out into the distance, the orange and red rays of the sun painting the horizon, the distorted light from the sun falling onto the clear blue waters like tapering red streaks made from fine and broad paint brushes alike.
Tarth really was a beautiful island.
"That is why." He finally said, his gaze fixed onto the coastline, his mind traitorously whispering things he didn't want to think.
She wouldn't understand, nor would she understand any other reasons that he might have save of telling her the whole truth and that…would never happen, no matter how tempted he was. She would think him insane and he didn't want her to doubt him like that. He doubted his sanity enough for the pair of them.
"I don't understand, Aegon" she said as she walked up to him and forced him to look at her as her hands gently swivelled his face to hers. "Why does that matter?" she asked him with a tone of confusion, her deep violet eyes boring into his own.
"It matters because it's everything. We are family." Aegon looked away from her, his stomach unsettled as his mind whirled of the ugliness of his existence, their existence.
He worked around it by simply not thinking about it but honestly it was hard not to.
Gael might have been born from his grandparents but given that he was born from the union of a second generation brother-sister coupling, Gael practically was as close as a sister genetically speaking as one could get. And that was without factoring in how much of a circle his family tree really was for at least two centuries.
Generations of Targaryens might have been generally fine without illness or insanity because of magic despite generations of brother-sister marriages unbroken for nearly two centuries and while Aerys – who was definitely mentally ill – might have been a wild outlier despite future generations continuing the practice, it wasn't enough in his mind to accept and commit something he thought was wrong.
It was wrong, no matter how 'normal' it was to this family.
There was an arrogance to House Targaryen that they were closer to Gods than they were to men – perhaps that was truer than not given that they should have ended years ago if it was only nature at play – but they were still only people, however 'magical' they might be.
He knew that bitterly.
After all, he was here, wasn't he?
This…extended existence of his, an existence that some might think a blessing – a second chance, was obviously not natural and it was as close to having proof of the divine as one would get other than facing the divine directly.
And it was proof that God was apathetic and unpredictable and cruel beyond imagination. Not only to rob him of peace but also to place him in a world that should just be a story without even once answering his questions of why.
He'd lived a decent life, hadn't he? Short, yes. Did he have regrets? Yes. But ultimately, he'd accepted death and now…now he didn't know what it was all for.
Was there any real purpose to existence or was it just a game to a cruel god?
He did not want to play, he did not want to participate in the story they'd…he'd written. He'd rather nuke it all than to give whatever made him reincarnate the satisfaction of being pulled into the game.
He'd live a life driven entirely by the whims of his want, a life without meaning, one that see him build what he wanted to build, see what he wanted to see and help those in his adventures path who wanted and deserved and needed his help. And then he'd pray for the abyss on his deathbed.
He would do all he could to make his fate his own, and only his own making.
What else was there for him here in this world?
"You are my aunt, the person who I consider family above most everyone else." Aegon said as he turned to look at her with look of sadness but firmness resettling in his chest "It is wrong and I cannot see you that way." It was better for the both of them that they remained nothing but friends. She deserved to be happy.
Gael stepped back, confusion and hurt on her face.
"But our family…"
"I know." Aegon said as he looked away from her confused look. "All the same it would not be right. I cannot marry you Gael." He once more said with firmness.
"Can't or won't?" she asked him with a tremulous voice, her soulful staring deep into his own as he met them. The silence was stifling before he finally answered.
"Does it matter?" Aegon said quietly, more a statement than a question.
Gael laughed with a deep sadness that sounded almost hollow and she gave him a look that said that it did matter and that she also knew the answer to her question.
She turned away from him, her back towards him and she remained silent for a while. The silence, as painful as it was, very much welcome in only for the slight reprieve it gave him from this conversation.
"I think I understand now." She said, breaking the silence.
"Understand what?" Aegon asked carefully, his sense of unease growing amidst her almost vacant look.
"Why you have felt so distant to our family…we disgust you." Gael laughed sadly as she turned towards him with a look of despair and sadness "You feel disgusted with yourself." And the look she gave him said 'and you're disgusted with me'
"No!" Aegon half-lied defensively and convincingly as he paced over to her, his tall figure looming over her as he grabbed her small hands gently "I am not disgusted with our family…or with you" he said with as much force as he could. "Or myself."
"Never believe that, Gael. Please."
"Then make me understand" Gael said pleadingly as she clung to his words, guilt filling him for lying so easily to her. "Then why not?" she asked in a whisper.
She looked at him with eyes that bore the beginning of tears. "I know you care for me, more than one cares for an aunt…more than one cares for family." She said with a muted whisper.
Aegon swallowed harshly as he looked away from her entreating eyes all but confirming that what she was accusing him of was not without kernels of truth.
But what could he say about why he simply couldn't?
That his denial was rooted in the fact that he just didn't belong in this world? He wasn't truly Aegon, son of Baelon but rather someone born and shaped by a world that was alien to her and to all of the rest the people of this world?
Even if he could somehow get over his sense of wrongness that was this entire affair, even if he was able to get over his…aversion like he tried not to want, the withered vines of his belief in the divine was restored ever since he understood the implications of his existence here in this not-so-fictional world.
No matter how much he truthfully loathed God whom he'd cursed countless of times. No matter how much he resented the silence to his prayers he'd made to Him in his darkest of times.
And truthfully...
Aegon feared Him or whatever it was that brought him in this world. He'd already shown his cruelty not only in the robbery of his peace in death but also in His silence.
What was to stop Him from exacting so called Judgement and destroy everything he'd come to love and cherish within a flash? Perhaps it even wasn't his God either that pulled him into this world, a consideration that he hated and feared even more.
In the end, existence was proving to be unfree and Aegon would do all he could to be absolutely free of everything so that his very existence was an act of rebellion.
Gael wouldn't be pulled into his madness and she'd live a happy life with his father Baelon and hopefully that set of chain of events would delay the Dance of Dragons to beyond hers and Viserys' lifetimes.
Gael continued "Make me understand why you're so against this when we're the blood of Old Valyria…when this has been our way for thousands of years. Not even the Faith stands against our right as Valyrians."
Aegon latched onto her words of 'how things had always been like'. It was cowardly but he was tiring of hurting to see her heart break so undeservedly. "What do either of us really know of Old Valyria and its ways?" Aegon said as he broke off his gaze.
The fascination of his life and yet simultaneously the bane of his life.
Whatever was Valyria really like, beyond the kernels of truth from tales of cruelty and horror that existed in the public well of knowledge, was lost to the sands of time.
Old Town's 'historical' books were not to be trusted as factual and the fact that much of what they knew and were brought up with were identical to what Old Town reported made him doubt that his grandfather knew all that much about Old Valyria.
"I doubt even grandfather knows any more about Old Valyria than the Maesters of Old Town do." Aegon said with a distant sigh.
Though he was very sure they knew far more than the few scrolls and books that remained at Dragonstone or the books they lent to Elysar.
For a dragonlord family such as the Targaryens, one of the fabled forty, even if it was a lowly House, to not have more on Old Valyria was suspicious, especially considering that all that remained was little more than a few scrolls and books that offered barest of details and most of it was consigned to familial history and a few accounts of deeds during the wars that Old Valyria fought in the few hundred years before the Doom.
There was nothing on Valyrian society beyond the few entries on the forty and their infighting, nothing substantial on its culture and its society and what remained was largely about the evils of the society.
There were no mentions of how alliances were formed, on marriage practices beyond the vows he found and how magic was involved in the daily lives of the Valyrians.
Even Carthage, an empire razed to ashes and its ground salted, had accounts of its society and its practices a thousand years later before even the time of archaeology.
He turned back his gaze to Gael "We say we're the blood of Old Valyria but we do not even know what that means, Gael. What do we know of their practices, of the way they lived their lives? We don't even keep to the same Gods anymore."
Aegon the Conqueror had long converted to the Faith of the Seven and only hints of th