"My Lord," came the voice of a soldier, bowing reverently, "your daughter has returned from Tyrosh."
"Good," Spoke the king, a smile drifting across his face as he swirled a cup of wine about his jewel encrusted goblet, "send her up to me at once."
"Yes my lord, it will be done." And with another bow they hurried off, eager to retrieve the daughter of the king, lest his temper turn.
The king stood, quickly downing the last of his wine, a stellar import straight from Myr, and set his goblet down. He walked across the smooth stone floor, cloaks of black and royal purple swaying behind him as he strode towards an open window.
He reached the edge and breathed, sighing as the fresh air reached him, the pleasant heat of a lovely summer sunset refreshing, and the outline of his beloved city was especially beautiful as the sun set behind it.
So lost in thought was the King, that he didn't notice the return of the soldier, this time with his daughter and her guards in tow.
"Ahem," The soldier cleared his throat respectfully before speaking, "my lord, I have retrieved your daughter."
"Thank you," the king said, turning to face the princess, a joyful smile on his face, "you are dismissed."
"Hello father," the daughter said, her voice light and happy, "how have you been?"
"I've been wonderful dear, but the palace feels awfully lonely without you you know."
"I missed you too father." She said, stepping forward to embrace him.
"But enough of that, how was Myr?" He said, grinning as his daughter eyes lit up.
"Oh father it was wonderful! The city was beautiful, the people were so kind, and…"
'What a girl', The king thought, 'not even twenty and she's already seeing the world.'
Truly, the daughter of the King was a princess, in the most stereotypical sense. Polite, well-mannered and beautiful. But above all, she was the perfect princess because she was not much more than that. The king loved her with all his heart, of course, but she was no ruler. She would marry into another house to strengthen his army and secure loyalty. That was just how things were.
"...and you should come visit the Free Cities with me sometime, it would be wonderful to vacation around Essos with you!"
"Darling," The king ruffled her hair with his hand, drawing a light hearted giggle from the girl, "only sixteen and already trying to escape?"
"Goodness no!" She instantly balked at the idea, "Father, I am still yet to be wed, I can't leave now, and plus, who would keep you company?"
"No worries my dear, I will find someone to love you," He pulled his daughter into another hug before waving her off, "Now go on, I've business to attend to."
"Is," the princess paused for a second, "is Lord Aenar still writing to you?"
"That he is," the king sat back down in his throne, rubbing his forehead and sighing, "ever since his daughter-"
"Daenys." She corrected.
"Yes, her," the king resumed, "ever since her vision, and since Aenar left for Dragonstone, and will not stop pestering me, always going on and on about how Valyria is doomed, and our city will fall. A load of dragon dung is what it is, heh, Doom of Valyria." The king scoffed at the absurdity of the idea.
"I swear, ever since those Targaryens started making mixed breeds with the humans, they've lost their damn minds."
"Father…" The princess said, looking at him pointedly.
"Yes yes, I know," he groaned into his hands, "we must play nice with the humans. The men of Essos are our allies and all that."
'Allies,' the king scoffed internally, 'we're playing nice with those round eared savages and everyone but them know it. Preachy and noble the lot of them, at least Slaver's Bay keeps giving us test subjects.'
"If we are nice to them, they will be nice to us," the princess said, while her father started to become a little lost in thought, "it only makes sense."
"Of course." The king said.
"We are nice to them.
Deep below the keep, behind miles of tunnels and thousands of feet of stone, were the great Valyrian dungeons. Rank with blood and death, an unholy, ghastly smell was permanently infused into the dank walls. Rooms filled with altars, bodies, sometimes pieces of them, and of course, the chimeras.
Shrouded in myth, rumor and shadow, the truth of the Valyrian Chimeras was far more horrifying than ever imagined. Blood magic, dark arts, pacts with demons and a shuddering lack of morality and respect for life were forced together beneath the city, twisting both man and beast into horrific monsters, warping the flesh and corrupting the soul.
Giant, man faced worms, snakes with arms, men with heads covered in bulging eyes, meter long centipedes with a taste for the flesh of the living, and undead monsters. Storage rooms lined wall to wall with jars and vessels containing organs, limbs, gallons and gallons of blood and other life fluids, and there were rumors yet further down of a vault containing the souls of a thousand men.
Screams echoed constantly through the halls, as the sounds of ritual sacrifice rang out in the dark, a horrific, torturous existence ended only through death.
In one such room, the crunch and tear of a dagger piercing flesh served as an end to the manic screaming of one particularly loud human.
'I believe this was one of those Dothraki' the Valyrian in charge of the experiment thought, 'copper skin, dark hair and eyes, long...greasy…hair in a braid, yes. One of the horsemen.'
"Ser Lucaenor," came a nasaly voice, "I have been informed you have completed your project."
"That I have," the rail thin Valyrian said, turning to face the newcomer, bloodshot, glowing purple eyes eyeing the Hand of the King with a maddening curiosity, "It is on the altar over there. I took the liberty of washing it clean of viscera for you."
"The only thing you need to wash blood off is your hair, Ser Lucaenor." The hand of the king said, gesturing towards the Valyrians hair, his wild, platinum blonde hair matted thick with blood and grim, turning it a different color entirely. So dirty and rancid he was, from days underground dissecting and creating monsters, that his pointed ears (a signature of the Valyrian race right alongside silver hair, purple eyes and immunity to fire) were barely visible through the mess of blood sitting on top of his skull.
"Hilarious." Lucaenor mumbled to himself, before reaching for his Valyrian steel knife, intent on continuing his dissection. He was hoping that the heart of a Dothraki would be the right one for his newest creation, and was eager to resume his work.
"You are sure this will work as intended, if need be?" The Hand of the King said, holding up the amulet. It was a small thing, being a glowing purple gemstone with a hexagonal cut, the edges capped with valyrian steel. It looked solid enough, but as the Hand of the King held it up to the torchlight, he could see a bright white light shining from the inside, seeming almost fluid as it shifted deep inside the stone. A thin, silver chain made it into a full necklace, perfectly sized for its intended wearer.
"Yes. I would advise you to be careful with it," Lucaenor advised, as he reached into the chest cavity of the Dothraki cadaver, "there's enough latent magic in there to incinerate this entire room if it breaks."
Instantly, the Hand became cautious, now holding the necklace out at arms length, while he power walked out of the room, the manic cackling of Lucaenor sending shivers down his spine as he made his way out of the dungeons. His hollow, unnerving laugh bounded around the hallways, echoing through the stone walls, until the stopped as the Hand of the King slammed the door shut.
"Lady Morrigan?" The Hand said, knocking and entering the room of the princess.
"I've come with a gift for you," he said, while the Valyrian princess turned in her chair to face him, an ivory comb in her long, platinum blonde hair, "you father had it commissioned for you."
"Thank you Ser Visevor." Morrigan said, setting the comb down and standing up. She walked over to the Hand, wooden floorboards creaking slightly as her bare feet padded across them, silken nightgown flowing with her movement. She reached the Hand, and bowed her head, allowing Visevor to place the gift around her neck.
"It's wonderful Ser Visevor," she said, holding it in her hand and inspecting the glowing purple gem, "please express my satisfaction to the jewler, whoever it is has done an incredible job."
"It will be done Lady Morrigan," Visevor said as he exited the room, a hand on the door, "goodnight."
"Goodnight Ser Visevor!" She said, as the door closed behind him.
"My Lord, I've given your daughter the amulet, she expressed none of the adverse reactions Lucaenor theorized." Visevor said as he rejoined the king.
"Good. Then it will keep her safe should they attack." The king said, as the two continued walking through the dank hallways below Valyria, intent on rejoining Lucaenor beneath the keep.
"My Lord," Visevor said, fear rising in his voice as they drew closer to Lucaenor, "are you sure this is necessary? We can kill them, we've learned."
"We've learned to kill them in isolation, chained to a wall a mile underground in the heart of our greatest city." The king said, his stride not even slowing. "We have no experience fighting them on an open battlefield."
"Will we even need to?" Visevor said again, "The Wall has stood for 7000 years and change, not once has it been breached."
"Therefore, they have been beyond The Wall for what is now almost 8000 years doing nothing but gathering strength. While their power grows, they fall into myth." The king said, pausing at the door to Lucaenor' laboratory.
"There are three people in this world who know they exist," he said, slowly, quietly, "me, you, and the psycho behind that door. That is it."
"Ser Lucaenor is the only one to return from beyond the wall with one of them, and not wholly in one piece either." Visevor said, eyeing the door.
It was true. Many years ago, the King had launched a secret expedition beyond the wall, one with the goal of bringing back one of them. A party of six and and three dragons traveled to the land of always winter, and returned with one man, one dragon, and a White Walker.
And not a wight either, for the thing behind the door was no lowly, mindless undead. A true Walker, with skin like ice, hair like snow and eyes burning like blue stars. It needed no food, water, air, or even sleep. Come to think of it, no one had ever seen the thing blink in the two decades it had been locked up down here.
"What are you suggesting?" The king asked, raising an eyebrow.
"What I'm suggesting," Visevor looked around, before lowering his voice, "is that Ser Lucaenor has not been right in the head since his return. I'm suggesting that he may have been seeing things up North."
"You propose that Ser Lucaenor…" The king paused to find the right words, "Hallucinated an army of dead people?"
"Perhaps."
The King was seriously thinking this over. No one who'd met him could deny Lucaenor had gone mad, but even so, he was a genius in his craft and an expert in dark arts and blood magic. And the proof was right there. The door creaked as the King opened it, shedding his robes and placing them on a table, exposing his brilliant silver armor to the dark room, a hand on his blade, a large bastard sword, if something were to happen.
But there it was. Eyes narrowed, glowing purple meeting glowing blue. The kings grip on his sword tightened as the Walker shifted, the thick, valyrian steel chains around his neck, toros, waist, arms, legs and hands rattling as it sat up, wispy, stringy, ghost white hair hanging down to its shoulders. It slumped over, chained to the wall, milky flesh wrapped tight around the, gaunt, emaciated husk of a man, flesh rigid and deformed.
Around it were piles of bones and rotten flesh, the aftermath of extensive weapons testing on wights it had been forced to raise. Lucaenor stood in one corner, bloodshot eyes wild and frantic while he tried to put on a composed front.
"My lord," Lucaenor said, kneeling briefly, "I have come across some...odd developments."
"Continue." The king said, his hand never straying from his sword, eyes never leaving the Walkers. The thing stared at him, unblinking eyes like blue ice boring into his with an unnerving degree of concentration. There was intelligence behind those eyes, a fierce, calculating intelligence, simmered over with frosty hate, far different in comparison to the wights it had raised while under Valyria.
"Simply put my lord, I have been feeling exponentially more energy coming from the subject. It has been growing for over a day now, and it showing no signs of stopping."
"Interesting, I wonder if…" Everyone stopped dead.
"My Lord, do you..feel that?" Ser Visevor asked, as a faint rumble vibrated through his legs. Then, as soon as it came, it was gone, leaving an uneasy silence in its wake.
"I did," The king answered, "Ser Lucaenor, could that be-"
It was then that a deafening shockwave rippled through the room, throwing all three Valyrians to the ground. The room shook, dust and stray bricks falling from the domed ceiling.
"Get out!" The King yelled, as he leapt to the door, an explosion blooming into existence on the surface. As he threw the door open, he could see faint lines of magma flowing through cracks in the stone hallway, as the corridor shook violently.
As they ran, a section of the stone roof caved in, narrowly missing the three fleeing Valyrians. The halls groaned, shaking as bricks and dust fell from above, magma seeping through the walls at an alarming rate, while boots pounded on the floor.
"Move! On your feet!" The king yelled as he ran through the upper floors of the subterranean complex, grabbing a fellow Valyrian mage by the collar and hoisting him up.
"We need to get to the surface, now!"
The world was ending. Morrigan stood at her window, eyes wide, mouth shape as explosions and eruption ravaged the city around her. The Fourteen Flames, a range of great volcanic mountains threw tons of molten rock and smoke into the air, as shockwave after shockwave send ripples through the air. The ground rolled like waves, shattering palaces and homes as the lakes and ponds of the city boiled. Not even the dragons were spared, struck down by flaming meteorites and choked in the thick smoke. To the east, Morrigan could even see a great tsunami sweeping over the Isle of Cedars, wiping Velos and Ghozai off the face of Essos.
As far as she could see, the world was descending into armageddon. For five hundred miles around, explosions rocked the Valyrian Peninsula, carving great rents and molten canyons into the ground, as dragonglass shards began to rain down from the swirling clouds above, claps of thunder threaten to deafen the princess as bolts of jagged lightning split the sky.
"Morrigan!" The king yelled as he burst into her room, soot coating his armor, dragonglass crown long abandoned.
"Father!" She cried, running into his arms, ignoring the copious amounts of ash and soot being transferred to her dress. He sighed in relief, overjoyed that his daughter was alive for now. But they had to go. He stood, and wiped his ash colored hair out of his face, and reached for her hand.
"We need to go," He said, as he began to lead his daughter through the palace, "Aenar was right, and I was apparently a fool to not believe him."
"Father, whois that?" Morrigan shouted in alarm, a finger shakily pointed to a figure at the far end of the hallway.
"Get behind me Morrigan." The king said, steel in his voice as he drew Blackmorne. The weight of the oversized longsword, closer in size to an executioner's sword perhaps, provided the king some comfort. A double handed grip, wrapped in leather the color of night, a pommel shaped like a roaring dragon skull, with crimson eyes and silver teeth. His gauntlet creaked slightly as he clenched his mailed fist, the top of his hand resting against the crossguard, six inches long, with two coiled metal quillons protecting his hand. The blade was a four inch wide hunk of metal with a large cutting edge and a double fuller. A simple, straight rectangle of black, valyrian steel topped with a smooth spear point tip. Fifty inches long, forty two inches of pure, valyrian steel blade.
At the far end of the hallway, was the White Walker. Bare, milky flesh streaked with soot, burning blue eyes full of malice. In its hand was a sword made of ice, if it could even be called that. It was about five feet long, and split in half at the middle. The top two and a half feet was a jagged, triangular blade, while the lower half a long handle. Blood dripped off its length, and a stray portion of intestine was hanging off the tip.
"Go back the way we came," the king said, placing both hands on his sword, holding it out in front of him, "go down the stairs, and find the nearest dragon. Ride to Dragonstone, and tell Aenar what is happening."
"But-"
"I'll be fine." The king turned to his daughter, giving her a light, fatherly kiss on the forehead. "I love you, my daughter, no matter what happens."
"Now go. I'll be right behind you."
With his daughter gone, the king turned back to his opponent, and charged. Yelling a fearsome war cry, the King of Valyria met his opponent, and swung his blade. Bringing it's ice sword up to meet his valyrian steel, the walker stopped his strike dead in its tracks.
The Valyrian grit his teeth, glaring at the walker as he drew back and swung again, growling when his sword was stopped dead once more.
It suddenly wrenched its sword up, and slashed at the Valyrian king, carving a rent across his stomach, before kicking him in the gut. He bounced along the floor, coming to a stop a good dozen feet from the walker.
The White Walker smiled.
"I," he stood again, as the walkers eyes glowed brighter than ever, its thin smile gone, "Am Aeragos of House Raytheon," he said, stumbling to his feet, "First of His Name, King of Valyria, Lord of Dragons, Defender of Men and Knight of the Freehold."
I!" He yelled, raising his sword and breaking into a sprint, "Am the Black Dragon of Valyria, and I will be your doom!"
With a great roar, Raytheon brought his sword down vertically, his blade slamming into the ice sword of the walker. He yelled again, and brought his sword back up, and down, right back onto the ice blade, locking weapons with the white walker.
But despite the ferocious might of the Dragon King, the icy monster before him was far stronger. Twisting the blades to the side, the walker grabbed Aeragos by the throat, lifting him into the air, slowly strangling the life out of the Valyrian. Aeragos grunted and struggled, kicking the walker in the chest over and over again, his sabatons thudding harshly against the walkers cold flesh.
"Ggrah!" Raytheon grunted harshly, a sharp, cold pain in his chest making itself present. He looked down, at the walker, and at the blade of ice lanced through his torso. Already his head was swimming, warm blood pouring through his armor. A sickening suction noise hit his ears as the walker ripped its blade out of his body and dropped him to the ground.
The walker turned. Without hesitation it strode down the hallway that only moments before his daughter had fled down.
"G-get back here!" He yelled weakly, blood streaming from his mouth, "I'm, I'm...not done with you…" He groaned as his vision faded, pinkish arterial blood bubbling from the gaping hole in his chest and lung.
"I'm sorry Morrigan…" He whispered as death claimed him, "I'm...sorry..."
And the King of Valyria was no more.
"No, no, please!" Morrigan yelled, slamming her hands on where the door should be. The only way down to the dragon barracks was blocked by rubble, and the Valyrian Princess was beginning to lose hope.
A set of lone footsteps pulled her out of despair, as someone rounded the corner. Morrigan choked back a sob as the White Walker locked eyes with her, its ice blade coated with fresh blood. She looked around frantically, before her eyes landed a corridor to her left. Her purple eyes flickered back to the walker at the far end of the corridor, before she took a deep breath and bolted.
Ducking into the corridor, she ran. Breaking into a dead sprint, she ran the length of the smooth, empty hallway in record time. She saw a light, the dark, reddish haze of evening sunset through an open door growing closer and closer as she approached.
Just as she burst through the ruined doorway, she stopped. Skidding to a halt on the rough stone floor, Morrigan found herself at the edge of a sudden cliff. Apparently this section of the castle had been destroyed, and now the Princess of Valyria faced a drop. Easily four hundred feet were between her and the ground, which had become a roiling mass of molten stone and rubble. The beauty of the soft reddish sunset was undercut by the absolutely apocalyptic scene. Fires were raging, and the Fourteen Flames had not stopped erupting in the slightest, throwing up even more smoke than before. Shards of dragonglass and flaming rock still rained down from the sky, shattering against the robust stone structures.
Holding back tears as armageddon consumed her home, Morrigan turned and ran once more, hoping to find somewhere, anywhere, to hide.
Instead she came eye to eye with the White Walker.
It only took a second. Morrigan's chest offered no resistance as the White Walker impaled her, punching its ice blade through her sternum and ripping out the back of her spine with a nauseating tearing and crunching sound.
She fell to the ground, pain lancing through her body, stifling any sound she tried to make. Her blood, warm and red, pooled out her back and chest, forming a rapidly expanding puddle on the stone she laid on. She felt cold, a deep, biting chill as the life drained from her body, the ice sword still in her chest.
She moved, her arms twitching and shfiting as she convulsed in a vain attempt to breathe, as the walker bent down. It reached toward her, wrapping a hand around the handle of the sword, as Morrigan's hand closed around a rock. Without a moment's hesitation, she swung wildly, flailing her arm roughly at the walker.
A shard of dragonglass, one of many pieces of rock scattered around her, found its mark. The obsidian point caught the white walker in the side of the neck as it bent down.
Instantly, its blue eyes shot open, and it writhed. Twisting and turning, it opened its mouth to scream as its body turned to ice, quickly spreading from the injury. A sound like a frozen river cracking shot from its mouth, as its new flesh creaked and groaned, before the white walker shattered, falling and breaking into hundreds of thousands of pieces of ice.
By now Morrigan's vision had faded, colors appear washed out and dull, light and dark melding together, and the edges of her sight were becoming a fuzzy sort of grey. The feeling drained from her limbs, as the last of her blood trickled out of her mouth, labored breathing becoming slower and slower.
And then it stopped.
It had been a fortnight. Fourteen days since armageddon, and only one since the last fire has gone out, and the last of the magma had cooled. Valyria was destroyed, and the King and Princess dead. Had the people of Valyria still lived, the deaths of King Aeragos Raytheon and Princess Morrigan Raytheon would have led to weeks, perhaps months of mourning.
But a dead city does not mourn. The dead are quiet, peaceful. For the most part.
At that moment, a deep purple gem, the very same one set into the necklace of the deceased Morrigan Raytheon, began to glow even brighter. The white light within began to intensify and change, becoming harsher and more powerful, flowing out of the gem, until it was empty, aglow no longer.
The light moved, flowing like liquid in the air above the body of the princess, until it shifted. It entered her, flowing into the grievous and ultimately fatal chest wound she'd suffered. It spread throughout her body, filling every corner of her with light, until, after a few minutes, it left
It exited her body, flowing out of her mouth and back into the air. But it was changed. Instead of the pure, white energy that left the gemstone, this was black. It moved jerkily, like molten tar or pitch. It was erratic, tainted, like it had been infected.
Or like it had removed an infection.
It hovered in the air for a second before it dove back into the gem. It buried itself deep within the stone, corrupting the smooth, royal purple, and turning it black. Once it was done, it settled, now a solid ebony crystal, with a faint purple light deep within, barely visible, but there, glowing weakly.
Then Morrigan's eyes snapped open.
The Doom of Valyria was apocalyptic. On that day, every hill for five hundred miles exploded. The air was filled with smoke and fire. Earthquake destroyed palaces, towns and temples while lakes boiled and turned to acid. The volcanic mountains of Valyria, the Fourteen Flames, sent thousands upon thousands of tons of smoke and molten rock into the air, sending a hail of dragonglass down upon the city.
The force of the cataclysm was so powerful, it shattered the Valyrian Peninsula, creating a new sea between the baby islands. A tsunami had destroyed Velos and Ghozai, purging the Isle of Cedars of life.
Very few Valyrians survived. Aside from the Targaryens, who had left for Dragonstone a dozen years before, a small handful of people were remaining, with even fewer surviving dragons.
But now the fires had died, the mountains stilled, and the screams of terror had finally been rendered silent. And in one hall, in one castle, Morrigan found her father.
Given the fourteen days since his demise, the body of Aeragos Raytheon was in remarkable good condition. The smoke had, for the most part, driven away a large portion of the insects that would have eaten away at him, and the intense heat seemed to preserve him, his body having been lightly smoked and cooked.
A terribly unworthy fate for such a great man. To be killed by a prisoner in his own home, stabbed and cast aside without so much as a second glance. Aeragos had made the name Raytheon one to be respected. Form Valyria to Dragonstone, everyone with a head on their shoulders knew and feared the Dragon King. He'd been a Dragonlord, and one of the most powerful at that. He'd seen the future of Valyria, and watched as the forty houses grew greedy and cruel, how they began to sacrifice the lives of their subjects for their own gain, how they each worked against each other instead of with each other and for the Freehold.
So Aeragos had taken action.
He amassed an army, and the greatest fleet of dragons the Freehold had ever seen, and brought the houses beneath his boot. He crushed their armies, burned their castles and conquered thirty five of fourty houses, alongside his four allied houses, subjugated the continent of Essos, and crowned himself King of Valyria, ushering in the greatest four decades of growth, luxury and prosperity the Valyrian Freehold had ever seen.
While yes, it was certainly a blow to his pride when his greatest allies and first house to stand together with him, House Targaryen, had fled to Dragonstone, Aeragos soldiered on.
And then the Doom came. Often seen as retribution, as vengeance leveled against the mortals of Valyria by the gods, who, disgusted with their black magic and blood arts, saw fit to wipe them from the face of Essos. Maybe it was the White Walker, amassing some hitherto unknown magic affinity, growing strong enough to obliterate a peninsula in a bid for escape. Or perhaps it was just a spot of extraordinary bad luck, just a roll of the dice, and naught more than a great volcanic eruption.
But no matter the cause of the Doom, it had happened. Just as Daenys the Dreamer had predicted, and the King was a fool to dismiss her.
And now he was dead. As for his daughter, it was a very interesting situation.
Morrigan however, wished she was truly gone. She had opened her eyes, gasping for air as she shot upright. A thick coating of ash blanketed her body, covering her in grey and black soot. She stood up, wiping it off her face as she looked around at the dead city before her.
She ran. She sprinted through the ruined halls of the keep faster and longer than ever before, ash falling through holes in the ceiling like snow, coating the ground and covering her hair. And covering the body of her father.
She sat there, her fathers corpse in her arms, sob wracking her body as she sat on the ground with his lifeless body for hours. Maybe even days, neither Valyria nor Morrigan knew or cared. She cried, undignified, with heavy, ugly, painful cries, the kind that send tears streaming down your face for hours on end. But no tears came, and they never would again.
Morrigan Raytheon was dead.
AN
So I had this idea rattling around in the back of my Meme Forge for a few weeks now, and with the end of Game of Thrones behind us, I felt this was a good time to get it out there. Let me know what you think, and tell me if you want me to continue it.
-Athk0r3