Episodes of the Shadow Dragon
1.
The old lord of the Twins sits at his table, stuffing food in his mouth while housemaids clean his floor stained with red. He doesn't look up as the double doors open and close. Neither does he look up when footsteps fall on the floor, coming closer and closer. The handmaidens glance at the stranger and quickly lower their heads. Yet the old man eats, the knife on the plate loud in the cold air.
"Hello Walder."
The voice pierces through the silence. He looks up and does a double take. In sudden eager he gets to his feet, disregarding falling food and cutlery. He spreads his arms wide, faking a grin of joy looking more like a grimace of the devil.
"My lady! I thought you had forgotten an old man. Welcome to my humble abode. I offer you bread and salt and safety for as long as you are under my roof."
He hastily finds half a piece of bread and a small amount of salt. He hastens around the table and offers them to his guest with hesitation. A tremor running through his limbs. The young woman smiles and lets her hood fall, revealing pale blonde hair tied in braids with golden thread. She fixes him with a steely blue stare.
"I do not forget." She says softly, advancing on him. "You swore an oath, I recall."
She is only a couple of paces away from him. Her breath touching his skin. He smiles winningly and opens his arms, pitiful plates still in hand.
"And my word is…" He begins, his voice filled with faked pride and glee.
He gasps as he feels a strange sensation. She holds him upright, stronger than she appears. She hisses in his ear, her voice dripping with contempt and hate.
"Rotten."
The handmaidens stare in shocked silence and then flee to the walls, huddling in pairs, taking in the old man and the young woman standing in front of the table. His guards, slow to realize what's going on, notices how the plates with bread and salt fall from the hands of Walder Frey, echoing through his castle. Outside there's an almighty roar and the skies fill with screams as a deep shadow draw across the lands. The guards draw their weapons but through the window a dragon breathes a wall of fire, shielding the couple from the men. She meets its eye, acknowledging an old friend.
"You bastard." Lord Frey gives a raspy gasp of pain.
She smiles sweetly, coldly. "You betrayed my friend's family. Now I betray yours. Watch your house go up in flames Walder Frey, watch your daughters scream with pain, and know – your name will be removed from every book that I can find. And tainted black like the venom in your blood. Your name dies like tears in the rain."
His eyes brim with tears and disbelief. And then he sees, the flames and the smoke reflected in his eyes. The stones of the hall starts to melt and the air is full of screams and the floor pools with blood and guards catch the flame's disease. The light from the day outside seeps through the cracks that starts to form in the walls as dragon's fire breaches the stone. Yet she remains unaffected, ashes painting black streaks on her pearly skin. Walder Frey cannot look away and a single tear runs down his cheek before there's only void in his eyes. The lady of the Dragon lets him slide to the floor without a look at the old man. She turns and walks through the flames out of the Twins, out of the halls of her fallen enemy.
2.
A dessert world. Far away from anything and so high it befriends the clouds in the sky. A cell. It's pitch black, the faint torchlight from beneath the door creating an impenetrable fog above. The ceiling is somewhere there. It's impossibly high and it goes on and on endlessly fleeing. A bottomless well turned upside-down. There is no bottom. And the chain shows no mercy. The door bursts open and Tyrion Lannister is hurled into the cell and shackled to the wall. The door slams shut and a key is turned. He gets to his feet and tests the chain, finding it quite strong indeed.
He sighs. "Well, at least it's not outside this time." He slumps against the wall.
Unseen by him there's someone else inside. Someone with eyes that seem to hold fire. A young woman, whose hair almost shines in the darkness. She was sleeping, her head resting on her hands. She watches as the tiny lord gives up, his eyelids falling shut.
As morning comes they are woken by a noise as the cell starts to shake. Tyrion quickly rolls towards the door when a crack begins to form in the floor, stretching from end to end. He knocks furiously, calling for someone behind it to open up. When no answer comes he grabs onto the iron ring to which he is bound as the floor suddenly gives way. In the bright, blinding light he sees the young woman. She, too, holds an iron ring, looking like a gymnast as her back is still towards the wall. The ring starts to slide out from between the rocks. A trickling stream of sand falling three hundred feet towards the dry, beaten ground. She locks his gaze with hers, unreadable, unblinking. He gasps, his heart skipping a beat as he realize -
"Oh god. Oh no. NO!" He shouts, forgetting his own peril.
But the young woman without a name as fallen out of sight. Tyrion breathes rapidly, clutching the ring, his eyes closed, burying into his hands. But the memory of the young woman's last moment is forever burnt onto his mind. He swallows and thus misses the miracle. A dragon flying beneath the cell and towards the horizon. The blonde young woman on its back, the chain trailing them like a tired banner in the wind.
3.
Not long thereafter Tyrion Lannister is walking along a path, away from the much used King's Road. It leads through a forest, dense with large boulders, sudden glades and fallen trees. He struggles to get by, but has as much fun as he can with his squire and trusted companion. He drinks wine mutters about times gone by and times that could have been.
It is in the middle of such a rant that he meets her. She appears from nowhere, standing in the middle of the road. Her hood up, her cloak falling to the ground. He stops as his knees gives way under him. She looks at him. Amused she waits, but no sound makes it past his lips.
"No, I'm not a ghost."
Tyrion starts to splutter. "But, but, but, I saw you! You fell!"
"I did." She acknowledges.
"How?"
Tyrion stands at loss for words. Helpless. Something he rarely been before, but has become far more frequent in recent times. Instead of answering she looks up and he follows her gaze. His hands grip the grass tightly for support, as his world seems to tilt seeing the majestic underbelly of a black and blue dragon flying over them. Even Podrick Payne takes the liberty to sit down. Tyrion looks back at the young woman and tries to speak several times, failing.
At last he swallows and offers her the flask. "Wine?"
"Please." She takes it and drinks from it, showing great trust in doing so.
She gives it back to him and sits down on the ground, leaning against a log. Every so often Tyrion snatches a glance at the circling dragon while Podrick busies himself with what he can see on the ground. The silence between the strangers grows. She waits patiently, happy to be in the company of another human. The squire nearly swoons when she smiles at him, which doesn't go missed by his lord.
"I thought all dragons were beyond the Narrow Sea, my lady." He says, breaking the silence.
"They are." Seeing Tyrion's confused look, she takes a breath to explain. "Daenerys Stormborn has three grown dragons, given to her by her brother. They were the first to hatch." She looks up at the dragon just as it dives out of sight. "She is the youngest. There were four eggs. Viserys gave the last to me."
He examines her carefully. "In exchange for what?"
"My loyalty and my support of his claim to the Iron Throne." She answers simply, but the lord senses the depths of information she hides within that sentence.
But something in her eyes tells him that information isn't available to him yet. Instead he sips his wine and asks another question, something he's been wondering for a long time.
"How did it hatch?"
At once a cloud seems to draw across the face of the young woman. He regrets his question and starts to take it back when;
"A great pyre." The words are heavy but flies lightly from her lips.
Going on a hunch, and years of reading people, Tyrion suddenly realizes what she means.
"Who's?" He asks carefully, almost holding his breath, hoping he isn't right.
"Mine."
Tyrion Lannister's heart sinks and he knows he needs to get up and get away, as far away as the world can possibly allow. But something compels him to stay, not just because he wouldn't be able to hide but the young woman suddenly looks alone, like some of her ice-cold facade has crumbled.
"My people weren't great admires of my husband but they always held him with high respect. Fear." She begins, thoughtful. "And then she came. Bringing news from the Lord of Light. To fight was not the answer, but to burn the root. No longer did the old or the new gods rule, but this the newest, and who they thought was the truest. A great pyre was built. My husband, our son, our ten-year-old son, and me were dragged out through a jeering crowd and bound. Where was that respect then? Where was the loyalty? The fear? I looked into their eyes and saw only madness. The madness of the Red Woman. She lit the flames herself and as we watched them creep towards us, my son started to cry. But he was brave and he squeezed my hand." She shows Tyrion her hand where five tiny scars can still be seen. "My husband turned to me and whispered 'Look.' And I did, and I saw that he had hid the dragon egg beneath his robes. 'If dragons have to burn, they all burn together.' She was born from their ashes. Fire can't kill the blood of the dragon. And The Lady in Red and her Lord of Light learnt that they have nothing on Vasaya Targaryen."
The Lord Lannister gasps at the sound of that impossible name. But after Vasaya's story, Tyrion can't find anything to say so he remains silent, watching Podrick making dinner. He stares at the girl who has lived in the shadows, the unknown baby, the twin. A woman whose namesake was his greatest nightmares as a child. But she was just a story, surely? Surely the stories couldn't be real? Yet he cannot move and cannot deny what his eyes see. A young woman, alone in the forest who has lost it all. Just like him. Vasaya sits still, lost in thoughts and memories. Occasionally her dragon screeches overhead, eventually landing close to their location. The Lord Lannister jumps every time fire flickers from the forest.
Their silent company stretches on till the day turns to night and the stars light the sky one by one. Tyrion is laying on his back on pieces of fur, his second flask of wine nearly empty.
"So, whose house are you bannerman for?" He asks out loud, recklessly and quite woozy.
"No one's but my own."
She fights to get her mind back to the present and Podrick Payne has to hold a plate with cut fruit and meat in front of her a while before she notices. She takes it from him with a grateful nod. He blushes and crumbles and takes a rabbit from the fire, hurrying into the forest towards the dragon. Tyrion chuckles and makes clucking sounds.
"No, no, no. No, that is not right. Every house fought in the War of the Five Kings. I saw the scrolls myself. I had to pay them. I was the Master of Coins. Me!"
"Not every one, little Lord." Vasaya replies calmly, ignoring his state.
He looks mildly bemused. "Huh. Impressive. Where are your halls, lovely, beautiful lady of fire?" He asks rolling over to his side to see her better.
She meets his eyes a while, contemplating what to answer. She narrows her eyes.
"Summerhall in the Stormlands." She says. "Tell me, what did you think of it?"
"Destroyed." He answers immediately and then it hits him. "Ah. Clever."
He grunts, attempting to sit up. He manages just as Podrick, pale as a ghost, comes back. He frowns at his squire.
"I play the long game, Tyrion Lannister. In hard times it's better to ride them out."
"I must disagree…" He starts to protest.
She points with a slice of apple at his face. "Where did you get that scar?"
Tyrion hesitates, at once sobering up. The lines on his face seem to deepen as he remembers that night. "The Battle of Blackwater." He answers in a voice all but dead.
"How many men did you loose?"
"Countless."
"How's your standing on the political stage?" She asks again, cocking her head.
Again he hesitates, unwilling to let go of his previous influence. "Precarious." He answers, as a true politician, putting up a confident yet apologetic façade. Which Vasaya Targaryen sees right through.
"Outcast. Whereas I do not exist, my birth never got recorded. There was no time before they all got killed. I am a surprise. You – are not. I bided my time, I grew strong. I have spies within all houses of Westeros. Yes, even at the Lannisters. You are as blind as the rest of them."
"We know about your sister." Tyrion states rather hurt.
Vasaya cocks her head. "How many dragons?"
"Three."
"How many men?" She wonders.
"A thousand?"
She smiles, her voices tainted with patronising undertones. "Wrong. Where is she?"
"Across the Narrow Sea. In a desert."
"No. See? Everyone's so caught up in this war that they don't see the firestorm coming. And believe me, it is coming. That is my battle."
4.
"God, that man is dull. What is it with you and cells in the sky anyways?"
Tyrion's head snaps up and looks over the frozen valley. From above he sees two legs followed by the rest of Vasaya Targaryen. She's standing on the tip of her dragon's tail, balancing the rise and fall effortlessly as if she stood tiptoe on the ground. The now full-grown dragon comes into view, the chain stretching behind the young woman with pale blonde hair. She hols the handle in one hand and reaches out the other. A smile is playing on her lips.
"Would you like a lift?"
He gawps and she laughs at his shock. "That's a… impossible." He stammers.
"I thought you were a man of vision, Lord Tyrion. She is a dragon."
"You're dead."
She smiles. "Not quite."
"How do you do that?" He stares at the long narrow tail of the dragon and at where she's standing.
She squats down, still reaching out to him. "Balance and trust. She won't drop us little lord."
Tyrion shies away from her hand with a grimace. "She might drop me."
"No friend of mine is an enemy of hers. Have you never wondered what it'd be like to gaze upon the Seven Kingdoms?"
At last, against his better judgement, and secretly overcome by curiosity, Tyrion takes the hand of Vasaya Targaryen and climbs up on her back. She stands up and turns around, ready to walk down the tail towards her seat between the dragon's wings. Tyrion tries to act brave but gulps nervously as he sees the ground a thousand feet below.
But as he settles on the back of the dragon, Vasaya holding him in place, he at last dares to actually look. They rise into the sky, away from the castle and away from the Vale. First he sees only the clouds below him and frowns with wonder. No Lannister had ever seen the world from above, the secrets of the clouds known only to the dragon riders of old. The dragon descends and Vasaya laughs as he reaches out to touch the clouds – finding them made of air like fog. He gasps and then looses his breath as the dragon drops and penetrates the clouds and the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros suddenly fan out before them, below them and all around. In the distance he can see the mountains North of the Wall, the Narrow Sea and the Desert beyond. He laughs with surprise, wonder and tries to look everywhere at once. And for those moments in the sky Tyrion Lannister forgets everything that has happened on land.
Later they are sitting in a glade, the dragon extending a wing above them as a shield against the wind and the snow mixed rain. A small fire burning bright and hot between them. Vasaya is treating Tyrion's wounds. He watches her with a solemn face.
"So we go to war." He says at last.
"It seems inevitable." She responds, no less matter-of-factly than him.
He manages a half crooked smile. "Fire and Blood!" He shouts, pumping a fist in the air.
She lifts her face against the sky and lets out a cry: "Hear us roar!"
They laugh but it dies quickly as she ties the last knot. They study each other a while, wondering what will happen when the war breaks loose. She takes her dagger and pricks her hand. She lets the blood drop into the fire.
"When you die, Tyrion Lannister, it will not be by my hand or by my dragon. That is my oath to you."
He is taken aback by her sign of friendship. It is clear that she expects nothing from him in return and she is surprised when he takes the dagger from her and cuts his own hand, letting his blood drop into the fire too.
"And I swear that when you meet your end, Vasaya Targaryen, it will not be by me or by my sword."
Relief clearly etches the lines on her face, lines too many for one so young. The fire makes his scar stand out against his features. His eyes are old, but he is glad there is a foe he won't have to fear.
"Five names." Vasaya says, breaking the silence. "Lives I will not claim."
He frowns. "Why?"
She doesn't move, but gives him the small, mysterious smile Tyrion has come to know holds many more secrets than she will ever tell.
"You were kind to a stranger once," she answers "and kinder when you knew her name. Five names. But I cannot vouch for anyone but myself and my dark sister."
He bows his head. "Thank you, my honoured dragon lady. What can I do for you in return?"
"You don't need…"
"A Lannister always pays his debt." He interrupts.
She looks up at the dragon and caresses her sister's leg. The dragon hums.
Her eyes glazes over. "Don't give the order. Don't kill her."
He looks at her with sad eyes. "You have my word." He vows and looks at the dragon himself. A dragon shielding a Lannister from the weathers.
5.
The sun rises above the horizon. Blood red and like a ball of blazing fire. Tyrion looks over the battlefield littered with bodies of friends or foes. He sighs. Tired and with despair.
"When will this end?"
"When the last of our bones turn to dust in the ground." Vasaya replies simply.
She turns to look at the weary little lord, his sword bloody and his armour dented.
He gives a half smile. "It seems a long way till then."
She kneels down to come face to face, searching his features.
"It is. My friendship could very well mean you are the last one standing, I have only two such friendships. Do you want to?"
"Who's the other one?"
"She's called the Cat of the Canals."
Tyrion swings his sword into the ground, pinning it there. At last safe enough to let go with Vasaya standing there.
"What do the rest of us call her?"
"I will not say. That girl is dead. Even if the blood in her veins is the same."
Tyrion looks over the battlefield, and at the dragon circling above them. Knowing somewhere deep down that he knew the girl of which she spoke.
"I wish I didn't like my head so darn much." He glances at her and chuckles.
She smiles with pity and gets to her feet. She brushes off some dust and calls to her dragon which lands some paces away, kneeling down for her to climb up. Tyrion calls after her.
"Why me, lady? Please, just tell me."
Vasaya answers as she climbs to sit between the wings of her dark sister.
"Tysha. You married my sister out of love, my lord. I will never forget that day, or the day she died. And I'll never forget the looks in your eyes."
"You're Vasha? No, no - She was a crofter's daughter not..."
"Aye, she never knew. But I do."
And with those words she and her dragon rise into the air and are across the horizon in a heartbeat. Tyrion lets out his breath and sits down, dizzy trying to comprehend the clash of his past and his present.
6.
Vasaya watches her pacing sister with a deadly calm. They're in the latter's tent, the four dragons circling the skies above.
"I really do think you should reconsider." Vasaya says again.
Daenerys strikes a table in a fit of rage. "I am the Queen! My word is law!"
"Would you rather people plot behind your back? Or would you rather people defend your honour to their last breath? Fear goes a long way, sister. Power, violence, swords; it's just an illusion. Love is the strongest loyalty you'll ever get. It bends. But it will not break like steel."
Daenerys and Vasaya stare at each other, as different and as unyielding as fire and ice.
7.
Daenerys Targaryen bursts through the doors into the throne room and stops short with a hiss.
"Greetings sister. You took your time." Vasaya smiles a cold, sweet smile at her sister.
She is sitting on the Iron Throne as if it was just any other causal chair. Guards lying dead on the floor. She toys with a sword in her hands.
"Get off that throne." Daenerys hisses through gritted teeth.
"It seems to be the only seat in here and I am weary from the battle."
Daenerys' men raise their weapons as one, ready to battle this lone young woman who doesn't flinch.
"Get off now." The Stormborn warns raising her own sword.
Vasaya raises an eyebrow. "Why? Does sitting on a chair made of iron make me a queen?"
"Yes."
"Then I should have commanded a thousand men to bow and call me grace every time I sat in my halls."
Daenerys starts to advance on the throne, a fire blazing in her eyes but her voice as cold as the steel in her hands.
"Get off that throne, Vasaya. Now."
Vasaya suddenly sits upright, the sudden movement making the men jump. "Why? What makes you a queen?"
"It is my right!"
"Not good enough. What makes you a queen?" Vasaya demands again, every nerve in her body taught with a rage she's reigning in.
Daenerys stands proud, confident. "I am Kahleesi."
"Queen by marriage, what makes you queen by choice?"
"Our brother…"
Vasaya laughs. "Oh yes, your brother. How did he die?"
"Fire. He was no dragon." Daenerys says with some reluctance, still advancing one slow step after another. The air between them seems to shimmer, becoming solid, compressed.
"No, he was not." Vasaya agrees, still remaining deadly calm on the Iron Throne. She strokes it almost absently. "What is it that makes this chair so important? And so dangerous? And what makes you the one to rule the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros?"
"Are you contesting, sister?" Daenerys snarls.
"God no. Though the gods know I have a better claim. Answer my question."
At this Daenerys stops two swords lengths away from her sister. They measure each other up. Those women of fire and ice. The men hang back, uneasy and scared.
Daenerys begins to speak her. "I will give freedom to an enslaved people. I will unite the races and we'll prosper. And dragons will rule the sky once more."
"Do they want you?" Vasaya asks quietly.
"They can choose. Die in their old world or live in my new world."
"And me?"
"What about you?" Daenerys asks, genuinely taken aback.
Vasaya's voice is still barely above a whisper, but even more frightening in its intensity that even Daenerys keeps her distance. Waiting. "Can I do what I want? Can I go wherever I feel and speak to whomever I please? May I choose my friends, my allies and my enemies even if the queen disagrees of my choices? May I argue and point out the obvious? And will I have your word that for matters of my own heart, you will not intervene?"
Daenerys looks at her incredulously, thinking fast, finding it somewhat difficult to breathe.
"Are you asking for immunity against treason?"
"Yes." The answer is so quick and honest that it disarms any threat Daenerys holds.
Fire and Ice collides and hangs in the air, waiting to embrace or to battle. Knowing this is the moment that can change the future, Daenerys Stormborn takes her time considering the facts. Considering all the battles she's fought and all the people who showed her the way. And then she considers the woman before her. So unyielding and strong but like water softer still. Like herself. And was this woman a friend or a foe? What dire consequences come from both those paths? And then she remembers, a simple fact that has eluded her all these years. The young woman on her throne shared her blood, the only one to do so in this world. She lowers her sword then and smiles.
"You are my sister. I expect nothing less from blood of mine."
Daenerys starts to walk forwards but notices that Vasaya hasn't moved. Vasaya cocks an eyebrow, waiting. Holding back her frustration Daenerys takes a breath, issuing her first declaration as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
"Yes. Vasaya Targaryen, daughter of King Aerys II Targaryen, will have immunity against treason from this day, till the last. Granted by me, Queen Daenerys Targaryen."
Vasaya smiles and get to her feet, taking a step aside gesturing for Daenerys to come forwards to claim what she has fought for all this time.
"The Iron Throne."