AN: From the same directors of Flask, Rigor Mortis, and overall good stuff. Team Scrimshaw presents an entirely new adventure commissioned as the very first work from our brand new Subscribestar.

AtW: Hope you guys like it. And if you don't, well, you got it for free! So at least thank the commissioner XD

CW: We give special thanks to Exiled Immortal for his patronage. Thank you for your belief in our talent! Now without further ado. On with the reading.

The Flame Emperor

Having died to her childhood love's spear had been amusing in its irony. Death, however, did not mean defeat. Her goals were accomplished in the way she had least foreseen and victory had been hers. A human king ruled a united human nation and the Church's power would no longer be supreme.

Even if she'd have preferred to lead Fódlan into the future at the head of a reborn Adrestia, the point was moot.

Being returned to life as a babe, the second child of a mad king, had been an experience she simply had not ever begun to imagine. To that end, the shifting of her powers to more align with this world had been disconcerting for her initially. Her magic was almost totally gone and her strength was merely extraordinary - for this world, if sorely lacking compared to her old.

Before Rhaegar had died, before the utter fiasco with the Starks, before her second father had degenerated into a deranged fool things had been better.

At one point she'd been a darling of the court, indulged in her every martial whim, and allowed to even go so far as to form her own band of knights. Her father had even seen her knighted, treating her as a source of pride and delight. But that was the past. When her mother wasn't a wilting shadow of a person, when Viserys hadn't already begun to crack, before her fool brother had grown so obsessed with prophecy he'd brought their doom upon them.

However, with Tywin Lannister's forces fast approaching, the man's grudge and late entry into the war easily declaring his true intentions, it had fallen to her to organize the city's defense. Even if her plan had been one of both utter daring and utter madness.

So she had done as she always did and moved to solve the problem herself.

"Ser Dayne, is it ready?"

Her kingsguard bowed.

"Yes, your grace. The Lannister army marches in through the Dragon Gate. Already, they have begun to pillage what they can find and attack any smallfolk in their path."

"And they suspect nothing? They are trapped within Flea Bottom?"

"No, your grace. They do not." His tone was somber, almost regretful. "And the blockades hold."

"Good."

He hesitated for a moment.

"Princess Edelgard, I mean no disrespect, but…."

Frowning, the gravity of the situation over rode the concerns of honorable men, and she gave him a small shake of the head. Edelgard von Hresvelg had died to unite the land under a capable monarch, even if she doubted Dmitri truly had what it took to rule. But Edelgard Targaryen knew what happened when you couldn't make the hard choices. When you weren't capable of making sacrifices.

"Their deaths will be remembered. Would you rather see the whole city burn? Five hundred thousand souls… would it be better if even a tenth of them died because we permitted the city to be sacked?"

Cloak fluttering in the heavy wind, her thoughts weren't quite able to resist the melancholy of the moment. The bittersweetness of the victory she saw inches from her fingertips. In the end, she was glad she'd chosen to have two separate firebreaks created, even if it didn't make what she was about to do any less painful.

"No, your grace."

Reaching out, her hand rested gently on the golden armor of the man who had served her since the day she was born.

"I will send the signal. It will be done. The woman who passes the sentence should swing the sword." Arthur Dayne's eyes closed in sadness. He was an honorable man. But he also knew his duty. "Wait here. If nothing else, I will watch the results of my deed until the end."

Standing atop a two story building near the Dragon Pit, the sounds of the sacking had begun to reach her. Blockades to the immediate west of the Dragon Gate, looking like overturned carts, downed buildings, and the results of internal conflict in the city, had funneled the Lannister army south. Her eyes picked out a number of small fires already burning in the area and wondered if she'd even have to send the signal. The screams of dying smallfolk - men and women who had volunteered to ensure the invaders suspected nothing - told her to end the farce and do what needed to be done.

"Archer!"

Her plate harness made little noise as she walked, the castle forged steel moving as she moved, practically gliding down the short staircase to the floor below. A squad of her personal yeoman and a few of her sworn swords were manning the defenses of this place. Unneeded, most likely, but complacency was the death of the most clever.

"Yes, your grace?"

The nearest one turned to her, expectance and fear clear on his face.

"Send the signal."

Closing his eyes for a moment, he nodded as well.

Just as Ser Arthur had.

Lighting an oil soaked rag wrapped around the tip of an arrow, he lifted his bow high and fired. A red trail streaked through the sky, falling, harmlessly, into the path of the onrushing horde. Then, so too did two thousand others. Gold cloaks, positioned to the west of the trapped Lannister army, unleashed their own volley. And just like that, the world fell silent.

When the flames fell onto the buildings before them, few were set alight. Even fewer of the invading men were actually struck and wounded by the arrows.

Still, the way the wave of men stuttered told her they suspected something. Whether they suspected her plan or not never became an issue as, when she turned to order another volley, what they all - defender and invader alike - had been waiting for happened.

A wave of green fire expanded as the wildfire caches hidden in the buildings detonated. Every last one of the thousand barrels exploded, the wall of force knocking men off their feet and blowing out windows. Edelgard herself had to shield her face with a gauntleted hand and lean into the blast to keep her feet. Next to her, the archer had been less lucky, losing his footing and falling backwards.

Turning away for only a second, she held out her hand and helped the dazed man climb back to his feet.

Once he was standing, she turned and found Ser Dayne, holding her arming cap and helmet out to her, with the same look he always had when she was going to do something silly. Giving him a small grin, she accepted the offered cloth and metal.

"Men." Her voice, strong, but soft, cut through the emotions of the milling men like the wildfire raging outside. "We have a task to complete."

"Yes ma'am!"

As one, they responded, discipline asserting itself just as it should.

She led the way - as was her right and duty - and mounted her stallion. Strong, flaring its nose, it was the only horse there not in a panic. Stroking its mane she still calmed it, soothing its trembling muscles. Mounting up was simple enough, a quick hop, her armor hardly the castle forged steel doing no more to slow her than a gambeson did a grown man, and she was ready. Her men were still struggling to calm their own horses, yet she was patient, waiting.

Now was not the time to chastise them.

What followed was a calm and ordered trot down the Hill. Along the way terrified smallfolk gaped at her, a princess in full battle armor, riding at the head of a column of knights.

It was one of her great regrets that she'd need to do this. But with Rhaegar dead, Viserys half mad, and Aegon totally unready for the throne, it fell to her to end this insanity. Part of that would be what would have to happen later that night. Yet there was till work to be done before then.

She accepted her lance from her kingsguard, issuing her orders and lowering her visor.

"Take no prisoners. We send a message for all the rebels to hear this night."

Turning down a final street, her line of men found a wall of Goldcloaks holding back the scattered remnants of the Lannister men. Unfortunately one in particular was giving them trouble.

Massive, truly, utterly huge, his armor was splattered with blood and he swung a greatsword with one hand. More disturbing was how he used the still burning body of one of his comrades, green flames licking at metal and cloth and flesh, as a bludgeon, even as the burning man screamed. Roaring and snarling the giant tried desperately to clear a path through the spearmen only just holding him back.

Raising her lance, she circled it in the air twice, instructing her men to follow, and charged. A great war cry went up from her retinue and the men who had formed a spear wall suddenly backed away in a panic. Thankfully they were quick enough and were clear by the time her company reached a full gallop. The Lannister men, however, had surged into the gap to try and break free of the slowly encroaching wall of flames.

Aiming for the mountain of a man still screaming and roaring, Edelgard had to raise her shield when he threw his burning comrade at her. A cry of surprise escaped her lips, her legs catching in her saddle, her strike skidding off the side of his helmet instead of skewering him through the slit and it was all she could do to stay seated. Blessedly, the rest of the charge had struck true, her men smashing through the disorganized invaders and either driving them back into the ever more ever hungry wall of fire that Flea Bottom had become or killing the out of formation, confused, terrified men where they stood.

The Princess, however, screamed in anger and loss when the head of her stallion went flying. Wielding the greatsword with all the fury he could muster, the blinded, raging giant had cut clean through the neck of her warhorse in a single stroke.

There was no time to hesitate, not with her heart pounding in her ears, her world narrowing to the engagement that might even now end her. She drew a dagger and cut the straps connecting her to the saddle even as her horse fell. Seeing her enemy looming over her, her bodyguard blocked by the press of men and unable to maneuver properly, she desperately rolled to the side to avoid having her skull crushed in.

Somehow her leg was unbroken, the young woman testing it as she rose to her feet, weapon in hand.

"Stay back! This one is mine!"

Her men hesitated to obey, Ser Dayne in particular looked unhappy, but her squad was soon forced to engage more Lannister men fleeing the burning trap.

But that momentary distraction passed and the fight resumed. She gave thanks that the men had backed up, giving her space to dodge, and it took only three twisting movements to gain enough distance to go for her weapon.

Aymr, the axe created for her by the slithering Agarthans, had not followed Edelgard into her new life. Instead her father had decreed that she should have a weapon unlike any other, a weapon befitting a Targaryen. The only Valyrian steel axe in the Seven Kingdoms belonged to House Celtigar, and so King Aerys had ordered craftsmen to descend into the crypts and fashion his daughter a great axe of black dragonbone red Dragonsteel, greater and more terrible than the one other.

Edelgard had named the priceless weapon Byleth.

With axe in hand it was simplicity itself to dance to the side of the monstrous man's next strike, confirming that the crumpled, bloody, defiled side of his helmet had truly blinded him. That much was easy enough to determine, if only by the way he wildly flailed about. Unfortunately, as she dodged to her left again, her ankle caught. Just as it was the side of her foe she'd struck a blow on, so too was it the side she'd been wounded on as well. His right forehead, her left leg.

She turned the abrupt fall into a roll and her axe came up in time to cut a deep score into her foe's wrist. Unfortunately, it was clear her leg was clearly more injured than she'd thought.

Gauntlet and glove stopped most of the blow, but Byleth still drank a few drops of Westerland blood. Seemingly driving him mad with rage, the wound compelled him to switch his sword to his off hand. And it was in that moment that their duel was decided. With his weapon on his less familiar side, she easily hooked the blade and then smashed the rim of her shield into it, shattering the iron blade like a bundle of twigs.

The two warriors had clashed only a few times, their strikes strong enough to shatter the bones of lesser mortals, and had slammed into each other with a strength that only the mountain of a man should have had. And so, with green fire reflecting off of their visors and blood pouring down the side of his helmet, this walking mass of armor and hate screamed.

There was no fear. No hesitation. He threw the hilt of his ruined sword at her chest and charged, arms outstretched and desperate to grapple with her.

The sane thing would have been to bring her shield up and block it, to try and dodge, to do anything but what she did.

Reeling back, she let the blow hit her in the left shoulder as she brought her axe and around for a massive strike. It was telegraphed, it was obvious, no sane opponent would have been brought low by it. But this was a man driven mad by pain and rage.

So where he should have balked, he only rushed all the harder as Byleth fell.

His head split like a grape, the blade cleaving armor and smashing through bone with ease. When the dead man's massive body slammed into her, driven forward by his momentum, her weapon only bit deeper.

Arthur was by her side in a flash, hauling the body off of her before she even had time to relax.

After that, there was little left to do. Edelgard remained to the side, nursing some definitely bruised ribs and a badly sprained ankle, and directed the men under her command as was needed.

And, despite knowing the dangers of a post battle crash, she couldn't help but reflect on her own injuries. On how close she'd come to dying at the hands of some nameless knight. Still, she was much better off than the men she'd just killed, either with her blade or those she'd burned alive. Though the simple truth was that things had ended the only way they could have - with a slaughter. The kingdom was falling apart and this was a time that demanded sacrifice.

"How many died on our side?"

"Twelve."

It had been perhaps half an hour since the explosion, long enough for runners to communicate with the northern blockade and allow the last scraps of the massacre to die down.

"Another forty or so wounded, seven of whom are expected to die of their injuries. None from the Black Eagles were more than lightly wounded."

"And the enemy?"

He paused for a moment.

"Wiped out to the last. There were, as far as we know, no survivors."

She took a moment and simply processed the fact that she'd just killed more than ten thousand men.

"Good." Swallowing, she shook her head. "Tywin Lannister himself?"

"Not in the city." Dayne shifted his weight slightly. "We think he was waiting outside of the city with a small detachment. His armor was spotted along with about twenty knights escorting him. Either he suspected something at the last second or simply wanted to avoid being caught up in the sack."

"Your grace!" Scrambling, a desperate courier rushed up to her, even as the green flames continued to roar just in the distance. "Your grace!" He was screaming to be heard over the flames around him. "Your father, he's gone mad, he's trying to burn the Red Keep to the ground!"

Looking at her guard, she gestured for him to help her up, already calling to her men.

"Bring me a horse! Tonight's bloody business is not yet finished."

The hypocrisy of the decision she had just made wasn't lost on her. But that didn't mean she could afford to let this war spiral even further out of control. Clenching her fists around Byleth's hilt, she swore to herself that there would be peace. That the cowards that slithered in the dark would be brought to justice. And that this destructive rebellion would be put down.

Thoughts about what might have been, what could have happened had Rhaegar have convened his Grand Council, would be saved for later.

There was a nation to save right now.

Coming up to the castle was simple enough. The Red Keep was on high alert, but that didn't mean they'd stop her. Even the portcullis was even raised high enough for her to ride under while ducking. And it was very clear why a stabilizing factor was demanded.

Smoke, thick and black, was rising from the throne room. Green flames were starting to lick at the shattered, seaward facing windows, visible only because she saw the fortification itself at an angle during her approach. Something told her she'd made a grave mistake deploying Ser Lannister to command the northern flank.

Despite the necessity of the other kingsguard being forced to prove his loyalty, and the presence of a blocking force she'd positioned there to discourage any private second thoughts, her father was insane.

Utterly, totally mad. In fact, the only reason she hadn't dealt with the issue already was because her brother had been in the process of avoiding patricide and, possibly, widespread death.

Now, as she rushed up the stairs, Ser Dayne at her right hand and her own knights following behind her, something told her that Edelgard had truly, utterly fucked up. Her father should never have been left unattended. So, glaring at a group of cowering servants, the body of picked warriors quickly and swiftly approached the one place in the castle where her father could pretend he was still in control - only to find it barred by a thick, heavy wooden beam.

Charging forward, she brought her axe down on the beam with a two handed stroke. Its blade chewed through the wood without issue and, with the block destroyed, she was more than capable of smashing through it without issue. What she saw on the other end brought her up short, struck by the revulsion and horror the scene before her conjured within her.

A group of alchemists, amongst them the hand of the king, Rossart, had inscribed in some unspeakable fluid a massive runic circle. At the center of which there were three massive wooden spikes. Impaled on each one was a different corpse, burning in the inferno below were the remains of what almost looked like a vaguely cat shaped lump of char. One of the corpses, the smallest, fell apart. Standing there, mouth slightly open in sheer, unbridled horror, Edelgard watched as the last remnants of Elia Targaeryan, her sister in law, and her niece and nephew was reduced to so much ash.

Once again her family was gone, little more than shadows in memories.

"Hello my dear, I see you handled the traitors. I am most proud. Our family will be purified. Dragons do not burn and these Dornish abominations are no true Dragons!"

There was no need for words.

There was nothing that could express the horror of this moment.

There would be only rage.

"Seize them!"

Her men moved, the Black Eagle squadron taking the alchemists with fury and force even as Aerys rose to his feet, screaming. They ignored him.

"You betray me! Usurper! Treacherous whore! I should hav-"

Edelgard strode across the throne room and smashed her armored fist into the crazed king's jaw, knocking him to the ground. He screeched and wailed as his teeth fell out.

"Ser Dayne, leave. Now."

There was anger in her voice, conflict in his eyes, his oath warring with every sense of loyalty and goodness in him. She softened, even as she grabbed her second father by his hair.

"Arthur. Please. What happens next is not for you to witness."

He swallowed.

"No, princess. I… I am your sworn protector." Closing his eyes, the knight visibly steeled himself. "He's a madman. And I am an oathbreaker." Opening his eyes, he looked at her in a way that only a professor from her past life had before, before that night. "But I am yours, my lady."

"Thank you." Her words were for him and him alone, even as Aerys struggled in her grip. "Men!" She called to the rest of the room. "Burn these witches. Teach them the price of their sins. Punish these murderers of babes and women!"

They screamed, they fought, and they burned. As it turned out, alchemists and pyromancers burned well and the wildfire acknowledged no master but itself. By the end, after they'd realized that weeping and begging would not move her, the men of the Alchemist's Guild went meekly to their deaths.

Still though, she watched.

Silent, unmoving, as she sentenced more people to die for a kingdom that they would have burned to the ground.

'It's like my nightmares,' she thought. 'This heat in my breast. This chill in my bones. I can remember these images. Am I… a monster here too? Destined to destroy everything I touch?' She felt her eyes burn, memories of her father when he was sane returning to her. 'Is this okay? Do I have the right to make these choices? I failed last time, can I ever succeed?' And then Elia's body gave out, first an arm and then a leg breaking apart. 'But I don't have a choice.'

"I am royalty!" The last of the pyromancer's screams faded away. "I was born a princess and it's my duty to defend this realm." Her eyes were hard, her spine straight. "I do not have the right to hesitate. Let the gods account in their justice, for what happened here this day will never be spoken of again."

Dragging her father down towards the pyre, she made a single, final pronouncement.

"Aerys II Targaeryan, for the crimes of murder, infanticide, and treason I sentence you to death. I shall grant you the same mercy you granted Rickard Stark. Fire will be the royal champion. Dragons do not burn."

With one arm she heaved her own father into the flames. His screams echoed through the throne room, lingering after the man was gone. And like that, the Mad King burned.

'He was not a dragon. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps today has purified us of madness and obsession with prophecy. Now I shall pray that I am not blind too.'

It was only when the fires had died down, when the rest of the castle had been secured and she had been left alone to watch the last embers of wildfire kiss the few, charred bones left that she noticed something impossible.

"No. It can't be."

A round stone the color of dark marble was nestled amongst the remains of the now dead king. From where she stood she could see it wobble, cracks in the shape of a spider's web forming as the object the Mad King had safely tucked away inside his robes burned with new found life.

Not a stone… no… that would have been much too simple for a day like this. It lay amidst the cinders, as if to mock her for her ironic punishment of the King.

Edelgard knew it for what it was. How could she not? Much of her life in this new world had been spent reading and decorating passages on history books and hearing ballads of the mighty creatures who'd championed the rise of the Targaryen Dynasty for centuries now, even amongst Old Valyria had they always been close to their creatures.

This was… without a doubt….

'A dragon egg.' She dared not hope. Had Aerys planned to hatch it using the city? Was he even aware that this would happen? It felt in character for the man to use another's suffering to further his own power.

But why now? With as many men as Aerys had seen burnt alive, it wasn't that far away from the realm of possibility that he was using them in attempts to hatch the egg.

Or perhaps that was only her spotting threads where there were none.

The man was too far gone to have thought about this rationally. To him, the egg must have been little more than a keepsake, a feeble promise that he might have been the one chosen by the small creature inside, ignorant to the steps necessary to bringing it into this world.

She swooped towards it with a flourish.

"Lock this room. Be on the lookout for errant eyes and ears!" She barked her orders, snapping the Kingsguard out of their reverie.

Edelgard knew to act quickly.

No one could be allowed to see this.

The princess approached the shaking egg, a hawk's gaze following every wobble and crack as the life within sprouted. Pieces of the top of the egg had begun to flake away in ash as she kneeled before the darkened stain of Aerys' remains. Already she could see the little one as it pushed through the fragile shell.

A small horn here.

A flash of a reptilian eye there.

Small claws scratching the singed stone of the floor as it shook away the last remnants of its prison, black scales already proving to be darker than the charred death it had been born from.

Amusingly, the first thing it did was yawn, shaking away the hundred years of sleep as it blinked blearily, small teeth flashing as its mouth opened. Neither smoke nor fire issued forth, instead simply being pink skin and coiling tongue, but she couldn't help but still watch in awe. Deep, deep within her she'd both feared and dreamed of this day.

Edelgard met its gaze in greeting.

To think something so powerful could ever look so innocent.

"Hello little one."

She extended an armored finger.

Cocking its head to the side, it shimmied, almost strutting, as it found its feet before pouncing. Tiny, if sharp, teeth bit at molded metal and the armor held. The thought, thought, was sufficiently amusing to quirk her lips.

"I shall have to tell the master smith that his armor has withstood the teeth of a dragon."

Her men laughed, the fierce hunter suddenly whirling about, confused and fearful. This only stoked their amusement higher and the creature practically scampered up her arm when she nudged it. Wrapping it in her cloak, holding it so its head could press against her neck all too like a cat, she rocked her dragon to sleep while her men watched in awe. In the end, she cut her eyes at the servant's door and the message was received.

Soon, plates of cooked meat strips were brought for the new drake while proper meals were prepared for her band of knights. Her Black Eagles. No servants were permitted in the chamber. Only those men who owed her their lives, their honor, their very souls to her. And a man whom she had just taken all three from.

Two long tables were dragged over as they held a council, the men eating and drinking, still in armor, their weapons in reach, and only half relaxing. But they were joking and smiling, stealing glances at her and her dragon. If she closed her eyes, it was almost like another group, so long ago.

"Elric Snow." She spoke. "Bywin Vallois, Androw Feather, Gyles Saltspear." Her captains looked up, hearing the weight in her voice, knowing that she was about to do something crazy again. Every last one of them grinned back up at her. "Wex Tumbledown, Tym Broadfoot. Uther Sand, Stantow Rivers, Qarl Stone, Norne Pyke." Her first squad waited, Snow's cunning, lethal band ready to answer her call. "Qarl Rivers, Alan Hill, Rolland Storm, Bryndon Flowers, Donnel Sixfingers." Her second squad, allies of Vallois and the iron fist of her knights. "Jaggot Pure, Cletus Good, Vylarr Hill, Ygon Snow, Brogg Brown." Hunters, trackers, rangers. Killers with the bow and spear and dart par excellence. Just like Feather, their leader. "Aaron Blue, Pearse Jamstown, Ricasso Flowers, Wyllium Storm, Vaegon Seed." Saltspear's men and an eclectic band of problem solvers that had more in common with profession said to be far less honorable than knights. "We have come to a crossroads."

She leaned back, the dragon at her neck pressing against her throat.

"You are twenty four men. And up till now, you have served as my Black Eagles. A squadron of knights in service to a princess." Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath. "But I do not need hunters now. I need an army."

Because this victory was temporary.

Their enemies would lick their wounds and return soon enough.

Baratheon led from the north, trampling underfoot every shred of resistance those still loyal to the crown tried to put up. And with the Lannisters declaring for him, King's Landing was severely deprived of options for allies.

"Your grace." Elric stepped forward, using that same smirk he did whenever he thought of something particularly clever. "Let us purchase some sorely needed time then. That way you might better leverage those resources uniquely at your disposal."

"The dragon?"

He bowed lower.

"Aye. Information is the most precious commodity of all."

'That's not a terrible idea.' Considering it for a moment, she inclined her head, signalling for the man to continue.

"With Storm's End under siege, the Lannister army decimated, and the royal army not actually destroyed in detail all we need to do is rally our forces, cheat a good bit, and the war is already won. To that end, even rumors of a dragon would cause… significant confusion. But a hundred rumors all at once?"

Letting the hatchling snatch a piece of fried pork from between her fingers, she settled the beast in her lap, fingers rubbing against smooth scales.

"Perhaps." Her thoughts turned forward, evaluating her options, determining what winning was.

And, more importantly, how to not pay too high a price for it.

"Very well then. But this will not be our only gamble. If we are to succeed in this, we must not only win, but win utterly. Eat well, for we all shall be departing by tomorrow. Boldness will be our refuge, audacity our watchword, and victory our reward."

So it was decided, plans and calculations and contingencies discarded, that there was only one way forward. And Edelgard would not allow timidity to cost her people their one chance for peace.