First time writer, long time reader. If you want some quality content for this fandom, I would happily direct you to classics such as Wearing Robert's Crown, A Game of Vengeance and Justice, The Kings Who Cared, Dragons Never Forget, or any of High Plains Drifter's work. I hope this story interests you all, and I hope to keep writing on it as a side project. ASOIAF is very much a place of comfort for me and so this is very much my leisure writing, but nonetheless I hope to upload consistently (as every writer promises but rarely fulfills). Nonetheless, I look forward to reading your comments and hope that this first chapter interests you. Thanks for reading, I will see you in the next chapter.
Aegon I
Aegon's eyes fluttered open, and his head was immediately filled with a sharp ringing. A groan escaped his lips as he attempted to sit up. There was black stone above him, and he realized that he wasn't wearing his armor as a hand pushed him back down onto warmth, a bed.
"Shhhhhh… your Grace, be calm." The voice was soothing, warm, accented. His vision faded in and out and he pinched the bridge of nose.
"Don't get up too quickly, you'll be fine." A warm damp cloth was pressed against his forehead, and he opened his eyes once more.
The face of Arianne Martell greeted him, olive skinned and beautiful, her golden coronas and earrings filled her face without taking away from her doe eyes. As her black tresses fell about him, he looked about him to take stock of what was about him.
This was not his tent on the Ruby Ford south of the Trident. He was in a room, on a bed, with naught for decor apart from a separate bed against a far wall, and a table with a chair by a door. At it sat the poised form of Nymeria Sand, sipping from a clay mug, doing her best not to look at him. He wondered if she ever lost her posture. Light streamed in from a window to his left, and he saw that there were indeed four walls about him. He winced instinctively. Harrenhal.
"The battle, how went it?" He forced his body to fold upwards, and shot his legs out of the bed. "Ssssss gods…." He hissed sharply, and felt the bruising where the ice spider had bitten him. The armor had turned the sharp pinching of the mandibles, thank the gods, but it hurt to twist his form so quickly. The ringing betwixt his ears rang out sharper.
Arianne fidgeted with the damp rag in her hands. She bit her lip and softly said. "The living live, but..." Damn. The answer I was hoping for, but given the circumstances of our current arrangements...
"I take it things haven't gone as smoothly as we would have hoped?" He looked about at the two women, Arianne looking across at him, still clad in her ornate dress that made her look like a winter orange, and Nymeria clad in black staring blankly at the wall. She sipped again from her cup, and Aegon felt the need for wine. "I take it that Stannis has…"
"Stannis Baratheon is dead." Nymeria's eyes never left the stonework.
"Fucking…" Aegon stood up, winced again, and walked over to a chair where he noticed some of his more court clothes were laid out, a black doublet swirled in a red sash, pinned with a silver three headed dragon, a black leather vest and matching boots patterned to look like dragon scales. Fine clothes for a captive. He tried to remember back, back to what all the men were declaring to be "The Battle for the Dawn" and "The Second Battle of the Trident."
He had made his peace with Stannis Baratheon before the battle. The living had only so many men, and technically the pair's forces had never come to blows. It was only natural that the living should unite together, but ye gods, Aegon Targaryen had been amongst immortals on the field. Stannis Baratheon with Dark Sister all aflame, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, some by-blow of Eddard Stark, picking up Dawn once Gerold Dayne's charge faltered, himself ahorse with Rolly, slashing here and there with Blackfyre. Red and White and Black, all banded together against the swarming blue hordes of the undead. The three of them had been cut off it had seemed, alone against the Night Queen, her spiders and her champions, like legends from the Age of Heroes reborn. He remembered no more than that, at least he couldn't at that present moment, he felt himself start to retch… But Blackfyre; where was it?
Aegon's hand immediately went to his waist, to his where his sword belt ought to be, but his face turned beet red once the two women laughed at him.
"Oh such a brave hero!" Arianne clapped, her voice wringing with mirth. "So quick to move to free us!"
"So quick to get his sword out our King… massive and veined in fire as it is." Nymeria snorted and turned her face from the wall only to wink at him, naked as his nameday. Aegon could feel the heat in his cheeks as he felt all of the 16 years in him. He scratched his scalp awkwardly, and for a moment he didn't feel like a king at all, and instead like any other common boy.
A pounding on the door wrung him from his haplessness. Heavily accented common rang through the oaken timbers. "Quiet! Damn you women, if you weren't highborn-"
Aegon knew the accent in a heartbeat, the bent, off kilter of grating common intermingled with the low Valyrian of the free cities. It felt oddly like returning home. "Brothers!" He called it out in what could well be called his mother tongue, dispensing with the common altogether. The voice he called out with was that of a blue haired boy on the Rhoyne, but he swallowed, and forced his voice to grow into that regal one he had found in Volantis, the one that moved men to die for him.
"Speak clearly and I shall be merciful! I am Aegon Targaryen, the King of Westeros, the Blood of the Dragon! Why am I and these fair ladies being detained here? Answer me, I command it!"
The moment after the words left his mouth, Aegon felt ashamed. Here he was, naked, a captive to unknown captors, who was he to command anyone? They would surely laugh or worse, come in and beat him and do gods knows what to the women. He clutched for his trousers, and hastily began to pull them on, and waited for a response, any response. Arianne and Nymeria had pursed their lips, and were staring just as anxiously at the door. Instead of another banging on the door, or a cruel laugh, Aegon heard muttering, the rustling of chain mail, and the heavy thud of boots leaving the door.
Nymeria Sand stood, her eyes still fixed on the door. Aegon clumsily attempted to buckle his belt, his hands unnaturally shaky, matching the ringing in his ears. She exhaled, and her straight backed posture seemed to slump for the first time since Aegon had met her outside the walls of King's Landing. She crossed the room to him, and for a moment Aegon felt as if she would slap him. Instead she pulled the belt tight and buckled it sharply. "Your grace must be dressed."
Arianne was at his side as well now. "Yes…" She pressed a kiss, chaste but firm to his lips. "Our King."
"Our King." Nymeria echoed it, kissing his collarbone softly. Aegon pulled them close, and felt silent tears roll down their cheeks. They must have been so strong. He wanted to hold them there forever, but his thoughts were elsewhere, burning with questions.
"Rolly, where is he? Stannis, fallen? My men, where…" The questions poured from his lips into the cold empty air, and he realized that they could not answer them. He gently pulled their faces up, and forced himself to breathe. He must not cry. He was blood of the dragon, and these next hours he did not doubt would be crucial not only for himself but for the realm. He was still their King, no matter what had passed. "Tell me all that you know."
Arianne nodded, and Nymeria pulled his doublet from the chair and began to dress him further. "The battle had gone north of the Ruby Ford, you and Lord Stannis had pushed the others back. No one knew the true nature of the battle, only that there were many that began fleeing at about the third hour since battle was joined. Your men, Stannis', valemen, wildlings, sellswords, we thought all was lost."
He had slipped into his vest, and Nymeria was draping him with the sash now, looping it over his shoulders and tying it about his waist. "It was not all lost then I take it?" He studied Arianne's face, dark stains now upon her cheeks. She brushed them aside, and Nymeria went on.
"Out of the winds we saw your royal banners. Cries of 'make way for the King,' rang out. Ser Rolly Duckfield had you in his arms, and some 30 men of the Golden Company were about him. That's when the sellswords arrived."
"Sellswords?"
"Essosi, they charged up the riverbanks and swept into our camp with a host of wildlings. They captured us and you with them."
"Have you seen Rolly since then?" Aegon's voice trembled.
The two women exchanged a glance, "We have not." Arriane said at last.
"He threw down his sword when he saw there was no other way to save your life." Nymeria continued.
"And these sellswords… these Essosi, who was their captain? Who was at their head?" He was fully dressed now, and moved across the room to the window, gritting his teeth the way Stannis Baratheon once had. He wanted to look about, see the castle, see the state of it, array his evirons, but all that met him were three massive bolts of cloth, hundreds of feet long, hanging from the middle of the Kingspyre Tower. The tallest was an ocean of sea-green, a symbol of Old Valyria that seemed at first to be naught but a comfort, and Aegon recalled with mounting fury that not all Valyrians answered the call of their own blood.
The white seahorse of House Velaryon hung highest. To its left was a billowing sheet of hammered bronze, writ with runes so ancient not even the eponymous House Royce could really recall what they writ out. Stannis' men… Aegon knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Bronze Yohn had led the Valesmen on behalf of their liege Robert Arryn, and had strove into the flank of the undead right before Stannis and Aegon had pressed head on against the Night Queen, but he was sure that almost all who had rode in under the falcon banners had been destroyed. And the Velaryon lordling, he had hidden in his castle on Driftmark ever since his lord father had perished for Lord Stannis on the Blackwater. But Stannis Baratheon is dead….
Aegon's heart sunk in his chest as the final banner draped out in a lazy wave. It was bright green, and on it flew a golden rose.
Even as he felt Arianne Martell's hand on his shoulder, and even though he knew he looked every inch a king, since Jon's death, Aegon Targaryen had never felt so truly lost.