Aurion II
24th day of the first moon, 299 AC
The water was boiling. The entire sea was boiling. The men were screaming as they fell, unable to pray. Only scream in agony as their flesh boiled off their bones.
The giant tentacles crushed the wood as it dragged the ship below the surface. Another limb hit Jae's obsidian dragon, sending Terrax into the water, screeching. Aurion's leg wasn't fully secured in the saddle, but now he was flying toward the monster.
He could only hear the screams.
Aurion groggily opened his eyes, instinctively moving his hands up to wipe his face, just for cold metal to jerk his arm back. He pulled both his arms frantically, but it was no use. The chains tied him to the wooden pole behind his back. He could feel a… confusing taste on his tongue, and a rotten, inky smell from his breath.
He looked around, noticing a beautiful woman with dusky olive skin in a simple dark dress, and her face turned away, to his left. To his right was a red priest, one he recognized from the beach, bound beside him.
He was a massive man with skin as black as charcoal, bearing an impressive lion's mane of white hair to frame his face. Aurion's eyes were drawn to the yellow and orange flame tattoos racing across his cheeks and forehead. His scarlet robes, stained with dirt and dust, had orange satin flames embroidered in the sleeves, collar, and hems. Aurion felt cramped with this goliath in the small, dark room. The man's great stomach alone appeared as though he had swallowed an auroch whole.
There was no creaking or movement from waves, so Aurion concluded that he was not on the pirate's red galley. He tried his best to lean towards the dusky woman for more room, so he wasn't as pressed against the priest. The red priest seemed to notice Aurion stirring.
"High Priest Benerro has seen it in the flames," the red priest began cryptically, speaking eloquent High Valyrian with a deep, booming voice as he stared into the door. "He saw my ship would never reach Qarth. She is not the one— the only one, at least. And then I saw them myself. Dragons. Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark."
Aurion could only stare at the large man, unable to look away from his bright red eyes, "Who… when…how…" he mumbled, too parched to articulate.
The man interrupted him again, staring into his eyes. "When my ship was raided by these pirates, I did not resist. I never question the R'hllor's judgment. The pirate successfully navigated the treacherous Smoking Sea, and we docked at the old jewel. I helped the Myrish wizard deliver his sacrifices in a most elaborate ritual."
Aurion nodded his head toward the dusky woman to his left, ignoring the priests' vague words, "Is this… a companion of yours?"
The red priest shook his head, "She, like the ship, bears the taint of dark magic, and just like the others, has had her tongue removed." His white brows furrowed. "I am not sure why she is here. She was present on this ship prior to my arrival. She has yet to gain consciousness, so it would seem she is not the pirates' courtesan, nor a spy. I believe she is of no consequence."
The priest turned to Aurion and locked with his eyes. "I have been unable to scry the flames since your unexpected arrival. But I can sense R'hllor guiding our paths, binding us so our roads merge into one. It was you I saw in the flames."
I don't follow your Eastern faith.
Aurion coughed to clear his throat, "I was… erm… asleep. And everyone else was…." Aurion coughed again, not wanting to picture the skeletons again, "How… long has it been?"
The priest chuckled, a booming sound like the beat of a Sarnori war drum, "How long? Since when? R'hllor has not granted me the power to read your mind yet, boy. Who would you be? A blind treasure seeker, ignorant to the danger you faced by coming here?"
"I suppose," Aurion nodded, looking down at his feet. He wanted to protest being called a boy, as he was sixteen now, but he was too confused about everything. And the rest of the priest's guess wasn't entirely wrong. He must have… underestimated the devastation the eruption of the Fourteen Flames would bring to his home. And it cost him his army, his friend, and his family; everything he ever knew. And his life. Aurion figured if he was resurrected, and his family turned to skeletons, it must have been a while since his death. He took a leap of faith. "I've lost my sense of time, living here. Last I checked, it was the year forty-eight ninety-eight since the founding?"
After a brief pause, the dusky woman to his left groaned and fell limp. For a moment, Aurion thought her eyes looked milky white before he blinked and they switched to the Naathi golden color before she closed her eyes. The red priest next to him muttered, "So you are he."
Aurion nodded in response. Before the red priest could explain his reaction, the door snapped open, revealing the pirate leader from earlier. He did not carry the same mad grin as before, his bright blue lips set in a scowl. His behavior from before masked the intelligence in that lone eye, but Aurion could see it now, clear as day, as he gave him a piercing glare.
"Four hundred years."
…
What?
"I… beg your pardon?" Aurion asked calmly.
No, no, no…
Fuck…
The pirate stepped towards Aurion, who desperately tried to ignore the man's rancid breath. "Five thousand two hundred and ninety-nine years since your ancestor, Aurion Zaldrīzes, settled the lands that became the capital city. You know your sums. King's blood has power. I can not wait to see the power of dragon blood," The pirate stated, reaching to his waist and drawing a sharp dagger of dragonsteel with an ornate golden hilt, engraved with various runes– wait, that was his knife– and held it to the side of Aurion's face. The blade barely grazed his cheek, yet he could still feel the cold metal piercing his skin and drawing blood, which dripped down the side of the black blade. "I was going to go after the other one, but I can use her another way. She best hope her womb still works," the pirate said with a maniacal grin, bringing the dagger to his mouth and… licking the side of it?
Aurion was no archmage, but he learned a fair bit of blood magic from his uncle, Daemion, who had sworn himself to the order of the fire mages. They used their magic to maintain stability beneath the Fourteen Flames as the slaves toiled away, mining unimaginable wealth for their overlords. Aurion had only seen the caverns once, and he pitied the slaves since then. No one would willingly mine there, which he supposed is why his people adopted the Ghiscari tradition of ubiquitous, brutal, slavery. He'd been horrified when he studied what a rogue dragonlord had done in Gogossos.
However, he could not recall any ritual that would help this pirate that involved consuming his blood like this, so Aurion figured this was simply a means of intimidation, or an act to look mad. Assuming it was even an act. He was still deliberating on that.
"Other one?" Aurion asked innocently. Perhaps it was the same woman the red priest had mentioned. The pirate seemed much more eager to speak than the rest of the crew he had seen on the beach, so he could perhaps gain some information from him. He supposed he should not be so shocked it had been four hundred years. The fact that he even came back from the dead was still the most surprising turn of events.
"Nothing for you to worry your pretty head about, boy," the pirate jeered as two of his crew came from behind, blank gazes in their milky white eyes and blue lips matching their leader. Aurion held back a groan– was everyone he encountered going to call him a boy? It's not as though he was short– Aurion had inherited his father's height, standing just over six feet last he checked. Which, admittedly, was four hundred and one years ago, but he didn't feel like he had shrunk in height. And, to his pleasure, he could feel he hadn't shrunk where it mattered most.
As the pirate continued staring at him, as though trying to read his mind, Aurion maintained his own stoic glare back. He could not recall ever being so blatantly disrespected. Not when he was the scion of the most prestigious name in the Freehold, not when his little hatchling grew into the most beautiful, intelligent, and perfect dragon, not when his father was elected Primarch for a second term, and not when Aurion himself was named first Emperor of Valyria by a stormsinger in Volantis.
…Well, there were some times, but that was just Jaenarys when Aurion did something foolish. Usually involving some form of alcohol, perhaps a girl, occasionally an exchange of fists, and in one particularly foolish incident, his dragon. Two, if he included the time he fell off Aegarax, which Aurion decidedly did not because he was seven and he landed safely in the pool, telling everyone it was intentional. It wasn't, and Jae definitely knew it, but the others did not need to know that minor detail.
The men walked behind Aurion's back, releasing his chains from the pole. They dragged him to his feet, and Aurion could not resist the smirk that tugged at his lips when he noticed he stood taller than both of them, being about the same height as their leader. The men did not seem to care, maintaining their blank stares and depriving him of his minor victory.
Aurion decided he didn't like any of these pirates. Besides being general nuisances, pointlessly killing priests, and being a sadistic prick in their leader's case, they were so… boring. Did they not have any agency beyond what their leader wanted? And what was up with their eyes? They clearly weren't blind, and Aurion had never seen that color naturally.
Furthermore, the massive red priest had been completely silent since the pirate came in, merely staring at Aurion. Wasn't there supposed to be camaraderie among fellow prisoners? Traitor.
The pirates dragged Aurion behind their leader, taking him outside the building. Before he left, Aurion could only catch a glimpse of the red priest behind him having an almost imperceptible nod. How helpful of him. Aurion decided to believe that the red priest was planning an escape for both him and Aurion, just so he could fool himself into thinking he had some sort of ally.
Thankfully, they only bound his arms behind his back, so he could walk normally. He followed until he came back to the beach, where some of the crew was building a large bonfire.
This had to be some sort of joke. Resurrected just to be killed by some pirate. He'd probably laugh if it wasn't his life on the line.
The leader kept walking but his lackeys suddenly stopped, tightly holding Aurion still as well. He supposed the pirate must have planned this all out as one big act to make it look like his crew worked perfectly in unison. Aurion almost found the mental sight of the crew repeatedly practicing exactly when to stop quite amusing.
After a few minutes, the pirate returned with a leather pouch in one hand and an iron staff, taller than him, topped with a dragon head that glowed green from its eyes and mouth. Aurion recognized the design. If slammed down, it would spew green flame. An amusing trick. The men dragged Aurion to the bonfire, facing away from the ship, where the pirate leader slammed down the staff and, as Aurion expected, green flame crackled from the iron dragon head and lit the bonfire a bright green.
Next, the pirate pulled out the pouch what Aurion recognized as a dull, faded dragon scale. It was rather large, indicating a sizable dragon, and Aurion could glimpse glints of gold in it. The gold made him recall his own golden dragon, his perfect Aegarax. The pirate tossed it in the flames, before drawing a pinch of crushed crystal, and sprinkling it in the green flames. Both ingredients caused the flame to crackle and shift to a dull yellow color. So the pirate dabbled in sorcery himself. Aurion could commend the initiative.
He heard something heavy slam on the ground behind him, but he couldn't turn his head to look due to the two crew members still restraining him tightly. The pirate leader turned to him and stepped closer, before looking behind Aurion and grinning, before turning his eye back on Aurion.
The pirate grabbed Aurion's left hand, and upon seeing the scars from previous cuts Aurion had made to draw blood for rituals, his lone eye glanced up and made direct contact with Aurion's. "You know what I'm doing, boy? You can be the first witness to my ascension to godhood. The masses will pray for the name 'Euron Greyjoy.' Go on, or I'll simply shove you in."
'Godhood,' Aurion almost scoffed. What Euron lacked in humility he more than made up for in ambition and delusion. And Greyjoy… the man was from Westeros... Aurion believed he could recall the family name. They were vassals of the… Hoares? The Kings of the Iron Islands, or some title of that nature.
His thoughts were interrupted as Euron used the dagger, his dagger, to cut Aurion's palm open. He sighed, as he knew what he had to do. Aurion stepped forward, and the crew let him go. He strode towards the dull yellow flame and placed his bleeding hand in it.
He felt the familiar sensation of warm flame dancing around his palm. He had long outgrown the hesitation of sticking his hand into flame to perform blood magic. As soon as his blood made contact, the flame crackled loudly, turning from dull yellow to a vibrant gold. He stepped back and watched as his palm healed itself, the line fading to but another scar.
He turned to Euron.
Congratulations. You're trying to attract a wild dragon and might gain a temporary connection to it, assuming there's a dragon horn behind me, he wanted to say. If a single dragon bonded through a mere horn was enough to achieve 'godhood,' then what did that make Aurion and his people? He had to hold back another grin. The man was just a Westerosi. They had no experience with dragons. Their lands were never worth conquering, the Iron Isles least of all.
Even if, somehow, every single member of the Forty Families in Essos had died, there were still the Targaryens of Dragonstone, who undoubtedly would have claimed the remaining dragons in Essos in addition to their hatchlings and eggs. Likely they reclaimed Essos. Euron's lone dragon could do nothing against them. They may have even raised the dragons as Aurion had raised Aegarax, a stark contrast to most of the Freehold that preferred rapid growth and aggression over intelligence, restraint, and bonding.
…did the Targaryens know the Doom was coming? He elected to save that thought for later, as the two crew mates grabbed Aurion and dragged him back, giving him a nice view of the beach. As he suspected, there was a dragonhorn. His family's dragonhorn. Aurion couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. Did the man only loot the Varezys vault? Aurion guessed he also took their family armor and Solfyre.
Although… Aurion couldn't blame him. Looking at the landscape of the city, his family's estate was the tallest surviving building besides the Great Dragonhall, where the senate met and the government was administered. The sky glowed red, not just from the comet, as Aurion could now see, but also from the bright glow of what remained of the Fourteen Flames.
Aurion had hoped the mad pirate was a fool and would blow the horn himself, but he had one of his crew walk towards it. As much as he loathed to admit, Euron knew what he was doing. Yet he had done it without even uttering a word or raising a hand. Aurion wanted to learn his secrets to commanding such loyalty.
…the red priest had mentioned the others having their tongues removed. Aurion had thought he meant simply the prisoners, but could he have meant the crew as well? He had not heard any of them speak, after all. Were all of the crew slaves to Euron, then? Why would they even follow him?
Aurion's thoughts were ignored as one of Euron's slave crew, or thralls, as he believed they called them in the Iron Isles, stood behind the horn. He watched as Euron took the last ingredient from the pouch. It was too far for him to see, but he knew it was a forked twig of weirwood. As soon as the wood made contact with the fire, it made a loud booming sound and evaporated, extinguishing the fire with it.
They waited for several minutes. Whichever wild dragon Euron was trying to attract here must have been far away. Aurion could feel something in his chest, something tugging his heart. He wasn't quite sure what it was.
Eventually, they heard a loud roar. Finally, Aurion thought. Now Euron can claim his dragon, and take me back and ransom me. I'll make sure he gets a nice, high ransom worthy of capturing me. I can pretend to be of another house, perhaps of the Targaryens.
It may have been wiser to pretend to be a minor house, such as a Maegyr, but Aurion would never allow himself to be treated as though he were of a mere secondary house. No, he would get a ransom worthy of his blood. Besides, Euron knew he was of the true blood of the dragon. However… he knew Aurion was resurrected. Aurion mentally cursed; that likely meant less ransoming and more experiments.
He had to escape. Perhaps with that red priest. Then, he would return and have Euron and his crew crucified. Then burnt alive. He would make sure he sees the wild dragon slain. Or if it was sizeable, Aurion could claim it himself. He wasn't sure what had happened to his Aegarax, but the limited memories he had of his expedition back to his home did not fare well.
They heard the roar again, much closer. He felt the beating of the wings in the air, the tugging in his heart stronger, a familiar sense.
Wait…
Over a distant hill, Aurion watched, with Euron, as a golden dragon made itself visible. Aurion knew that from the distance, that it was a large dragon. But that wasn't the only thing Aurion was thinking as the dragon soared toward them.
Mayhaps the gods are real… There's no other explanation…
He could feel the connection in his chest, and let himself relax, not realizing how tense his body had been since leaving the vaults. The great golden dragon swooped in closer to the beach, leaving a black shadow over the ruined city that had once been Aurion's home.
Aegarax had never been a particularly large dragon. Because unlike most of the Freehold, Aurion did not feed slaves to Aegarax. It was common knowledge in the Freehold that the blood of man gave dragons strength. It made them stronger, fiercer, and grander in every way that mattered.
When a dragon was six years old, the feeding of slaves began. The more slaves a family could purchase, the more they could mine, and the more man flesh they could feed their dragons to grow strong. It was standard practice.
When it came time for Aurion to feed Aegarax, his great-grandmother, who had grown senile with age, wept at his feet, the most she had moved in years. She claimed she dreamed that a dragon that feasted on man burned as quickly as it burned hot. That it would be as feral as it was strong. That continuing would lead to the death of all Valyria. His father had told him to disregard her ravings, but Aurion had been intrigued.
Aurion had refused to feed Aegarax man flesh. In fact, Aurion had trained Aegarax to reject it by training him to refuse pork, which he had read tasted most similar to man. Any time Aegarax would move to taste the pork, he would be whipped.
And though Aegarax was smaller than his friends and brothers' dragons, Aurion always had a closer connection with him. Even closer than most hatchlings have with their riders. Aegarax was quick to learn, never attacked anything Aurion did not request him to, and sometimes, Aurion felt they could communicate with merely his mind.
He had ceased needing a whip by the time he was ten, and had never required the use of the horn Euron had stolen, as he and Aegarax were one.
And it was that connection he felt once more, filling a hole inside of him he forgot was there. It was as though he had only been breathing with a single lung, as though he was revived twice.
The thrall-crew member placed his mouth over the horn. Euron grinned like the madman he was. Aurion wasn't even hiding his own mad grin anymore, thankful Euron was facing away.
Euron had made a slight miscalculation. That was no wild dragon.
Hello, Aegarax.
