Aurion III

24th day of the first moon, 299 AC


Euron's thrall stood carefully behind the gleaming black horn. The man was even taller than the Dragonbinder horn was long, and a mountain of muscles. His tunic was off, exposing his chest, covered in a large black tattoo of a hawk, and rings of various metals around his arms.

The man tilted the large dragonhorn towards the great golden dragon, took in a deep breath, and Aurion braced himself. He had experienced this before, with Jae using his dragonhorn to reign in Terrax against the Sarnor, but it was never pleasant. The sound of the horn blared like a thousand screaming souls, and his bones feel like they were burning from within. Aurion's knees buckled, though he remained standing, and he felt the hands of the two crewmates behind him slip.

The glyphs on the horn flared red as the magic was activated. The paralyzing sound eventually passed as the thrall gasped for breath, then blew the horn twice more. By the end of it, the glyphs were glowing white from the heat. Though in pain, Aurion knew he was faring better than the others. Even Euron collapsed from the pain, tossing his staff to the side.

To say nothing of his crew. The thrall chosen to blow the horn was the least fortunate; Aurion watched as the large man collapsed to the ground, twitching and shaking, blistering and bleeding profusely from every orifice in his body, even from his hawk tattoo. Aurion knew his lungs had been thoroughly scorched from the inside; there was no saving him.

Come on, Aegarax. You remember me, he thought as his oldest companion came closer. The one who had been with him ever since his egg was placed in Aurion's crib as a baby.

Memories of his expedition back to his home came flooding back in a flash, with the sight of injured dragons fleeing clouds of black ash, plunging into the boiling sea as they collapsed from exhaustion or injury. Not seeing a single living soul as they approached the newly formed island until they were being swarmed by firewyrms, krakens, and other monstrous beasts. Mayhaps solely feasting on these creatures for the past four centuries explained his new size, though Aegarax had never been a ravenous dragon.

"He's coming down!" Euron shouted in glee as he had his crew clear the way. The two behind him, who had recovered quickly, gripped Aurion tightly once more.

Steady, Aegarax. I need to get out first. Pretend I'm not here.

He could feel Aegarax's frustration, but the massive golden beauty took his time, circling around the beach, before landing in the water next to the pirate's massive red galley, dwarfing it in size, even after he closed his wings. Unlike the dragon Aurion remembered, he would no longer be able to sit on a ship, even the one that had been specifically modified for Terrax. Euron began walking towards Aegarax, hand extended out. "The binder worked. You're mine, now."

You can't bind a bound dragon, fool.

Between the two men holding him, the one on Aurion's right had a weaker grip on his arm. Aurion was considering ways he could escape their grip when he remembered one of the most important rules of a dragonhorn.

"Never let it be destroyed," his father had warned him, introducing Aurion to a dragonlord's tools before he had even mounted Aegarax for the first time. He had learned the force could send all men in nearly a hundred feet flying back.

"Lightbringer! You shall be my Lightbringer!" Euron called out to Aegarax, before looking around to Aurion, then to a crew member on the opposite side of the beach. "I shall test this beast," he muttered. "Lightbringer, burn him!" The crew member had no reaction, which Aurion found puzzling.

Following the order, Aegarax tilted his massive neck to face Aurion, bearing an expression that took Aurion a moment to recognize as amusement. It seemed that despite his massive head looking quite different due to his impressive growth, Aegarax maintained the same expressions Aurion remembered.

I know you know what I'm thinking. Just burn the damn horn, Aurion thought.

Euron's wide smile of anticipation turned into a look of confusion as Aegarax huffed and turned to the horn, opening his jaws and releasing a thin and focused stream of golden flame.

Aurion knew what to expect, so he quickly twisted out the grip of the man to his right, while kicking the other man between the legs, which had the intended effect of buckling his knees. Before Aurion could admire his work or even wait for the first man to draw his axe, he dove into the sand and covered his ears.

As soon as the flame made contact, the sounds the horn made before paled in comparison. Though his ears were covered, the pain felt as though someone had taken two daggers, shoved them into each side of his head, then cut his skull open and bashed his brain with a spiked club, all while pressing a hot iron to his forehead.

He could tell if he hadn't been lying prone, the force would have sent him into the air. But the moment had ended as soon as it began. Aurion hesitantly looked up, where he could even see Euron's galley had nearly capsized. Aurion began to push himself to his feet, prepared to run to Aegarax, when a massive human shadow stepped to his side.

Fuck, Aurion thought. How was he unphased by the-

"Come on, my prince!" He heard a familiar deep voice shout, and he noticed just how red those robes looked in the light of the comet and the erupted Fourteen Flames. That damn priest! Before he could contemplate the existence of a higher power and whether he should convert from the Gods of Valyria to the faith of R'hllor, the man grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet.

Aurion looked around and saw many of the thrall-crew members staggering around still, more than he would expect. In fact, it seemed the only ones even somewhat functioning were him, the red priest, Aegarax, and-

"No…. no!" He heard Euron shout, as he stood from the ground, scratching at his black eyepatch. "You meddling fool… you too saw the Doom with your own eyes, and it shall be child's play, compared to what is to come… and when it comes, you will beg the gods for the mercy I would have granted this mortal world, and you shall be ignored! You will find yourself on your knees… begging… praying… for ME!"

The red priest interrupted Euron's rambling as he bashed the pirate's face into the sand with the bottom of the iron staff, stepping on his back to restrain him. Aurion followed, kneeling next to Euron, and grabbing his dragonsteel dagger from Euron's hand, twirling the light metal in his fingers once more.

Euron gasped, jerking like a fish out of water as he raved like a madman, his one eye flickering white, then bright red, then glowing blue, before dimming to its original pale blue, "the dawn… it should have been mine-" Aurion brought his hand down, impaling the blade into the pirate's eye. It was as though a hex had been dispelled, and immediately all of his convulsing ceased, and the man laid still.

Aurion raised his head and looked around the beach. Euron's crew had remained on their knees, grabbing their heads in agony. As he pulled the knife out of Euron's eye, crimson blood splattering into the sand, he looked up to the red priest with a questioning look on his face.

"Dark magic," the massive black man stated in that ever-stoic tone. "Of the Great Other, whose name must not be said."

"I appreciate the plain answer," Aurion quipped, to this man whose name he still did not know. Aurion opened his mouth to ask,

"Moqorro." the priest, Moqorro interrupted, before gesturing to the crew members who looked between Aurion and Aegarax in panic. "These souls hold no loyalty to the Crow's Eye. Take them as yours, my prince."

"I'm not a-" Aurion began, before sighing in exasperation, pointing his dagger at the gathered crewmates, "He who wishes to live, throw down his weapon!" It had been a while since he used that tone. The tone he used when he led his legions down the Rhoyne, and when they embarked from Volantis.

Every single man did not hesitate before they tossed away their swords, clubs, spears, and axes in panic, getting on their knees and making unintelligible moans and howls. Aurion realized this was the first sound he had heard any of them make.

Right, Euron had cut out their tongues.

"Are any among you literate? Step forward." A moment's pause, as they all seemed to look around nervously. "Now!"

"No," Moqorro stated plainly. "They are mongrels and simpletons, each and every one of them. All but her," Moqorro pointed to the dusky woman from earlier, coming from the direction of the cells Aurion had been brought from.

Aurion was surprised at that, though he supposed he shouldn't have been. Not everyone was as well educated as they were in the Freehold, where the common farmers and even many slaves could read. He gestured for the dusky woman to come closer, "Do you trust the crew? Were they all unwillingly under his control?"

She furiously shook her head, pointing at one man, with short black hair in the back, clad in a chain hauberk rather than the leathers the others were wearing. The other crew members murmured in a tone that seemed like agreement. The man's eyes widened, "No! He was-" before he realized his mistake, covering his mouth with both hands.

Aurion sighed and placed his hand on his forehead, looking down at the sand due to the man's sheer stupidity.

Dracarys, he thought.

The man was swiftly taken care of, his ashes left on the beach with Euron's corpse. The rest of the crew were confirmed to be tongueless and brought aboard the ship. The dusky woman, Rosana, was Euron's brother's unknown bastard daughter. She could both understand and write High Valyrian. After a series of questions, he learned the ship was called "the Silence," and the one man with his tongue was Euron's bastard son, though Rosana clarified that Euron did not truly harbor any love for him and likely meant to eventually de-tongue him too, as two others in the crew were also his sons.

Euron had supposedly traveled to Asshai years ago, where he began to practice magic. He frequently drank the Qartheen Warlocks' Shade of the Evening, which explained his blue lips. She had revealed far more disturbing information, however.

When Euron kidnapped a soul he wished to join his crew, he would torture them to their breaking point while forcing them to suffer the hallucinations of the Shade of the Evening, utterly shattering their mind. This allowed him to use some form of power to permanently "enter" their minds, taking control of their bodies whenever he wished. The taking of tongues was one extra precaution, as Euron did not need communication between his crew for any reason.

Aurion had heard of "skinchanging" magic in Westeros, though he never believed it to be strong enough to control dozens of humans simultaneously. He walked down the deck next to Moqorro, who stared inquisitively at the hull of the ship, painted red all over. "Is there something wrong, Moqorro?"

"This paint," Moqorro curtly stated.

"Rosana claimed the ship is painted to hide the blood from Euron's many sacrifices," Aurion said, shuddering. Mass blood sacrifices of slaves were common in the Freehold, and he found himself just as disgusted now as he was then.

Moqorro shook his head, "He may have spread that story, but the wood does not feel like any ship I have sailed aboard."

Aurion wanted to argue that the wood felt like wood, yet he held his tongue. As he had taken the time to simply feel the air around him, smelling the salt and ash of the Smoking Sea, he could admit this ship felt like a nexus of magic permeating around him, penetrating into his very soul. "Mayhaps it's the remnants of the magics he practiced," Aurion said, though he didn't believe it.

Moqorro didn't respond, as he simply took his staff, twirled it around, and struck the side of the ship as hard as he could. The dragon head slammed into the hull, the sharp teeth shaving the top layer of paint off. Aurion was about to question if he had gone mad when he observed the shaved region. Far less had broken off than he would have expected, and the exposed wood was a bone-white color.

"Weirwood?" Aurion asked, shocked. Moqorro nodded. "That explains the feeling…"

"You feel it, my prince?" Moqorro asked, facing him once more. Aurion had decided to stop correcting him on his proper title, as he didn't feel much like an Emperor right now anyways. "You must come to Volantis. There is much you have missed."

"Volantis? I suppose that's where the Targaryens would make a new capital in Essos," Aurion pondered. "I would have stayed there, had I realized just how treacherous the Doom made Valyria. It will be good to see another of the blood of the dragon."

Moqorro snorted, "there is much you have missed," he repeated. Refusing to elaborate, he strolled off below the deck presumably to the room he claimed as his quarters as his long scarlet robes flowed behind him. Aurion had yet to explore beneath the deck or his own quarters– Euron's former quarters– so that was where he went.

As he opened the red door to the captain's quarters, the first thing that caught his eye was the black scale armor on an armor stand. Dark as smoke, though Aurion knew it was as light as the thinnest silk. The scales, shaped like dragon scales were edged in purple gold, and gleamed and shimmered in the red light from the window. Patterns could be seen within the metal, whorls and glyphs and arcane symbols folded into the steel. From the waist, covering the lower half were long, carved black dragon strips lined with gold. Aurion noticed the half-cape of purple Yi Tish silk with gold trims was thrown off to the side, crumpled in the corner. It seemed Euron had no taste for style.

This was his family's dragonsteel armor. It had been in the vaults before Aurion's death and was one of the many missing treasures Euron's host had brought aboard the ship. Beside it, resting against the armor stand was Solfyre. His family's ceremonial longsword from the days before even Aurion Zaldrīzes and the Freehold.

The sword had a long, milky-white blade, supposedly forged from half a fallen star. It was equally strong, sharp, and light as dragonsteel, with a black dragonsteel crossguard designed like a dragon spreading its wings. The grip was dragonbone with gold inlays. The pommel was an extension of the cross guard's aesthetic, designed to look like a dragon tail. Throughout the crossguard and pommel were lines of ingrained dragonglass wherever needed to accentuate the purple of the shining amethysts embedded throughout.

Aurion smiled as he gazed upon these two relics, knowing Euron must have brought countless other riches onto the ship, including the egg used in his failed ritual. He stripped the black cloak he had been wearing and put on a simple tunic he found in the pirate's room, mostly fitting, though the underclothes were a bit tight.

"Rosana," he called out once he was dressed more modestly. After a few moments, the comely dusky woman strode in front of the doorway, a questioning look on her delicate face. "Help me put this on. I'll guide you if you don't know how."

Aurion had seen his father wear this armor only once, when the Senate named him Primarch and a celebration was held in the streets. As he felt the dusky woman's hands on his body, tying the straps, he realized just how long it had been since he felt a woman's touch. Mayhaps when they got to Volantis.

Aurion walked out to the side of the ship, his left hand behind his back and his right resting on the hilt of Solfyre. He felt like an Emperor for the first time in two lifetimes as the wind of the sea sent his hair and cape fluttering behind him. One of the mute crewmembers stared in awe before moving aside, letting Aurion look out at the ruined skyline of Valyria.

Aegarax flew over the ship, landing beside the deck, unbothered by the depth of the water as his massive golden head moved to face Aurion. He extended a hand, brushing his old friend's snout with his gloved hand. Aegarax's molten golden eyes gleamed with an intelligence not present in any other.

"You'll take care of yourself for now, right boy?" Aurion mumbled. "Moqorro has advised me that I should wait before bringing you, so try and stay off the coast of Volantis. Stay quiet. I may need to call you, in case Moqorro is leading me to a trap." Aegarax accepted his pets eagerly, huffing smoke out his nostrils in acknowledgment. Aurion turned to face the crew.

They knew no other trades, had no other skills, nor had any other memories due to Euron's influence. Therefore, they elected to follow Aurion as captain of the Silence. The crew had assured him they would be able to safely navigate the seas on their own, as sailing was the only thing they knew, and they knew it well.

Aurion's first act had been to change the name. He wouldn't need to take the tongues of anyone else. The Silence was a reborn ship, just as Aurion was a reborn man. Henceforth, he had declared the ship would now be known as the Revenant. Changing the black sails from what he learned was the Greyjoy sigil would have to come later.

He stared at the two men beside the windlass, who had been holding him only hours earlier. "Pull the anchor!" He ordered, and watched as they moved in synchronization. After the ship had set sail, Aurion walked to the stern of the ship, watching as his home faded over the horizon. After four hundred years, it was time to return to Volantis.