A/N: EDIT: By popular demand! I went back and tweaked Oberyn's fate. That's right. HE LIVES!
No more requests, please! A man is all tapped out.
Warning! Warning! Warning! This is quite possibly the darkest thing I've written for Game of Thrones.
Rip and Tear. Smash and Burn. Fire and Blood. That sort of thing.
I put this together on part of a requester and also to stem the tide of plot bunnies banging about in my head after rewatching season 7 and the god awful 8.
In fact, this may well be bumped up to M in the future. Still here? Great! If this makes it to 100 by some miracle, I'll update it early as with Demon of Ashford and the life.
Time will tell if its made into a proper story.
With my fifteen year anniversary on this site finally here, I find myself reflecting on the little things in life. What was once a lazy pastime meant for me and a few friends really grew and evolved over time. There are days when I look back on the last fifteen years here and I wonder if anyone will remember me; if I made an impact, despite never making a single cent on any of these stories. Some days were happier than others, and some stories I enjoyed writing WAY too much; to the point where I'd stay up all night working on them.
And of course, there are times when I look to the future and wonder what will become of things when I'm gone.
Of course, I try not to dwell on the latter overmuch; I'm still alive and still writing. In an ideal world, I'd like to keep doing so for as long as I can. But old age is catching up to me and these days, the world is filled with so much madness and death. Even before that, so many friends and fellow writers I once knew are gone, now. Will I still be here in twenty years? Ten? Five? Its a chilling thought. But for now, I'm still here, still writing.
Alight, I've kept you long enough.
As ever, I own no quotes, references, quotes, themes or memes!
As far as timelines go, I'd say this chapter takes place near the end of Season Four...near that infamous trial of combat...
Last but not least, the soundtrack I'd recommend for this chapter would be The Long Farewell - Ramin Djawadi.
It fits, almost terrifyingly so.
"Leave one dragon alive...and even a Mountain can crumble."
~Survivor.
The Forgotten Son
He couldn't move.
Not a finger, not a toe, not an inch.
Even the act of breathing was little more than a ragged gasp.
Trying to move his hands only made matters worse; because once he opened his eyes in the dim light, he realized his hands were bound, his legs as well, his body strapped to a table. Was it a table? It felt cold. Too cold. Too solid to be a wooden table. Too dark. The air was damp. He could hear the sound of the ocean, taste the salt in the air, yet he could't lift his head. The chain about his neck saw to that. Even without it he couldn't see anything at all, not a damn thing.
Why was he here?
Why couldn't he move?
Why wasn't he dead for that matter.
His last memory was of that damn Dornishman and his spear. The poison. His blood burning in his veins. The countless wounds he'd taken...he couldn't remember anything else. He'd won, hadn't he? Sure he hadn't been able to pop his head like a grape before he passed out, but he'd gotten a few hard punches in. That had been a good fight. He'd won...right? He remembered that stupid whore screaming as he beat her lover down. Then a weight in his head, and passing out...
Was this Kings Landing? Didn't feel like Kings Landing. Didn't smell like it, either.
He could feel his heart pounding, now. He needed to move...!
Footsteps echoed somewhere above him.
Torchlight burned away the dark.
"Ser Gregor Clegane." a familiar voice hummed happily. "Awake at last."
He growled at them with all the hate and vitriol he possessed. "The hell am I?"
"Dragonstone." The voice informed him. "I apologize for the silence; its been like this ever since Stannis abandoned it."
"You sonuva...!
"Now is that any way to speak to the man who saved your life?" his savior tutted. "Don't worry. You're safe."
Gregor didn't feel bloody safe. He felt angry, pissed to all the hells.
"You're restrained for your own protection, I assure you. You have a great many wounds, and they need to heal."
Someone poured a goblet of wine. He saw it. Heard it.
A hand offered him a cup. "Thirsty?"
Gregor didn't want to drink. But gods his throat was dry...
His host -captor?- waved it just under his nose, bringing with it a fragrant aroma.
"Drink." the man urged. "I wouldn't bring you all the way here just to poison you now, would I?"
Fair, he supposed. Then again, thinking had never been his strong suit. He couldn't nod, but he managed a grunt.
"A toast." they set it to his lips and poured wine down his throat, helping him to savor each drop. "Proper wine, for a proper hero. Come, drink. You should be grateful. I saved you. Healed you. Ferried you away from danger. I even got that awful poison out of your veins...
He drank greedily.
...after all," his host continued apace, "I wanted you to have your wits when you woke up. You, the man who made murder a pastime...
Gregor nearly choked on the wine.
"Yes, swallow." still the wine came, forcing him to drink or drown. "Drink deeply...
.
..
...why did he have a bad feeling about this?
"Brave man, aren't you?" word by word, the man's voice turned ugly, his dulcet tones souring like to much rotten honey. "You butchered a woman with a babe in her belly. Stomped a little girl to death. Dashed an infant's skull against the wall like it was a pinata. But you weren't satisfied with that, were you?"
Still the wine came, nearly making him gag.
"You cut a mother in two, then ravaged her corpse to sate your own lust." the goblet went away, allowing to gasp for air as his captor went to refill it. "You and the Lannisters killed a good many dragons that day. But you didn't slaughter every one of them. That was your mistake." a finger tapped the goblet, producing a terrible hollow sound. "You should have ripped them out, root and stem. After all, when you cut off a viper's head, the viper dies. But when you take the head of a dragon...
Someone leaned into the torchlight.
He glimpsed a hooded face, the ghost of a smile set within the cowl.
...you'd best remember the dragon has three heads."
Just as quickly, he leaned back.
"I suppose you wouldn't know, would you? You were too busy raping Elia Martell to check the bodies of her children." the face leaned in again, all pretense of civility burning away. "She was my mother. I didn't know her or my sister, little Rhaenys, for very long, how could I, when I was just a baby, but I remember you. I remember the way you laughed when you did it. When you broke open my head. I remember that, too. The pain was the worst thing. I was small. Helpless. Yet aware of every moment.
"...!"
Dread strangled Clegane's tongue, now heavy from wine. Damn him...!
He growled and tried to move his arms, to twitch his fingers or toes, to bring his strength to bear and break his bonds...but he couldn't. He could only breathe and blink. Everything felt so heavy. The wine. It must've had something in it. He was paralyzed, he realized, yet he still experienced everything. He could see and hear, think and breathe, speak and feel even, for what good it did him. Because right now he felt the icy grip of fear as he hadn't in years.
No. No, no. No, no, no!
"You're lying You're not here! I killed you! You...died!"
"Fortunately for you, yes." a hand tugged back the hood. "Unfortunately, I got better. Even if my wound never quite healed right...
He glimpsed a pale face bearing a violet-blue eye, whiskered cheeks, pale silver hair and an ugly scar stretching down across his temple and past his brow. Worse than what I did to Sandor, was his next thought. At least his brother still had his right eye after the burns. This one didn't. His was gone. No eyepatch-not even the black one he wore-could hope to hide it.
The man -Aegon Targaryen?- didn't even try.
"Do you have any idea what its like to have your own head smashed in? To be left for dead? If I were any other baby, I would have died. I nearly did." he tapped his skull, showing the scar there. "They threw me into a cistern. I had to crawl out. Crawl, over a mountain of corpses. All the way down to Flea Bottom...but that's another story. Hardly the way I wanted to live my second life, you know? I wanted to be Aegon this time around, not Naruto. You ruined that for me. But still, I lived. I survived. I thrived. I forced myself to grow...
Here at last, he stopped pouring wine down his throat.
...and now I've come for you." Five firm fingers gripped his chin, forcing him to look his way. "After all, you know what they say. What doesn't kill you only makes you...stronger. Or stranger. I haven't decided yet. I still hear their voices, you know. They're whispering in my ear even now, telling me to kill you."
Without warning, he released him.
"But I won't. Not yet. First, you're going to confess your crimes.
Gregor grit his teeth. "Piss off."
"Wrong answer." A hand cracked across his face. He felt the pain, but could not move, couldn't do anything more than snarl. "Do that again, and I start using my knives." he spun back to him, a wild light in his blue eye. "Elia Martel. Confess. You raped her. You murdered her. You killed her children. You killed ME. You nearly killed my uncle, before I could even meet him.
Oberyn lived?! The gods truly hated him, didn't they?
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to heal a broken skull? No, Aegon wagged a finger. "Don't answer that. "I had to spell all his teeth back in. He still hasn't woken up. That was, what, a week ago? The whole world thinks he's missing...or dead. My maester doesn't know when he'll wake up." He shrugged a shoulder once, spun in place, and grabbed him by the face. "I suppose that works to my advantage. If Dorne didn't hate the Lannisters before, then they certainly do now. And all because of you."
"I didn't do a damn thing you bastaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh?!
He never saw the blade move; didn't even feel it until it slammed into his thigh.
"Confess." Aegon tilted his head. "Tell me what I want to know, and all this stops, Clegane."
Hate gave him strength to spit in his face. "I should've killed you with your whore of a motherrrrrrrrrrrrgh?!
A knife whistled down with liquid speed, stabbed into his groin and cut upward, warping his words into an agonized squeal.
"Confess." It was a command.
"You little shit! When I get out of here you'll pay for thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!"
Now his tormentor went to work on the fingers of his right hand. The fingernails, actually. When he was done with those he began breaking them. One by one, smallest to largest. It was too much pain, agony compounded with his own lifeblood pooling beneath him. And all the while that word hammered at him.
"CONFESS."
Trapped within a misery of his own meaking, Ser Gregor Clegane broke.
"I did it! Elia Martell!" he confessed for only the second time in his life, but now he found himself utterly powerless. "I did it all! Everything you said! Just fucking...kill me! Get it over with already!
Silence stretched through the cavern. Death never came.
"Here?" The man who called himself Naruto-and-Aegon tilted his head. "Now?" A shit-eating grin stretched across his face. "Today? You're not going to die for a very long time, Clegane." a pale hand patted his head in a soothing, almost patronizing caress. "First you're going to lose your legs. Then your arms. After that, a nose, and maybe an eye if I'm feeling creative. Your wounds will be cauterized each time, I won't let you bleed out. If you refuse to eat, I'll shove food down your throat. And of course, if you try to bite off your tongue...
He looked past him and whistled.
.
..
...!"
Something uttered a low, raspy hiss in the dark behind him. It had been still and silent all this time. Asleep. No longer. Now it awoke. Gregor heard it move, felt the hot breath against his face, and he still couldn't bloody move. The beast was darker than obsidian, his scales a deep ebony that seemed to shimmer in the low light. Yet its eyes were molten amber. It was large, the largest thing he'd ever seen in his life.
It was a bloody dragon.
That wasn't right. That couldn't be right. Why was a dragon here?!
"What's that saying your Lannister masters are so fond of?" Aegon thumbed a whiskered cheek as that winged doom crept closer. "Hear Me Roar? Yes, that's the one. Ancalagon?" he looked past him to the black behemoth looming large over them. "Show this Lannister dog what we think of their words."
The beast screamed.
It was a sound that seemed to swallow the world, everything Gregor Clegane was. Fetid air blasted his face could see his life ending in those jaws.
He almost wished it would. That would be a quick end. Not this...
Naruto raised a hand and the beast fell silent.
"I know what you're thinking, but as you can see, the mother of dragons in Meereen isn't the only one with dragons." Aegon prattled on. "I hatched my good friend here awhile ago," he ran a hand along its snout, drawing a pleased trill from the titanic beast. "In the shadowlands of Asshai. He grew quickly of course. I fed him Dothraki Screamers, Sellswords, idiot knights, anyone foolish enough to get in our way. When he was large enough, I flew him across the Narrow Sea to Dragonstone. He hasn't left since." he grinned. "Wouldn't do to ruin the surprise, no? After all, he's still growing."
Gregor howled at him. "Damn you! Damn you to all the seven hells!"
"Now, now, there's no need to be rude. If you're going to swear I'll just have to use this." The Targaryen stuffed a gag into his mouth to silence his cries. "There, isn't that much better?" Gregor howled imprecations at his captor, butt he madman didn't seem to care. "You know, I really shouldn't have kidnapped you, but I just couldn't help myself. I was in King's Landing, I saw a chance, and I took it. I think my uncle would've approved if you hadn't killed him."
Gregor kept screaming even through the gag. He could see that awful dragon circling him, its great head bending low, scenting his blood. Any second now...
Dead men tell no tales.
"You know," But the damn dragonspawn wasn't finished with him, not yet. "I just love the smell of fear. I wonder what Tywin Lannister will be like; I can't wait to see his stunned face when he see Ancalagon. Do you think he'll be surprised? Shocked? Afraid?"
Screaming availed him naught. Gregor started mumbling prayers.
"Are you...praying?" Elia Martell's last mad son tutted softly, and here at last, that ever present smile slipped. "Don't bother. Your gods are dead. Your master will be soon enough once my aunt crosses the Narrow Sea. And for you," he stepped aside, making way for his dragon on the altar. "This is your god now."
Ancalagon loomed large over him, massive jaws parting wide. Gregor's eyes bulged. He whimpered -begged!- for mercy behind the gag. None came.
The dragon king lunged, giant jaws closing around Gregor's left leg. Flesh tore. Sinew parted. Blood spattered the floor.
Screams of wordless agony filled the night. And so the Mountain crumbled.
A/N: Only act one, this is. Aaaaand scene.
For those who wonder, Ancalagon is an actual dragon. And he's terrifying.
In summary, we have a Naruto reincarnated as Elia's son "Aegon" in this story. And he's not happy.
As ever, the Embers rule remains. If people don't like this story? If they don't enjoy it? Well...I'll not continue it. That's no joke, folks. I'm so busy these days with two jobs; basically, I don't have time off. Not anymore. My free time is limited and as such, I can't afford to focus on something folks don't like. Reviews keep me writing in these times, and keep the daily updates flowing. Silence...silence only hurts. I hate having to beg for feedback, but without it...well, it feels like I'm not making an impact.
Hell, it might even be ending soon. That depends on you, the reader.
By all means, speak up! Make yourselves heard!
So in the Immortal Words of Atlas...
...Review...Would You Kindly?
And enjoy the Previews!
As ever:
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
PLOT DETAILS AHOY!
YE BE WARNED!
Read at your own risk!
As ever, these are from the far flung future...or are they~?!
(Previews!) AKA Season Seven...
Oberyn awoke soon after.
"Ach, it feels like a woman crushed my head with her thighs.
"She must've been quite the woman, then."
The Prince of Dorne rounded on the voice. A boy with Targaryen features sat opposite him, book in hand.
He smiled at him. "Hello, uncle. So nice to finally meet you...
A massive shadow passed over the fleet. A roar rattled the world.
Daenerys balked at the extraordinary shape, eyes wide, lips parting. "What...is that?"
Whatever it was, it was flying back to Dragonstone. No, she knew what it was, even as her dragons -her children!- called out greetings of their own.
Dragons had returned to Westeros.
Something else was waiting for them at Dragonstone. Someone she did not expect.
She'd seen the dragon outside, the same beast that was even now roosting atop the castle with Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion. She hadn't know what to make of that. The beast hadn't made an aggressive moves towards them and she was likewise loathe to attack something so large in the first place.
It didn't make a lick of sense; Varys and the rest seemed just as surprised to see it. That was her sole solace in the matter.
But what she found within was another matter.
Sprawled in its throne, a young man clad in dark blue leathers and an eyepatch awaited her. He was scribbling in a book of some kind -a journal perhaps?- paying them absolutely no heed. She took in his Valyrian features at a glance and felt her throat close.
No. No, that wasn't possible.
Tyrion coughed. The young man looked up...and smiled.
"Hello, aunt." He snapped the book and looked up at her. "You're late. Still, its so nice to finally meet you. Welcome to my home~!"
She wasn't prepared for him to vault off the throne, walk up to her and...give her a hug? His arms tightened around with such a desperate need that she couldn't help but pity him. His chin came down on her shoulder and she heard him exhale in a long, relieved sigh.
He drew back, holding her shoulders with a smile. "Did you bring your dragons? I hope you brought your dragons...
"And you are...?"
She didn't miss his wince. "You don't know who I am?" Then he recovered. "Well, of course you don't, we never met. Its me! Aegon! Your nephew!"
Daenerys reared back. Mad. That was her first thought of him.
He was absolutely mad...
...or was he?
EDIT: Poor boy just needs a hug in this story...
She had to think. She had to think fast to make this work, or risk losing all she'd ever achieved. He's older than me, she realized. He was born before I was, by at least a year. Yet he looked so small now. Tired. Downright exhausted, even. She didn't want to use him. He might well be the only kin she had left in this rotten world. And yet she couldn't leave him alone, either.
Daenerys sighed. "...what do you want, exactly?"
The man who may-or-may-not be her nephew granted her a small, sad smile as he watched the dragons dance in the sky. "Is a family so much to ask? Both of us should be dead, yet here we are, alive. Against all odds. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is. There must be a reason we met here."
...it was a tempting prospect. Having another dragonrider would only strengthen her cause...
Her brow furrowed. "And you don't want the throne?"
He scoffed aloud. "Stupid iron chair, so that's a no."
"Then you wouldn't object to marrying me?"
Bind her claim to his, and him to her.
Aegon blinked. He blinked hard.
...pardon?"
"I wanted to thank you, Tyrion."
"Whatever for?"
Aegon hummed happily. "For not killing your father or your sister. Now I can put both their heads on a spike~!"
Oh, dear. This boded poorly. Daenerys he could counsel restraint towards, but this young man loathed the Lannisters, and he wouldn't be happy until well...heads, walls, spikes. Tyrion wasn't so cavalier. He didn't want to see his family destroyed, any more than they already were. "I can't help but notice you failed to mention Jamie...
"Why should I kill him? He killed Dany's father, not mine. Aerys was mad. Your kingslayer brother hasn't done anything to me...yet.
Tyrion prayed he wouldn't.
Jon winced. "You're insane, aren't you?"
"I am." Aegon-Naruto!-granted him a small a little. "But I'm sane enough to admit it."
"That doesn't make any sense.
"Trying having your skull smashed in as a babe, dying, and coming back. See if things make sense then."
"I have!"
"Someone smashed in your skull as a baby?"
No...but I suffered something similar not long ago."
...you're telling the truth, aren't you?"
"We can hold them off-
The world shattered with a roar.
Two black dragons swooped low behind a horde of screaming Dothraki.
Jamie had an instant to feel confusion. Two black dragons? Why were there two?
They were being ridden, each of them. For a moment, he could've sworn he heard a word shouted on the wind.
"Dracarys!"
The world erupted into fire. Men died in droves.
R&R~!