Chapter Two: Baby Steps… See What I did There?
Fifteenth Day of the Second Month, 107 AC.
It took me far, FAR longer than I care to admit to reclaim my wits. For days I just stared blankly in front of me as I went through what limited motions I had open to me, from the way the nannies looked at me with worried expressions I would wager they were concerned for me. I could hardly blame them, Targaryen's were pretty murder-y so fear of getting punished should something happen to me was reasonable enough.
A baby giving them a mile-wide stare without making a pip was probably not reassuring.
Slowly but surely I got myself back together. The one bright side of being in a baby? Alot and I mean ALOT of time to think.
The Dance of the Dragons. The cluster-cluck of blood and fire and lack of foresight that crippled the monarchy, killed tens of thousands (to say nothing of the aftereffects) and drove dragons to extinction.
And I was now part of said royal family, born with a damned bullseye painted on my back.
Who would take that development well?
But, it would do me no good to just sit idly by while the world fell apart around me. The Dance would probably happen. The problem with the Dance was that it was an oddity from a historical perspective. In Planetos just as my original world about ninety-nine percent of events are the result of flukes, freak accidents and just plain bad luck. The Dance though, that happened as a result of at least a dozen different factors pushing heavily towards it. Only a few of those factors had already happened but most of the major ones would already be in play by my tenth year and would be downright life-threatening to stop.
Add to that the fact that most of the actors were unstable, useless or irregularly reckless and you have an inevitably cluster-cluck.
There was no doubt about that, far too many factors may be at work already but I might be able to luck-out and weaken it to hopefully little more than the war of quills the early Dance was. On the other hand, this world was not exactly known for making things go according to plan, especially when a plan was overly ambitious. So, I orientated myself on a simple and may I say very important goal.
My survival.
I had already died once and I did not intend to test my luck again. So to that end, I began to mentally list down a series of obvious criteria to ensure my survival.
Firstly, I needed to get into fighting shape and figure out combat as soon as humanly possible. Aegon would get fat and I had struggled in my first life to stay fit and in Westeros you were at a sharp disadvantage if you were in anything less than top shape and skilled. Most importantly, it would help my image which would be key to the preservation of me.
Secondly and tied to my nascent PR campaign, I needed to endear myself to as many Blacks and Greens as I could manage. I needed to at least have Rhaenyra and Alicent on my side. Ideally that would give me enough sway to keep the Dance from spiraling out of control. More realistically I was hoping to earn enough brownie points that no one would think to paint a target on my back and I could just hunker down and weather the storm.
Third, I needed to make myself valuable enough to not be deemed expendable. That one was going to be tricky as I doubted my skillset was going to be terribly valuable in this world and more importantly I was unsure of how well it would make it through the years. I was better off not focusing on what I can bring from my old world and instead focusing on what I could do to accrue value in this one.
Since I was a Targaryen this meant a dragon. On paper that did not seem like a terribly tall order, infant dragons were a dime a dozen in this period and those were less inclined to roast you and eat your face than their elders. I did not want a bigger dragon anyway, those were slower and made you a target. On the off chance that I could even survive such an encounter it would be suboptimal. A dragon would give me worth but a small, fast one could also serve as a getaway car should shit really hit the fan.
I admit that I probably did not sound too brave but I would welcome you to go straight to hell, I had died about two months ago and there was no way in hell that I would repeat that. Nope, what-ever-my-name-was Targaryen was going to be a minor, long-lived and probably less than glorious member of the house and that was how I like it.
A more successful Claudius who managed to avoid becoming king and getting poisoned. That was my goal.
Obviously, my goals were very long-term so for the time being I had to focus on what I could do. I needed to keep this cute routine going for as long as possible and milk the living hell out of it. I needed to start working my body as soon as it felt like cooperating and I also needed to pick up written and spoken Westron as soon as possible. Then I needed to get my tiny hands on every scrap of dragonlore I could (which meant also picking up High Valyrian).
It would ruin my plans if I got scorched and eaten so I needed to go in with at least a 90% chance of success.
To be fair though I had to concede that my first order of business should probably be getting my body able to walk and free of diapers.
Priorities and all that.
For that day I contented myself by trying to smile weakly at my favorite nannies and the two women who would decide whether I was dragon-chow or not.
Nineteenth Day of the Seventh Month, 107 AC.
By my sixth month I was crawling around the nursery and even the halls of the holdfast when I could escape my caretakers. It was far from dignified but after being as mobile as a potato for months on end it felt glorious. I delighted in being able to move about without the humiliation of being carried (also I doubted being held that closely by the nannies would do much for my sanity).
Sometimes I got a little carried away however.
"Prince Gaemon!" Shouted one of the nannies as I crawled under my cradle in an effort to evade her tyrannical pursuit.
Incidentally, it turned out my name was Gaemon. Of all the badass names that Targaryens could get I got Gaemon, oh well life and lemons.
Also, it turned out that it didn't take me long to piece together Westron which I guess was due to a mix of my body's youth, my knack for languages and perhaps a bit of an upgrade from my rebirth. Still couldn't read much to my chagrin but the nannies were reading to me nightly so that was coming along anyway.
Much to my ire the nanny managed to pull me out from under the cradle without much trouble.
"You mustn't go running now, my lord," she said with a tired amusement. Honestly for a young woman she sounded entirely too much as if she thought that she was my mother.
I smiled up at her which got me a rueful chuckle. I liked her, the blonde had been the first one I saw in my new life and had quickly become one of my favorites. Even if 'Nessa' was a bit of a plain name.
"My brother is already a terror then," Rhaenyra said with amusement as she entered the nursery along with her 'loyal' knight. I did not pretend to know which of the three sources of the novellas I read in my past life spoke truly but given the hostility he was radiating towards me I was not inclined to believe the more charitable descriptions of Ser Criston Cole.
Ignoring him, I turned my head towards my 'sister' in the Nessa's arm and smiled at her. She did not seem crazy about her half-brothers in the original timeline, so I took her tone and visits to be a good sign. Then again those writings had a great deal of retrospect and she was just about ten at the moment, plenty of time for her to turn on me and put my head on a spike if I was not careful.
Perhaps she was just fond of me because I was not a threat for now, I was being as amiable as I could manage and I was not the heir anyway. I had figured out that I was not the heir when I correctly matched the prick's face with the name 'Otto Hightower' and his obsession with the still sulky ball better known as Aegon. The man was far too ambitious for my taste from the context of the novellas but I had figured he didn't get too big for his breeches until later on. Guess my information was not exactly spot on.
For now at least my smile did the trick and she smiled back as she took me from my caretaker's arms.
"You are getting heavier by the day," she said with a smile. "I cannot wait for you to be big enough to come riding with me."
I dutifully giggled as she poked my cheek. It was strange, on one hand I did not particularly mind the attention but on the other hand the sheer inertia of knowing one way these people turned out made me feel like I was on a tightrope over a spiked trap.
"My lady," Ser Cole said over her shoulder. "He is yet young, I would caution you on hoping for too much."
Rhaenyra looked saddened by his words but nodded with a bitter smile, she had lost brothers before if I remembered right. Still, you can go to hell Cole, are you that jealous or are you just a jerk? Part of me wished he would take off a glove and try to touch me so that I could give him a bite with my gums. It might get me slapped but assaulting a royal would at least get him stripped of his cloak.
And maybe lit on fire.
"He is a Targaryen," she said with a bit of light behind her eyes as she looked to her protector with a fierce smile. "He will be fine, will you not?"
I smiled up at her in affirmative. I liked having her on my side but I knew better than to put too much value in the support of a particularly temperamental child.
…
Second Day of the First Month, 108 AC.
By my first name-day I was walking stably which felt wonderful. Sure, I still fell on my face if I pushed myself too hard but I was not feeling picky. More importantly, I was reading.
It took some doing but I had figured out how to get out of my cradle and over to where the nannies stored our books. They might have been fairy tales for the most part but they sufficed.
I also practiced my speech during my nights, quietly murmuring under my breath until Aegon inevitably woke up crying from a bad dream or whatever it was that consistently saw him assaulting my eardrums.
Said assaults of course typically saw me scramble to hide whichever book I had on hand and pretend to be asleep when the nannies rushed in. A literate and speaking two-year-old might be exceptional but a one year old doing those feats would probably not send a good image. Still progress was progress and while my vocal cords were taking a while to get to where I wanted them, I was closer than not to being able to speak properly. Properly enough that the joys of teething tested my restraint from cursing at the top of my lungs.
More annoyingly Aegon had taken to crawling behind me much to my annoyance, I knew we were twins but it was still irksome to have that little blob chasing after me. Mainly because he was not exactly quick on the uptake and could barely take two steps without him falling over and starting to bawl.
It was hard to extend Aegon the same chance that I was giving Rhaenyra.
I wondered what that said about me? Probably nothing good.
But I was making an effort, he might be annoying and sulky forever but I might be able to make him or Rhaenyra a decent ruler if I got lucky. I only knew about ruling from historical accounts but given how incompetent they were in the original it was not like I had a high bar to aim for. Barring that, ensuring they lacked fratricidal impulses towards me was also acceptable.
So I took some time to play with the sulky ball whenever he was not crying. I was the spare so I might as well make sure that at least he did not consider me expendable. Much like Rhaenyra though, I was not holding my breath that they wouldn't turn on me like an angry abused tiger with rabies the moment I let my guard down.
I was progressing along nicely and I would need them to stay that way, shit hit the fan quickly in Westeros and I needed every advantage that I could come up with.
…
Thirtieth Day of the Second Month, 108 AC.
It was to that end that I made my first effort to accumulate dragon lore during one of my monthly 'examinations'. I meant no disrespect to Grand Maester Runciter, the spindly old man had a kindly demeanor and was not exactly harsh in his examinations, I had a hard time not being worried that he would try something foolish that could see me end up on the wrong side of infant mortality. On the bright side the man looked and behaved like the platonic ideal of a kindly grandfather with a bit of absent-minded professor sprinkled on.
As he poked and prodded Aegon I eyed his study looking for the right title now that I was more confident in my reading skills.
Whatever one could say about his skills (and to be fair they were not as misguided as my paranoid mind had feared) the man was organized. The chamber looked like an immaculately ordered library and study, which meant that previous attempts had resulted in failure as the Maester only every kept a few books out of his neat shelves.
Today I was fortunate however as I spotted my prize on the Grand Maester's desk.
"Eh!" I whined as I poked at Nessa while pointing towards the desk. I had made my preference just clear enough to gradually have my favored nannies taking over more of my care.
"What is wrong my prince?" She asked with amusement, she had grown used to typically having a fairly solid reason whenever I bothered to actually make a sound.
Looking her in the eye with a smile, I pointed at the desk again. "Eh!"
"What is it my prince?" She asked as she walked me over to the Maester's desk.
I reached down and tapped my prize triumphantly and chuckled in affirmation.
"What's this now?" Runciter asked as my antics drew his attention up from my brother.
"Beg pardon, Grand Maester but the prince seems to be wanting this one." She said as she tapped my prize. "He's a bright lad, when he gets like this it is hard to stop him."
"Oh?" Runciter asked as he finished up with Aegon and passed him off to his own caretaker before moving over towards us.
I looked the man dead in the eye and nodded before pointing at the book, "Eh!"
"How odd," Runciter said as he picked up my prize. "It seems odd that a child so young would want a specific book or even understand what one is."
"Beg pardon milord, but the prince is an odd one. Oft we find him trying to read over the books in his chamber at night," the nanny said awkwardly while I carefully kept my features cheerful.
Damnit, they were on to me.
"Hmm, remarkable if true," Runciter said as he moved to his shelf and pulled out one of the books with a very similar cover to my prize and turning to me with both behind his back. I tried to not arch a brow, what was he up to?
He walked up to me and extended both books to me. Oh, I get it. He is trying to see if I actually wanted the book or just liked the shape.
I reached for my prize and tapped it while looking at him, "Eh!"
"Remarkable indeed," the Maester said in amusement. His thin lips spreading over his age-yellowed teeth.
"As I said milord, he is a clever lad," Nessa said with something resembling pride. I counted it as a win if I had managed to get some of the nannies attached to me. It would make her less likely to poison me.
"Indeed," The Maester said as he stroked his short grey beard. "Tell me girl, do you think you can read this?"
The young nanny blushed, "I'm afraid I don't know my letters very well milord. I can read the tales well enough but such a tome…"
I growled at the Maester despite myself, I had grown a little attached to the young caretakers myself and I did not care to see them put in humiliating situations.
"Of course, of course," Runciter said in thought as he stared at me. "No matter, I do not mind."
"Grand Maester?" The nanny asked her lips tightening in confusion.
"I would be remiss if I failed to see that the royal princes do not live up to their potential," the Grand Maester said as his wizened features twisted into a kindly smile.
"Do not worry lad, I quite enjoy Barth's work myself."
And so the Grand Maester would come a few times every week to the nursery to read to me. Given that he invited the nannies to listen, I forgave his slight against them earlier. A peripheral benefit was that the nannies kept Aegon quiet while the old Maester read.
As I expected Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History was a veritable font of knowledge. It was helpful that Runciter seemed to go out of his way to put complex ideas in more simple terms in the hopes of making the ideas absorb more easily into my mind.
It was around that time that the dreams started.