The Rebirth of the Dragons - Chapter 17

AN: Hey guys.

Interesting things happening in this chapter, the plot begins to pick up.

Hope you guys enjoy this one.

Chapter 17

Rhaella Targaryen. 292AC

Rhaella looked at the dress that her servants had prepared for her. It was a beautiful piece, black yitish silk with a few details in red, the colors of her house, something fitting for a queen and also something fitting for someone in mourning.

Gerold Hightower, Lord commander of the kingsguard, and a good friend of hers for most of her life had just died the day before. The old knight was a relic of a bygone age, someone who was old enough to have known her as a child, someone that could tell stories about her father and someone who was a major influence on the children. Aegon took the news harder than anyone on their manse, the old knight was primarily in charge of his training, not only with swords, but also teaching him how to be a man; telling stories about her father and grandfather to teach him how to be a good king, and telling stories about her husband to teach him how not to be a king. He was also a stabilizing force on their household, being able to solve the constant fights that happened between Maekar and Viserys whenever her son visited their home; and now he was gone.

She might have been shortsighted in her decision to make Viserys into a squire for Oberyn, she had hoped that traveling with the prince of Dorne would help eliminate the last of the influence that her husband still had in her son, by giving him a new role model, but it ended up working too well, which created a whole different trouble. Viserys was a little too much like Oberyn now, she had received reports about their travels and knew that her son had been earning a reputation as a enjoyer of wine, weapons and of both men and women; she also knew he already had a bastard daughter in Volantis. And while some had loved the new Viserys, particularly his betrothed, Princess Arianne, from what she heard of their meeting in Norvos. Others had hated Viserys' new attitude, chief among them was Maekar.

It started because of a simple misunderstanding; Viserys was visiting their new home, and was making a good impression of Oberyn's protégée by flirting with every man and woman who spent enough time in his presence, mostly in a joking manner. Maekar was perfectly fine with it and even laughed with everyone else when Viserys was quite spectacularly refuted when he tried to flirt with Lyanna, the woman showing her wolfblood and saying that a child had no place playing with the adults. But when Viserys had jokingly said that he couldn't wait till Rhaenys grew up, that she would be a beauty in a few years, it immediately caused a reaction from Maekar, and when Viserys realized that Rhaenys also didn't like is insinuations, he started to joke around even more.

In the end a massive fight broke out between Maekar, Rhaenys and Viserys, and their inflamed tempers were picked up by their dragons and it almost caused a fight between them, a fight that would probably end up killing them all. Gerold was the one that was able to get them to calm down and stop the fight, but by that time the damage was already done; Maekar and Rhaenys wanted nothing to do with Viserys, and Viserys was feeling awful for having caused such a fight within the family. He had approached her, asking how to solve the problem, and the only advice she could give her son was to let time pass, they were family after all, and family always forgives.

Viserys also ended up on the receiving end of a frankly amazing dressing down by Oberyn when he returned to his duties as a squire. Rhaella was still to this day amazed at the number of curse words that Oberyn knew and was able to use in a single sentence, but the basics of the speech was that there was a time and a place for crass jokes, and if Viserys didn't know how to read a room then he shouldn't be making these types of jokes.

But it wasn't all bad in the last year.

The dragons had been growing quickly, faster than any of the Targaryen dragons that had been born in westeros, at least according to the books and family journals she had access to. Vermithor, Maekar's dragon, was massive and it's blood red color would probably be the stuff of nightmare for their enemies once they used the dragons on the field. He was one of the only two dragons that were already large enough to ride, the other being her own Meleys who was smaller than Vermithor, but not by much. Rhaenys' Meraxes was quite nimble and seemed to be born on the sky, the she-dragon was usually found together with Vermithor, mirroring their humans. Daenerys' Dreamfyre was another dragon that was a great flier, even better than Meraxes, but it probably wouldn't be as much of a nightmare to fight against as Meraxes would be one day. Dreamfyre's distinctive silver coloration was quite visible compared to Meraxes, which was almost to see in a clear day sky with her sky-blue color. Balerion was just as inappropriately playful as Viserys. And Syrax, Aegon's dragon was the third largest one, almost big enough to ride, and just as serious as her grandson. And then there was the youngest one, the only one to not be hatched within hours of the others but instead almost a year later, Snow Wing.

Visenya had decided to not give her dragon one of the old names like the others did, instead choosing a new one. The she-dragon was as white as snow with some blue on the tip of the wings, and she looked to be another big one, almost as big as Dreamfyre, who was the smallest of the older dragons. Her granddaughter was beyond happy when she arrived home with her dragon egg and was finally able to hatch it, but Rhaella, unlike her granddaughter, had been in growing fear since that day, after Lyanna told her of her talks with her brother.

She at first wanted to deny it all, wanted to say it was just northern superstition, that someone had fooled Lord Stark. But there were too many things that added up, the warning about the sword was the first one. She had never said anything to anyone about her encounter with uncle Aemon all those year ago at the wall, no one knew she had Dark Sister hidden in her solar, it was impossible for someone north of the wall to know about the sword, except for the previous owner of said sword. And the second warning was even more proof that he was telling the true, no one but family knew that they had an intact copy of signs and portents, and right there on page 43 of the book was another proof, Daenys talked about how she once dreamed of a white dragon flying above a wall of ice, fighting against an army of the dead.

Her fear had increased even more when she read that passage, there weren't any other dragons mentioned, did it meant that Visenya would be fighting alone against such nightmarish beings, were the rest of them already dead, or even worse, did they left her alone, not offering her any help. Those were the questions that plagued her mind, she even tried to argue with herself that it wasn't proof enough, that it could be after they were already dead, dragons lived for a lot longer than humans after all; but she couldn't believe some of the warnings and not others, if Bloodraven was still alive, and she believed he was, then she had to believe him; his ability with both the green sight and dragon dreams were well documented in the journals of her ancestors.

Lyanna was also terrified when she read the passage of the book, the woman almost had a mental breakdown screaming that they were going to take her daughter, it took hours for her to recover, and when she did Rhaella could still see that she was thinking of grabbing Visenya and running away. Not that she blamed the younger woman, she wanted to do the same.

But after a couple of days they recovered from the shock of the news and started to plan. Lyanna gave the quite reasonable explanation that the other dragons were not mentioned because they might have been fighting in other parts of the wall, it was quite big after all. They could also still be fighting further south, they both agreed that if the others attacked while they were still fighting for the throne, it would be better to deal with the war in the south first; the wall could hold for a few years, and only a unified westeros could hope to fight the white walkers. They also started to plan for that war, Rhaella had immediately sent word to Grand Admiral Velaryon to start buying up dragonglass, every single ship of their trade empire would reserve some of their cargo capacity to transport the material. They were also searching in every single book they could find about the long night if there was another way to kill the white walkers. The long night happened everywhere, not only in westeros, there were myths about it from Sarnor all the way to Asshai, the ancient civilizations of Essos recorded their own fights against the dead.

By the end of a week of constant planning, they had some solid ideas about how to fight a war against the others. They would keep adding to the plan until the day they receive word that the white walkers were sighted by the nights watch, hopefully their plans would be enough.

It wasn't all bad news that Lyanna brought from her homeland. The newfound wealth of The North was an unexpected gift, some of the things that the lord and lady Stark had done to develop their lands were such simple concepts that was surprising none one else thought of doing then before, the new style of farming the land, selling farming equipment and animals to the smallfolk and allowing them to pay in installments, keeping the roads well maintained and free of bandits; many small things that in the end added to a lot of prosperity. It was almost impossible to imagine the same North that during the time her husband held the throne was a barely developed wasteland, and now that same land was one of the most prosperous of Westeros.

Not that she had anything to complain about gold.

Even almost ten years later she was still surprised sometimes with the amount of gold their trade ships were able to make. Trading with the Far East was dangerous; they had lost many ships to either storms around Valyria, or to pirates coming from the islands near Sothoryos. But the trade was so profitable that those lost ships didn't make a dent on their profits, the amount of gold held in their account on the Iron Bank could probably pay the debt the usurper was plunging the realm into fifty times over and still had some gold to spare, and their expenses were larger than some of the kingdoms.

Maekar's dragon legion alone was a massive drain on their gold. Their equipment was almost three times more expensive than the regular soldier, it was like equipping five thousand knights instead of foot soldiers. But they more than showed why they were worth the cost, the dragon legion was by far the best group of soldiers they had at their disposal, the way they could quickly get into finely trained formations, the way they could fight in almost any terrain, the way they could move quicker than any other fighting force, even building bridges if they had to. It all made for an extremely deadly force, and one she was happy to have at their disposal.

And then there was the amount of gold they spent on bribes and assassinations. They spent an absurd amount of gold to keep up with the spies and assassins sent against them by their many enemies. Even with Varys at the heart of the usurper's power it alone wasn't enough to keep them safe; Tywin Lannister and Olenna Tyrell were just the biggest names that constantly tried to move against them, and that ever annoying magister of Pentos that they still didn't know why he was targeting them.

She shook her head to clear the thoughts away and proceeded to dress herself, she had a funeral to attend.

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The funeral was a beautiful ceremony, they all said their goodbyes, and even the ever serious Alliser Thorne was emotional at the end of it. Ser Gerold's body, sword and armor would be sent to the Hightower, a man like him deserved to be laid to rest alongside his kin, not on a random field in the andal highlands, even if it was a holy place for his religion.

Rhaella looked around the table she was sat on and saw the others around her. Aegon was on her right, her grandson was now ten, and was quickly growing into a man she was proud of. He still modeled himself a lot on the image of Maekar, the older boy having an influence on the young king that was only surpassed by Ser Gerold. It always caused Rhaella a little bit of pain every time she looked at Aegon, the boy looked so much like his father that it was almost like Rhaegar was standing right there in front of her.

Ser Barristan Selmy was seated on her left. The new Lord Commander of the kingsguard was a good replacement for Ser Gerold, a true and honorable knight, one of a dying breed if the reports from westeros held any truth.

To the other side of Aegon was Maekar. Her son in all but blood was three and ten now, and his body was quickly changing into that of a man instead of a boy, his shoulders were broader and he was quickly gaining muscle from the constant training with a sword. His advice was still valued in this table despite his age, his mind for military maters had already been proven and his constant work with Marwyn gave him even more knowledge to draw on.

Marwyn was also there. The former archmaester was a valuable member of their council and was always quick to give sound advice, even if it was only because he wanted to return to his research, the man only cared about magic and furthering his understanding of it.

Lucerys was absent; he was currently in Braavos overseeing their trade operations. In his place was his nephew Aurane. The young man was five and ten, and had much of the traditional Velaryon look to him, even if his skin was a little darker his eyes were green instead of the Valyrian purple. The young man had learned much during his time with his uncle, and was judged good enough to fill in for the older man while he was away.

Also present was Asha Greyjoy. The young woman was still prickly and tended to snap at anyone that spent enough time around her, the only ones immune to that were Maekar and Rhaenys; she had a strange fondness for Maekar, and Rhaenys would just beat her up in the yard whenever she tried to get snarky with the younger girl, and it seemed to do something to the ironborn. She still didn't like them, but she recognized that her life here was better than it would have been as a hostage on Casterly Rock, and when they convinced her that they only wanted to depose her father, but would ensure that either her brother, Theon, or if he was unsuitable she herself, get the iron isles, she started to cooperate with them, giving them some insight into how the ironborn worked, something that has always been difficult to understand.

And the last member of their council had just entered the room with a large stack of paper on her hands.

"I apologize, your grace, queen regent. It took a long time to sort out the messages." Lyanna said, seating down on her chair.

"It is nothing to worry about, Lyanna. We weren't waiting for long." Rhaella responded, smiling at the younger woman. Ever since her visit to Winterfell Lyanna had been better than she had seen her in years, the woman had some troubles on her mind that she refused to tell anyone about, but it appeared that a visit to her home had started to solve said issue.

"Now, what do you have for us today?" She asked.

"I have good news, bad news, worse news, and catastrophic news, your grace. Which one do you want first?" Lyanna said, after organizing the papers on the table.

"Let's start with the bad news. I imagine we will need some good news after learning about the catastrophic ones." Rhaella responded.

"Well, the bad news is that Varys had to reveal the survival of his grace to the usurper. He did so because it would be only a matter of weeks until Tywin Lannister learned of it." Lyanna said passing a piece of paper to her, she read the paper and saw that it was a letter from Varys, explaining why he made such a decision.

"Not exactly as bad as I imagined. It is a minor miracle that we were able to hide Aegon's survival for this long. The only thing that will come from it is that we will only have to deal with even more assassins." Rhaella said after reading the letter.

"It might even be beneficial in some way your grace. If the news of king Aegon's survival is being talked about in the Red Keep then a guarantee that it will be known to the rest of the realm by the end of the week. It will embolden some of those still loyal to your family but hiding in fear of the usurper, and the small folk of King's Landing will rejoice in the knowledge that the heir of their beloved crown prince is still alive." Marwyn said, receiving nods from Barristan and Lyanna.

"It may well be so, Marwyn. But any benefit from it will be minor to our plans." Rhaella said after she took some time to think on his words.

"What of the worse news, Lyanna?" She asked.

"We finally found something about Illyrio Mopatis, and it's bad, apparently something that even Varys, who was friends with the man once, didn't know about. The man's wife was a Blackfyre." Lyanna said, causing a cold chill to pass through Rhaella, and she saw that Barristan was in a similar situation.

"How bad is it?" Ser Barristan asked.

"Bad doesn't even begin to explain. The man has been hiding a son, a son that he pretended to pass of as the real Aegon, that's why he's been trying so hard to kill us off; he didn't want anyone alive that could deny his son's claim. He intended to ensure others believed in it by having the boy be raised by Jon Connington, and as far as we know the man truly believed the boy was Rhaegar's son." Lyanna explained.

"You said believed. Is Connington still alive, did he find out the truth?" Rhaella asked. She remembered Jon Connington and the man didn't seem to be one to believe such an obvious lie when he was younger. The man seemed smart enough in his youth, and only an idiot would believe she would stay away from her grandson, not even visiting once.

"That is one of the good news, your grace. He found out the truth and tried to run away and warn us, he didn't know where to find us so he ran towards Volantis, and was injured while running. But one of our ships was able to find him near the mouth of the Rhoyne, almost dead muttering about false dragons. He is currently still alive and in the care of a learned man under the employ of Larissa Maegyr." Lyanna responded.

"I hope he survives, because I would like to have words with him." Rhaella said, with a hint of steel in her voice. "Honestly, the idiocy of that boy. Did he truly believe that I would let my grandson alone, not even visit once? What about Viserys or Daenerys or Maekar, why would he think they would be with me, and only Aegon wouldn't? It is sheer stupidity." Rhaella complained loudly about the idiotic youths, it made her feel older than she was. She was only six and forty, she shouldn't be complaining about the younger people for at least another four and ten years.

"It hopefully won't be as bad as the last Blackfyres, the boy is still young and the golden company isn't as powerful as it used to be. The other sellsword companies he has could give us some trouble, but nothing we wouldn't be able to deal with. I'm frankly more worried about the potential troubles a magister of Pentos could do to our trade; I imagine most of this war will be fought on the seas. With our fleet in Braavos to the north, and our allies in Dorne and Lys in the south, we control all entrances to the narrow sea. But Pentos is perfectly placed in the middle between our two strongholds." Rhaella said after thinking a little more about the implications of the coming conflict.

"We could prevent them from leaving the narrow sea, but inside it we would be at a disadvantage." Ser Barristan concluded her line of thought.

"And what about the catastrophic news, Lyanna?" Rhaella asked, already having a good idea about what it could be.

"The golden company has moved, your grace. They crossed the Rhoyne a couple of days ago, the golden company itself is moving west, towards another group of around 30.000 men coming from Pentos. I believe that once they merge together, they will march north towards our position. The other sellswords that were camped with the golden company have moved south, towards the disputed lands, while the myrish army is moving south hugging the coast. We will start this war on the defensive." Lyanna said, dropping the worst of the problems on their hands.

"And how many men are we dealing with, in total?" Ser Barristan asked.

"Around 100.000 men." Lyanna provided the numbers.

"And our own forces?" The old knight asked again.

"Our own men number around 50.000, and I believe that Lys can quickly muster some 35.000, double that if they have some time to do a proper recruitment." Lyanna responded.

"So we will start at a numerical disadvantage while having to divide our forces in three different fronts, not a good place to be but the enemy's advantage is not that big either." Ser Barristan said in a pensive tone.

"What are our options?" Rhaella asked the lord commander of the kingsguard.

"We don't have many." Ser Barristan responded. "We will have to start this war on the defensive. If we send help to the disputed lands we would be outnumbered here, and of we don't the lysene forces will be heavily outnumbered. We might be looking at the manor being besieged, we could defend it, but it would difficult. Unless if we use the dragons." the old knight added.

"We can't use the dragons yet, even Meleys and Vermithor are still vulnerable, and they are big enough to ride already; the smaller ones are even more vulnerable." Rhaella responded quickly, the thought of putting the dragons in danger so soon making her nervous.

"We should remember that this is not Westeros, the free cities know how to fight against dragons, how to kill them. It might have been centuries since they had to fight against one, but I'm willing to bet they still have ways of defending against them." Maekar said, supporting her.

"Maekar is right." Rhaella said smiling at her son and receiving a soft smile back. "Even with the element of surprise it would still be dangerous. I still don't know how we were able to hide the existence of the dragons for this long, even rumors of ghosts of dragonlords on the Rhoyne must have a limit, and I don't believe we were able to prevent every single enemy spy from infiltrating the manor." She added.

"We weren't, your grace. I know for a fact that Illyrio Mopatis and Olenna Tyrell received reports of the dragons. Illyrio believed his spies had turned on him, trying to spread misinformation and make him fear us, so he executed them. And only the gods know what the queen of thorns did to her own spies, but I don't think she trusted them either. Their disbelief in fantastical news served us quite well it seems." Lyanna said, a smirk appearing on her lips once she finished speaking.

"Even so, we shouldn't believe that they have no way to counter the dragons." Rhaella said, but also smiled a little at how their enemies disregarded their greatest weapons.

"I think I have an idea. Aurane, how many ships do we have on the Rhoyne or close to Volantis?" Maekar suddenly said, catching them all by surprise.

"We have the five ships we always keep close to the manor, and if there were no delays in the schedule there should be another five ships stopping in Volantis within one or two days." Aurane responded quickly, showing how much he learned from his uncle, and how involved he was with their navy.

"Ten ships, maybe 500 men if we unload all goods from the ships. We would lose some profits and I still don't know if only 500 men would be enough." Maekar said in his thinking tone.

"What are you thinking about, Maekar?" Rhaella asked.

"I still have my inheritance in Volantis. I could ask aunt Larissa to hire a company of free riders, and if we time it right, we could have the riders hit the enemy from behind while we give them battle. I just don't know if 500 men are enough against an army of the size the enemy will have." Maekar explained his plan, drawing contemplative looks from both Barristan and Marwyn.

"I only had one iron link on my chain, so my knowledge of war is not as vast as others, but I did read about something similar being done once in the many fights between the Blackwoods and the Brackens, it is an effective tactic." Marwyn said after some time in silence.

"It is a solid plan, but just like prince Maekar, I don't believe 500 men would be enough." Barristan said after the former archmaester.

"Asha, you know better than anyone here how to move a large amount of men by ship in only a few days, do you think it would work?" Maekar asked.

"It should. Your ships are large enough to transport 150 men, so they should be able to handle 50 and their horses for a few days." Asha responded.

Some time passed as they discussed many other details and debated if the plan would actually work, or if it would be a bad decision. It was risky, but any moves they made would carry a similar risk. In the end, the decision was left for her to make, they were all in agreement that the plan was a lot more likely to fail than succeed, Asha and Aurane were the only ones that weren't reticent to use the plan, but the young ones were there mainly to observe how things were done. They could give advice, but in the end the decisions would be left for the adults.

"We will go along with the plan. Any decision we make will carry risks; I believe that this is the less risky one." Rhaella said, ending the arguments about the merits of such action.

"Maekar, send word to your aunt. Hire the best company of free riders she can find in the next three days. Aurane, send word to the warehouse manager in Volantis, none of our ships is to leave the city, and to prepare them to transport men and horses. Ser Barristan, send word to the camps, order the muster of the men here in the manse, we will march from here." Rhaella ordered.

"Now, you said there was more good news, Lyanna. We will need it." She asked.

"All the resources are in place to reveal the information about the maesters and the faith in the seven kingdoms, your grace. A single word from us and every single lord in the realm will know that the maesters were spying on them, and that both the maesters and the faith have been killing members of their families for thousands of years." Lyanna said with a smirk.

"And not a moment later than we needed it." Rhaella said smiling. "Send word to your brother, Prince Doran and our few other allies first, give them a few days to protect their lands and consolidate their holdings. Then reveal all the information, we will be in a vulnerable position once the war truly starts here, and a religious war in Westeros will be perfect to prevent our enemies from making a move against us." She added.

"And ensure that our old routes to transport refuges out of Westeros and into our holdings in Essos are reactivated and secure. We should try to prevent as much smallfolk death as possible." Rhaella added after she took a few moments to think.

Everyone acknowledged their orders and they ended up talking for a few minutes more about other details and small maters until Rhaella proclaimed the end of the meeting, when all others had left and she was alone in the room with her grandson, she heard him ask.

"You think we will win, grandma."

"I'm sure we will, Egg. It will be difficult, but we will win in the end."

AN 2: The plot is heating up, and important things are happening all over the place.

Next chapter we see how things are going elsewhere.

I will see you guys in the next one.