Chapter 17.2- The Seadragon's Roar

“You heard me, Ser”. She said with arched brow. Laena was far from pleased with how Vaemon had conducted himself just as our father had been about to die. There was a time and place for prosecuting naked ambition, and in her view, the deathbed of a man was no one of them. I felt it was naive thinking in a way. There was no better place for baring naked ambition than at a man’s deathbed. Make your fina request and be either accepted or rebuffed. It just so happens that his final request had been a grasping one and he’d been appropriately rebuffed for it.

Plus it was a bit of extra entertainment to see how my Cousins gave him a wide berth— Adrian’s children obviously, not his own, as they tried to show us that they were not involved in whatever madness had taken hold of him.

“We took this Island precisely because we needed the wood to build more ships, my lady. I could not sanction burning the forest— it is the most valuable resource to us.”

“That was when you had one dragon,” she said gesturing to me.

“Now you have three, and one of them is Vhagar. What more ships could you possibly need? I say we burn down the forest. If the Seaspeaker likes the damn place so much then let him choke on its smoke as it goes up in fire around him” She said, eyes narrowed.

“But my lady—“

“What do you think Laenor?” She blatantly ignored Vaemond’s attempt to reply, instead turning over to me.

“I think you’ve brought an interesting idea to the table. You’re right that the lumber is not all that it’s cracked up to be though. Seaspeaker burned the shipyard. That, not the lumber, was the resource we took this island for and now it does not exist at all. So one must wonder what use is the timber without the shipyard. Especially considering we will not be able to make the investment in both resources and manpower to build a new one and have it producing output for a long time. Not while prosecuting this war the way it ought to be. Shipping the ships from Driftmark remains a far more viable strategy both in the long and short terms. The ships will be better quality, there will be more trust in the capacity of the ship to do war since it comes from our own yards, and the ships will be our new models so that means faster, easier, to brew, many other things. I don’t think it’s a contest” I said, dropping in my two cents. Both Laena and Vaemond looked at me like I had grown a second head. What? It was simple pros and cons analysis.

“Well, I think my son has put it best and I find it hard to disagree with him. Does anyone here?” Mother asked, seeming to have no interest in letting the conversation drag on past this point. No hands went up. Was my analysis just that good or did they just not want to disagree with their future lord? I wondered.