The spring sun bathed the gardens of the Red Keep in a soft, golden light, warming the red stone and causing the flowers to bloom in a mosaic of colors. For most children, it was a perfect day for playing, free from the constraints of the apartments and the whispers of the court. For two-year-old Aenar Targaryen, it was an opportunity to observe. His small, sturdy body sat under the shade of a large, broad-leafed tree, his unique eyes – a deep violet resembling polished amethysts, with thin vertical pupils like those of a reptile that contracted slightly in the bright light – followed the movements of his playmates with a calmness that was disconcerting for his age. They were eyes that did not belong to a child, but to an ancient creature, and even in the placidity of the garden, they maintained a vigilant and intelligent gleam.
His sister, three-year-old Princess Gael, ran after butterflies with a clumsy grace, her silver hair flying like a cloud of silk threads. Her laughter was like bells, pure and contagious. Near her, Daemon Targaryen, also two years old, was already showing signs of the storm he would become. He brandished a stick as if it were a Valyrian sword, roaring challenges at imaginary enemies. His hair was the typical platinum of the family, but his light eyes sparkled with a wild, indomitable energy. Supervising everything, with a well-crafted wooden toy sword, was six-year-old Viserys. He tried to imitate the serious posture of his father, Prince Baelon, but the excitement of childhood still escaped in his wide smiles.
"I am the Dragon Knight!" announced Viserys, banging his wooden sword against an imaginary shield. "I will protect the kingdom and all of you! Gael, you are the princess who must be saved! Daemon, you can be my squire!"
Gael laughed, spinning towards him. "I don't need to be saved, Viserys! I'm hunting butterflies!"
Daemon ignored the offer to be a squire. His eyes were fixed on the tree under which Aenar was sitting. "I'm going to climb! I'm going to be the highest of all!" He ran to the trunk, grabbing onto bumps in the bark with his determined little hands. He managed to reach a few centimeters, but his short legs didn't have enough momentum. He slipped and fell on his back onto the soft lawn, letting out a grunt of frustration.
Gael stopped running and approached, worried. "Daemon, are you okay?"
The boy didn't cry. His face turned red with anger. "The tree is treacherous! But I will succeed!"
Viserys approached. "Perhaps it's too high for us, brother. We can play something else."
It was then that everyone looked at Aenar. He hadn't moved. He just watched, silent, his dragon pupils contracting slightly as he focused on Daemon. His stillness was often mistaken for shyness or simple passivity, but those who looked closer saw an ancient intelligence hovering behind those unusual eyes. He saw Daemon's frustration not as a childish tantrum, but as a problem to be solved. A simple problem.
Without saying a word, Aenar stood up. His movements were strangely fluid for a child so young, without the typical hesitation or imbalance. He walked to the spot where Daemon had fallen. Gael and Viserys watched, curious. Daemon looked at him, still sulking.
Aenar didn't look at the others. He crouched down, his muscular little legs tensing under the simple clothes he wore. Then, he jumped.
It was not a common jump. There was no run-up, no swinging of arms for momentum. It was an explosion of pure, direct force, so sudden it was almost imperceptible. His small body shot upwards like an arrow, not in an arc, but in a straight, powerful line. He passed the lower branches and landed with the lightness of a bird on a wide branch a good five meters off the ground. The tree barely shook from the impact.
Below, the silence was absolute.
Gael stood with her mouth open, her index finger rising to point at her brother up high, but no sound came out. Daemon had completely forgotten his frustration, his eyes wide as saucers, anger replaced by pure admiration. Viserys let his toy sword fall to the grass with a dull thud. He looked up at the small, dark figure against the bright sky, unable to process what he had seen.
Princess Alyssa Targaryen, mother of Viserys and Daemon, watched everything from a nearby balcony. She was watching the play, as she always did, a tender smile on her face. When Aenar jumped, her smile froze. She stood up abruptly, the wine glass she held almost slipping from her fingers. One hand flew instinctively to her heart. She was a Targaryen, born and raised among stories of dragons and supernatural feats. But seeing that – physics being ignored so casually by a child – was different. It was intimate and immediate. A chill ran down her spine, not of fear, but of pure awe, and her eyes fixed on Aenar's eyes, which from above looked like two small, shimmering violet gems.
Up there, Aenar balanced on the branch with disconcerting ease. He looked down at the astonished faces of his siblings and cousin. And then, something remarkable happened: he smiled. It wasn't the superior smile of someone showing off power, but a genuine, childish smile of satisfaction. He had solved Daemon's problem. He had reached the top. It was simple.
His attention turned to Gael, whose face was still frozen in astonishment. He saw the worry in her, a worry that was quickly turning into wonder. He wanted to reassure her. Without hesitation, he took a step forward and jumped from the branch.
This time, the fall was controlled, but equally impossible. His body fell like a stone, but moments before touching the ground, his legs flexed and he landed with a soft, deep thud that seemed to echo in the very bones of the observers. His feet sank slightly into the damp lawn, leaving small marks. He did not stagger, he did not lose his balance. He straightened up and looked at Daemon, his vertical pupils dilating normally in the shade of the tree.
"See?" said Aenar, his voice clear and precise, with a diction far beyond his years, but still carrying the childish timbre. "It's easy."
Viserys was the first to find his voice. He approached, walking slowly, as if approaching something sacred and dangerous. "How... how did you do that, Aenar?" he whispered, his eyes still wide, fixed on his uncle's dragon eyes.
Aenar shrugged, a tiny gesture that seemed absurdly adult. "I just jumped."
That's when Daemon exploded into action. He ran to Aenar, grabbing his tunic with his dirt-stained little hands. "Teach me! Please, Aenar! I want to be strong like you! I want to jump like that!" His voice was full of fervent envy and adoration.
Princess Alyssa quickly descended the balcony steps and approached the group. Her face tried to maintain a calm expression, but her eyes betrayed her agitation. "Aenar... you mustn't hurt yourself," she said, her voice slightly trembling. She looked at him, and her eyes met his. The calmness emanating from those violet depths, from those reptilian pupils, was almost palpable. It was a calmness that said: There is no danger. I am in control. And inexplicably, that calmed Alyssa's own racing heart.
Aenar did not respond directly. Instead, he reached out and took the small, slightly sweaty hand of Gael, who had finally approached. At his touch, Gael seemed to snap out of her trance. Her lips curved into a radiant smile, and she let out a little laugh. "You flew, Aenar! Like a little bird!"
Aenar returned the smile, a rare and precious gesture. "I didn't fly. I just jumped high."
Alyssa watched the scene, her heart tightening in a complex way. There was fear there, yes, but also a deep wonder and a growing affection for that extraordinary boy. She put a hand on Viserys's shoulder and another on Daemon's unruly head. "Come, children. I think there has been enough adventure for today. Time for a snack."
As she led the boys inside, she looked back one last time. Aenar and Gael stayed behind, holding hands under the tree. The contrast was striking: the fragile, pure-hearted girl, and the brother who was a force of nature encapsulated in a child's flesh, his dragon eyes following her with serene placidity. Alyssa felt she had witnessed something fundamental, not just a demonstration of strength, but a glimpse of destiny. And that destiny, she knew, was intrinsically linked to the little flame that was her sister Gael.
---
Two years passed. The prodigy boy grew, and with him, his reputation. By four years old, Aenar Targaryen was already a known and feared figure at court. His physical strength continued to develop abnormally – he could lift objects that grown men would struggle to move – but it was his serene nature and penetrating eyes that truly bothered people. He spoke little, and when he did, his words were measured and carried an unusual weight. His amethyst eyes, with their vertical pupils, seemed to see through people, discerning their fears and most secret motivations.
The training yard of the Red Keep was his favorite place for observation. While other boys his age began their training with wooden swords, Aenar preferred to stand in the shade of an arcade, watching the knights and men-at-arms practice. He wasn't interested in the techniques, which he already knew from his past lives reading about Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy. He was interested in the people, in their impulses, their ambitions, their fears.
It was on one such afternoon, he now four years old, that Princess Saera and her entourage decided to make his life a little more interesting. Saera, at the height of her adolescence, was dazzling and dangerous. Her beauty was sharp, and her tongue, even more so. She surrounded herself with ambitious, impressionable young courtiers, all eager to gain her favor.
She saw Aenar alone, standing like a statue, his dragon eyes fixed on two knights training. A slow, calculating smile spread across her face. "Let's go," she said to her group, "let's greet my dear little brother. The famous Dragonate."
They approached, forming a casual semicircle around him. The smell of expensive perfume and sweet wine filled the air around Aenar. He didn't move, but his pupils contracted slightly, shifting focus from the knights to the approaching group. His perception sharpened. His mind, the mind of the reader from another world, analyzed her instantly.
She is like smoke – you see it from afar, but it suffocates you when you're close, thought Aenar, without turning his head. Her ambition is as obvious as the stench of a dirty stable. She doesn't see family, she sees pieces on a board. And I am the piece that doesn't move as she wants. She tries to provoke me, to discover my weakness, to use me or neutralize me. It's pathetic.
"Hello, Aenar," said Saera, her voice honeyed like poisoned honey. "Always so serious. Don't you find the training a bit... monotonous for someone with your... gifts?"
Aenar did not respond. His eyes remained fixed on her, the vertical pupils motionless, like those of a predator assessing prey.
One of the young courtiers, a lad from House Bracken with a strong build and an arrogant expression, laughed. "Perhaps he is deaf, Your Grace. Or perhaps he's just stupid."
Saera made a false expression of reproach. "Lord Jonos, what a horrible thing to say! My brother is anything but stupid. He is an omen. Isn't that right, Aenar? A little god among us mortals." Sarcasm dripped from every word.
Aenar's indifference was fuel for her irritation. She was used to being the center of attention, the feared one. Being ignored by a child, even an extraordinary one, was an affront.
Jonos Bracken, eager to impress the princess, stepped forward. "I heard you are strong, little Dragonate," he said, his voice challenging. The situation was absurd – a near-adult youth provoking a four-year-old child. "How about a spar? Show us what you're capable of. Show us why the dragons roar for you."
Aenar finally turned completely. His violet eyes met Jonos's, and the young nobleman involuntarily took a step back. There was a coldness in that gaze that was not human, a depth that promised an abyss. The vertical pupils seemed to pierce him. Aenar still did not say a word.
Encouraged by the silence and Jonos's initial retreat, the young Bracken laughed, nervously, and picked up a steel training sword from a nearby rack. It was a heavy, blunted weapon, but capable of causing bruises. He brandished it with a careless familiarity.
"Don't worry, little prince. I'll be gentle," Jonos mocked, pointing the tip of the sword towards Aenar's chest, not with the intent to stab him, but to push him or intimidate him, to make him fall back and thus humiliate him before Saera.
It was the wrong move.
The instant the tip of the steel came within a few centimeters of his tunic, Aenar moved. It wasn't a fighting move, it wasn't a dodge. It was a gesture so fast it was almost imperceptible, a careless extension of his hand. His tiny hand, which seemed so fragile, rose and he pressed the tip of the sword with the tip of his index finger.
What happened next was not a matter of physical strength. It was something much deeper and more frightening.
Under Aenar's touch, the steel began to glow. Not with the dull red of a hearth, but with a vivid, internal red, as if the metal were possessed by its own light. There was no radiant heat, no warm air to warn of the danger. The metal simply began to come apart. Like ice under an intense sun, the blade melted. The incandescent, liquid steel dripped onto the stone floor with a soft hiss, dripping and solidifying into irregular, grotesque shapes. The process was silent and horrifyingly fast, consuming the blade from tip to hilt in a matter of seconds. All that remained in Jonos Bracken's hand was the wooden hilt, now smoking and hot.
Jonos dropped the hilt with a cry of pain and surprise, shaking his burned hand. His face was white as a sheet, his eyes wide with pure terror. He looked at the floor, at the solidified metallic puddle, and then at the four-year-old boy standing before him, impassive, his dragon eyes observing the result of his work with clinical curiosity. Aenar's hand was intact, without a single burn.
The silence that followed was louder than any scream. The presumptuous smiles of Saera's group had vanished, replaced by masks of dread. Some recoiled. Others seemed paralyzed. Saera herself looked at the smoking hilt, then at Aenar's serene face, and for the first time in her life, the calculation in her eyes was completely swept away by a raw, undeniable emotion: fear. A primordial fear, the kind one feels in the face of a force of nature that cannot be manipulated or controlled. She couldn't help but fix her gaze on her brother's vertical pupils, which at that moment seemed those of a true dragon.
Aenar broke the silence. His voice was soft, almost a whisper, but each word sounded like a thunderclap in the terrified quiet of the yard.
"Steel is weak," he said, his simple and devastating statement.
Saera swallowed dryly, trying to recover a fragment of her composure. Her voice came out trembling and broken. "You... you are a monster."
Aenar finally looked directly at her. His eyes showed no anger, no hatred, only a peaceful and absolute indifference. It was the look of a dragon for an insect buzzing around it.
"No," he corrected, his voice still calm. "I am a dragon. And dragons do not play with little swords."
He then turned and began to walk away, his back turned to the paralyzed group. He didn't need to look back to know the impact of his words. The phrase would echo through the corridors of the Red Keep for weeks, solidifying his legend and his epithet. The Dragonate was not just strong. He was something fundamentally different, and everyone who witnessed the scene that day knew, in their bones, that it would be wiser never to provoke him again.
---
The year was 91 After the Conquest. Aenar Targaryen, now ten years old, stood at the window of his chambers in Maegor's Holdfast. His body was no longer that of a small child. He was tall for his age, with broad shoulders and a muscular density that made even the most veteran guards look at him with a mixture of respect and discomfort. His presence was palpable, a weight in the air that whispered of contained power. His eyes, those violet windows with feline pupils, reflected the lights of King's Landing below, but they saw much more than the city. That night, alone in his room, gazing into the darkness of Blackwater Bay, he was just a boy carrying the weight of a world and a known future.
Loneliness was his constant companion. Even surrounded by family, he was a stranger. His mind was a library of future knowledge, an archive of tragedies yet to happen. And in recent years, he had witnessed firsthand how impotent his power could be against the subtler weapons of fate: disease, accident, and the fragility of mortal flesh.
His dragon eyes, which still maintained that deep, luminous violet, closed for a moment. And the memories, painful and vivid, flooded him.
Daella. His older sister, so sweet and so frightened. He remembered her fleeing from his presence when he was younger, intimidated by his eyes. But he also remembered the kindness in her gaze. The year was 82 AC. She had been sent to the Vale to marry Lord Arryn, a political marriage to solidify alliances. And there, in the cold of the Mountains of the Moon, she had given birth to a girl. Aemma Arryn. The birth had been difficult, too much for Daella's fragile body. Childbed fever took her in a matter of days. The news arrived in King's Landing like a somber blow. Aenar could crush rocks with his hands, he could melt steel with a touch, but he could do nothing against the tiny germs that stole his sister. The healing magic that had flowed so easily when he was in his mother's womb, soothing her pains, was a distant and untamable river when it came to saving others. Aemma had survived, a small consolation for such a great loss. His mother, Alysanne, had wept for weeks.
Then came Alyssa. The fiery, the vital, the wife of Baelon and mother of Viserys and Daemon. The year was 84 AC. She gave birth to another son, Aegon. The birth was not immediately fatal, but it was an ordeal from which her body never fully recovered. Unlike Daella's sudden end, Alyssa wasted away over the following months. The vitality that had defined her drained from her like sand through fingers. The court watched, helpless, as the once vibrant princess became a pale shadow of her former self. And then, as if to add insult to injury, the little Aegon, weak and sickly from birth, did not endure and followed his mother to the grave a little less than a year later. The joy of the Red Keep had died with Alyssa. Baelon, once known as the Brave, became a darker man, his vital energy drained by grief. And Saera's flight to Lys, following the scandal of her affairs, cast an additional shadow of shame and despair over the family. The light of Alysanne, the Good Queen, dimmed considerably that year. Aenar saw the sadness in her like a permanent winter within the castle. Each lost daughter was a piece of her heart that died. His power could build bridges and conquer kingdoms, but it could not mend a broken heart.
And finally, Viserra. The youngest, full of life and foolish dreams. In 87 AC, in a desperate attempt to escape an arranged marriage with the aged Lord Manderly, she got drunk and tried to ride to freedom. The fall was fatal. So mundane. So stupidly avoidable. And he, the incarnate "god," the Dragonate, stood by, unable to prevent his family from shattering over such petty causes. The impotence was a bitter poison in his mouth.
His eyes opened, staring into the darkness outside, the vertical pupils dilated in the gloom. The city below lived its ignorant life, unaware of the agony of the family that ruled it. And the worst was yet to come. He knew. Like a specter hovering over his family, he saw the immediate future.
Aemon. His eldest brother, the heir to the Iron Throne. The prince with the serious face and honorable heart. Next year, in 92 AC, during a routine campaign on Tarth to suppress pirates, a stray arrow would find his neck. A random, inglorious death on a minor island. And then, the macabre dance would begin. Baelon would be named the new heir, the Prince of Dragonstone, only to die a few years later from a burst appendix. And the dispute between Viserys, son of Baelon, and Rhaenys, daughter of Aemon, would crack the foundation that Jaehaerys had so arduously built. The Dance of the Dragons loomed, a civil war that would extinguish the dragons and break House Targaryen.
The coldness within Aenar solidified, transforming the impotent pain into something harder, more determined. The calm on his face did not change, but inside, a transformation was occurring. His eyes, now open to the night, shone with a cold, resolute inner light.
They play at kingdoms, he thought, his inner voice now icy and flat as a Valyrian steel blade. They argue over succession, over honor, over rights. Viserys with his indecisive kindness, Rhaenys with her just but unpopular claim. They do not understand. They do not understand that the House of the Dragon is withering, dying from within. It is being eroded by common mortality, by stupid ambition, and by stubbornness.
He was not a pawn in this game. He never would be. The memories of his past life, of sitting and reading about these tragedies as if they were fiction, now fueled a cold fury. He was a force of nature inserted at the crucial point of history. And one thing was certain: the future he remembered would not repeat itself.
The dragons will not dance, he promised himself, and the promise echoed in his soul like an oath sworn before the old gods and the new. Not in this timeline.
The impotence against fever and accident was still there, a wound that would never fully heal. But there were things against which he was not impotent.
I may be impotent against disease, his mind whispered, the coldness giving way to a warm and dangerous determination. But I am not impotent against ambition and stupidity. If Viserys, Rhaenys, or any other – the Hightowers with their poisonous whispers, the Velaryons with their pride – dare to tear my family apart... if they threaten what is left of it...
He would not dispute the Iron Throne. That was trivial. The throne was a piece of metal. His family was everything.
...I will not dispute the Iron Throne, he concluded, his dragon eyes fixing on the dark horizon. I will sit upon the rubble of whoever threatens my own. If it is necessary to keep them safe, to keep them united, I will burn King's Landing. I will burn the Citadel and its selfish secrets. I will burn all of Westeros until nothing remains but ashes and the certainty that House Targaryen still stands.
The image of Gael, his sweet sister, of Viserys and Daemon, even with all their flaws, and of his mother, Alysanne, with her silent pain, passed through his mind. They were his. And a dragon, above all, protects what is its own.
A dragon protects its own, he thought, and for the first time that night, a warm, possessive emotion filled the void within him. And this family, this cursed and wonderful house, is mine. And I will not let it fall.
Aenar remained standing at the window for a long time, his silhouette motionless against the faint light of the chambers. To anyone looking from the outside, he seemed like a boy. But the energy emanating from him was that of something much older and more terrible. The dragon eyes staring into the darkness were no longer those of a child observing the world. They were the eyes of his true self, finally awakened to its purpose. The Dragonate had grown up. And Westeros, though it did not yet know it, had just gained its fiercest and most merciless protector. The dance was about to be cancelled.
Hello there, so what do you think of the story so far? I tried my best to correct any continuity errors that may occur. If you find something, let me know and I'll change it. About MC's healing ability, before anyone thinks it, it wasn't removed, but it's something that's in his body. He could heal the good queen because they were connected in the womb. For the others, he doesn't have this ability yet, since he's a "baby dragon." Only with the passing of puberty did his sorrows, apart from pyromancy, become more evident.