"Anyone who followed the false king, execute them all. Those who were originally Dragonstone guards may be identified and spared as appropriate," Aegon ordered Ser Harrold.
In truth, there would not be many killings. The chief culprits and traitors who had aided Aegon the Elder in seizing Dragonstone had mostly already departed for King's Landing.
Aegon himself wore a fitted suit of falcon-patterned armor in the blue and white of House Arryn. This was not King's Landing, there was no black-scaled Targaryen plate to be found.
"Yes, my prince," Ser Harrold replied, and set about his task. Vale soldiers in blue cloaks swept through Dragonstone's keep inside and out. A faint scent of blood drifted through the air. Some killing, inevitably, was required.
This brooding Valyrian outpost had once been Aegon's home. The Blacks had ruled here for years; only carelessness had allowed the elder Aegon to strike from the shadows. Aegon and his sisters had grown up on Dragonstone and knew secret ways in and out that others did not.
[Major Event: Capture of Dragonstone
You have successfully retaken Dragonstone.
The Dance of the Dragons accelerates.
Gained one attribute enhancement.]
After a moment's thought, Aegon invested the enhancement in Magic, curious to see what would change.
[Magic: Dragon Dreamer, Flame Awareness, Flame Enhancement (Growth-type attribute: strengthens fire-adapted body, fire resistance, flame affinity, etc.)]
He found the result satisfactory. Fire resistance was a Targaryen tradition; perhaps, in time, it could grow into something truly arcane. It felt as though flames were coursing within him, tempering his flesh and sharpening his nature.
Sunfyre's scales still gleamed like gold leaf beneath the sun, but the dragon lay collapsed in the Valyrian melted-black-stone courtyard, blind in one eye and dying. Aegon looked upon him. The once-glorious beast was utterly ruined.
"Can Sunfyre still breathe fire?" Aegon asked, summoning the maester to judge.
"My prince," the maester replied, trembling, "Sunfyre's life flickers like a candle in the wind. He barely exhales smoke now, and he has not eaten for some time. Death is imminent."
The former maester was already dead; this man had been his assistant, raised up in chaos. In times like these, survival meant drifting with the current.
"If ravens come from King's Landing," Aegon asked calmly, "you know how to answer?"
"As before."
He looked again toward the dragon, "Completely broken," Aegon murmured. There was no saving the dragon. Kill him, burn him, either way. These dragons had once been the greatest treasure of House Targaryen, and through mutual slaughter they had been squandered into nothing.
Sunfyre was blind in one eye, a wing broken, his body crisscrossed with wounds. The wing once torn by Meleys had healed at a twisted angle; his back was newly torn and smoking, blood seeping from rents in his flesh.
Aegon could see where another dragon's teeth had gouged deep into Sunfyre's neck. The wound had rotted. Many of the scales on his belly were gone, replaced by scar tissue. His right eye was an empty socket, thick black blood crusted within.
Aegon stepped closer. The stench of rot and blood was overwhelming.
Sunfyre lay helpless.
This dragon had not been innocent, he had killed Grey Ghost, then fought Moondancer to the end. Now Dragonstone was empty, and Aegon had no choice but to face the Cannibal, the chosen terror, for taming Grey Ghost would have been far easier.
Then,
Aegon felt it.
A surge of danger, sharp and suffocating.
"Fall back! now!" he shouted, forcing the soldiers to retreat. The killing intent in the air made his skin crawl.
A black speck appeared in the sky, growing larger by the heartbeat, until it blotted out the light.
Vast wings spread wide, eclipsing the sun.
A monstrous black dragon revealed itself.
"The Cannibal!" the maester screamed in terror, the dread of Dragonstone, and perhaps the last living dragon.
The colossal beast beat its wings with thunderous force and descended.
Black as char, massive as a low hill, seventy or eighty meters from snout to tail, the Cannibal fixed its baleful green eyes upon the mortals below. That sickly emerald gaze radiated malice, hypnotic and profane. Chosen of terror.
This dragon was powerful, evil, cunning, the foremost monster of the age.
Though smaller than Vhagar, the difference was not great. In speed and endurance, the Cannibal stood at the peak of its power.
"Run, my prince!" the maester cried. "He's hungry, he's come for Sunfyre! If we don't provoke him, he won't bother with us!"
"The Cannibal," Aegon thought. The largest, the fiercest dragon.
A fierce longing surged within him. Once, he had ridden Stormcloud, but that dragon had been small.
Sunfyre was all but a corpse already. And the Cannibal's reputation was infamous, he fed on dead dragons, raided nests, devoured eggs and hatchlings alike.
The Cannibal pinned Sunfyre with one claw, stretched out his serpentine neck, and crushed Sunfyre's throat in a single bite. A brutal mercy. The older a dragon grew, the harder its teeth and scales became.
In a way, Sunfyre died as he had lived. He, too, had eaten dragons, Grey Ghost, Moondancer. To die in a dragon's jaws was fitting enough, sparing him days more agony.
The Cannibal tore into the golden carcass, teeth slicing through flesh, beginning with the neck. He fed at leisure.
A vision of savagery.
No orders were needed. Everyone fled as far as they could.
[Major Event: Witnessed the Cannibal devour Sunfyre
The Greens' dragons are extinct.
Gained one attribute enhancement.]
Aegon clenched his teeth. He had planned to go to the Dragonmont to tame the monster, but events had moved faster than any plan.
He had not gone to the Cannibal.
The Cannibal had come to him.
"This enhancement. apply it to the demon dragon," Aegon decided without hesitation.
The bond [Retainer: Demon Dragon] flared to life.
[Retainer: Human–Dragon Affinity increased
Demon Dragon favor improved
Attempt to tame the dragon.]
"Run, Aegon!" Rhaena grabbed for him, thinking her brother frozen in terror.
Aegon tore free of her grasp, and charged straight toward the dragon.
"Ser Harrold, stop him!" Rhaena screamed.
"Yes!"
Ser Harrold lunged forward in shock. Truly, a mad Targaryen. Guards rushed to intervene, but the dragon's sheer presence crushed all action. It happened too fast.
The Cannibal lifted his head, puzzled.
A morsel that walks toward me?
He released Sunfyre's corpse and turned his gaze upon the boy approaching.
With a thunderous roar, sickly green flame erupted outward. Dragonfire, neither wholly gas nor liquid, sent the air's temperature skyrocketing.
"I am Aegon Targaryen," Aegon shouted, ripping off his falcon armor as he ran. "Your companion!"
Armor would only slow him.
Thanks to his flame awareness and flame enhancement, Aegon could endure what would have reduced any other man to ash, long enough to reach the Cannibal at all.
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A/N:
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