Chapter 24: The Awakening of the Smallfolk – Schools, Academies, and the People's Reckoning
King's Landing, 210 AC – 225 AC (Fast-Forward Montage)
Time, even for the eternal, eventually etched its mark.
Aenys II Targaryen—Elias reborn, the architect of centuries—had reached what mortals called old age. In 210 AC he was biologically seventy-five, though the system's subtle enhancements kept his body strong, his silver hair only lightly threaded with white, his violet eyes still sharp as Valyrian steel. Joints ached on damp mornings; breath came shorter when climbing the High Tower's spiral stairs. Yet his mind burned brighter than ever—honed by lifetimes of conquest, innovation, and rebirth. The realm he had forged was unrecognizable from Aegon's day: steam locomotives thundered across iron rails from the Wall to the deepest Sothoryos outposts, oil lamps lit every village street, cement cities rose unbreakable, dragons soared unkillable above endless fields. Most importantly, the smallfolk—once starved, diseased, illiterate—now ate fully.
The black soil of Sothoryos poured grain north by the trainload; Reach harvests tripled with steam plows and oil fertilizers; Northron greenhouses grew winter crops under glass and heat pipes. Royal granaries, stocked by Dragon Bank taxes, distributed bread and meat to every holdfast. Plagues retreated before quinine, soap, and steam-sterilized medicine. Children grew tall and strong; mothers survived births; men lived past fifty. Hunger, the ancient reaper of the commons, had been slain.
Aenys saw the next step clearly.
In the spring of 211 AC, he decreed the Great Learning Edict from the Iron Throne. Printed broadsheets—now distributed by rail and dragon courier—proclaimed it across the Seven Kingdoms and the Sothoryos Protectorate: "The God-King has fed his children. Now he will enlighten them. Every village, every town, every outpost shall have its school. The Royal Academy's wisdom shall flow to the smallest child. Knowledge is the dragon's third flame—let it burn in every heart."
Construction began immediately. Cement blockhouses rose as schoolhouses—simple, sturdy, with pure glass windows and oil lamps. Teachers—Academy graduates sworn to the dragon—were sent by rail and ship: young men and women trained in mathematics, reading, history (rewritten to glorify Targaryen divinity), basic mechanics, and loyalty oaths. Curriculum was standardized: children learned High Valyrian script, arithmetic for trade and engineering, history of the Conquest and the Faith's fall, hygiene with royal soap, and reverence for the god-king. Textbooks rolled from printing presses by the thousand—simple tales of "Father Aenys who feeds us, who teaches us, who protects us."
The response was tidal.
Smallfolk embraced learning with desperate hunger. Parents walked miles to enroll children; villages pooled coin for extra slates and chalk. In Flea Bottom, former slums became school districts—children reciting multiplication tables under kerosene light. In the North, Eddard Stark's "son" Brandon (violet-flecked eyes hidden) oversaw winter classes in heated cement halls. In Dorne, sand-swept outposts taught geometry for irrigation canals. In Sothoryos, former Ghiscar subjects learned alongside Westerosi settlers—apes hauling books to remote jungle schools.
By 215 AC, literacy climbed from 60% to near 90% in the Crownlands, 70% in the outer kingdoms. Smallfolk read broadsheets themselves—no longer relying on tavern criers. They studied steam engine diagrams, oil distillation basics, rail maintenance. Academy correspondence courses arrived by post—farmers learned crop rotation, smiths studied metallurgy, mothers read child-rearing treatises infused with Targaryen loyalty.
But knowledge is a blade with two edges.
The common people learned more than letters and numbers. They read the histories—carefully curated, yet clear: how the Faith Militant had oppressed the poor, how septons hoarded gold while orphans starved, how old lords taxed harvests to starvation while dragons fed the realm. They learned of the Bloody Dragons—fanatics risen from the commons—who had crushed the Faith and now guarded the god-king's will. They learned mathematics enough to calculate unfair tithes, reading enough to decipher lordly ledgers, history enough to remember ancient rights buried under feudal custom.
Resentment, long buried under hunger, surfaced.
In 217 AC, the first sparks ignited in the Riverlands—annexed heartlands where Harrenhal's cursed towers still loomed. A minor lord, House Darry, demanded triple tithes to fund a new tourney while his tenants starved after a wet spring. The village headman—literate, schooled in the king's academy—read the royal edict aloud: "The God-King feeds his children." They refused the tithe. When Darry men came to collect with whips, the villagers—armed with pitchforks, axes, and a few smuggled matchlocks—drove them off.
Word spread by rail and raven. In the Reach, Tyrell bannermen faced similar defiance—peasants demanding fair shares of oil-fertilized harvests. In the Westerlands, Lannister mines saw workers strike—literate foremen calculating wages against output, refusing to toil for starvation pay. In the Stormlands, Baratheon lords found villages barricaded with cement blocks, children reciting Academy hymns while parents held spears.
The lords reacted as lords always had—cruelly.
House Darry burned the village at night—women and children screaming as thatch roofs blazed. Lannister men-at-arms flogged strikers in public squares. Baratheon knights rode down protesters, hooves crushing skulls. The Faith—reformed but still whispering—preached obedience, calling the unrest "sin against the anointed."
But the smallfolk had learned one final lesson: the god-king protected them.
Petitions flooded King's Landing by the thousand—carried on rail, written in careful script: "Lord Darry burns our homes while the king feeds us." "Lannister starves us while oil flows to Casterly Rock." "Baratheon slays our kin while we pay his taxes." They asked for help—the same king who had given them bread, schools, medicine, rails. They asked for justice.
Aenys received the first bundles in the throne room. He read them silently, violet eyes narrowing. Daera stood at his side, hand on her sword. Daemon and Rhaella waited nearby, armored and ready.
"They rise," Daera said quietly. "The lords have forgotten who feeds the realm."
Aenys set the parchments down. "They have not forgotten. They have remembered. The smallfolk are no longer blind. They see the dragon's justice—and they see the lords' cruelty."
He rose. "Summon the council. And ready the Thunder Legions."
The response was swift and merciless—but not blind.
In 218 AC, royal proclamations thundered across the realm: "The God-King hears his children. No lord may starve, flog, or burn those who feed the dragon. Violations shall be judged by royal assize—Academy judges, Bloody Dragon enforcers. Tithes capped at one-tenth; wages minimum set by crown edict. Defiance of these laws is treason against the eternal line."
Bloody Dragons—now ten thousand strong in mechanized brigades—deployed by rail. Steam trains carried them to trouble spots: Darry's burned village saw the lord dragged in chains to Harrenhal, tried before Academy judges, and beheaded publicly while villagers watched. Lannister mine overseers who had flogged strikers were marched to Casterly Rock in irons; their lord fined half his gold, mines placed under royal oversight. Baratheon knights who had ridden down protesters were stripped of arms, sent to the Wall.
The message was clear: the dragon protected the smallfolk first.
Lords raged in private—calling the edicts "peasant tyranny," whispering of rebellion. But the Thunder Legions patrolled the roads; ironclads guarded ports; dragons circled above tourneys and castles. The smallfolk cheered the king's justice—schools taught new lessons: "The god-king hears us. The dragon shields the weak."
By 220 AC, the unrest subsided—not crushed, but redirected. Smallfolk turned energy to building: cement cooperatives in villages, rail maintenance guilds, oil-lamp workshops. Literacy reached 95% in settled lands; academies expanded into universities—teaching engineering, medicine, agriculture. Sothoryos settlements sent scholars north—ape-handlers learning steam mechanics, jungle herbalists studying Academy texts.
Aenys watched from the High Tower, older now, leaning on a cane of Valyrian steel. Daera stood beside him—still fierce, still his queen. Daemon and Rhaella ruled the armies and skies. The realm thrummed—factories roaring, rails clattering, dragons soaring, smallfolk learning.
"They rose," he murmured. "And I answered. Not with fire—but with justice. The dragon endures because the people endure."
The system pinged softly: [Social Stability: 98.7%. Loyalty Metric (Commons): 99.2%. Education Level: Tier 4 Unlocked. Next Phase: Pending.]
The common people had learned to read, to count, to remember.
And in remembering, they had found their voice.
The lords learned fear.
The dragon learned balance.
The realm marched forward—enlightened, fed, unbreakable.
(Word count: 1997)