A/N: Welcome to my latest story, The Seadragon's Roar. If you're new to my work, welcome and please do be sure to check out my other stuff, and if you're familiar with my stuff then I hope you enjoy this one as well. Next three chapters chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
104 AC
"Continuous blast" I said, and watched as Igneel obeyed perfectly, sending a stream of red flames straight at the boulder we were practicing with. I timed it mentally, counting up the seconds as I marveled at his growth. Years ago, he would have struggled to get to five. Now, he did not stop until seventy-three.
"Seventy-three" I told him in High Valyrian, and his claws scuffed the ground as he growled in irritation. On more than one occasion, mother and Laena had commented that my training with Igneel pushed him too hard and that I was too strict. If only they knew that he was harder on himself than I could ever be.
"Chin up" I said. "Only one second away from your personal best, and we both know you're far from fresh and well-rested like you were back then. This is something to be proud of. Your endurance is getting better" I said. And wasn't that the truth. I'd boasted that Igneel was the fastest growing dragon in the world, but even I was impressed with just how rapid that growth could be at times. It was more than about physical size and mass— though that did advance at a rapid speed. No, it was things like this. We decided to train his endurance some months ago, and now he was leaps and bounds better than he had ever been.
Speaking of size though, that had grown, but he still remained the smallest dragon on Driftmark. We kept a good distance from the Bronze Bitch and her pranks when we could, but Meleys was practically a shadow for everything we did.. Even now, she was relatively close by, sitting languidly at the top of a hill overlooking our training. I had little doubts that it was something Mother had asked her to do. But then again, there was the fact that while I was mother's child and mother was her rider, Igneel himself had come from her clutch. Did Dragon's feel parental bonds? It was difficult to tell. Did she watch us because Mother had asked or because Igneel was her child. Either way, she did. And she was a good metric for comparing Igneel's size.
"Now, another lap around the Island since you seem so energetic" I said, and he growled his acceptance before ambling up to the boulder. It was a nice, smooth boulder littered with claw marks that we'd found a week ago. It was Boulder number 27, a replacement for boulder number 26 after the Bronze Bitch decided to land atop it the last time Laena and I raced. Igneel grabbed a hold of the boulder before his wings began to move. In a matter of seconds, he was in the air and making a course around the Island. I turned to Meleys and found her giving me an amused look. I waved in her direction even as I mentally timed Igneel's course. From this point, it was easy enough to watch him fly around the island while making sure he didn't take any shortcuts. He hadn't done that in years, but it was good to be careful.
XXX- RHAENYS
The Queen who never was was a woman of great and deep passions. She loved wholly and fully when she could. She had loved her father, her mother before she was lost to her, her husband, and fairly recently, both her children. She would love to say she loved them equally, but there was no way to deny the fact that Laenor, even with all his precocious mischief, worried her less than Laena did. He was just so much more careful most of the time— at least when it did not concern a certain Bronze dragon. She knew that Vhagar went out of her way to irritate and upset Laenor, but that was no excuse especially when the creature he sought to get even with could swallow him whole and never even notice that it had swallowed anything.
Besides the point, though, she loved her children. And she loved her husband. But sometimes the later just got the worst ideas where the former were concerned. "There is no need for this" She pushed. If Laenor was here, she had no idea which course he would support— one that would see him lost to her for years, or the sensible option.
"Yes there is. Viserys is doing just what you said he would. He's clearly considering arranging a betrothal between Laenor and Rhaenyra herself. This offer to squire Laenor is nothing more than a ploy to get him close so he can get to know him" Corlys said, and her husband was most likely right. She had ignored the age difference and married him because of his wits and ambition, after all. Both of them were fully on display here. He had not been tempered with old age like she had. He still had the desire to leave his mark atop the world. She already had made her mark. She got to see her marks walking about every morn at the breaking of the fast. She got to watch her marks. As they grew old, learned to ride horses, ride dragons, play instruments, paint, and engage in beauty in all its forms. And now he wanted to take one of her precious children from her.
"I don't care what Viserys wants. We are not supplicants to be called at every whim. If he wants to see Laenor, then he can come to Driftmark himself".
"You are the one who said we should bend the knee. You chose this course."
"I did. And I do not regret it. I just feel that it would be a mistake capitulating so early".
"And this has nothing to do with what happened on his first name day?" Corlys asked, bringing up that horrid time. The look she gave him could have curdled milk.
"Don't bring that up again, Corlys. I've said no and that is it. My son stays here with me."
"So I assume this means you won't be agreeing to betroth Laena to the Sealord's son?"
"Laenor said he'd castrate the boy if you tried to marry him to her"
"Of course he saw this one coming as well. Damn Dragon Dreams. I was going to say no, though. Laena will be Queen, one day, I vow it" He said to her, and she believed him. Damn her, she believed him.
Whatever she was about to say escaped her mind as she watched Igneel bank past the Castle through Corlys' immense glass windows. Her smile grew at seeing her prodigious son's equally prodigious dragon, but it died as she saw the shadow behind him. Vhagar. The oldest living dragon came upon Igneel in a flash of bronze and the next thing she knew, the two dragons had collided into each other. The noise was something that she ached to cover her ear from as Igneel managed little resistance to being flung straight into the sea by the collision. He flew out of control, and only managed to miss a Fisherman's boat by the skin of his fangs.
He landed in the water, leaving a massive wave in his wake, and Vhagar growled, sounding like a chuckle of all things before beginning to fly back to her lair.
"Was Laenor there? Was he on the saddle?" Corlys asked her, and for the first time in their marriage, she saw panic fill her husband's eyes. And in that precise second, she became unsure. Had Laenor been there? She hadn't seen him, but he was so small when compared to a dragon and at that distance it would have been possible for all of Igneel's bulk to hide him from view.
"I don't know" She said, and she didn't know who started running first. All she knew was that she and her husband sprinted like bats out of the hells as they ran through the castle. Dignity and propriety be damned as they screamed their son's name. She barely even noticed the Knights and men at arms also going about seeking out her son as she called for Meleys with the bond she shared.
"Where is my son?" She screamed to everyone and no one in particular and received naught but silence. Laenor never stayed in the sam place for long. It was Velaryon wanderlust, Corlys had called it to soothe her fears and she wished now that she had told him to fuck off and kept her son close like her instincts told her to. Laenor's rooms were empty. Laena hadn't seen him all day, and for a second she felt a traitorous part of her wish that her daughter had not aimed so high as to claim a creature as great and terrible as Vhagar.
The Maester had seen her son naught, and the master at arms reported the same. All avenues exhausted, she finally left the castle. He and Igneel trained off in the Island she remembered. Just as she left the island, Corlys mere steps behind her despite his age, she felt her mind be soothed by a familiar roar.
She looked up to see Meleys coming down at her, with a very familiar creature sullenly held within her claws. "Unhand me this instant" she heard her son's voice as he screamed at her dragon, and no sound had ever calmed her heart so thoroughly. Flapping her wings to slow her descent, Meleys let go, dropping him a few feet and she felt her breath hitch for a second but Corlys was there, catching her little boy in his grasp and holding him tightly.
"You don't worry me like that ever again" She whispered in his hair as she held him close— not even fully cognizant of how she had covered the space between them— breathing in his scent. He smelled like dragon dung and charcoal but most importantly, he smiled alive.
XXXXX- LAENOR
In all honesty, I should have seen this coming. With hindsight on my side, it as clear that it was inevitable. What was a parent's instinctive solution for fighting children— separation. That must have been doubly so with the whole one half of the feud being a basically invulnerable and unstoppable colossus capable of breathing flames strong enough to melt metal into ash. Needless to say, the next day was not a pleasant one.
There was Igneel being irritable as all hell about not being allowed to get back at Vhagar for tossing him into the sea. He probably saw it as just another step in the prank war between the two of us and the Centuries-old dragon. The only problem with that was that my mother was pissed and another stunt like flooding Vhagar's cave with ale would be much harder to pull off in this case. So that meant we had to let her get away with the last hit.
And then there was Laena who had been grounded just as surely as I was. Her inability to control Vhagar was being used against her, never mind that she was less than ten and five and Vhagar was over ten times as old, and magnitudes more stubborn. I felt the whole thing was unreasonable, but Laena seemed to care little that I was on her side and only saw it as her getting punished for my shit.
If Laena was bad, then the situation with Rhaenys was untenable. After the whole hugging me thing when she saw I was alright, she'd retreated into a shell of fury. She watched everything I did like a hawk. Already, my rooms had been taken away and I'd been unceremoniously tossed back into my infant chambers adjoined to her room. No more skipping sessions with the Maester or getting to leave weapons training early. It was like she had given up all her other duties as Lady of High Tide to focus on a single assignment: Leanor-watching. And she was much better at it than any of the guards that they used to sick on me.
She'd already caught me trying to sneak out twice and something— her very audible threats (read: screams that echoed about the castle)— told me that if I tried again then that would be the last time I did. Okay, slight amendment— if I got caught again then that would be the last time, I thought as I crawled through the chimney. Each room had a fireplace and they all needed some sort of outlet. That meant there was a chimney barely large enough for a preteen to squeeze through that led to the Castle's roof. Once I got there..e it would just be a matter of calling Igneel over with or bond, I thought top myself as I continued to climb.
This body needed to be in the sky. It needed to feel the wind against its skin. The itch of being confined half one from irritating to unbreakable in no time at all, and now I was going to finally do something about it.
I pushed upwards with my left leg and hand at the same time to allow my right to get purchase on the next openings. My fingers searched upwards and onwards, grabbing into suitable holds to keep my body stable. It was almost unreal, how this body had such instinctive strength and balance. No ten year old had any business being this strong or this in control of their bodily movements. I breathed in and out before taking the next push.
I could see the light as more than a vague pinprick now— I could see the chimney's opening. I pulled at my bond with Igneel, telling him that I was coming. I could feel a mix of apprehension and anticipation from him but nothing more than that. The bond we dragonlords shared with our partners was fascinating to me. For one, not everyone had the same thing. Laena could get vague inclinations of what Vhagar wanted but from what she could tell me it was based on what Vhagar wanted her to know. With mother, it was more like what Igneel and I had, albeit a lesser version where she could feel Meleys' moods and even send her messages through the bond. With Igneel and I, it was like being two halves of the same whole when we were within a certain distance.
Maybe it had something to do with him hatching in my cradle and the both of us essentially being twins in that we shared a birthday. The tale went that when Rhaenys had birthed me and the midwives placed me in a cradle, she had insisted that the egg she'd chosen from Dreamfyre's most recent clutch— laid a week before she went to bed— be placed in my cradle. The instant we touched, Igneel hatched.
I pushed across the last few inches and finally reached the top of the chimney. Pushing down to lift myself up, I managed to lift one leg over the precipice, and then came the other. Home free, I thought as I heard a dragon grunt behind me. I turned around to see red. Meleys was crouched on the roof with Igneel at her side looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. Atop her dragon sat my mother in her riding leathers, looking like she wanted to peel me out of my skin.
"You couldn't give a guy a warning?" I asked, turning to Igneel instead of my mother. He whimpered while Meleys growled in his direction.
"That's enough of that. He's in trouble as well as you are" Mother said, looking ever the Queen that she never got to be. At least she did for a second before she sighed and slid from Meleys' saddle onto the uneven roofing of High Tide before walking over to me.
"You couldn't stay inside any longer could you, my boy?" She asked as she pulled my body into mine. I relaxed in the hug, momentarily forgetting my worries.
"I wanted to fly," I said, hoping it was an urge she could relate with. It had to be.
"I know, my boy. You need to fly for your own good. The only issue right now is Vhagar. She is way too unpredictable for me to countenance you being allowed to fly anywhere even close to her usual haunts, and even then it's only a matter of time until she adapts to the change and finds you wherever you end up on this island. You couldn't have just left the most dangerous creature in the world alone, could you? That is why your father and I have come to a decision. My Uncle Boremund wrote to request to take you on as a squire for his son, Borros who was knighted two years ago. We will write back to him with our assent. In a few weeks, you will leave for the Stormlands where you will be free to fly with Igneel and where time apart will allow this animosity between the two of you and Vhagar to cool down." She said, and I could see how much it hurt her to say those words.
"What?"
"I know your ears work, Laenor. You heard me."
"I don't want to go to the Stormlands" I said, and wasn't that the truth. I had a thousand things I was working on here. Access to the best shipwrights, thinkers, and minds in the world meant things go from being ideas to perfect prototypes in a matter of weeks rather than the months or years it ought to have taken.
"Yet, you have no choice. Just look at yourself, my son. You need this. Besides, it's a squireship. You will be free to return once you earn yourself a knighthood. Think of this as extra motivation for you to make me proud as I know you will" She said, and then uncaring of the fact that I was covered from head to toe in soot, she swooped me into her arms.
A/N: And so we get one of the first major canon divergences. His performance at the Great Council intrigues his Granduncle, Boremund and now he gets the opportunity to squire with Borros in the stormlands. Next three up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)( same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.