𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 ... the day after the funeral, following the interment of viserra's ashes on dragonstone 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 … dragonmont 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 … visaera and vaela ( @shesnakes + @altaraed )
it is the rose-light of first blush when they drop from the sky, pale constellations still aglow in a pink heaven, when sgaeyl soars the path to dragonmont and glides them through a broad alcove along the cliffside. the wind sings softly through the dark iron walls of basalt and volcanic stone, a palace forged by valyrian sorcery for dragons secreted within the cragged walls of the mountain. it is an untold place, the breath of its violent beauty interred with the ashes of dragonlords. the targaryens of dragonstone had not shared the candour of its alleged existence for an age, but the prowl of a lion had become enough to unveil it to another.
it is easier to start a war than to end it, and he could not afford the infinite melancholy of night, sorrow as endless as a northern winter bound to the death that was to come — that had already came. it would take more of them, he knew, to curb the losses that would press his brow like the crown, like soil atop the grave. dragon against dragon. man against man. cousin against cousin. blood against blood. his kingship meant nothing, in the end, if the people, too, became charred remains within their seats and strongholds. his body shifts with sgaeyl’s canting shadow, visaera’s lean frame pulled into the manoeuvre by her hold of his waist. they are deep beneath the earth, grey caverns swathed in cool air and smoke, the occasional echo of rumbling dragons rising to meet them from their lairs. sgaeyl comes to rest upon an outcrop of eroded stone, the dig of her claws loosing sediment from primaeval rock. gloved digits hold fast to visaera’s upper arm as he draws her from his back, directing her to descend the trained slant of sgaeyl’s dark wing before he follows. she shakes her great head, muscles rippling beneath a number of scarred scales as her cranium looms near to receive the run of vaeles’ hand underneath her jaw.
‘ sgaeyl may have hatched for me, ’ he begins, ‘ but the right of rider must be earned. blood does not equate worth. you must be prepared to die, do you understand ? ’ he had seen it before, bastard bones and steel melted down, their hopes that they may be more than a man’s moonlit fault drifting as sea foam forever. vaeles did not doubt visaera. he knew the sharpness of the lionesses’ mind, but the kingdoms did not. to the realm, she looked as if she’d been carved out of a single pearl, and lymond would sell her to these beasts that hoarded prized gems — beasts that would drink from her till sick, but that could not drink till satisfied. had tried already, to trade his darling rose in a milk-white gown, draw the ichor from the shimmering well of her before he intervened — you are the daughter of yourself, vaeles had told her, you are born of your own dream. she was so fragile, in many eyes — a jewel, a flower, delicate no matter what she did. she was loveliness itself. a prisoner of a fairytale she did not write. vaeles could not be her knight forever, as much as he had sworn himself to it. he could not choke the softness from the narrative alone. she would have to maim it herself, kill it, if she desired dominion of her own hand. stand at the throne beside him. ‘ vaela and sygar are just behind. come. ’
