The Dreamer and the Defiant
Before the Doom, before the lady Daenys foretold the destruction destined for her home and fled with her family, before the great topless towers of Valyria were built, before even the ancient magic of Valyria bound dragon to man, there was a song. A song so old, it was sung by those who had not yet written, in a language now lost.
This song, called “The Lovesick One”, was about a young sheepherder girl who loves another, and it brings to her destruction. The protagonist, who is never named, watches her lover, a girl called Aeril, marry and leave her. These doings leave the protagonist in ruin until she can no longer take it; she walks into the pits upon the Fourteen Flames, becoming one with the fires which later bore dragons. The song ends with Aeril herself doing the same, eternally returning to her lost love.
Aegona had always felt a kinship to The Nameless Girl. Felt the sorrow the fires around Valyria held, the hopelessness within the molten rock. She always felt connected with the mountains surrounding her homeland, bound to the fires that birthed her nation’s success. At just seven-and-ten, Aegona Daezgygar was a promising young woman of Valyria. She was the rider of the formidable dragon Pryjagis, a determined stateswoman, and fiercely loyal friend. The second child of the powerful Raeon Daezgygar and his lady-wife Syrax Belaerys, she was highly educated and regarded with pride by her father. That is, until she grew independent and strayed from her Valyrian traditions, from her father's plans for her.
Daenys Targaryen, the youngest child of Aenar Targaryen, had always felt different. The only girl in her household, she had always known what was expected of her. Like wed her brother Gaemon, and to blindly support him and their father no matter what. What she had always wanted, however, was someone to blindly support her. Daenys had been plagued with visions of the future since birth, scaring her into a lonely, simple life. Dragonless, she had spent most of her youth in the ancient and sprawling libraries of Valyria instead of flying over it on dragonback. That is, until she met Aegona. Daenys Targaryen and Aegona Daezgygar became inseparable at three-and-ten, spending all their available time with each other. Aegona would take Daenys all over the Valyrian Freehold on her dragon Pryjagis, and Daenys would recant for hours the hundreds of stories she had ever read to her friend. Then, tragedy struck.
This is where this story begins.
Set in 115 BC, thirteen years before the Doom, comes this imagined story of love between the famous Dragon Dreamer, Daenys, and a long forgotten Valyrian girl, Aegona.
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“You cannot do this, Father. I will not do this!” Aegona recoiled at her father’s demand. The gall of him. She had already given up her political ambitions at his behest, had stopped riding to preserve his strong image, had relinquished her position on the Council in favor of her weak brother. She refused to wed for him.
“I can and you shall! I will not allow you to bring any more dishonor upon us.”
Sitting in the great hall of Goldstone, the holding of the noble family of Daezgygar in the city of Valyria, Aegona faced her father. Next to her at the dragonstone table, seated amongst the dozens of blood marble chairs in the roofless hall flanked with dragon skulls and made of magnificent purple-and-blue arches, were her brother, Vhaelor, and her sister, Alaesys.
“Father, why may I not be wed to Alaesys alone? We together shall continue our pure and noble line. I do not need Aegona.” Vhaelor was the epitome of Valyrian pride. He was a gorgeous man of three-and-twenty, with flowing white-gold hair, deep purple eyes, and skin so unblemished and pale it was almost translucent. Alaesys, too.
Despite being twins, Aegona and Alaesys looked far from similar. Where Alaesys looked like Vhaelor, like their parents, Aegona boasted shoulder-length silver-gray hair, green eyes, and a surprisingly boring face when compared to her siblings. Vhaelor had always preferred her sister to her, primarily due to Aegona’s lack of Valyrian looks.
“Alaesys is a worthy bride indeed who shall fulfill you, yes. You will continue our line. But you will wed Aegona. What will others say if Aegona remains unbound? If not even her own brother will take her?” Raeon Daezgygar was a ruthless, fearless man of the Lords Freeholder of Valyria, being one of the wealthiest men in the entire Freehold. He owned hundreds of gold mines across the peninsula, deep underneath the Fourteen Flames; he controlled with three other families almost a tenth of Valyria’s wealth, and almost twenty-thousand slaves.
Despite his age of five-and-fifty, Raeon looked to be as young as his children. The noble Daezgygars had practiced sorcery and blood magic since they herded sheep instead of gold, and upon its members it shone brightly.
Aegona stood, pounding her fists on the table. Alaesys and Vhaelor flinched, yet Raeon remained still. He turned his head slowly to his daughter, menacing. She glared at her father. “They shall say nothing. I will take to the skies and prove my worth as a dragonlord. I shall fly upon Pryjagis to war, bring glory to Valyria like Uncle Maeron. I will not be tamed upon a marriage bed. Least of all Vhaelor’s.” She believed Vhaelor to be an arrogant, brainless sot who knew not how to think for himself. Just like their father.
Raeon leapt from his chair, sending a magical gust to his daughter. Flung to the ground, pinned upon the glass floor by an invisible force, Aegona thrashed, screaming in frustration. Raeon walked over to her, kneeling. The golden fire in his eyes was cold. Terrifying.
“I will kill that beast for how you speak to me, then you shall be bound here forever. You will be tamed, and it will be by Vhaelor. You shall sit wed before the year is over. If you flee, so help me gods, I will hunt you down myself.”
Aegona grinned at him, taunting. “Hunt me with what, Father? You shall find me flying above the Narrow Sea while you sit upon, what? A mule?” she spat in his face.
Raeon’s mount, the ancient and monstrous she-dragon Leriod, had recently taken ill and would soon be dead. Raeon had barred the women of his household from riding their dragons, for fear of public opinion. He could not have his daughters and wife riding fearsome beasts while he sat emasculated in his keep, bound to a horse.
He growled, raising his hand to strike.
“Father, do not do this. By giving her your energy, you are giving into her,” Vhaelor said from behind him, his face expressionless.
Raeon turned his head to look at his heir, then back down at his daughter. “You are lucky your brother has sense. Next time, you shall not be so lucky.” Standing, he walked back to his seat at the head of the table. Finally released, Aegona also stood, looking to her siblings. Their hands were clasped together upon the table.
“This is it, then? You shall sit here while he plays you like pawns upon a board?”
It was Alaesys who spoke now, her voice as soft as the snows that fell in the infamous Lands of Always Winter. “That is enough, Aegona. Please do not be difficult about this. Marriage shall not be so bad.”
Aegona scoffed. “‘Difficult’? Is that what we are to call a woman having an opinion in the matters of her own life? Fine. Sit here and take this, but I will not.” She did not wait to hear their responses. Bounding out of the great hall, Aegona sent a gust of hot wind behind her, slamming the carved doors as she exited.
Goldstone was an immense building, a feat of architecture older than Valyria itself. With walls of arches, floors of glass, halls lined with sculptures of the great members of the Daezgygar dynasty, carved from the gold of their mines, it was magnificent. The fires upon the walls, contained within intricate dragonstone cauldrons, were golden and kept alight by the sorcery thick in the air.
There were five towers of Goldstone surrounding the main keep, named after the great founders of the family. To the north, Gael; to the east, Aeragon; to the west, Jahaer; to the south, Vhagar; and to the south-east, across a bleak and sorrowful wooden bridge that was scarcely crossed, stood Laerys, with a roof of dark dragonstone that swallowed even dragonflame that stood stark against the other towers’ golden.
Gael, Aeragon, Jahaer, Vhagar, and Laerys were siblings, children of sheepherders that had discovered dragons only generations before, who lived in poverty amongst the Fourteen Flames. One day, as they were bringing an offering of sheep to their dragons among the smoldering pits, they discovered something. Within the caves where the dragons nested was gold, waiting for someone to discover it, begging to be released from its stone prison.
After chipping all the gold they could from the cave opening, amassing more wealth than anyone in their village, they were hungry still. Aeragon and Jahaer, worrying for the safety of themselves and their sisters Gael and Vhagar, sent their youngest sibling, Laerys, into the hot depths of the cave to find more. Beneath the burning lava of the Mother Mountains, something horrible had happened. Laerys did not return. His siblings waited for weeks at the cave mouth, yet he did not emerge.
Years went by, and with no sign of the young man, they moved on. By this time, the family had mastered the use of indentured servitude to mine their gold. They adopted the name “Daezgygar”, meaning “Those of Golden Wool” in the Old Tongue. They had become kings in their own right, had given their blood to the gods for prosperity and promise.
After twenty years, the holding of Goldstone was built. Each sibling, Gael and Aeragon now wed along with Jahaer and Vhagar, built a tower in their honor. They had discovered gold. They had mastered an efficient way to harvest it. They had curried the favor of the gods. What they had not managed, however, was to tame the dragon. They yet remained unridden, unbound by men. That is, until day five of the eleventh month of year twenty-two of Laerys’s absence.
That morning, as the sun rose above the horizon, a monstrous roar shook the world. The walls of the newly-completed Goldstone rocked with such force that the wooden roofs fell and the towers almost toppled. Gael, Aeragon, Jahaer, and Vhagar fled to the ground from their stories-tall keep, wrought with terror. As they reached the ground, a shadow enveloped them. Looking up, they saw the impossible. Above them, riding a ghastly beast thought untameable, was a man.
Laerys Daezgygar touched down upon hundreds of screaming men, women, and children atop the conglomerate of mines, grinning widely at his siblings. He looked as young as he did the day he vanished-- younger even. He wore naught but the torn cotton robe he had when he entered that cave, but gods did he look ever so different. Gone was his brown hair, his olive skin, his green eyes. He now boasted a head of long white hair, not that of age but of some unnatural power; his skin was a white so bright it seemed he had been poured of liquid sun. His eyes had become a purple of the lavender flowers in the north, with a mystical fire burning within. His face looked the same, but somehow shone with a beauty so radiant it could have stopped even the gods in their tracks.
“Miss me?” His voice had not changed, but somehow it had. The sound was the same, but there was something within. Something magical.
Within the caves, after he could not find his way out, Laerys had lay dying in the intense heat below the volcanoes of his homeland. He was come upon by a nesting she-dragon, who took him into her clutch. He became one with the family, the formidable beast he now rode being his mother. With her own milk she nursed him from the brink, with her magic fire she bathed him. Over the years, he learned their language, the mysterious one later known as High Valyrian. The magic of the caves, the dragons themselves, entered his very cells and became a part of him, turning him from a man. Turning him into something… other.
Aegona’s chambers were in Laerys. Before she became the thorn in her father’s side, she resided in Gael with Alaesys, the biggest tower. But then Gryr happened, and she was shunned to the bleak tower made for the familial outlier. Alas, she had to make room for her brother to take her place at her sister’s side.
She and Alaesys had always been close. From birth, they were inseparable. Riding their dragons together, Bantagon and Pryjagis. Running and laughing amongst the Great Flames of the Gods while they were meant to be praying. Playing in the ancient libraries when meant to be reading. They were the best of friends, and Aegona was happy. Then her sister matured, blossoming into a great beauty while Aegona retained a boyish figure, flat where her twin’s curved. Vhaelor had never cared too much about his sisters, least of all Aegona. He had always proved impartial at best, tending to avoid the laughing girls. Yet when Alaesys became a woman, he made up his mind.
Vhaelor and Alaesys had not left each other’s sides since, begging their father to allow their pairing. Raeon was apprehensive, having always meant the elder Aegona to wed his heir. Then she ruined herself, as he would say, and he gave in to Vhaelor. They were to be wed before the end of the month, and if Raeon had his way, the wedding would have two brides.
Aegona walked hurriedly to her chambers, angry heat radiating from her. If her father would not heed her, she would show him the same courtesy. Coming to the swaying bridge, she stopped midway to her tower. As she grasped the rope railing, she took the horn hanging from her neck in her hands. Aegona would show the great Raeon Daezgygar that she was destined to be greater than he would ever be. Blowing into the ancient dragonhorn, she beckoned her beast.
Pryjagis was a menacing creature of old. He had been old when her grandfather had claimed him, having fought the harpy of the Ghiscari centuries ago. Pryjagis boasted scales of blues of all shades, with horns the black of night. His flame was a magnificent orange with swirls of yellow and red, almost as bright as the sun. Alaesys rode the sister of Pryjagis, born from the same clutch all those years ago. Bantagon had scales of orange, red, and yellow, horns of white what had yellowed with age, and a flame of dark blue with streaks of black. Aegona missed riding with her sister dearly. As children, she dreamt that they would ride alongside one another to war, bringing glory to their homeland. That was before she saw the truth of the world.
Pryjagis landed atop Laerys with a roar, greeting his rider. The sun shone on him, revealing his whole beauty.
“Hello, handsome.” Aegona walked to him, climbing upon his saddle and grabbing the reins. There was only one person she wished to see at this moment, and she knew exactly where she would be. “To the libraries, Pryjagis.” To Daenys Targaryen.
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Thank you for reading! I (stupidly) got into a car accident yesterday and had time to finish this.
Chapter Two: The Book and the Dragon
this is daenys's first chapter! please let me know what you think, do not hold back. im so sorry this
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