A Second Son in the Second Sons
"All Aerion could think was home, and how far away he was carried from it on a ship just like this, maybe even this ship. At the time, he hadn’t cared to learn the name, so far gone in his rage was he, but now…I do not want to go away again, though Aerion. Lys was no Westeros, true enough, but atleast it had wines to drown himself in (but not like Daeron, never like him) and wenches too, pale and lovely with his mother’s violet eyes-wenches who liked him, abandoned their loves and came to him in the dark, in the day, anytime he threw a coin at them, or better yet, just a glance…because there I was a prince. Even after joining the Second Sons, he was a prince and as long as the Second Sons went about knifing about in Lys, he would remain always a prince. Adored and admired. Protected, insulated from the worst of things by Qysho’s thinly veiled protection. But now he had been dragged from his Lovely Lys, and with it, the last of his influence. His power was gone and sapped dry. He was a true member of the Second Sons now.
Aerion felt dread snake through him.
A member of the Second Sons? Is that what he would finally come to? After all those dreams of dragons and fire and blood, after all those days living as a prince in summerhall, he would amount to…swording in a mercenary company? Not even a renowned one at that, but the Second Sons, brimming full with mediocre men, landless and lordless. Stinking exiles. And he was to be…one of them? Father, is this what you wanted? Gods, the thought itself made him want to find the nearest bucket to retch in. He even turned around for it…only to see a girl bent over, vomiting up what looked like leaves of matted greens and yellows.
Then the stench of the leaves came to him and he was up and away, bending over the railing of the carrack as something suspiciously like bile rose in his throat. “Gods,” he cursed. Was this what his father wanted, why he had been sent that letter? The Second Sons seek new blood, Masker had written in his messily elegant scrawl and Aerion had read that sentence over and over till it blurred, till his eyes burned and he went to sleep with an aching head. When he rose again, he found the captain of the second son, swore a half hearted oath and boarded onto the Titan’s Sword.
And now, when they were already half across the Pentos bay, he was coming to regret it.
“Oy, princeling” A voice came behind him, dancing with mirth in the common tongue of the seven kingdoms, the language of lesser men. “Having trouble, are ya?”
Aerion almost groaned, but did not turn around. Great, now he would have to converse with these fools he had been stuck with. Seven save me, is this what father wanted? “No more than anyone else,” he answered sharply, then fell silent, hoping the man would understand and leave him alone.
“You speak a lie” continued the voice, deaf to Aerion’s annoyance. “Why, you’ve been sulking about since the moment we’ve boarded the carrack and that was two days past, gods be good. If this the way you plan to live as a second son, I doubt you’ll live long.” The words landed like blows, the wounds taking time to fester but when they did, he felt mad with anger, whirling around suddenly. “I am Aerion Targaryen, blood of the dragon, blood of Aegon the Conqueror, the greatest king who ever lived.” His hand went for his blade, trembling. One more word and he would draw it out. His eyes fixed upon his tormentor. “Your drunken fools couldn’t kill me if I put my sword in their hands and begged them to swing it.”
a blurb from my current fic lol, our boy's going through it
