The Dragon that Decides 8 (Patreon)

The Dragon that Decides
Chapter 8

-VB-

I decided to be more theatrical, but it wasn’t solely for my entertainment.

See, I knew a few things about politics. Politics, by definition, was about power struggle, not about making the best policies for a given nation, people, or person. Westeros politics, as such, was not about how to better develop or improve the continent and the Seven Kingdoms: it was about who got to decide what policies were in charge.

This world being perpetually stuck in its medieval ways, most of its nation-states chose who got to decide what by way of might and war. Those who had the most money, those who had the best fighting skills, and those who who had the biggest armies chose and did whatever it was they wanted as long as their actions allowed them to keep the advantages that allowed them to choose in the first place.

The Targaryeons lost their dragons, which was their source of power, and thus when they lost what little other support they had, they lost their place in power.

So what would happen if dragon(s) returned?

Suddenly, the balance of power shifted from those currently ruling to a single pair of individuals: me and Daenerys. Those who have even an ounce of neurons in their skulls would immediately understand the situation and come face to face with two choices: turn on the current regime or die with it.

And that was what I forced by merely appearing all over the major Westerosi cities from Sunspear and Winterfell to King’s Landing and Oldtown.

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Ned stared up at the giant dragon - because what else could it be - circling high above the skies.

He bent his knees and weathered through the dragon’s roar as the roar shook the entire city and beyond with how loud and deep-reaching it was. Next to him, Cat held their children together, and he could see her fear on her face in the periphery of his vision.

The dragon.

It was the biggest living thing he had ever seen. He had seen the giant fishes that sailors and hunters once brought up from the open ocean, but he had a feeling the creature currently circling the sky above Winterfell would make that giant fish small.

“Is it wild or ridden?” someone asked.

And then suddenly, Ned realized the situation could be far worse than merely Winterfell burning, because no matter how historied and seat of power Winterfell was to the Starks, an irate dragonrider with a dragon that big could burn a lot of castles. His mind went through all sorts of scenarios, most too gruesome but all too familiar because they were the thoughts he had back during the Rebellion.

The “what ifs.”

One of them just became a frightening reality.

A what if scenario that started with the Targaryeon getting their hands on an adult dragon.

The dragon roared again before it flew off. He released a sigh of relief he didn’t know he’d held. It must have been a wild dragon looking for large prey.

… And then he realized that the sky looked freckled?

No. Those were papers. Why were papers, expensive and hard to mass produce, floating down. He saw people snatching them out of the air as he did the same.

His eyes widened and his heart froze when he looked upon the sigil of House Targaryen upon it.

“No…”

---

Tywin glared at the dragon taunting him.

It flew high above Casterly Rock, but close enough that Tywin could accurately determine two facts.

One, there was a woman riding it. A platinum white haired woman whose hair was just as white as Rhaegar and Aerys Targaryen.

Two, comparing the size of the woman, even assuming that she was on the small side, gave him a measure of the dragon on par with Balerion. He’d seen that dead dragon’s skull in the Pit. Seeing a dragon before him, he knew for a fact that this dragon would be just as massive, if not even bigger.

It was over.

He slumped into his seat and his head dropped onto the top of his seat’s back. This wasn’t a baby dragon but a full fledged dragon with a clearly Targaryen riding it.

Oh, she could be Blackfyre, but a Blackfyre appearing after years of silence? Unlikely.

The dragon and its rider flew circles around Casterly Rock, taunting him of their inevitable victory, before flying away.

The papers that fluttered down bearing the sigil of House Targaryen only made the Targaryen condemnation that much deeper and taunt that much greater.

---

Robert glared at the dragon.

The warrior in him told him to rise up and fight, but he wasn’t a dumb fucker incapable of thinking (or thinking with only his swords). That dragon was too big. No army would win. It would utterly devastate any army that came to fight it.

… Of course, such a thought assumed that an army would gather in the first place if they knew that they would be fighting a dragon.

Oh, how much he wanted to just throw the crown at the dragon.

FUCKING HAVE THE CROWN! It did nothing for him! Made him fat and miserable.

Dragons deserve the fucking crown!

Let them be miserable!

(But he doubted that they would let him live).

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“YESSSSS!!!!!”

Oberyn laughed as he imagined the vengeance to come. He laughed triumphantly as he stared at the dragon circling high in the sky above Sunspear. The smallfolk and guards stayed root in spot, fearful of the being from legends and past.

But the Martells?

Oh.

This was it!

They would avenge their sister.