Celestial Hymn 56 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn

Chapter 56

-VB-

Daenerys Targaryen

The invasion of Dragonstone had gone off without a hitch, and she and her Dothrakis now rested before the final journey to mainland Westeros.

Though she had wanted to burn all of the ships leaving the island, the islanders had sighted them long before she would have liked them to. As the surrendering soldiers had told her, the lady and heir of Dragonstone, the Dragonstone Baratheons, had escaped in the time it took for her to ride her dragon, cross the distance between the fleet and the island, and then set fire to the shipyard.

It might have been a mistake for her to do so considering that some of her ships needed repairs, but she planned to take over a port on Westeros itself and make repairs there as ships would no longer be the main method of transportation once the Dothrakis landed there. Also, Dragonstone didn’t have enough food to sustain the massive army and thus couldn’t be used as anything more than a rest stop, and making extensive ship repairs was anything but a rest stop.

Her Dothrakis, also, kept their hands to themselves after she promised riches and wealth. She was their khaleesi and the mother of dragons; they obeyed without too much grumbling because she, at the very least, delivered her promise. She couldn’t have them dying against some of the smallfolks or by accidents if they decided to raze Dragonstone.

“Khaleesi!”

Daenerys looked up from the book about the most up-to-date book on the Grat Houses and Lesser Houses of Westeros that she had found in the lord’s solar. The Dothraki that had barged into her room was one of her lieutenants.

“What is it?” she asked as she set the book down.

“In the sky! There is a ship in the sky!”

Frowning, she looked over her shoulder and out of the window, seeing nothing.

“It is on the other side of the island!”

On the other side…

That meant Westeros.

She quickly rushed out of the solar with the dothraki lieutenant.

“What about my advisors?”

“They have been alerted,” he replied as they ran. And finally, they emerged out from one of the upper floor towers and onto a balcony. He pointed into the sky, and she looked.

Her eyes widened and her jaws dropped.

There, hanging in the sky, was a ship without sails but far bigger than any other sailing ships she had ever laid on eyes upon. Its gleaming white hull cast a dark shadow upon the land, and though not all of the land was covered, fear ran rampant among the dothraki as they screamed at and of the ship that rode the sky.

What happened next came without warning.

Light.

Columns of light struck down at the earth from the sky ship.

Where they struck, everything burned.

“NO!” she screamed as she saw her dothraki die. The lieutenant next to her collapsed to his knees in fear, but she gritted her teeth and ran down from the tower toward where her children were at.

She found Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegel, raring to go. They roared and hissed, breathing their own fire. She released them quickly but jumped on the back of her Drogon.

They took off immediately into the sky.

Her children screeched and roared as she steered them toward the sky ship and -.

Zip.

One of the columns of light just passed by her. She wildly looked around and then froze when she saw Rhaegal falling from the sky in two halves.

“NO!” she screamed as tears sprung from her eyes.

What happened?! How did that happen!?

And then she saw another colum of light heading for her and Drogon. “Drogon!” she shouted and pulled at his scale. He immediately responded, veering sharply to the left. Then he screamed as the light passed by. It didn’t hit him! But it scalded him.

Light scalded her child like how fire would.

It was fire…?

How does fire cut?!

She looked and saw those same beams leisurely burning away -

-at the fleet.

“No.”

She urged Drogon to fly higher toward the sky ship.

“No!”

And then she saw it.

It was small nozzle of some kind protruding out from a port. It was pointed at her.

And then -.

-VB-

Alan Marris

I watched the “cleansing” of Dragonstone dispassionately as I focused on what was happening inside of me.

Like always, the Celestial Forge chose an inopportune moment to barge in.

But when I realized that I could now hold my own inertia of self and impose it upon the world to prevent others from messing with me… I realized that it wasn’t exactly a useful power for Westeros. There simply wasn’t anyone or anything that could change otherworldly influence me.

Perhaps it’ll be useful in the future.

“Are the ships all burning?”

“Yes, milord,” my acolyte replied.

“Good. Aim at the largest concentration of these … dothraki.”

And while powering the ship with my own mana, I watched the would-be invaders and looters burn.

It was the most poetic way I could send them off in. They and their “khal” would have gone around killing, burning, and looting across Westeros in their conquest. They already called plenty of people on Dragonstone if the houses that had been burned already before I came was any indication.

I continued to power the ship, which couldn’t power this level of firepower on its own, and surveyed my work.

Daenerys had come with her three dragons, and I killed them without fanfare. I burned the dothraki horde’s fleet and a whole swath of their army, men and horse alike.

My job was done. If the rest of the “Regency Council” wanted to retake Dragonstone, then they’ll have to fight on their own. There couldn’t be anymore than a few thousand dothraki, anyway.

“Set our heading to the North beyond the Wall,” I commanded.

I had one last enemy to end.

… I really should have done this much earlier. It was fucking cathartic throwing my weight around.