Dragons Fill the Skies Ch. 02

There were lit candles everywhere, so many candles. The room was so well lit it looked like morning inside. Cooks and handmaids were moving from in and out of the king's dining room. Samwell was there too, standing close to his king.

"Welcome to dinner, my lady. Everyone except my lady and my maester may leave. If we need more food and drinks, I will call you or my maester will.

Malcolm and his knights saw themselves out.

"How are you doing my lady"

"I believe you already know the answer to that, your grace" Rhaenyra answered with a slight grin.

Bran smiled softly looking down at his plate with so much food on it. "Seeing events in the past, present and future is not the same as being able to read someone's feelings, my lady."

"I am still feeling...out of place. So much has happened since my passing, take my appearance for one, I was murdered when I was a woman fully grown and The Stranger decides to bring me back at nineteen years of age. My entire house is nearly extinct with only one last living male carrying the entire history of my house on his shoulders. Dragons are gone from this world and my mind believes I'm back home two hundred years ago. I keep seeing flashes of the past, my soul accepts its back in the present with an important duty but my mind desires to be back home with my mother and father, my children, and my once best friend, Allicent."

"I'm sorry that you are having this internal battle within yourself, Rhaenyra. Your father, King Viserys was honor and duty in the flesh, much like Eddard Stark was. Your mother, bless her, would be proud of you for accepting to come back to save the world. Your father and siblings too would be proud of you. I dare say, even Allicent. You are safe here with me, please don't keep these thoughts to yourself."

"You have such a way with words, your grace, I mean, there is very little emotion in your voice, but I still can grasp the energy in each word"

"Rhaenyra, If I may interject, could you give me a summary of what the afterlife is like, as someone who was brought back after two hundred years, you are the only case of someone coming back to life after so long. The only person to come back was John Snow, or should I say--"

"Aegon Targaryen," Rhaenyra said, answering Sam. "I could give you a description of what it's like, but I think it is better to show you--"

"Maester Sam, please not now. Rhaenyra, another time. Don't entertain his curiosities during dinner."

At the end of dinner, Maester Sam pushed his grace back to his bedchamber with Rhaenyra holding his hand. When they arrived at her bedchamber first, Rhaenyra spoke, "care to join me tonight your grace?" flirtatiously flicking her hair over her shoulder.

Sam nearly blurted out with laughter from the sudden offer, Bran, smiling and blushing for the first time in a long time twiddled his fingers but quickly returned to his usual stoic self and answered, "I'd love to, but I am unable to."

"Well...that is a shame, then. Maybe tomorrow then?" with a wink and giggle, Rhaenyra closed the door to her bedchamber.

Bran couldn't help but smile at her words and childlike behavior. He looked over at Sam, his knight Malcolm who looked like they were trying to suppress laughter or perhaps envy or even both.

THE NEXT MORNING

"You're so light your grace, why is that" Rhaenyra commented as she pushed Bran through the halls of the Gray keep. The walls of the former red keep which were painted red were now painted grey. The time to paint and repair most of the old red keep was long and grueling, but one of King Bran's first acts as king was to erase the old to give way to the new.

"I think so also, milady."

"Where are we going, your grace."

"To the seat of power of the six kingdoms."

Rhaenyra pushed through the giant doors that lead to the most important room in all the realm, at least in her former life; The throne room. Although much like the rest of the castle, it had undergone some major renovations. The red walls were charcoal gray. The windows all had designs of trees and ravens and strange creatures such as children, giants and eyes, eyes everywhere. But as strange as these new changes may have been to her, perhaps the strangest and most impactful change of all was the seat of power itself and what replaced the towering seat of blades constructed by the conqueror himself with help from his dragon.

"It's a...wooden seat, a plain wooden seat," Rhaenyra said flatly with no words to express her disbelief.

"Would you risk the life of your men, your lords, and the rest of their bannermen to sit on that chair?" Bran asked her.

"I think it better fit to be a dinner seat or a footstool...I...ahahaha, I can't with you your grace, a wooden seat!" Rhaenyra laughed and laughed until she was a crying mess.

"Power resides where men believe it resides in, Rhaenyra, Varys once told that to lord Tyrion. It's true then as it is now. Power is not inherent in a seat, a sword or even a person, but where the individual's faith springs from. But why do you laugh so much, is it truly that comical?"

"I just can't believe the amount of blood that has been shed for that old seat, the amount of treachery and conniving it inspired. The wars and battles it instigated and the peace through war it established. My own previous life fell to that seat, as did the many lives of my children and lo..."

"Lovers, Rhaenyra?" Bran finished her thought. She went silent and stared elsewhere. "I can assure you that there was more bloodshed, more treachery, and more wars fought long after you passed away."

"How about the dance, your grace, has anyone talked about it after its conclusion, what do people say about it."

"They don't really say anything about it, not anymore. Only highborn children who can read, read the dance and maesters who kept records of those events. There is already much that preoccupies the common people in their daily lives that past events like the Targaryen civil war really does not concern them. But to those who sided with you and honored their pledge that they made to you, their ancestors remember."

"Your grace, I came back to save the world, not to reclaim any crown or seat of power, not to become a princess or queen or any noble. Before I can hatch my first egg, I beg of you, no one can discover who I am, not yet."

"Then I will give you a new name, Rhaenyra. From this point on you shall be Catlyn Honors, my future wife who will inherit no titles, sit on any throne, wear no crowns, but will bear any children we might have to full fill your new life's purpose. And no one will find out about your dragon eggs, I promise."

Rhaenyra placed her hands on her hips and looked as bright red as a tomato, suppressing laughter and embarrassment. "I don't know why but I find comfort and humor in your words, your grace. If might ask, is there anyone occupying Dragonstone?"

"Dragonstone, is that where you would like to relocate?"

"Only after I hatch my first egg, but it's not as simple as it was before, because these eggs and the dragons that will come from them are unlike anything the ancient Valyrians or Targaryens have ever witnessed or contended with. The Stranger said that to hatch the first, I must marry it to lightning itself."

Without saying a word, Bran gripped the armrests of his chair and rolled his eyes into the back of his head. Rhaenyra wheeled him into the gardens and found herself a seat as Bran continued to see into all possible events. While he was busy, she stood and looked around her. The flowers were blooming and the area was filled with the scent of hundreds of roses. Not too far away was Sir Malcolm.

"Has he been following us, or just me" she thought.

"Rhaenyra, I found the location, the perfect place to hatch your first egg. It's a place where there is always a storm, rain and lightning. I saw you, standing there naked, burned from thousands of lightning strikes but you and your egg, especially your egg beamed with blue energy like sapphire gleaming in the sun. the dragon that was born of this, is..."

"Is what your grace?"

"It's unlike any dragon ever born and documented in our world. It has no wings yet kept itself afloat through some unknown power. Its scales were black as the void, blue electricity crackled and coursed through its immeasurably long serpentine body. It had horns on its head, a long flowing mustache made of clouds and breathed out branches of lightning through its massive nostrils. Its mouth was filled with fangs and its maw was large enough to devour an entire castle whole. The place I speak of is Storms End."

"Storms...end...Lucerys. But that's Lord Boros Baratheon's domain."

"He's been dead for over a hundred years Rhaenyra, the new ruler, Gendry Baratheon will allow you to visit him after I explained everything to him. but the problem I foresaw was that once such a dragon reaches full maturity, there will be no way of hiding its presence unless confined beneath the earth or rather on a mountaintop or beneath the sea."

"By the time it reaches full maturity, there will be no point in hiding him, at that point in time I will be sending out doves to all kingdoms and houses about my revival and my new purpose"

"It is better to let me send out the messages, a Targaryen woman with dragons claiming to come and save everyone with her dragons will not be received kindly, given what your ancestor Daenerys did to this city."

"I understand, In addition to hatching seven eggs in total, I must also bear seven children, your grace. Six dragons for each of my children. I would love for my first child to bond with the lightning dragon."

"Rhaenyra, as much as I would love to honor that wish, there is no power in this world to restore the use of my legs."

Darkness enveloped them both, and that familiar cold gripped him once more.

Rhaenyra's eyes turned as black as dragon glass. "You dare say there is no power beyond what you can see that can help you. Yet you stand in the presence of my emissary that I brought back with my own power. If restoring the long-dead back to a youthful life is not enough, then perhaps you need more convincing. You may have greensight, but you still can't see what's going to happen. Let this dark miracle turn you from lukewarm to a fervent believer in my power."

A million ravens sprang out from Bran to form a barrier of spikes and dark thorns to protect him. The whole world seemed to have been split in half as A shadow emanated from Rhaenyra and grew taller until Bran was faced with The Stranger itself. With a sharp glare, Bran's defenses were made impotent before the presence of it.

"You, oh young broken king, have a crucial role to play in this mission, now stand!" using Rhaenyra's possessed hands, it pierced through his pants and into his thighs, causing immense pain to Bran. "AND BEAR WITNESS TO MY POWER!!"

"AAAFHHHHH!!!" Bran cried out in horrible pain. It has been a long time since he has felt anything, and the pain was the first thing he forgot about since becoming the three-eyed raven. The searing pain felt like molten iron replacing his normal blood. Power, heat, vigor, new life, and something else, something hidden coursed through his mind body, and soul.

Bran clenched possessed Rhaenyra's forearms in a futile attempt to wrench her off him, but her whole being felt as weighty as a mountain, a mountain of darkness and shades that punctured through his legs to the very bone. Rhaenyra's black possessed eyes stared back at Bran's whose eyes turned like that of a raven's, glowing and burning with power.

As fast it had happened, Rhaenyra, now free of The Stranger's possession, fell over limp while Bran fainted on his seat.

"THE KING IS HURT!!" Shouted Sir Malcolm, he and his knights that kept the gardens secured hurried over to his grace and Rhaenyra.