Chapter Text
Viserra looked up from her drink and out the window, her expression as stormy and stony as the seas so far below.
Her gambit with Baelon had failed. She knocked back the rest of her drink at the memory of that awful night.
There was fury that she should be scorned. She, who should have been the most desirable woman in the Seven Kingdoms. Men should be tripping over themselves for her favour. But all she could seem to attract were boys and withered old lechers. But more than anything else she felt hollow rather than heartbroken at the thought.
Baelon had been a fantasy.
What she thought she deserved.
Her family had made it abundantly clear what they thought she deserved.
Old Man Manderly, with four generations under him and one foot in the grave.
That was the sort of alliance she merited.
She poured herself another glass of wine and threw it back much the same way as the last cup.
Baelon had spoken of duty, as if he’d ever had to give anything up for it. Pay any sort of price to fulfil his duty.
She smiled wryly. But then, her father had made it abundantly clear just what a daughter was worth to him.
And she was no longer a girl to delude herself into thinking that a princess was worth more than any other pretty bauble in the treasury. That was what her parents did not understand, they had thought her gambit with Baelon a childish play for power and greed rather than one last desperate attempt at escape.
Baelon needed no sons.
He wanted no woman but his cold, dead Alyssa.
Mother thought she wanted Baelon because she wanted to be Queen. As if she hadn’t seen the way being Queen had made a ruin of her mother.
No, she wanted Baelon because she knew him, what lines he would and wouldn’t cross. And on the off chance she was wrong and he did want children, well, he was handsome enough not to be repulsive, for all that he was a fair bit older than her. Unlike Old Man Manderly.
But that plan had failed.
All that was left was what would come next.
She was a woman now, with a woman’s pride.
So if they wanted her gone, exiled even further than Daella, forgotten like Magelle, never spoken of again like Saera then Viserra would oblige them.
She would fulfil her duty, do as her parents asked of her. She turned her gaze to the Dragonpit.
But she would make them regret asking.
“Aela,” she said, calling for her dragonseed servant.
Saera had taught her the importance of having a passable double very early on.
“Take a change of my commoner’s clothes and take my friends out, the usual crowd. Give them one last party on me,” she smiled wanly, putting a fat purse in her servant’s hands. “I know I planned to do it myself, but … I don’t quite feel up to it.”
There was a moment where Aela met her eyes and the sympathy she found there, it was touching. Someone could recognise how much it hurt her, what her parents asked of her.
She mourned that she wouldn’t be able to take the other woman with her.
But she would be travelling light.
And it would be a long first flight.
Aela took the money, a change of clothes and left to alert the necessary servants.
As far as her family knew she was sneaking out for one last hurrah before she was shipped off the White Harbour, never to see her home again.
Viserra didn’t waste any time after Aela left, she changed herself into a pair of sturdy riding breeches and heavy riding skirt, complete with undershirt, blouse and riding jacket.
She rolled up the marriage cloak complete with the gold and ruby three headed dragon brooch, she had inspected one last time earlier that day and a few of her favourite amethyst pieces as well as some silver stags she used when shopping in the city into her biggest sling bag.
Vain Viserra they called her. And they weren’t wrong. But all that meant was that she didn’t need the jewels she used to ornament herself.
She was the jewel.
She could afford to leave all this behind.
Then she curled up on the floor of her wardrobe the way she used to when she was a child, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
She stayed silent when her mother’s servant came to ask her to diner, closed her eyes as she heard the older woman give her rooms a cursory search and tut quietly when she couldn’t find Viserra.
She didn’t wait long after the old servant left.
Just long enough for the servant to have returned to mother and for them to start eating without her.
Then she uncurled, stiff and aching, tumbling out of the wardrobe into even more darkness.
Of course none of the candles were lit.
The servants didn’t think there was anyone here.
She fumbled her way out of her room and to the wall she knew hid one of Maegor’s passages.
Saera had been better at finding her way in the dark than she was, Viserra thought as she ran her fingers along the wall, searching.
She almost gave up on ever finding the switch blind when finally one of the bricks gave way under her palm.
The pathway opened and Viserra was one her way.
She didn’t have any trouble navigating the path out of the palace. That was one she knew blind drunk.
Sober it wasn’t so difficult, even if she had to do it backwards.
The walk was actually quite nice. It stretched out her tight joints and muscles, readying her for the journey ahead.
It was fairly long walk, but not a difficult one. It was, Viserra supposed, a fair bit easier than her parents had intended for her to make her way to the pit, but really, when it was the one place in the city she was never allowed to enter, under any circumstances … well, Viserra wasn’t stupid.
No matter what her father’s opinion on the matter was.
As she crept close to her destination she watched as the dragonkeepers ran this way and that trying to placate her father’s Vermithor whose growling displeasure was threatening to become true roars of fury.
Viserra let them panic, ignoring them to go deeper.
She passed her mother’s Silverwing who was huffing fussily, going deeper once more.
There was another dragon here that she wanted to speak with.
Not Balerion, no matter what her mother thought, her ultimate goal wasn’t power, for all that she loved her little games.
No, what she wanted was what her Aunt Rhaena had managed to achieve.
Freedom and independence.
But Dreamfyre was a recalcitrant creature.
Much like Viserra, she loved her little games.
She had spent years giving the dragon keepers a merry chase, first around the Crownlands after Aunt Rhaena’s death, then flying briefly over Dragonstone before disappearing.
Two months later she had appeared in one of the deepest caves in the Dragonpit as if she had never been anyone else.
The stress of it all had given her father an ulcer.
It made Viserra think them well suited.
She wandered for what felt like a long time, tracking and back tracking.
There were many dragons in the caves. Vermithor and Silverwing roosted close to the entrances so they could easily reach the sky. Balerion was limited to the very largest of caves and tunnels, so it was easy enough to avoid him. Baelon’s Vhagar roosted rather close to the Black Dread.
Even Aemon’s Caraxes and Rhaenys’ newly claimed Meleys were both here on occasion of their visit to the Capital, in celebration for Viserra’s upcoming nuptials.
Which meant that Dreamfyre was sharing with quite a few dragons these days.
Something Viserra was sure the Blue Lady wasn’t very happy about.
She might even appreciate the flight.
Viserra hoped so.
She walked silently passed empty caves and crept quietly passed a few occupied ones once she had made sure they weren’t the den of the dragon she wished to claim, relying heavily on her vaunted grace.
Eventually, she found what she was looking for.
Blue scales glinted on the bed of embers that Dreamfyre was napping on.
Viserra didn’t have to take more than a single step into the cave before a single yellow eye cracked open to stare at her, unimpressed, as if she wanted to know what had taken Viserra so long.
Viserra lifted her chin to look the Blue Lady in the eye.
No-one else called her that, but even if only in her own mind Viserra always had. It made perfect sense to her. Beautiful, graceful and utterly useless. A problem to be dealt with or managed rather than something of value.
Much like Viserra herself.
Here she was, standing before a dragon, and for the first time she felt as though she had met an equal, a soulmate.
Someone who could look at her and know.
She readjusted the sling bag on her shoulder and arched an eyebrow, asking in high Valyrian, “well, shall we go then?”
Dreamfyre lifted her great head, arching her head down almost close enough for Viserra to touch.
She took an involuntary step forward.
Dreamfyre growled a warning.
Viserra’s other brow rose, “a traditionalist. My apologies My Lady.”
She took a deep breath and tried again, wringing every drop of command her royal blood and upbringing had instilled in her. “Dohaeris.”
Dreamfyre’s growling came to a sudden stop, the hint of teeth disappearing back under her lip as the arch of her neck smoothed into something more accepting, winding around Viserra in something reminiscent of a hug.
She reached out to run her hand along those marvellous blue scales and laughed, long and hard and loud. It was like feeling warmth for the first time.
It was beautiful, magnificent, gorgeous.
It was everything in the world that she never knew she had wanted.
“Let us fly away from here, my love,” she said, pulling the heavy iron pins out the collar they had placed on her Blue Lady.
She worked quickly, threading the chains out through the collar swearing to herself that Dreamfyre would not know such a travesty again, not while Viserra was her rider.
By the bright ember-light the work was easy.
Once the chains were gone she turned her attention to the collar.
She wasn’t strictly against the collar the way she was the chains.
Ornamentation was the due of every lady.
But a collar like this? Dull iron left to blacked and rust?
It was an insult.
She would have to get her husband’s blacksmiths to remove it. Her Blue Lady would stay still for it so long as Viserra was there with her, she was sure of it.
But she was getting ahead of herself.
She wasted no more time, running to the saddle that remained almost permanently belted between Dreamfyre’s shoulders (she was so big that she barely felt it now) and climbed up into it, taking the reins.
She felt Dreamfyre’s muscles ripple under her in anticipation. Viserra felt the same. All that eagerness was almost bursting out of her.
They had waited too long to fly.
“Naejot,” she whispered. Dreamfyre must have felt the word rather than heard it, but she obeyed nonetheless.
She climbed up through the pit with amazing speed. The Dragonkeepers rang the alarm, trying to chase behind, but Dreamfyre was agile and unchained.
They could no more contain her than they could Balerion.
They continued on winding through the caves like the currents Dreamfyre rode. Dreamfyre and Viserra, the both of them together, wild and unrestrained up and up, further and further.
That was their story, Viserra thought, from the deepest pit to the highest of heights. That was the two of them.
They had barely burst out into the open night when Viserra cried out her next command, echoing fierce and final, “Soves!”
Dreamfyre obeyed with all the eagerness she had Viserra’s other orders, launching herself up into the sky.
The bells were tolling.
Viserra was laughing, Dreamfyre was climbing and the bells were tolling.
After a minute Dreamfyre levelled out and Viserra straightened up as they took a turn around King’s Landing.
She watched as riders made for the castle. From so far up above the smell was almost pleasant.
Then she leaned forward twisting the reins once around each gloved hand.
Her hair wasn’t braided enough for this, but she didn’t care.
“Come, my Blue Lady. Forward, to White Harbor.”