Chapter Text
Of all the Dragons of House Targaryen, the fiercest was, without a doubt, Cannibal. Cannibal was first the mount of Daenys Windwalker, the bastard daughter of Aegon the Conqueror. Daenys had claimed the great flesh-eater at eight namedays, riding them in secret until she had seen Seventeen years, just before her father and step-mothers began The Conquest. It would be the work of another book entirely to tell her life's story with any justice, and I will not endeavor here to tell all of the tale.
(-Fire and Blood, by Archmaester Gyldayn)
Daenys, the girl's mother had named her. The bastard child of her brother-husband was a tiny thing, with eyes that saw too much, for her young age. There was a deep wisdom, in her infant face. Visenya held the girl to her breast, a strange, motherly instinct filling her chest. She should have hated the child for being living proof of her husband's infidelity- were two wives not enough for the man?- but the child looked so much like Valaena Velaryon had, when she lived still, and Visenya had loved her mother. She could not bear to hate the bastard child who now wore her mother's face.
"You will not have an easy life. Your father seeks to make himself a king, and a King's bastards will never have an easy life," Visenya said, softly, bouncing the child in her arms. "Already you face the cruelties of the world. Mother dead, father only caring enough about your life to put you up and try to hide you from my wrath- as if I could harm my own niece. You did not ask to be born."
She put the child back in her crib, wiggling a finger in her face, smiling softly as the child grabbed at the offending digit, gumming at it. "I am not Rhaenys, sweetling. She is soft, and kind, and could be a gentle mother, to you."
But the child would screw up her little face and scream, whenever Rhaenys drew near, and seemed endeared with Visenya, most of all. "I cannot be a mother, I know not how. My womb is empty, my heart blackened and shriveled. I cannot give you what you need, sweet niece, not even milk."
But the infant smiled up at her, and Visenya knew she would kill, if it meant keeping this child safe. She turned to the wet nurse her fool of a brother had picked out- a competent enough woman, it seemed, the only wise choice he had made in the whole mess- and nodded at her. "You will bring her to me at midday, every day, from now on, and you will report any… issues to me, before my husband. You understand?"
"Perfectly, my lady," the woman said, and Visenya nodded.
"Good. Then I will see you at midday tomorrow."
She smiled at the infant, one final time, then left the room.
Daenys grew quickly, it seemed. Far faster than Visenya remembered growing up, but then, she was an odd girl, prone to silence and unwilling to meet anyone's eyes. It was like Visenya had blinked, and her niece was seven. She called Visenya "Mama", still, and still came to her when she was scared, as any child would go to their mother. She had never been one to cry, as a babe, and cried rarer still as a child. She was a happy girl, and Visenya found that she didn't mind the rumors that said that Aegon would name the girl his heir. The girl was seven years of age, now, had survived through a winter of three years that was just now ending. If this was the future of the Targaryen family, then it was a secure one. She had wed her brother for duty and affection, yet found that she didn’t mind that their marriage was a childless one. Daenys was child enough for her, Visenya thought.
Even those who loved her best found Visenya stern, serious, and unforgiving; some said that she played with poisons and dabbled in dark sorceries. In her book “The Daughter of Conquerors”, Daenys Windwalker writes that Visenya “Expected from others no more or less than she expected from herself, and knew as much of healing and science as any maester, if not more. She was firm, and neither bent nor broke even under the greatest of pressures.”
(-Fire and Blood)
Orys wanted a feather bed, a hot bath, and a willing woman to take into both, but the battle was not yet won, and so pleasure would have to wait. The pirates, Tyroshi flesh-peddlers, had struck Dragonstone while it was unattended by Lord or Ladies, only himself and his niece. Daenys was at his side in battle, though they had long been separated by the rush of the crowd. There were at least fifty further ships, and defenders of the dragonisle were slowly but surely faltering under the waves of bodies. He heard a scream of rage and terror, and he turned, for he knew that voice.
His niece was surrounded by twelve different men, a net impeding her movements as they closed in on her. Orys began to fight in her direction, desperately calling men to his side as the slavers tried to restrain Daenys.
The fighting paused, then, as an unfamiliar roar rang down from the Dragonmont. He knew the cries of his sibling’s dragons as well as he knew the voices of Aegon and their sisters, and this was none of them. This sound was something perhaps older, more primal at its core, than any of them were capable of producing. He could make out a shape in the distance, bearing down towards the battlefield, and he had just a moment to yell “GET DOWN!”, and then follow his own order, before the unknown dragon bathed the sky in fire. Men were screaming all around him, and the beast, some forty feet long, scales blacker than even Balerion’s, landed just before his niece. Orys, face covered in sweat and mud, watched it smack two of the men away with its whip-like tail, slashing a third clear in half with the tip. Two more men met their fate between its roaring jaws, and then the others began to flee. He watched as Daenys pulled an arm free of the net and throw a set of daggers, one, two, three, four, five, with icy precision, into the necks of the fleeing men, and the dragon gleefully lit the corpses aflame as Daenys cut her way free.
It turned, and Orys could feel it growling through the ground, but Daenys was fearless, keeping her head down and her arms loose, until the beast held its head to hers, eyes closing as it seemed to purr in contentment, like a monstrous cat.
“Men of Dragonstone!” he heard his niece call. “To me! To me! For Dragonstone!”
She mounted the dragon then, yet did not sit on its back as her father or her aunts might have. Instead she stood, clinging to one of the spikes, with a stolen spear of what looked to be Valyrian Steel thrust up into the air. She and the dragon roared together, taking to the sky, and he and all the men of Dragonstone answered her call, charging forward, down towards the shore. The rush of battle was truly upon them, now, all of them, and it seemed to be upon his sweet, quiet niece the most. She did not call out commands to her dragon (for it must have been her dragon. Even Orys, who had never been a dragon rider, knew that a dragon chose its rider one way or another), but seemed to roar in its own tongue, jets of flame and sharp changes of direction following but a moment later each time she did. They burned the Tyroshi fleet, the ships seeming to explode under the heat. Men didn't even have time to scream before the heat killed them, and if they hadn't been trying to abduct and enslave his niece only moments before, Orys might have felt pity for them.
He'd always loved his niece, deeply, fiercely. Life wasn't easy for bastards, even the best treated and loved ones. Aerion Targaryen had barely looked at Orys his entire life, other than to beat him senseless when he dared to do better than Aegon with a blade. Aegon, bless him, loved his daughter for true, but rarely cared to track her when she would vanish into the hills and valleys of their island for weeks on end. Rhaenys would have probably shipped the girl off to be a septa if left to her own devices, simply to mock Visenya. In truth, it was only Orys and Visenya who truly cared for Daenys, in all their family. Clearly his niece had been hiding a secret, and a large one, at that. Daenys would never escape the ideas of lower men to make her the heir of Aegon, not now, not anymore. At seventeen namedays she would be too old to wed any of her half-siblings, when they should be born, and thus there would be lickspittles and schemers and plotters always awaiting her, trying to whisper poison in her ears, or her children’s ears, or her grandchildren’s ears, should any of them claim a dragon for themselves.
It was after this attack on his home and daughter that Aegon truly set forth to conquer. Daenys, now declared a princess before all the men of Dragonstone, flew North, landing in Winterfell’s Wolfswood under a flag of peace. Torrhen Stark, King of the North, met with her, and after several hours, before all of the castle and his household, he knelt to Daenys and pledged House Stark to Aegon’s forces, and all the North with them. In return, Daenys bid him to stand and declared that he would retain the title of King, and her father would be his Emperor, as it was in Valyria of Old. “Loyalty is to be rewarded,” she said, as recorded to history by Winterfell’s Maester. “And you, who have yet to face my father in combat yet have acknowledged his might, are the most loyal of all. Hail the King in the North!” she cried, and Cannibal roared in response, and the Kings of the North were forever sworn to House Targaryen. Daenys took King Torrhen’s cousin, Lyarra, as her handmaiden, and Lyarra served under Daenys until the Windwalker’s death, many years later.
(-Fire and Blood)
She was a pretty girl, without a doubt, the kind Brandon would have liked to take to bed and see about getting a bastard on. His bastard brother was weak for a willing and pretty girl, and Daenys, daughter of Aegon Targaryen, was probably the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He loved his wife, and would never betray her, of course, but Daenys Windwalker was beautiful like the sight of home after a long journey. Her dragon, too, was a wonder, for all that the beast was still wild, and would not take a saddle.
“Cannibal is not my dragon, I am his Princess,” Daenys said, as if sensing Torrhen’s thoughts. “My father and my aunts bonded in the Valyrian fashion, and have the minds f their dragons at the backs of theirs, ready to guide and command just as easily as they are commanded now, should the need ever arise. A dragon and its rider become one, after a time, in the Valyrian fashion, an echo of one living on in the other, driving them mad. Cannibal and I will mourn, but we will still be ourselves, when the time comes to part.”
She was seated in the dirt, back to her dragon’s ribs, mindlessly strumming a harp. A Valyrian steel spear lay in the ground at her side, and she seemed to fit into the Wolfswood like she was born to be there. It was an entirely casual setting, as if they were merely two friends speaking. “My grandfather was of the North, did you know?” she asked after a moment. “Not Lord Aerion, but my mother’s father. He had been a Mormont man, taken by an Iron Island raider. He escaped, leading a rebellion, and ended up on Dragonstone. I was raised by my Aunt Visenya, yes, but I would go, when I could, and meet the family of my mother. Tis why I volunteered to come North, you see, for my grandfather died only a few months ago, and wished his bones to rest on Bear Island once more.”
“A noble goal, my Lady,” Torrhen said, for it was, if she spoke truly. It made sense. Even though they were quite occupied with the Riverlands, as a rule, the Ironborn were a nuisance to everyone, and especially to the Bear Islanders. “And where will you go, after that?”
“Back to my father’s side, King Stark. I’m rather skilled with diplomacy, and I feel that my father will need that, before his war of conquest is over.”
“A velvet glove to his hand of steel, then.”
The dragon rider laughed, deep in her belly, and her dragon seemed to laugh alongside her. She laughed until she began to cry, nearly, then wiped her eyes away, and said through her mirth “Ah, King Stark, if only you knew. My father is a man of peace, at his core. Conquest, yes, but in the name of peace. There need be no further war between any kingdom if all are ruled by one man. Tis my Aunt Visenya who is the iron fist, in truth. She is fierce, and it is from her that I learned to rule, no matter my skill for diplomacy.”
Her dragon let out a flare of smoke, and she pet its wing, soothing it. “I believe one could say that I speak softly, but carry an incredibly large stick. It’s a talent not enough people understand, I find.”
Torrhen scoffed, amused. “I could agree. Well then, speak plainly, while your big stick is still fresh in my mind; what is it your father wants of me?”
“Submission without war, in essence. If you submit to his authority, then the North will retain a measure of freedom greater than the other realms. Your line of Kings will remain kings, and the North will be guaranteed two seats on my father’s council at all times. You will pay taxes only on goods exported to other kingdoms in the realm, and that only in summer years. In Winter, any taxes paid will be given to the Night’s Watch.”
These foreign, Valyrian conquerors wished to pay homage of some sort to the Night’s Watch? That was… well, it was a surprise, to say the least. “If I might be so bold, that was your influence, wasn’t it?” Torrhen guessed, and the Valyrian bastard laughed, nodding. She seemed very mirthful, quick to laughter and slow to wrath, even as she avoided any and all eye contact.
“You might say so, yes, though you can blame my grandfather, in truth. You may think me a fool if you wish, but he told me stories of the Others and their wights as a little girl, and I've had nightmares of them ever since. My father has had… similar dreams, of spiders larger than hounds, of a wall of magic collapsing upon the blowing of a horn. Valyrians, especially Targaryens, have prophetic dreams, at times. Perhaps it is folly, but my father and I have decided it is wiser to be safe than to find our descendants very, very sorry.”
Torrhen cocked a brow, but didn't laugh. There was fear in her eyes, genuine fear of stories they had both been told as children. How could he laugh, when he was the King of the North, the Stark, descended from Brandon the Builder, who had made the Wall with the Giants and the Children? “I will mock thee not, my lady,” he assured her. “We of the North know the tales that haunt your dreams well enough.”