Prince Aegon Targaryen
Aegon spent the last night in Volantis with Viserra again. Everything was ready from the evening, Dennis evicted to his rooms, slaves forbidden to disturb the masters under threat of flogging, so in the morning Aegon woke from a persistent sunbeam hitting him right in the eye. Squinting displeasedly, he raised himself on an elbow, when suddenly a ringing, melodious laugh rang out.
"You should see your face!" laughed Viserra, setting aside a small mirror. She sat at the foot of the bed, naked and beautiful in the rays of the morning sun; white gold hair fell in waves over her shoulders onto her chest, barely covering nipples, and seemed to glow from within.
"This is my usual face in the mornings," grumbled Aegon. "But with you the beginning of the day becomes at least acceptable."
"Only acceptable? Not wonderful, not the best in the world?"
"Only you are wonderful here," the Prince wriggled out. "But still have to get out of bed, and that is already a significant drawback."
"At least you need not do it right now," remarked the Gela and reached for a kiss.
"Indeed," he muttered.
They emerged from the chambers shortly before noon, both ready for send-off. Saera met them at the bottom of the stairs with a condescending smile and a sympathetic look.
"Dennis has already checked and rechecked everything," announced the aunt. "They are waiting for you."
"In what mood did the dear cousins depart?" inquired Aegon as casually as possible, in no hurry to release Viserra's hand.
"In a bad one. Jaegaer has a hangover, and Maerys is offended at you both that you did not come out to see them off."
"He will get over it," waved off the cousin.
That awkward pause hung when the time for parting came, which no one desires, but which will inevitably come. Aegon wanted to say too much to Viserra which she did not let him say in bed in the morning, but did not want to speak before his aunt, and asking her to leave them alone was impolite—they were already given more time than due, and allowed more than they should have been. Saera, of course, was far from a haughty Westerosi matron trembling over her daughter's honor, but proprieties still had to be observed. Even if they reeked of Andalism from a mile away.
The women seemed to expect something from him, so Aegon, twirling the cane in his hand, stepped to his aunt, pressed his lips to the extended hand, and said:
"We shall return."
"I hope so," responded the retired Triarch sarcastically.
Turning to Viserra, the Prince could not hold back and kissed her, almost chastely compared to what happened upstairs; pulling away, he looked into violet eyes, more beautiful than which he had not seen in the world, and promised only her:
"I shall return."
"And I shall say everything," Aegon managed to think before she kissed him back, and thoughts treacherously left his head. Barely forcing himself to tear away under his aunt's chuckle, the Prince turned and hastily went out to the palanquin waiting for him; the main thing is not to look back, otherwise he will definitely not leave the red-and-black house.
Reaching the hippodrome, under Dennis's significant silence he scratched Vermithor, nervous due to the rider's long absence and now sniffing him with interest. Surely Aegon smelled of Viserra's perfume; the smell was not unfamiliar to the dragon, but the Prince felt his thoughts flow; the Bronze Fury remembered, compared facts, put one with another, and thought through options until a mental image of a fresh clutch of silvery-bronze eggs was born in his horned head.
"Keliemās!" (Stop it!) Aegon was indignant and slapped the lizard who thought too much of himself on the nose. The lizard in response doused him with his breath and purred, laughing. Striving to change the subject, the Prince inquired of Dennis: "Does it not seem to you his breath became less acrid? Smoke from nostrils seems to have become more transparent."
"You know best, my Prince," muttered the knight, averting his gaze and tugging at one of the straps solely for show.
"To the Seven Hells with you all!"
And under joint human-dragon giggling the Prince climbed into the saddle.
Aegon lived in Volantis a little less than half a year, but when Vermithor rose from the arena, heavily flapping wings, and laid a circle of honor over the First Daughter, his heart ached almost more than at departure from Dragonstone. Across the Narrow Sea he left family and everyone he ever knew, everything familiar to him; behind the Black Walls he left her whom he fell in love with. That is why he could quite imagine that degree of despondency that seized the exiled Jaegaer; Maerys seemed to have managed to survive the death of Laegon, with whom he was acquainted, and expulsion beyond the limits of his native city, and refusal of friendly send-off even the day before—for him all this remained in the past, in yesterday, and now existed only adventure, journey, road, at the end of which loomed unfamiliar lands and alien customs of unfamiliar peoples; in a word, he lived in enthusiastic anticipation. Aegon even rejoiced that the enthusiastic cousin set off by land, though he tried to tag along as a fellow traveler.
As befitted Old Blood, the cousins did not travel alone; at their mother's insistence, they limited themselves to a minimum of servants, and for the sake of speed and secrecy set off with a dozen tattooed slaves. They left the Black Walls scarce had dawn broken, but Aegon preferred to use the last chance to meet the morning without internal cursing and with all conveniences; in the end, with Vermithor he will not only catch up but overtake the cousins.
Empty brown and brownish fields and plantations of the Old Blood floated beneath them, entangled with grey ribbons of canals. Winter outside the city was obviously dirty, slushy, and chilly: had it not been for the prudently donned Pentoshi cloak, Aegon would have chilled instantly in the skies.
They flew east, orienting on the straight and even, like a line on Uncle Vaegon's drawing, Valyrian road connecting Volantis with the former Lands of the Long Summer; once it connected the Valyrian City with the main outpost of the Freehold on the Rhoyne, and now was considered the most dangerous route to Slaver's Bay. Somewhere in the Painted Mountains the road of stone burned by dragonfire and ancient blood magic received the name Demon Road; every third who stepped on it died on the way.
In another situation the choice of refuge would be more than dubious, in the circumstances in which Saera's family found itself, it looked at least a not bad alternative to hostile Ghiscari cities. Slaver's Bay, although it traded with the New Freehold, disliked Volantenes, therefore it was to be expected that a dragonrider would not be met too warmly there either. Into Mantarys—the edge of the world in Volantene understanding—killers if they poked their noses, would do so only having thought seven times. The city was guarded by the bad fame of the last inhabited land before cursed and lost Valyria, the bad fame of the deadly dangerous Demon Road on which it stood, and, finally, the bad fame of its inhabitants themselves. It was assumed that precisely these circumstances should serve as a shield for Jaegaer and help him wait out a couple of months, during which the scandal in Volantis would settle and one could return under the protection of the Black Walls.
Vermithor flew leisurely, stretching after a long break, and the Westerosis reached the Volantene border outpost in the ruins of an old fortress abandoned after the fall of Valyria only by the end of the second day. Here they spent another couple of days waiting for the cousins' detachment.
Aegon and Dennis carefully watched as a dot appearing on the horizon gradually increased, fell apart into separate figures of riders, approaching the hill on which the dragon and his people spent the night. Looking at how the small detachment gloomily unsaddled horses (not even the best from Aunt's stables), the knight inquired of his suzerain:
"A dozen slaves! And why am I alone with you?"
"Actually, there are two reasons," answered Aegon absently. "Firstly, it would be hard for Vermithor, he is not a ship after all."
"He is better than a ship, he flies in the sky."
"That requires a little more strength than rowing with oars, you know."
"And the second reason?"
"Secondly, you cope perfectly alone, others would only hinder you."
Squinting at the sworn shield, Aegon could not suppress a smile looking at his lengthened face.
"You know, my Prince," finally delivered Dennis. "You are sometimes a bastard of rare degree."
"Only 'sometimes'?"
The knight snorted and rose from the stone on which he sat at the approach of the eikses; Dennis never forgot that even youths born in a "base" marriage in a foreign land were grandsons to the Old King.
Maerys evidently already managed to forget the offense at his cousin and now, flashing a white-toothed smile, hastened to share news and impressions—for the first time he climbed so far east from the Black Walls. Jaegaer, on the contrary, looked gloomy; black circles lay under his eyes, and the face itself was swollen; a smell of fumes distinctly emanated from Saera's eldest son.
"Did you drink or what?" Aegon was not too surprised, but the cousin's behavior could not fail to alarm.
"Does not dry out," betrayed the brother Maerys. "Laps brandy every day. Rides, drinks, and pukes."
"And how have you not fallen from the horse yet?"
"Oh, he was dangerously close to that, but they did not let him."
The eldest cousin meanwhile gloomily sat on the boulder vacated by the knight and pulled out the mentioned flask, but the Prince extended a hand and without much difficulty snatched it from his hands.
"What the hell?!" Jaegaer was indignant.
Aegon just as silently sniffed the swill and without regret poured it onto the dry stony ground.
"What are you doing?! It is not yours!"
Instead of an answer, the raging cousin received the cane pommel on the crown of his head.
"Calm down," the Prince cut off all objections calmly but firmly. "Laegon is dead. You are not to blame. Unforeseen shit happens in life, who if not I knows. You are a dragon, so do not disgrace your blood, Jaegaer."
"I am not a dragon," he grumbled, rubbing his head.
"Dragon. Like your brother and sister, like me. Your mother is the daughter of Jaehaerys Targaryen, First of His Name, King of the Seven Kingdoms, and his sister-wife Alysanne the Good Queen. You are a dragon at least by half."
"I have no wings and tail. And I do not breathe flame."
"It is useless," sighed Maerys. "He is drunk."
"So let him sober up. Hey, you!" shouted Aegon to the slaves sitting on the ground nearby. "Which of you is senior?"
"I, eiks," answered a burly fellow with skin bronze from ingrained tan; spiral tattoos covered his cheeks and shaved head, like Tala, the head slave in the red-and-black house.
"Pour out all the wine you have," ordered the Prince. "On the other side of the hill is a stream, get water there."
"You are cruel," stated Jaegaer gloomily, watching slaves destroy his stocks of alcohol.
"And unjust."
"You are a bastard."
"Oh, yes, I am that son of a bitch."
"Well, do not encroach on our mother's titles," Maerys tried to defuse the situation with a frankly forced and unfunny joke.
Jaegaer silently snatched the water flask extended by one of the slaves and immediately sucked it dry, throwing it further away in anger, for which he earned another poke with the cane, this time under the ribs. Rearing up with desperate cursing, the cousin sat further away.
"He will sober up and calm down," his younger brother spoke in an apologetic tone.
"I know," shrugged Aegon indifferently.
"How?"
"We are kin. Daemon behaves the same way."
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