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He stands, looking in the mirror, thinking. He wonders what he is, what he truly is, beyond the thing that he appears as, the thing which he knows he is not. He sees a boy of seven, short but strong, with soft pale skin and soft pale hair and pale violet eyes. The boy is covered in a red velvet doublet and black leather pants that are still a bit too big for it. The red seems right to him, it is the proper color for him to be, he thinks. Bright, angry, strong. But it is not yet the true him. The velvet is soft on his skin and that is wrong. Its cloying warmth and tender smoothness suffocates and burns at the flesh. It is the only thing that burns him.
The hands of the boy in the reflection move to the ties at the center of the doublet, undoing them one by one. Once undone, it pulls at the fabric, removing it from the body and letting it fall to the floor. The thing revealed underneath was not as revelatory as he had hoped. It was just more of the same. Pale, tender, spotted flesh. It should not have been a surprise, he had seen it before, seen it every day, yet its persistent dogged reappearances were still as grand disappointments as ever.
He stills, staring at the cruel apparition in the mirror. Its hands curl into fists, he feels the sharp pain of nails digging into him. It relieves him some. He stares and stares, but no matter how much he stares the vision of that thing which he is not does not relent, does not fix itself. There is red dripping from the fists now. It cools his anger. He breaks. His stillness cannot persist, he tires of the anger, tires of the wrongness, he can not stand it any longer. He turns from the tormenting glass, and the body flops on the bed that stands next to the mirror. He feels weak, he feels wrong, he hates himself he hates this body he hates the mirror he hates the velvet he hates the bed he hates he hates he hates he hates
The blood on his hands is not enough. It does not cool him anymore; it only reminds him of his prison, only outlines the arms he is stuck in as it drips down those pitiful fleshy things, compressing him into this smallest form infinitely more than he can bear. He scrambles in the blankets, frantically scrubbing the blood from him, scrubbing until he is raw, until he can feel it no more. He wants his outburst to be explosive, be violent, be strong, but the more he tries the more he feels nothing more than a pathetic, miserable little child lashing out at his bedsheets. But he is not, he cannot be he can’t he won’t he can’t he’s not he’s not
The body falls off the bed, and the floor feels better. The floor is hard and cold and right and real. He sits up, and is once again looking in the mirror. The boy looks back at him. There is a spot on its shoulder where it hit the ground that is an angry red blotch on its soft pale skin. The red spot aches, it pulses, it feels. It feels right, it feels real. He stares at it, in wonder. The boy sits up, touching the red spot. It is hot, it burns. It moves its hand, just as it did to untie its doublet before, but this time in a fist. The smeared drying blood stains its hands and forearms. It delights him, encourages him, pushes him forward.
The fist rears up and slams down into the chest. He feels it, coughing, gasping. It was not as hard as he would have liked, but a start. It felt good, it felt right. In the mirror though, it was not right. It turned the skin white for a moment, then showed a few small fleeting spots of that desired red, then returned to what it was before. He needed more. So he rears up the fist again, with more determination and less fear, and brings it down once more. It does not react much differently than its disappointment of an older brother. So he does it again, and again, and again, and again and again and again and again again again again again again until he is choking for lack of air, gasping, heaving and red. There is red in the face that looks back at him in the mirror, and red on the chest that follows beneath it. The red on the face will fade soon, he knows, but the red on the chest will last for at least some time.
For the first time today, the boy in the mirror smiles. It is a wide, wild grin that he can feel deep in these bones that are not his. So again, he beats that fist down into that chest, beats again and again, like the beat of a war drum, like the march of an army, like the step of a dragon that crushes that army and that drumbearer and the castle and the stupid puny body he is stuck in now, he beats and beats and beats and beats, as fast as he can, fast as his heartbeat, faster, faster still, until he can beat no more.
The boy keels over, coughing and spitting and laughing. He laughs and laughs, and the body shakes and shakes. When he catches his breath, he looks up, at the mirror once again. The chest is red all over, red and aching and pulsing. He can feel his heartbeat in the fingertips, the neck, the eyes, and for the first time, he truly feels that they are his.
He sits, and he relishes in the pain, in the red, admiring his work. But eventually, the ache begins to fade, not completely, but even so, as it lessens he cannot help but feel like his very being has turned to sand, slipping through his fingers and disappearing into the cold, hard ground. And the red too is fading away from him, the sickly pale thing that the boy in the mirror was before starting to return.
It cannot stand. It must last longer, he must beat harder.
He stands, looking around his room, searching for something big and heavy. His wardrobe would be perfect, but it is too big, unmoveable. He thinks of when Father would bring the belt on him. It would be suitable, if it worked, but it wouldn’t, he is not as strong as Father, he needs something harder. His eyes land on the wooden practice sword he used in the yards. It is not as heavy as he was thinking, but it makes for a good hitting shape, and it is hard. He takes it up, at first holding it as he would in the yards, then realizing he’ll need to readjust to hit his intended target. It is awkward in that small hand, angling it inward to the chest of the boy who will be red. He draws it back, and just as he wielded the fist, he swings it into that still gently aching chest as hard as he can bring himself to. The wood cracks against his skin, leaving it stinging. But it is not enough. So again, he whips it in, and again. He cannot go as fast as he would like, the animal instinct to avoid pain stopping him from doing what he knows he is meant to, but he persists.
It is a long, agonizing, and exhilarating process. The sun through his window is tired, barely able to keep itself in the sky, and he will surely be called to supper soon. But it is alright, because he has succeeded. The whole of his chest is pounded red and raw. Some of the hits had even drawn blood, which he simply let run down his chest while he continued. He feels wonderful. He can barely move.
From beyond the door across his chamber from where he lay crumpled on the ground, he hears a short series of knocks, and the small voice of a serving girl calling out to him “Prince Aerion? Are you in there? Your Prince Father requests your presence in the banquet hall. Dinner is to be served.”
“Yes, tell him I will be there anon.” he barked back at her. He did not know the names of any servants but he recognized this one by how she spoke. She was always meek and sniffling, mumbling and never lifting her eyes from the ground as if he would bite her head off if she did. Maybe he would. The thought of such a simpering fool put a spot on his good mood, but he brushed it easily away.
The little blood that smeared on his skin was drying, and no longer freshly bleeding, so he feels no need to wipe it off. He staggers to his feet, which of course makes him ache all the more, the pain forcing him stumbling to the nearby wall for support. He makes his way to where his doublet lay, next to the bed, next to the mirror. He looks in it once more as he wraps the doublet back around the body, at the smiling, bloody, red thing that stares back at him. Not him, not yet, but closer, so much closer. He may even find out what he is soon.
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He has continued with his ritual beatings, painting his skin red semi-nightly, but still he feels they are not enough. No matter how hard or fast or much he hits, when he awakes the next morning, the red is gone. Often it is replaced with a purple, a dark purple, almost black. The bruises are not as right as the red, but they are better than the paleness, and he can feel the ache again when he presses into them. But he wants more.
He cannot hit all over, he has learned. Once he tried hitting one of the wrists, and a deep blue-and-yellow bruise blossomed on it. He thought it beautiful, but when Daeron saw it, he mocked him.
“Have you managed to lose a battle to your bedpost little brother?”
And so he learned he could not mark anywhere that others could see, lest they think him weak. He is not weak. He is stronger than any of them, they could not do what he does. But nonetheless, he keeps his fleshed paintings to places only he will see. They will see what he is eventually, and it is then they will know how magnificent and horrible he is.
He is searching for something that will mark him more permanently, something that will last. First, he thinks to cut himself. Father has battle scars that will stay with him forever, and scars like that would certainly suit him well. So one night he tries, taking the small ornate dagger Father gave him for his last name day and placing its sharp edge on his right breast. He pushes it in, but the skin does not break. So he pushes in again, harder, but it does no good. He thinks maybe he must drag the blade across his skin to get its bite. This thought scares him, fills his bones with that creeping, itching unsureness and he hates it. As he sits there like a worthless craven, too much of a child to really strike, the moments pass by like hours. Eventually, he thinks works up the courage to swipe the blade down from where it rested on his breast, but it was a mummer's courage, false and fleeting. When he drags that blade down, all his strength abandons him, and the instinctual need to protect himself from harm takes over. He throws the dagger into the wall from where he sits on the bed. The chest within which he resides remains bloodless and uncut.
Cuts and blades are not the way, he thinks. To be cut is to be penetrated, to be weakened and he is not weak, that is why the thought of pushing the blade back into his chest sickens him. He needs something else, something better, something more like him.
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That night he dreams of fire. A great fire, all throughout his bedchamber, surrounding him, trapping him. He tries to run but it makes no use, and he is swallowed by the flames, which work their way under his skin, down his throat, into his lungs, into his bones, until he is more fire than boy. But it does not hurt. Even as he falls to his knees, choking, gasping, drowning in the fire he feels a sense of belonging that he never feels awake. The flames wrap around him, warming him, comforting him, just as his Mother did when he was a babe.
When he awakens, he cannot stay in bed. Even after throwing off all the covers, he is still burning hot. For the rest of the night he sits in the window, letting the cool night air settle him. Even so, he does not sleep much the rest of the night.
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Since that night, he has taken to wearing chainmail under his clothes when he can, at feasts, during lessons, even asleep. He will soon outgrow the only mail he has, a small hauberk for practice in the yards that had belonged to Daeron until he became too big for it, but that was little matter. Father was always so proud of him when he succeeded in his training, surely he’d be happy to commission him another. The mail made him feel good, grounded him, cooled him down from the fire that always raged inside him. It was cold and hard and real, and it felt more like him than almost anything else. It was not smooth and tender like the flesh that covered him, but rough and uneven, a rippling pattern of rings that guarded him with their despondent beauty.
And that is not the only way he is getting closer to becoming himself. After his dream, he realized what he should have been doing from the very start. Fire and Blood are the words of his family, but he need not deal in blood yet. Fire is what calls to him now.
He started by holding a hand up to a candle's flame. It felt wonderful, the stinging warmth nipping at his skin, but for the purposes he had, the purposes of permanently marking him, burning away the false flesh and revealing whatever hid underneath, it was not enough, it took too long to scar, and when it did they hardly lasted. He needed something more concentrated.
So, he took his dagger and held it over the candle, slowly moving it back and forth, ensuring the whole of it was well and truly hot. Once he was certain, seeing the blue-gold veins of heat pulsing through it, he took it off the fire and pressed it horizontally into his stomach. It hurt more than he expected it to, more than plain fire would’ve, but he held fast, keeping it to his skin until the knife was no longer burning. When he took it away, the skin beneath showed the meaning of white hot. There was a stark-white spot in the center, with taught red skin on the edges. After some hours, the white spot would form a bubble filled with puss, and after it burst, a soft white patchwork of interlacing skin took over its place.
It was wonderful, just what he needed. A beautiful burning transformation of the flesh, complementing the cool cover of the mail, and painted over with the addition of a red or gold overshirt. He could finally look in a mirror without despair. At least for a time. A short time.
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Him and Daeron sit in a great open window that overlooks the training yards where boys and men-at-arms fight with dulled swords and straw targets. The pair of princelings were supposed to be at their lessons with the Maester, but Daeron had decided he would not attend today (whether Mother and Father consented to that didn’t seem to matter to him). “The Maester is stupid and droll. Why should I waste my good mind on his bluster and blabber?” And where Daeron went, Aerion followed.
He admires his brother. Daeron is confident, he never cares what is expected of him. He simply does what he will, damn what Father thinks, damn what anyone thinks. Daeron knows what he is, and Aerion envies him greatly.
Aerion watches the yard, Daeron does not. Daeron is playing with his rings and singing softly, a dirty song that Father would surely be wroth if he caught him singing. He has a lovely voice, though he does not think so. Aerion is not the thing Daeron is, that he knows.
They have not been speaking, Daeron is not in the mood it seems, and he is not one to break a silence. Daeron did not ask Aerion to come along, but he allowed it. His eyes have shallow gray-purple bags under them today, something that Aerion has come to notice more and more on his brother's face as of late. Daeron’s song drifts into humming, which itself drifts into puffing air through his lips, then nothing.
“We are to have another brother soon, I think.”
“What?” Aerion’s head snaps away from the dealings in the yard, turning to face his brother.
“I think… I had a dream and…” he trails off, unsure of what he is saying. His eyes are unfocused, pointing at the stone they sit on.
“What? Is- is Mother with child? Did she tell you? When-”
“What? No I- Shut up! Listen for a minute! No one told me anything!”
“Then how do you know?”
“I don’t know, stupid, I think, I said I think. Now shut up!” Daeron pauses, looking forward at his brother now, waiting for him to disobey. But he does not, instead gesturing incredulously for Daeron to continue.
“As I was saying I- I dreamt, last night. I dreamt of a hatching- a dragon's egg hatching. We are the dragons, the- blood… of the dragons is ours.” he stumbles his way through his speech, seeming to think of the words only after he says them.
Aerion stares at his brother, bewildered. “Why would your dream mean anything for us?”
Daeron's eyes have drifted away again, and his voice is once more despondent and wandering “I’ve had dreams before… dreams that come true. In a way.”
Aerion's eyes drift away from his brother’s face as well, settling on his hands in his lap, thinking.
“Shortly before you were born, I should hardly remember it I was so little, but it seems so clear to me, I… I dreamt a similar dream. A dragon’s egg, red and orange and gold, shining with warmth and life, shining like fire and… and it hatched, and a dragon, shining just like the egg burst out, beautiful and burning. And… some months later, you were born. And I think I looked in your crib and I saw that very same dragon shining in your eyes.” Daeron breathes heavy, surprised by the very words he himself was saying.
Aeirion sits. He thinks. A dragon. He looks at his hands. Dragon. He sees his doublet, his red doublet, sees his chainmail. Dragon. His scars, his scales- the men in the yard, small and pitiful and beneath him- dragon a dragon a dragon dragon dragon a dragon-
“And this dream is just the same, except the egg is colored differently. And I have had other dreams of the kind, the Redgrass Field, I saw it in my dreams before it happened, but when Father came home and I told him I did he said I didn't but he was wrong, he doesn’t know.” Daeron’s voice speeds up, growing more frantic as he grows more sure of what he’s saying.
But Aerion hardly hears him. He is lost, falling into his own thoughts- no not falling, flying. He grows lightheaded in the way he only does when he burns. He is soaring high above wherever he was stuck before, the freedom of knowing like a weight off his back. He is heaving by now, completely removed from the physical, from the body in the window.
“Hey!” Daeron snaps at his face “Are you even listening anymore?”
Aerion blinks, brought back down to the ground. “I- yes, your dreams…” he trails off, still coming back to his own mind.
“So… do you believe me?” Daeron seems so unsure of himself now, anxious, in a way that is so unlike him.
Aerion meets his brother's eyes and smiles, leaning in closer to the other boy “Yes, yes of course. Tell me of these dreams, when you have them, please. I would like to know.”
Daeron smiles back, letting out a breath he would not admit he was holding. “I will, I will.” he says nodding. He trails off, not knowing quite what to say anymore “Father has surely been told of our absence by now… might be best we let him find us sooner rather than later, may get less of his wrath that way.” he says unconvincingly. Any other day he would’ve stayed out of Fathers sight as long as he possibly could.
“Yes, I think so. You can go ahead, I’ll come along shortly.”
Daeron nods, shrugging off the window, and meandering down into the castle halls. Aerion stands in the window and watches him leave, once he is out of sight, turning back to the yards, and the faint sounds of wood and steel colliding. A smile grows on his face as he looks down at the small, small men below him in the yards. They are nothing, he thinks, nothing, he knows. He is more, he will be more than any of them. Higher. Stronger.
Brighter.
He spreads his wings, feeling the cool summer air brushing through his scales. And the dragon laughs out the fire that is his breath, delighting in his first taste of flight.