Chapter Text
Aerion liked the warmth of his father.
He leaned closer, pressing his cheek against his father’s broad, sturdy chest. Here, in a great bed, Aerion lay between his mother and father. Daeron was there too, beside him. While his mother’s arm was wrapped around his older brother, his father held him close beneath the shelter of his own strong arm.
Aerion lifted his head to look upon his father’s face. He studied it the way he always did when his father was not looking or when his father's eyes were closed, like now. His father had grown a thin beard along his jaw, silver like the color of his hair. There were scars on his cheek. Aerion had touched them once, and his father had only smiled and let him.
They felt different from regular skin. Rougher like the bark of the old tree in the Godswood, just a little. Aerion did not think they were ugly. He thought they made his father look like the knights in the stories. Like someone who had done very brave things and had the marks to show it. He liked them.
The mattress shifted, Daeron moved beside him. He was kicking beneath the blanket, his brow creasing. Aerion’s eyes lingered on him for a while, curious. Perhaps his brother was dreaming. Daeron dreamed a lot. Sometimes, he told Aerion about them in the morning, he would listen very seriously and ask questions. He wondered what Daeron was dreaming about now. Something good, perhaps. Or instead, something that made him want to run.
It was only a little while before Daeron stopped kicking. His face smoothed out again, and he made a small sound, then he was still.
Aerion brought his gaze back to his father and found his eyes were open now. Only halfway, heavy with sleep. He was looking down at Aerion with an expression that Aerion did not have a word for yet, though he felt it like something warm pressed against his chest from the inside. His father kissed the top of his head, then his large hand came up and smoothed Aerion's hair, slow and gentle.
“Sleep, Aerion,” His father whispered. His voice was rough with sleep, barely more than a breath. He pulled Aerion closer, tucking him against his chest as if Aerion were something small and must be kept safe, which, Aerion supposed, he was.
Aerion tried to wrap his own arm around his father, but he could not quite manage it. His arm was too short, and no matter how he stretched his fingers, he could not reach all the way to his father's back. Perhaps when he was bigger, he would be able to do it properly. Perhaps when he was as big as Daeron or as big as his father. He settled for gripping the cloth of his father's tunic in his fist instead and held on.
Aerion liked sleeping like this. He liked it very much. He liked his parents and Daeron nearby, all of them together in one great bed. His own chamber was very scary when he was alone in it. The ceiling was too high, and the bed was too large, and cool, and empty. The only things he could hug were the pillows, and pillows did not hug back.
Here, Aerion could hug his father or his mother, or even Daeron, and they would hug him back. He wanted to ask if they could always sleep like this. Every night, all four of them. He thought he would ask in the morning, when everyone was awake. He would ask very nicely. He would say please.
His eyes were growing heavy. He would sleep now, and when the morning came, he would ask.
The sun finally arose, and his father had already gone by the time Aerion opened his eyes. There was only he and Daeron on the bed. His brother’s eyes were still closed, and he drooled all over the pillow.
Aerion pushed himself into a sitting position. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands and yawned once. He found his mother sitting in front of a mirror, putting earrings in her ears and bracelets on her hands while a maid brushed her long hair.
“Mother,” Aerion called.
“Oh, you’re awake. Good morrow, my little flame,” His mother turned to give him the sweetest smile he ever saw.
Aerion yawned again, then asked, “Where’s father?”
His mother took a moment to think, “Most likely with your uncle Baelor,”
She walked to him, lifting him into her arms, “You’re getting heavier,” she said.
“I’m getting bigger!” Aerion stretched his arms.
“Yes, my little flame, yes,” His mother nodded and kissed his cheek.
His mother turned to the nearest maid, “Prepare warm water for my son. Not too hot,”
“Yes, my lady,”
Soon after, his bath was prepared. Aerion sat patiently on the tub that was half full of warm water while the maids washed him. They did it too slowly for Aerion’s liking. He liked it better when his mother did the washing herself, because she was quicker about it and did not scrub behind his ears quite so hard. But he did not complain. He was trying very hard to be good this morning.
When he was clean and dressed, Aerion went to get his breakfast. Daeron followed him soon to the table after he woke up and washed as well. While they ate together, their mother sat nearby with a cup of something warm between her hands and watched them with soft eyes. There was bread, cheese, milk, soup, grapes, and apples, and there was a tart that Aerion ate too quickly and then wished he had saved some for his brother. Daeron ate slowly and neatly the way he always did, which Aerion found very dull.
When his plates were nearly empty, Aerion looked up at his mother. He had been thinking about asking since he woke up.
“Mother,” Aerion said. “Can we sleep in your chamber again? Tonight? Please?”
His mother looked at him. She smiled, the same sweet smile from before, and she reached across and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear.
“Of course,” she said. “You can sleep in this chamber whenever you want, my little flame. Whenever you wish,”
Aerion felt the happiness come up all at once, warm and bright, straight from his chest to the top of his head. He looked at Daeron to share it. Daeron was trying to look as if he did not care very much, but Aerion could tell he was pleased too, because the corner of his mouth did the thing it did.
They would sleep together again. Tonight, and the night after, and perhaps every night after that. His mother, his father, Daeron, and him. All together in one bed. Aerion was so happy that he could not finish the rest of his breakfast.
But then, it did not happen.
Not that night, and not the night after. His father was gone.
Not gone the way people were gone when they were only somewhere else in the Keep, somewhere findable, somewhere he could walk to. His father was gone in the way that meant away. Gone from King's Landing entirely, somewhere far off that Aerion could not picture properly no matter how hard he tried.
The great bed had only three people in it since his father was away. Aerion had asked his mother where his father had gone. She had lowered herself so that her face was level with his. She took his hands in hers, and she told him that his father had to go and do something important. That there were things that needed handling, things that needed doing, hard and necessary things, so that their family would be safe.
Aerion had listened carefully. He did not like the words, but he tried to understand them.
There were bad people who wanted to hurt his family, and his father was fighting against them.
And so, Aerion waited. He waited for his father to come home, to pull him into his arms once more, to lift him so high it felt as though he were flying, and to lie beside him again at night.
However, they had to go away.
His mother had explained that the bad people were coming closer to King's Landing, and his grandfather had decided they must go somewhere safe. Aerion had nodded very seriously when she told him that. He had not entirely understood all of it. But he understood safe, and he understood grandfather said so, and those two things together seemed like enough.
The women and the children gathered up to board a ship that would sail them to Dragonstone.
Aerion had never been on a ship before. He had thought it would be wonderful. He had thought it would be like the pictures in the books, with big white sails and sunshine and dolphins jumping alongside. He had been very excited about the dolphins.
Apparently, there were no dolphins.
There was only the ship going up and then down and then up again, and the waves pushing it sideways when it was not going up and down. Aerion's stomach felt very strange and unhappy about all of it. Three whole nights, he lay in a small bed, and the ship would not be still. Every time he closed his eyes, the world tilted. Every time he thought maybe now it would stop, it did not stop. He hugged his pillow very tightly, squeezed his eyes shut, tried very hard to sleep, but failed.
By the time Dragonstone came into view, exhaustion had gone all the way from the top of his head down to his feet. From his mother’s arm, he looked at the castle and thought it looked very dark and very pointy and not very friendly. The air here smelled strange too. Like fish, salt and something old he could not name. The wind was strong too here, it kept blowing his hair into his face no matter how many times he pushed it away.
But Dragonstone had many dragons.
They were everywhere. Carved into the walls, the big doors, and the gates. When they went inside, there were more. Dragons were on the chairs, the tables, the staircases, the doorways, and practically everywhere he looked.
Those dragons made Aerion forget about being tired. He walked very slowly through the great hall with his head turning this way and that, looking at all of them with his mouth a little bit open. There was one carved dragon above the fireplace that was very good. It was very big, and it looked very fierce. Aerion thought immediately that it was his favourite and that he would come back to look at it again tomorrow.
Aerion decided Dragonstone was actually quite a nice place.
The days came and went, one after another.
Mostly, he played with Daeron, which was the same as always and therefore comfortable. They played in the hall, the corridors, and sometimes in the yard when the wind was not too bad. They made up games and argued about the rules of them, and then made up new games instead.
Valarr played with them sometimes. He was older than both of them, and he acted like he knew everything, which was a little bit annoying. Sometimes, little Matarys would follow them too if Valarr joined, trotting along on his small legs, and they let him come because he tried so hard to keep up and it seemed unkind not to.
Aerion’s other cousins, Aelor and Aelora, were babies still. They could not walk properly yet, mostly they crawled around on the floor and put things in their mouths that were not food. Aerion had tried to talk to Aelora, but she had just stared at him with her big, round eyes and then grabbed his finger, trying to put it in her mouth too.
When the night fell and the wind howled outside the windows, Aerion curled up close to his mother, thinking about his father. He wished his father were here. He wished it very much.
His father was somewhere being brave, fighting the bad people to keep their family safe. Aerion closed his eyes and thought very hard in the direction of wherever his father was.
Come home, father.
The next day came like any other. The maids washed him in the morning, and he sat still for it, mostly. Then there was breakfast, and then there was playing, and then there was more playing, which was the same as every day at Dragonstone and therefore fine, if not very exciting.
They were in the hall today, where the big map table was placed. Valarr had invented a game that involved running from one end of the hall to the other and tagging the wall, which had been very fun for the first little while and then became less fun when Valarr kept changing the rules so that he was winning.
Aerion decided he was done with that game.
He drifted away from his brother and cousin toward the map table. It was very large and very tall, too tall for him to see properly from the floor. He dragged a chair over, climbed up onto it carefully, and looked down at the carved stone map spread across the table's surface.
He looked at it for a long time. Finding King's Landing and Dragonstone was easy. He could find Starfall too, far away in the south, and Summerhall. Aerion knew Summerhall because he had been there twice with all of his family. They always did many fun things at Summerhall. He liked it there very much. It was warm in a way that was just right, not hot like King's Landing, and not cold and sharp like Dragonstone.
Aerion pressed his finger against Summerhall on the map and then lifted it again. He was trying to find where his father was, but he did not know where to look.
“What is it you are searching for, my prince?”
Aerion looked up. A servant had come to stand across the table. He was not young, but had quite a pleasant smile. Aerion had never seen him around the castle before, or perhaps he already had but forgot.
Aerion thought about the question, then asked, “Where is the battle? Where is my father fighting?”
“Does my prince mean the battles against the Blackfyres and their supporters?”
Aerion was not entirely sure who the Blackfyres were. He knew there were bad people, and his father was fighting them. That was most of what he knew. But Blackfyres sounded like it might be the right word for bad people. He tilted his head, considering, then he nodded.
“Yes,” Aerion said, “Those ones,”
“There have been several battles, my prince. In many different places,” The servant paused, “But two days ago, there was one near King's Landing, in a great open field,”
“People now call it the Redgrass Field because the grass there has turned red with blood,”
Aerion's shoulders pulled inward a little.
“Did my father win?” He asked.
The servant nodded, “Yes, my prince. Prince Maekar and Prince Baelor crushed the rebel army. Prince Baelor brought the lords of the Stormlands and Dorne, and together with your father's shield wall, they broke the Blackfyre’s army entirely,”
Aerion's eyes went very wide. He began jumping up and down on the chair.
"Tell me more!" he said, bouncing. "Tell me everything! Tell me all of it!”
And the servant did. He told Aerion about how the black dragon, Daemon Blackfyre, was struck dead by the arrows of Bloodraven. He told him more details about the great shield wall his father had held, and how Prince Baelor had swept in from the flank, and how the rebel army had broken and run. Aerion listened with his whole body. His mouth opened, his eyes wide. His smile kept growing and growing until it felt like it might not fit on his face anymore.
His father was brave and strong. He had won, and he would come home soon.
Something tugged at the hem of his breeches. Aerion looked down and saw Daeron was standing below him
“Come and play,” Daeron said, looking up at him.
“I don't want to play Valarr's game,” Aerion said, “He keeps changing the rules,”
Daeron considered and found it reasonable.
“All right then," he said easily, "Valarr and I are going to the yard. Come if you want to,”
“All right, brother,” Aerion nodded.
After Daeron went, Aerion turned back to the servant immediately.
“Tell me more," he said, “Anything. Tell me anything else about the battle,”
The servant’s eyes moved to a small pin on Aerion’s shoulder. A little silver dragon that his mother had fastened there this morning.
“Does my prince like dragons?” the servant asked, instead of telling him more about the battle.
“I love dragons,” Aerion said, with great certainty, “Everyone knows that,”
“And would my prince like to have one? A real one?”
Aerion stared and the servant continued.
“Dragonstone was full of dragons once,” The man said, his voice dropping a little like someone telling a good secret.
“They lived beneath the castle, in the caverns inside the volcano. I have been there myself, my prince. I know the way,”
Aerion kept listening.
“When I was there," the servant said, “I found dragon eggs, but not like the ones given to the princes and princesses. Those were different. One of them was warm to the touch. Hot, even. And while I watched–” he paused.
“It hatched. A tiny dragon came out of it. Small enough to fit in two hands,”
Aerion's mouth had fallen completely open. For a moment, he forgot to breathe.
“Is it still there?” Aerion asked.
"As far as I know, yes, my prince,"
Aerion gripped the edge of the map table with both hands, “Take me there, I want to see it. I want it to be mine,”
The servant smiled, "Of course, my prince. I will take you," The servant inclined his head.
"Perhaps you may bring your cousin as well, Prince Valarr, and even your brother, Prince Daeron,”
Aerion frowned at that.
He did not want to bring anyone. The dragon was going to be his. His and nobody else's. He did not want Valarr claiming it, like he always claimed the best of everything. He did not want the dragon to be Daeron’s either, just because he was older and always seemed entitled to everything first.
“Can I go alone?” Aerion asked.
The servant pressed his lips and shook his head.
“The more who come, the better, my prince. Because there is not only one egg. There are many. And by now…I expect some of the others have hatched as well. There would be a dragon for each of you,”
One for each of us.
Aerion thought about that. He supposed that was all right. If everyone got their own dragon, then there was nothing to fight over. He would still pick first, of course, because he had found out first.
“Come to the archive room tonight, my prince,” the servant said quietly, “After supper, when things are quiet. I will be waiting,”
Aerion nodded.
The servant began to turn away, but then he paused, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Do not forget to bring your cousin and your brother, my prince,” he reminded, “The more the merrier,”
Aerion nodded again, watching the servant walk away.
He stayed standing on the chair a moment longer, staring at the map without really seeing it anymore. A dragon was waiting for him. Somewhere beneath his feet, beneath the stone floors of Dragonstone, curled up in a warm, dark cavern.
His dragon.
Aerion climbed down from the chair and ran toward the yard to find Daeron and Valarr.
“Daeron!” Aerion called, “Daeron!”
“Aeri? What is it?” Daeron asked, emerging from behind a tree with Valarr.
“Do you want to see dragons?” Aerion grabbed Daeron’s shoulder and shook him.
“Dragons?” Valarr raised his brow.
“Yes!” Aerion nodded, “They are here, under this castle!”
Valarr folded his arms over his chest, “My father told me dragons are gone,”
“Uncle Baelor didn't know the eggs were hatching!” Aerion said.
Valarr's eyes narrowed, “Then how do you know?”
Aerion shifted his weight from one foot to the other, “Someone told me,”
“Who?” Daeron asked.
“A servant,” Aerion said, a little quietly.
Valarr unfolded his arms and then folded them again, higher this time, which meant he was being extra skeptical.
“Why would a servant know about hatching dragon eggs when my father doesn't? My father knows everything about Dragonstone,”
“Because the servant saw it himself, cousin,” Aerion told him, almost rolling his eyes.
“He went into the volcano caverns under this castle and found dragon eggs there. He said those eggs were hot, and one of them hatched!” Aerion tried to sound as convincing as he could be.
“A tiny dragon came out of it. Tiny enough to hold in your hands,” Aerion held out both his hands to show the size, “He promised to lead me there,”
Daeron and Valarr exchanged glances.
Aerion pressed on before either of them could say anything doubtful.
“The servant said there are probably more eggs that have hatched by now. So each of us could have our own dragon. Nobody has to share,”
Something shifted in Valarr's expression. His arms came down a little. He was interested, Aerion could tell, even if he was trying not to show it.
“When? When will the servant take us to see the dragons?” Valarr asked flatly, like the question did not matter very much to him.
“Tonight,” Aerion said, “After supper. The servant said to meet him in the archive room,”
“We should tell Mother first,” Daeron said.
Aerion opened his mouth, but then he closed it. He thought about his mother's face when she heard the words cavern and volcano. He thought about her saying absolutely not in her firm voice, the voice that had no room in it for arguing or persuading.
“No,” Aerion decided.
Daeron blinked, “No?”
“She'll say it's dangerous,” Aerion exhaled.
“She'll say we can't go, and she'll probably tell the guards to watch us all evening, and it will be ruined,” He looked at both of them with great seriousness.
"We won't tell anyone. We'll go tonight, come back with our dragons, and then we'll show them to everyone. It'll be a surprise,”
Valarr considered what he just said for a moment, then he nodded.
“All right. The archive room, after supper,”
Aerion smiled.
They both looked at Daeron. His brother scratched the back of his head. He had the small crease between his brows, "I'm not sure about this," he said.
“Oh, come on, brother,” Aerion grabbed Daeron's sleeve, "Don't you want a dragon? You said you dream about them. You said you dreamed about flying on one over the sea,”
Daeron's mouth pressed together. He looked at the ground, then he looked at Aerion.
“But–”
“Please…” Aerion begged, showing his big sparkling violet eyes, “Please, brother,”
Daeron sighed heavily.
“All right, Aeri,” he agreed at last, “All right.”
Aerion beamed.
The horizon went from blue to orange, then to black. The night at Dragonstone was cold as always. The hall was set warm with fire. When supper came, the dinner table was full of warm foods and drinks. Aerion decided that tonight he was going to eat a very great deal.
He needed strength. The caverns were probably very far down and very long. It would take a lot of walking to get to a dragon, and he did not want to run out of energy before he got to the dragon. So he ate his soup, his bread, he ate everything else they put in front of him, then he ate a little more just to be safe, until his stomach felt very round, and very tight against his clothes.
Aerion could not actually walk very well after that.
After supper was over, he moved very slowly across the hall with both hands pressed to his stomach, which had swelled up quite noticeably.
His mother looked at him and pressed her lips together as if she were trying not to laugh.
“Come here, my little flame,” she said, and scooped him up into her arms.
“I ate too much,” Aerion told her from against her shoulder.
“Yes,” his mother agreed, “I noticed,”
She carried him all the way to the bedchamber, which Aerion found he did not mind at all, because walking would have taken a very long time in his current condition.
The bed was the same as every night. Three people in it. He, his mother, and Daeron. The fire was lit, and the blankets were thick. Outside, the wind was doing its usual howling against the windows and stone walls of Dragonstone, which Aerion had mostly gotten used to by now.
His mother sat on the edge of the bed and told them a story. Not a dragon story. Not a Targaryen story. His father had already told them most of those, every good one, so his mother told different ones. Tonight it was the legend of Starfall. How the Daynes had followed a star falling from the sky, long, long ago, and found at the end of it a stone of magical power. From the heart of the fallen star, they made one of the most famous swords in all the realm.
Aerion listened with his eyes growing heavier and heavier. His stomach was still very round. He kept one hand resting on it.
When the story was finished, his mother tucked the blanket up around him and Daeron. She leaned down and nudged his nose with her finger, then did the same to his brother.
“Sleep well, sweetlings,” she said softly.
Aerion looked up at her.
“Mother,” he said. “When will father come here?”
His mother's face did the soft thing it always did when he asked about father.
“When the war is over, my little flame. When they have won,”
“But father already won,” Aerion said.
His mother's brow knitted together, “What?”
“Father already won,” Aerion said again, very patiently, because sometimes grownups need things said twice.
“There was a battle near King's Landing. In a big field,” He paused, trying to remember the name of the field.
The name was in his head somewhere, he just had to find it. He scrunched up his face with the effort of remembering.
“The... the... the Redgrass Field!” he exclaimed, very pleased with himself.
“That was what it was called! Because the grass went red from all the blood!”
His mother went very still and very quiet.
Aerion did not understand why she looked so surprised. She should have known already. Even a servant knew, so surely his mother ought to have heard too.
“How do you know about all this?” his mother asked.
“A servant told me,” Aerion answered.
His mother turned to Daeron. “Did you know of this too?”
Daeron shook his head, “No, mother. I didn't,”
His mother looked back at Aerion, “Which servant told you this?”
Aerion opened his mouth, but did not know what to say. He realised he did not actually know the servant's name.
"The one in the hall that has the map table. He was a tall man, mother. I don’t know his name,” Aerion said.
His mother took a very long time to say anything. The crease between her brows went very deep.
"I..." she started, then she stopped.
"I think perhaps a letter came from King's Landing and I haven't read it yet," She said slowly, like she was still deciding if that was the right answer.
Aerion tilted his head at her. That seemed a very strange thing.
If a letter came saying father had won the battle, why did nobody tell mother right away?
Grownups were very confusing sometimes.
“So, father is coming?” Aerion asked again.
His mother smoothed his hair back from his forehead, “Sleep now, my little flame,” she said, very gently.
“We will talk in the morning,”
But Aerion didn’t want to sleep, no matter how heavy his eyes were. He had to go to the archive room. He had to go to the caverns and claim a dragon. He just needed to wait until his mother was asleep.
However, when his mother eventually lay asleep beside him, Daeron seemed to plunge into sleep as well.
Aerion sat and shook his brother’s shoulder, “Daeron,” he whispered.
“Dae, wake up!” He tried again.
Daeron rolled to the other side, facing his back against him. Aerion pouted, he shook Daeron's shoulder again, harder this time. His brother made a small sound and pulled the blanket up over his ear and did not wake up at all. Aerion poked him with his fingers, trying to pull the blanket back down, whispering dragon directly at the back of Daeron's head in case that would work.
It did not work.
His mother made a movement beside him. Aerion froze completely. He did not breathe. He did not blink. He sat perfectly still like one of the stone dragons carved into the walls. He waited with his heart going very fast until he was absolutely sure that his mother had only shifted in her sleep and was not waking up.
Slowly, Aerion turned his head to look at his mother. He let out the breath he had been holding as he saw she still had her eyes closed. Aerion crawled to the edge of the bed and climbed down, placing each foot gently, trying so hard not to make any sound. He found his boots beside the bed. Sitting down on the cold stone floor, he put them on, which took a while because the laces were complicated and his fingers were still clumsy with almost-sleep.
Then he looked for his cloak.
It was hanging on the wooden hook on the wall. He went to it and reached up as high as his arm would go, but his fingers were nowhere near it. Aerion went up on his toes, and still nowhere near it. He could not jump because that would make a sound and it would wake his mother up. He looked around for something to stand on, but could not find anything useful without making noise moving it.
Aerion looked at the cloak for another moment.
Then he gave up and went without it.
The corridor outside was cold and dark. Aerion felt it grow even bigger at night. He padded along in his red tunic and his boots, keeping close to the wall, stopping whenever he heard anything. Aerion saw the glow of a torch coming, and he quickly pressed himself into the wall. He held his breath until the footsteps' sound faded. Then, he kept going.
The archive room was down a turning he had only been to once before, but he remembered it. The door was slightly open, and warm candlelight spilled out through the gap. Aerion pushed the door open and slipped inside. The servant was already there, standing near the shelves of scrolls, his hands folded in front of him.
“My prince,” he said, “Where is your brother and your cousin?”
“Daeron wouldn't wake up,” Aerion said. He had tried very hard, it was not his fault.
“I shook him lots of times. He just kept sleeping,” He paused, "And Valarr… I don't know. Perhaps he changed his mind,"
The servant looked at him for a moment that felt slightly too long. Then he nodded.
Aerion yawned and rubbed his eyes hard. He felt very sleepy, but he must stay awake for the dragons. Footsteps echoed from somewhere down the corridor, coming closer. Aerion's stomach clenched. He forgot to close the door.
The steps were heavy. There was a shadow growing large on the wall outside the door, stretching tall and long in the candlelight. It must be a guard. He had been seen and followed. Now he was going to be brought back to his mother, and there would be no dragon.
The shadow grew smaller. Valarr appeared in the doorway.
Aerion's whole chest unknotted at once.
“Valarr!” he said, too loud, then immediately clapped both hands over his own mouth.
He looked back at Valarr and said it again, quieter, but just as happy, “You came!”
Valarr stepped inside and clasped his hands behind his back, trying to look older than he was.
“Yes,” he said. Valarr looked around the scroll room. His eyes landed on the servant, then they moved to Aerion.
“Where’s Daeron?”
“Asleep,” Aerion said sadly, “He wouldn't wake up no matter what I did,”
Valarr looked like he might say something, but then he didn't.
“Come, my princes,” The servant urged. He was already moving toward the door at the back of the room, the one Aerion had not noticed before.
“We should not keep the dragons waiting,”
The servant pushed the door open.
Beyond it was a staircase, going down, cut into dark stone. The air that came up from it was warm and smelled of ash. Aerion looked at Valarr, and his cousin looked back at him.
Aerion went through the door and down the starcase first.
“Come, cousin, or you’ll get no dragon,”
Valarr followed him at last.
The staircase came to an end, and a whole new world opened up around them. Aerion supposed they were inside the cavern now. It was very dark, the kind of dark that felt thick, like it had weight to it. The only light was the torch the servant carried, which made a small warm bubble around the three of them and did absolutely nothing about all the dark everywhere else.
Valarr moved until his shoulder was pressing against Aerion's. For someone who was seven and very big, his cousin stood extremely close, as if he were scared.
“Are you sure there are dragons here?” Valarr whispered.
Aerion gave a nod. He grabbed Valarr's hand and held it because the floor was uneven and he did not want to trip. Valarr let him hold his hand without complaint and they followed the servant deeper into the cavern.
"What will you name your dragon?” Aerion asked.
Valarr shrugged, “Haven’t thought about it yet,”
“I know what I'll name mine,” Aerion said.
“What?”
“Balerion,”
Valarr looked at him with a frown.
"There was already a Balerion. You can't name your dragon the same name as a dragon that already exists. That's been used,”
Aerion's own frown appeared immediately to argue with Valarr's frown, “My name is Aerion, and there was already an Aerion before me. And father named Daeron after grandfather Daeron. The exact same name. So…"
“Why can my brother and I use a name that's been used before, but my dragon can't?"
“It's just–" Valarr searched for the word “Not creative,”
“Huh?”
Aerion thought about Valarr’s words. That meant his father was not creative. His father had looked at Daeron and thought, I will name him after my own father, the exact same name, yes, that is a good idea.
Then Aerion thought about Valarr's name.
He had been learning High Valyrian since he could properly string sentences together in the common tongue. His father said it was important and his mother agreed and so he had learned it very young and he knew quite a lot of it by now, more than most people probably expected from someone his age and size.
He knew what Valarr meant. It meant man.
Valarr's name was just man.
Uncle Baelor had looked at baby Valarr and decided, I will call this one Man.
Aerion pressed his lips together very hard to keep his smile from getting too big. He supposed Uncle Baelor was just as uncreative as his own father was.
"I still like Balerion," Aerion said.
Valarr made a small noise that was neither quite an agreement nor quite an argument. They kept walking, hand in hand, following the servant and his torch deeper into the dark, warm belly of Dragonstone.
“Are the dragons still far?” Aerion asked.
The servant clicked his tongue.
“You princes have no patience!” he said, and his voice had changed. It was not pleasant anymore, it was sharp. It did not sound like a servant's polite voice at all.
Valarr's hand tightened around Aerion's.
“Don't speak to him like that,” Valarr said. He used his tall voice, his I-am-seven-and-my-father-is-Prince-Baelor voice.
The servant did not apologise. He did not even turn around.
"The dragons are not far," he said flatly, and kept walking.
Aerion looked up at Valarr. Valarr looked down at him.
Something passed between them that did not have words, something uncertain that Aerion did not quite know what to do with. The torchlight moved further ahead, and they hurried to keep up with it because the alternative was standing in the dark alone, which was worse.
After much more walking, the servant stopped. He raised his torch toward the wall. There was a hole in it, very big, low and wide, like a mouth opened in the rock.
“Are the dragons in there?” Aerion asked. He was up on his toes already, trying to see.
“Yes,” the servant said, “Inside,”
Aerion began to bounce, still holding his cousin’s hand, which made Valarr's arm bounce too, whether he wanted it or not.
“I want to see it! I want to see it!”
"Give me the torch," Valarr said to the servant.
The servant held it out without a word. Valarr took it and stepped toward the tunnel opening. He lifted the torch so the light pushed into the dark hole in the wall.
Aerion crowded in beside him, bringing his face forward, eyes wide, looking for the shape of something small and scaled.
“Where is it?”
He could see rocks. He could see more rocks. He could see the end of the hole, which was just rock also.
“Where's the dragon?”
“There's nothing there,” Valarr said. He moved the torch left, then right.
“There are no drag–”
A sack came down over Valarr's head.
The torch fell.
The light lurched and tilted, then there was almost no light at all. Aerion could not understand what he was seeing, he could not make it make sense because Valarr was making a sound he had never heard Valarr make before. A choking, thrashing, horrible sound, and the servant had him, the servant had Valarr–
“Let him go!” Aerion threw himself at the servant. He grabbed fistfuls of the man's clothing and pulled as hard as he could.
“Let him go! Let him go!”
“Fuck off!”
The servant shoved him hard, causing him to fall to the ground. His knees and palms were hurt from scratching the ground, but he did not care because Valarr was still making that horrible sound. Aerion scrambled back up immediately, and he threw himself at the servant again.
He found the man’s arm, and he bit down as hard as his teeth would go. He did not let go even when the servant screamed and cursed.
The servant let go of Valarr.
Valarr dropped.
He hit the floor and did not move. He did not make any sound at all. The sack was still over his head, and he was so still. Aerion did not understand why he was so still. Valarr was never still, Valarr was always moving, always talking, always being seven and knowing everything.
"Valarr–"
The back of the servant's hand hit him across the side of his head.
The world broke apart.
Aerion did not remember falling. He was just on the ground suddenly, cheek against cold stone ground, and there was pain, so much pain, more pain than he had ever felt. The pain filled up his whole head and pushed out everything else. It was not like falling off a chair. It was not like scraping a knee. It was a big, terrible pain that did not stop, spread down his neck and behind his eyes.
Aerion tried to call for his mother.
He did not know if any sound came out.
The darkness at the edges of his eyes was growing wider. He tried to find Valarr, tried to reach for him. His hand moved a little on the stone ground and then could not move anymore.
Father, he thought, very far away, like the thought was coming from somewhere a long distance below him.
Father, come home.
The darkness swallowed Aerion entirely.