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This beast that you're after will eat you alive
And spit out your bones
I've seen the true face of the things you call life
The song of the siren that holds your desire
Death, she is cunning and clever as hell
And she'll eat you alive
-The Oh Hellos, Eat You Alive
The blue egg hatches for a red-haired boy, but it is not the boy with the Targaryen-bright eyes. It is not the boy who is still a babe, the boy who has dragonfire in his veins, the boy who is the son of a king.
(Though once, generation and centuries ago, the Hightowers were kings, too, don’t you remember?)
The fact of the matter is that no one has ever really tested to see if any families other than Targaryens can raise dragons. The Targaryen eggs have always been zealously guarded, especially since that whole…situation with Elissa Farman and the theft of three dragons eggs to pay for a ship.
No one can risk anyone else coming near and possibly sneaking off with an egg to sell it.
But the Queen herself had entrusted babe and egg to her brother.
The hatchling is no bigger than the babe in Gwayne Hightower’s arms, and he, like everyone else, assumes at first that when the dragon comes close and nips on his fingers without breaking the skin that the dragon belongs to Daeron. Who wouldn’t?
We all know that Targaryens are the only dragon-riding family in Westeros. No one else has dragonfire in their veins.
(No one else knows that Gwayne Hightower’s skin itches every time he leaves the Sept after visiting the prince’s dragon with him. That whenever he goes to eat food that isn’t cooked meat, it tastes vaguely of ash. That he craves his meat a little rarer that he used to. That he smells cinnamon and smoke most days.
That when he looks at the sky, he craves nothing more than to fly.)
---
Tessarion loves the prince. Accepts his enthusiastic pets.
But there’s one person that she nuzzles into the touch of.
Everyone knows that the prince’s dragon is protective of him. That the only person that it lets close is his uncle, Gwayne, and that is just because he helps the prince feed his dragon.
After all, the prince has no dragonkeepers, and thus he needs the help of an adult to feed his dragon.
And since Ser Gwayne has declared himself the prince’s sworn protector, it makes sense that the dragon would protect him as well, does it not?
---
Ormund Hightower chains his cousin’s dragon to the Sept and something squeezes tight around Gwayne’s ribs, locking itself tight around his lungs, suffocating his ability to breathe.
But he is used to having to shove his feelings down. Having to repress his inclinations beneath bitten-back aches and bruised knees from praying and armor tied onto his limbs.
And so if he feels something in his chest to see Tessarion’s fire squashed and snuffed beneath the chains, something muzzled within him, well—
That’s nothing new, is it?
---
The history books will say that at the end of his life, King Jaehaerys confused Alicent Hightower for his long-lost daughter, Saera. Something in her bright eyes, her curls, her smile, reminded him of his family, of Valyrian ancestry, of the ghosts that every scattered refugee of Valyria carries within their veins, a weight of history that is long gone.
But it’s a single line in the history books. No one pays any closer attention to it. And why would they? Alicent’s children are Targaryens, the children of the last rider of Balerion the Black Dread. Of course they would be dragon riders. Of course they would bond with the gods of Valyria, Sunfyre, Dreamfyre, Vhagar, Tessarion.
Tessarion, the Blue Queen.
---
Ormund doesn’t allow a lot of food to enter the Sept. Just enough for Tessarion to survive, because he cannot truly starve a dragon, he cannot appear to be the sort of lord that would deprive a prince of the Seven Kingdoms of his birthright, no matter how much Ormund seethes against it.
But that does not mean that Ormund cannot put his fingers on the scales. That he cannot weaken Tessarion as much as he can.
Some say that the maesters hate the dragons. Ormund clearly hates them, considers them foul beasts.
Gwayne hears the words that Ormund uses to speak of Tessarion to Daeron. Calls the ability to dragonride a taint on Hightower blood. Makes Daeron cry at night, because he looks at his hands and thinks of them as hollow, thinks of them as tainted, thinks of himself as a poison rather than a blessing.
Gwayne tries to reassure him. Tries to tell him bedtime stories about the history of the Hightower, about the Grand Empire of the Dawn, about the light that is in Daeron’s veins from two different families. About how when the Seven look at him, he does not have to follow the Warrior—there is always the Smith, the mender, the Crone, the wise woman, the Stranger.
(The Stranger. Death, and its grasping hands, and its peace.)
After all—if there is one person in the Hightower with hungry, hollow hands, it is Gwayne. It is Gwayne, who has always ached for something more, who kneels before the Warrior and thinks—I vowed to protect the weak and the innocent but when I fight for Ormund, when I watch him speak to Daeron, I know that I am craven. That I am failing to be a true knight.
And so when Ormund’s anger flares, when his fury burns brighter than dragonfire, when Gwayne is swallowing back his hatred of Ormund’s lingering hands on his shoulders and his syrupy voice polluting his ears, he sneaks Tessarion more meat. More answers to her hunger.
Gwayne might be hungry for freedom, but he can at least feed one creature’s cravings, even if he cannot fill his own.
---
The maesters say that the fortress at the base of the Hightower is made of fused black stone. Not the oily black stone of Asshai, but the fused black stone of the Valyrian roads, made by dragonfire.
No one knows how long the Hightowers have been in Westeros. Some say they are Andal, some say they are First Men, some say that they are even older, still, old as the supposed Great Empire of the Dawn.
The only thing that people know for sure is that House Hightower knows how to endure. That House Hightower knows how to adapt.
And if the world needs fire and blood, well—
---
Gwayne has to leave for the war. He is a knight in the service of House Hightower, sworn to the Starry Sept, sworn to the green cause of his nephew.
He doesn’t want to leave, of course. He has not left Oldtown since Daeron came here, has only attended tourneys here in Oldtown, because he has to be with Daeron and with—
Before Gwayne has to leave town, he sneaks into the Sept.
Gwayne knows that he shouldn’t be here without Daeron, but there is some part of him that knows that he cannot leave without saying goodbye to Tessarion one last time.
Gwayne isn’t in his armor, yet. He doesn’t leave until tomorrow to head towards King’s Landing, towards his sister, towards nephews that he has barely met and certainly not gotten to know like Daeron.
To go to see a dragon without his nephew, without the dragon’s true rider, without his armor, is a reckless idea, he is well aware. No one else would be stupid enough to attempt it.
But Tessarion has never had dragonkeepers. He is the closest that she has to one. She trusts him, he is pretty sure.
And Gwayne knows that if he waits to get permission to bring Daeron out of the Hightower and to the Sept when they are on the brink of war, he will not get it in time.
But Tessarion nuzzles against his hand, and Gwayne thinks—
Daeron should have a chance. Daeron should be able to fly, even if Gwayne has to head into a war that they are likely to lose.
So he cleaves his sword through Tessarion’s chains, slicing through them like butter, and he opens the Sept doors for her.
“Fly,” he orders, because he does not know High Valyrian, because he is of the Hightower, blood running red as the Andals, as the First Men, as whatever came before them, but Daeron speaks to her in Common Tongue, and that has to be enough. “Go find him.”
But to his shock, she doesn’t immediately fly out to find Daeron.
Rather, she stops next to him, all gleaming sapphire scales, all flint-strike brightness in her large golden eyes.
And there is a bloodbuzz in Gwayne’s mind, beneath his skin, as he stares at her. As he feels the dragonfire beneath her veins. As he sees her there, staring at him with bright eyes, fire humming in her throat, a need to fly, a need to be free, a need to devour.
There is a dizzying pulse in Gwayne’s veins as Tessarion bows her neck before him and he takes a deep breath.
It is suicide for someone who is not a dragonrider to try and climb onto a dragon’s back.
But—Tessarion is Daeron’s dragon, right? She trusts him.
They can go save Daeron together. Flee with him across the Narrow Sea to somewhere that the war won’t follow them. She will allow him that. She will allow him one flight, to get him closer to Daeron.
It is a reckless thing to believe. A death wish to think. He doesn’t even have more than a single piece of jerky for her.
Gwayne isn’t reckless. He isn’t an idiot. He is a knight who has failed at being a knight for so long, who has always craved more than he has been allowed to have.
Except—
When Gwayne climbs onto Tessarion’s back, his veins sing. He can feel the hum in Tessarion’s throat at the back of his own, vibrating through his bones.
He can feel her warmth. He can feel her fire. He can feel her hunger.
A taint in your blood, Ormund always said, except if the taint entered Hightower blood, it did not do it when Maegor married Ceryse and provided no issue. It did not do it when Viserys married Alicent and put babes in her belly.
Except it’s not an except, at the end of the day, is it?
Because it doesn’t matter if Tessarion is Gwayne’s dragon or Daeron’s, at the end of the day.
All that matters is that she is free, now. Free to devour, free to feed, free to burn, free to fly.
Tessarion bursts through the doors of the Sept, sapphire wings spread, a rider with a green gambeson and copper hair on her back.
And she heads straight for the Hightower.
---
The stories say that the Blue Queen emerged from the Sept and headed straight for the Hightower.
A sign from the Seven, so many say. An omen about the need to cleanse the Hightower of what had been polluting it for so long.
---
Tessarion bursts through the grand doors of the Hall of the Hightower in a streak of sapphire blue and fire-gold, burning brighter than the beacon on the Hightower ever could.
And she snaps up Ormund Hightower in a single gulp.
Or, rather—she eats his head, snap snap, one chew, and then spits it out to burn it so that she can eat it properly.
She eats, hungry, famished, because Ormund never allowed them to give her the proper amount of food, because she has always craved more from this life than what was given to her in that Sept, because she is him and he is her and Gwayne Hightower has never been allowed the things that he desired, craved so deeply that it felt like the hunger would eat him alive.
It is an act of kinslaying, in its way, except Ormund is the one that starved them, isn’t he?
And when you starve a hound, you cannot be surprised when it wishes to feast.
---
Gwayne heads straight up to the sparring grounds to find Daeron.
There he is, of course, staring straight up at the blue streak on the horizon, same as everyone else is.
And then Gwayne lands. He slips off of Tessarion's back and he sinks to his knees in front of his nephew. “I am for you,” Gwayne swears, “We are both for you, whatever you wish to make of us. To leave, to stay—it's your choice. Not Ormund's. Not any longer."
Daeron stares at them both, gaze flicking between them, and for a moment, the fire in Gwayne's chest dims.
Some might assume that Gwayne is trying to steal Daeron’s birthright. That he wants to take away what little power that Daeron has left. That could not be further from the truth, of course; all Gwayne wishes is for he, Daeron, and Tessarion to finally be free.
But Daeron looks at them both and a smile breaks across his face, bright as dragonfire, and Gwayne realizes that he is not the only one who has hungered for so long.