39
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298 AC
The reach - Ashford
Eragon Targaryen
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I hold a piece of meat over the fire and let it cook enough until it gets a bit crispy, a chirp in my ear lets me know it's perfect and I bring it over to the voracious child. I make sure to keep it away from my ear so she doesn't get the two confused.
"We should take the Cockleswent down and then out into the Sunset sea, from there we sail south, and then when we reach the Summer sea we head east until we near the end of Dorne and head straight to Sunspear." One of the men who's name is Thumer points at a map as the other two men shake their heads.
"We should have gone to the prince's pass, even if it's shut down all we had to do was show off a dragon and say we have a Targaryen. With Viserys marrying Arianne Dorne is officially tied to the Targaryens and they would escort us to Sunspear." And they might just fill us with arrows to prevent said dragons from growing into a future problem.
A full week, I rub the head of Arrax as he nestles against me. I have been a dad for a full week and I can tell you with full confidence that I don't regret it but man do I miss sleep.
A low rumbling escapes a light blue dragon with white highlighting its features, it looks at my hand that is holding a cooking piece of meat. I chuckle and stop scratching Arrax to tickle the chin of the blue baby.
I have been hesitant to name the others, I feel connected in a sense to all of them but something is different with Arrax and it compelled me to name him. I wonder if I should just go ahead and name them anyway, if they end up bonding with someone then I am sure it would be more special for them to name 'their' dragon.
I look over at the curled-up pile of fed babies, just watching the rising and falling of their chests brings me great joy.
"You should eat as well my Prince." Melisandre holds a cooked rabbit up to me from my other side and I take it as I look into her eyes. She has been different since the dragons hatched, she won't tell me what happened but it has to do with the necklace disappearing.
"Thank you." She smiles and looks at Arrax pulling at the leg of the rabbit before I can get a bite.
I hear the men on the side decide we should take the river and I wonder if they baked their brains by accident.
"You want us to sail past High Garden?" Do they realize how fast we will be killed if we got found out? That's on top of finding a ship to even take us down the river and hiding the dragons from them. "why not make our way to the Rose road and then head down toward Oldtown, we can then find a ship to go to Sunspear from around that area." I take a bite of the rabbit and they trace the map with their fingers.
"Oldtown has the biggest population in Westeros, right? Why would you want to go to where there are more eyes?" I set the dragons that are on me on top of the pile and walk over to the map.
"Look we follow the road to Oldtown where there are massive crowds and we find a ship heading to Sunspear or somewhere close and we get on it. I will fill the babies with food and they will pass out and I will just have them in a crate. If they start making noise then I will just say it's a box of baby lizard lions. who would hear a squeaking noise in a box and just assume it's a dragon, no one because dragons are all dead." They start to nod and look back at the map.
"Why not just sail past Highgarden down the river at that point then?" He points to how close we are to the Cockleswent river.
"Smaller port and fewer ships so they will be more observant on what's being loaded. In Oldtown, we have a much higher chance of finding a ship heading to Sunspear anyway." An extra three to four days of traveling before we get on a boat but I feel safer going to the place where there is more opportunity to find what we need and less opportunity for the ship owner to ask to see what's in the crate.
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"We will be there in a few hours." Thumer speaks up from the front of the cart.
I felt bad robbing the farmer of his cart but it was necessary, I am going to need all the money I got to get onto a ship.
I have been practicing putting the dragons into a chest that has some holes punched into the side and they have been pretty well-behaved. They will stick their noses out and bang around after an hour or so but I have been letting them crawl around the cart all day and am about to feed them. Once they eat I will put them in and they should fall asleep, we will find a ship and load the chest onto it as personal items and not cargo and all will be well.
"Alright, you guys need to fill those stomachs." I pull out the meat I cooked for breakfast and all seven heads follow it in a trance. A squeak escapes a mouth here and there and a whistle from a nose lets me know I have their full attention.
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Seven swollen bellies later and a lock on the chest and we are going through the streets of Oldtown and straight for the docks. My heart stops racing when I notice no one is even paying us any attention. We are just another group of nobodies moving through the city like blood through a body.
"Do you have any gold on you in case I don't have enough to get us a cabin?" Melisandre nods and pats her side, she looks like a completely different person without the red robes and no ruby on her neck.
"Something wrong?" She asks as I was staring at her, I shake my head and look forward. Just a bit longer and I will see my family again, how will they react to my babies?
I know how the Martells will react, or at least I suspect I know. And it worries me and I would hate to be right. If the looks they give them aren't what I expect then that's fine but if it is then I will need to move my plans up.
I have personally experienced how things can go to shit and now I am even more cautious about what I plan to do next. The visions have been right so far, no reason to start doubting them now.
But one step at a time and getting from a place where my dragons will be killed on sight to Sunspear where they will be coveted is the current step.
"We should make sure to buy a good bit of food and some jerky." Melisandre speaks up and I agree, we need to make sure the less noise the dragons will want to make the better. I wonder if they will even eat some jerky?
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Looking up at the massive tower is quite the thing, I would have loved to explore this place some more before having to go but I have priorities that overwrite my curiosity. Old town is supposed to be the second biggest city in Westeros and it certainly looks like it.
The giant smoke column rising from the top of the tower makes me wonder how they get the wood way up there. Some poor servants probably break their backs carrying it up a massive staircase.
We are waiting for the ship to finish loading and I am currently sitting on the chest with the dragons in it. I wonder what the faces of people would look like if they knew what I was sitting on, probably pretty scared until they notice the tiny little golden nose poking out of the air hole is too cute to fear.
I push the nose back in so the shining scales won't catch the light and make people think it's a chest full of gold. It is vastly more valuable than a chest of gold.
"I bought enough food for us to snack on the whole trip." Melisandre comes up to me with a bag full of different cured meats and I wave her off quickly.
"I am full right now but thank you." I point at the nose that jabbed back through the chest and I put my hand over it and gently rub it to calm the excited baby. Melisandre's eyes widen in understanding and she takes a few steps back. " Can we go into the cabin yet?" I asked her so she can go check it out, I had to give half my money to this greedy captain who didn't want to even let us go with him let alone rent the cabin.
"I will check." She turns and walks through the doorway and I look back up the tower at the billowing smoke and wonder what people have been saying about Summerhall. The place had a sky-filling cloud of smoke rising from it during the process according to Melisandre.
I was too busy watching the flames and enjoying the feeling they brought.
"One day we will come back here and look at it from the sky, seeing what it looks like from the clouds sounds fun." I whisper to the occupants of my seat and feel some rustling in response.
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298 AC
Dorne - Sunspear
Rhaella Targaryen
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A guard knocks on the door to prince Doran's solar and after hearing a shout he opens the door and gestures for me to enter.
"Hello, mother." Viserys sitting across from prince Doran is holding a cup of wine, I walk over and stand next to him.
"Go ahead and sit please, I have something interesting to tell you." A little hope bubbles up inside me as I sit beside Viserys across from Doran.
"Did someone see him?" I ask as I sit down.
"No, but something else happened, Summerhall happened." I feel a chill hearing that name but I look at the letter trying to figure out what this is about. "Someone set Summerhall on fire once again, add on that one of the last places we have reports of Eragon potentially being is the red temple. The red temple nearly burned itself down the day he left and now that the Targaryen prince is missing Summerhall catches on fire. There seems to be something going on here and I am starting to make connections, I sent some men to question the red priests and we should hear word soon." He sets the letter down and I grab it to read it myself.
My guts twist reading the words and I don't want to believe what ideas are coming to mind.
He took the eggs from Summerhall and Summerhall just so happens to have caught ablaze. It's too much of a coincidence, Eragon visited the red temple in Braavos a lot and befriended a priestess. The red temple in Sunspear is where he disappeared. Did the red priestess convince him to recreate Summer hall?
The girls also took trips to the red temple and I have been patient with them because I know how hard it was on them when he left. But now things are taking a turn for the worst and I will have to get the truth from them.
"Thank you for this prince Doran." He nods and I stand up and leave to find some answers.