Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Unforgiving Eden

Year: 102 BC (Before Conquest) - The Flight to Exile

Days bled into a timeless expanse of sea and sky. The world behind him was a memory of fire and ruin, a ghost that haunted the edges of the horizon. The world ahead was an unknown, a vast, blue emptiness that promised only distance. He flew with a tirelessness that was still a novelty, a gift of the Fountain's impossible magic. The mighty, rhythmic beat of his wings was the only calendar he kept, each downstroke marking another league between his precious cargo and the remnants of the world that had betrayed them.

He was Vermithrax, the Bronze Fury reborn, but in the quiet solitude of the open sky, he was simply… the survivor. The human mind within the draconic shell struggled to process the sheer magnitude of what had happened. He had watched a civilization die. He had felt the earth-shattering screams of its demise, ridden the shockwaves of its agony. The memories, both his and the dragon's, were a turbulent sea. He remembered the impossible beauty of Valyria's towers reaching for the clouds, and he remembered them falling like brittle bones. He remembered the taste of power in the air, the hum of a million souls, and he remembered the stench of sulfur and the dead silence that followed.

The weight of it all threatened to crush him, but two things kept the despair at bay. The first was the heavy, solid presence of the ironwood chest clutched carefully in his jaw. Inside, seven souls, seven sparks of potential life, slept in their stony wombs. They were his purpose, the entire meaning of his continued existence. He was their Ark, their protector, their only hope. Every few hours, he would land on some barren, windswept rock jutting from the Smoking Sea, gently set the chest down, and breathe a controlled, shimmering plume of fire over its surface. Not the raging inferno of destruction he had unleashed on the vault door, but a soft, enveloping heat, a whisper of the furnace in his belly. It was an act of supreme control, a testament to his rapidly merging intellect and instinct, ensuring the eggs remained at the vital temperature for incubation.

The second, and far more immediate, anchor to his sanity was clinging to his neck.

The little silver hatchling had awoken after the first full day of flight, her initial terror replaced by a gnawing, desperate hunger. Her chirps became insistent, her tiny claws scrabbling at his scales. He had landed on a desolate island of black volcanic glass, the last tear of Valyria to stain the ocean, and faced his first true test as a surrogate parent. What did a dragon hatchling eat?

Vermithrax's memories were of being fed by his mother, of warm, partially digested meat regurgitated into his waiting maw. The thought, from his human perspective, was deeply unappealing. But his passenger's cries were growing weaker. He took to the sky, leaving her huddled by the warming chest, and scanned the waves. His eyes, sharper than any eagle's, could pierce the gloom of the deep water. He saw the shadow, a colossal, shifting form far below. A whale.

The hunt was brutal, primal, and instinctual. He folded his wings and dove, a bronze meteorite striking the sea. The impact sent a plume of water fifty feet into the air. He hit the leviathan with the force of a battering ram, his claws finding purchase in its thick blubber. The creature thrashed, its tail capable of shattering the hull of a ship, but it was no match for a dragon. He dragged it to the surface, its lifeblood staining the waves a dark crimson, and hauled the immense carcass back to the island.

He tore off a piece of the warm, bloody meat. But the hatchling, for all her hunger, only hissed at it, confused. She was too small, her teeth not yet strong enough to rend the tough flesh. He remembered. Regurgitation wasn't just about transport; it was about breaking it down, making it digestible. With a sigh that plumed smoke across the black sand, he swallowed a large chunk of the whale meat. The furnace in his belly began its work, not with the intensity of fire, but with a controlled, alchemical heat. When he brought it back up, it was a warm, softened mash. The hatchling, drawn by the scent, devoured it greedily, her silver head disappearing into the offered meal.

It was in that moment, watching the tiny creature finally sated and curling up against his massive foreleg, that he felt a bond solidify, a fierce, protective love that transcended species and souls. He would call her Argenta. A name for her silver scales, a name that felt both noble and new, untainted by the history of the Valyrian names now buried under the ash.

The days turned into weeks. They flew south, leaving the grey, ash-choked waters of the Smoking Sea behind and entering the vibrant turquoise expanse of the Summer Sea. The air grew warmer, thicker, laden with moisture and the scent of salt and life. Flying fish, like scattered jewels, leaped from the waves, and great sea turtles, ancient and slow, drifted on the currents below. For Argenta, it was a world of endless wonder. She would perch on his head as he flew, her golden eyes wide, chirping with excitement at the sight of a pod of dolphins or a distant ship—a Westerosi merchant vessel, by its lines, which he gave a wide, cloud-hidden berth. The world of men was a problem for another day, another decade, another century.

Finally, he saw it. A line on the southern horizon, at first no more than a smudge of darker green against the blue. As they drew closer, it resolved itself into a coastline of breathtaking, savage beauty. Sothoryos.

The continent rose from the sea not with gentle beaches or welcoming shores, but with a sheer, unbroken wall of green. A jungle so dense and vibrant it seemed to be a single, living entity. Trees of impossible size, draped in thick curtains of vines and blooming with flowers the size of shields, formed a canopy that stretched as far as the eye could see. The air, even miles out to sea, was a wall of heat and humidity, thick with the scent of wet earth, decaying vegetation, and a thousand unknown blossoms. The sound rolled out to meet them: a deafening, unceasing cacophony of buzzing insects, shrieking birds, and the deep, guttural calls of unseen beasts. It was the sound of a world that had never been tamed, a world where humanity was not the master, but prey.

This was the Unforgiving Eden. This was to be their sanctuary.

He flew along the coast for days, searching for an entrance, a sign of weakness in the jungle's defenses. He saw rivers, wide and brown, sluggishly emptying into the sea, their banks lined with crocodiles larger than any he had ever imagined. He saw ruins, great, moss-covered cities of black stone, half-swallowed by the jungle, testaments to civilizations long dead and forgotten. Wyverns, the brutish, non-sentient cousins of dragons, occasionally took to the air, their leathery wings and screeching cries a pale imitation of his own majestic silence. He ignored them, a king ignoring the squabbles of jackals.

He knew he could not make his home on the coast. It was too accessible, too vulnerable. The prompt that had guided his very quest had been specific. He needed a volcano, a new Fourteen Flames to serve as a cradle, not a grave. He turned inland.

Flying over Sothoryos was like flying over a living, breathing monster. The sheer scale of the flora and fauna was staggering. He saw herds of brindle-skinned quadrupeds as large as mammoths, their backs covered in teeming insect life. He glimpsed great white bats with wingspans of over twenty feet flitting through the twilight canopy. Once, he saw something that made even his immortal heart skip a beat: a basilisk, a serpent of immense size with a gaze that reputedly killed, slithering through a vast swamp, its passage felling trees like blades of grass. This was a land of predators, a land of poison and plague, a land that had devoured empires whole. It was perfect. No human would willingly follow him here.

Argenta, who had been a fearless explorer over the open ocean, was now cowed by the oppressive jungle. She stayed close, nestled against his neck, her silver scales a stark contrast to the riot of green below. She could sense the danger, the ancient, hungry power of this place.

He pushed deeper into the continent's heart, using Vermithrax's innate senses to feel the thrum of the earth, searching for the tell-tale signs of geothermal activity. For weeks, he flew, a bronze speck against an endless sea of green. He hunted when needed, snatching giant apes from the treetops or massive boars from jungle clearings, always moving, always searching. The chest of eggs remained his priority, the constant focus of his quest.

And then, he found it.

It was a range of mountains, their peaks clawing high above the jungle canopy, their stone a stark, dark grey against the vegetation. And one among them, the tallest and most majestic, felt… alive. A low, almost imperceptible hum resonated from it, a vibration he could feel in the very bones of his wings. A thin, lazy plume of white steam rose from its caldera, a gentle sigh compared to the death screams of the Fourteen Flames. It was a dormant giant, sleeping, but not dead.

With a surge of triumphant energy, he angled his wings and flew towards it. As he ascended, the air grew thinner and cooler, a welcome relief from the sweltering humidity of the jungle below. The peak was a jagged crown of black rock, its slopes too steep and barren for even the tenacious jungle to gain a foothold.

He circled the caldera once, a king surveying his new domain. The opening was vast, nearly a mile in diameter. And inside, far below, was a sight that made him roar with triumph, a sound that sent shockwaves through the thin mountain air. The floor of the caldera was not a solid bowl of rock. It was a network of deep chasms and ledges, and in the very center, a lake of molten lava bubbled and churned with a placid, rhythmic energy. It was a living heart of fire, a source of endless warmth. Vents in the caldera walls breathed steady streams of hot, sulfur-tinged steam, creating a perfectly heated, naturally protected environment. It was a nursery, a fortress, and a throne room, all carved by nature's hand.

He spiraled down, the sheer scale of the place becoming more apparent. The central lava lake was a mesmerizing pool of orange and red, its light casting dancing shadows on the high rock walls. Ledges, some as wide as a tourney ground, provided ample space to land and build a lair. Water from melted snow on the highest peaks trickled down the inner walls in steaming waterfalls, pooling in hot springs that glittered in the lava's glow. It was a self-contained world.

He chose the largest and highest ledge, one that offered a commanding view of the entire caldera while being protected by a sheer rock overhang. He landed with a grace that was now second nature, the ground shuddering slightly under his immense weight. He gently set down the ironwood chest, its surface cool to the touch for the first time in weeks. His duty as a living furnace was over. The mountain would provide.

Argenta unhooked her claws from his neck and slid to the ground, her small form looking utterly dwarfed by the magnificent desolation of their new home. She looked around, her fear of the jungle replaced by an awestruck curiosity. She chirped, a questioning sound, and nudged the great chest with her snout.

Yes, little one, he projected, his thought a warm, reassuring wave of emotion that filled the vast space. This is it. This is home.

He used his snout and claws to push the chest towards the back of the ledge, near a large steam vent that breathed a constant, gentle warmth. He nudged the lid open, revealing the seven eggs, their colors vibrant and alive in the glow of the lava lake. They were safe. They were finally, truly safe.

A wave of exhaustion, not of the body but of the soul, washed over him. The constant flight, the unending vigilance, the crushing weight of his responsibility—it all settled upon him. He lay down, curling his massive body around the chest and the small, silver hatchling who had already begun to explore her new, rocky domain. The heat from the lava lake below rose up, a comforting blanket, and the low hum of the volcano was a soothing lullaby.

He looked out from his ledge, across the fiery heart of his new kingdom, to the jagged peaks that stood like silent sentinels against the world of men. He was alone, a single, strange consciousness at the end of the world. He was the last of his kind, and the first of a new one. The Doom had taken everything, but he had taken something back. He had stolen the future from the jaws of oblivion.

The task ahead was monumental. He had to hatch these eggs. He had to raise a new generation of dragons, teach them, protect them, and ensure their survival in this Unforgiving Eden. It would take years, decades, centuries. But for the first time since opening his eyes in a dying dragon's body, he felt a sense of peace. The flight was over. The exile had begun. He closed his great, golden eyes, the tiny silver form of Argenta curled trustingly against his throat, and for the first time in a long, long time, he rested. The mountain, his new crown, held him in its warm, fiery embrace.