Hey everyone hope you're all having a great day. If you haven't noticed, I've decided to rewrite my Batman fic at some point, so hopefully this time it goes a bit better. In other news, I've been considering getting my own Crunchyroll subscription instead of using someone else's but I'm still thinking about it.
Plus I still need to buy Christmas gifts for my family so I thought I would wait until my next check before I buy anything. Why didn't anyone warn me that being an adult would be so damned difficult? 😭
Good news though I picked Daredevil season 3 back up because I fell off of it frankly I forgot how good this show was. I've also been watching the Mighty Nien I haven't chosen a favorite just yet but I think I like Caleb, Molly, and Jester the most. Fjord is cool too I guess I've never actually played DND but I've always wanted to try it so who knows? Plus it has a prequel comic on Webtoon I was reading. Kinda fell off hard on webtoons so it's nice to be reading some of them again.
Also merry Christmas to everyone and I hope you guys have a great New Year. Frankly writing this chapter took way longer than I thought it would but it was also shorter than I thought it would be so I do apologize for that. I was going to turn each of the events in this chapter into its own but I decided against making the great council its own arc and just summarized what would have happened as I'm getting a bit tired of writing Aemon's childhood.
[ Insert Funny Christmas gift here]
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Harrenhal
101 AC
Aemon Targaryen POV
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Half a year passed in a blink and my plans had been going smoothly. I began making friends of great lords' sons and others whom I deemed helpful. The power of childhood friendships and the bonds they made were stronger than one would guess and it was this phenomenon I meant to make use of for my future endeavors. I befriended my first vic-ahem I mean companion rather quickly. Harwin Strong was a loud outgoing and extroverted child. His friendly personality was only as fierce as his boredom with giving me the tour of the castle.
We became fast friends as it wasn't hard for me to engage with him and his interests which were mainly fighting. The boy was only eleven and although at first he clearly didn't want to be stuck with a 3-year old even on his lord father's insistence. However, when he realized that I was older looking and smarter than my age suggested we got along well. From there we spent basically every day hanging out and playing games whenever we could. He was the muscle and I was the brains of the operation. Bargain's innate strength and skill put him a leg ahead of all the other boys and I used it to unify others in our little group. In other words, I turned him into my own personal Robert Baratheon.
Then his younger brother Larys was another addition to my collection of colleagues. He was hesitant to speak to me at first the other boys smoked him and called him weak and twisted. But extended a hand of true friendship and more than that I saw his true potential. Remember that spu network I needed to set up well he was the key to that and so much more. Of course, I was no master spy and he was just a boy like I was but you would be surprised by the knowledge you can gain from those who think you weak, twisted, and beneath themselves. One day I would raise him to be the first member of my inner circle but for now, he was just a friend whom I had saved from the bullying of other children our age. And children can be quite cruel especially when they're being paid to do so but I digress.
My next targets joined me almost as easily as Harwin did. But if Harwin was our Robert Jason and Tyland was our Bron and Podrick for lack of better comparison. At first, they were no different from sicafants simply trying to impress me. They even mock Larys but I soon showed them that was a bad idea when I had Harwin thrash them in the yard. It took a while after that but I took advantage of the fact that Tyland was far more timid than his brother by nature and Jason was a funny guy to turn them into allies. That friendship grew as Harwin now would laugh alongside them and anyone who messed with Larys messed with all of us.
Thrashing the twins in the yard and embarrassing them in front of the other squires turned into friendly competitions and cooperation. But I wasn't the only one making friends. Laenor who had arrived with his mother and the Velaryons had started garnering allies as well. Rumors of reds and blues spread and so did my supposed escapades. Laenor seemed to try and make his own friends since Laena was stuck spending time with the girls her age outside formal meetings. But soon enough our already established friendship won out over whatever orders I'm sure his father gave him. He dragged along a few of his cousins as well to come join us. Daeron and Daemion were Vaemond's sons and they spent a lot more time with Laenor than their other cousins. Apparently, there were like five others but the only ones I remembered were Rhogar, and Malentine and that was only because my memory is better than it was before by a lot.
Sometimes we would sneak off to the nearby town to play pranks and goof off. I even taught them some of the games from Earth I brought to Weastaros. Unsurprisingly though Larys proved himself the best right behind me who made the games. Laenor wasn't half bad and neither was Tyland or Daeron. Other times we would go swimming in the God's eye without anyone knowing. Daeron almost drowned once after something caught his leg and tried to pull him under but I managed to save him and bring him back to shore. Sure Daemion was the better swimmer of the two but I could have sworn I saw something in the water trying to get him. So even though taking a swim in the lake your dad canonically died in was a unique experience I decided never to do it again. Even so, I had earned Daeron and Daemion's loyalty as well. No doubt they'll be key allies in the future when it comes to shipping and trading.
After that event, we received a lecture from the king himself though he had finally arrived in Harrenhal shortly before that happened. What was worse was the double scolding from Granny and my mother at the same time. Still, even though our games cooled off for a while we still hung out together. Sometimes we would go riding on horseback back although it was always under the Guard's supervision. Although Granny wanted it to be set in Ryam it wasn't always but the other boys all admired him. But my introducing them to a legendary knight wasn't the linchpin of our group. But our alliance was truly sealed when I introduced them all to Ancalagon. He was bigger than Laenor's Seasmoke who was two years older and had been left on a driftmark. I convinced Ancalagon to allow them to pet him a and I could see the wonder in their eyes. I could almost smell the undying fealty radiating off of them and I knew this group of ours wouldn't end when the council did.
Our friendship grew every day and I knew for a fact I had them in my grasp. So I moved on to the next great house from the Lannisters. Now you would think I would start with the Tullys of Riverun but no. The Tullys were a bit out of my grasp for the moment. Sure I had become acquainted with a few of the lesser members but none of the main family were my age. Grover Tully was an old ass man and his health was already failing. His son is a grown ass man with an infant son of his own. I'd mentioned them of course but that was more of a formal meeting my father dragged me to. Father wasn't exactly pleasant but he had his own charisma that led these meetings in Uncle's name. But after a while, Viserys came and started pushing his claim for himself.
My attention turned to house Tyrell instead. Lord Matthos Tyrell arrived with a retinue even larger than the Lannisters' something that Jason and Tyland said apparently rubbed their father the wrong way. Lannisters and their annoyingly large pride as always but at least Tymond had the better mustache. We would have had beef with the Tyrell boys but we didn't actually interact with them that often. We did still add a few reachmen to our growing friend group Myles, Gawayne, and their big brother Bryndon Hightower ended up joining us as well. I was hard focusing on the future greens as I intended to ensure Aegon or Aemond would become king or failing that having allies in the reach would still prove useful. Although the hand had warned his sons not to get involved with me probably due to his growing animosity for my father. They didn't actually know each other that well yet but their animosity was already growing. Plus it was clear that I was still the king and Queen's most favored great-grandchild as we had our meetings almost every day.
In the morning I would always eat breakfast with them and I would tell them about my dreams as well. We had determined that they were not ordinary dreams which was fairly obvious to me. But we didn't have much to work off besides the fact that dragon dreamers were a thing in our family. I also mentioned how the first men had wargs and greenseers are known to sometimes dream of being animals. We considered how since I have the blood of both old Valyria and the first men that it might have caused these dreams. Eventually, we decided that if we wanted to know more we would need someone with the time and knowledge to look further into it. So we decided to bring Vaegon into the loop of things.
Although he had promised to look into the matter there wasn't much he could do at the moment. But later he and I would continue to correspond on the subject and would continue to do so after the great council was over. Soon enough there were more arrivals to Harrenhal who would way in on the matter of the succession. But the next of the great lords to arrive were the Greyjoys frankly they weren't of much import to things so I didn't bother making any alliances there. Plus even if I did it's not like it would change anything. So instead I decided to double down on the friends I already had and our group ended up gaining a reputation.
Although other lesser lords' sons tried to join with us and would follow us around the circle didn't grow much beyond three main editions. They came when the last of the great lords did. House Stark arrived last out of all the great lords at Harrenhal. They were led by their lord Ellard Stark who had made it clear he didn't support my uncle but rather Rhaenys' side rather quickly. The two additions to our little team who came with him were his sons Rickard and his younger brother Bennard both of whom were somewhat slow to join us. But just like ice even they had melted when faced with the warmth of a dragon.
But despite House Baratheon having arrived before the Starks by a few weeks Borros Baratheon was actually the last of all the great lords' children to join us. Sure a Greyjoy boy tried but he never really got that metaphorical seat at the table that we all had. Personally, though I found Borros to be rather stupid it was his boldness and skill in the yard that charmed the others. Especially Harwin who oddly enough had become the closest thing I had to a best friend. The two of them would make bets on silly challenges usually Borros would never realize half of them were set up for him to fail. Said challenges and bets were often backed by Lannister gold so I usually made quite the pretty penny off them.
And as our games and bets grew so did our reputation. I had reinvented soccer in this world using the gold I won from smaller bets to get the resources for it. We decided that are group needed a name to match that reputation but there were differing opinions on what to call ourselves. For example, Jason and Tyland wanted to call our group the lion pride which was almost immediately shot down. Harwin proposed we call ourselves the mighty sons but I pointed out it sounded way too much like a sell sword company and so we decided against that as well. We also considered the Haerrenten but the numbers didn't add up right so we ended up going with the knights of the round table. I got the idea from Gawayne being there and that we hardened to be sitting at a round table table oat the time. Plus it sounded good and the knights of the round were an okay name in itself.
From there it caught on quite wildly as did some of my other games like baseball. And before we knew it more than just us kids were playing. Men grown from knights and lords to small folk were too. Different teams of different names would face off in different sports and it wasn't long before we actually had official fields and tools thanks to me asking the king and Harwin asking his father. Eventually, Larys had the idea of setting up a soccer tournament and since he couldn't play he was our referee.
We won most days but sometimes we just weren't enough and that was fine although most were too afraid to piss off a prince and the children of great lords by beating them. Plus some of us had real talent for some sports as well. Laenor was our star soccer player a bonnified striker and Harwin was our best home run hitter. Norris proved rather good at football and Larys became a master at chess and checkers second only to me of course.
Football was a real hit with the northern and the storm Flanders but the reachmen preferred soccer and baseball over anything else I made. Plus Chess quickly became more popular than Cyvasse which I didn't expect.
But in time our games came to an end. It began when every lord of Weastaros who arrived had put in there started hearing claims and it was time to decide who the heir to the Iron Throne would truly be. I remember when Father came to tell me. I was with Rhaenyra and her mother all dressed up in our fanciest outfits of course. We had been waiting for it to begin all day and finally it was time. He brought us out to the great hall of a to stand beside Viserys and my mother without a word and in unison we walked to join a grand procession of our house members that followed the king in queen. Every Lord and every Lady standing and staring as all those with the blood of the dragon gathered in one place. The sight filled me with a sudden pride but I could tell from how Rhaenys gripped her mother's hand that she was nervous to be stared at by so many. I didn't hold hands with my mother instead I walked forward back straight chin held high. I ignored them as horns and music announced our arrival and we waited for the king to be seated upon the iron thrones. Once the old king Jaehaerys sat upon the grand chair we took seats of honor upon a grand dais. I knew one thing though that of claims that will be pressed during this day the one will prevail.
[Chapter image Here]
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I literally almost passed out while writing this at the end so we're gonna figure it out. Bye-bye 😴.