Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Also a cheeky little discount– more information on that at the bottom AN.
—107 AC—
I stared at the letter with rage building in my gut. I knew there was something I failed to consider with this Baratheon squireship. Just go away for a few years, get stronger and develop at your own pace had been the offer, and I'd taken it like a good boy without pausing to think about what I would be missing. Now, I could see it clearly. Corlys' letter wrote about the pirates in the Stepstones attacking Velaryon ships without hesitation nor fear of reprisal, and his desire to appeal to the King for the right to retaliate— he'd done it twice already. Except that Viserys was yet to accept us back into his good graces after what I'd done at the Great Council. There was no Daemon in this case to suggest war in the Stepstones.
Of course there wasn't. I'd insulted his brother over a throne that I couldn't even win in the end, and now he was basically enemies with House Velaryon. There was no doubt that Daemon loved Viserys, and we'd be the ones to suffer for that. I scowled and tore up the parchment in my grasp before grabbing another sheet and beginning to write again. In any other castle, I would have feared my words being intercepted and read, but after years here, I still wasn't entirely sure if any of the Baratheon men actually knew how to read. It wouldn't even be that shocking if they didn't. Boremund had his Maester read anything pressing to him during dinner, and he never seemed much interested in books or anything of the sort. Of course, it could also just be a thing of desire and not capability.
Distracted again, I growled at myself. Focus, Laenor, focus. You need a plan to make this work, and against all odds, I was beginning to get the bones of one in mind.
So, I wrote Corlys with a plan. House Velaryon shipped the luxuries that King's Landing relied on. The Reach sent food, yes. So did the Riverlands. But all the things pricier and thus more important to pride, like tapestries, spices, and the lot, were shipped on Velaryon ships. Corlys had probably enjoyed telling me all about how he had canibalised my idea for the Laena Velaryon and built cargo ships that could carry dozens more than any other, even with more than a skeleton crew onboard. With that, he'd more or less muscled the Essosi out of the market. Now all he had to do was make those shipments dry out little by little. The increased prices would probably go some way in salvaging our lost revenue from the pseudo-blockade.
And when the Lords approached him to complain, all he had to do was say it was unsafe for Velaryon ships to pass the Stepstones, as the King refused to give him leave to deal with the pirates within. Let Viserys' lords be the ones to pressure him. Let his Queen find no spices for her mutton, or lace for her dresses. Eventually, he'd cave. Someone like him? I'd give it weeks.
----
I pressed the attack, transitioning from a straight slash that forced my opponent backwards, to a stab at his chest that he had to lift his shield to block. When he brought his war hammer to bear, I weaved to the side before my foot found the back of his knee and forced him to one knee in a single sharp back kick. He tried to bring the hammer around again, but a slap from the side of my sword into said arm made him think better of it. Next, my sword was at his throat, he was yielding, and I almost began jumping about the place. My first win.
I turned to Manfred, not even surprised to see him waiting with a list of the things I'd done wrong in that particular spar, but that could wait. Foremost, I needed to celebrate. I turned to Ben and found him smiling, so it was to him, I went first.
"Come back here, boy. It's not like you've done anything worth celebrating" Manfred's words took the wind out of my sails as I made my way to Ben.
"You heard your master-of-arms, my lord. Go there" Ben said. I sparred him a glare, traitor that he was, and he bore it easily, only reacting with a laugh and a shake of his head.
"You have to admit that was impressive as hell though" I said, looking between them.
"No. No, we don't. Now sword up" Manfred said with a scowl on his face.
"Yeah, fuck you" I muttered, but still shuffled back to the ring and took my stance.
"Did I hear something?"
"No Ser"
"Better have been nothing, boy" He said menacingly.
—
My last spar of the year was against my very first opponent. I'd faced all sorts of people. Some of them knights, most of them not. Either way, Ser Manfred managed to get experts with a wide variety of weapons to come and spar with me. There was probably a healthy amount of gold changing hands, but since none of it was mentioned to me, then it was not my business. The man with the morningstar had changed little since we'd last fought.
In contrast, I must have put on two stone since then and shot up a whole foot in height. The experts Manfred brought were seldom willing to follow his insane schedule, so that meant I had more free time to myself to both train my body, read, plot, and spend time with Igneel. Igneel, whose physical growth had stabilized somewhat, had instead begun to grow in other ways. He could fly for longer now, and his fire burned hotter than it used to, with even more explosive potential when he wanted to use it like that.
He plodded over towards me as this time instead of running in his direction, I let him be the one to make the first move. He swung the morningstar straight in my direction. I took a step back, noting how the rod, the chain, and the ball at the end of the chain moved in sync. He waited for me to counter with an attack of my own, but I did not, content to stand and wait for him to make the next move.
Make the next move he did, as he swung for me again and once again I took another step back. Once again, he hunkered for a return attack, but none came from my end. In our first fight, he'd used his footwork to turn my aggression against me. This time, I forced him to lead the dance, and it was clear that that was not where his strengths lay. He swung once, and then again and then on the third swing instead of stepping back for the fifth time, I stepped inside his guard, stabbing my blade straight into the links between the chain that connected the rod to the metal ball at the end.
With a push, both our weapons went flying into the air. Before he got to adapt to the new situation, my shield had buried itself straight into his face, making him stumble backwards as his helm must have been ringing from that impact. Regardless, I hit him in the head two more times with the face of the shield before he fell to his knees, and then from there it was facedown for him as he lost consciousness for a brief instant. My win.
I heard the sound of applause and turned to the side to find Ser Ben there, putting his hands together. Even Manfred had a look on his face that could vaguely be mistaken for a smile if one looked at it from the right— or wrong angle.
"Well done, boy" he said, "Congratulations, you've finally managed to stop losing to poorly trained farmers and hedge knights. Maybe I'll make a fighter out of you one day" Manfred said with a wicked look on his face.
"Yeah, yeah" I said with irritation building at how quickly my win was disregarded before I took my stance again. This time, the morningstar wielding knight was more hesitant, no longer willing to play my game and trying to force me to play his, by remaining in his stance. His cheek was swollen, and he looked dazed from the rude awakening Manfred had given him with ale to the face. I knew I could out-wait him, but I could already hear Manfred's scathing words in my ear if I tried that strategy.
The Baratheon household were not big fans of what they perceived to be cowardice. I turned away from him for a second, looking like I was examining something to the side and the second I felt his head turn out of curiosity, I dove in for the attack.
Of course, that was not enough to catch him completely by surprise. His shield rose in time, blocking my jumping slash, but the force forced his hand down slightly, and that was all I needed. I jammed my shield into his own in a shield bash. Thirteen or not, I was big and strong, and in this case, I wanted it very much. He stumbled back and then came around with his morningstar again. I danced around it, moving to the side where I jammed my blade into the back of his leg. Blunted or not, that must have hurt like a motherfucker, evidenced from the grunt of pain and him falling to one knee.
That was all I needed to get fully behind him and place my blade at his neck from behind.
"Yield?" I asked with a smile, feeling the euphoria of victory take me. He grunted before jamming his head backwards, sending pain straight to my midsection.
Did that fatherfucker crack a rib with his helmet? I wondered but got no time to think further as he hobbled to his feet and was instantly upon me. Swing after swing of his Morningstar was blocked by my shield, until it began to become clear that he would not be stopping and reassessing. His plan was to put me under so much pressure that I would inevitably mess up, and when I did, he would be in the perfect position to take advantage. No. I refused.
I dropped my sword, and could see the way his eyes narrowed at that move. He came again with renewed vigor, but this time I was supporting my Shield with both arms, making it near impossible for him to get the same kind of headway he had to have been used to. And then when he took a second too long with his next attack, probably still feeling it in his leg just like I was feeling it in my ribs, I pushed out with my shield, hitting him in the body with it and sending the both of us to the ground.
This was a strategy I'd tried with Manfred a few times, but the Baratheon master-at-arms has wasted no time in showing me just why that was a bad idea with people bigger than me. This man, hedge knight or not, was bigger than me as well. But his size did not matter in this situation because I had something he didn't— a plan.
A good one, even. We rolled along the ground for a few seconds, and that confusion was all I needed to find the dagger strapped to my side and place it at his neck. "Yield?" I asked this time with audible menace in my voice. I was irritated enough at that his first trick to run him through with the dagger if he tried something else. Not through his neck, though. Maybe his shoulder. Yeah, that would hurt like a motherfucker, and with the state of medicine in this world, possibly lose him use of the arm, but it wouldn't give me a reputation for killing people in spars.
"I yield, my lord" He said, and I scoffed before pushing myself off him and onto my feet before I stretched out a hand and helped him up.
"Not completely disastrous" Ben said with a smile.
"But foolish as all hells" Manfred completed, looking down at my mud covered padding. The rain here was constant and even though we could get good footing with our nice boots, diving into the floor had probably not been the best move when considering my clothing. Well, being a Lord had its advantages at least.
—
I stared at the letter, not sure how I felt about it. Corlys' plan— my plan but with some Seasnake flavored additions, had worked. The realm was clamoring for war in the Stepstones, and Viserys was only a stroke of a pen away from authorising House Velaryon to move un to pacify the region. Pacify, not annex, he had specified. He was probably disappointed, but I wasn't. War was long, and Viserys was a weak-willed man. When we finally won the thing, he'd be hard-pressed to stop us from doing whatever we wanted with the damn thing. Besides, we could always argue that annexing the damn thing was necessary to pacify it.
That was not what had me unsure, to be honest. No, what had me unsure was the part where he said he was going to be writing House Baratheon to join in with House Velaryon on the attack. Viserys had given him free rein to seek support within the realm but had specified that he would not be ordering anyone to war in a foreign land. What worried me was that this whole thing stunk. Sure, House Baratheon helping would mean we could wrap things off even quicker than in canon. But if they did, then it stopped being a Velaryon victory and became a Westerosi one.
Was that Viserys' plan? Moreover, there was no chance that Boremund, prideful old bastard that he was, would sit aside and let us declare ourselves King of the Islands. Not in a world where he'd contributed to that conquest. He'd want his pound of flesh, and he'd arguably deserve it. But them was that enough reason to ask Corlys to step back from asking.
Because we were in it alone otherwise. No Daemon this time, or at least no Daemon yet. We had dragons, but I couldn't see him sending Rhaenys or Laena off to war, to be honest. So it would just be me, our fleets, and Igneel. We'd need the Baratheons. We had ships and men to crew them, but we didn't have the men to do the fighting. Not enough bodies to burn in that considering our small population and even smaller levies. We'd empty Driftmark and still not have enough men to match the pirates on even footing. Not even with the force multiplier that was a single Dragon. Oh fuck it, I thought, and began to pen a letter.
If I wanted to win, I had to change my goals. I wanted the Stepstones for myself. Corlys didn't. His goal was to get rid of the pirates. And if there was one person that could help with that, then we had to at least try. And maybe if the gods were merciful, he'd get bored and fuck off to the Red Keep, just like he did in canon.
I wrote the letter, and then another, before moving to the Maester's tower. One of them to the Red Keep, and the other to High Tide.
—108 AC— RHAENYS TARGARYEN
She watched her cousin as he dismounted his dragon, the cantankerous Blood wyrm, her father's dragon. Claimed to avenge her decision to clam his mother's, she knew. She and Viserys might have been able to rescue a cordial relationship from the pressures of court and the competition for the throne, but Daemon was far from that. He was vengeful and prideful like no one she had ever seen, so why was he here now? When Laenor's letter had arrived all those weeks ago, they had expected his gambit to fail, but now the Rogue Prince was at their gates, was he here to spit on Laenor's offer by declining to their faces, or was he here to accept it?
"Your son wrote me a letter, cousin" Daemon said, walking towards her and almost entirely ignoring Corlys.
"Yes, our son wrote you a letter with our leave" Corlys said, making sure to show no offense a being disregarded. Daemon was the kind of man to go out of his way to get on your nerves, so showing him that he had succeeded was one way to make sure he did it again.
"He said the Stepstones would be mine to deal with if I joined this conquest of yours"
"Pacification. The Velaryon fleet shall only be moving to pacify the islands. However, we recognise that when we do so, then there will be a vacuum on the isles. A vacuum we cannot fill, and it would only be fitting" He said.
"So you would give me a Kingdom?" Daemon asked, brow quirked.
"No. We would help you take a Kingdom. Your involvement in the pacification would be necessary." Corlys said.
"I see. And what's the other boot?"
"Like Laenor said, good trade deals, profitable terms for Velaryon ships crossing the stepsons, and less merciful terms for those who would garner our mutual ire." Corlys said.
"That's all well and good. But your Son did not do something which I see as necessary for any deal to begin."
"Which is?"
"An apology. He insulted both Viserys and I during that speech of his."
"Six years ago?" She asked, not completely shocked that he'd bring it up.
"Old wounds run deep and fester" He said, stepping back and giving them a significant look, as if to say if you want me then show how much you do so.
"We won't apologise." Corlys said.
"Laenor said what he felt he needed to, and if you would smash this deal into pieces for actions half a decade in the past and from a boy yet to see his tenth nameday at the time, then I struggle to imagine what kind of ally you would be" Corlys challenged, narrowed eyes. The Blood wyrm behind Daemon roared like it could recognise its rider had been insulted. Meleys matched it, and a second later so did Vhagar from a few steps away.
If Daemon tried something stupid, then he would find himself more than matched. It was clear he knew that as he looked from Meleys to Vhagar, looking like he'd swallowed a lemon before his face smoothed out.
"Just a test to see your resolve, Velaryon. We have a deal" He said.
A/N: Next three up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)( same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.Also, there's a cheeky 10% discount available for all monthly plans till the 14th.