The joyous clamour that had filled the ancient streets of Oldtown, celebrating the coronation of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, was abruptly, terrifyingly silenced.
The pealing bells of the city, which moments before had sung of a new dawn, now seemed to choke on the air, their reverberations swallowed by a guttural rumble that vibrated deep within the very stone of the Starry Sept.
Above the vaulted ceilings of the sept, the morning light that had streamed through ornate windows was blotted out, replaced by an immense, predatory silhouette that cast a sudden, chilling shadow over the city .
A monstrous roar ripped through the air, so primal and fearsome it curdled the blood in the veins of lords and smallfolk alike. The collective intake of breath that had marked Jaehaerys's anointing turned into a gasping shriek as panic erupted, transforming celebration into chaos .Within the sept, the assembled congregation scrambled, trampling one another in a desperate bid for an unknown escape. Outside, in the teeming streets where tens of thousands had hailed their new king, cheers turned to screams of unadulterated terror.
Guards shrieked, "Cannibal!" as the earth-shattering bellow announced an unknown presence, heralding a future of fear .
Amidst the escalating pandemonium, all eyes, drawn by an ancient dread, instinctively turned towards the source of the roar. There, slowly descending from the bruised, overcast sky, far beyond the city walls where the grasslands stretched green and undulating, was a creature of legend, coal black with baleful green eyes.
It was a dragon, yet one unlike the noble beasts that had graced the coronation. This was the Cannibal.
From the dais within the Starry Sept, King Jaehaerys, barely a man at fourteen years of age, watched the descent, his young face etched with awe and a dawning comprehension of the unprecedented. Beside him, Queen Alyssa, her composure usually a bastion, looked pale as parchment.
Lord Rogar Baratheon, the Hand of the King, who had delivered the Iron Throne to Jaehaerys, swore under his breath, his eyes fixed on the monstrous form. Princess Rhaena and Princess Alysanne, whose own dragons, Dreamfyre and Silverwing respectively, typically commanded the skies with majesty, now felt a prickle of unease.
They quickly darted from the Sept, a core group of loyal lords and knights hurrying behind them, their own dragons—Vermithor, Silverwing, and Dreamfyre—rising to meet them, their roars, though mighty, seeming almost deferential against the earth-shattering bellow of the descending beast.
As Jaehaerys vaulted onto Vermithor's back, followed swiftly by Alysanne upon Silverwing and Rhaena atop Dreamfyre, they directed their mounts towards the grassland where the black leviathan was slowly settling.
"Impossible," Lord Rogar muttered, flying beside Jaehaerys, his voice strained above the wind rushing past Vermithor's wings. "There's a man upon its back!".
Grand Maester Benifer, newly returned from exile, riding behind the royal party on a swift courser, squinted into the distance.
"It cannot be," he exclaimed, "The Cannibal has never suffered a rider. Its lair is littered with the bones of those who dared try to tame it!".
The Cannibal, named for its gruesome diet, had long been a dark legend of Dragonstone, a creature whose very existence underscored the untamed, primordial power of dragons. It was an ancient beast, coal black with piercing, baleful green eyes.
Tales whispered amongst the smallfolk of Dragonstone claimed it had made its lair there even before the coming of the Targaryens themselves.
Unlike the dragons ridden by House Targaryen, the Cannibal had spurned all human dominion, its ferocity legendary. Would-be dragontamers, desperate for the prestige of riding such a formidable beast, had attempted to claim it countless times, but its hidden lairs were merely charnel houses, littered with their shattered bones.
No one in recorded history had ever mounted this dragon, nor had any foolhardy dragonseed ever dared disturb it and returned to tell the tale.The Cannibal's diet was a macabre part of its renown; it was known to feed on the carcasses of dead dragons, a scavenger even amongst its own kind, and would descend upon the hatcheries of Dragonstone to gorge itself on newborn hatchlings and unhatched eggs.
Only recently, a battered merchant cog had limped into Dragonstone's harbour, its crew speaking of seeing two dragons fighting near the Dragonmont. The burned and broken remains of Grey Ghost, a pale grey-white beast that largely avoided men, were later found, torn into two pieces and partially devoured, with the Cannibal quickly named as the killer.
While there had been some conflicting reports suggesting Sunfyre might have been involved, the dominant and terrifying belief was that the Cannibal, true to its name, was responsible for the savage slaying of a smaller dragon.
Its unpredictable, savage nature and utter refusal to bend to any rider had woven it into the very fabric of Westerosi folklore as a beast of pure, untameable instinct.Now, as the massive black form settled onto the grassland, the impossibility of what they witnessed solidified: a lone, upright figure could be clearly seen atop its broad, scaly back.
The sight was a challenge not just to King Jaehaerys's authority, but to the very fabric of what was understood about dragons and the ancient lineage of Valyria itself.
The air, no longer filled with panicked screams, now thrummed with a terrifying silence, broken only by the beating of dragon wings and the thumping of hearts. This man, an enigma silhouetted against the setting sun, riding the untameable, was a living embodiment of the chaos that had been unleashed, a harbinger of struggles yet unforeseen, capable of wielding power thought utterly beyond human grasp.