(A/N- Okay, the next 2 chapters turned out a little cringe, so read at your own risk 😂 The next ones get much better, I promise.)
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The roaring of the nobles rose in crashing waves, echoing through the autumn clearing like surf pounding against black cliffs. Only then did King Viserys stir from the trance that had seized him. He blinked slowly, as though waking from a dream he wished he had not seen, and drew a sharp breath that scraped dryly in his throat.
Before him, astride the white hart of legend, sat young Prince Baelon.
Daemon's son. His nephew. A boy of no more than six summers, silver-haired and solemn upon the great stag's broad back. Sunlight spilled between the branches, laying a pale crown upon the child's brow as lords and ladies pressed to their knees, heads bowed in stunned reverence.
Viserys felt the moment crack open inside him, like a faultline long hidden beneath calm soil.
Gods…Baelon was extraordinary. Too extraordinary. More than Rhaenyra? He did not dare form the thought fully, yet it whispered within him all the same.
But Rhaenyra was his firstborn, his golden girl, his heir, his last tie to Aemma. The child born of love rather than duty. He had named her the Realm's Delight. He had sworn she would inherit the Iron Throne.
He would not take that from her. He could not.
And yet… the hart. The kneeling nobles. The way the boy seemed carved from some ancient prophecy, as though the old songs had risen from the earth to claim him.
Beside the king, Otto Hightower stood motionless. The Hand's face had gone deathly pale, his composure shattered. His green cloak scarcely stirred though a soft wind rustled through the clearing.
All his careful labors, the quiet guidance, the placing of Alicent in the king's sight at just the right moment, the encouragement that brought forth a son named Aegon, had been built brick by fragile brick. A future forged through patience, calculation, and the slow turning of courtly wheels.
And now this child.
Daemon's child. Brilliant as dawn...
Otto's jaw clenched. His fingers twitched toward the hilt of nothing.
This cannot stand.
But the gods seemed to mock him.
The white hart, sacred to the old tales, had bowed its noble head to Baelon. Tyraxes circled above in a slow, majestic spiral. And the nobles, drunk on omen and awe, knelt as if in prayer.
Even a blind fool could see what this moment proclaimed.
[Achievement Unlocked - Dawn Prince (Gold Tier)]
[The sun is your crown.
The white hart is your throne.
The kneeling nobles offer loyalty,
while jealous vermin brew their poisons in the dark.]
[Dawn Prince - a symbol of divinity and nobility.
What future will you carve from the world?]
[Reward: Crown of Dawn]
In Baelon's inner "achievement space," the unseen dark expanded once more.
A vast expanse of shadow spread like a starless night. From the gloom rose a solitary pedestal of pale stone. Upon it rested an object wrought of pure gold, shaped like a radiant crown whose edges flared like the rising sun.
Baelon's breath trembled. The vision shimmered, dissolved, and the forest flooded back. The stag beneath him shifted its hooves, steady and patient.
He lifted his hand.
"Rise," he said, his voice clearer than it had any right to be. "All of you."
Baelon was no king... not yet. He would not strip Viserys of dignity nor overshadow him in his own hunt. The thought alone made him sit straighter, softer, as if to lessen his own presence.
One by one, the kneeling nobles rose, brushing dirt from cloaks and cuirasses, their faces pale with wonder.
But one man remained on the ground.
Lord Jason Lannister let out a sharp cry, jerking upright as he clutched his thigh. He staggered, bent, and pushed aside a drift of leaves and bracken. Beneath them gleamed something bright.
A circlet. Of Gold, polished and Heavy. Set with deep red rubies that glowed like embers.
One ruby had cut him cleanly as he knelt.
"A crown…?" Jason murmured. He lifted it with both hands, breath catching.
The morning light struck the circlet, setting the gold ablaze. Jason turned it reverently, and froze.
Inside the band, engraved in flowing strokes of the Common Tongue, were two words:
DAWN'S RISE
Jason stared. His mind raced with the swiftness of a hunting cat.
A trick? Impossible!
The hart's path was its own. No mortal could have commanded it. No one could have predicted where Jason himself would kneel, or that he, of all present, would uncover this hidden treasure.
No, this was no mortal's plotting.
This was omen. This was prophecy made manifest.
A sacred stag. A crown rising from the earth at a prince's feet. A child radiant with a beauty too sharp for nature alone.
Jason felt his pulse thunder inside him, a roar in his ears. House Lannister had not risen to such heights in generations, not since the Age of Heroes, when their forebears walked beside kings. But now? Now he felt the very fabric of fate twist before him.
He took a step forward and dropped to one knee again.
"Your Highness," Jason said, voice trembling with awe and boldness in equal measure, "grant me the honor of placing this crown upon you. Let this moment be the glory of House Lannister, and the pride of the West."
Baelon's gaze flicked toward the king.
Viserys did not shout. Did not strike the air with his hand. Did not rebuke the lord for daring such a gesture.
His expression was a wound, raw, torn open by doubt and duty and emotion older than either.
Baelon nodded.
"As the first among them to kneel for me, Lord Jason," he said softly, "you have earned this honor."
Jason rose, slow and reverent, as though he handled a reliquary. His hands trembled as he lifted the crown high. The clearing seemed to hold its breath.
He lowered the circlet onto Baelon's silver hair.
The boy did not flinch. The stag did not move. Even tyraxes paused mid-spiral for an instant, wings outstretched against the sky.
And the nobles understood.
Whether this was omen or miracle or a cruel twist of fate, it had happened.
From that day forth, songs would call the proud lion of Casterly Rock by a new name:
Jason the Crowner.
For he had crowned a child touched by prophecy.
Though Baelon wore the crown awkwardly, it slipped slightly against his small head, the sight did not seem ludicrous. The stag beneath him stood regal as a carved monarch. The light around him fell in soft gold. His eyes, too bright for his years, held a gravity that anchored the moment.
What should have looked absurd felt… ordained.
Otto Hightower could scarcely breathe. His throat rasped like sand. He watched ruin form before him.
Viserys's silence. The nobles' reverence. The crown. The stag.
Worst of all, he saw that no one... not even the King, moved to undo it.
Otto stepped forward sharply, seizing control of the moment like a drowning man clawing for a rope.
"That is enough," he declared. "His Grace is weary, and the camp awaits. Prince Baelon is unharmed. We ride at once. Lord Jason, you will escort the prince."
The words snapped through the clearing like a whip. The nobles jolted upright, their awe draining into cold dread.
They had knelt to another Targaryen in the king's presence. A gesture dangerously close to treason.
But Viserys said nothing. He only looked once more at Baelon, at the crown upon his head, at the white hart holding steady beneath him, and then turned away, shoulders heavy with a grief he could not name.
Baelon exhaled quietly, barely moving. The tension bled from the moment.
Thank the gods that Viserys was a man who clung to family above all else. And thank the gods Baelon remained a child in form, small, seeming harmless despite the fire within.
For if he had been older... if he had appeared in this clearing as a warrior crowned upon a white hart with a dragon circling the skies-
the realm might have seen more than omen.
They might have seen a challenge.
With a soft tug of the reins woven into the hart's antlers, Baelon urged the beast forward. Jason Lannister drew up beside him, pride burning in every line of his face. The nobles cleared a path, bowing their heads but avoiding the king's gaze, shame and awe warring in their eyes.
The woods around them seemed changed, quieter, deeper, as though the trees themselves now carried witness to something older than crowns and thrones.
Baelon straightened his back, the weight of the golden circlet unfamiliar yet strangely fitting.
He should have felt overwhelmed. Frightened.
Instead he felt the stirring he had sensed earlier, soft, spreading like dawn beneath the horizon, promising the coming of light.
Whatever destiny awaited him, it had stepped forward today. And he could no longer pretend he did not hear its footsteps.
The stag moved with slow, dignified strides.
And the boy upon its back shone like the first pale streak of morning.
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A/N- If you're liking how the story starts, trust me, the best parts are only beginning. Baelon's journey gets far wilder in the next arc.
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