Fire And Blood

The Remains Of The Valyrian Freehold

Aegon XVI

Valyria. The home of Rhaegar Targaryen's – his father's – ancestors. His ancestors.

His finger tapped repeatedly against the pommel of Long Memory.

Aegon was not sure what he was feeling. A sense of impending terror and doom, worry, even fear. He would be lying if he claimed otherwise. This was Valyria and the Smoking Sea. This was where countless ships got lost, where those daring to traverse this cursed land would disappear forever.

On deck, the knowledge of this danger had spread like an uncontrollable inferno, the captains chattering among themselves, screaming from ship to ship. Sellswords and sailors were whispering fearfully to each other, several even dropping down to their knees and crying out, praying to their gods. Should they dare to traverse the Smoking Sea? Did they even have a choice?

Order needed to be restored, lest things would get even more out of hand.

"We will continue our journey through the Smoking Sea!" he declared loudly after having heard enough bickering among the ship captains. That they had to scream to be heard made it worse. "Captain Lazodos, give the order to your sailors to pull up the anchor."

The captain ground his teeth but nodded before barking his orders to his men. To their credit, they went to work immediately, shaking all the while, and eventually, they were able to get the ship moving but at a sluggish pace. The winds didn't favour them as much as they had earlier on this day. The remnants of their fleet followed suit but he spotted one ship doing the opposite. Sails were moved and oars on one side were busy while the others remained still, turning the ship around. It was one of the galleys transporting their steeds.

"Captain Syridos!" He shouted over to the ship while leaning against the railing. "We will cross the Smoking Sea and you will turn your ship around. Mutiny will be punished harshly and I will remember."

"Then I will await my punishment eagerly if you ever survive these cursed waters, King!"

While the Balerion and the other three ships began to slowly steer towards the Smoking Sea and deeper into Old Valyria, Captain Syridos led his galley the other way around. Aegon cursed loudly and slammed his fist onto the railing in anger. He watched with barely restrained fury as the Golden Swordfish became smaller and smaller.

"Let it be, little brother," Rhaenys said softly, placing a hand on his tense shoulder. "There's nothing we can do about it."

"Syridos will be lucky if he can even make it out into open waters," Ser Jorah remarked with a shake of his head. "Sailing into that vicious storm again will likely lead to his doom either way."

Then, suddenly, without any warning, a great, red tentacle, as large as Winterfell's highest tower and with suckers as wide as his head, tore through and burst out of the deck of the Golden Swordfish in an explosion of splinters. The screams of men, the desperate neighing of their horses, the crunching of splintered wood – it all sounded impossibly loud to his ears as he stared wide-eyed, open-mouthed and helplessly at everyone and everything onboard the ship being thrown into the air before falling into the dark waters. The tentacle slammed the ship to the side, overturning it and splitting the hull in two. He could see sailors, oarsmen and the steeds themselves swimming desperately to latch onto floating pieces of timber or canvas, yet none made it far. More tentacles became visible on the surface as they burst through the water, grabbing those attempting to flee. Their terrified screams abruptly cut off into absolute silence as they were dragged under and into their watery graves.

The shocked gasps and exclamations of horror from sailors, pirates and sellswords alike, the explicit curses let out by Korra, Pahryl, Oberyn and Darron – all of it was seared into his mind forever, he knew. There was nothing that would ever be able to make him forget what he was seeing with his very eyes. The ship had been broken in two as if it had been a sheet of paper to be torn and it was done in mere minutes.