Fire And Blood

Power

Rhaenys XVI

Through the tiredness of her pregnancy, Rhaenys could not express her relief enough. For three days now, there had been nothing shown up for them to defend against. There were no Valyrian morbidities, monstrosities or any other vile and twisted creatures. The deck of the Balerion almost appeared to have returned to its auspicious state prior to their unexpected deviation into the Smoking Sea, except…it was so much emptier.

Save for the sailors forced to return to duty, only a few of their men chose to stay and idle on deck. Faint bloodstains sullied the wooden floorboards, slight tears and holes littered the pieces of sailcloth hanging from the spars, and a general sense of gloom seemed to pervade across the ship as it waded through this maze of rock and ruins. There was little laughter, song and music or chatter. Silence permeated the air. Oppressive, tense silence.

Even their dragons, Rhaenys could tell, felt the ever-present threats lurking close by. Perched atop the masts, they slithered their long necks and heads in every which direction. She assumed that they were listening, smelling and watching for any hint of danger.

The peace and quiet they were enjoying now – and enjoying was a very strong word for there was little joy in it – could be gone in a moment's notice, she knew.

What stretch of time they did have, however, she used to take in what was once the home of her Valyrian ancestors. And there was so much to take in.

Her Aegon had told her of the thoughts he had upon first taking the time to comprehend the scenery of the broken peninsula which had once been the powerful Valyrian Freehold. She, too, had then been left to wonder what must have gone through the minds of the people standing on this land on the day of the Doom which would be torn in two a moment later. The Summer Sea had flooded the canyon which had resulted in the Doom of Valyria and thus, created the Smoking Sea. Nature did not care about human lives. Nature did not care about the hubris of men. Nature did not care about the homes, temples, towers and bridges which had lasted thousands of years. Nature simply came and claimed what was once theirs just as the Summer Sea had done to the canyon which had run through the Valyrian Freehold as the large mass of land had been torn in two.

Kinvara, so Dany had told her, believed that it had been a punishment of the gods. If the Doom had indeed been such, then Rhaenys could not blame them. The corpse of the speaking beast – whose words had been loud enough to be easily heard in their cabin – were enough evidence for her to judge the actions of her Valyrian ancestors. It was difficult to stomach.

And yet, there were things which also awed her and brought a smile to her face. The smooth curves of black stone reshaped into strange impossible structures of architecture; the intricately carved statues of dragons, basilisks, manticores and griffins she could make out in long and wide columns which vaguely reminded her of Dragonstone; the intricate, long bridges visible on top of the cliffs, broken in many places and yet it was easy to imagine them in one piece connecting the land together. The Old Valyrians had been a great and terrible people. Her Valyrian ancestors had begat atrocities too grotesque and reprehensible beyond their understanding and yet also crafted the most beautiful of marvels that would withstand the test of time for centuries to come. They had been two sides of the same coin, she could tell.

And there had been so many remains of dragons their ships came across and those dragons had been impossibly large as well. More than once had she seen black, massive bones, the way she remembered Balerion the Black Dread's skull in the Red Keep, jutting out of the waters. One time, she swore, she had caught a glimpse of a dragon's skull deep beneath the waters of the Smoking Sea. Just thinking about how colossal the dragon must have been for its skull to even be slightly visible in that endless abyss below the waves boggled her mind to the core.