111 AC
King's Landing, Tourney Grounds
First-Person POV
Aemon Targaryen
XXX
Two Targayens charged at each other at full speed, but only one knew the truth.
In the seven years we've spent on and off together, the seven years he's attempted to teach me, to spend the time with me that he never did with his father, to mold me into a true prince of House Targaryen, he did not just succeed. No. I have excelled under his tutelage to a level even he has yet to witness.
In the seven years I've fostered in the Eyrie, traveled to Pentos, fought mountain clans for years, and crafted countless inventions to improve Runestone, there is one thing I've never shown him.
My full strength of arms, but I will show him now. Oh, that is all but guaranteed.
I charge.
He does the same.
One thing needs to be immediately made clear in this fight. Who will enjoy the dominant role?
In all of our spars, I've done my due diligence as has he. We've studied each other's tendencies countless times over the years as he'd often instruct me personally rather than have some master at arms do it. That was fine by me of course, father has a reputation for combat for a good reason.
A reason that is made clear the moment we clash blades. Sparks fly away in the wind like dust in an explosion and I can see in his eyes he's not as startled by the glowing flames of my sword as everyone else is.
Not unexpected. He's seen it before after all, not long after it was forged in fact. It is a rune-etched blade with a potency unlike any other.
Dark sister however, is also, Valyrian steel, and so even under the intense heat of the flames of Lamentation's rune-forged blade. It does, not, kneel.
The blade lock is initially a test of raw strength over skill. Daemon still thinks he can beat me in a match of raw power. An understandable mistake.
I am a boy 10 and 4 it's true and he is far older even if we are both hardened, well-trained warriors any man could succumb to the same conclusion.
But the blood of the first men flows fresh in my veins. A people well known for their strength and size, both of which I have inherited.
I drive Daemon back, and for the briefest of moments, I can see his eyes widen. His ragged breathing nearly inhaling the sparking fury of my blade with each swing I send at his head with an almost mad tenacity.
Is it shock I wonder? Perhaps fear? Maybe the all-consuming notion of knowing the son has finally surpassed the father? Or perhaps he simply thinks it a mere fluke.
'Well, Daemon allow me to disabuse you of that notion.'
At that moment the rage threatens to hit me all at once. I don't allow it. Rage makes a man sloppy, it makes him burn bright but too quickly and the only thing consumed by the flames tends to be oneself if they're not careful.
So I don't let it take me. Not yet at least.
I push him back again. A sideways slash comes to meet me immediately, I step out, he steps in, I side step a downward slash that I know is just a faint for the real attack.
He thinks I've messed up already though stepping backwards once more but that is not true, not under these circumstances at least.
I resist the temptation to party his next side slash and I am rewarded when I manage to back step the shield bash he didn't think I would see coming.
He's overextended, rookie mistake, I push forward lifting Lamintaion for a downward strike to begin a combo I know he'll recognize only I don't go for it like he's suspecting. Instead, I whip out something new.
I lift my leg with agility no knight should have in armor at this range and kick him back dissolving that idea of dominance he was reforming after I intentionally lost ground.
Then I go in. He's startled but not rocked by my unexpected kick.
Another downward slash, not panicked but quicker than he'd like it to be I'm sure, as it's not properly balanced.
"Overreaching again? Tisk risk. You should know better, Father," I hiss out the last word far harsher than I've meant to but I can feel the inner dragon calling to me from the shadows of my heart once more. It's coming much quicker this time than usual.
"I know better than you son," He says back with almost equal heat, almost.
Is it because I've been waiting for this moment all my life? Or is it almost poetic in nature to every lease as well I wonder?
I sidestep his attack and swing for his head. He's anticipated it of course, I would have been disappointed if he hadn't.
So when he ducks and his shield meets my rising knee I'm not surprised when the almost leading force pushes him back again.
I won't let him get too close, don't want it to become a wrestling match on the ground or in the mud.
I need a definitive almost humiliating victory against him. To preserve his dignity I gave him the jousting match he'd deserved but this isn't just a show of swordsmanship or skill anymore. It's a redefinition of who the realm's strongest warrior is, and it. is. me.
This next exchange proves just that as I all but sprint at him switching my handling of Lamintaion from two hands to one.
An overhand slash bites the weapon into his shield sparking a sudden blue fire in the ironwood. Daemon pays it almost no mind at all as he takes the opportunity to try and secure me with the weapon of the warrior queen herself, but I'm already gone.
Instead of flesh and steel, Visenya's famous ancestral weapon eats nothing but air as I'm already at Daemon's side attacking again with the same blow albeit at an angle.
He is without a doubt the fastest reactor I have ever fought. To any other man, he'd be too quick to be predictable, and far too strong to beat in single combat.
But I am not a mere man. I am a dragon in human skin and I am beyond the petty games of knights and princesses they oh-so love playing in this age.
I am everything that power and property allows me to be and it allows me to supersede the contradictions and incongruities of my heart.
So when my own mind asks me if this is what I want? When my previous life asks me if I've truly come to hate Daemon instead of being his fan? When my childhood self asks me if I'm prepared to kill Viserys, to let Baelon, Emma, and all his other unborn children die? If I can kill my own father for the throne?
The answer is not YES or NO.
It can be YES! AND! NO!
I can long for something and dread it in the same breath.
I can want it a nd loath it in the same instant.
I can love my father.
And decide to kill him at the same time.
I can yearn for his acknowledgment and respect, and resolve, and he! must! FALL!
So that I might RISE!
Because the dragon has no need for the rules of men. It has no need to consign itself to societal norms, or rules, or even any sort of puny sort of human so-called LOGIC. The Dragon soars above ALL things.
I spin around him batting blow after blow at him like a magical rain of flaming arrows. He blocks each and every single one of them expertly but it hacks apart his flaming shield and if the temperature isn't getting to him, then the fact that the blade has bit into his guantleted hand over and over dripping fresh ruby droplets of sweat-mixed blood to the arena floor, should do the trick.
He hasn't been standing there idly, though. He rotates with each attack summing my swiftness will exhaust me and I party away and all testing attack he throws out in greater and greater numbers lancing out with practiced skill and tempered precision.
To my surprise, despite my attacks being designed to annoy him he doesn't throw out any reckless blows in anger or impatience. He does not slice with rage or cleave with blinding anger avoiding exhaustion like a rat in the Red Keep's walls. Instead, he waits carefully, attempting to find a useful rhythm, a gap in my preternatural ability to continuously attack without concern or consequence for repudiation he will attempt to deal me for my actions.
I won't let him grow comfortable though so I'm constantly changing the pattern and rhythm of my attacks. I can tell from those searching purple eyes of his that he's looking for a proper opening and when I refuse to give him one. His eyes harden he decides to make one.
He straight up throws his flaming shield at me and only a practiced boxing-style weave saves me from a face full of fire. As soon as I rise though he goes for a gracefully smooth slash that would have taken any other man's head, but as I said I am not just any other man.
I am Aemon Targaryen the future lord of House Royce and a prince of House Targaryen.
So when I react fast enough to duck again and trade the top of my helm, a large ornately carved orange dragon of prime steel, for a stab into his gut so deep it draws blood and I can feel the tip nearly hit bone it's only expected that the crowd would cheer for me.
It's at that moment sound fully returns and I realise just how much in the zone I have been as the people are going wilder than ever for the two of us to hack each other apart. I fear that if I activated Dragon's aura and tried to make them any more excited a riot would break out.
A quick cut from Dark sister that bites into my shoulder brings me right back to the fight though, and although my eyes never left Daemon I'm sure he could tell my attention did.
'It seems we're both making rookie mistakes today, well, no more,'
His shield is gone and suddenly his speed almost more than doubles.
'Was he holding back before? Tricking me into a false sense of security? No matter, we can both play all the mind games we like but the victor is yet to be decided. I will not lose to my father, not here, not now, not when it's so crucial to win,'
I'm on the back foot now. That stab I sent him earlier turned into an awkward slash that went sparking up and eventually off his armor but not without a gash in it. Now he's picking up speed even with the wound and it is clear he has no intention of making this win easy.
'That old nightmare of an ego seeping through eh father? No matter,'
Although picking up the tempo is only enough to even things out and even I now realize that I too overestimated the gap between our abilities as well.
What follows can only be called a display of the most exemplary swordplay the likes of which the realm has never before seen in such close detail.
I would later find out that the very specifics were penned out and each detail of the duel was analyzed in a book called The Duels of Westaros. Written by an arch Maester of all people with the help of several knights and first-hand accounts. This duel was among the most detailed due to the man and his colleagues attending the tourney in person.
He hacks at me with scathing sword strokes. For each parry in return is a blow that slices through fine metal like butter and leaves me with cut after cut, denting my poldrans and causing me to almost chuckle with pain.
I return fire for fire.
I now realise that this is not a duel between man and monster but a dance of dragons in the daylight and one or two magic blades would not decide the victor.
THE DRAGONS WOULD!
I believe my counter assault to be one of the best I've ever laid out against anyone.
My blade lances back out at him. For every single one of the blows he's landed, I land one in kind. Then up my tempo once more, holding back my fury and instead letting my focus take hold and fuel me.
The only thing in my sight is him.
The man I want to destroy.
I speed up again and again pushing myself but keeping my breathing rhythmic and cool and can feel the burn in my lungs now even though I've hardly worked up a sweat in my opinion.
This duel has just started and I'm about to upend it.
My speed doubles then triples and before he knows it Daemon is laying everything into his own defence with nearly no time to attack back.
Good. Good!
For every drop of my blood, he takes I shall take twice that of his own.
By now both our armors are leaking but it's another new combo of mine that ends the glorious exchange of blades.
He's hurt I can almost feel it as we duel amidst the earth beneath the merciless sun cutting away at each other at will, mercy or rules the farthest thing from our minds.
Soon my sword is constantly switching from left hand to right hand throwing him off from any sort of rhythm, and it's only his own decisive footwork and strong head movement that keep him safe for long. But unlike a regular sword cut from Valyrian steel, don't always bounce off. Many of them get through the armor even where it thickens and by now both our blades drip a clean red on the edge. Only mine glows and burns it off while his stays drenched.
It's my enhanced agility again that starts it off. A parry sets off a series of exchanges that ends with an attempted counter-repost from Daemon that I deny him categorically.
Instead, I step into his guard far deeper than he would suspect I ever would and when I'm close enough I deliver him a helmet-bashing head but that is almost as economical as it is head spiinninhlu catastrophic for Daemon. Then with a quick shove and a lift of my enhanced leg again I crush a boot down into his left knee, or right from his perspective.
He tries to come back with a reckless slash from his right hand but I know he's still disoriented and offhandedly partying it away with my sword in my left hand is almost as easy as delivering the devastating right cross that I follow up with.
His head darts left with an audible impact and a spray of blood spews from his helm. To be fair, he fires backhand at me that connects with full force and whips my head around with almost embarrassing ease so I fire back another shot followed by a second kick to the chest that brings him to a knee.
A mere moment later he's back up with a growl of effort and instead of meeting him in the air I go lower and take out his feet.
At least I try to.
My enhance adjiliy allows me to crouch down into a spinning leg sweep only for Daemon to damn near take flight almost a foot and a half off the ground with a leap to avoid it.
If I hadn't been so focused on the fight myself I would have been absolutely gobsmacked at how the hell he managed to pull off that amount of height and airtime in full on armor while having taken the blows that he has.
Let no man ever accuse Daemon Targaryen of being all talk and no action. My father is not a blunt instrument like Borros, nor a cold soldier like Rickon, or a near-perfect knight like Gawayne tries to be.
He is a warrior, plain and simple. He is effective, brutal at times, unrelenting, ambitious, arrogant, careful, reckless, strategic, rash, strong, and fast, and most importantly in this particular case downright talented.
Whether it be one man or one hundred. Daemon Targaryen will always rise to the challenge.
But as I have said before I am not a mere man.
Not anymore.
So after Daemon takes off like a dragon in flight, he lands with his balance and brings his sword up for a downward strike all at the same time.
'Ah, he's good. Damn good! Magnificent even! I'd almost forgotten the brilliance of his technique. He's long since surpassed the version of him in either book or shot when it comes to combat.'
So in order to counter his particularly impressive move I charge up at him with all my might. Lamination bounces Darksister off with the glowing runes stretched along its fuller. Then, in a leap my helm smashes into his own.
It's only by the grace of the old gods and the lick of old Valyria combined with the transformation he's undergone that gives him enough time to react by tilting his head down and letting the top of my helm meet his own.
I don't let up though, don't let him recover from the shock of the blow. Instead, my sword arm reaches around him and helps my other arm bring him down by the arm and back where my right knee can once again meet him in the chest along the same spot my blade pierced him.
My knee meets his plated torso with a loud crack and at this point, despite the mild runic reinforcement it's genuinely starting to hurt my kneecap.
I can't imagine how Daemon feels though as both my arms shift and take him in order to slam him down face-first onto the bloody arena turf.
As he stays there, on the ground something aching in me starts to awaken as I see him lie there groaning and unconscious. He hit the floor hard and even an experienced warrior like him could yield to the pain from something like that.
'It's not over.' I take a few steps back, find Darksister, gather it, and plant Lamentation's brand-new evolved form into the ground sword tip first.
'Definitely not over.' My eyes narrow. At this point, I'm ignoring the startled crowd entirely. I could give a damn about the rules and judging how nobody has come out into the field to stop us I'd wager they don't care much either.
A few moments pass like that.
I watch him there on the ground and then something unnameable pulses through the air.
In the back of my mind, Balerion roars with triumph and Ancalagon grumbles his suspicions much more faintly. The gentle black beast is usually silent in our link but I can feel him telling me not to drop my guard, not so much in words but in emotions.
Then I feel it as Daemon rises.
He's still disoriented but I want this battle to keep going.
I've already proven superiority but this next part is purely for my own enjoyment.
The objective is simple.
Nearly to do, Damage.
But as I watch Daemon stir and I toss him back his blade. Part of me feels guilty for disrespecting such a fine weapon. As a craftsman and blacksmith myself it hurts my heart a little. Not to mention it is my family's personal blade. Half my family at least.
As much as I am the blood of the dragon, I've also learned to embrace the blood of the bronze kings as well. It's arguably served me even better considering all the rune technology I've been making in secret and in public.
But as Daemon grabs hold of his sword and begins to rise I notice something strange. Beyond the pulse in the air that has become almost rhythmic like a heartbeat.
There's something else to it.
His eyes are red.
Not in the way that happens when you've been gang banging but more in the supernatural vampire way where your dark purple irises suddenly change into a bright bloody ruby color split with a draconic reptilian pupil.
I switch to my dragon eyes and I see it.
The blood-red aura of magic that normally seeps from Caraxes is now leaping and rising from Daemon. It falls upwards like the drip from a fresh wound.
I activate dragon aura and check his emotions as well.
Whatever he was thinking before is gone.
The rage rises.
I can feel it radiating outward.
Then the next shock comes.
[ Warning! Dragon Warrior: Daemon Targaryen has awakened the ancient bloodline skill: Inner Dragon! ]
[ Warning! Dragon Warrior: Daemon Targaryen has awakened the skill: Fire Dragon Eye! ]
[ Warning! Dragon Warrior: Daemon Targaryen has awakened the skill: Ignite Weapon! ]
[ Warning! Dragon Warrior: Daemon Targaryen has awakened the skill: Blessing of Blood Wyrm! ]
Four notifications filled with a boatload of new information that I never even knew was possible.
There's no time for shock or surprise though.
My own inner Dragon is calling out to another. I can feel it literally calling out for me to rise to Daemon's challenge.
He stares at me for a moment, removes his helm from his head, and charges me.
I remove my helm in turn and stride at him in response.
Braced for impact blades meet with a bright sparking explosion of color like the sudden birth of a star. We crash together in a kaleidoscope of fury and force and the exchange is deadlocked by force.
No more overpowering him with raw might or the advantage of a white-hot blade of blood magic steel of legend.
Now it truly is a contest of skill.
Seeing that the deadlock is getting us nowhere we both make the simultaneous decision to break off from one another.
Only when we do break away Daemon's blade is alight with blood-red flame. It's the same draconic blaze that Caraxes sprays at his foes, only coiled and controlled by his rider with a unique skill.
Tightening my two handed gip I come at him again. We crash together once more and I can only assume it's my Targaryen bloodline that prevents me from feeling any pain from the flaming sparks that lick at my face.
It's in that moment when we lock once more that I realize that I'm grinning.
Reading Daemon's face I can see that he too is grinning and activating Dragon aura I can tell he's just as thrilled as I am.
Our blades meet again and again.
Lamentation careens down slamming against the rising magically enhanced edge of Dark sister.
After that, the world became unimportant around us.
Faint cries made their way through but for the rest of the fight, my focus was almost entirely on Daemon.
My concentration was complete and I was fully immersed in the world of the blade. Each movement made nearly unconsciously, every party, every thrust, every repost, every single viscous blow, and critical retaliation was fueled by years of muscle memory.
We moved with a swift yet elegant fury more akin to an advance than a sword fight.
I blocked, I parted, I drew, and I pushed back, slipping, sliding, and tangling my way around the blazing magic metal between us.
Movement, action, reaction. All of it was smooth and vicious attempts to drive my opponent to defeat.
I can see the twin glowing black blurs of our blades pass by my face as if wielded by other hands, other men. I could feel the delicious heat of the flames as the runic wards of my sword sheared between us.
Attack and defense blend into one continuous alternating pattern of movement that would bring any other fight in this age to shame.
Lamination slices off locks of Daemon's hair setting part of it on fire as Darksister sends a burning cut through my cheek.
A switch of grip places my blade into my right hand where it bites into my father's side clipping his ribs while I side step a counter blow.
Lamentation and Dark sister both scream with a sound that cleaves through air and reverberates through our bones producing a sound only colliding Valyrian steel can make.
There was a joy in it. Wielding my beautiful and horrific sword as I swung with all my might against the force of the rogue Prince.
Another blow almost takes his eye but misses by a hair's breadth and instead takes not a breath but air as payment for my effort.
His own sword slips past my head raging against my own strength.
Again and again. I fought harder and faster and HARDER AND FASTER.
I entered a battle flow that ignores all but itself. I scored hits with Lamentation while he delivered blow after blow with Dark sister.
A seemingly equal match.
My blade whirled in my left hand wilder than ever then with a toss to my right Daemon's face quickly ate the pommel molding into it.
A quick strike here a burning blow there. Two lives swirling like twin suns under the arena heat.
Dark sister renders a jagged tear in the torso of my armor just at the collarbone followed by an off-hand jab that connects and disorients. His movements are fast picking up speed with each instant beyond the notion of any other mortal man.
But I AM NO MERE MAN! I AM A DRAGON!
And so I retaliate with full force, evading an attempt at a grapple from him I swing my armored fist into him over and over again batting away dark sister at each turn with Lamentations' almost iridescent edge.
Daemon refuses to give even a single inch of ground and it's nigh exhausting speed and precision attacks that would kill or incapacitate anyone else. Sweat and blood slicked the drenched ground from the two of us and in the end, it simply came down to who wanted it more.
The answer to that question is obvious.
A blazing flood of wrath fills me when I hear the call once more.
The inner Dragon wants more. More blood, more fury, more fire, MORE HATE! MORE WRATH! MORE HACKING! MORE SLASHING! MORE BREAKING!
"I!" My blade bit through his plate.
"AM!" My armored fist made its way to his chest denting Daemon's armor.
"THE!" My arms batter away the counter blows.
"DRAGON!" My forehead crashes against his own and I can see the moment the sweet bliss of unconsciousness takes him once more as his eyes shift from slit red to Valyrian purple to unconscious white.
He falls so that I might rise.
Crunching to the ground on his back.
"Daemon Targaryen has lost this day and I. AEMON TARGARYEN! CLAIM VICTORY!"
Then the cheers and chants went up again.
XXX
111 AC
King's Landing, Tourney Grounds
First Person POV
Viserys Targaryen
XXX
I watched the downed form of my younger brother fly into the dirt at the hands of his own son.
"By the gods," was something he already expected to hear from the people in the royal box around him.
But then what sent true shock through my body was the blade he unsheathed. So far Aemon had yet to draw his sword in any of the contests of arms and I now know why.
I always knew he was special. I always knew he would be a great man one day. But this moment made me doubt even my own dream.
The two fought a duel of the purest pyromantic magic I had ever seen in my life. It enraptured me, it enraptured the crowd, it enraptured the whole of the realm and the nobility.
But soon enough another matter took my attention. It was Aemma. The birth wasn't going well and the maester needed me to make a choice.
In that moment all the awe and majesty of the day before that moment fled me.
Now I sit here in my chambers all alone contemplating one small life that took the blood and tears of my poor Aemma out of this world and into the next.
There was nothing in this world that could fully drown the dull aching hollow in my chest at what I had done or the choice I had made that day.
And yet when a knock on the door came and the kingsguard announced his presence I couldn't help but be curious enough to let him in.
[chapter image]