°. *₊ ° . ☆ ☾ CHAPTER ONE  ☽ °: . *₊ ° .
OF THE WILD

   SMOKE BELLOWED THROUGH THE HOT AIR as the young princess made her way through the stone forest. No green surrounded her; bent corpses of trees pushed forth from the ground like sharp teeth in a dark mouth. Bones were scattered as remnants of something that once had been alive—human and animal and dragon. Several auroch bodies strewn around the bones, burnt and broken, torn apart and partially devoured.

   She stopped at the sight of an auroch body near the mouth of a smoking vent and pinched her nose to cover the scent of smoke and brimstone and rot. The auroch was burned. Parts of its open inside, the ones that were not burned, bled onto the ground, and the ground drank it like a parched man.

   The young princess made a face of disgust as she took a step back, away from the vent and the auroch corpse.

   The ground rumbled for a moment.

   She had heard the stories from Maester Gerardys. Sat on the stone floor of the keep, watching the maester flutter through his herbs to heal a wounded knight and listening to the stories of wild dragons that roamed the island of Dragonstone. They made their homes in the vents of the Dragonmont, flesh and fire united into a beast. Her father, a man who became dragonless after his own died, would tell her no man could control the dragons.

   She was no man. Even as a child of seven, she knew she could control the very creatures that could swallow her whole if they so desired. Open maws with sharp teeth that would rip through her skin and bones with a simple snap of its jaws, her blood coating its tongue and dripping down its throat.

   No one would know if the very creatures her family revered were the ones to cause her end.

   That did not stop her.

   The beginnings of a slow and gentle lullaby left her mouth, a rough and steady rhythm on her tongue leaving alongside a hazy memory. She knew the song by heart, heard it every night from her mother's mouth as they both lay in bed. The song continued from her throat, a reminder of the power she held in her blood and her surname and her House.

   Her grandfather had told her of such songs that could evoke the beasts, like a prayer to the gods. It was similar to the arcane arts that wove Dragonstone together, pulled together with fire and magic and blood.

   From the mouth of the steaming vent, a great black beast flew to the skies, its roar making her bones rattle inside her skin. Pieces of rocks and sands flew around her, covering her in dust and soot and ashes. She shut her eyes tight and covered them with her arms. This was the great black beast the people of Dragonstone told their children stories about, a monster who would eat them in one bite if they strayed too far into the Dragonmont; a monster that would come for them if they were bad.

   She did not fear such monsters.

   A silence fell around her. No sound of birds or the distant sound of the sea, no flies buzzing around the burnt carcasses. Her heart hammered against her ribs and threatened to push its way up her throat to spill onto her mouth. A slow breath left her mouth as she lowered her hands and opened her eyes.

   In front of her stood the beast, a great thing that reminded her of the grand stone dragon that circled the Wyndworm tower at the keep. Its scales were darker than the night, as if they swallowed the hint of sunlight that reflected on them; only a few glittered like a gemstone on her mother's finger. Its horns and spinal plates were just as dark as its scales, pure darkness just like the midnight sea.

   On its face, above sharp blood-stained teeth, two brilliant green eyes met her green and violet ones.

   She smiled.

   The young princess always knew she wanted to claim a great and terrible beast as her own, to mirror her father in his youth when he claimed Balerion. She ignored the hatchlings in the dragonpit, the small and youthful dragons that were only as large as the domed structure they were kept in would allow them to grow. The little princess, the bony and scraggly thing that always had grass-stains knees and muddy hands, wanted a beast to claim as her own dragon, just like her ancestors in Valyria had done.

   She held out a hand toward the beast. A growl left the dragon's throat rippling through the ground like an earthquake. Long and sharp teeth the length of her entire body faced her as the dragon opened its mouth, its red throat raw with pure fire. It was green, bright and brilliant just like its eyes. 

   And then, the dragon shut its maw, stared at the young princess for a silent moment, and bent its neck.

   She stared at the beast, eyes wide as a triumphant smile began to form around her mouth. Her hand shook as she stepped closer to it and touched its snout. The heat that surged through her hand was like she had stepped too close to the fireplace in her chambers and allowed the flames to lick her skin. Hands inside boiling water; the heat from the beast was hotter—the very fires of the Dragonmont become flesh—but it didn't bother her.

   It called for her, begged for her to come closer and allow herself to burn alongside the wild beast.

   With its neck bent, the young princess stepped onto the dragon to become its first rider. She held on to its horns, two small hands tightly wound as she hoped the dragon would take her above the canopy of dead trees. It flapped its wings several times, its body rippling beneath her, and it took off to the sky. The wind rushed against her, it took her hair out of its braid and her eyes watered and her very breath got taken from her lungs the higher they went.

   Over the Dragonmont.

   Away from Dragonstone.

   Above the clouds.

   The sky was a mixture of night and day. Above her, the sky was dark and deep like the beginnings of the night. Below her, the lands she had walked among and the sea that had carried her on a ship from King's Landing to Dragonstone. It was heights that no mere mortal had been, a sight no one had seen and air no one had breathed.

   Laughter bubbled out of her mouth as she spread her arms at her side like wings, shut her eyes and threw her head back. The wind rushed against her skin like a harsh caress the higher the dragon flew. At that shere moment, the young princess thought she was at the top of the world.

   She could see Dragonstone below her, a dark and smokey jewel in the centre of the blue sea. Her family's keep at the mouth of the Dragomont, a shapely thing that covered the village below in a soft shadow like the beast she rode. To the west of the island, Driftmark. The largest island in Blackwater Bay, the green of the island a vast difference from its dreary cousin. Between the two islands, ships dotted the blue sea like countless ants making their way to their hill. They seemed to barely move from where she was, stationary in the centre of the deep sea where many other ships and bones made their eternal rests.

   Everything was small from where she was.

   She laid her hand flat on the dragon's back, tightened her thighs, and pushed forward. The dragon flew down, wings spread wide in the air and its mouth bellowing a screech loud enough to be heard from Dragonstone to Driftmark, and perhaps to King's Landing. The dragon flew close to the water with its wings brushing against it, between ships and scared sailors who only stared at the wild beast. They, too, had heard the tales about the black dragon that reigned the skies.

   The young girl wrapped her hands around one of the dragon's horns closest to her and directed it to the Dragonstone castle. It circled the towers that mirrored its very form, vast and dangerous with maws open wide to tear into soft flesh or breathe out fire. She could see the people scurry out of the castle, like when she stepped on an ant hill and the ants hurried out. Her grandfather stood in the centre of all the guards, his pale hair blowing in the wind as he stared up at the dragon with one hand over his eyes. Beside him, his two sons and his good-daughter and youngest granddaughter.

   The young princess pushed forward and directed the dragon to land between all those who stared up at her. It was a vast and open space, a courtyard used to receive those who visited the keep with their entourage, but the dragon's size made the courtyard appear small and cramped. The guards pushed themselves close to the walls with their weapons pointed at her and her beast, the clanking of their metal armours almost like a gentle song of a bird as the dragon below her let out a low growl from its throat. It shook itself, green eyes glancing around the countless humans before it. 

   Another growl left the dragon.

   She laid her hand flat on its skin as she climbed over the side and slid down. Her hand stayed on the dragon as she moved forward, towards her family. She could see her grandfather push the guards away and step in front of them, his eyes boring between the dragon and her. His violet eyes focused on her, wide like a full moon.

   "Rhaenerys?" He called out her name as he took another step forward.

   The dragon growled. It rumbled through the courtyard, made the stone ground and glass windows shake. 
 
   Rhaenerys Targaryen, a young princess of seven, with tangled hair and a toothy grin, tapped her hand against the beast as if it were a mere dog. "Look, Grandfather!" She turned to look at him, her eyes glinting in the sunlight like jewels. One green, the other violet, and both full of mischief that was common in Targaryen children.

   Baelon Targaryen, the future king of Westeros and grandfather to the young princess, nodded and moved his arms to signal her to come to him. "What have you been doing, Rhaenerys?" His eyes focused on the black beast that reminded him of the old Black Dread. The two dragons were black and grand, born before the Targaryens came from Valyria and before Aegon united the lands under one crown. 

   One had been a loyal beast to the Targaryens, the other a wild thing that fed on its kin.

   "I wanted a dragon," she called as she stepped in front of the dragon. If the beast open its maw, it would swallow the princess whole, yet the dragon did not open its maw or made any movement. It stayed still behind her, green eyes focused on her. And when it looked up, a shiver ran through everybody.

   "What about the dragons at the dragonpit?" Baelon kept his distance from the dragon and his granddaughter, but he could not stop himself from glancing at the closeness between them. His granddaughter was too close to the wild animal as if it were a simple horse brought out from the stables for her to ride. It was the closeness he had with his dragon Vhagar. "You said you liked the young silver one, with the blue horns and wings." The wild that appeared in her reminded him of his late wife.

   Rhaenerys scrunched her nose and pursed her lips, shaking her head. "It looked pretty, but it's too small to ride." She turned her head to face the dragon behind her and laid her forehead against the side of its maw as if it were a stuffed animal that had been given to her when she was a babe. "It's too small, Grandfather!"

   "Rhaenerys, why don't you come to us?" Lady Aemma Arryn stepped by her good-father, opening her arms toward her eldest daughter. "You need a bath, sweetling. We leave for King's Landing tomorrow morning." There was a smile on her face even though her heart beat wildly against her chest. Even though she too was a Targaryen, she had always been wary of dragons.

   "Why don't you send it away?" Prince Viserys stepped in front of his wife as he pushed his youngest daughter behind them. "It's a wild dragon, Rhaenerys. I don't think it would enjoy being stuck within all these walls, even less in the dragonpit."

   A frown began to form on Rhaenerys's mouth. The dragon behind her shook itself like a dog and let out a low growl. "No!" She stomped her foot and crossed her arms in front of her, shaking her head. "It's my dragon, Father! I claimed him like Grandfather claimed Vhagar, like Uncle Daemon claimed Caraxes and like you claimed Balerion."

   "Caraxes is not a wild dragon," Daemon reasoned as he stepped forward to stand by his brother and father. "Vhagar is not a wild dragon. Balerion was not a wild dragon." He crossed his hands in front of his chest and tilted his head slightly to the side, focusing on the closeness between dragon and girl. "Come now, Nerys. Why don't you listen to your grandfather?"

   Baelon took another small step forward. "You did claim him," he agreed as a small barely-there smile appeared on his mouth. "I am proud of you, Rhaenerys. Not even Aegon the Conqueror could have claimed such a beast!" He knelt on the ground and opened an arm wide to invite her in. "Come along, Nerys. Your mother said you need a bath. Why don't you send him away until we leave for King's Landing? As your father said, it is a wild dragon and it would be best for him to roam free before it leaves with you."

   Rhaenerys stepped toward her grandfather with the same frown on her lips. "Will he know when we leave?"

   Baelon smiled at his granddaughter as he picked her up in his arms. "Once you claim a dragon, you have a connection to it that will last for all of your life," he told her as his eyes wandered toward the beast. "It's a bond that cannot be broken. When you feel pain, the dragon will feel the same. When you feel safe and happy, so will the dragon. Even though we cannot control them, they become a part of us once we claim them." He chuckled and began to walk away from the dragon, toward the keep with the rest of the family behind him. "I will tell you a secret."

   Rhaenerys's eyes widened as she leaned her head closer to him. "What secret?" It thrilled her to hear that her grandfather, the future king, wanted to tell her a secret. She wondered if her father and uncle had heard about it. 

   "I don't think we can claim a dragon," he quietly told her. "I think the dragons claim us. If that beast allowed you to get close to him when it never allowed another person so close, I think it chose you."