Right of the Dragon

Title: Right of the Dragon
Author: Saydria Wolfe
Series: Right of the Dragon
Series Order: 1
Fandom: GoT/ASOIAF
Genre: Fix-It
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Dark Themes, Major Character Death (Robert Baratheon)
Author’s Notes: 1.) First cousins are not considered incest in Westeros so I didn’t add it as a warning but, yea. 2.) Dark Themes because this is Game of Thrones. It is Dark AF and if you aren’t prepared for that, please read something else.
Word Count: 1,810
Summary: The first law of Westeros is the Right of the Dragon to rule the Realm.

 

 

Jon flew through the darkness but he was not alone. Rhaegal was beneath him and in his mind, as fierce and focused as Ghost had ever been. Ghost was also with him though much farther below, feet kicking up great clots of snow as he ran.

Upon Ghost was Sansa.

They were the last. The last of the Army for the Dawn. The last of the Unsullied. The last of the Dothraki. The last of the wildlings and people of the North.

The last dragon. The last dire wolf.

They had lost.

And yet somehow, somehow there was dawn on the horizon, but only if they could catch it.

-*-

A call Rhaegar had never heard sliced through the air. A call like a thousand, thousand war horns. A call ancient and terrible.

A call that he knew in his bones.

Rhaegar drove his stallion back on instinct as a line of fire shot down from the sky like a torrent straight from the Seven Hells. A wall of fire separated the two armies. It engulfed Robert Baratheon, killing him instantly, cooking him—and every other being that had not headed the warning sound—in his heavy black and gold plate.

He pulled off his helm to stare. He tracked the winged shadow across the sky as it sounded once again—a dragon.

A dragon!

There was a rider on his back. The distance was so great that Rhaegar could only just make out the movement of their cloak between their mount’s ridge spikes, but they were there.

Men were screaming and running around him. The panic of dragon fear turned orderly armies into gaggles of boys caught with their pants down. His faithful white cloaks were pushing their way towards him—Prince Lewyn and Ser Barristan with Ser Jonothor not far behind.

The dragon called again and flew off toward King’s Landing.

Standing at the edge of the trees over which the dragon flew was a white wolf as large as any warhorse. Mounted on its back was a maid with hair of fire and a dress of moonlight.

She glowed under the noontide sun.

Rhaegar rode to her, this fey creature that appeared with the first dragon to breathe Westerosi air in more than a hundred years.

As he rode, he saw Lord Stark coming to meet the siren call of the maiden. Lords Arryn and Tully came, clucking like frightened hatchlings in his wake. His goodbrother glared at him but did not take up arms.

“You will not fight in my presence,” the maiden called out. “My lordly husband will grant me your heads should I come to harm.”

“Your royal husband,” Rhaegar corrected so all could hear. “It is the first law of these lands. The Right of the Dragon to rule. You husband is the only dragonlord alive.”

The maid gave him what could only be called a smirk. “Come closer. All of you. It is unseemly to shout.”

Rhaegar rode as close to the maid’s direwolf as his horse would allow.

“I am Sansa Stark of House Targaryen,” she introduced herself. “My husband, Aegon the Seventh of House Targaryen has flown ahead to prevent the Lannister Sack of King’s Landing and to save Princess Elia from her doom at the hands of the Mountain.”

The idea of the Mountain That Rides touching his gentle Elia hit Rhaegar like a blow to the stomach. It was all he could do to keep his last meal behind his teeth.

“Sansa Stark?” his goodbrother demanded.

The maiden smiled gently at the Quiet Wolf of House Stark. This was not a courtier’s smile, this one shined in her eyes. “Hello, father, it has been a long time.”

-*-

Tywin Lannister was no fool.

So, when a dragon—a living breathing dragon that glittered like emeralds with claws and spikes of bronze—landed upon the Lion Gate while he and his host were waiting for King Aerys’ permission to enter King’s Landing, Tywin knew he had to change his plans.

“Runners!” He ordered. “I need runners!”

He could not see Tygett at the King’s Gate or Gerion at the Gods’ Gate from where he sat atop his stallion but he had to get word to them as quickly as he could. None of them could act until they knew where the dragon stood in terms of sides.

The dragon bellowed a challenge.

“My lord!” His squire shouted. “Messengers come! From the other two companies.”

How his brothers had seen the dragon first was beyond him but thankfully they were both intelligent men. Or, at least, not wasteful men.

“Tywin Lannister!” A battlefield bellow came from the top of the Lion’s Gate.

He was being summoned.

The dragon called again, reinforcing the rider’s authority.

“Give the messengers water and rest. Send fresh runners to my brothers. The fastest we have. They are to hold positions and do nothing to break the peace until they receive orders by my hand otherwise.”

“Aye, milord,” the squire gave a quick bow and took off at a run himself.

“Ser Gregor, you are with me.”

The Mountain grunted his agreement and dismounted.

None of the Targaryen guardsmen—quaking and wide eyed, the lot of them—raised a hand against him as he entered the guardhouse and made his way to the heights.

There, sitting casually on the haunch of the great beast was a lad. A boy of mayhaps twenty, pale but carrying the scars of a seasoned warrior. He would look like a Northman in his leather and fur and steel if it weren’t for the smokey purple eyes that seemed to pierce deep into the souls of all those they landed upon.

“Send your beast away or I will kill him,” the dragonrider ordered evenly. “I cannot abide a rapist.”

Tywin dismissed the Mountain with a gesture. “And what of the rapist on the Iron Throne?”

“That rather is the question, is it not?” the lad mused. “I cannot execute him, such would be kinslaying. The same can be said for Lord Stark through his sister and the son she will soon bear.”

“Aerys is no kin of mine,” Tywin offered.

“And he raped your wife,” the boy concluded.

Tywin snarled. How could this child know—

The dragonrider held up a hand, stopping him in his tracks. “Do you like being Hand of the King, Lord Lannister?”

Tywin frowned, confused. That was an unexpected turn in the conversation.

“My wife speaks favorably of you. She says there is no man more clever, nor more cruel than you in the Seven Kingdoms.

“I have known cruelty.” The boy flicks a hand at the scars marking his face. “Cruelty is abundant in the hearts of men the world over, but cleverness? That is much harder to come by. As such, it has greater value.”

“I do,” Tywin admitted cautiously. “I did enjoy being Hand of the King. In the beginning.” Before his former friend’s jealousy became too much.

“We are not friends, you and I,” the dragonrider said. “But I know well that a leader never rules alone. I would go so far to say that a king is only as good as the people that serve him. Like his Lord Hand. History already knows you as a very good Lord Hand.

“And. As my Hand, you would have the power sentence and execute those that our shared blood protects from me.

“What say you, Tywin Lannister? Will you be my Hand?”

“My son?” Tywin wanted to know. He needed his heir returned to him.

“I assume you do not refer to Lord Tyrion.”

Tywin scoffed.

“That is fair.” His king shrugged. “Lord Tyrion may not be your son, but there is no denying he is your Lady Joanna’s. A piece of her that yet lives.”

It took all the experience granted my Aerys humiliations to not react to that. Joanna. Tyrion was part of Joanna and he had— Tywin strangled the thought and threw it into a box in the back of his mind. He locked the box to deal with later.

“As for Ser Jaime, of course you can have him back. Assuming he yet lives. The sheer gall of stealing a Lord Paramount’s heir from him boggles my mind. It was not the action of a wise king. Your patience with that nonsense is to be commended.”

As if Tywin had had a choice with his heir held as a convenient hostage by the honor the Crown had heaped upon him.

“Are you going to make me ask the question again?” His king asked. His tone made his onionin of repeating himself very clear.

“No, Your Grace,” Tywin assured the boy, his king. “As for being your Lord Hand, your Will be done.”

-*-

Tywin marched into the throne room of the Red Keep with his brothers at his sides. The two of them remined at the base of the platform as he walked to the foot of the Iron Throne and opened his arms. “My friend.”

Aerys’s face lit up and he scurried down the steps of the throne to slide his arms around Tywin in a brief hug. “I knew you would not abandon me,” Aerys said almost to himself. “I knew I could count on you, Ty.”

“Your son has made quite a mess of things, has he not?” Sending his former-friend a dry look.

“Rhaegar is no son of mine,” Aerys huffed as he shook his head. “I have disowned him. I fear I need your help to sort this muck of his out, regardless.”

“For the good of the Realm,” Tywin said.

“Hmm,” Aerys agreed.

“I do have an idea,” Tywin admitted. “Something that would bring peace to the Realm with all the speed we could wish.”

“Anything.”

Tywin gestured his brothers forward. They each grabbed one of the Mad King’s arms. Aerys tried to tug his arms back but he was no match for the lions of House Lannister. “In the name of King Aegon Dragonborne of House Targaryen, you are under arrest for your crimes against the Realm.”

Aerys started shrieking, madness and spittle flying with equal ferocity in all directions.

“Take him away,” Tywin ordered.

“Father?” Jaime asked as his uncles dragged the screaming former king out of the room.

“You had better explain yourself,” the White Bull seconded, hand going to his sword. “Immediately.”

Tywin merely quirked a finger in a silent instruction to follow and walked back to out to the front steps. “Do you know what makes the king a king in the Seven Kingdoms?”

“The Right of the Dragon,” Lord Commander Hightower answered immediately.

Right on cue, the dragon landed on the curtain wall of the Red Keep itself and flamed into the air.

“King Aegon Dragonborne, indeed,” the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard mused. “Long live the King.”

 

 

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