( ACT II; the age of the dragon. )
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chapter 14: the rage of a dragon.

VAEGON let out a hearty, aching chuckle while enjoying his small talk with Raina Stark. The woman enlightened him about a far more humorous childhood memory than he'd expected. They had both begun to dine together over the past few days, after he'd consoled her when she was vulnerable, and each interaction had progressively brought them closer to becoming increasingly acquainted. He enjoyed her company; her presence offered a calm he'dn't seen in quite some time.

They sat cross-legged on the ground at a small table in his tent. The lady and the king had found much pleasure in their conversation together. She focused her entire attention on him when he spoke, her eyes portraying her genuine interest in what he had to say.

"You most definitely had a unique childhood," Vaegon grinned as he set down the cup of wine from which he'd just taken a sip. "But considering my past, I think I may have you beat."

Raina gave him a playful smirk. "That is fair, Your Grace, considering you've lived in Essoss for most of your childhood."

Vaegon chuckled. "As a refugee, you mean."

Her smirk turned to a slight frown. "Do you remember your home?"

Truthfully, it had been King's Landing, his birthplace, but Dragonstone was the place he'd held dear. It's salt-tainted air and waves crashing into the dark stone. King's Landing's only positive recollection was when he could see Rhaegar when he wasn't at their ancestral seat.

"I do, for the most part. I was very young when we fled, but I was able to hold onto some memories," he replied. "I miss my mother most of all. She is the one I named Rhaellor after."

Raina cocked a brow. "As in the Lord of Light? R'hllor?"

Vaegon cocked his own brow. "No, my mother's name was Rhaella. . ." The connection began to make more sense. He hadn't realized his dragon was named after a deity. The utter coincidence struck him as strange.

"I think that is beautiful," Raina said about his choice of names. "After your mother. I wish I had been able to meet mine."

She was so gentle, so meek and soft with her words. Quite a difference in comparison to Daenerys.

The reality that he was beginning to grow the slightest beginnings of feelings toward her was unsettling, to say the least. After being so confident that Daenerys would be the only woman he would ever feel such feelings about, he began questioning himself and his loyalty. He couldn't imagine what his sister would think if she knew his thoughts, let alone what she might do. Yet he tried to give himself excuses whenever he recalled his family tree. Aegon the Conqueror had two wives...

Immediately, Vaegon shoved the thought away again for who knows how many times it'd been that day. Daenerys was not the type to share, and Vaegon couldn't imagine what the Stark woman might think about the dynamic of two wives and a husband. The fact that he was even considering the thought of marrying Raina so soon after they'd become acquainted caused him to feel guilty. Yet other lords had married women for lesser reasons than to carry on their bloodline. He tried his best to convince himself he was doing no harm.

As if his worries about Daenerys and the ever-looming threat of needing to carry on the Targaryen line had been spoken into reality, his sister shoved her way into Vaegon's tent with a rage he immediately felt worried about. The presence of Daario following her close behind didn't bother him nearly as much as it had in the past, once he saw the rage in her violet eyes, something he'd seen only a few times in his life. Her expression was a mix of disgust and an inability to hide that she was just a few words from crying and screaming. To prevent any violence, he stood to place himself between Raina and the seething Daenerys.

"It appears it's true, then," Dany said furiously through her teeth, likely noting his efforts to protect the Stark woman from her rage. Not only have you taken the opportunity to find yourself an ally once another piece in your game for the throne has thrown itself before you," her voice was shaky as she spoke, eyes narrowing on behind him. But you've decided to replace me with them."

Daenerys had done many questionable things in the past due to her almost animalistic rage, which she more often expressed than her; harming the Stark woman was not going to be an exception from the wrath they were plagued by. Dragon Spawn, as he had been coined while fighting in the alleys of Pentos, without its citizens knowing his true lineage. He stood ready, facing her to block the direct line to Raina.

"I truly do not know what you speak of," Vaegon uttered, even though he cursed himself for the exact reasons he'd been worried before she'd forced her way in.

"Truly do not know what, Vae?" Daenerys uttered, her nose crinkling and her brow furrowing into a fury that could only be likened to that of an actual dragon. "That you were seen with Lady Stark in the moonlight in an embrace?" She clenched her fists into such tight balls that her knuckles began to turn white. "Even an idiot could see the passion shared between you."

Vaegon took the chance to look behind him to check on Raina during such a confrontation. To no one's surprise, the woman wore a ghostly pale expression, her eyes wide and her lips pulled to a taut line. He felt a twinge of guilt, knowing the violence likely brought up traumatic memories for her, similar to the ones she'd expressed to him the other night.

"The Lady Stark and I were not engaging in intimacies," Vaegon growled once he looked back at his sister. His brow set into a hard line. "I was consoling her. There is nothing else to your poor accusations."

"What a damned liar you are, Vaegon," Dany hissed. His anger flared at her accusation. "He informed me himself of your actions!"

Daenerys's admittance to Daario's part didn't quite stick with him before he spoke.

"If I recall correctly, you were the one to send your handmaiden into my tent to 'stave my desires' while you catered to your horse-lord husband," he growled. Immediately, he saw the hurt in her eyes. Her previous rage quickly assumed it.

"You bastard—!" She snarled, whirling to the right. 

Daenerys' rage snapped once she grabbed the small brazier blazing to her side, the scalding metal doing nothing to her hands. Without a second thought, she lobbed the object with all her weight directly at Vaegon. The king tried to shield himself, to prevent the flames from causing any harm to him, but his efforts were to no avail.

Daenerys had been the one to cast protection upon Vaegon when he'd chased after her into the flames of her dead husband's funeral pyre. The magic that had brought their dragons to life. Blood magic, which had been said to spring the Doom of Valyria. Therefore, the scorching metal and flames that hit his hands, forearms, and chest immediately seared into his flesh without her protection. The pain was beyond agonizing

Though Vaegon's skin seared with a sensation more painful than anything he'd ever felt, his rage fell into effect once he'd pushed away the brazier, and Daario caught his eye again. The bastard was the reason Daenerys was so angry, spouting a misconstrued situation to convince her that Vaegon was doing her wrong.

"You told her these things," Vaegon snarled as he turned and began to pursue Daario. The realization of what Daenerys had said hit him. The captain had tried to turn her against him, to steal her away.

Snatching the brazier from the ground where it had landed, he ignored the agony courting through his hands and arm as he lifted it high, muscles burning in protest to the solid metal he was about to swing. The sellsword tried to defend himself, pulling the dagger with a naked woman as its pommel from his side.

Vaegon swiped the metal at the man while his hand emitted the smell of roasting flesh, which had already begun to permeate the tent. He didn't notice, as his rage had gone into full effect. He was pursuing the kill.

Daario didn't say anything in his own defense as he fought back against Vaegon, the blade managing to land a clean slice on the king's abdomen. Once the captain realized it did no good in stopping him, he avoided Vaegon's next swing and slashed another wound into the opposite side of his abdomen.

With the misfortune of not dodging fast enough, Vaegon crushed the brazier into Daario's head with a sickening, wet crunch; his skull caved in in an entirely unnatural way. Both Daenerys and Raina screamed in horror as the sellsword's limp body began to crumble before it dropped unceremoniously to the floor. A quickly moving puddle of blood had already begun to pool into the reed mats that served as Vaegon's flooring.

After a few moments of looking down at his kill and controlling his ragged breath, Vaegon dropped the brazier to the floor, where embers and remnants of charcoal scattered. The king turned his hands upward to view the singed flesh of his palms, dangerously raw and pulsing with blood. Since his rage still filled every fiber of him, he didn't notice the blossoming blood stains on his cotton shirt until Daenerys caught his attention.

"Vaegon," Daenerys said breathlessly, eyes wide in shock. She was aware of what she'd done, of what her anger had caused. She rushed forward with immediate concern as if the brutal situation had just occurred, no longer mattered. "You need a healer. Now. NOW."

Grabbing a hold of his wrists so as not to touch the raw flesh, she guided him around Daario's bloodied head and began to rush him out of the tent.

Raina remained frozen where she was, sitting at the table where she and the king had just been carrying on and dining. Her dark eyes remained wide, and her brow furrowed as she tried to process what had happened. She didn't dare look at the body on the floor.

♜

HER breath hitched in her throat, and Raina's hand covered her mouth as she was overtaken by incapacitating grief. Her eyes welled with hot tears, her throat feeling as if she were choking. Her entire mission for seeking out the Targaryens was for naught now, as there was no reason to call upon their help. Robb was dead. Slaughtered. As was Catelyn. There was no word of Queen Jeyne. Many, if not most, of the northern lords who had backed her brother in his efforts to defend theeir freedom and enact justice, were slain as well.

The Stark couldn't help but feel as if the gods were punishing her. She'd just witnessed Vaegon kill Daario in such a horrible way that he found himself seriously wounded and under the care of healers. Now, she had to process the fact that her family was dead. The night's events were almost too much for her even to acknowledge.

From what the message described that had taken weeks to arrive from a crossed the Narrow Sea to Essos, the Frey's were responsible for their deaths. She read that marriage meant for an alliance was used to coax her family into a false sense of security to feast and celebrate a Tully and a Frey joining in matrimony. All in revenge for the slight Robb had committed by eloping with Jeyne Westerling.

The realization that the small tent she'd been given as an honored guest and the city of Mereen would become more permanent than she realized felt paralyzing. Raina hadn't planned to stay but another sennight if they managed to take the city easily. Excitement had filled her to return home with aid before an Unsullied had come to her tent to offer the small parchment that would crush her.

Through her tears, she gazed around the candle-lit tent, alone so foreign to her Westerosi self as many things had been since she'd journeyed to Essoss. She felt so alone as she dropped the letter to her side, the only sound of the night being the hum of the torches and the scuff on the floor after the descent of the letter. She wrapped her arms around herself in a self-embrace and tried to maintain herself. Grief was brutal with such news, particularly with her having crossed the Narrow Sea on a foreign continent she felt she didn't belong on.

Her first instinct was the desire to be with Jon. To embrace him. Once again, breathe in his scent of oiled leather, woodsmoke, and pine. Feel his familiar grip that she'd run to countless times when she'd found herself crying at the hands of Catelyn Stark.

The realization that she was dead as well hurt Raina more than she expected. In a way, she'd always wanted Catelyn to embrace her as a daughter despite how she'd treated the twins, giving her the mother she'd always craved. But the Riverlands woman had resented Raina and Jon worse than the biting cold of the north or the summer snows it brought with it. Part of her wanted to feel justified and good that the woman who hated her was dead.

Yet, Raina felt hollow. Another piece of the reality she'd known washed away with the words of a too-late letter. She tried to let the sobs out in the best way she could. She didn't want to let them carry outside her tent's thin walls to any passerby. 

Lady Stark chose to hold herself in silence, alone to face the devastating grief that changed her life from this point on.