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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceMajor Character Death
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
House of the Dragon (TV)Warhammer Fantasy
Characters:
Ikit ClawRhaenyra TargaryenJacaerys VelaryonLucerys Velaryon (Son of Rhaenyra)Baela TargaryenRhaena Targaryen (Daughter of Daemon)Daemon TargaryenCorlys "The Sea Snake" VelaryonHelaena TargaryenAddam VelaryonBackground & Cameo CharactersSilverwing | Alysanne Targaryen's DragonOriginal CharactersJoffrey Velaryon
Additional Tags:
Crack Treated SeriouslyCanon-Typical ViolenceThe Dance of the Dragons | Aegon II Targaryen v. Rhaenyra Targaryen EraAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceCanonical Character DeathCharacter Turned Into a HumanIkit got isekai'd as Jace's twinSkaven Species (Warhammer Fantasy)Death to all GreensHuman ExperimentationScience ExperimentsIkit is his own warningSilverwing still has shit taste in male ridersPOV MultipleBackground RelationshipsBackground Character Deathshow canon onlyDragon RidersAnimal AbuseIkit is an abusive dragonriderTho he's fairly mellow compared to his SkavenselfGood Parent Rhaenyra TargaryenNo beta we die like LucerysDysfunctional FamilyCannibalismBlood and TortureCanon-Typical BehaviorBAMF Helaena Targaryen
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2026-02-26Completed:2026-04-22Words:181,492Chapters:55/55Comments:1,270Kudos:749Bookmarks:160Hits:33,651
The Rat Prince of Westeros
SkilledWarriorKiwi
Chapter 16: Yssara
Chapter Text
The dragon was grand and beautiful, sprawled out in the courtyard before the manse which the young Targaryen dragonrider was staying as a guest to the Ancient Guild of Spicers. There had been a great deal of fighting, arguing, bribery and threats from the Pureborn, Tourmaline Brotherhood, Thirteen and the Guild to act as the honoured host for the dragonrider when he first arrived and the Spicers had successfully won it.
They would be bragging for moons about their win, already many trades and deals had shifted in their favour with the great silver dragon now lounging upon one of their manses where its rider stayed. A living symbol to their victory.
Yssara Malith waited outside each day and night, lurking in the shadows of the garden as she stalked the building as she watched the dragonrider and would silently follow him when he explored the city.
The boy displayed none of the awe many newcomers had to Qarth; typically they would walk in wide-eyed fascination, drawn by the sheer radiance of the Queen of Cities with its abundance of wealth and artful buildings. Instead he barely seemed to notice the city itself, spending most of his time in the markets or simply eating his own weight in food each day.
As she shadowed him to the markets she deduced he was buying gifts, as everyone knew the last dragonriders of Old Valyria were the Targaryens and he was quite far from Westeros. The commissioned dress in Targaryen colours made it apparent and also why he picked the Ancient Guild of Spicers to be his host due to their ties to the shipping lines. A ship had been docked for days as he brought several different gifts, the crew waiting patiently for their guest to finishing his buying despite how it would impede their schedule. Ships were wooden and any sailor with sense would keep their mouths shut before a dragonrider.
Yssara barely slept or ate, taking note of each and every thing he did and reporting it each evening as she waited.
It was curious as to how young he was, still very much a child, but Yssara knew far better. As a shadowbinder, warlock and acolyte to the Undying she knew looks meant nothing. He may have the sweet face of a boy only a decade within life by there was something horrible and old in his eyes and the way he would order the slaves about. A usage to authority that a decade could not make, not even for a prince.
Another interesting thing that in despite being Westerosi he did not even flinch at the slaves of Qarth. Those of the Sunset Lands tended to have morals against men bound in chains yet the boy prince did not care in the slightest. The only time he grew offended over them was when his host had attempted to offer him one to warm his bed, which was hastily rescinded.
Yssara followed the boy ceaselessly in his first week at Qarth, drawn by the heavy stink of sorcery that clung to him like a second skin. The boy utterly reeked of magic, like a jar of pungent perfume that had tried to be sealed yet still a slither of fumes escaped. Yssara knew it was beyond what dragonriders were like, this boy had a volatile potential that made her salivate and she knew keenly why the Undying were interested in him.
Even better was that after he sent the ship on its way he began to inquire over the Undying and of magic. She followed him that afternoon, slinking in the shadows and watching his every movement, listening to his words and desire for magic and so it was ordered that she finally approached him.
He was not at all surprised, stopping just before the garden as she slid out of the shadows to greet him as he returned to the guest manse for the night where his dragon lounged. His eyes were burning bright and his breath stunk of blood. Her veil hid her most of her face, her blue lips, from sight.
"So you finally show-reveal yourself," he said as a greeting.
Yssara was not at all bothered by the knowledge he had spotted her. It simply made him an even richer investment.
So she did as she ordered and offered him the invitation upon the House of the Undying. An invitation upon the Warlocks of Qarth and those who served them.
"They wish to see the Targaryen princeling, a dragonrider," she said. "One who is interested in the arcane arts. The Undying wish to see you and to share their secrets with such an honoured guest."
The boy accepted her offer with an unreadable stare and upon the following morning he appeared where she had asked.
The House of the Undying was long and low, almost like a great serpent as it ran through the ancient grove. The trees there were cousins to the weirwood of Westeros, with black bark instead of white and blue leaves instead of red. They were what the sorcerers of Qarth would use to create their tonic, the shade of the evening that stained their lips blue including her own. The building was alone, with none other in sight.
At one end of the building was the only door, forged in the likeness of a great face with its mouth agape and it was where she led the boy.
"The House of the Undying Ones was not made for mortal men," Yssara told him. "If you value your soul take care and do as I tell you."
He just stared at her, eyes cold and hard.
She gestured towards the yawning mouth, saying, "Each room will have four doors and you must take the right door. If you see stairs, climb. Do not descend. And with leaving or coming the rules are the same. Always go up and always chose the door to the right. Other doors will open and tempt you, showing visions both marvelous and terrible. You may speak or ignore the visions but do not enter any door until you come to the chamber of the Undying."
"I hear-hear you. Then what?"
"We are like moths fluttering about flames to the ancient ones, they will answer slowly and you must have patience."
Then she produced a crystal goblet filled to the brim with the slick blue liquid of the tonic of warlocks. It was steady and unstained, despite being tucked within her voluminous sleeves.
"This will let you hear and see with true sight and hearing, it will gift you the truth of the world," Yssara said.
He took the goblet from her, sniffing it several times before downing it in three long gulps. She accepted the empty goblet, tossing it aside where it smashed upon the stone with a delicate chime, and gestured towards the waiting mouth.
"Step forward, young dragonrider, and face your destiny."
He did as she bade and she melted into the shadows to follow him the instant he passed through the mouth, akin to a wraith. She watched and followed, hungry of the sheer ocean of magical might she sensed within his soul, yet knowing it was for the Undying to plunder. She would have to feast upon the scraps that remained and oh what those scraps would taste like, she had never once sensed one such as he.
The boy followed her orders as he continued to prowl through the House. He climbed every staircase, he picked every right door, and as he walked through chambers and down hallways, some of the doors not upon the right opened.
Yssara stared at the visions in unabashed curiosity as they seemed to all show strange and deranged figures; a grotesque ratman that looked forged of living metal with gleaming green stones dotting his body and lightning crackling about his talons, a near nude woman with an awful beauty who was laughing manically as she raised a severed head in one hand, a mummified corpse wearing gleaming gold armour and leading huge armies of dead, three dark haired boys playing a childish game before a roaring hearth, a ratman with black fur and crimson armour snarling at another who had curling horns like a ram, a stern faced woman with a rearing lioness stamped upon her breastplate charging her horse into a line of soldiers, giants roaming corpse-choked battle fields with little green men running about their heels, a Black dragon swooping over a town and unleashing a gout of dark fire, a man with stringy hair and sunken features raised his bloodied face from a twitching body, a beautiful woman with pale hair and dress of red and black smiling with radiant maternal love, a two-tailed comet streaking across the sky as a vortex howled forth, a ratman standing before a huge glowing pillar with thirteen corners as chanting rose high...
A strange sense of nervousness swept over Yssara, a sensation she had not felt for many decades. Those who walked through the House of the Undying would see visions of people they loved and lost, of things that had happened, are happening and will happen, some would be of odd visions and words, dancing creatures and mocking laughter and corpses beckoning them forth. Visions seen through blood and fate and lore, yet none had she seen been as fantastical as the ones the boy was provoking.
And now as the boy walked through the twisting form of the House of the Undying his body begun to twist and flex, back growing hunched and features elongating. Yssara watched as the boy transformed into a twisted ratman, upon his hind legs and expression alert, but with a long naked tail and silver fur. She had seen such transformations before, like a cloth tossed over the body to follow the way one sees one self, yet she had never seen such a radical alteration. It would fade the moment he left the Palace of Dust but for now he was a great rat walking in grotesque mockery of man.
A slither of fear but she banished it aside even if she understood none of it. It must be another test for the boy, the magic twisting in unpredictable ways.
Then he finally came to the entrance of the Undying Hall, with the doors of glittering black ebony and ashy weirwood, they were already thrown open and awaiting him.
Yssara felt the touch of the Undying, cold and distant, as she followed the boy over the threshold. Much like the strange rat-man that had encased the boy, the Undying held their own glamours of unreal beautiful and refinement. True magic was volatile, vicious and grasping and as much a camouflage was a must for the unlearned. Beneath the timeless radiance, the impossibly lovely gowns, the Undying were shadows of black and blue, shades of people dead centuries past. And the beating heart, like within any creature, was in the form of the twinkling chandelier.
There were Valyrian steel chains in her shadow-stained hands as she lurked behind the boy, the manacles open and awaiting to be clapped around his wrists. The heart must beat anew and his soul would feed them for millennia.
The opulent ghosts hiding the Undying began to speak, inviting him to sit down and join the feast. Offering gifts, magical weapons and armour. The boy ignored them, instead looking about the room with his pointed whiskered snout as he sniffed.
"I see-see you," the boy suddenly announced. He pointed at each of the Undying in turn, with the glamour slowly fading yet his own of the rat remaining in place, "You are the warlocks. Old, withered, but you don't smell strong. What you tell-say to me, Ikit Claw, Chief Warlock of Clan Skryre, and Master of the Warpstorm?"
More and more mutters from the Undying which Yssara tried to creep forward yet found herself unable to move from the shadows. She looked down at her limbs with a frown, only to look back up and freeze when she realized the rat-faced boy was looking over his shoulder at her.
"I see you, sneak thief," he snapped. "Always saw."
Yssara couldn't move even as trickles of green began to drip from the rat-boy's eyes and fingers as he turned back to the Undying.
He pointed a sharp talon at them, baring long yellowed fangs, before shouting, "Show me your power! I, Ikit Claw, demand it!"
In the distance began the rhythmic toll of a bell, loud and echoing and utterly profane. It rang in time with the pulses of the heart.
Yssara managed to finally move as the boy-rat stiffened as all the Undying managed to focus their black eyes upon him. With a surge of strength she darted forward, snapping the manacle around a wrist. A moment later she shrieked and recoiled, sharp teeth sinking into her face and ripping her veil and half her skin off.
She fell over, crawling backwards on the black stone as blood splattered the ground.
"Worthless-Weak! Weak are meat!" she heard the boy shout.
The Undying were grabbing at him, wanting the twisting chaotic magic that burned through his body. The lid of the jar rattled, even as sharp teeth tore open the neck of an Undying and it fell backwards into dust. Lightning began to snap along his body, spilling from his eyes, and then he launched himself from the crowd of Undying wishing to consume him to instead go leaping up onto the table with the chain clattering behind him. His glamour slipped from him, the ghastly rat gone, and in its place was the green-eyed boy who launched himself at the heart with gaping teeth and ready claws.
Yssara tried to get up but pulsating green stones were beginning to push themselves up from the floor where her blood had fallen, growing like mushrooms. The tolling of the bell grew louder and louder until she felt as if her skull would split.
"Horned Rat sees me! Sees you!" she heard the boy shriek, the shredded black-bloodied heart in his mouth as the Undying wailed.
The back of the room split open, peeling apart as another realm began to peek through in the slightest slither. Huge claws dug into the ceiling and floor as a great skull-headed demon peered into the room with eyes that burned like twin bonfires. Green dust flooded into the room as the beast exhaled, the accursed triangle upon its bony brow flaring. They were barely the size of mice before it. Yssara was screaming even as raw overpowering magic flooded her limbs, an ecstasy unlike any other filling her as her flesh twisted and her skull stretched and distorted into something wicked.
Qarth shook as a huge earthquake rocked the ground, splitting the streets and shattering windows, throwing down statues and sculptures as fountains cracked apart even as thousands of birds flew into the air. Silverwing took flight with a bellow, taking out part of a wall of the manse as she quickly headed towards the crumbling House of the Undying.
Inside the Palace of Dust the green-eyed boy had quickly darted out of the way of the skull faced creature as it started to snap up the Undying as they screamed and wailed and tried to flee. The lid of the jar burst open and as Yssara thrashed and writhed on the ground she could hear the boy's insane laughter. Then green lightning struck her, the vile current shooting through her body and exploding it an instant later.
With the last of the Undying devoured the great Chaos beast retreated, claws sliding free of the fabric of the realm which then sealed up behind its retreat with an almighty crack that was heard for miles.
The Palace of Dust collapsed, a lone figure managing to escape as the last stone fell in on itself with an almighty heave just as a metallic winged dragon landed upon the courtyard.
And a world away a young woman woke screaming in her bed, mind consumed by Chaos, while another woke to a birth within her sheets.
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