Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter. Here on time! Next four chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
While Mother and Laena caught up, I got up to the really hard work. The children were thankfully sleeping now so I could divvy up the eggs as I saw fit. The eggs were all scaled and warm to the touch like dragon eggs usually were. Each one had a unique colouring. The largest was a brilliant silver. It was Vhagar's egg. The three from Meleys were red, green, and blue each. The colours were of course a gradient but the dominant colours were what I had mentioned. Vhagar's egg was the exception there, being silver through and through.
That one I put in Caesar's cradle. It was the largest egg, and while that might not mean anything, the fact that it would be the progeny of Vhagar, and possibly Igneel, made it prime material. It made sense in the hands of my eldest. The red egg I placed in Alexandria's cradle. Blue went to Diana, and green went to little Romulus.
I placed them carefully, moving aside blankets to be sure that the egg got as much skin contact as possible. And each of my children turned their bodies to embrace the additions to their beds easily. It was custom to place eggs in newborns' cradles, but having those eggs hatch was basically a roll of the dice. Considering these were my children, and the witch had already confirmed that they had more magic coursing through their veins because of it, I was confident that all four dragons would hatch.
That would mean dealing with four hatchlings, and eventually drakes in the near future, but it was a burden I was willing to accept. I could see it now. The Stepstones awash with dragons as seven of them sailed through her skies. We would be the greatest single military force in the world. Seven dragons, the Velaryon Fleet, and my legions when they were ready. Nothing would be able to stop us.
"Uh, Laenor, can you stop staring menacingly into space and come over here?" Laena called over from her place by the balcony.
"Sure, sure," I said, trying not to flush too brightly at the interruption.
-- -- -- TWO WEEKS LATER
All good things come to an end, and while our time on Atlantis had not been completely perfect or issue-free, it was a good thing in most respects, but it was time for it to end. For one, I could not leave my Kingdom on Parvella's shoulders forever (she hadn't signed up for that, and I could not stomach the thought of things going wrong without me to look after them for long).
For another, we had received notice that Vaemond's ships had been spotted and he would be in the Stepstones soon. I had to be there to welcome him, I had no choice in that. So I stood and watched as the servants piled mine and Laena's things onto the ship. She was somewhere on the island with Vhagar. She had not been cleared to fly by Jasper yet so she could not take to the skies on her back but now that she could move mostly freely, she was keen on making up for lost time with her dragon.
The fact that they had both been pregnant (as pregnant as a dragon could be in Vhagar's case) at the same time seemed to have made them even closer. Vhagar before this experience would have thrown a tantrum at not being able to fly with Laena and just gone off in a huff. The Queen of Dragons was being surprisingly personable for now.
As for our children, Mother had that well handled. Her experience raising both Laena and me had somehow given her enough expertise to manage four children at the same time. I had seen her do it, and I still couldn't believe it. Sure, we had a small army of wet nurses to provide some of the menial help, but after Myriah and the problems there, we trusted them little and wouldn't let them do even the most basic things without supervision. Mother thought it was strange but she was willing to do the same as well.
We'd tell her about Myriah eventually. Especially since we had to lay Bernard to rest soon. That letter to the Citadel was going to be a pain to write. Sorry, a witch possessed another witch and somehow managed to kill your Maester so send us another one, pretty please? And tell Lord Redwyne not to be too pissed off...xd?
I scoffed at the thought.
It wouldn't end well. We would have to come up with a story to tell the same way we had come up with one for Daemon. If I had a gold dragon for every time I had to come up with a lie to placate Westerosi nobility about the death of a family member under my watch relating to someone who I had wrongfully trusted, I would have two gold dragons. Not a large sum, but it was disgraceful that it happened twice. I needed to come up with a policy solution that would prevent this from happening again. Because the two times someone had decided to attack my family with subterfuge rather than openly, they had at least partially succeeded.
And when the legions and fleet were fully prepared, attacking us openly would be suicide. I wouldn't be surprised if assassinations were already being ordered for me and my vulnerable children as a precautionary measure. I felt I could handle it, but could they? No.
A shadow force was the easy answer. Something equivalent to my own sort of secret service. Spies who actually managed to find things out, and guards who would be able to use this intelligence to foil assassinations. Perhaps at some point, I would even be able to attempt assassinations of my own. That would be far off in the future but there were few things in this world that were out of reach to those with the right combination of gold and daring. I had both of those aplenty. I just needed to find the right man.
Easier said than done, of course. Anyone I found could be a plant, and anyone good enough would probably be good enough to avoid my notice either way. The only option that easily came to mind was Larys Strong. He was yet to advance all that far in King's Landing considering where the timeline stood. I could reach out to him, promise him gold and renown in time. He was a second son with nothing to inherit as of now. Of course in canon, he had managed to weasel his way into inheriting Harrenhal, but that was more because the opportunity had fallen into his lap more than anything else.
It couldn't be something he foresaw. If I offered him more than anything he stood to have now, he should be tempted. I had to be careful to be sure he served my goals and not just his own however. Inviting discount Littlefinger into my household was rife with risk, but nothing ventured nothing gained. And if I got him to set up a working system, then he could become superfluous after that.
"Finished, my lord," Jasper, the acolyte I had appointed to oversee the packing, said as he stepped up to me. I looked up, and lo and behold, the packing had actually concluded. Most of what we would be taking with us had been moved into the ship now. Now just to get Laena and the children on board. I would sail as well, not able to consider being away from them for so long with no way to intervene in case of an emergency. Mother on Meleys' back, Igneel, and Vhagar would follow from the air.
"Good. See to it that everyone is rounded up. I want us in Bloodstone Port before sundown," I said. He nodded, bowed, and got off to it, sprinting towards the castle. While I missed Bernard a lot, if there was one thing this man did better, it was the enthusiasm. Perhaps it was the age. Or maybe it was because he was new to the role. After all, he was getting a better deal with serving House Velaryon as its Maester than he would have with basically any other house. Never mind that the Citadel had not officially assigned him to the House as its maester, he was still getting a healthy stipend that would be increased to account for his new responsibilities soon.
I watched him for a bit before deciding to get Laena myself. I couldn't see Vhagar now, and considering Laena could not fly, there was only one part of the island that they could be where I would not be able to get even a glimpse of them from this vantage point. I'd have to go through the forest, but that was a good thing. The bracelet in my pocket had been weighing me down for so long now.
I felt the tendrils of the Red Witch's soul reach out for me every time I made contact with it. I could deflect her easily enough when I was paying attention but I had no idea how a second or two of inattention would go and I had no interest in finding out. We were leaving Atlantis now, and so I could afford to bury the bracelet here now. I would return for it once things settled down on Bloodstone and take it far enough away that it would be no trouble.
The Haunted Forest, or even the Land of Always Winter were the options that were winning in my head now. Even if she managed to find some poor wildling to possess, the Night's Watch of this age was not the Night's Watch of canon. Wildling crossings were so rare they were practically unheard of. Let her be someone else's problem and not mine. The Isle of Faces was another option. The Greenmen were unlikely to fall prey to something like this and could even have ways of dealing with it or at least would manage to keep it out of trouble.
The only issue with that was the fact that if she somehow escaped, she would have a much easier time of continuing to be a problem in my life from the Riverlands than she would from beyond the wall. Tossing it into the sea was an option as well.
But it would be just my luck for some fisherman to fish it out and then I'd have much the same problem again. Any enclosure I could devise would probably be weakened enough from being submerged that a determined enough fisherman who thought he'd found treasure would probably have no trouble breaking it open. No, beyond the wall was the only choice.
And I would have to make that journey myself. I couldn't trust this with anyone else.
When I was far enough into the small forest on Atlantis that I felt that it would be unlikely that any of the people who would be staying behind to maintain the castle would venture here, I picked a tree that was notable enough and drew my dagger. It had a seahorse pommel and a Valyrian steel blade. I would pass it down to one of my children eventually. Maybe I'd even engrave a message into it just like Aegon had done with the blade that ended up killing the Night King in the show.
I drew a long, thin, but jagged line across its surface, sure that I would remember this particular one when the time came, and even if I did not remember, the feeling of the bracelet reaching out for me was impossible to ignore. I took a deep breath, before I bent and began to dig the hole. I tore through the earth with careful but precise movements.
This hole needed to be deep. Deep enough that a substantial part of her influence would be suppressed. But then I could not afford to leave any signs of what I had been doing either on my person or my clothing. Some idiot could put two and two together, and decide that if I'd gone to the trouble of burying something then it had to be valuable and would end up digging up his death sentence.
It was not likely, but that was exactly the kind of tomfoolery that this world would hatch up just to fuck with me. Even doing this much was taking a great risk. But I could not afford having this bracelet on my person all the time. My defences were strong, but not impenetrable. And Laena had little in the way of such things. My children even less. Unless I decided not to see my wife or children for weeks while I sorted this out, this was the only solution for now.
I was doing my best here. And if it backfired, then I would deal with the consequences when and if they arose. When I felt the hole was deep enough at the foot of the tree and I'd begun to feel some of the deeper roots with my fingers, I stopped digging.
I took the bracelet out of my pocket now, the direct skin contact leading my mind to be barraged with a storm of images. I ignored all of them. The things she showed me were not worse than what I had seen in Valyria. Changing the faces so it was my wife and children only served to make me more resolute in this path.
I dropped the bracelet into the hole and covered it with the sand I'd dug up and then smoothed down the ground so it looked undisturbed.
When I'd gotten rid of all the evidence of my actions that I could, I continued my journey down towards Laena and Vhagar.
----
The journey down to Bloodstone began with little in the way of fanfare. By the time I returned with my wife, the rest of the household had already boarded the ships that had their things. I escorted her to say a brief goodbye to Mother who we would be seeing in a matter of hours before we boarded the ship ourselves.
The ship we boarded, Igneel's Fury, was House Velaryon's new flagship and my personal ship. Every few years, our understanding of shipbuilding techniques would improve to the point where I decided it was worth it to change my ship to a newer design. A waste of resources, some would argue, but working on a flagship to my specifications always led to one or two improvements being made to our process, and even if it didn't, the ship was still going to go towards my own uses while my old one would join the regular navy, meaning that the navy received a massive ship that was at the pinnacle of the previous generation's design that could be easily rejigged to make it a competent vessel of war.
This one was massive even by my standards. It was a castle on the waves, some had said. I could see that. No shortage of rooms, each one designed to maximise the comfort of those within. When I moved on from it, those rooms would be combined into barracks for seamen or storage for weapons. A ship this size was only possible because of the advancements we had made to sail design and construction.
Sailing something like this with the wind alone would have been impossible just seven years ago. Now I stood at the prow of a ship that would have eaten the greatest thing I'd been able to make a decade ago for breakfast without being filled. A carrier ship for Igneel was in progress now with this same sort of platform. We had finally managed to make the advancements necessary for a dragon his size to be able to be moved along with the fleet, and wasn't the timing just perfect. My children were born now, my ships were mostly ready. I had more gold coming in than I was spending. It was the perfect time for a war. I just needed someone to start it.
"Have you ever fought on a ship, Aegon?" I asked my squire, turning to look at him. Sunfyre was behind him now, large enough that he could have made the flight with ease, but the two of them did not like being separated and I could relate enough that I would tolerate it for now. Plus, I owed Aegon.
"Yes, my lord."
I hummed at that response. I wasn't dressed for a spar now but I would have to look into getting ship combat experience for him. My legions as well. That would have to be added to the curriculum.
Fighting at sea, where the ship swayed with the waves, was not the kind of thing that one could master without experience. It was why seasoned pirates were so dangerous to regular ships and their guards.
"A task for another time. Come, let me introduce you to my children," I said, turning to head down and gesturing for him to follow.
A/N: Expect liberal use of timeskips, POV jumps, and just other shenanigans from here on out. Discount on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) for those interested. Next chapter comes on here on Sunday night/Monday morning (depending on your timezone). Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.