Part Two - Dragons
“So,” Harwin looks up from the sword he was honing for the fifth time that week to see his youngest sister, Layla staring at him expectantly. “I heard Nyra is avoiding you.”
The knight sighed. “She told me to wait outside her office and not to talk to her.” Harwin sulked. “I don’t even know what I did wrong! I thought we were getting along just fine.”
“Well tell me what the last thing that happened before she gave you the cold shoulder.” Layla nudged him with her shoulder.
“Well, she took me on Syrax to Scarwood?” Layla nodded, confirming the name of the island, “Around two days ago and we met people there about her saddle. Next thing I know, she won’t even look at me.” Harwin was not pouting.
“If it’s about her saddle then you must’ve seen Olyvar then. Oh, were you rude to him or Kriss?” Layla, knowing quite well of Rhaenyra’s crush on the beautiful dragon keeper, winced.
“Why would I do that? Harwin was baffled. “In fact I helped him with the saddle, telling him a pretty little thing like him shouldn’t be carrying something so heavy.”
“Wait, you told who was pretty? This high,” Layla makes a gesture toward the sky, “pretty blue eyes, very strong dragon keeper Olyvar? That Olyvar?”
“Yes?” Harwin said in confusion. He was very pretty, so naturally he would compliment him. Not that he was as pretty as Princess Rhaenyra of course.
“You told him he was pretty in front of Rhaenyra?”
“Yes?” He wasn’t sure what’s going on, especially as Layla suddenly facepalmed before laughing incredulously, a savant in the courtly arts of romantic love her brother was not. “Oh brother,” she just laughed, wondering if she should set a betting pool for her brother and the princess, “You stupid, naive brother.” she walked off, leaving Harwin to stare at her in confusion.
“What? What did I do?”
Rhaenyra feels like sulking.
Scribbling idly on a blank paper, she looked outside and sighed. She thought she was having a connection with her new knight but seeing he was blatantly flirting with her other object of affection clearly shows that his interests lie elsewhere.
She scowled. What did Harwin have that Olyvar noticed him and not her?!
A knock startled her from her thoughts. “Princess,” Harwin called out with a muffled voice, stationed outside her office after she banished him, “Lord and Lady Beesbury are here for a meeting.”
“Let them in.” She grinned joyfully at her advisor and her diplomat coming into her office, Yanli carrying Rhaelle in her arms before catching Harwin’s curious eyes and scowled darkly at him before the door slammed shut.
“Soooo,” Martyn drew the word out as Yanli passed Rhaenyra their baby, “Why is Lord Lyonel’s son standing outside your door like a kicked puppy and why are you being so angry right now?”
Rhaenyra scowled at him before yelping as Rhaelle tried to grab her lips.
Watching the princess carrying the baby around the castle while working gives Harwin feels.
They were currently in the library, Rhaenyra reading a book to the baby while they were sitting on the window seat that was overlooking the sea. Harwin leaned against one of the bookcase that lets him see both exits to the room as he listened to Rhaenyra reading the book in the Yi Ti language.
He let the foreign words wash over him, drinking the beautiful scene in front of him.
As the story ends, the princess smiled down at the sleeping baby before putting the book away. As she did so, they managed to catch each other's eyes, Rhaenyra smiled beautifully at him, and his heart skipped a beat.
And then, as if she remembered they were currently at outs with each other, scowled angrily as she looked away.
After (reluctantly) giving back Rhaelle to her parents, Rhaenyra, having caught up with her work for the week, decided to take a break and visit Dragon Den, taking not Harwin but Elinda, leaving the poor knight having to charter a dinghy to go to the small rocky inlet.
“Rhaenyra!!” Olyvar called out happily, carrying with him a basket full of fishes by the shore. Beside him, his fellow dragon keeper, Morag, bowed to the Princess before leaving them. “You’re just in time! Three new eggs just hatched!”
“Really?!” The princess was delighted. This brings the count to 10 new dragonets out of the 18 eggs clutched by her dragon. “We will host a party to celebrate their hatching this weekend then.” She said, climbing up to the cave where Syrax and Grey Ghost made their nest. “Do come, we will have so much fun!”
Olyvar nodded as they approached the nest; Nyra and Elinda helped coax the newly hatched dragonets into the big basket with fishes while the dragon keeper collected the shards of dragon shells. “Sure! I think Kriss and maybe Eds, if we can force him, would love to go.” Rhaenyra, happy her crush would come visit her for the party, told him that yes, of course Edmondo can come. (She’ll just get Valaena or Layla to distract him so she can sneak off with Olyvar and maybe finally get him to kiss her.)
The three of them made the trek down, one of the dragons escaped the basket and was clinging onto Elinda’s shoulder, the girl giggling even though her dress was torn by its sharp nails.
“Princess!!” Rhaenyra turned to look to see the dinghy carrying Layla and Harwin had arrived. “Oh, dragons!”
“Layla, just the lady I was looking for. Can you help sketch them for granduncle Vaegon’s records?” Rhaenyra said, knowing her uncle would want the pictures and some of the dragon shells for his research.
The lady nodded as the five of them sat down on the rocky ledge by the sea, Layla dutifully sketching at the dragons, marveling at their beautiful colors.
Harwin was enthralled with the hatchlings, especially as one of them allows him to feed it with bits of fishes. He couldn’t help but grinned brightly as Olyvar corrected his hold on the light blue dragon, thanking the dragon keeper as he blushed brightly. Feeling someone was watching him, he looked up to see Rhaenyra glaring at them before looking away, patting the blue and copper hatchling on her lap.
Did he do something wrong? Surely the princess is not being mad that he was being nice with her friend? Harwin thought in confusion as Elinda suddenly spoke up. “Nyra, what are we going to name the hatchlings?”
After several giggles and name suggestions were thrown around in the group, they finally settled on the names, Layla recording them on the sketch book alongside their artwork for Vaegon later.
The white and orange dragonet that was currently on Elinda’s lap was named Tyraxes after the Valyrian Goddess of Peace, the cobalt blue with copper crest and belly scales were named Tessarion after the Valyrian Goddess of healing and prophecy while the last dragon was named Circinus after the constellation in the Northern sky due to its white star-like patterns on its otherwise light blue scales.
The peaceful afternoon was suddenly broken when a loud draconic roar could be heard. They all looked up in horror as a large black mass suddenly swooped down toward them out of nowhere, its maw opened, revealing its sharp teeths.
“RUN!!” Rhaenyra, recognizing the danger they were in, screamed as they immediately stood up, Layla dropping her sketches for the two dragon hatchlings while Olyvar carried Elinda and the remaining dragonet, pulling Layla with him as they threw themselves over the ledge and into the sea.
Rhaenyra scrambled to follow when the black dragon roared again, its mouth glowing wildfire green. The princess yelped as someone lifted her and threw her into the sea with the rest before throwing himself in, making sure his body would serve as a shield if the dragon attacked them with its deadly fire.
The five of them quickly dove into the cold water, fire billowing above their head, staying down till they couldn’t keep their breath.
They immediately resurfaced, Elinda and Rhaenyra clinging against Olyvar while Layla hung by her brother’s shoulder, the three dragonets they saved crying piteously at them after their cold dunking.
They watched in horror as Cannibal (who else could it be, with dark as night scales and fire as hot as the combustible element wildfire) screamed, Grey Ghost clinging on its back, biting into its right wing, having realized the intruder in his weyr.
They had to dive below the surface again as Syrax and two more dragons joined the fight out of nowhere, attacking the giant dragon with their claws and fire. The two smaller dragons, Terrax and the blue/purple/pink dragon Olyvar had affectionately named Dusk, were from Syrax and Grey Ghost’s first clutch along with Sunfyre and Moondancer, works in tandem as they ripped into Cannibal’s left wing, leaving Syrax to opportunity to sink her fangs into the exposed underside of Cannibal’s neck.
They all resurfaced again just in time to see Grey Ghost abandoning its attack on the wing and joining Syrax on Cannibal’s neck, biting down on the junction of the neck and shoulder. The girls screamed as the attack pushed the dragons into the sea and everyone along with it.
They came up to see the floating dragon corpse just by the shoreline, its body twitching and leaking rivers of blood from his severed neck, dyeing the sea (and them in red); its head nowhere to be seen.
“We need to get out.” Harwin suddenly said, scattering through their dazed horror. They worked together to pull themselves out of the sea; poor Layla, the only one of them in a dress, was weighed down by her soaked dress while Tyraxes and Tessarion tangled themselves into Rhaenyra and Elinda’s hair, Circinus meanwhile tried to dug itself into the space between Harwin’s armor, complaining loudly against the knight’s ear about the water.
They had barely any strength left by the time they reached the shore, Harwin dragging his sister out of the water before helping Olyvar with Rhaenyra and little Elinda. They collapsed in the sand, just barely outside of reach of the waves, unable to move further.
Last thing Harwin could think as he blacked out, looking as the smaller dragons crowded against Elinda and Olyvar, whom were already fainted from shock and Syrax, nudging the Princess who weakly tried to sooth her dragon was, Fuck, I think I dropped my sword in the sea.