Chapter 19

Jesus, King's Landing was a wreck.

Blackened scorched earth was more than visible as we made approach towards the docks. Or what was left of the docks. All the way from the Hill of Rhaenys to the docks was nothing more than a sea of black and that was terrifying.

How many people had died? Hundreds? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands?

Dammit! I told them to be fucking careful! Especially with the fucking bullshit that was wildfire they had growing underneath there. Maybe I should have just gone to the maesters? Maybe I should have done something else? Thrown out all my inhibitions about working with those bastards.

At the very least, the sight in front of me wouldn't have come to pass.

I tried. I really tried, but I really couldn't come up with a way to play this off. Yes, Egg had acted quickly to put the blame on the Blackfyres, but at the end of the day, this was also my fault.

I was the one that had given those insane idiots the green light to do the shit they were doing, and why? Because I figured the things they would built would be good for the people and help in preparation for the ice demons and their zombies that were going to be a thing in forty years or so.

That, and to make my life easier.

Something like this happening had not even as much as crossed my mind. It really should have, but what was the saying about hindsight? Of all the words of something, the worst was 'What could have been?' Or something like that.

I think that was how it went or how it was supposed to go.

I missed the internet. If I had the internet, something like this probably wouldn't have happened. I would have had the information on the tip of my fingers to tell me what to expect when something goes wrong.

Oh bloody hell, at the very least, when they were dealing with the fertilizer, I could have found them a workshop or something outside the confines of King's Landing. Never work with anything that goes boom inside the confines of a densely populated city!

Come on Aerys, you should have known this!

"King's Landing has seen better days, I see." Quellon Greyjoy said, suddenly appearing beside me at the bow of his long ship.

His sudden appearance brought me out of my personal chastisement. For now that was, "Much better." I responded as coolly as I could possibly reply. I didn't want to be gloomy to the person that had more than likely saved me from a fate that could have been worse than death.

He placed a paw of a hand on my own slender shoulder and tried to be comforting. Surprisingly, despite being an ironborn and a Greyjoy, he was somehow able to pull it off, "Don't worry about it, Your Grace. We'll get the Blackfyres for this. For this and more."

I wondered how much he knew about what had exactly happened, but nonetheless, I nodded my head, "I'll hold you to that, my lord."

Quellon Greyjoy was a good egg.

A good egg that it was actually genuinely surprising how this good egg was somehow able to produce the bad eggs that were Balon and Euron Greyjoy. I mean, how does that even happen?

Planetos genetics were screwy, perhaps it had something to do with that? Written somewhere in the Greyjoy gene was a need to be as much of an asshat as possible and sometimes, as rare as a summer sun in the middle of the arctic, a genuine decent human being in the form of Quellon would pop up every once in a...uh, hundred generations?

My Greyjoy history wasn't the best and therefore, excuses can be made on my behalf for not knowing any half decent Greyjoys and my colouring of them were mostly in the negative side thanks to all so many forums abdicating, one way or another, the said genocide of an entire group of people because they didn't make sense or were just so pathetic that it surprised anybody how they were able to function or surviving for as long as they did.

I knew that there were some good ironborn and Greyjoys, Rodrik and Asha being two that I could name. There was also that ironborn that had converted to the Faith that Euron drowned. He had been made to sound reasonable enough before catching a bad case of death.

"How's your arm?" He asked, removing his own hand of my shoulder. The reason as to why I used a paw to describe his hand? Because Quellon was big. And something of a beast considering how everyone on his ship seemed to be in awe of him.

And those in awe of him seemed to be just as big as he was.

I delicately raised my bandaged up arm as best as I could, "Could be worse, but definitely could be better."

My arm worried me.

Sometimes, I woke up in the middle of the night because I couldn't feel it only to see that it was still attached to my hand. I don't think that was a good sign or anything that could be considered good. Credit had to be given to Quellon though. He didn't have a maester or someone who knew enough about setting bones, but he at least had someone that could at least try something.

"I would have had a maester look at that," Quellon spoke as he made a motion of his long ship, "But there's only so much room available on a long ship."

"It's none of your fault, my lord. It's not like you were expecting to pick up an injured prince of the blood whilst out on a raid."

On one hand, the man had gave me something to think about. Note to self, I should probably, when I get around to it, make it a point that a surgeon/doctor equivalent along with at least two apprentices was a thing on any royal battleship. Something like that would go a long way to reducing deaths.

Or maybe they already had it and I didn't know about it? Well at least it as something to check out.

This was good.

Thinking of these things took my mind away from the devastation I was rapidly approaching, but that didn't stop me from thinking about it. So I tried to turn my thoughts away from the destruction to as horrible as it was, into an opportunity to improve shit.

By the looks of things, loads and loads of buildings had been turned into charcoal and molten rock as wildfire had been involved in some of the burning. So that opened up some prime areas for new real estate developments.

The Westerosi clearly had no problem with building big, so why not save space and build apartment complexes? Stuff quite a number of families into one building, of course making sure that it had a working plumbing system and adequate enough room so that no complaining could be had.

And speaking of plumbing, the extra space would surely go a long way to at least working on the sewage system to make it work. But how do you store the waste? I wasn't much of a environmentalist, but at the very least, I liked to think myself practical when it came to the environment.

So what to do with all that excess waste? Dig a big hole? Nah, I don't think it would last for long. Flush it into the sea? Well...that was one idea and I think Tyrion did that for the plumbing for Casterly Rock or something.

That was one thing, problem is, I liked my seas and oceans to at least be marginally clean and not defiled for forever.

Hm, something to think about.

Oh fuck, the pyromancers and all the bullshit they were making for me was now gone!

I could have slapped myself publicly with my useable hand then and there when that little bit of knowledge crawled into my head. Every single damned thing I had those insane morons making for me was probably up in smoke and that sucked so many balls I didn't want to think about it.

I felt like crying.

Or screaming out in anguish.

This was complete and utter bullshit.

Could I not at least have one silver lining from this entire mess?

"Urgh..." I groaned as I ran an open hand over my face.

Quellon raised an eyebrow at my random action, "Your Grace?"

"It's...nothing." I turned around and began to walk away, "I'm going to go lie down for a moment." And hopefully, the ship will snap open and the cold waters of the Blackwater would embrace me deep and dark below.

This was complete bullshit.

xXx

Princess Shaera had come out of nowhere and literally embraced me in a bone crushing hug that I had not been expecting and was not all that wanted considering my current state, "Oh Aerys, your lord father." She said.

Yes, I knew about Jaehaerys, but I'm kind of sorry to say, my broken arm that was still broken and had been re-broken by a sadistic bitch was still broken, "Mother, I know. I've been told. And ow, my arm."

She stepped back slightly from hugging me, looking at me weirdly before she noticed my sling, "Oh," She let out in surprise. She touched the arm gently, concern and worry on her face, "I knew sending you on this campaign was a mistake. You are-were Jaehaerys' heir. You had no business being on a battlefield."

I would resolutely agree with that, but I still had to keep up appearances. There were people around, "Couldn't be helped mother. Uncle Duncan was there, and I am his squire. A squire's place is beside his master at all times."

I don't think she believed judging by the look she gave me, but she didn't get a chance to voice her disbelief as Queen Betha walked up, my lovely sister right beside her. Wow, I hadn't seen Rhaella in a while, but she seemed to have finally matured into a beautiful young lady, not that she wasn't beautiful before, but now? Wow.

And the colour black was really good on her. You go girl.

And the fact that I was thinking like that about my own sort-of sister kind of freaked me out. I blamed it on the Aerys inside me.

"Rightly so, Aerys." The queen said with a nod of the head, but she allowed a small, warm smile to come across her face, "But it's good nonetheless to see you unharmed." I raised an eyebrow and indicated towards my broken arm. She was quick to catch on, "As unharmed as you are."

Rhaella surprised me by actually giving me a hug, but I was quick enough to react to loop my good arm around her waist, "It's good to see you again brother. After everything that happened." Like I had said before, Rhaella was something of a daddy's girl. Jaehaerys' death had hit her hard. So I supposed that explained a lot as to why her voice seemed to be well, dead.

"I missed you too, little sister." We separated and I looked around, "Where's Branda?"

"Busy taking care of your daughter. Ball of energy that little one is." Betha answered my question for me.

That meant that she was probably in our solar. Or somewhere else. Wouldn't be that hard to find out where.

Although I had yet to see my daughter or my wife, my arm worried me. It was probably best if I went to go see Maester Gyldayn to have a look at it.

"Where's Maester Gyldayn? I need to see him."

Princess Shaera raised an eyebrow, "What's wrong?" She asked, some worry seeping into her voice. I pointed at my arm but before I could say something, she spoke up again, "I wasn't that forceful in my hug."

I shook a hand, "No, nothing like that mother. It's just, well, my journey here was not easy." I didn't want to tell them about my time in the care of the Old Mother. No need for them to worry with that sort of news, "I just need to make sure that my arm is fine. It's nothing more than a check-up."

She nodded as she understood, "Very well, you'll probably find the maester in his office. We were heading to see your Grandfather, but I'm sure Rhaella will lead you to them. At the very least, use this time to get to each other more. Much and more happened in the past months you were away. A little conversation between siblings can be hurt, especially to heal from the wounds that have been inflicted on our family."

I blinked but nodded and allowed Rhaella to lead the way. Well, she didn't need to lead the way. We both knew the way to Gyldayn's office, so we just walked side by side.

Strangest thing is, we didn't talk to each other. Not so much as a peep for most of the journey.

I'm not going to lie, I didn't know how to deal with this. I wasn't one of those people that got overly emotional at the death of family. I mean, people died and not to be borrowing off Jamie Moriarty, but that's what people did.

They lived and they died.

It was like one of the most basic laws of the universe. At the end of the day, after how so many years, you died.

Yes, I was remarkably aware how hypocritical my belief in death was to my own cowardice. I was more than aware of it. It was more along the lines that I accepted the inevitable mortality of men, but that didn't mean I would willingly put myself into situations were death was more than just a minor occurrence of chaos theory happening.

But then again, my cowardice had been a thing when I hadn't been put into situations where death was an actual end result of some random variable, a lucky arrow catching me in an exposed area. Some guy landing a lucky hit on me. Things like that.

In other words, when it came to comforting people, I had no idea how to go about it other than the usual automatic age old words of 'I'm sorry.' But I don't think it would have cut it out in this particular situation.

Especially considering that I also blamed myself for how Jaehaerys' death came about.

So I tried to make some kind of small talk. I'm British. Small talk was our thing.

"How are you holding up?" I asked and realised that this line of questioning did not lead to small talk and cursed to myself.

Rhaella breathed in deeply, "I'm fine Aerys. I have had time to heal. You don't have to worry after me."

Or maybe this was actually going well, "I'm your brother," I replied, "It's my job to worry about you."

She glanced at me for the longest moment from the corner of her eyes without turning her head, "You certainly have changed Aerys. I would never have thought to hear those words coming out of your mouth."

Had it been that bad before I came along?

"I would at the very least like to think that we had our good times." More than the bad ones at the very least.

"More bad than good." She said, smiling thinly, "More bad, but there was still some good ones that graced the bad."

I laughed sheepishly and awkwardly. Apparently, Aerys had been that bad before I came along.

We soon reached the maester's office, just across the hall from the one we had come from.

"I need to ask you something Aerys."

"Hm?"

"The fire, it had nothing to do with you, did it?"

I could have tripped. I could have fallen face flat into the floor. I didn't, and I deserved an award for that because that completely caught me off guard, "That fire was nothing more than the result of sabotage by the Blackfyres." Why was she asking me this? Didn't she know the public story? The Blackfyres did it! "You know this."

She ignored me as she continued to speak, "Then this had nothing to do with your dealings with the Alchemists? I saw the fire itself Aerys. I saw from where it started. How the night sky had been illuminated green. I saw it Aerys."

"I..." I faltered, "Didn't mean too. An accident. Honestly. I told those idiots to be careful. I really did. I didn't think of what would happen if something happened. I'd have thought those idiots would know better, but I guess not. I had them running experiments and creating things for me that would have helped us in the long term. Me, you every lord and lady, even the common man and woman and child in the realm. Honestly, it was an accident. None of that was supposed to happen."

"Then father died because of you." She left me then, before I could come up with some sort of defence on my behalf.

Watching her leave, with her own white shadow I could only accomplish a half-hearted response to her accusation, "It was an accident!"