Dragon Dreams

Two years later)

I blinked at the roof of my room, well this was still a thing. Visions… great. But not that great....because it was very much nightmare.

As I pulled myself up and rubbed my face I mauled over my dream.

They had started not long after Runciter began his reading. They had been sporadic at first and vague enough to dismiss. But they have grown in frequency and clarity to the degree that I can't dismiss them now.

So that meant three options.

One, I was crazy. Which was surprisingly enough not the worst thing in the world, in Westeros where everyone was crazy it might actually relax me a little.

Two, I was having Dragon Dreams. I doubted that one since the visions were clear, increasingly clear in fact whereas documented examples I could recall were either plagued by weird visions or just had profoundly unhelpful dreams about a black dragon with Green flames.

Which left three, whatever put me here threw me a life jacket. Which was good if so but made me wary of why whatever it was would want to help me?

In any case I was seeing glimpses of a different life, the life of a young dragonrider seeking an apprenticeship with whoever it was that made Valyrian Steel. If (and that is a big if) the visions are legitimate then I could potentially have a very powerful bargaining chip.

That would present its own problems however. Most of the visions seemed to go through the basics of smithing and training with dragon. I had never heard of a Westerosi noble going anywhere near a forge much less dedicating themselves to the craft and I knew enough about bladesmithing and armoring to know that it was not exactly something you could do in secret.

There was also the dragon issue, I would need not only an irregularly smart one (Measter Qelos already showed more intellect and cooperation than Barth even posited as possible) but a fairly young one. Great.

In the meantime I was still a freaking Four year old.

More importantly I was a weird Four year old.

I scrambled out of my bed after some stretching. I had already heard the servant murmuring on more than one occasion.

The child never cries.

The child always smiles.

Then child does not have the eyes of an infant.

As it turned out I was pretty miserable at pretending to be a child. Never would have thought that to be a negative before…

I made my way to the little chair in my room and picked up one of the tomes from the top of the ever-increasing pile next to it and sat down to wait for my caretakers.

Fortunately it seemed that people were taking my behaviour in two very different lights.

Certainly some people did not take it well, some of the servants seemed downright terrified of me. Not unfair to be certain if a little hurtful. It came as no surprise that the most relevant figure that expressed that attitude was uncle Daemon after he returned from his conquest in the stepstone, Though i don't blame him because of us hightowers born targaryen Princes, his claims to the Iron throne is getting further and further away. Thus he paints us with every sorts of rumours he can to make us look bad.

may the Seven push him down a flight of stairs.

Most however seemed to take it in stride, probably because I have not shown very many creepy child symptoms like not communicating or anything Joffrey ever did.

In particular I seemed popular with my nannies, the grand maester and the lords and ladies from my father's court that believes in male supremacy and wants my brother Aegon on the Throne.

The nannies seemed to dote on me as they rarely showed up without treats anymore and almost seemed to teleport to my side whenever I needed something, got hungry or fell down. Maybe it was because I was nowhere near the pain in the neck as my now clearly fraternal twin (we were both stocky but my features seemed decidedly less sulky) or maybe it was because I went out of my way to be independent of them.

The Grand Maester perhaps unsurprisingly was singing high praises of a child which seemed to be developing both rapidly and with an academic bend. He made continual efforts to add to my vocabulary, mouthing word repeatedly with me while I humored him by pretending to struggle to get them right. I never got to know my grandparents all that well so it was possible I was getting a bit attached to my sorta surrogate grandfather. Which sort of sucked since I knew he would not last long.

Rhaenyra as it turned out, was not much of a problem. She isn't much influential yet and mayhaps made a lot of enemies by rejecting so many Lords and Knights.

Uncle douchebag aside of course, may scorpions gather around his chamber pot.

Unfortunately there was a third camp, the 'could not care less' camp. This camp was dominated by both the king and the lord hand and much like the name would imply I seemed largely irrelevant to them.

We saw the king sparingly, once or twice a month which struck me as little surprise given that his existence was generally comprised of sloth, ignoring problems and being likable. He was essentially a version of Robert who either didn't feel the need to cheat on his wife or was at least far more subtle about it. Honestly if it wasn't for his succession triggering an even worse calamity I would say that he should fake his death and go open a brewery somewhere. Mannn...fuck him ....he's the root of all problems that will befall on westeros and the Targaryen family.

As for the Lord Hand my actual grandfather from my mother's side, he was quite clearly not altogether that interested in the spare for the time being which was surprising to me given how infant mortality worked in this world. Then again he was probably busy digging himself into a ditch and complicating things for the entire family. This should be around the time when he finally pushed Visery's too hard and got his presumptuous ass kicked off the council after all. Given that I had yet to make much a ripple so far there seemed to be little need to think anything had changed in that regard.

Any more thoughts were interrupted when Aegon awoke and began crying… joy of joys the child was an alarm clock with those surprisingly strong lungs.

…

I and Aegon were taken to our mother not long after waking, to be fair Alicent was hardly in moving condition.

As we entered he chamber and I beheld her greatly swollen belly I was somewhat concerned. She had been declared pregnant several months ago.

She smiled at us as we entered led by our nannies. Have to give her points, her fine features were beautiful and matched her smile well.

"My sweet boys," she said as I walked up to her and a nanny brought Aegon forward.

"Mother," I said with a bright, toothy smile.

"Mama," Aegon murmured sulkily as he stretched his fat little arms towards her.

"Do not worry my little boys," she said as she tapped her belly lovingly. "Soon you will have another sister, mayhaps a brother."

"Brother?" I said happily as I tilted my head and smiled wider. I could only hope that Aemond is coming.

"Yes, my dear," she said as she patted my head lovingly. "Another boy for house Targaryen."

I was slightly bothered by the tone of determination I head in her voice. Had it already begun? I had only seen her and Rhaenyra speak a few times and they did not seem hostile.

But i could be wrong and as a child i don't have much information to work with.