Chapter Text
Ice-cold water shocked him awake splashing against his sensitive muzzle. The soft hush of waves rocked him back and forth gently against the mound of sand he rested upon. The coarsest grains of sand rubbed uncomfortably against his scales as the water dragged them over his submerged tail and legs.
He had been laying long enough in one place for pearlescent shells and petrified coral fragments to build up in deposits around his body, the sound of broken glass clattered tumbling around him.
His head felt sluggishly thick, vision blurred and hearing muffled, like he was back in his egg only half aware of a whole world beyond his forest-green shell.
Time wasn’t a measurable thing in his half awakened state, though.
A day and night could have chased each other out of the sky and he wouldn’t have noticed. When he fully came back to himself, his chest constricted coughing up mouthfuls of saltwater, his breath ragged and loud.
The awful taste of it roused him fully awake. He took a sweet full breath after clearing his lungs.
The smell of saltwater mixed with decaying seaweed assaulted his nose. He shook his head giving a forceful snort to rid his flared nostrils of the crusted salt.
Rhaegal tried to open his eyes next but the sand had dried a thin layer over them. His head moved to rub against his forelimb but his body felt too heavy with fatigue. He blinked shaking his head through the discomfort of it, his third eye lid clearing most of the debris away.
His mouth felt dry despite the saltwater he had coughed up, like suffering many days with thirst. He swallowed trying to rid himself of the sensation but somehow it made it worse.
He observed that it was night.
Shadows sat under the peaks of the wind-blown sand dunes down the beach and the glow of weak crescent moonlight curved over his sinuous body, blending farther out over the black sea. The surface of it was only broken by the white foam that crested the incoming cold waves that washed over him.
There wasn’t much he could see beyond the large mound of sand in front of his muzzle aside from the shiny bits of shell and micah glittering in the pale light. He wanted to admire them but needed to take the moment to get more of an idea of where he was than just on a beach somewhere. Perhaps if he could get his head up to look around, he’d be able to see something familiar to place his whereabouts.
Rhaegal tentatively tried to get his uninjured wing underneath to lift his limp body up from the sand but at the slightest strain it gave out. He came down hard jostling the points of the scorpion bolts still embedded under the thickest scales of his chest. He let out a pained roar, hissing against the steel points still wedging themselves deeper with his weight pressing against them despite laying orientated on his side.
The sight of thin clouds had crept into the sky by the time the pain had ebbed enough that he could focus back to himself. He keened in miserable frustration with a small lash of his tail and blew a snort against the sand making a small crater, gritting his teeth he shut his eyes tight. His body felt stiff and uncooperative with every joint aching like someone had come at them with glass daggers. Heat rose under his skin in the beginnings of infection from the lacerations scoring his body.
Rhaegal tried to rise two more times only to exhaust himself. Settled on his side to avoid jarring the bolts more, the best he could do for his work was to gently roll his head to one side to look upwards, his largest set of horns carving furrows in the sand but even that simple movement caused him to whine with pain in the back of his throat.
He was rewarded with a brilliant show of a black sky salted with stars mixed with swaths of deep blues and excited purples, the hush of the waves insisting on everything remaining quiet to let him soak it in.
His bronze eye blinked once, speckled with the dots of starlight cast over it, pulling forth a memory of a night lit by a thousand torches of fire but unlike that time, he wasn’t afraid here. This was beautiful.
He knew beauty and that it came in many forms; in something as simple and obvious as the envious glitter of jewels and gold, to the more nuanced beauty in the silver hair of his mother who smoothed her hand against his muzzle when she knew it would hurt him to fly for her but he did it anyways.
There was no such thing as a dragon who couldn’t fly. It was also why he let Mother’s companion on his back, so that all dragons could feel what it was to fly.
Rhaegal didn’t know how long he had been gone. He missed his family recognizing that not all the pain in his chest was attributed to his physical wounds. Maybe they were looking for him but couldn’t find him because it was so dark.
He found that he could still open his lower jaw a bit. The breath he tried to pull in was shallow against his ribs pressing against the bolts. He cried a weak shrill whose echos resonated all around him, the sound of it dissolving into tiny voices carried off by the sea breeze. He waited for an answering return listening, only to be disappointed that there wasn’t any to be heard but the cry of a disturbed gull woken up too early somewhere on the unseen cliffs beyond his isolated dune.
Rhaegal eased himself back down, reasoning against himself to trying again. Strange things were known to stalk beaches he knew.
Focusing on an unknown constellation to him, he felt a hint of gratitude towards the pin tops of stars in the black veil of night for their company. The full effect of knowing that he was alone set in, the drag of a sluggish, hungry exhaustion threatening to devour him, which would probably get to him before anything else did. He somehow knew that the fatigue would take him if he couldn’t rise but he didn’t know what he could do.
Rhaegal could still feel his heart cantering beneath his ribs as if he had been flying for a full day in an intense gale over the seas, it’s thrum a small comfort. It wasn’t giving up on him like the rest of his body had, like he was driftwood cast haphazardly upon this beach knowing nothing of it’s power but only it’s current state of pain and fatigue.
“Aren’t you cast so far from home.” A deep, resonant voice cut through Rhaegal’s distress. He hissed startled flinging sand, rolling his head upright despite the agony of the movement, the frills along his neck flaring out in excitement.
A creature with the form of an elongated man in white robes seemingly made of starlight stood before Rhaegal’s muzzle within easy reach if he dared lift his forelimb to swipe at him. The man wore a spiked crown of white metal upon a brow framed by short, white hair more brilliant than his mother’s. His eyes were two burning, blue embers set against the pale skin of his face. He smiled gently but it made Rhaegal shutter.
Rhaegal shied away from the blue eyes feeling a spike of fear, a memory of the one who called himself a king, who shot his brother out of the sky to fall into an ice-covered, watery grave. He didn’t have one of his spears with him but Rhaegal knew somehow that it wouldn’t matter if he did.
Rhaegal blew out a hot snort at the man ruffling his white hair and lashed his tail into the water behind him threatenly, fighting to get his limbs to cooperate. He growled feeling the bolts vibrate against his breast bone, the heat of his fire crawling up his throat although he doubted anything like a full torrent would oblige him as weak as he was.
“They don’t know what they have truly lost. How splendid your form is untainted by the aberrant notes of chaos.” The man spoke gently running his eyes over Rhaegal in blatant admiration of his body paying no mind to his deep growling. “I have come from afar for you, Son of Fire and Wind. Have you a name?”
Rhaegal lifted his lips to show his double row of serrated, dagger-like teeth at the man, a red glow lighting the way down his throat. He hardly knew what the man was talking about and would rather him be gone or set ablaze, dead by his flames.
The heat from Rhaegal’s maw curled the air in visible waves that cast an orange glow over the pristine white of the man’s attire but even then the man did not yield to any sort of wariness or fear for his life. “You’re going to die if you don’t let me help. See now that your blood has soaked the ground.”
Keeping his mouth ajar to let the light of his fire through, Rhaegal’s eyes dared to flick once at the ground at the liquid soaked, black sand in a pool where he laid. The sight of it gave a violent jerk to his heart as the light from his mouth died away to an ambient glow less than the moonlight. There was so much of it.
He looked back up to meet the man’s gaze, questioning if he had come here to finish him off after hearing his lonely cry, knowing him to be weak with injury. The man certainly looked like one of the Cold Ones they had encountered once before. Then again, he only had glimpses of them obscured by a thick veil of terror after his brother landed for the last time in the cracked ice, sinking below it and he hardly saw them during the night battle.
The man stayed silent all the while Rhaegal’s thoughts bounced between many questions but interrupted the process, sensing his confusion.
“It is your right within this realm, if you wish to speak.” The man said. The suggestion sounded absurd. He had always been able to understand the tongues of men and even the difficult tongues of his mother. He could understand this man but their words were impossible to form in his mouth however, so he never bothered to try.
“If you insist upon dying without my help, what would you lose to try?” The man insisted, contrasting against Rhaegal’s inner thoughts, as if he could hear them. Rhaegal sneered a look at the ludicrous concept, to the truth that anyone knew, he could not speak. Or at least in any verbal way. Despite the man’s persistence, he didn’t show that he understood that Rhaegal wanted him gone.
If anything, he was the foolish one here.
Yet, for all of his growling, flames, and the claws of his forelimbs digging deep into the blood soaked sand, the man didn’t leave. He stood silent hands crossed, with his cold gaze lazily fixed on him, perhaps meaning to mock his incapacitated state of being. This would have been all over with if Rhaegal could move or do anything besides lay there and bear the man’s audacity.
Rhaegal snorted again at him defiantly. I am Rhaegal Targaryen, son of house Targaryen, Second son of Daenarys Targaryen, Queen of the First Men and First of my name. He said sarcastically to the man in his mind, mocking Mother’s drawn out introduction. He knew it was childishly of him to think so but he didn’t care.
“Aye, so that is your name then. Rhaegal Targaryen, son of Queen Daenerys. Welcome to Arda and the Realm of Middle Earth.” The man stated, his posture relaxed at receiving the exchange he had wanted, despite how Rhaegal had spoken to him or not questioning the many titles.
Spoken. He paused, rolling the realization into existence.
Yes, Rhaegal had spoken from his own maw, not just a thought of words. He blinked in surprise, the man hadn’t been lying after all. He could speak the words of men and without apparent difficulty. He ran his tongue over his fangs and lips feeling for any change but nothing felt out of place. It had to be some sort of trickery or the infection was in his mind.
The man chuckled at his realization. “Now that you have introduced yourself, I will aid you.” The man broke from his standstill, pointedly decided on his task, to stroll around to Rhaegal’s side where his chest was bared with the two broken bolt shafts protruding from out of his dark green scales.
His pale brows knit in sympathy with a disheartened frown towards the mangled sight of twisted flesh and the pour of steaming, fresh blood out of the wound when Rhaegal tried to crane his neck to see what the man was doing. “Please, don’t strain yourself. I won’t cause you more harm.” He soothed quietly, glad that Rhaegal had laid his head on the ground again without taking his eyes off him, distrust still glowing in his slit pupils.
Upon further investigation, there was a sizable wound on his neck leaking black blood and missing torn sections from his left wing slightly spread in discomfort. The man drew in a breath realizing the extent of Rhaegal’s injuries. It was a miracle he was still alive from whatever had caused such great harm to him. Dragon’s were notoriously tough beasts but this particular dragon, for all of his defiance, would bleed out if nothing was done.
That of course, wouldn’t do and the man saw no other option available to him. “I cannot help you in this form for it is far too gravely injured. Instead, your soul will need a new shell while this one heals. I have but one gift left from my father and through my hand, it is yours.”
He lifted his arm until it reached mid-chest height with his palm upright, extended out towards Rhaegal. A tiny hot, white flame flickered into his palm, Rhaegal started at the sudden burst of white light against his sensitive eyes. He hissed in displeasure but held still while the man started to hum a quiet tune to the flame. It was absurd to watch but he couldn’t take his eyes off the spectacle.
The little flame grew in size and it’s waving form enthusiastic with the increasing volume of the tune the man was now singing in some strange, unknown tongue. He turned his palm towards Rhaegal and cast the flame upon him. Its mass engulfed him whole like an out of control fire catching a mid-summer dried tree.
He roared out in shock even though the flame didn’t burn him or cause him any pain, in contrast it was relieving him of it, cauterizing his wounds in a hiss of melding flesh. The bolt shafts removed themselves from his chest and hit the dune in hollow wooden impacts, their barbed tips still glistened with blood.
When the light faded out, leaving the weak moonlight to illuminate the beach, Rhaegal shook his head and groaned, wiping a hand across his sweat sodden brow. That’s when his eyes snapped open to see that indeed there was a hand attached to an arm, to his body and not at all his wings.
His confusion evident, the man felt obligated to explain. “I’ve given you the form of the Second-born children of my Lord-Father while your original may sleep and heal. May their adaptability and courage serve you well.”
Rhaegal, no longer feeling the sharp ache in his chest and neck felt compelled to stand but he staggered forward onto his knees into the sand, the course grains digging into his skin like it hadn’t before. He gritted his teeth and glared at the man. “What did you do to me?!” He demanded, his strained voice strange to him, feeling no longer limited to only addressing his unwanted guest in only snark.
“You will remain as you are now until you have properly recovered yet, if it comforts you to know, you retain some of your innate gifts. But I heed you to use them wisely, for it will cost you in recovering to not do as such.” The man patiently warned, still yet to move away from Rhaegal’s agitation with him.
Rhaegal sat back kneeling in the sand stunned to silence, ire forgotten while he turned his hands over in examination. He was fixated on the white scars starting at his left hand that twisted up his forearm towards his elbow. It was stark against the bronze hued skin over the top of his arm that ascended over his bare shoulders, the underside of his arms a lighter tan. Looking down at his chest, his pectorals were defined but marred by another scar centered in a mangled star shape with many points along with harsh three-clawed rake marks that curved over the right side of his ribs.
Trying again, Rhaegal was able to somewhat stand while still leaning over, not trusting his body to not fall. He turned his eyes on the man again, ready to engage in questions, to fight him or both, this night’s events had strained his tolerance.
“You shouldn’t exert yourself too quickly.” The man warned sitting down on large driftwood, watching the newly formed body before him stagger like a drunkard. Rhaegal was still pushing it too fast but he would learn to dwell in his new body well enough.
“Undo what you have done to me Cold One.” Rhaegal snarled, knowing his words were a ruse, there wasn’t much he could do now in this reduced state.
The man lifted a suddenly appeared pipe to his mouth, then exhaled smoke into the air. “I am no Cold One that you speak of. I am Manwe, Lord of the Winds and I cannot undo what I have made, for you would die.” He explained taking another drag from his white wood pipe, giving off a nonchalant air about him, the smoke of his pipe lazily coiling through the air.
“Come wait with me, Rhaegal Prince, we are expecting another guest and the Sun is rising. Come see.”
Rhaegal knelt back into the sand watching as the first crack of sunlight shot out from behind the line of trees away from them lighting the water in a glittering line towards the impossibly endless horizon. It dawned upon him with the morning, that he was looking into the light of a sun not his own.