Chapter Text
In one world she feels as her body, so heavy, so marked by all the battles, fall towards the water, towards what will be her final resting place as she feels herself losing blood and life, as she feels her boy fading, their bond trying to keep him bonded to her even as the coldness of death clings to him.
In one world she can barely roar in anger and pain, cold slowly consuming her whole.
In another place, in a vast nothingness that is everywhere and nowhere at once, she comes to being with the sound of the roar she couldn’t let out.
Grief and anger and burning hatred fight a war inside of her and she roars until the sounds seem to echo in the void around her, until it fills her whole being and she can finally stop and breathe.
In front of her stands her brother.
Her dear, foolish, dead brother.
Balerion is just as she remembers him, scales so dark his eyes are the only part of him who are truly visible, shining in the darkness, old, so very old, eyes that have seem too much, who have lost too much. He looks at her with softness, with the love of a brother long lost.
“Brother.” She says and receives no answer
Slowly the air around them vibrates with ancient magic and the vast nothingness of their surroundings, everywhere and nowhere at once, shifts until they are standing on the heart of a volcano, the oppressive flames a gentle caress against her skin.
She snorts, as the long cold volcano brims with life around her, if they were to leave, to look out, she knows she would stare at the frickle memory of a destroyed empire. Balerion was never able to let go of the home he lost, it shouldn’t surprise her that he would bring her here, even if the place does not hold any particular meaning to her.
From Valyria they came, from the depths of their volcanos, their source of power and their destruction alike, and it’s only fitting she supposes, that to Valyria, or at least a ghostly version of it, they shall return in the end.
“You are dying.” He finally says, old eyes staring at her
“I know.” She replies, plainly, “Death in battle, as our sister before me.”
“A meaningless death, as our sister before you.” Balerion says, almost bitterly, “For she died and the humans didn’t break and you will die and the war will continue.”
“Are not all deaths meaningless in the end brother?”
“Ours shouldn’t be.” There is a hint of judgment in his eyes, almost an accusation
For they are one and the same with the flames that built and destroyed Valyria. For they are the will and the power the Old Gods have left behind, hidden in the heart of the volcanos to be discovered and bond to their chosen ones, it’s not quite a coincidence that the humans have felt the instinct to name them after their gods.
Because what are they, if not the blood and fire of the gods? Their last parting gift. Or curse.
Still, her brother has some nerve to say something so foolish.
“Yours was.” She stares at him coldly “A long death that led to nothing, that accomplished nothing. What right do you have to judge me for how I choose to end my life?”
“You knew.” Balerion insists, his mouth twisted in disapproval “You knew that allowing that boy to bond with you would bring nothing but tragedy, and yet you did it once more, uncaring of the sacrifice others made to stop this bloody dance.”
“You speak as if the sacrifice was yours.” She bares her teeth at him “You speak as if it was my duty to change the course of fate, to break the bonds, as if it was me who should martyr myself for the sake of peace. You speak as if my actions alone would have avoided this bloodshed.”
“The sacrifice was from all of us, for we are one, and yet you couldn’t do what was needed.” Her brother insists, and he moves, until they stand close enough to touch “And you know sister, you know that without you no war could have been fought, no war could be started. It was you who shed first blood.”
She refuses to be ashamed, to feel regret, instead is blood red anger and sharp protectiveness that take hold of her heart.
“Me?” She laughs, something ugly and sharp that shakes the lava around them “Me who shed first blood, when it was my boy who was the first victim of that conflict? Who had his eye taken from him? I only delivered the justice that they denied my boy.”
“Was it justice or revenge?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters that it circles back to the beginning, to the fact that you knew that accepting the child would bring misery to both him and his kin and yet you choose him again.”
“I did.” She nods, unashamed “I did and I will choose him as many times as it happens, for he is mine , brother, and I will not forsake one of mine.”
“Yours he may be.” Balerion nods and his eyes hold the storm of age, of empires built and fallen “But destruction has followed your bond for two lifetimes now, your desire to claim that boy has now led you to a senseless death in a senseless war.”
“And your point is?”
Annoyance fills her insides as he stares at her as if she is a child, as if she does not understand the weight of her choices.
She does.
Of course she does, she understands them better than anyone else. To bond with her boy means giving his side of the war the advantage of her size and experience, means that they can fight against a side with more dragons, her bond means that her boy loses an eye and that she starts a war to give him justice, to calm the storm within his heart.
Twice she has lived through the dance.
Twice she has claimed that boy as hers.
Twice she has swallowed the strong boy and his hatchling.
Twice she has killed her kin, for the sake of her boy.
And not once has regret consumed her heart.
“You are planning something.” Balerion says, his eyes sharp and accusing “You are too calm.”
“I am.” She agrees, easily “I shall not allow my boy to die a senseless death in a senseless war. Rejoice, brother for I will give our kin yet another chance.”
Balerion stares at her for long moments and she remains unfazed, staring right back at him. She can feel his displeasure, can see the way his eyes darken with anger and something that can almost look like regret.
Nothing he says, and oh he will have something to say, he always has, will change her mind.
Not many times before has she ever considered doing such a thing, to send a soul back in time was nothing something to be done lightly and not all circumstances would allow for that to be done, and she was always better than her kin in holding herself back from acting harshly, messing with fate is a ugly thing when not done right.
She had been tempted before, of course she was, when dear Meraxes fell from the skies first of all, but she had been young back there, young and brash and anger burned too brightly in her heart, revenge called for her and then there was no time for magic. When her brave girl had died was the second time she had been the most tempted, it did not seem fair to see such a bright light come to such a premature end.
She didn’t want to let go of her brave girl. But she had to, for the universe had to keep moving, because she knew her girl enough to know she would always choose her dragon husband even knowing what fate awaited for her, it had felt cruel, to curse her brave girl to a existence without her beloved girls.
She is cruel, yes, but never to her own.
This time, however, temptation will win. This time she refuses to watch idly as her boy is swallowed by fate, as he is cursed to drown with her.
No, she burns with the flames of Valyria, with the blood of the gods in her veins, and fate will bow to her.
Her boy will live once more.
Thrice they shall walk the same path.
Thrice she shall choose her boy.
“You cannot be considering it, not truly.” Balerion says, and his voice is harsh “Not when I know you will once more choose that boy to be yours, when you will dance the same path as twice before.”
She bares her teeth at him unamused, accusation dripping from her own tongue.
“You saved your first girl.”
“I was saving our essence, our dynasty, our very existence as I knew my girl would see her kin persevering, would fight to see the wrongs of hubris corrected. Will your boy do the same?”
“I do not care.” Her answer is level, her eyes daring him to say something “I do not care if he burns them all himself, if he reduces their legacies to ashes. As you didn't know if your girl would be heard, I do not know or care about what my boy will do.”
“You would doom everything for that ?” He scoffs “For a single human? Our legacy, our existence and you would forsake it for one single human? Have you lost your mind?”
She laughs.
“And what of our legacy now , brother?” Her smile is all teeth “My death is the end of our era for soon all of our kin will follow me, and in a blink of an eye there will be nothing of Valyria but ashes and warning tales to be whispered in the dark. They are doomed, we have been doomed the moment your rider was crowded and nothing was done to avoid the problems that followed. You should be grateful I am willing to give them another chance.”
“You don't know that.” His own eyes burn now, but the fire is dimmed, her brother has long since lost the raging inferno of his own heart. “You don’t know it was my last who caused all of this.”
“Do not lie to me as you lie to yourself.” She demands, her own fire burning so much hotter “Do not pretend you cannot see that it was his weakness that led them to ruin. He failed brother, he failed as king, as father, as husband, and I will not have you twisting it to absolve him of his guilt.”
Vhagar doesn’t understand what her brother saw in the king. Oh she held affection for him back then, as he is the blood of her beloved happy prince, and she could see that he was meant to take the skies, but the match was ill-fitting from both sides, a doomed relationship from the moment it began to the moment it ended.
It was not right for their riders to live with the crushing weight of a loss like this. To bond was to merge in body, mind, heart and soul, and to lose that bond was to feel yourself be ripped in half, something agonizing beyond comparison.
They are meant to live with this pain, to carry their departed riders into a corner of their hearts, to carry their spirits into their minds, to soothe the pain with a new bond.
But humans were not made for that. They are not made to outlive them, to have a part of their soul and heart ripped abruptly was to be forever doomed to live a half life.
She resents her brother for that, the part of her that carries her happy prince raging at the living hell he doomed the king.
But mostly she pities them both.
Her brother cared for his riders, at least she thinks he did, but not nearly as much or as deeply as he loved his first girl. She was so special to him he changed the curse of history only to see her survive the doom that was supposed to end them all, he can talk about preserving their existence all he wants, she is not fooled by that, he wanted to save his girl, he didn’t care if all the others burned.
And no bond since her was enough to fill his heart, to soothe the loss of her. Again and again he tried and always found them lacking, always served them out of duty, for that is the compromise of a bond such as theirs, but it was never love.
Her brother faded, in front of her eyes she watched as each rider, as each time he looked at a potential one, failed to light the same sparkle he had with his first girl and that his will to live dimmed with each failure.
Balerion could have lived so much more, if only he wanted to, but he mourned his first girl to his grave.
A broken heart can kill even the strongest of beings, can extinguish even the flames that once warmed an empire.
It was cruel of him, she thinks, to bond with the king when he knew he would not fill the hole in his heart. Perhaps he tried to believe that he would, that that one was finally the right one, but he wasn’t and her brother chose to fade away, to rip himself off his rider rather than the contrary.
She had felt grief for the young king, for such a loss was truly a devastating one and she did not wish this pain to the boy of her happy prince.
But the grief has been exchanged for something sharper, something uglier when she was claimed by her brave girl and then by her sweet boy.
Much she could forgive, but not the pain he inflicted on her boy, on the child that lived his whole life without feeling the love of a man who like Balerion lost himself to his grief, trying fruitlessly to fill a void into his heart, uncaring or unaware of the trail of broken hearts he left behind after losing interest in yet another failed attempt.
“He did what he thought was best.”
“His best was not enough.”
“Are you willing to pay the price, sister? It's a heavy one.” Balerion hums rather than continuing their previous topic, ignoring her words “The girl’s mind was almost lost, plagued by the horrors until she could not do anything to prevent it. What makes you think you shall succeed when our kin failed?”
Vhagar scoffs. Dreamfyre is young , a child in her eyes even if much larger than others of their kin, and while she had enough power to send her own girl back, it was not enough.
Dreamfyre has never touched Valyria, her power comes from Meraxes, dear, powerful, dead Meraxes, a legacy that hums in her body, ancient power flowing in her veins like fire, a legacy of time of glory. But that power is diluted, a burning of a forest rather than the raging inferno of her predecessors.
She sent her girl back, but she didn't have the power to keep her mind intact, to save her from the fractures of such an act. Vhagar saw it, the effects of the attempt on a girl with haunted eyes who could not properly understand what she was seeing, of the weight of the future and the past and the current present waging war on her mind as the girl struggled to keep herself tethered, saw how Dreamfyre suffered for her girl had been too broken to even fly with her, too plagued with the memories of the before, of the regret of wars not yet fought, too much had the girl lost in her first life and they weighed heavily on her shoulders, Dreamfyre too young, too inexperienced to shoulder the burden herself.
Balerion blames her for the dance not being avoided, but she doesn't see how that broken shell of a girl could have changed anything. Dreamfyre tried, moved by love and despair, but her attempt was always bound to fail.
Vhagar is not Dreamfyre.
She was hatched on the shores of Valyria, the last dragon born before the Doom, her egg came from the depths of the vulcans, scorching hot to the touch and brimming with ancient power, the last of a kind.
Balerion and Meraxes were bigger, older, born when their kin was plentiful and roared like thunderstorm, their bodies hardened by battles by the time the surviving dragons spread their wings over the new land and crowded themselves in fire and blood. They had other riders, before they were bonded to the ones who would conquer with their fire, experienced, Balerion even more.
Vhagar is younger, had her dragon girl as her first rider, but she alone survived.
When Meraxes fell with her princess it was her who torched the world in revenge, who made Dorne a funeral pyre for her sister. When Balerion lost himself to grief and longing, when he tried, foolishly, to return to a home that no longer existed and found nothing but disease and danger and returned with a half dead girl on his back, it was she who stood alongside him, feeding him her strength.
When he allowed himself to fade, too consumed by grief and longing, it was she who remained, strong and proud.
Younger she may be, but it's within her that the flames of Valyria burn as they did in their glory.
She tells him as much.
“Perhaps you are right.” Her brother concedes with a nod of his head but his eyes are quizzing as they stare at her “But that is not the only price to be paid, even if you protect his mind there is a sacrifice to be made.”
Of course there is. Magic, powerful, ancient magic is paid with blood and soul.
Balerion paid a heavy price, to save his girl, the one he loved the best, he forsake the ability to love another as fiercely, doomed to search and find nothing.
Dreamfyre sacrificed her bond with her rider, even if they bonded in that life once again it was not the same, even if they became one the girl never took to the skies, the fractures painful to both sides.
Vhagar knows she will pay for this with something that is very dear to her.
“I know.” She smiles, something softer “Whatever it is, I will face it for it is worth it. Don't you agree brother?”
“She was my first.” He reminds her, almost gently, longing in his voice “She was special.”
But she has no space for his gentleness that is merely condescending, as if she is still the youngest one flying under his shadow.
It's not her fault that he grew old and tired, that his riders sucked the very bones off him, that he picked those who could never give him what he craved, that his little act of rebellion on the cursed lands crushed him beyond imagination. If he could never find a bond as true and strong as he did with the first girl and yet keep on trying, foolishly expecting a different result that is his own problem.
She has cherished and loved all of her bond mates, has taken them under her wings and protected them until their very end.
“He is my last. He is special.”
Her darling boy. Her’s, loved just as much as the others, but loved differently.
She raised that boy.
She , not the woman who called herself his mother, not the man her brother had chosen as his last and called himself his father, not the humans who looked at her boy and never saw him, not truly, who dismissed or overlooked him, glad to let him to his own devices, to call for him only when convenient, to demand and never give anything back, no, none of those humans can claim the glory of raising her boy.
It was she who protected him, she who took him to the skies and taught him to fly, she who was witness to his tears and his pains, she who heard his deepest fears and saw his brightest smiles, she who taught him to stand proud, to overcome the hardships, who acted in his behalf even when he didn’t see the need.
It was she who watched that tiny little boy grow up, who helped shape him into the young man she could not save from his last battle, who she could not convince to not throw himself into a fight he knew he would not win, who could only fight with everything she could to try to save him when he wouldn't save himself.
It is she who even now mourns for him the most.
He will always be her boy first and foremost, he will always belong to her before belonging to any other soul.
And she will save him, even at the expense of the world around them. Let the world burn, let the whole house destroy itself in fire and blood, as long as her boy can have the opportunity to do better for himself, as long as she can grant him a chance of surviving it all, it will be worth it.
“He may not seek you.” Balerion says, head tilted to the side “He may decide that life without you is easier, he may become like the dream girl, unwilling to take to the skies.”
“He is my last.” She affirms again, eyes ablaze “In this old world or the new one, it doesn't matter if he chooses to be mine again. He is my last.”
She could search for him, if he doesn't come for her again, of course she could. Find him and force him to accept her, but she will not. She will not become another being in his life willing to strip him of his choice, to force him into a path against his wishes.
She will see her boy to the end of his life, no matter if he seeks her in this new life or not, she will see him to his pyre and then she too will finally rest.
“Nothing I say will convince you, will it?” Balerion says, sounding just as old as he is
“No.” She agrees, lowering her head “It will be done, brother, with or without your blessing.”
“Then have it, sister.” He says and lowers his head, voice filled with warmth “Have my blessing, sister, and may the flow of fate treat you kindly this time around.”
She watches him slowly disappear, fading like a memory alongside the volcano around her, smoke in the air, the sounds of laughter and life reaching her ears from somewhere outside, the sound of what was once the greatest empire of the world, the sound that was silenced in fire and blood.
Balerion fades, slower, his eyes closed, his expression soft as he listens to the same sounds as her, the sounds of the home he has never forgotten, never stopped missing.
In this moment she pities him with her whole heart.
When the memories around her fade in full, when she stands alone in the vast nothingness of nowhere and everywhere, then she allows herself to close her eyes, to search deep within herself for the very core of her being, where the will of the gods pulsate as a living breathing thing.
Vhagar roars, in past, present and future.
In one world her body collides with the water.
In another she takes to the skies obscuring the sun.