Part Two-Two: None shall bar our Path.
It took me over half a year to prepare all the necessary ingredients, perfect all the rituals, and prepare all the safeguards to birth the dragon. I spent months interviewing Mother, how she birthed her Dragons, specifically what she did. She told me that she had sacrificed a blood witch to the flames. I did not know all of the minute details to the process, and anything that seemed to have a correlation was to be seized and exploited. I was only able to get a blood witch by hiring some Ironborn reavers to bring one back to me. In the meantime, I spent months in the Citadel, looking for any books that would help me. I finally found 'Blood and Fire', but it was quite vague, and the only useful information I was able to get out of it is how to properly safeguard the birthing chamber to ensure no outside influence interferes.
I took the book with me to Summerhall, where Targaryen Kings past tried to bring back the dragons. They failed, obviously, but you can find results even in failure. The altar used for the ritual was barely intact, but the makeup and shape of it was still somewhat legible. I made notes to avoid specific configurations and mineral make ups, in order to ensure a higher chance of success. I left my Maester in Summerhall to eke out whatever he could from the ruins. I had already moved on to studying the eggs themselves.
I was making plans to travel to King's Landing to further interview Mother, when I received word she was a few days out from Storm's End. I quickly prepared an entry feast, and after a night of revelry, I got down to studying the eggs. Two weeks of intense inspection, questioning, and various experiments followed. In the end, I learned a few valuable things. Dragon eggs should be handled with care, for they could emit heat at any moment and cause someone carrying them to drop. They could withstand intense heat, but that alone would not be enough to provoke a reaction. Daenerys speculated that the mixing of the blood witch's vigor with the flames changed the fire into something that caused a reaction with the dragon's magic, allowing them to awaken. In addition, I would have to perform the ritual myself. I could have onlookers, but if others performed it, the dragon might not bond with me properly and a truly wild, untameable dragon might result. (Note: unless it's actually specified in the books, don't take anything I say here seriously. Since this has only been done once, offscreen and by a fire-immune person, its open to interpretation)
I spent a month constructing the proper chamber. I built it far below Storm's End, so that in the event I failed, the damage would be minimal. Besides the blood witch, the Ironborn had also brought back a few slaves. I put them to work building the chamber, altar, ritualistic wall carvings, and other things. In the end, I fed them and the bloodwitch to the pyre that was enveloping my egg.
Two days of grueling chanting, fire walking, and blood sacrifices followed. Throughout it all, the fire never needed sustenance, even past the point where I was sure there was nothing that the fire could burn. I took that as a good sign, and that things were progressing well. In the end, with everything looking perfect but with no visible result, I decided to take a great risk, but considering what I had done so far, it was minor. I doused myself in water to try and keep the fire from my body, and walked into the flame. The flames licked at my body, and I could feel my skin starting to heat up unbearably. Still, I picked up the strangely cool egg. I pulled out an obsidian knife, the only metal that had so far managed not to melt in this flame, and slit my hand. My blood spread over the egg, the fire, the altar, and my own body. The egg trembled. It split open. Then everything went dark. At first I assumed I had failed, that I had died and gone on, but I could still feel the aches, pains, and burns of my body. Then I realized something else. My hands felt something scaly, and my ears heard the distinct shriek of..
something. By the time I had stumbled back to the door, dragon in hand, I realized what must have happened. The birth of the dragon must've swallowed all the flame in the chamber. Indeed, as I stepped into the light of the thin stairway leading to the ritual chamber, and into my mother's armed, I beheld a small dragon of an incredibly bright, vibrant, red hue. I probably looked like I had been burned, cut, and otherwise debased, but at that point thought ceased. I was breathless as I stared at the dragon. No,
my dragon. It took me a few days to come up with a name for it, but I finally did. The dragons were the embodiment of ancient Valyria, and once more were the dragons living. As a result, my young dragon was named Valyr. By the dragon's had come Valyria's greatness, and by Valyr's greatness shall the name Connington be known forever.
Months later, my daughter Melessa was born. She was my third daughter, and the second one by my sister-wife. She was smaller than my other children, and cried a lot more than the others, looked like a horse, with a large hair lip, but she was still my child. (Doing my manual Targaryen coinflip, she got quick, so I'll remove the inbred, but she'll be an ugly hairlipped weakling who's intelligent instead of inbred)
A year after Valyr's birth, he had grown up into a goodly sized dragon. Nowhere near the size of Drogon, who had had over forty five years to grow, but I was still surprised by Valyr's growth. He could not carry me yet, and was still learning to fly, but he was still as large as a small hovel, just over a year after his birth. If he kept growing at this rate, I'd run out of cattle to feed him. I let him roam free for now, as I did not yet have any of the things necessary to contain or tame Valyr, the foremost of which was a Dragon Pit. I spent the next few years stockpiling enough gold to ensure a construction of a Dragon Pit just like the one in King's Landing.
During the wait, Elenei, who had started to grow closer to me, complained to me that I was not spending enough time with her. I took her off for a romantic week at our inland manor, far from the storms of Shipbreaker's Bay, but that just seemed to make it worse. It eventually became clear that she had taken on a lover, and the discovery of who it was shook me. It was the same Maester that had served my family for the large part of the last fifty years, who had assisted me so greatly in birthing my dragon. The knowledge that Maester Igon was Elenei's lover was more shocking than the discovery of a lover. As much as it saddened me, I could not bear this affront to my honor. Elenei would get off scot free, because I could not do anything to her, but my Maester I could kill. It took me half a year to set up the circumstances for his death, but the fool I had hired to do the job broke under Septry torture. I was able to explain away the reasoning by claiming that he had tried to steal my dragon, but Elenei knew. The Archmaester too probably.
A month later the Rock rose up in revolt against the Tully's. I had originally assumed that the Lannister's had orchestrated it, but that was not the case. It seemed that the victor of the large civil war had not been a Lannister, but a Frey! Of course, it is entirely possible that a Frey was just appointed ruler of those lands, but that would not explain their holding of Casterly Rock. The Lannister's would've held onto that to their dying breath. The fact that they had not suggested that they had been forcibly removed from power by the Frey's.
A year and a half after Valyr had grown, the Dragon Pit was finished. By that time, Valyr had grown to the size of a small manor, but I had already compensated for that. The Dragon pit was the equivalent of a half of the fortress of Storm's End being buried into the ground. As Valyr grew, the Dragon Pit would be extended upwards until it was no longer practical. If dragon's stopped their growth if they were penned in, I would ensure that as much space as was practical was given to Valyr. It would not do to have them end up like the dog-like final dragons of the previous Targaryens.
The day after the construction of the Dragon Pit, a large amount of cattle was gathered in it. Once Valyr was inside, the great gates at the top were sealed, and I stayed inside to try and tame him.
After eating his fill of cattle, Valyr came to stare at me. I had fought alongside dragons during the war of the Dragon and Lion, and had even seen it burn castles to the ground, but I had never looked into the maw of a dragon before. My knees shook with fear, but I had to tame that fear. I had spoken with tamers of bears, wolves, and other, more exotic animals. They all agreed on one thing: show yourself to be superior, and animals would relent. How one went about proving himself to be superior to a dragon, none of them had any idea. Still, showing fear would be a clear mistake. I walked forward calmly, appearing almost bored. Valyr was curious, wondering what I was doing. When I tried to set a large saddle on him, he became a little prickly, and fire came out of his nostrils. I scolded him and flicked the whip I had brought with me. Valyr looked more amused than frightened, but he quieted down, which worked. It took me a while to saddle him, but I was finally able to do so. I remember Mother saying how you had to flick your whip in the direction you wanted the dragon to go, because the dragon's first instinct was to fight back instead of flee. I called out to raise the ceiling gates, and flicked my whip at Valyr's head. With a great roar, Valyr flapped his wings. After a few flaps, Valyr broke the surface of his home. I flew him in a circle around Storm's End, and the end of Shipbreaker Bay. However, Valyr was unaccustomed to having a human ride him, and landed soon after he took off. Regardless, I had been successful. I had birthed, raised, and tamed a dragon.
I had done something that had been accomplished only one other time in over a century. I had committed what was formerly folly, had risked many things, but it had payed off. I was the second Dragon rider in the land, and most likely not the last. My father had spent decades trying to come up with a saying, discarding one after other, none of them fitting our family. But I had finally found one, in my dragon. My family would rule these lands, even if I must burn them down, for
'None shall bar our Path.
-----End of Part Two-Two: None Shall bar our Path.
Well that was certainly interesting. I'm still not entirely certain about the calculations behind birthing a dragon, but I was very lucky. I had a 25% to 50% chance of dying horribly and killing a portion of my family. Still, I succeeded. Taming a dragon is a lot easier than birthing one, but when you can go balls deep in an AAR, do it. Seeing the Frey's fight the Tully's from Casterly Rock induced around half a minute of laughter from me. It was so random, so unexpected, it caught me off by surprise. The even more surprising thing is that what probably happened is that the Frey son of a Lannister woman had a claim that was pressed or inherited. Still, it looks like I'm going to be doing some conquering soon. Once I take over the Iron Throne, chances are that the game will change into a more intrigue based AAR before I recreate the Dance of Dragons. Hell, I might just have multiple Dances of Dragons just because.