Chapter Text
If there was one thing Baelor thought at the moment, it was that the gods must have a twisted sense of humor. Or perhaps they were just bored and had all decided he was to be their personal source of entertainment.
Because, truly...truly, how else could one explain the presence of the monstrous beast standing in front of him?
Baelor stared at the creature, his mind momentarily refusing to process the sheer absurdity and impossibility of what he was seeing.
He must be dreaming—yes, that must be it.
Wait, no. Not a dream, but a nightmare.
Yes, that's right. He must be having a nightmare, and at any moment now, he would wake up in his chambers at Dragonstone, or perhaps in the Red Keep, with the familiar, comforting scent of old parchment and the steady warmth of a hearth. He would breathe a sigh of relief, rub the sleep from his eyes, and chuckle at how vividly his mind could conjure such impossible madness.
But the sharp, stinging smell of smoke and sulfur filling his nostrils felt entirely too real.
And that blistering heat radiating from the beast's scales was real, too.
It wafted over him in suffocating waves, drying his soaked riding leathers and forcing him to face an agonizing truth.
He was wide awake.
He had stared down rebellious lords. He had won a war started by said rebellious lords. He had navigated the treacherous, viper-filled pits of King's Landing without losing his head. Yet, at this very moment, the heavens had decided that surviving a war and managing a realm as demanding as the Seven Kingdoms wasn't quite enough of a challenge.
No. They needed to drag a different kind of hell into his life.
Except…it was the literal embodiment of hell itself, capable of spewing flames hot enough to turn him to ash before he could even utter a single bloody word.
Seven hells, Baelor swore in his mind, nearly laughing at the bitter irony of the words. Because Seven fucking hells, indeed.
The beast shifted, its massive talons scraping against stone and the ground beneath his boots groaned in protest.
His breath hitched, and every instinct, honed by years of training and experience, of war and survival, screamed at him to run. To turn on his heel, abandon whatever shred of pride and dignity he possessed, and bolt to gods know where. But his boots felt as though they had been nailed to the ground. His legs, it seemed, had entirely forgotten how to work.
Baelor released a slow, shuddering breath, trying and failing to stop the trembling in his hands.
But who could blame him, really?
And where would he run, exactly?
Against a nightmare forged of fire and shadow.
No man could ever outrun such a beast.
He was going to die.
It was as simple as that. There was no way out of this; that much was certain. There was no avoiding it, no bargaining out of it, and certainly no outmaneuvering it with sharp wit, or a cleverly worded remark. No amount of political tact could save him now.
This was no battlefield, nor was this a council chamber. This was something far older, far more primal, and far more unforgiving than the fickle politics of men.
This was the magic of Old Valyria. Thought to have been lost irrevocably when the last stunted hatchling died. And all that was left of that magic was their blood, weak and diluted, flowing through the veins of a dynasty that had long since traded the skies for iron thrones and golden crowns.
And yet, here it stood, once again. Fire and blood…and death given form.
And apparently, the arbiter of his own demise.
For all his victories on the Redgrass Field, for all his carefully laid plans to rebuild a fractured realm, Baelor Breakspear's story was apparently meant to end here. Not with a crown upon his head or a sword in his hand, but as a pile of unidentifiable ash in a nameless cavern. Lost and forgotten.
How pathetic.
A memory flashed through his mind and Baelor nearly laughed. The gods really must have hated him. Hated him enough to play a joke this cruel and twisted.
Because why?
Why would they, only days ago, spare his life only to end it here, by a beast that was once their house's symbol of absolute power.
Oh, the irony of it was enough to make a dying man laugh, and Baelor was very close to doing just that.
Perhaps, it was the gods' way of correcting an error made. Perhaps he really ought to have died on that accursed trial. Perhaps he really ought to have let Maekar's mace find its mark, shattering his helm and spilling his brains onto the dirt like some tragic hero in a wandering minstrel's song. At least then, it would have been a cleaner death. A tragedy, yes, but a noble death nonetheless. The realm would have wept for the noble Prince who fell defending a hedge knight's honor.
That sudden, blinding vision that had pierced though his mind in the middle of the trial, allowing him to duck Maekar's swinging mace just a hair's breath in time, was not the blessing he first thought it was. But a delay of execution.
He had survived the trial of Seven, walked away with a pounding headache and a bruised ego, only to stumble into a forgotten chasm days later and find this.
Because, apparently, the gods thought dying accidentally by your brother's hands was not tragic enough, and demanded a far more dramatic end than a blunt instrument to the skull.
He was afforded a brief extension of his lease on life, granted only so he could be delivered to a far more terrifying executioner.
A living, breathing nightmare.
A dragon.
A remnant of a bygone age thought lost forever.
They were wrong.
And now, he was about to be incinerated into nothingness by one.
Gods.
He thought of his sons. Of Valarr and Matarys, who were still so young, and still learning what it meant to carry the weight of their name. Who would guide them now through the treacherous currents of the court?
He thought of his father, whose health was already fragile, now left to carry the crushing weight of a fractured realm without his Hand and Heir.
He thought of his mother and how her heart would break when her eldest son simply vanished, leaving behind nothing but a riderless horse and a trail that grew cold in the Reach.
He thought of his brothers. Of Maekar…at least Maekar wouldn't have to live with the crushing guilt of a brother’s blood on his hands. It would have broken him. Now, Maekar would think his older brother had simply been careless. A prince lost to the wilderness, unhorsed by some mundane hazard of the road, or perhaps ambushed by remaining Blackfyre loyalists.
A small, bitter mercy.
The monstrous beast before him stirred, its massive tail sweeping, striking the cavern wall that sent a shower of loose stone and dust raining down the cavern floor, snapping Baelor out of his thoughts.
He swallowed hard, the taste of ash thick on his tongue, willing his breath to remain steady.
This was it.
The dragon lowered its scarred head, the movement slow and deliberate, until its snout was mere yards away from Baelor's chest. The heat coming from it was oppressive and suffocating, radiating in thick, shimmering waves that warped the air between them.
Up close, the beast was a mountain of jagged, coal-black scales that gleamed with a dull sheen, covered with scars that spoke of a lifetime of violence. Cruel, dark spikes ran down the ridge of its snout like a crown of thorns, and gods…those teeth. They were like curved daggers, rows of them, sharp and uneven, each one capable of rending flesh from bone with ease, and jutting from a jaw that could swallow a horse whole.
But what froze the blood in Baelor's veins were its eyes.
They were massive, burning pools of green, yet it lacked the fiery, rage-filled glare one might expect from such a fearsome creature. Instead, they were filled with something Baelor couldn't quite decipher—a mixture of something ancient and an unnerving intelligence that suggested this creature was no mere beast, but something far more wise beyond comprehension. There was an awareness in those green depths that told him that this creature knew exactly what he was.
It knew the blood that ran through his veins. He was sure of it. For some unfathomable reason, he just knew. He felt the absolute certainty deep in his bones, a strange, resonant hum vibrating just underneath his skin. Had he not been too transfixed at the sight of his imminent doom, he might have recognized it for what it truly was. But alas, his mind, ever practical even in the face of death, dismissed the peculiar feeling as nothing more than the final, desperate thoughts of a dying man.
But despite it, a name came to his lips, unbidden.
"Cannibal."
The great green eyes narrowed, the vertical slits of its pupils contracting into razor-thin lines as if recognizing its own name.
Baelor stared into those emerald depths, his heart pounding against his ribs.
The Cannibal. The wild, untamable terror of Dragonstone that terrified even the dragonriders of old. A creature of pure malice that had never known a rider, nor accepted a master. A beast that feasted on the flesh of its own kind, a consumer of hatchlings, eggs, and the weak.
Right.
Of course.
He should have known.
The gods did not deal in half-measures. They never had.
What a miserable way to die than by the jaws of a creature that loathed his entire bloodline. How poetic.
The Cannibal let out a low rumble from deep within its chest, reverberating through the cavern that shook Baelor to his very core. Its nostrils flared, and Baelor felt the rush of hot air wash over him, carrying the stench of sulfur, smoke and whatever remained of its last meal. He forced himself to swallow down the bile rising in his throat, even as the heat seared his eyes until tears tracked down his soot-stained cheek.
The dragon tilted its massive head, its movement surprisingly fluid and serpentine for a creature of its size. Those burning emerald eyes bore into him. Assessing. Judging.
Then the air grew impossibly hotter. The Cannibal parted its massive jaws, revealing even more rows of interlocking teeth, and deep within its throat, a dull, sickly green glow began to kindle.
Well, this is it then, Baelor thought, the voice in his head remarkably calm and detached. There was no fear left in him, only an acceptance of the inevitable as he watched the green light grow brighter, reflecting off the cavern walls.
Baelor closed his eyes, bracing for the torrent of green fire that would melt his flesh and leave nothing but blackened smear on the stone floor.
The heat swelled, threatening to blister the skin off his face. He kept his eyes shut and waited, his thoughts drifting to those he would leave behind.
Father, Mother, forgive me.
Valarr, Matarys…my sons, be strong. I love you.
He waited. One heartbeat. Two.
Jena, my love. I am coming. Wait for me.
But the searing pain of fire never came.
Instead, Baelor felt an unexpected gust of wind, violent enough to send him stumbling backwards, his boots skidding against the uneven floor until his heel caught on a loose stone and he fell hard, landing heavily on his back, the breath knocked from his lungs that forced his eyes to open.
He gasped.
Not from the impact nor the sulfur-thick air that threatened to suffocate him, but from the impossible sight of the Cannibal's head looming over him, its jaws only inches away. For a moment, there was only absolute, terrifying stillness. Then, with a care that seemed entirely at odds with its monstrous nature, the dragon pushed him. The massive snout pressed against his chest with just enough force, not to crush, but to pin him to the ground.
Baelor lay still, his heart hammering once again in his chest and the hum beneath his skin grew stronger, pulsing in time with the rhythm of his racing heart.
Before he was even aware of what he was doing, his hands lifted from the dirt and pressed it flat against the creature's snout.
He didn't think to do it. He didn't know why he did it. He certainly was not thinking about it. He just did.
Because something deep inside him compelled it. Demanded it.
The scales underneath his palm were hot—a scorching, blistering heat—yet it did not burn. Rather, it felt strangely comforting. Familiar, even.
And as his palm pressed more firmly against the scales, the warmth seeped into his bones, filling him with a sense of calm, as if…some missing piece of him he was not even aware of snapped into place.
The Cannibal's green gaze continue to bore into him. Sharp. Piercing. But not the cold, predatory look of a hunter or the malice one might expect of a creature defined by it.
Instead, it was as if the dragon was searching something within him.
Baelor's voice, when he found it at last, was hoarse, though filled with a quiet awe. "You know me."
The green eyes flickered and Baelor felt, more than hear, a low, vibrating hum against his palms, against his chest, against the very air itself.
Then the weight on his chest eased, the dragon pulling back just enough to allow him to draw a deep breath.
The dark massive head continued to hover, eyes still locked into his. Still waiting.
"What do you want from me?"
It was as much a question to the titan before him as it was to whatever gods had led him to this godsforsaken hole in some random corner of the Reach.
He had no idea why he was even expecting an answer. Yet, as Baelor stared into those emerald eyes, he felt an incessant tug at the edges of his mind, pulling at him, calling him.
For a heartbeat, he saw a memory that wasn't his own—a flash of sky filled with smoke, a taste of ash on the wind, and a deep sense of longing, not for power and violence, but for a sky that once belonged to their kind.
The memory vanished as quickly as it had surfaced that left Baelor reeling, his mind struggling to make sense of what just happened, his chest tightening with a sensation too raw and too alien to be his own.
He released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, his vision still swimming as the sudden onslaught of emotion, that certainly was not his own, recede.
What in the the name of the Seven just happened?
The Cannibal remained still, its scarred head still hovering above him. This time, its eyes held a flicker of something that resembled curiosity, interest, recognition and gods' help him, perhaps even acceptance.
Baelor felt the tug in his mind again. Persistent and demanding.
Mine.
The cavern fell into silence except for the rhythmic breathing of the dragon above him and the distant pitter-patter of water dripping from somewhere far above.
He felt a brief pressure against his palm, which, to Baelor's absolute horror, was still pressed against the dragon's snout. A subtle nudge. As if it were prompting him.
But his thoughts were still too scattered, too stunned to form anything sensible, let alone make a decision, and so he could only stare.
The dragon’s patience, however, seemed to have limits, and Baelor felt a flash of annoyance, and something that resembled too much like pettiness—it seemed almost absurd—before a puff of smoke blasted directly into his face.
It stung, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut and cough, his hands instinctively retreating to cover his face. He scrambled to his side, hacking and gasping for air, eyes watering uncontrollably.
Seven hells. His eyes and lungs burned.
When the haze cleared, he was on his knees, hands pressed into the cool stone, his chest heaving. He heard it move, and for a brief moment, he thought he was finally done for, but that flash of petulance from earlier returned, laced with something remarkably like... amusement.
What.
He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, the soot smearing across his face, and looked.
The dragon had retreated back into the shadows of the cavern, its wings folding against its flanks to tuck into itself, blending perfectly into the dark were it not for the glowing green embers of its eyes, which remained fixed upon him. Until it decided it had seen enough and tucked its massive head beneath its own wing.
Baelor remained on his knees, staring at the shadows where he knew the Cannibal lay coiled. He stayed that way for some time, allowing himself a moment to settle his nerves and let his thundering heart slow. And perhaps also because, if he attempted to stand, he would undoubtedly fall on his face. He refused to embarrass himself further. Dignity had long since fled him, and he was certain he looked quite pathetic, crouching on the damp cavern floor, trembling like a novice squire who had just survived his first bloodshed.
Which, Baelor mused, was not entirely untrue.
Had he not just survived himself? In front of the most dangerous and deadly creature known to mankind? A creature that was supposed to have died out, to have left the world of men to their petty, bloodstained squabbles?
The realization hit him then.
Gods. He was still alive.
The reality of it made him want to laugh and cry at the same time.
He was still trembling.
Not out of fear.
Not this time.
But because he was alive, and unharmed...mostly.
But more than that, he had found and touched a piece of history that was once his family's birthright, long thought gone that had ushered the inevitable decline of his house.
His palms still burned with the residual heat of the dragon's scales, and he had felt the power underneath them. Raw and untamed. He had felt it creep under his own skin, thrumming though his veins in a way that made him feel more alive than he had ever been.
And it was dangerously, terrifyingly addicting.
Was this what his ancestors felt? A power so intoxicating they thought themselves invincible, like gods walking among men, superior and above all, only to destroy themselves in the end, leaving only bitterness and instability, and a fractured realm that his father had so desperately tried to hold together with nothing but ink and parchment?
Their family had once stood at the pinnacle of the world, bathed in the fire of their own ruin, now diminished but still holding on to whatever power they once had, clinging to the shards of an empire they could no longer command at their whim.
Yet, here it was before him.
The power that many would die for, that many would kill for. People would burn the world for this. They would fill this cavern with chains just for a chance to command that ancient, deadly power.
Even his own blood was screaming at him to reach out, to bind, to claim what was his by birthright. He felt the urge clawing at him.
Command it, his blood whispered, claim what is rightfully yours.
"No," Baelor whispered as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, his ribs screaming in protest, legs still shaking but steady.
He was not even aware he had said it until the word echoed in the silence, like a defiant oath, spoken in the dark, and witnessed by a creature of the past that had seen the ruin of its own kind because of the greed of men.
No. He had no intention to repeat the mistakes of the past. He had no intention of becoming another dragon-king drunk on power, who mistook the fire in his veins for the right to set the world aflame.
He had seen enough of war, enough of the pride that fueled the petty ambitions of men, to know that power once tasted rarely stopped at a mere sip.
As if hearing his thoughts, the dark massive head shifted, just a fraction, enough that Baelor could see its eyes blink open. And behind those burning emerald depths, he sensed no expectation, no judgment, but a quiet understanding and something that almost felt like approval.
Baelor met its gaze with steadiness and resolve.
He felt that strange tug again. It was no longer incessant nor demanding, but it had tightened something within him.
"You shall remain a secret," Baelor said quietly, but it held a promise. "I will not let them chain you. I will not let them turn you into a weapon. You shall remain as you are. Free and unclaimed."
They held each others gaze and for a fraction of a second, a wave of warmth washed over him. Acknowledgement. Approval. Then it was gone.
Without another word, he turned and started the long, grueling trek back to the surface. He could feel the Cannibal's eyes following him, tracking his movement, not with the predatory focus of a beast watching its prey, but with a quiet vigilance.
Baelor did not look back.
He had made his decision, and he intended to keep it. It was a secret he would take to his grave. He will speak of it to no one—not even to his father, who more than anyone else deserved to know that the blood and magic of their house had not fully gone, but had instead retreated into the shadows, waiting for a time that might never come.
It was the right decision, he convinced himself.
Each step he took felt heavier than the last, but he did not falter. He could no longer feel its eyes, but the peculiar hum underneath his skin persisted, and that strange tugging at the back of his mind was still there. It was no longer pulling at him but had instead settled into something that felt strangely pleasant. Comforting, even. But he dismissed it as he hauled himself up through the final, narrow opening to the surface.
He tumbled out into the evening air. The cool breeze that brushed against his sweat-and-soot-streaked face felt like a blessing, and he collapsed onto the damp grass.
The rain had stopped. Thank the gods. And he stared up at the darkened sky, where the stars appeared like tiny pinpricks of light in the vast expanse of the night.
He lay there for a long while, listening to the forest around him. An owl hooted in the distance. A branch creaked under the weight of some creature. And the crickets sang their nightly hymn.
All of it was so mundane, so incredibly, wonderfully normal.
But nothing would ever be normal again.
Not for him.
Not after this.
Not after coming face-to-face with a dragon from the past and coming out of it unscathed. Well, mostly. His lungs still burned when he breathed, but he was alive.
The Cannibal.
Gods.
He was still fucking alive.
A breathless, hysterical laugh bubbled up from his chest and before he knew it, he was laughing—a maddening sort of it. It was the laughter of a man who had stared into the abyss and found that the abyss not only stared back but had, for some inexplicable reason, decided to let him walk away.
The gods truly did have a vile, twisted sense of humor.