BLUE MOON ; Jaime Lannister

chapter twenty-two ; "a long road ahead."

When Jenny looked forwards, through the gap in the mountains - she could see everything to the East. She could see the Riverlands, flowing with an endless supply of water, marshes, and fields. She could make out the God's Eye and the Isle of Faces, the charred remains of Harrenhal looming over the body of water. 

Harrenhal was a forsaken place. It was built by Harren the Black, a descendant of his ironborn grandfather who invaded hundreds of years ago. Harren was the last King of the Isles and Rivers  - the Riverlands was a disputed territory back then, a different King from a different land ruling it every time it was successfully invaded. It was the largest castle in all of Westeros, it had taken three generations for the construction of it to finish. It had been built by the Rivermen who were put into brutal forced labor by their ironborn King and Lords, and they say the day that the final brick was laid, Aegon Targaryen landed with his sisters at the mouth of the Blackwater river. 

Even before Harrenhal's destruction, the castle was said to be a monster, built with bricks the color of the night sky, its great turrets clawing their way to the edge of the sky's boundaries. When Aegon and his army had spied Harren's great castle from the skies on the back of Balerion, the Black Dread, he had gone to the King peacefully - asking him to surrender. The ever arrogant Harren laughed in his face, believing his massive stone walls could withstand any assault. Aegon's army left, but he did not, and neither did his dragon.

 All night, they say the men inside of Harrenhall could hear the flapping of wings like ravenous winds - screaming outside of the castle, yet they could never see the dragon. Aegon had flown Balerion to the highest point that he could go, then suddenly, he struck down, plummeting towards the earth - whilst Balerions hell-fire began to scorn the walls.  Harrenhall's walls only heated and with that, the mighty castle had become a furnace, cooking the men, including Harren and his heirs inside. Harren's House had become extinct in one night and Aegon had left his legacy half-ruined. 

So far, in history, every House that had inhabited the ruins of that might castle had all but died out. A curse perhaps. Yet, other twisted misfortunes had happened there too. In the Dance of Dragons, the Targaryen civil war, Aemond One-Eye had fought his Uncle Daemon on the back of the mighty Vhagar - the she-dragon, one of the dragons from Aegon's Conquest, Visenya's mount. Vhagar was massive, three times the size of Daemon's dragon, Caraxes the Blood Wyrm.

 Yet it was Caraxes who had tightened his jaws around Vhagar's neck, tighter and tighter. Vhagar flapped and clawed at the other's wings, tearing holes into soft tissue, gaping holes that could never be healed, and sliced Caraxes belly open with the talons on her feet. Daemon was alledged to have leaped from his saddle, onto Vhagar and plunged the valyrain steel blade, Dark Sister, through his nephew's empty eye socket - just as the dragon's had tumbled into the God's Eye lake below. 

In more recent years, the Tourney at Harrenhall had occurred hosted by House Whent - who had held the castle at the time. All the noble houses in the land were in attendance, the Targaryen Mad King and his son, the Starks, the Lannisters, the Tully's, the Arryn's, the Martells, and the Baratheons - they were all there. It was where Jaime Lannister had been named a white cloak of the King's Guard. 

It was there were so many misfortunes had happened. Jaime had seen it as the greatest honor at that time in his life, now he viewed it as his demise. That day was the beginning of the end of the Targaryen Dynasty - a Dynasty that was supposed to last a thousand years. It did not. Prince Rheagar had won the tourney of Harrenhall, as a victory he was to name his Queen of Love and Beauty; most assumed he would name his pregnant wife, Princess Elia Martell, his Queen who was smiling at the man with nothing but love. The Prince rode straight past her, the woman he was supposed to love and protect; like she was a stranger and instead, placed the crown of winter roses into the lap of Lyanna Stark. All the smiles died that day.