The Dragon Queen

II Daemon

Stepstones - 115 AC

I looked around the island pleased. It had only taken us six months to burn down the Triarchy, though it took a risky manuever from my part to drag the Crabfeeder from his caves. It worked at the end, but it still had my wife shouting at me histerically. Fortunately, her claiming of Vhagar had her soon forget why she was angry at me to begin with.

We were now rooting out the pirates and claiming their stolen treasures. My niece kept on proving to everyone why my brother did not need a son, by coming up with great idea after idea. She had used the money from the treasures found in the Stepstones to refill the royal coffers, pay the damages from the pirating to the lords and merchants that lost their products, pay boons to the soldiers that fought and the families of those fallen, then used what was left to start building a port city and a castle, also to start filling the coffers of her son's future state.

A son that no one, but the Targaryens know about for now. For my sweet nephew Viserys.

Still, she had won everyone over during this war. Lord have been praising her name, not only had she flown in Syrax coming down on the enemy with blood and fire, but she had also faught on the ground alongside her husband. Twin spears in their hands, back to back, dancing around the battlefield and stricking down enemy after enemy. It's being called the dancing vipers and there are ballads already being sung about them. I could see that in that moment she had won over the most hardass lords of the realm, Borros Baratheon included, and the hearts of the dornishpeople.

Though, I believe the later happened, when she left her tent doning a yellow scale armor, like Syrax, and holding a dornish spear in her hands. The perfect mix of House Targaryen and House Martell.

My sweet niece truly knows how to play the game, I thought in amusement.

As for the ladies, they can't stop praising how graceful and brave she was marching to the Triarchy and demanding a peace treaty to be sign on all parts. The cherry on the cake was that in that treaty, the disputed lands were declared property of House Targaryen. She's been named the Princess of the Narrow Seas and Lady of the Stepstones by the people, and later declared so by my brother. Now the Stepstones were hers, and no one can take them from her.

She also made sure to get some hefty war compensation from the Triarchy. Money she then used to fund her new project. She wanted to put a sewer system that was city wide, to make the King's Landing more hygiene and better the livelyhood of the commonfolk. The people are claiming her to be the second coming of the Good Queen Alysanne.

Though, the Faith was not happy. During these last few years, so many people have converted to the Fourteen Flames of Old Valyra, the Olds Gods, and Mother Rhonyr. Not that I blamed them, those are religions that care about them. By now, half of the Vale and Riverlands have converted to the Old Faith, even Lord and Ladies of Small Houses. The Stormlands and Crownlands' change of faith have been predominantly to the Fourteen Flames of Old Valyra. But there has been some good influence of the teachings of Mother Rhonyr in Crownlands, espeically by the heavy influence of my niece's husband.

Oh, by the way, the Stepstones, now belong into the region of the Crownlands, even with it's distance. It is Targaryen territory after all.

Otto was not happy. But he could do nothing. Not when the whole realm and the king praised my niece. Not when the economy and trade of the realm was booming and flourishing. Not when the commonfolk were so happy and in peace. The influence of the Faith milita, the one that Otto had tried to scare my brother with, while the rest of us were in war, was rendered useless. Especially with how, even those that still follow the Seven, saw House Targaryen as their saviours.

Just to be sure I had Larys, the newly appointed Master of Whispers by niece's recomendation, spread around stories about how when the Faith milita was around, it was the commonfolk the one that suffered. All while the septas and septons hid, like the cowards they were.

When Otto tried to influence various Lords of the realm, after people started converting. All my niece did, was go around, sweettalking them and giving said lord's second and third sons the change to have a state made for themselves in the Stepstones. Various ports and trade businesses need to open, to take fully advantage of the gate to Essos we've worked hard to earn. They might not be lords of their own houses or have towns under their care, but they will be set of for life and even make a lucrative life via tarde between Essos and the realm.

It also meant that my nephew's Visery's port and castle will be constructed faster, but I'm sure my niece did all of this for the goodness in her heart. Not at all, to sway their fathers' to her side.

Still, she gave second and third sons hope of a better future, away from their eldest brother's shadows. Even Larys had a state made for himself there... though, I am sure he mostly uses it as a spy base, between Essos and the Crownlands.

"What's on your mind cousin?" Rhaenys approached. "Or should I call you good-son?"

That's right, at the moment Rhaenys was with me in the Stepstones. As the job to get rid off the pirates took us so long, we had to start taking turns on what dragonriders will patrol these parts. Especially, with Rhaenrya having a baby back home. We could not allow little Jace to grow up without a mother. So, Leanor, Laena, Rhaenys, Rhaenyra, and I took turns coming down here. Everytime in different pairs, so the pirats would not get used to and try to sneak around us. Now that all is done with, we can return to King's Landing in peace, knowing that the newly Stepstone's fleet and various soldiers stationed here will have it under control.

This was the last dragon patrol.

"You've had three years to do so," I replied drily. "I don't think you'll change the way you call me anytime soon."

"What's on your mind cousin?" Rhaenys repeated, this time equal measure fondly and amused.

"How much everything has changed," I replied, looking around the beach. I turned around and my gaze went up the hill, where my nephew's castle was being built. "It leaves me a little bit dizzy at times. By next year I'll be a father..."

"I've heard, congratulations," Rhaenys smiled tenderly. "My daughter wrote to me."

"You'll be a grandmother," I smiled. "I knew she would come... I just never realized how soon."

"We still have Rhaenyra's second pregnancy to come to an end first," Rhaenys warned me. "House Martell is already in King's Landing for the birth of the second Targaryen-Martell Prince."

"I know," I chuckled. "Laena keeps writing about how excited Jace and Vermax are to meet their little brothers. They are sure the egg will hatch the same way it did with them."

"It will, Rhaenyra has dreamt it," Rhaenys laughed. "Vermax, the God of boundaries, travel, communication, trade, language, and writing. A fitting name for the dragon of a king."

"With all the travel and trade his mother has been doing, no wonder he chose that name," I snorted. "Let's get this over with, I want to go back to my wife and kid."

"Let's," Rhaenys agreed fondly.

We both got into our dragons, that have followe us into the beach, and shouted at the same time: "Soves!"