Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Ozymandias by Percy Shelley

Tiny hands fiddled with the door. Every time she thought her hands wrapped securely around the knob, she fell on the balls of her heels.

Humiliated by a mere wooden door.

She blew an angry raspberry at the insurmountable obstacle that stood in her way.

Her father had told her she was a dragon. Dragons did not yield to doors! She would not be denied!

Feet strained as much as possible so she could reach the door's knob. She breathed harshly, this was a chore much more intensive than she could bare. But her mother had charged her with her grandfather's safety. She would not fail her family!

She strained higher and managed to budge the door open. Happily gasping, she lent her shoulder to the door and it opened slightly. She was about to run, gigling, and throw herself in her grandfather's embrace before pausing. Who knows, she might even earn a sweet for her labors.

Gods, it had been so long since she had tasted fruit.

She paused. Somebody else was already in there. Her father.

Father is so angry these days.

She wasn't sure she wanted his attention right now. She paused and fidgeted with her hands. Weighing the odds of running to her grandfather against risking her father's wrath.

Father wasn't always like this.

Once she remembered how he carried her on his shoulders through the vast towers and domes of Valyria so she could have her pick from the fresh strawberries. They used to live in a bigger house too. Much bigger than wherever they were currently staying it.

She pouted. There was no where to run and frolick here.

She wanted her endless gardens with flowers of every color. Some bought from even as far as the East. A magii from the rotunda visited every week to water them with red water. Father had always forbidden her from going to the gardens when the magi visited, but she had been naughty. She wondered if them being here was her punishment for disobeying her father.

She couldn't leave the house.

Everything had become worse and kept getting worse. The sky was now ashy grey and whenever she went outside, it made her cough and tear up.

The people were aggressive and panicked easily. The noble ladies with their poise and beautiful robes she had always done her best to emulate, now hid silent knives in their sleeves. Just yesterday when she was out for bread, ladies had screeched and slashed each other with knives just to get more pieces.

Mere bread.

They didn't care about decorum then. She had imagined her mother would have been dissappointed at the behavior of the noble ladies when she told her. To her surprise, mother nodded once before weeping.

Later that day, mother had fobidden her from leaving the house.

"I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THAT!"

She was startled, immediately jolting awake from her day dream.

Her father slammed his fist on the table and repeated the words. Her grandfather sighed in turn and rubbed his temples.

"I will set sail immediately! I refuse to believe that everysingle one of them has died!" father screamed again. "And when I find one and bind it,"

He cackled once.

"I will show these pissants why they need to fear us! There will be no more days off from work! No more worshipping of blasted foreign gods!" He took a mighty swing from a goblet. "I will mix their ashes with shit and then we will see if those barbarian horse lords are as daring as they think they are!"

Her grandfather sighed again with a raspy voice before speaking again.

"My boy you are not thinking clearly here! Is that how I raised you! To make decision with a mind riddled with boiling emotions like a Lysseni bed warmer?" Her grandfather asked.

"And what would you have me do?!" Her father asked. "Pay homage to the Targaryen brat at his shithole of a keep on Dragonstone?! As far as I'm concerned, he and his kin should still be minding the outer perimeter in the wastelands just like his forefathers!"

"My son… the world is hungry for Valyrian blood. It is, as of this moment, worth more than gold and eastern silk," he said. "Slave mobs from neighboring cities are roaming, hunting and raping whatever they can get their hands on. Worse, the horse lords have crossed their historical frontiers. There is not a safer place for us than Dragonstone. Daenys has already offered us shelter. Already, many of our people set sail for it. "

"Volantis?" Her father asked.

"A serpent's paradise. I'd rather my granddaughters marry horselords than set foot in Volantis," her grandfather said.

Her father waved a dismissive hand.

"I am not concerned about this horselord or that. They are a fractious lot. One strong slap, they will scatter into smaller tribes," He said. "They have never united in history nor will they do it now."

"Our home was meant to outlast the immortality of the gods. Now its naught but ash," Her grandfather said. "It is our lot in life."

"I refuse to accept that," her father replied. Her grandfather now looked more tired than ever.

"Pray tell, Aurion, what do you intend then?"

"There is word of a suriving one near Qohor. I will gather my household guard and set sail to it immediately. Afer that, I will set sail to the island and save as much as possible. 5,000 years of civilization must not be left to rot in muck," Her father replied.

"I see you are set firm in your course," grandfather and her father nodded.

Her grandfather stood up. "Then, allow me to bless your journey."

He held his hands over her father and prayed.

"May Balerion enlighten your path and place the crown on your bow. May Syrax bless your conquest with bountiful plunder. May Vhagar strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, stiffen you warriors spine, and invigorate their fighting arm."

Her father bowed his head in reverance before he spotted her from the corner of his eyes.

"What are you doing here spying on us?! Leave!"

She didn't need to be told twice. She fled, chores forgotten.

That was the last she would ever see of her father.

She sat beside her grandfather in the half light of the shanty room, small fingers curled into the heavy folds of his robe. The fire had burned low, reduced to embers that glowed like buried stars.

Outside, the world was quiet in the wrong way, like the holding of breath before a cold plunge.

She had not cried when the house emptied, gold vanished, nor when the servants and warriors vanished one by one, nor even when the ships were readied in haste and secrecy. It was only now, with nowhere left to run and no task left to perform, that the weight of it pressed down on her chest.

"Tell me again," she said at last, her voice thin. "About before."

Her grandfather looked down at her, and for a moment she thought he would refuse. His face had grown older in a handful of days. Not lined, but hollowed, as if something essential had been scooped from behind his eyes. Father's loss still haunted him deeply.

"Are you sure?," he asked quietly. "These are not stories meant to comfort."

She nodded and leaned against him.

"Once," he began, "we lived in a world that believed itself finished. Not complete, but secure. Valyria was not merely a city, no matter what singers will claim in centuries to come. It was a promise. That mankind need not fear hunger, nor winter, nor time itself. Rather we are beings of high culture. Capable of song, art, and mastery on par with those who came long, long ago."

She remembered the gardens again.

Endless terraces of green and color. Fruit she could take without asking. Magi who came each week to tend the roots with strange red waters while her father forbade her from watching too closely.

"We built upward and outward," her grandfather continued. "Domes that swallowed the sky. Roads that never broke. Fire breathing drakes that hammered order into hearts of bandits and petty tyrants alike. We were careful stewards of power."

He paused, his hand tightening slightly where it rested on her shoulder.

"And we were wrong."

She did not ask how. She already knew.

"The sky changed first," he said. "Not all at once. Just enough that men noticed and dismissed it. Ash fell where rain once had. Breathing grew painful. Crops failed in quiet places before they failed in the great ones."

She thought of bread. Of women screaming in the street and clawing at one another with knives for a crust.

"Panic follows hunger," her grandfather said. "Even among the well dressed. Even among those who once lectured others on order and restraint. Decorum is a thin thing when tomorrow is uncertain."

Her lip trembled. "Father said it would pass."

"Yes," he sighed. "He needed to believe that."

They sat in silence for a while before he continued. The fire crackled merrily before them.

"And then it happened, a gaping maw of unbearable fire that swallowed it all."

She swallowed. "Is that why we left?"

"Yes," he said. "And why so many did not."

She shifted closer. "Father said Valyria could be reclaimed."

Her grandfather closed his eyes.

"Your father is a man who could not accept endings," he said softly. "That is both his greatness and his ruin. He believes that what was built once can always be rebuilt, if only the will is strong enough."

She remembered his voice raised in anger. His fist striking the table. The way he spoke of binding what remained and making the world remember fear.

"He is wrong," her grandfather went on. "Some things cannot be reclaimed. Only understood."

She looked up at him. "Then why did he go?"

"Because someone must always try," he said. "Every age produces such men. They stand before ruins and refuse to see them as warnings. They see only challenges."

She was quiet for a long time.

"Will he come back?" she asked at last.

Her grandfather did not answer immediately. When he did, his voice was steady, but older than it had been moments before.

"You know the answer to that already," he said. "He has gone to join the ruins."

She buried her face against him then, and this time she cried. He did not stop her.

After a while, when her breathing slowed, he spoke again.

"Remember this," he said at last. "Valyria did not fall because it was weak. It fell because it grew blind in its abundance. Riches piled upon power, and power bred certainty. We convinced ourselves that vigilance was no longer necessary, that the threats we had driven away with dragonfire had been banished forever."

She frowned, listening intently.

"There were things in the dark once," her grandfather continued. "Things that feared flame and learned to hide from it. Valyria believed distance was the same as safety. That if an enemy was pushed far enough away, it ceased to matter."

Her eyes widened. "Grandfather," she whispered. "Do you think the Doom was murder?"

He closed his eyes and sighed, the sound long and weary.

"No," he said softly. "Not murder as men understand it. Valyria destroyed itself through hubris. That much is true. Pride sharpened the blade, and arrogance guided the hand."

He opened his eyes again, and they were darker now.

"But the final dagger," he said, "was something else entirely."

She waited.

"If one looks beyond Valyria, the pattern becomes difficult to ignore," he went on. "The Great Empire of the East and its culture…. The Five Fortresses, built not to conquer, but to hold back something that does not tire. The great Wall raised by barbarians in frozen lands across the sea, a structure so vast it defies reason unless the threat it was meant to face defied reason as well."

She inadvertently shivered, though the room was warm.

"These were not shared cultures," her grandfather said. "They did not trade philosophies or kings. And yet they arrived at the same conclusion. That there was something in the world that stalked civilizations when they grew too strong, too certain, too close to becoming more than they were permitted to be."

He rested a hand atop her head.

"It is as if something watches us," he said quietly. "Something with the patience of a serpent. Something that allows us to grow only so far before reminding us of our place."

She swallowed. "Then why build anything at all?"

He did not answer immediately. The embers shifted, glowing brighter for a heartbeat before settling again.

"Because stopping is another kind of death," he said at last. "Because if we do not climb, we rot. Because survival without striving is only a slower death."

She looked up at him, her eyes bright with questions she did not yet know how to ask.

"One day," he continued, "men will tell you that progress is inevitable. That history bends upward by its own will. Do not believe them. We have climbed before. Many times. Each time, the ladder broke."

She stared into the fire, imagining ladders vanishing into smoke.

"Then why climb at all?" she asked again.

Her grandfather looked at her for a long moment, and something like sorrow and hope warred behind his eyes.

"Because one day," he said, "someone will learn how not to fall. And man will have his vengeance of the ages."

The next morning, her grandfather did not wake.

His heart, already worn thin by age, had simply failed him in the night. There was no struggle, no last words, only the quiet finality of a body that had decided it could not endure another dawn.

She sat beside him for hours, holding his cooling hand, listening to a house that no longer felt like shelter.

The house emptied after that. Her mother had already slit her wrists long ago when word of their father's expedition reached her.

Servants fled. Friends vanished. Creditors circled and then lost interest when they saw there was nothing left to take. Gold was gone and food followed.

She was alone.

She was alone and free. For the first time in a while, she was free.

Something in her cracked. She remembered her grandfather's words about endings, about refusing to let ruins decide the shape of one's life.

She burned the house herself.

It was done properly, as Valyrian tradition demanded. She watched the flames consume, and when the roof collapsed inward, she turned her back and did not look again.

She left with nothing but the clothes she wore and the name she would later discard.

She worked when she needed coins and left when she grew bored. She picked cotton until her fingers bled and found satisfaction in the ache. She let a wealthy merchant dress her in silk and jewels and pose her as inspiration for his indulgences, then walked away the moment she tired of his pitifully small dreams. She sold her body in candlelit rooms and discovered that desire was another kind of power, one men rarely recognized until it was used against them.

None of it was enough.

So she traveled.

She went as close to the ruins of Valyria as a living soul could dare, breathing air that tasted of fire and listening to the sea crash against the blackened shores.

She partook in the flesh trade and drank in Lys, laughed with sailors, Valyrians, and smallfolk alike.

She stood atop the fused black stone of the Five Forts, palms pressed against walls older than any civilization anyone knew, and felt herself reduced to something smaller than fear. An ant, clinging to the edge of eternity. It was humbling.

She crossed the sea to the new continent and paid homage to the Wall, craning her neck until it ached, struck dumb by the scale of what men had once built in terror and resolve. She paid homage without knowing to whom, only that something ancient had once threatened them all, and untold sacrifice of blood and flesh had halted the advance.

East again, ever east, until she reached Asshai, where the sun felt unwelcome, and knowledge was more valuable than gold. There she learned aeromancy and the shaping of metal, the ways of the torturer, and the discipline required to endure it.

She took a lover in that black city and bore him a son with the loveliest of purple eyes.

Still, she was not finished.

She walked the Ash River in a doomed attempt to reach Stygai. She returned broken, wounded in body and spirit, carrying scars that never fully healed and truths she would never fully speak.

By then, others had begun to follow her.

They whispered her name with reverence.

They called her chosen, survivor, herald, and the lonely wanderer. She did not correct them. She had learned long ago that belief, once given shape, no longer required permission.

She had stared deeply into the darkness of Stygai, and something within it, had stared back. She now knew what needed to be done.

Because one day, someone will learn how not to fall. And man will have his vengeance of the ages.

They whispered in awe as they gathered around her, trying their best not to let their words reach her.

The lonely wanderer.

The beautiful one.

The last blood of the archons.

Sorcerer. Whore. Mother. Great one.

She smiled and let the words pile on. They were only words and soon they won't matter anymore. Besides, if anyone had earned the right to name her, it would be her companions.

Wise ones, she called them.

They were a rag-tag bunch of sorcerers, hedge knights, theologians, learned men, torturers, necromancers, sailors, the occasional crow from the wall, and even a few nobles who had fallen from grace in their pursuit of knowledge. Yet all had walked the steps she did. Some even further than she had. All had arrived at the same conclusions her grandfather had once illuminated her with.

They knew these were their final moments on this world.

Her husband lopped an arm around hers and helped her stand, and she planted a kiss on his cheek before taking a wine goblet mixed with potent venom. She took her place in the middle of the ritual circle.

None wavered or tried to talk them out of it, just like she knew they wouldn't.

There was no need for grandiose speeches or final orders. All knew their role and what was at stake. At once, they drank from the poisoned cups.

The wine burned as it went down. She did not cough. None of them did. This was not the first poison any of them had swallowed in pursuit of knowledge, only the last.

Her husband pressed his forehead to hers, breathing once, twice, and then no more. She did not look away as his life left him. Love, too, was an offering.

Around her, the others began to open themselves – body, mind, and soul.

The veil thinned, and the world recoiled.

She felt them arrive.

They came as whispers first, eager, curious, drawn by the mass of dying minds and unleashed power. Like starving wild dogs, they snarled. She had been told her soul was a delicacy that several of them had been warring over in the infernal realm.

Shapes pressed against reality, clawing for entry, shrieking in bygone tongues that scraped at thought itself.

This was to be their undoing.

Her companions started to burn.

Each soul ignited as it was meant to, refusing to disperse or collapse, but uniting into something white hot and absolute. Where the neverborn reached, they found no feast, only fire and a final death. They screamed as they were caught, bound, and consumed, their essences stripped bare and reduced to fuel.

She felt them die and roared with a savage delight befitting a barbarian king.

The circle became a sun. Stone liquefied, and air caught fire under the immensity of their collective souls. The immaterial itself recoiled as a wound was carved into it, a scar that would never fully heal. A reminder not to underestimate the children of men.

She gathered everything. The knowledge of the dead. The strength of the living. The annihilated remnants of things that had stalked mankind since its first frightened thoughts. She forced it together.

Her heart stilled, and her body failed, but her spirit flew higher than any dragon had ever dared.

When the light finally collapsed, there were no corpses, bones, or ashes left behind.

Somewhere beyond the material world, something vast and ancient howled in rage and pain, suddenly aware that its prey had learned a new response.

And in the space where many had died as one, centuries later, something singular and terrible took its first breath. It was shaped through defiance and hope alone into a singular being of iron will and steely muscle.

Carrying hopes, dreams, and ambitions of an entire species that it was charged with shepherding.

This time, the darkness would remember. This time around, it will feel fear.