Dragons Fill The Skies Ch 07

***BRAN***

The sea was mostly calm, but dark clouds gathered in the distance, threatening a coming thunderstorm later in the day. A Royal galleon from King's Landing accompanied by two other smaller ships on its flanks serving as its guards, bore the banners of King Bran's new house, a three-eyed raven with its wings outstretched while perched on a weirwood branch and black crown of feathers made out to be a halo behind the raven's head. The background was grey with several eyes watching eternally.

Bran watched past the waves with Rhaenyra, his arms wrapped around her waist and her back pressed to him. In the distance was Dragonstone, the island, and the castle. The mighty castle's dark majesty reflected off her eyes, Rhaenyra's 'new eyes.' She gripped Bran's hands as old painful memories flooded her thoughts.

"Your grace, who lives there now, is anyone in control of my ancestor's old seat of power. It speaks to me like I can feel its heartbeat against my own." Rhaenyra said, her voice breaking with emotions.

"Dragonstone belongs to no one, my love. I ordered that no one be allowed to go in or live inside of it or face harsh punishment. Only passing fishermen rest on its beaches to pass the time. Stannis Baratheon used the castle to plan an attack on King's Landing via Blackwater Bay. After he died facing the Boltons in the North, ownership of the castle returned into Targaryen hands via your great descendant; Daenerys Targaryen. When my half-brother, Aegon Targaryen seventh of his name, killed Daenerys, it was left without a ruler, until today."

Rhaenyra turned to Bran, "You don't mean--t"

Bran kissed her. "It's only right. Even if you never use it to plan to restore your house, it's your family's home, and It's a proper home for our child to be raised in. I'm gifting you Dragonstone as your wedding gift, Rhaenyra."

"Oh, Bran," she said softly, kissing him. "I should have guessed given all of the new clothes you had made for me and the furniture and furnishings you're bringing along."

Bran smiled and pressed the side of his face against her as they enjoyed the movements of the ocean waves through the galleon beneath their boots.

The three ships docked at a makeshift harbor Stannis had constructed on the western shore of Dragonstone long ago. King Bran and Rhaenyra walked together hand in hand first, followed by a column of knights led by Lady Brienne and Ser Podrick. The rest were servants carrying all of Rhaenyra's belongings.

The pathways on the island were different in both the western shore and eastern shore. On the east, there was a beach but on the west, there was the harbor, docks, and long black steps that led to a giant entrance with two watch towers on its flanks. Podrick and Brienne pushed the doors open and both King and Lady wife walked inside together. Rhaenyra's eyes slowly filled with tears as memories of her ancient past came back to her similar to the passing breeze of sea air. She tried to continue walking but stopped and fell on her knees. Bran caught her held her up and embraced her. Bran with a gesture of his hand, kept his knights back as he and Rhaenyra looked back in time together from the day the first Targaryens came to the island, Maegor Targaryen's time here, The Dance of The Dragons, Stannis Baratheon's time inside, Daenerys arrival to the castle and months of abandonment.

"I died in there, Bran, Aegon the older, had his dragon Sunfire burn me as my son watched. Then it ripped me and took six bites. It ripped off my arms, my sides, my head, my leg, and my back, saving the last piece for one of the two true principal rulers of the universe, my one true God."

Inside Dragonstone castle, Bran ordered his knights and servants along with Podrick and Brienne to light and set up torches including lighting every available candle inside of the castle. In this case, there were no supplies to light up the castle, extra candles oil, and matches were brought with them. Rhaenyra and Bran wandered into various rooms, and one of the rooms they both walked into was the throne room. The room bore her old family's three-headed dragon banner that was set up by Daenerys Targaryen long ago when she was here ruling over the island. They hung from the ceiling along with others that had fallen on the floor from the poles they hung from. There was something else inside the old throne room besides old banners and water puddles,

"There are so many cobwebs here, and so many spiders crawling everywhere. Looking at all of them is making my skin crawl. Looking at how my ancestral seat of power was left abandoned is making me...making me...HAAAAH!!" Turning red in the face with her hands balling up into fists that bled, her anger incinerated all of the webbing and spiders inside the throne room. For a moment the room was bright with fire and then embers twinkled down onto the ground.

Podrick walked in as the fires from an unknown source burned all of the webbings away. Bran noticed him and closed the doors to him. "Give us a moment, Podrick." The king said.

Rhaenyra fell on the spot with the three-headed dragon insignia carved into the black floor. Hands covering her eyes as tears fell. Bran felt her emotions as if they were his own. The reality that she was truly back home, back in the world of the living, and to be standing on the spot would condemn her to be The Stranger's emissary and savior of the world and people who betrayed her and scorned her. This new chance at life only cost her everything and everyone she ever knew, loved, and cherished.

"Rhaenyra, my love, please listen to me. Everyone you have known, your lovers, your mother, your father, your children, and everything you believed to be your birthright may have been ripped from you but you have been given something not even my half-brother received when The Lord of Light brought him back. You were given a second chance to start all over again and leave your mark on this world the likes not even Aegon the Conquerer could dream of or Bran The Builder or any of the legendary figures from the age of heroes. Your name is going to live on forever in the hearts and minds of every little boy and girl who looks up at the skies and dares to dream big. In every mother who hugs their children and every father who works hard for their families. With every lord and lady and future king and queen who rules realize they will never match up to the deeds you will perform for them. Let the old weary dragon from a bygone age finally die peacefully and allow The heavenly dragon to rise from that corpse to sit on its destined celestial throne."

Rhaenyra's tears stopped falling and so did her sobbing. Bran's words were long but beautifully chosen and comforting. She looked up at Bran and saw that black ethereal crown of raven feathers levitating around his head that only she could see. She smiled and tackled him onto the floor, laying him down right on top of the three-headed dragon insignia.

"God, I want to fuck you so bad right now Bran and you don't even know. My cunt is throbbing so much, MMMM I want you again, I need you deep inside of me so much that our baby will feel you." Rhaenyra ground herself against him. Bran's face flushed brightly as he held her thighs.

"NO!! DO NOT WASTE TIME" The Stranger's voice reverberated inside the room, cracking the walls. Its voice alone was enough to petrify the living or the uninitiated into its service.

"You heard God, Rhaenyra. There will be another time."

The doors opened and Brienne and Podrick rushed in with swords drawn. "Your grace, are you alright? We swore we both heard the roar of a dragon or something monstrous In here. Oh God..." Brienne said, sheathing her sword when she saw Catlyn straddling Bran. Rhaenyra smiled sheepishly guilty at Brienne and Podrick.

"We're alright, me and Catlyn didn't hear a thing. Perhaps it was volcanic activity beneath the island. Please bring my lady wife her things and my things as well. Me and I were going to explore more of the old castle. Please, we ask all of you during this time to give us our privacy. In the meantime, I want all of you to clean out as much of the castle and begin furnishing the interior. And someone take down these old Targaryen house banners and replace them with my house's banners."

Podrick and Brienne nodded their heads and left the king and his lady wife alone. Rhaenyra smiled and rubbed her belly. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead on top of Bran's. "We have a wedding to attend, and we're the bride and groom. What do you suppose our wedding attire will look like."

Bran pressed his hand on her belly and caressed it softly. Their eyes, both of their eyes glowed softly in response to the tiny beating heart of their child. They kissed until Rhaenyra rolled to the side onto her back so she was lying beside him. Bran held her hand and said, "God will provide." The dark skies finally arrived over the island and thunder rumbled outside as lightning struck. Then the heavy rainfall began to pitter and patter outside.

***PODRICK***

"More than likely this is going to be her wedding gift from the king, quite the gift don't you think so my lady?" Podrick asked Brienne.

"A castle with such history and pedigree befitting a princess or queen, not so much a lady wife but--I"

"Shhh! Watch what you say, my lady. Now im going to light up the candles in the other rooms. There should be bedrooms on the upper floors that need to be lit broomed and dusted."

In the lower rooms, Podrick walked through darkness, but the darkness gave way to the light of the torch in his hand. There was a long hall with rooms with wooden doors that had not seen light since the ancient Targaryens walked through them. Stannis probably didn't even bother to make use of the entire castle, probably impossible for him given his limited support coming from sellswords. After lighting up all of the torches and making some for other rooms that had none, all that was left was another room at the end of the hall. He opened the doors and walked into another hallway that led up to some steps and into a larger room.

He saw a woman as ashen as a ghost, standing, facing the fireplace. Her shadow cast not one, but seven different shadows that all looked like living serpents with arms and jaws that seemed to lunge at him. Podrick rubbed his eyes and saw no woman, no lit fireplace, only the darkness.

"Who was that, is anyone there? There's got to be ghosts here. Possibly from all the long-dead Targaryens who couldn't find rest in the afterlife."

The sound of a child crying, a man screaming accusingly furious at a woman, the blast of something, and the sound of fire burning and that same woman crying out in pain as a beast seemingly began to eat her echoed through the room, filling his head with the mounting sounds all mixing into one terrible haunting symphony. Podrick panicked and turned to run away until stopping and screaming from fright as Catlyn stood in his way.

"Is everything alright Podrick?" she calmly asked him.

"M--M--My lady, this place is haunted. Maybe we should avoid coming down here. Ghosts are living here."

Rhaenyra looked curiously at him and smiled, making him uncomfortable with her almost dead gaze. She walked into the dark hall, her footsteps seemed to disappear into the dark the further she walked. Podrick shook, sweating and looking and waiting for Catlyn to come back or say something to reassure him she was fine. The fireplace waiting at the very end of the room and the entire room was lit when the first lightning strike flashed. As the white flash lit up the darkness, Podrick saw a lanky giant hooded figure with a skull for a face standing beside her as she faced the fireplace, her back turned to him.

"MY LADY!" Podrick shouted in terror.

,

The fireplace was lit by Rhaenyra and light finally returned to the room. Perhaps it was fear, maybe it was his nerves, but in the light of the fire behind her, her eyes seemed to glow ominously back at him, like a beast stalking its prey at night.

"There are no ghosts here Podrick, it's just haunted by bad memories that's all that lives here," she said monotone.

"My lady, I think can hear Brienne calling me. I'll leave this room to you."

***BRAN & RHAENYRA***

"It's this way, my love, forgive the webs and the puddles of water, this place hasn't been maintained since my passing. I don't think my descendant Daenerys even knew about this room." Rhaenyra said.

She led Bran to the spot where she summoned Vermithor for the dragon seeds nearly two hundred years ago. The torches were lit before coming down here by their servants, they lined the inner castle built inside of the mountain wall. The rain outside was relentless as was the rumbling thunder and lightning flashes that lit up the entire interior of the mountain from the hole in the mountain.

Bran walked over to the edge of the steps Rhaenyra once stood in the ancient past, and looked over at the ground. Ancient skeletons that were probably brittle by now, littered the ground. Old scorch marks also scarred the ancient ground. Rhaenyra held his hand to make sure he didn't fall.

"This is where we are to be married, Bran," Rhaenyra said.

"Indeed. This is where Vermithor went over all of the dragon seeds quality of blood and strength of spirit. Maybe you never knew about this part about your dragon, Rhaenyra, but through their eyes, all Targaryens and those of mixed blood give off these pulses. The stronger and faster the pulse, the purer the blood, and the stronger the will of the person's spirit. Vermithor saw low-quality blood in them, but Hugh Hammer's steel-like resolve impressed him enough to allow him to be his next rider."

"That explains why Vermithor didn't kill him like the others. I just figured that he got bored of killing all of those dragon seeds. But regardless of how strong his spirit was, he, Ulf, and all of those damn dragon seeds were traitors. I wish I had never trusted any of them, but things had to happen the way they did for me to be standing back here again. Bran, it's time."

Bran stood with Rhaenyra and held her hands. They looked at each other and took in the sounds of the rain outside. The rumbling of thunder outside shook the walls of the mountain. Lightning flashing and lighting up the interior of the mountain. From staring at at each other, they looked over at the dark spot where Vermithor once stepped out of the darkness to greet the dragon seeds, only now stepping out from the darkness was The Stranger a towering titan wearing a pure black hood that swallowed the light.

In its black eyesockets were pinprick lights that focused on Rhaenyra first. With its giant left bony hand, he waved it over Rhaenyra, incinerating the clothes she had on and gracing her with a beautiful, ethereal black dress made from the night sky itself with all of the stars and moon and shooting stars drifting through her veil. Black capes made from night clouds cascaded from her shoulders onto the floor. Tiny star clusters pulled out of the heavens and elegantly crowned her head. An endless amount of glowing souls drifted up and around inside of her bodice trapped in an endless loop. Her neck and arms down to her hands and fingers were covered in tiny linked stars gracing them like heavenly jewelry. The heels on her feet were made of infinite black energy that reflected enchanting dark phantasms.

"Wow," Bran said, eyes widening as large as dinner bowls.

Now The Stranger focused on The King himself. With his giant right bony hand, he waved it over Bran's head. Bran's clothes turned to ash and on his feet manifested glossy boots as black as infinite black dreams. Black flaming pants graced his legs that flickered with black embers. A waistcoat made of swirling black dead stars, nightmares, and crushed black opal sapphires graced his body. A long royal tailcoat made from damed souls so dark they muted all surrounding color and froze the air creating tiny black snowflakes trapped in perpetual fall. On his hands were black gloves fashioned from black diamonds. Around his neck was an Ascot tie made from white flames and lastly, on top of his head was a levitating crown of enchantingly black ethereal feathers from all of the world's birds.

"Look at us Bran, we look like living, breathing gods in the flesh. What would Daemon think if he saw me, what would Mother and Father think of me, or the entire realm." Rhaenyra chuckled.

"Arya would think this is the coolest thing she has ever seen. Sansa would probably be speechless and Jon, I can only imagine what he would think if he saw me now." Bran shared.

"All of those who you just mentioned and thought about would die if they ever laid eyes on you. The spiritual vestments you have now are meant for those in the service of Gods and the two principal rulers of the universe. Every piece on you is fashioned from things not found in the world of flesh and blood. Man, mouse, or Dragon, all that breathes, swims, runs, breathes fire, would die in your presence. As a gratitude of my thanks for aiding one of the rulers of the universe in this journey to stop unrelenting evil from devouring the entire world, I will marry the two of you and you can have your first dance in the presence of noble souls long since passed. Now repeat after me."

"In death and Darkness, in the setting sun and new sunrise, through restful dreams and haunting nightmares, and during the final dying sun, I give my life and my services to you, The Stranger" Bran and Rhaenyra repeated together facing The Stranger.

"Your eternal vows to me are complete. If the two of you have any words for each other, now is the time to share them."

"Let me go first Rhaenyra" Bran said. Rhaenyra nodded, smiling.

"Rhaenyra Targaryen, I never expected to meet you in person or expected a long-dead princess to rise with a mission to save our world from the true enemy slumbering atop the world. I never thought I would regain the use of my legs in this lifetime. I thought I was destined to die on that chair of wheels but because of you, I can use them again. Because of you Rhaenyra, I know now what it means when they say all must serve, both men and women, and in our situation both the living and the once dead. Because of you, I am going to be a father to one of the world's most powerful children ever to be born. I happily take you not only as my wedded wife but as my friend and my equal partner in vanquishing this ancient evil threatening all life on earth. When evil has been killed, and the new sun rises over the new world the next morning, I look forward to making beautiful memories with you and our child. Rhaenyra Targaryen, I love you now until the end of our tale."

Tears fell on their own like water droplets falling off blades of grass during a light shower. Rhaenyra didn't even know when they started falling in the first place. Rhaenyra smiled and laughed from a deep-rooted source of joy she had long since forgotten she was capable of feeling.

Seeing her laugh, smile, and cry together made his heart melt.

"Bran, I was in darkness when I was murdered. Just another soul in the eternal maelstrom of suffering, lonely, tortured souls. I never expected to receive a second chance, not to live again, but to live for the right cause. When I woke up with my new eyes, I never expected to meet you, waiting for me but I'm so happy it was you. I was not a saintly woman in my previous life, but with this new baby inside of me, I will do whatever I must to prepare them to confront and vanquish this evil alongside his mother and father. I never knew what love was in my previous life, as much as I wanted to believe I was in love or knew how to love. But with you there is something so different, so special that each time I'm with you I feel like my sun rises every single time, my soul sings with happiness and joy knowing I'm not alone in this journey. Whatever awaits you and me, however long we have together, I want to make you the proudest father, the happiest husband, and a man worth being remembered by generations and generations of people across our world. Brandon Stark of House Raven, I love you too, until the end of us and the end of our story."