LUCAS
A comet appeared in the sky. Lucas first saw it on a clear morning, after he managed to pull himself from his wife's warm body and walk to the window. It was bright red, and it slashed across the otherwise pale blue heavens like fresh-spilled blood. Lucas couldn't be certain, but ... it looked a great deal like the bleeding star he had so often seen in his dreams.
Peaceful days became a rarity in the manse. Such was fatherhood, Lucas figured. And he wouldn't have changed it for anything.
Jace was a mostly mild-mannered babe. Only rarely did he cry inconsolably in that way newborns did. He began babbling three months after his birth, speaking in ways one could almost understand. He often grasped at anything around him, whether it be a wood-carved toy or one of Daenerys's breasts. Those rare bouts of wailing aside, Jace was nearly always smiling, and whenever Lucas saw him, he couldn't help but to smile with him.
The dragon whelps, who fatefully came to the world the same hour Jace did, were beautiful little beasts, with shining scales and golden eyes. Daenerys named two of them, the diamond dragon and the sapphire dragon, but asked for Lucas to name the third, the ruby dragon, as she had always dreamt of Lucas astride him. Daenerys named the diamond she-dragon Dreamwing, from how often she had dreamt of her, as well as the brilliant, dreamlike colors of her milky scales and violet wings. The sapphire dragon she named Skyshark, from how she had foreseen that he would love soaring the seas. As for the ruby dragon, Daenerys had told Lucas that she foresaw him as the biggest and mightiest of the brood. Lucas knew immediately what he would call him. He named him Rhaegon, because his ruby scales called to mind Daenerys's eldest brother Rhaegar and how his armor had rubies embedded into its breastplate, something that Lucas had marveled at as a young boy whenever he saw him wearing it. Rhaegon would be Rhaegar's vengeance.
When Lucas began training the dragons, Daenerys made the suggestion to train them in High Valyrian, using an old book of the ancient language shelved in Lucas's study. Lucas agreed. There was no more fitting a tongue to train them in. Dragons were not slaves, and nor were they pets, but they could be taught. If the legends were to be believed, only a Valyrian or their descendants, those with the dragon blood, could bond with or command a dragon. Lucas and Daenerys both carried that blood.
Following Jace's birth and the dragons' hatchings, there were times when the manse sounded like a pit of the seventh hell. When Jace's squalling and shrieking rang through the halls, it was usually alongside the similarly shrill screeches of dragons. One often heralded the other. Whenever Jace distressed, the whelps cried out with him, as though calling for his aid. The sound was horrifying at first, but Lucas soon grew accustomed to it. As for other troubles, more than once embers of dragonfire had set ablaze a piece of furniture or a rug, at which times Lucas was grateful that the manse was built of stone and not wood. The occasional moments of peace and quiet were valuable, and Lucas used them well. Whenever Jace and the whelps both napped, Lucas would either grab Daenerys's hand and take her to their bedchamber, or he would spend some alone time in his study.
In those hours in his study, Lucas worked tirelessly. There was much to do. He didn't read often, not like he had before. The time for that had passed. Now was the time for preparations. Plans needed to be made. When they were grown and mighty, Rhaegon, Dreamwing, and Skyshark would see Lucas and Daenerys returned to Westeros, but they wouldn't be able to do it alone. Lucas needed an army, he needed ships, and he needed allies. Lucas would not stumble upon those resources, nor did he have the coin anymore to simply purchase them. He would have to acquire them by other means. How exactly, he wasn't yet sure.
A letter came one day, penned by Lord Varys, the spymaster in King's Landing who had again and again reinforced his claim to support Lucas's and Daenerys's cause, most notably by ensuring Daenerys was given to Lucas and no other, and then by sending Colton and Ser Barristan to Lucas after the former was condemned and the latter was stripped of knighthood. The letter bore bittersweet news. Varys's little birds had learned that Viserys was found dead in a field between Braavos and Pentos. He was alongside scores of other corpses in what looked to be the aftermath of some clashing of sellsword companies. Varys speculated in the letter as to how and why Viserys had been killed, but in the end, it didn't matter. When Lucas had told everyone the news in the parlor, the others all looked to Daenerys, who held Jace in her arms. Daenerys put on a brave face in front of the others in a show of strength, but later that night, in the privacy of their bedchamber, she wept into Lucas's shoulder. She had never stopped loving her brother. Viserys was a truly cruel creature, and he didn't deserve his sister's love, but he had it, to the very end.
There was gravity to Viserys's death. Before, Lucas's and Daenerys's claim to the Iron Throne was strong only in his absence. Now, in his death, it was absolute. By all rights and all laws of the land, Westeros was theirs.
But then, a few months after Jace's birth, Lucas realized something alarming. The dragons' growths had halted.
Like the last living dragons two hundred years ago, who had remained caged or cooped up in dragon pits and never grew to the size of the majestic dragons of millennia ago, Rhaegon, Dreamwing, and Skyshark were stunted by their confinement. They grew only to the size of small hounds, weighing a little under two stone. Lucas realized with dread that they would not grow another inch if they were not free to roam. But he simply couldn't allow that. They were too young, too helpless. If they were allowed to roam Volantis, they would've been killed in fear or captured as exotic pets. But if he didn't free them, they would never become the great beasts they needed to be. Lucas remained unsure of what to do for weeks ... till events forced his hand.
Those events came on a calm morning. Silent, for once. Last Lucas saw of them, the dragon whelps were all curled into glittering, scaly balls alongside Daenerys on the couch in their bedchamber. Jace was with them, nursing at Daenerys's breast. Tobas was attending her. Clare and Elayna were in the kitchen, preparing lunch. Ser Barristan was standing guard in front of the manse. Colton was out.
Lucas stood in the parlor, before the room's tall, middlemost window. He wore his typical attire: a dark doublet, linen trousers, and his bejeweled sword. He held his hands behind him, at his waist. The rising sun bathed him in its warm light and cast his long, slender shadow far behind him. He stood there for some time, gazing at the Summer Sea, watching ships dock in Volantis's ports. It was a frequent ritual of his. He liked the sight of seafarers, of ships and sails, decks and docks. He liked the sight of seas too, of their crashing waves and glittering waters. Lucas had spent all his life in port cities, and he was glad that hadn't changed. As much as Lucas misliked Volantis, their slavery and savagery, he was at least grateful that his father had decided to transplant them to a city by a sea, rather than a landlocked one.
Lucas heard steel and mail clink behind him. He did not need to look over his shoulder to know who it was. It was Ser Barristan, standing in the nearby doorway. He wore one of the three full suits of armor that Lucas had paid a local smith to produce. He wore the largest of them. As a Kingsguard knight, Ser Barristan wore his armor at nearly all times, save only for when he slept, and even then it was nearby and ready to be equipped at a moment's notice. The suit was fashioned of shining, silvery steel, complete with a greathelm, gorget, pauldrons, rerebraces, gauntlets, greaves, basset, sabatons, and a silken, teal-colored cloak that cascaded smoothly over his shoulders and down his back. At Lucas's request, the smith who crafted the armor fashioned the gorget, rerebraces, and basset like the scales of a dragon, much like the other Kingsguard knights in Westeros. But the teal color of Ser Barristan's cloak differentiated him from those false counterparts, who wore cloaks of white. The only piece of armor Ser Barristan did not often wear was his greathelm, which usually dangled from his belt, ready to be donned in an instant.
"Your Grace," Ser Barristan said. "I wish to speak with you, if I may."
"What of?" Lucas asked coolly, not having moved an inch.
"I have an apology."
"Another?" Lucas asked. He still remembered Ser Barristan's fervent apology from when he first came to them, when he expressed his shame of failing Daenerys's family and then swearing his sword to those that replaced them. Though Lucas respected Ser Barristan, and even trusted him, his opinion of the old knight would always be slightly soured for those mistakes.
"Another," Ser Barristan said.
Lucas turned around and faced the knight. He unfurled his hands from behind his waist and gestured to a small table nearby. "Sit," he commanded. When the knight promptly obeyed, Lucas sat opposite from him. "What is it you wish to apologize for?" Lucas asked.
"When King Robert—"
"—The Usurper," Lucas corrected Ser Barristan, leering at him.
Ser Barristan nodded. "When he died to that boar and Joffrey blamed me for it, when they tried to strip me of my knighthood ... I wasn't sure what I ought to do, or where I ought to go. I'd heard rumors of Princess Daenerys being here in Essos, and a part of me wanted to serve her, if I could ... but so too did a part of me fear that she carried the taint."
Lucas cocked an eyebrow. He hadn't a clue what the old knight was talking about. "What
