[right][sub][color=BCA7E8][b]Vaera Balaerys, dragonrider[/b][/color][/sub][/right]

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The wind whipped, snapping her cloak, and forcing her face into the heat and scale of the dragon she rode. It was the rumble of the guttural thunder from the leathery beast she rode that forced her back to the world—cold, stark, and full of mountains and hills as far as she could see in the dense cloud cover. The dragon had a point that she ignored the best she could until she could no longer, slipping one gloved hand from the leather straps that helped attach her to the beast. It was warm, and wet, breathing harder than it should have been.

“Just get us down.”

Landing hurt, but she ignored it, instead looking across the high mountain valley in which the dragon made its own. If there was any great skill above any other, she had spent her life practicing, it was her pain tolerance. She nearly jumped when her booted feet hit the ground, the spark of pain spreading through every part of her in an instant, lingering dull grief left in its wake, her face twisted and her voice cursing at every step she took. It would go away if she ignored it, she told herself. 

With a twisted expression, her Valyrian eyes had their first true, good, inspection of the slice of Westeros before her: snow-peaked mountains, a league yet above the rocky mountain valley her dragon had set them down at. The Westerlands, crowned with mountains filled with enough gold and silver to be worthy of note even in Volantis.  She heard Syrax lift off, but she ignored it, her eyes more focused on the dark pines in the distance, standing just under the thick blanket of grey clouds above. 

Her mind more focused on the past.
 
[i]”It will hate you. It will never accept you.”[/i]

[i]What will, Papa?[/i], she asked him, in the naivety of her youth.

He paused a moment. A long moment in the big fur chair in the great room of the lodge, staring at her, into her, before his deep voice finally gave the answer, [i]”Creation, my girl. You will never stop fighting, until you die.”[/i]

It was her sixth name day, and that was the gift he had given her. She had never properly thanked him for it. Momma gave her a little bow, and a horse, and her favorite cakes…her father had given her the truth. 

“I hear you,” she said, snapping her head west, to the tree line, a bloody gloved hand brushing the hilt of her blade. 

The man came slowly in darkness, a man draped in black, hooded, riding a black horse. Her eyes did the work for her; the saddle was castle-made, maybe better. His clothes were simple, could have been town bought, could have been castle-made. Someone was ready for a journey, given the heavy bags from the saddle. 

Finding someone in the dying daylight in a high mountain valley was strange. Finding someone dressed like that? Even stranger, she thought, as her hand slowly coiled around the grip of the sword. [i]They waited until Syrax left.[/i] 

Even stranger? As the horse slowly approached and the mysterious ride removed the hood…Vaera recognized the face. She’d seen it, once, barely visible in pale moonlight over a Myrish private garden just moments before he left the garden, the Myrish master who’d been her host for the visit bleeding out behind him. “Assassin,” she said, with recognition. 

His head dipped, black hair parted down the middle and long enough to nearly get into his eyes. He looked different now, years later. Tired? Weary? Sad? Troubled? Whatever it was, the man simply nodded at her, “…yeah, used to be. Well…” His voice trailed, like there was more to the story, but instead he simply motioned to her. “You’re hurt, Vaera Balaerys.”

“You know me?”

His eyes suddenly looked…amused. “You’re not your brother,” he swallowed, and took a look around, before returning his dark eyes to her, “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, or not. I’m no threat.”

“That why you came sneaking out of darkness?”

He actually chuckled, if under his breath, “How many strangers just go riding up to a dragon and it’s rider on a lonely hill when the sun is starting to fall?"

“Well, yes…I suppose,” even Vaera had to admit it made sense. 

“You’re here for it?”

She blinked at him, “It?”

“The dragon.”

This time, she chuckled, “Its name is Syrax. And no, we’re here because of me.”

For a few moments, the man just stared. “Not your dragon.”

Before she could, the question was answered with a sound: the screech of a dragon in the sky. A screech that did not belong to Syrax. “When did Westeros get wild dragons this far from the Narrow Sea?”

“I don’t think it’s wild. There’s a Targaryen at Casterly Rock. Without a dragon.”

[i]Fuck. Loreon.[/i] “The Master of the Rock is alive then?”

His face was stone, not unlike the mountains in the distance, “Loreon was alive when I left. His uncle, the Castellan of the Rock, dead. As is Loreon’s sister.”

“He has a sister?” Did Loreon tell her that, she wondered? It was hard to remember. She was starting to get cold again, and every breath was beginning to hurt a little more than it did before. 

“Had.”

Her hand squeezed the grip of the blade, and his eyes softened. “Your doing?”

“No. The Uncle.”

Vaera didn’t relax. “Did he like the uncle?”

His mouth twisted, and he gave a casual shake of his head. “Nah. Liked the sister a lot more. Uncle sent the assassin.”

“Sent you?”

That made him smile among the growing shadows of the dying day, “She sent me.”

[i]He’s not lying.[/i] Her hand relaxed, her thumb hanging casually off the belt, instead, as she watched him. “Running back to your master?”

“Trying to find her. Something isn’t right with Westeros. Something is going on.”

Vaera Balaerys laughed, sudden and harsh, hard enough to cause a curse, leaving her slightly bent, her voice just as amused as it was strained through the filter of pain, “…you don’t say?”

His body leaned back in the saddle, a black moleskin glove slipping into a saddlebag behind him. There was no rummaging, she noticed, just exact precision: he reached in, then withdrew his hand, seemingly having gotten exactly what he meant to as he straightened himself and tossed what appeared a small black wineskin almost within an inch of her feet. “For pain. For healing.”

“An assassin’s gift?”

He shrugged, “A kindness between travelers on the road. Take it, leave it, I did my part.”

“Currying favor with your gods?” She asked, suspicious. 

This time, he laughed, “After the last few days, I’m not sure what gods I believe in anymore. Lady Vaera,” he said, his tone suddenly officious, formal, as he bowed his head, just slightly, and recovered the black hood about his head. “I think I’ll continue on, before either of those dragons comes back this way.”

In her own gift of kindness to a fellow traveler, she waited until he was out of sight to take the horn and blow it. The sound of dragons filled the twilight sky above of the mountains of the west. She picked up the wineskin, opened it, and brought it to her nose for inspection. A concoction, she thought, looking at the skin almost confused by the oddly sweet scent.

To be cautious? To play it safe? To not drink the mysterious drink from the mysterious assassin? As Syrax began to circle to slow for landing, Vaera threw back her head and drank from the skin. The burning sensation was immediate, her head suddenly circling as much as Syrax overhead, flame dripped from her mouth to her throat to her chest and finally her belly. For a heartbeat she thought she might die, and then…she smiled. Syrax barely had time to settle before she jumped back upon the beast with an energy that felt like unnatural. 

“C’mon. We need to make sure your new friend gets to where they want to go.”

She had no idea how to do that, but the dragon did. It rose, It flew, it circled in wide, large, loops before the final section of the final encirclement saw Syrax and she blurred past the other dragon close enough that Vaera felt she could almost reach out and touch it. That did it, she saw as she looked back, as the eyes of the creature focused on Syrax, its wings beating wild as catching Syrax became its focus. The two traveling companions, once more, found themselves being chased as they raced for the sunset. Whether the mysterious drink, the thoughts of the assassin’s warning on Westeros, the thought of Loreon in danger, or just the very words of her long-passed father—the flight of the two dragons was far shorter than she expected. Before the final gasp of the dying sun, the giant shape appeared, with the town that sprawled beside it, looking from so far up as if it might just tumble into the Sunset Sea. 

Their arrival was announced as the two dragons, one riderless, rushed across the face of Casterly Rock. 
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