[right][sub][b]Pentose // [@Ezekiel] [@Vanq][/b][/sub][/right]
 
Not since the days of the Conquest had a single city hosted three dragons as great as those which descended on Pentos. Two great beasts, older than the Doom itself, made swift work of the Night air as low light of the Moon marked them out against clear skies. Terrax and Balerion swung around each other, the hot air of Essos allowing easier gliding than the colder climes to the West. For such vast and violent beasts, their riders commanded them with surprisingly gentle subtlety, wordless commands with the reigns causing the former dragon to peel away, steadily gliding lower to the ground well before the city itself. The Pentoshi may have welcomed the Targaryens and their dragons on many an occasion, but an uninvited arrival of the ruler of Volantis was another matter entirely.
 
The courtyard of the Targaryen manse was lit with blazing torches, identifiable among the affluent outskirts of the city’s hinterland. A design of relevance to the visiting dragonlords, the licking flame identified the presence of another dragon well before Maegor commanded Baelerion to land. A dragon he could pick out from afar as familiar to him as his own steed, that of his mother’s. With a simple Valyrian command, Maegor ushered Balerion towards the from of Vhaegar below, the command for a quiet landing, without the great crescendo of noise that would usually herald two dragons meeting each other. A few moments later and the vast, almost pitch black, form of the dragon touched down. A quiet rumble was all that passed between the two dragons, familiar as they were with each other.
 
Rather than crouch low, Balerion extended his vast neck upwards to the second level of the manse, allowing Maegor to dismount directly onto the walkways ringing the structure, before the vast beast settled to rest after the long flight, set at the grueling pace of his rider. While Maegor had not spend a great deal of time of his exile simply waiting in Pentos, preferring to journey where the whims of adventure took him, he equally did not wish to linger elsewhere, and in doing so abandon the ability to return to Westeros swiftly. The presence of his mother’s dragon had earned his curiosity, but as far as he was concerned matters of family could wait at least the small hours of the morning.
 
It was not exhaustion which spurred him to journey first to his bedchamber. Lingering thoughts of bloodshed and victory roared through him, a distracting ache that needed fulfilling. The pain across his hand from the spreading bruise did little to check him, only enflaming the furnace with its constant reminder.
His arrival, while quieter than it could have been, was hardly subtle, and so the guards across the manse were very much aware of the powerful form moving across the manse terrace, but there was little doubt as to his identity even in the darkness. Even among Valyrians he was distinctive, and no other dragons could entirely compete with the unsettling force of Balerion.
 
With force which echoed the storm within him, Maegor threw open the largely stained glass doorway into the master bedroom, sending a shudder through the chamber soon echoed by the onrushing night air, the moon and star light casting through the chamber as he moved without halting. It was thankful, perhaps, for those present, that Vhandyr had convinced the Prince to hold at least a short while in Volantis to appreciate the gratitude of the city. It had meant Maegor had changed out of the battle plate he had worn, instead in his fine riding leathers emblazoned with his crest. Still, he had ridden almost immediately on dragonback, and so the exotic aroma of Dragonkind clung to him, along with a fainter tang of Fire and Blood. He could sense it himself, and it only further emboldened him.
“Princess, I have returned.” His voice carried through the remainder of the room even as he strode onwards, his eyes adjusting, along with the spreading but soft celestial illumination, to reveal his own chamber. His wife, the second, always enjoyed the reminder that was her true title, and he was not above stoking that font of ego within her. Even so, he paused as he drew close to the foot of the bed, and the tangle of motion that was no doubt that of slumbering figures awakening to the sudden crescendo of noise that was his arrival. 
Figures, plural. 
In the initial moment, with thoughts of conquest and death lingering across his mind, assumptions were drawn in Maegor’s mind that he might otherwise have dismissed, and sudden thoughts of brutal justice overcame him, the creaking of leather from his closing fist audible over the wind still rattling the terrace doorway. With even greater force than he had entered the chamber, his glove closed around the sheets ot the mattress, simply casting it away without so much as a grunt or snarl. The quiet fury was beginning to rise upon him, and that was an entirely more dangerous beast.
What he saw in the gloom after gave him pause, his senses catching up to the unbidden emotion he was feeling.
 
“Interesting,” He mused, in a tone quieter than he had spoken before.
 The kiss of startling night air had awoken Alys, rather than the arrival of Balerion. So worn had she been after a rather passionate night of lust. She had always known she could endure men, even enjoy them, but women… never had she known that she could enjoy a woman in such a way. There were always the whispers of Prjncess Rhaena, but she had dismissed herself from such nonsense. Now the touch of skilled hands and dark locks had unlocked that. Wooing the woman into the bed.
Awaking to snarl an the chill of the night air even in warm Essos, to find her husband at the foot of her bed? Alys froze her brown eyes soft and wide as she rose to sit upright, dismantling herself from the forbidden embrace sith Tyanna. "My Prince…" She crooned the word in that tone he liked, moving across the bed to him. A hand reaching imploring, pleading him to understand that the woman was a flight of fancy.
He was and always had been her true desire. Even now she could feel that desperate need for his son and heir.  She was his chosen bride, the one he wanted. Thinking fleetingly of the potion, she knew there would be no time to get it. Not unless she wished to perhaps raise more questions or risk rousing the dragon of a temper her husband had.
Daring to risk kneeling on the bed before him, she wrapped her arms slowly about his shoulders, drinking in the scent of dragons and smoke. Battle and his steed. "Your mother closed the manse to  all coming and going. It has been far too long, husband." Her gaze ran over his face and she drew a hand through his silver hair, enjoying the feel even as she whispered in her soft sultry tone. "I…" She trailed off hesitating as what to say. How to explain, lest he think she enjoy other men as well.
 "I had not known, not before this night, and long have I hungered."
She had woken to the sound of a dragon, a sound not unlike when Visenya had arrived. Alys, next two, their limbs entwined, had not stirred. There were only so many possibilities of what this arrival meant and she was a betting woman. She closed her eyes, not to return to restful slumber, but to attune to her other senses. Sight would tell her little. 
The entrance managed to startle her anyways, cool night air across her naked limbs sent a shiver down her back. Was it anger that she felt bristling the air, a typical response. And Alys had woken at last. Tyanna slowly sat up, her legs pulled across and beneath her. At least she had managed to bed the woman before her husband's return, even if she would have preferred more time to solidify the woman's affections for her. 
She waited for Alys to throw herself at the dragon prince, pathetic. Powerful men, whether in physicality or money, shared enough traits from what Tyanna had seen. She chose the risky path forward, one done with quick calculation of the couple's brief interaction. "Fear not, she chose only a woman to satisfy her when it seemed you could not." Her voice would never be described as sweet, but strong with a seductive lilt her clientele craved. 

The heady rush of adrenaline that still coursed through Maegor had returned, driving his actions as Alys drew near, one hand reaching out for her even as she spoke, ready to take the softness of her thin night gown, suitable for the Essosi climate, between his fingers. It was the words of the Pentoshi that brought him back. The pounding of blood through him did not cease, but momentarily the furnace of rage roared again, the whispers of vengeful madness twisting across his mind. Who was she to say such things to him.
But then again, even more simply, who was she? There were those who simply thought him a brute, but they were wrong. They was method to his brutality, the keen sense of those who truly hunt, and in the darkness of her eyes, perhaps there was the same.
"So it would seem." Maegor paced away from the bed, a slow tread of the metal caps within his leather bound boots, made hardy to survive the ravages of dragon riding. The cooler night air still swirled in the room, starlight gleaming off the silver-gold of his hair. He removed his gloves as he did, flexing his fingers. Where he had caught the Dothraki blade in gauntlets hand flared a morass of bruising across his palm, the thudding throb of pain continuing to stir him. His gloves cast simply aside, both hands gripped the rim of a nearby cushioned chair, dragging it slowly back with him, to set it down at the foot of the bed, within which he simply sat. Even lowered so, his towering frame brought him more than even with the women poised on the higher rise of the bed.
"Let us see what you do to my wife that I cannot." While he lent back slightly in their chair, hands steepled together, there was an intensity to his gaze which went beyond simple carnal enjoyment. It spoke the sense that any danger had passed to be a false one, the look of a mountain line who allows its prey to scurry before it finally bites down. 

Big men, small men, they were all the same in the end. But even in the low light, Tyanna knew better than to let her brow furrow too much. He had accepted the barb and returned it with lust, she could work with that. It would be easy to give him what he asked, Alys would perhaps warm to it if it meant pleasing her husband, but there were other ways. "I think your wife has had her fill of what I can provide. Perhaps I can instruct you in what to do instead." The courtesan moved to place herself behind Alys, her arms draped over the woman, black tresses pressed against auburn. "Your dearest Princess needs your dragonseed and not just pleasure, no?"
Alys was not pleased in the slightest by the dismal of Maegor as he pulled up a chair, as if he wished for a show. Yet feeling Tyanna at her back, she shuddered at the feel of the woman. A worthy partner in her bed, yet not the one she desired. No, that desire alone was pulled towards Maegor. "What she can give me is only amusement. What is that compared to you? Compared to the joy of bearing your heir? Your son?" She decided to ignore Tyanna's offer. Preferring instead to try and eel her way into Maegor’s lap. To urge him to the bed, or to the activities that would ensure what they both desired.

The intensity of those violet Valyrian eyes only grew in intensity, surrounded by the dark of the night as the Prince studied both women. The express on his face seemingly held somewhere between cold fury and a more insidious curiosity. Steadily one hand moved down towards his belt, but rather than the more predictable of motions, his digits drifted to the side, taking hold of the hilt of his dagger rather than the buckle of the clothing.

Whatever Maegor had meant to do, the train of events were interrupted by the doors bursting open, bright light flooding into the chamber from the more well lit corridors before them. Still in the riding mail-gown she had arrived in, Visenya stood with the light of the fires behind her, the paler tone of her own Valyrian eyes falling first upon her sign, then those on the bed, and back again. A flicker of annoyance passed over her features and the failure of her message to be passed on, but she expected little better.

“How quickly can you be ready to fly? We must return to Dragonstone.” When Visenya spoke, she did so in Valyrian, speaking in the fluid manner of one who spoke it as their first language. It hardly was an assurance of privacy in Essos, but none seemed to speak it in the manner of the true Dragonlords.

“Mother, I am entertaining two interesting women, can this not wait?” Despite the retort, he leaned back further in his seat in interest at her words, the fingers slipping from his dagger.

“Your father always managed both.” Visenya snorted in contempt, her eyes falling back on the bed once more, before a more stern expression descended on her features. “You may have heard of your nephew’s murder, your brother has passed beyond as well, from his illness.” While the event had brought her grief in of itself, now she was as emotionless as the cold valyrian steel at her belt.

That had Maegor on his feet, the previous balance between chaos and restraint shattered at the news. The back of his chair was caught in one hand and thrown in the same motion, smashing and splintering against the wall disconcertingly close to the unmoving form of Visenya. The snarl that had failed to materialize at the sight of his wife abed with another now ripped from his lips. 

“The progress Aenys made the Prince and Princess attend to, they were held up by dissidents in the Westerlands, Aegon did not survive the wounds he received in the attack,” Visenya spoke calmly, even in the face of Maegor’s rage. She was tall for a woman, but still his hulking form seemed to tower next to her.

“Dissidents? Aegon was killed by rabble!?” Somehow the Prince’s voice seemed both a deadly whisper and to rebound around the room. The Dowager Queen shrugged her shoulders in return.

“They did not have their dragons.” With that Visenya took a step forwards, placing a hand atop her son’s chest, not a warm gesture of affection, but instead grounding them together. “There will be vengeance, Maegor, but I need you to return with me if we are to achieve it. No one else is strong enough, there is only us.” She paused for a moment, allowing a few stinging motes of sadness to pool in her eyes, “Or two won’t be all they take.”

Maegor’s form seemed to ease, pacing away from his mother, but still only addressing her as he continued to reply in Valyrian. “Did my brother call me back on his death? Some last effort that I might resolve his mess lest it consume his son?”

“No, he asked me directly, but not for you.” Her voice did not hitch or halt at all, even if the words seemed to give Maegor pause, a dismissive grunt passing his lips that was perhaps the closest thing such a man would get to a sigh of sorrow. “I am not here to bring you home and languish as your infant Nephew’s hand.” 

Maegor turned back to face her once more, as Visenya pulled her hands free from her cloak, holding between them a circlet of black Valyrian steel, studded with blood red ruby gemstones. Finally, when she spoke again, she did so in the common tongue.

“I am here to bring Westeros its new King.”