Chapter Text
Vhagar’s fire was coming right at them.
Aegon had just enough time for the realization, the betrayal, the horror of a terrible death to hit him before the dragonfire did.
One last thought of, I promised Helaena I wouldn’t make Jaehaera an orphan, a wave of guilt that he would break this promise just like he had broken every other promise in his life.
It didn’t matter if he tried his best. Somehow, the harder Aegon tried to do the right thing, the harder he ended up failing. Just look at him here and now – he had wanted to prove himself a proper king just once, one who didn’t ask his men to take risks he wouldn’t take himself, someone they could be proud to call their king. Someone Mother would be proud to call her son, just for once in his life. Someone even Aemond would be proud to call brother.
And here he was, about to die an inglorious, painful death cooked alive in Vhagar’s fire.
Unnoticed by the naked eye in the bright light of daytime, a shooting star streaked across the sky high above the battling dragons.
Sunfyre twisted of his own volition, trying to shield Aegon from the worst of the flames though they both knew it to be too little, too late.
Vhagar’s flames washed over them and Aegon screamed.
When the flames vanished, so had Aegon Targaryen, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and his faithful dragon Sunfyre.
Aemond is a right cunt! was Aegon’s first sluggish thought, horrified yet even somewhat impressed by the asshole’s sheer brazen shamelessness to incinerate his king – his king! – in front of an entire army.
His second thought was the realization that incinerated heaps of ash did not do a lot of thinking, historically speaking.
His third thought was the realization that he was freezing his cock off, quickly followed by the realization that his balls and ass and the rest of him were freezing, too.
Aegon had lost count by the time he managed to remember that he was the master of his body and could move it instead of, you know, simply laying there and losing his cock – and balls! – to frostburn.
In Aegon’s defense, he felt deader than after a killer hangover and an orgy with half a dozen whores and Mother tearing him a new one all put together. Just not the puddle of ash kind of dead. More the wishing you were a puddle of ash kind of dead, except not really because he liked not being a puddle of ash and burning to death would be fucking painful and his skin was delicate.
Anyway.
He tried to force his fraying thoughts back onto the whole master of his body thing.
Eyes still glued shut by sheer exhaustion – he hoped it was just that, anyway, and that they hadn’t been frozen shut or melted together by fire or something else horrifying. Fuck, but he hated the cold. He was a Targaryen, who the hell thought dragons were made for the cold?
Anyway.
Eyes still glazed shut, he tried to move his limbs, and managed all of a pathetic groan. As a minor victory, he managed to orient himself to decide he was laying butt naked in some sort of gross, cold puddle – that better not be piss! If he had pissed himself, he would kill Aemond - while icy winds were nipping at him here and there, while the rest of him was sheltered by a large source of heat that smelled of brimstone and dragon dung.
Oh. Okay. He knew what was happening, this was familiar (yes, even down to the dubious puddle, though that was more common to be vomit.)
Aegon somehow found the strength to lift a hand and patted to the left of him, unsurprised when his hands met hot scales.
“Good boy, Sunfyre,” he slurred, and edged closer to the dragon’s long, sinewy body until he was half buried under the dragon.
Sunfyre curled tighter around him and nudged his back with his snout, breathing a hot gust of air onto him in the process.
Aegon almost moaned with sheer relief. “Thank you, Sunny, you’re the best, smartest, prettiest dragon ever.” With Sunfyre’s warmth and his sheer, solid presence, he felt a little bit more like himself already. His thoughts felt more his own, too, like he might actually stand a chance to hold on to them.
Honestly, waking up with Sunfyre after getting blackout drunk wasn’t that unusual. Not common, no, but not unusual, either. Even the naked part wasn’t unusual, though waking up naked in a conspicuous puddle and waking up with Sunfyre were usually different flavors of waking up after a blackout. But. He could work with this. He could work with just about anything, he was easy to please like that.
Sunfyre was already nudging him into the best position to shelter from the winds, and then a dragon wing settled over him, fully shielding him from the elements and leaving him as close to comfy as he could get while laying on wet slop with his head and whole body killing him, and honestly, Aegon could have gone right back to sleep.
Nothing like sleep for a hangover. Or another drink. Both, preferably, but he was easy enough to please.
Be that as it may, Aegon was perfectly ready to get back to sleep, and was just dozing off, when yet another unsolicited thought decided to attack him: In the wake of, well, Aemond’s whole grand display of cuntiness – murder most vile, regicide, and all that – shouldn’t he… Well. He really should be a literal pile of ash, shouldn’t he?
Not that he complaining but…
He squinted pensively into the darkness of Sunfyre’s underbelly.
Had it been a dream?
He scowled. Now that was a whole new level of disturbing he wasn’t ready to analyze. Just because he had come face-to-face with Aemond’s not-so-little dragon at the brothel didn’t mean Aemond was allowed to join the line of buxom beauties usually occupying Aegon’s dreams. Especially not with dreams where he was literally setting Aegon on fire, this was not the sort of hot he liked his dreams to be.
Not that he preferred being murdered outside of dreams.
Just.
Oh fuck this, he was in no state to be having deep thoughts.
Aegon gave an undignified snort, snuggled up to his dragon, and went back to sleep.