The Dragon in the Room
Twenty First Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
Luther hadn't known what he was expecting when Viserys Targaryen showed up in his study. He had met Rhaegar Targaryen, so that answered one question. The two were nothing alike. Oh, aye, there were similarities to be sure, why wouldn't there be? They were brothers, the two of them, yet one of them was dead and the other before him here and now, and if he had to weight and measure the worth of Princes one against the other, it was as simple as saying that one had divided the realm and the other sought to unify it into one as Aegon of old had set out to do when he first sighted Western shores.
Viserys, no, he supposed it was King Viserys, for though he had not decided yet if he would bend the knee, since that decision in itself might be contingent on what aid the man who was a dragon might offer him, and to that end he gave to them more than the simple courtesy but also the title along with it, ungrudging, for this was a man who reigned over millions even now and still sought not to hold his own coronation, from what could be told.
It couldn't be more obvious why, Luther thought,
unless he was shouting it from the top of the Red Keep, that is.
"They said he was a Tyroshi, that's near enough an accusation, isn't it?" It had seemed reasonable enough an assumption to Luther, at any rate, being manipulated like that rankled but he had tried to stake a price on his loyalty back then and even now would go on to do the same with this man, and at the very least Viserys Targaryen seemed every bit as unflappable and level-headed as his reputation made him out to be.
Not another chip off the old block, then, Luther thought of Aerys, of Rhaegar and all the other cruel or mad from their line, the Maegors and the Aerion Brightflames. If you let a Septon preach it, he was every bit as vicious as the latter and twice as vindictive as the former.
That's just twice as many dead fanatics, he grumbled inwardly.
Purple eyes danced with dark amusement, then curiosity, before resolving in a decision in a handful of heartbeats. That in itself was disconcerting to Luther, after all what he
hadn't seen from the boy so far was a single ounce of surprise. "This bears further investigation," King Viserys said, almost absently, tucking his hands inside of his ornate robes' sleeves, cloak of golden scales dancing around his sinuous frame. He spied the ruby adorning his sheathed blade of Valyrian Steel held against one hip, a flicker of recognition floating through the Lord's mind, some book on arsenals in his study... "Would you be greatly opposed to reconvening after I have discovered the source of this Blight?"
Doubt threaded through Lord Luther's mind, not anger at the casual dismissal, and he would hardly forget his courtesies when he was curious of what angle the dragon king was playing at. "Not at all, your Grace," he spoke quickly, wondering why they would bother paying attention to something like as not some Lannister lick-spittle had dreamed up when told in half as many words to make of themselves a nuisance. It was their own time to waste, after all, and the famine wasn't going anywhere far as he could tell. Maybe it would teach them not to trust everything in spells and portents, even if they had gotten him this far.
It could hardly hurt a King to learn a little humility before they took up their crown and scepter in full.
***
He returned not long after that, on the same day, and Luther was more confident it was a ruse of some sort... if not for how grim he appeared, no longer the almost affable air about him, more alike with a man preparing to go to war, a cloying sense of
power and leashed anger swirling around him even as he delivered the news with a perfectly polite razor-thin smile that made the back of his neck tingle and hairs stand up on end.
This is a man who shoved a dozen inches of spell-steel into a man's eye before tens of thousands to make a point, far more than the prosaic one implicit, 'even if I were not turning you into burning effigies from the air I could come down there and kill you at your own game', and all the fools with their blades and lances could understand that simple message.
"So you solved the mystery then," Luther replied, more bemused than anything else, still wondering at the point of all this. "Just like that."
"It's not the first time I've hunted down fiends," Viserys replied politely, which was even more disconcerting.
He speaks of them like vermin swept out of the pantry.
"Of course," Luther replied, introducing Benjen to hide his distraction.
***
And the rest of the facade faded away as he looked in the face the horrors that had been lurking right under his nose, poisoning his land, and to his horror found it no comfort that as it turned out, the only one speaking any sense that day since the first turning of the sun when magic had seemingly come back into the world like the braying call of hunting horns in the distance, in wild spree and haunted backwoods, was the other truth thus revealed.
It hadn't stayed in the backwards places of the world, nor the wild lands, Luther thought, pale as chalk.
It's here and it's staying. That is why he had given his pledge without thinking of what he might gain by it, already he knew the answer,
survival. And not, he had thought, from obvious threats of dragon flame. If anything King Viserys seemed to act with a degree of obligation about applications of force, and naught once had he demanded fealty before all courtesies were even dispensed. What concern are common arms to him when they are barely fair wards against mundane treachery or invaders? He's here to do his duty, and anyone who gets in the way is simply exasperatingly naive.
Let them burn their granaries in rage, then the drought will come, King Viserys murmured, as if idly musing upon the impetus behind the plot, one he was directly connected to, from his own spread of the self same rituals, and he spoke not with horror or nursed anger, but with a sense of... not
respect, exactly, but an acknowledgement, as if to say 'that might have worked, if you weren't so dogshite at this game'.
Gods, not everyone can turn into a dragon, he wanted to shout, but couldn't find his voice. When he finally did, he could only ask, "Your Grace, what is there to do?" What could
anyone do beyond pray, and in that insight lay another revelation, finally, why men bothered to pray for results as if that would actually do something.
You have to hope they'll turn up at the end, or you're fucked either way.
"Thankfully the Maledaemon is the center of the ritual, with her on hand it should be possible to shatter it." The King smiled at him calmly. He had done nothing but offer to help from the moment they first spoke, but it was this very smile that frightened the Lord the most.
I have everything under control, it said.
Worse than a Maegor, worse than an Aerion, he's a bloody Jaehaerys and a wise Maekar with a dash of fucking
Bloodraven.
