Crowns of Stone
Fifteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC
There is a tension under the low stone eaves of the village, a breathless hush beneath the sounds of ordinary life. At first you think it the sign of some lurking evil... yet soon you learn the cause from children shouting and matrons gossiping and even elders muttering under their breath of better times: your name is on the lips of many, and here under the shadow of the Dragonmount, not many call you monster draped in blood and conjurer of demons. Instead they are fired by hope and tales carried from kith and kin who sailed in far southern waters to take service with the 'Last Dragon.'
Here at last you find the adoring smallfolk you had imagined in your childhood, ready to throw off the yoke of the Usurper and embrace their rightful king.... only not quite as you imagined them. Too skilled had you become in seeing beneath the surface of things for the illusion to hold long. The folk of Dragonstone wish what all men do: safety, prosperity, the promise of a better tomorrow for their children. That they blame the Lannister steward and through him the Usurper speaks more of convenience...
no, that goes too far again. There is a bond between your house and the fisher folk of Dragonstone, a bond of trust and even blood which your father's madness could not sunder. But it still falls to you to prove worthy of that enduring trust.
"Here be your room, m'lord," the haggard and mostly toothless woman whom you still guess could not count more than fifty years ushers you into your room once you had your fill of listening to the patrons talk. "Finest room in the inn."
It's not that you doubt her truly, but you still would not sleep on the bed for fear of company of the biting kind.
"So," Ser Richard says with a rather resigned air. "Another inn room to guard while you two go into the enemy keep to raise who knows what hell."
"Both of us can be back here in a moment," you remind the knight. As you knew it would it does little to assuage his concerns.
***
The keep of your ancestors is as a crown of dragon-stone resting uneasily upon the lower slopes of the mountain, its edges sharp and spires as piercing as when you were a boy and, you've little doubt, unblunted since the days when Aenar choose to settle here. In truth with eyes that have looked upon Old Volantis and even Mantarys on the very edge of the sundered lands, the keep seems an even purer expression of Valyria's architecture than those eastern cities. The work of exiles pining for a land they knew lost forevermore.
Yet for all its foreboding nature it is far indeed from unassailable for one who flies on swift and silent wings. Between the dragon-like grotesques there are openings aplenty, and a high window from which your kin of old looked upon their domain now provides a swift path for you to enter. From there you have only to follow a half-remembered path down to the lowest depths, careful of servants hearing your passage
At last you come to the door you sought, unadorned save for a single phrase carved into at its top, the markings still clear upon the stone:
Here under stone lie the Lords of Sky and Flame, trouble not their rest, a faint echo to the very eldest legacy of your house. You do not open the crypt door but pass through it as a spirit might. A shiver passes down your spine.
Do the dead rest uneasily here?
Yet there is only silence and darkness within, not the grasping emptiness of wraith-haunted halls, but the simple bleakness of neglect. Dust lies think upon the mosaic of three dragons rising from a pillar of fire, and the stubs of torches on the wall are cold. You would wager none walked here since your mother was buried. You walk down the long hall, counting: these were graves the kin of those of the lords of Dragonstone, those who through some misfortune never ascended to the throne, and still deeper of the elder lords... archons of the island who lived and died before Aegon's conquest.
The last grave is the simplest, not poorly made certainly, but plain, no visage of the one it holds, no prayers to the Stranger carved upon it. You take that for a good omen as you carefully take but a single bone, wrapping it in black silk. That is all Bloodraven said he needed, and so that is all you shall take. Should your hope prove false you vow to return it to its rest.
In a twist of power you are gone back to the inn where Ser Richard stands vigil and there you also wait for what must have been minutes, but feels far longer. When Dany too arrives the smile on her face answers the most pressing of your questions, yet still you ask, "Is it done?"
"Yes, Shireen is healed," she answers. Then her gaze darkens. "The curse of prince Garin is no light thing, all the more so for having been born of righteous wrath however mad. Had she been ill not merely scarred I am not sure I could have made an end to it."
That night you stay in Dragonstone, not wishing to try your luck at crossing the Wall at night.
How shall Dany prepare for the journey ahead?
[] Write in form and spell selection
OOC: Sorry, no messing with the pictures. It would not have fit the tone. 
