Omake: The Fruits of Reason
"I told you. Warned you. Despite our best intentions the stones lain for every legacy's foundation will be mortared in blood seeping through the cobbles of the past." Zherys did not seem contemptuous of the gathering mob, least of all those who had hailed him as a hero in months past, smiled, shared laughs, even shook hands with him as he cleaved true to a persona he had been forced to become in truth--the abolitionist, the redeemer and reformer, things borne from ambition at their core, but painted with the charity of an almoner despite it. "How much red do you think will fill the Rhoyne before all is said and done?"
Viserys did
not cast his face into stone. He had accepted this outcome, or some outcropping of it, but on the face of things, he had felt nothing more than
satisfaction at grand doings laying on the threshold of fruition. The fact of the matter is, he did not
want to kill these people, perhaps not even truly because he detests bloodshed. He can stomach that in part. Not even because it would be a utilitarian waste, and inefficient in the effort to turn the Volantene people to more productive tasks. The advancing of agendas reigned little in the forefront of his mind at that moment.
More than anything, he did not want to be as his father was to the Seven Kingdoms in Essos, counted only a grasping madman who would love nothing more but to hammer the world into crude shape whatever flight of fancy was his current heart's desire, he did not want a legacy of
blood. It was selfish. Irrational. Still he hesitated,
was that right? He thought.
Can I march down there filled with nothing but seething resentment at a potential history painted against me in light I find repulsive, however necessary the task? On the outset, what was 'necessary' or not would always be up for debate. The testimony of Angels like Yrael proved the point.
You did not need to add this feather to your cap, he thought they might say.
Each after their own to manage their affairs, and from mutual purpose the course could be set, disparate parts lying separate and yet whole.
A farce, one worse than the original construct his ancestor had lain forth. He had done mighty deeds for his time, but he had not pressed his advantage enough, had not shaped an edifice to last the ages. It had collapsed in truth barely a century forth from his passing from the world.
If Viserys would build a better world for all yet to be born, and even those who lived within it, the mortar he set each brick would need to be less cheap than the blood of innocents.
"No," he eventually replied. "There lies a better path, though it will still be hard. But no one expected this to be
easy, or it wouldn't be worth the doing."
Empires are born from the ashes of states, Viserys thought,
but let the state recognize not what must be cast aside, as the people set in their madness cast aside reason, but what must be preserved. These people will shape the face of the world just as much as I, sight unseen. They just have yet to see the truth.
He flew down before the crowd, a veil of stars set about his shoulders. Stones were cast upon him, and they shattered. Brands were bared, crude implements, swords and spears, but they were smote. Still he did not lift his hand. A growing unease filled the air as he made no move. Soon a
presence was felt, something greater, something far larger than the boy--no,
man of seven and ten, a gravitas and sense of purpose that the raging mob could not drown out. It grew, and grew, the circle around him expanding until a dragon could stretch wingtip to wingtip to the very edge of the crowd comfortable--for that is what he was, enough so even in the form of Valyrian dragonlord newly crowned, a fearful aura that sent knees trembling and men and women scrambling backward on hands and knees, some even pleading for mercy without him having lifted a single finger or threatened upon pain of death.
"People, hear me," he spoke with conviction, words of fire ringing out in the now silent plaza, and all eyes were upon him. "Your rage has been felt, even now. Across the city the voice of the oppressed rings out, and yet I say, how can this be so? There lies no slave here, your chains broken, and with the help of the very man who's pledge entrusted both succor and safety from the world at large..."
"Liar!" he was interrupted then, a man stumbling out of the crowd, a freeman now though he bore marks of a warrior upon his cheek. "You reach out a clawed fist, whereas I know with equal conviction Volantis deserves to stand on its own, for what generation would we be if we could not forge a better future from our own dark past? Aye, they name you Chain-Breaker, and in truth you have done so to ravaged cities farther afield, but they were squandering potential, when Volantis rose past its petty squabbles and feuds. We have done so with blood, and sweat and tears. Who are you to lend sopping grandeur to this blatant farce? I know not how far your manipulations have stretched, but they are not hidden from us!" The crowd shook out of its stupor, chanting encouragement and agreement, though they had begun to sense this was not a confrontation where violence could steer the hearts of the mighty.
"You have but a part of the greater picture. You see yourselves as your greatest obstacle to overcome, but we are fighting for
minutes and hours, pieces of a day to build greater walls against threats upon which no single man, nay, not even a single city, or even whole nations can contest on their own. Horrors from the Pit. These you have seen. But not just them, those from beyond the Veil of what mortal eyes can perceive, insatiable horrors who would like nothing better than to suffocate our will beneath silken pillows, shouting their encouragements at us that we should struggle and spend our strength against ourselves, all the better to lock tighter and stronger chains about our necks.
There is no time. No time to dicker, and discuss and argue what seating arrangements lay most appropriate, what opportunities to grasp or what agenda has the most import. Only
one goal,
one purpose. To unify all, to survive all. A single hand going to spare, or one worker going idle, could yet be the Doom of our age."
"And you are this great savior who can promise the world, Viserys Targaryen? Oh Lord of flames? However mighty yet you be, I sense arrogance upon you same as I could see in the Masters who came before you. What say you if your chains are more insidious than the last, merely invisible as the threats you claim hang over us all like the blade that hovered above Horonno's neck time and past?"
Yet Viserys stood silent, slowly meeting the eyes with each he could pass at a glance, seeming to read into their thoughts at a moment's passing glance. He stepped forward and even the officer flinched, but the King stepped past him, stopping before a woman with the scars of a life lived hardscrabble, possibly to the very last. "What is your name?" And so the name past from her lips, as if she could not have even once contemplated refusing him it. Questions seemed to spring forth from his lips, and they were always purposeful and direct, and he gave answers in turn when asked, until in bare minutes he was satisfied, and strangely so was
she. And he stepped to the left and repeated it, on and on, he spoke with the desperate, the angry, and always he had a word, a promise, a show of power or conviction or greater purpose to fill them with.
Finally the Dragon King had been around the great circle at least once, before standing before him again, a challenge in his eyes, and in that moment he had known all along that he had lost, but could not simply roll over at the whim of this man, this creature. "Do your worst," he spat, "I know the strength of my convictions. Thus always shall tyrants fall, let history not stand corrected."
Viserys did not draw his sword and sheath it through his heart.
He strangled him to death there and then.
And not a single drop of blood tarnished his moment of triumph, they wrote, for he had found the keystone and seen it mended, sparing no more reason where none lied.
OOC: This wasn't supposed to be a full-on omake, but I decided that the plan I'll implement when a situation like this comes deserved my full attention, not a half-formed scene.
