The Prince of Scrolls [ASOIAF / Game of Thrones AU]

[Walder Black]

Ros was sitting, drinking tea. The prince's new mansion was quite comfortable. By order of the princess, they even gave Ros a room.

"You're back quickly," said the prince.

"Your mother helped sell it," she said, taking a sip as she spoke.

"Our mother helped?" Dany imagined their mother in a market.

It would be absurd to see the Queen Mother selling trinkets. The princess wanted to picture her mother selling her jewelry.

Queen Rhaella would not sell her crown for anything in the world. (\*)

"Somehow she managed to find out I was coming to King's Landing. Oh! I must say that your new ships caused quite a sensation among the inhabitants." She paused to enjoy her drink. "Small enough to navigate the river and large enough to transport goods. I was offered a thousand golden dragons for one of them." She waited for his reaction.

"I was expecting around six or seven hundred," said the prince. "But you missed the point," he urged her to continue.

"Ah, yes. The queen received me. She tried the perfumes and bought several oils and soaps for herself." She smiled. "I sold everything the day I arrived. The next day, I had merchants asking me where I got everything. I just said 'ArgentStone,'" she said, looking as if she had done something mischievous.

Jaehaerys thought the buyers would arrive soon. The perfumes were in the Tower of Dread, where they used to live. It was the closest to the gates. It would make it easier to sell them.

"How much did you get for each product?" asked Daenerys. The girl had taken out a small notebook, probably following Qyburn's advice.

"Eighty dragons for each perfume," she said with a huge smile. "The queen bought it for forty, but the nobles want to be like her, right?" Rhaella's purchase had brought not only customers but also prestige.

It might be junk, but if the highest royalty purchased it, everyone else wanted it too. The rest of the products were also inflated in price. Each bar of scented soap sold for four gold dragons.

The oils were ten gold dragons, and the shampoo, an unknown commodity, was twenty gold dragons per bottle. Absurdly high prices that would decrease over time.

"Six thousand, one hundred and ten galleons, right?" asked Dany. "One hundred perfumes, one thousand soap bars, fifty oils, and two hundred bottles of shampoo." She tapped her pen on the paper.

"It was six and ten thousand. The queen bought everything cheaper. Suppose you take away the sailors' wages. I gave each sailor sixty silver deer. That would be ten dragons less," said the redhead, taking the last sip of tea and placing the cup and saucer on a small table.

"Good work." Dany smiled at her.

Jaehaerys quickly did the math. He had 820 perfumes in stock. About 5000 soap bars. 237 oils and 310 shampoos. He had focused on producing perfumes, so he had most of those.

Now he considered it a mistake. Perfumes are expensive, and only nobles buy them.

And not all noble houses can afford forty gold dragons. That was the price he estimated for when the initial boom was over. He could sell in Essos, but until his fleet of ships was ready, he would have to rely on Lord Manderly for that or sell to merchants. With any luck, some merchant would buy all the perfumes for eighty dragons and disappear with them.

Soaps, oils, and shampoos are consumed more quickly. Therefore, they would sell better. The first factories he would set up would be for those products, and he already had some apprentices: former slaves.

He ordered a building to be constructed near his mansion. It was nothing big or extravagant; it would have the basics. Divided into sections for each of the products to be created, it would be made of standard brick, not the magical kind used for the castle. He would have to tear down the building later; if it were made of indestructible brick, he would have some problems.

He felt Daenerys' warm hand take his cheek.

"Ros has left. She got tired of you ignoring her," she said, getting up. A maid entered the room to collect the empty cups and then left. "I wanted to talk to you about something," she said, gesturing for him to follow her.

"Very well," he said, accompanying her to their new quarters. In this mansion, the room was not large enough to also accommodate a desk, so his work area was limited to his solar room. It was connected to the bedroom by a door.

"Here." She pointed to a brazier. The flames licked the prince's three eggs. No one entered her chambers; a loyal guard stood watch at the door, preventing any maids from passing. The door had a rudimentary key that only Dany and Jaehaerys carried. "Touch them," she said.

He felt his heart skip a beat when he saw her hand approach the flames. She didn't touch them directly; instead, she took the eggs, one by one, and passed them to Jaehaerys.

"They're beating, like a heart," he said in surprise. He wondered if the magic of the weirwoods had accelerated the process.

The fire in the embers seemed abnormal, as if it wanted to reach his body, burn him.

"They're alive," she said, holding the black egg.

"They seem close to hatching," he replied. He gazed spellbound at the dark line on the silver egg as he ran his hand over it. "What do the books say?" He had left all that work to Daenerys, thinking he could review it later. He hadn't expected them to revive so quickly.

He felt an unprecedented emotion. 'Dragons.' He was not a man given to war or armed conflict. But a dragon would keep all the people away from his business. But dragons weren't enough. He had to be firm with those he let into his home. He didn't want a new Otto Hightower whispering to his children.

He forced himself to calm down. He left the two eggs on the fire and turned to his wife.

"There is a ritual. But I don't like it. There has to be a sacrifice," she said.

"Human?" asked Jaehaerys.

"I... it didn't specify, it just said 'Nykeā glaeson syt nykeā glaeson.'" Her voice became hoarse when she spoke Valyrian, a sound that Jaehaerys enjoyed immensely.

"A life for a life," he repeated, translating the High Valyrian. "It can be an animal," he said. The Valyrians were not good sorcerers; they were rather crude. They could not use magic effectively and resorted to mass sacrifices to complete their spells.

"They need to be burned. A huge pyre. Another said with magic fire, but I don't want to put the eggs in Valyrian fire. I don't want another Summerhall." The princess's hands caressed the egg so lovingly that Jaehaerys became jealous.

"Magic fire." He opened the door to his solar. He took the book of runes and began to leaf through it. He found the rune he was looking for.

Kenaz (ᚲ) was the rune of fire; well, fire was one of its meanings. He planned to use it in the forges, but he needed to hide the magic, and so far, he hadn't thought of anything. He would have to wait until he built better furnaces.

"Runes. They're from the First Men, not Valyrian," she said doubtfully.

"It's magic," he said. "Tell me, Dany. When did they start to feel more alive?" he asked her. The flames moved abruptly. The fire made him uneasy. No, it wasn't the fire, it was something else, but what exactly?

"When the curse was lifted," she replied. "I remember that during the curse, they felt bad, like they were sick," she said sadly. "That was when you planted the weirwood tree. Yes," she said, convinced. "When shall we do it?" she asked, looking anxious.

Jaehaerys hesitated. He had about six hundred men-at-arms at Harrenhal. He could be sure of the loyalty of five hundred of those men, the ones who had followed him from the north. He needed more protection. In the long run, the dragons would scare away all his rivals, but small ones would be targets.

He looked at the fire. The flames danced, lulling the eggs in a delicate embrace. He couldn't look away.

'What if I wait until the castle is comple-'

His thoughts suddenly died. He fell into a trance. He searched among the drawers in his study. A small jar with a brush. He took the eggs from the brazier and used them as a canvas.

"Jae?" It was a distant echo.

Before, he drew the runes with mastery, but they had never been so perfect as in that moment. The red ink covered the eggs. The rune Kenaz was inscribed next to Jera (ᛃ), a rune that meant natural growth, among other things.

He destroyed his shirt in one swift movement. He felt his hand forced to write Othala (ᛟ) on his chest. It was the rune that indicated sacrifice, offering.

Whose hand was guiding his?

'I've lived this before,' he said in his mind.

He closed his eyes and was no longer in the room. He was outside the mansion, looking down on everything from the sky. He recognized this feeling.

Warging.

If you wish to read more you can go to https://linktr.ee/walderblack, already in chapter 150.

 

[Walder Black]

He dove toward the window of his room. He looked at his own naked body from the waist up. Dany looked like she was about to cry as the flames burned more and more intensely. The feeling was strange but strangely familiar. The body wasn't his, but he understood it perfectly.

With the body of his eagle, he descended and dug his claws into his human chest, right above the sacrifice rune. As if it were his hand, he closed his claws. The three front claws closed together, forming three lines that converged at the same point. He had to move away to dodge the blow his body unleashed.

He looked proudly at the three red lines. But one was missing. The heat in the room became unbearable. He hoped the eagle would get scared and fight back. But it lunged again. He had never felt so bad about having such a strong body. He barely managed to dodge it. He looked at Dany. The girl had brought her hand close to his chest, her index finger touching the nail where the three wounds left by the eagle's claws met. His body did not react to her touch; he just stared at the fire. But he could see his hands trembling.

Whatever was taking his body didn't want to hurt her.

Daenerys dug her fingernail in and, with a single scratch, made the last line. A primal rune ᛉ was engraved on his chest in blood. The whole rune glowed a dark red, so similar to the sap of the arcians that he could have mistaken it for it.

The eagle flew out the window, and seconds later, it watched the flames consume the entire room. But he no longer shared its eyes. The last thing he remembered seeing through the eagle's eyes was a red star splitting the sky.

He returned to his body with a jolt. He felt heavier, and his chest was on fire. With a quick movement, he kicked the book of runes, which had fallen to the floor during the possession. The book slid to the door leading to the makeshift courtyard.

The walls were brick; they wouldn't burn, but he didn't trust them not to melt. He looked at his wife, the flames dancing on her naked skin, avoiding burning her.

'Unburned,' he thought.

She would be fine. He took the jar of sap and, smearing it on his fingers, began to inscribe the wall and door with the runes Tyr and Elhaz. He wanted to protect his solar room and everything found within it.

He had seen magic before. But now he felt it. He felt the wall harden.

Finally, the fire melted the clay jar in his hand. The red liquid dripped onto the floor.

He felt Daenerys' embrace. Inside the fire, it was somehow cold. The princess's hair burned. She moved a few inches away from him.

It was a crazy sight if anyone could see them. Both of them were in the flames, the flames just touching their skin without causing them harm and dancing around them.

He had been burned before. Once, as a child, he touched a red-hot piece of coal. He cried in pain, but he healed without any scars.

This?

What was this?

Magic.

His wife looked beautiful. Her skin contrasted with the fire in a way that made her look like a fire goddess; her purple eyes glowed unnaturally, her pink lips were moist, unaltered by the flames.

Had she always been this beautiful? Was it the fire around her that made her so desirable? Their clothes had been consumed, and only their naked bodies were visible.

The furniture in the room was burning, and toxic smoke began to billow from it. But they were unaffected. It wasn't logical, but when had magic ever been logical?

It was impulse or desire, a mixture of both. He should have taken his wife and left the fire, but no, there was something he had to do there.

They approached each other, dazed by the reflection of the other.

It began with a kiss and ended with them joined together, just as they had been on their first night, and many others that followed. They were husband and wife: a man and a woman.

They were two dragons mating.

With no bed or furniture, he ended up taking her on the wooden floor. Even when the wood charred, they felt no pain, only the ash breaking under their weight.

Ros, Sansa, none of them had ever made him feel so good. Even when he had both of them at the same time, it was nothing compared to this. It wasn't just physical pleasure; it was something more spiritual. He could feel the magic around them vibrate with joy every time their climax were in sync. Their passion fueled the flames.

He split his seed inside her three times.

After the third time, the flames vibrated like never before; the wood on the floor was gone, and the walls looked as if they had been victims of dragon fire.

In a way, they had been.

Then, as she curled up on his chest and he wrapped his arms around her, they heard them. Soft crackling sounds. Then moans, like an animal fighting.

They both felt claws climbing up their bodies, but neither moved. Their bodies remained entwined, their souls repeating the action. The peace among the flames was something they had never experienced before. They had never felt so at home as they did at that moment.

How much time had passed? Minutes, hours, days? There was no time when they made love, only him, her, and the magic.

He looked at a crowd of men near where the door should have been; the flames had melted the brick. They were brave men, but not stupid. The fire died down, and the men were finally able to approach. Jaeherys was forced to pull out of her and noticed that there was no trace of his seed between the princess's legs.

'Three dragons,' he thought. 'One life for a life... three.'

The fire took his seed three times.

With that last thought, he used his body to cover his wife's modesty. Even if the men were loyal, the princess's body was not for their eyes to feast on. He looked to his right. The wall and the door to his quarters were intact, only darkened by the smoke.

Torrhen handed him a cloak, which he used to cover her and the dragons.

'Dragons.' Just a few hours ago, they were talking about trade, and now they had brought dragons out of the stone. He looked at his wife, and when the flames subsided, her body was covered in ash.

He heard the murmurs of the men as the dragons climbed out from under the cloak. The three eggs had given birth to three majestic dragons.

The first was jet black. When the sun touched its scales, they shone a dark purple, like obsidian. It had two horns where the purple color was most evident. Its eyes were like molten silver.

The second was an auburn color. Two small protuberances adorned its head. He watched as the color changed on its horns, revealing a steel gray. Its eyes were green like emeralds.

The third was silver. Jaehaerys remembered Daenerys' hair just by looking at it. Its horns darkened slightly; they weren't two; he counted eight, even if they weren't that much larger than those the other two dragons had. Jaehaerys thought they assembled a crown. Its eyes were black with red veins like two burning coals.

They were just as they were described in the books.

Elongated and with two hind legs. Their wings were membranous, similar to those of bats. Their necks were elongated. Despite having the same characteristics, they were not identical.

The black one was the widest and had the thickest wings of the three, and was shorter than the red one. It also seemed temperamental, like an angry old man who was annoyed by the sun beating down on his body.

It blew smoke from its jaws as it looked at the crowd around him, as if they were unworthy of his presence.

The red one was the thinnest and longest, although its small size made it unremarkable. Its wings were also the smallest of the three. It seemed frightened, and as soon as it saw the people, it returned to Dany's cloak.

The silver one had the largest wings. Its body was not as vast as the red one's, nor as long as the black one's. It looked Jaehaerys straight in the eye, without a hint of fear. The prince even felt it smile at him. The dragon looked at the men and moved from Dany's body to Jaehaerys's so it could see them. It seemed curious about these beings.

"My prince," said the men around him. The northerners and southerners knelt before him.

"Hail Jaehaerys Targaryen," said Torrhen.

"Hail Daenerys Targaryen," said Brandon.

"The ones who bring the Dragons back," said a southerner with unbridled devotion.

He touched his chest. The Elhaz-shaped scar was now a few thick red lines. It hadn't healed like a normal scar; no, magic pulsed through it, close to his heart. Thinking about the god who had tried to kill him filled him with hatred.

'The dragons are back. But I'm still alive, and that must piss you off, R'hllor,' he thought with satisfaction. He could feel something new in his body. Maybe the fire resistance was permanent for him.

Then he thought sarcastically, 'I wanted to industrialize this world, and now I have to fight a god.'

Jaehaerys didn't think he could simply use his staff to kill a god in a fight.

He would kill him, as many gods had died before in his previous life.

By making the people lose faith in them.

If you wish to read more you can go to https://linktr.ee/walderblack, already in chapter 150.

 

[Walder Black]

For four moons, everything went well. The foundations of the three main towers were ready, deep and wide. The bricks were prepared for laying. Now the only limitation was the mortar. A gallon of sap mixed into the mortar allowed it to be diluted enough to lay twenty thousand bricks. In those four moons, he obtained another six barrels, for a total of eight. Seven would be used in construction, and the rest would be for research.

Now the problem was volcanic ash. He obtained several tons of Dragonstone. At first, he began a constant supply trip, but it stopped two weeks after the dragons were born.

Viserys also stopped responding to his letters. He sent two letters to King's Landing, one to the king and the other to his mother. They said that obtaining the ash was, for the moment, not possible. It was as if his older brother wanted to hinder the construction process. He had managed to get them to start working with the available volcanic ash, but it ran out during the previous moon.

He sent letters to Jon Arryn, the guardian of the Vale. The man had somehow managed to keep his position, a controversial decision, although his heir, a young man named Hardyng, was being raised at Casterly Rock with Tywin Lannister.

In Arryn's letters, he inquired about inactive volcanoes in his lands and requested the trade of volcanic ash. The old man replied that he would consult his oldest maps, but did not expect to find any.

He would have gone to King's Landing, but the idea of leaving Dany alone pained him. Not only because the administration would fall more heavily on her, but because if anyone discovered the dragons, he would have to act quickly. So he sent Torrhen. He was not a politician, but he was much more talkative than Brandon. He went on a Drakkar and returned shortly after. The king refused to see him. His mother allowed him a conversation, but she did not say much about Dragonstone, only that it was not possible to extract the ashes at the moment.

They put him off again and again. Ever since they offered him Harrenhal, he knew it was a poisoned gift, but he accepted it gladly. He knew he could turn it into something extraordinary. And step by step, he was succeeding. If his brother hadn't meddled, everything would have been better.

The idea that it was Rhaegar who ordered his murder was growing stronger.

Even the village on the banks of the river began to grow. Previously, there had been several fishing villages, but they merged to form a city. He had allowed the fishermen to use the Drakkars for fishing, not their best use, but as long as they weren't traveling to King's Landing, it was better to use them for something.

The town was more bustling and lively. Several merchants had arrived to buy the prince's products. He couldn't accommodate them in Harrenhal, so they stayed in the village. It was the representative he left in the town, Edric, who gave him the idea of building more inns. He financed the construction with loans and allowed the villagers to manage them. They would repay the gold by paying higher taxes until the debt was fully covered.

He could have given the gold away, but he didn't want his people to become lazy. Nor did he want to manage each of the inns.

The merchants brought more people with them, and in four moons, more than three thousand people migrated. Some of them were skilled craftsmen, such as carpenters and potters. The former found work in the shipyards, and the latter requested to purchase clay for their work. The prince offered to buy them some vases and plates to give them some initial work and a little recognition.

Little by little, the city offered more. Some merchants even asked to buy a piece of land. He refused, but offered to build warehouses and rent them out. He planned to create a market in the future when the city grew larger.

This market would be built near the castle. The town was quite close to Harrenhal, and his idea was to let it grow around the castle, surrounding it, with a space of half a league between the town and the castle walls. Every two weeks, the city filled a ship with goods, and small merchants bought the products to resell them in King's Landing. Those taxes would not bring him much profit in the short term, but they would help the town grow gradually. At least Rhaegar had not interfered with his trade.

He could not say the same for the religion of R'hllor. His business in Essos was extinct thanks to them. He no longer generated income in Essos and had lost nearly a hundred thousand gold dragons. Of the 500 Unsullied he had in Essos, 200 died, and the rest returned, ashamed. They brought back a group of 600 slaves.

He knew he had to deal with R'hllor, but he wasn't ready to fight against an entire religion just yet.

He needed to know more about R'hllor. Was he a god or a demon? His presence was limited in this world. He had ordered Elhaz runes to be carved into the walls. These offered protection, not only physical but also against higher beings. He did not want R'hllor to reach his door.

He also carved runes on stones that he hid around the weirwoods.

He used the runes Kano (ᚲ), which represented fire and would attract it. Isa (ᛁ), which represented ice, would serve to contain and stabilize the fire. Perth (ᛈ) meant rebirth, and its function was to transform that energy into something else, into magic.

He wanted to add the runes Eiwaz (ᛇ), which would help integrate the energy into the tree, and Fehu (ᚠ), which would turn that energy into prosperity, helping the tree to grow. Kano (ᚲ) was also associated with light, and sunlight was absorbed as a source of energy. The dilemma was whether or not to carve the tree. The books said nothing about the consequences of such an action. He didn't want to offend the old gods.

The previous runes were created with a specific intention in mind. A single rune can have several meanings, but it was the intention behind inscribing it that made it work. That is why inscribing protective runes on bricks was easy, because even if only slightly, during their creation, the intention was to create something resistant.

Jaehaerys stood on the walls of Harrenhal, his wife at his side. A silk scarf covered Dany's hair. The fire had left both of them bald, and she was sad to have her hair short, as it was just beginning to grow.

The last few months had been turbulent. And that turbulence was about to increase.

His wife was now helping to manage all the construction. She began by repairing the mansion. In the mansion, she ordered the installation of pipes to distribute water to bathrooms and kitchens. The mansion lacked them, partly because Jaehaerys had already planned to leave that task to her as preparation.

She did a good job, ordering a water storage tank to be built on the roof and the pipes to be laid. Dany made sure that the structure could support the weight of the water and had to order the creation of pillars to reinforce it.

For the pipes, Jaehaerys had to intervene himself to talk to the blacksmiths and explain precisely what he wanted, the plans he had drawn up, and the processes involved. At that moment, he missed Mikken, the blacksmith from Winterfell. He would have stolen him if he could, but he was too loyal to Stark.

They both watched the black banner approach their city. The three-headed dragon was visible. It arrived without warning, probably wanting to take them by surprise. And it partially did. He had recently ordered Ros to create a network of spies; the girl was good at reading people. She had begun to approach merchants, even financing some of them. She managed to obtain information from some, but she was limited by distance. Between Harrenhal and King's Landing, there was only a seven-day distance; it could be 14 if it were a vast army.

Rhaegar traveled light; they were all horsemen. In the distance, he couldn't see how many Targaryens there were, but it should have been all of them, except Viserys and Daemon, of course.

"We must prepare to receive them," he heard Daenerys say beside him.

For moons, they had kept the dragons inside their mansion, and then, when they became too large, they sent them to the Godswood and forbade anyone from entering. He even chained them to prevent them from flying away. They melted the chains even though the iron was inscribed with runes to improve its strength.

'Dragon fire can break runes,' he theorized.

Now all of Harrenhal had seen the dragons soar through the air, so it was no surprise to see the king heading there, but he reacted too soon. Rhaegar was obsessed with the three-headed dragon.

"They're a small group, at least we won't have much trouble housing them," she said, more frightened than she wanted to show.

She considered the dragons their children, and Jaehaerys was sure that in some way they were.

"The dragons will be safe, won't they?" she asked, frowning.

"Yes. If Rhaegar brought Visenya, they would be." Jaehaerys wondered if his brother would dare to kill him. There were 600 men at Harrenhal who were his army. 100 kept order in the city, and the rest kept order in the castle.

"She's too young for this." Daenerys was a little apprehensive about his plan.

"She won't suffer, besides, she'll make a good lady companion." He smiled, knowing that the little girl would be chaos.

His first plan was to send the dragons to the Isle of Faces. But the island had not called him, and when he tried to approach it on the raft, the water pushed him away. The island did not want visitors. Perhaps because the old gods had ruled it, and dragons were believed to belong to the Valyrian gods. Dragons were beings that no one could dominate; he could not send them away without expecting them to become wild dragons, like the cannibal.

"I hope everything goes well," whispered Daenerys.

"Well, if it goes wrong and I die..." 'You could marry Daemon,' he wanted to add in a sour humor.

He often employed a black sense of humor when he was nervous.

"I'll burn Westeros," the princess interrupted him and walked away, Brandon following her like his faithful shadow.

"You're smiling, my prince," he heard Torrhen say.

If you wish to read more you can go to https://linktr.ee/walderblack, already in chapter 150.