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Unknown time, Unknown Place
It was after a moment of pure stillness that he realised that the Elder Dragons, the Old Gods of Valyria, looked upon the lone figure standing upon the black water, one that was no larger than an ant to them, and hesitated.
Daemon Targaryen's heart thundered in his chest at the sight before him, of the surrounding dragons, made from suns and stars, looking down at them, at the sorcerer, yet the mortal remained unafraid, completely and utterly, as if daring them to attack. It was a stalemate that it seemed that even the dragons were wary of breaking, from the sheer threat of Harry Potter, and that alone gave Daemon enough time to truly think back on the conversation that they had that day, if one could call it that, even.
He had seen power, true power, in a way that made Potter's display in Harrenhal look like child's play, which in itself had shown Daemon that his family's mounts were severely unpowered, given what was truly out there. Yet, he had expected so from the Gods of Old Valyria; what he did not expect was the sheer and utter disinterest they seemed to have in his family.
They were utterly dismissive of House Targaryen, the last true legacy of Valyria, the civilisation that had once worshipped them, and they certainly were worth worshipping. They had even cared for the pain they inflicted on Daemon and Aemond with only their words, and it had been the sorcerer who asked them to stop.
All they seemed to care about was this… Light… thing that Potter had spoken of, and even as the knowledge that had been drilled into his head was fading away, his mind unable to comprehend them all, he could remember fragments of information, of an object of power, of greatness, of order, that gods would easily war with one another for, something that they required for some war against the Dark things that lurked in Sothoryos, ones that Daemon had barely seen a hint of during his time in the Basilisk Isles.
Still, it was obvious that these Elder Dragons predated Valyria by some time. Should they ever leave this place alive, he had enough questions to last a lifetime for the sorcerer. Of course, these answers were utterly contingent on their survival.
Speaking of their best possible way of survival, Potter looked at their attackers and spoke up, "Oh, look at you lot, so powerful, so mighty, in a realm of your own making and yet refusing to attack. You're scared that I have something up my sleeve, and you'd be right, of course, but that shouldn't stop you, not really. So, why did you hesitate? Ah, I see it now! You… You do not want an open conflict because you're scared that it would spill out, don't you? You don't want to risk your hard work being ruined by little old me, which means that you would have a single course of action, huh? A trap. Which is clever, very clever indeed. However, what is not clever is for someone who knows me to let me talk too much. So, with that said…"
The sorcerer smirked and flicked his hand, and everything froze around them. It was strange, the dragons, Daemon and Aemond, were not affected, and yet what was truly telling was the constant movements of the stars completely and utterly stilled around them.
Just as he did so, Daemon felt the air around him hum with energy, and immediately after, what must have been a fallen star appeared above them. He knew it was a falling star as it seemed to be getting closer and closer, enough that the Rogue Prince could almost feel its heat come towards them.
Yet, as it approached, Harry Potter swung his strange scythe, and the space around them shattered into an infinity of fractals that maddeningly changed shape and colour every time he looked at them. The fallen star shattered when it met the wall of fractals, disappearing into sparks that faded away into nothing.
It was then that the dragons began to move. They did not stomp or rage, but began to fly around them, surrounding them, with their impossible stars. Their speeds were so great that Daemon could hardly see more than blurs of light, and impossible wind appeared, and even the shallow sea that they were standing on began to shift.
Eventually, Daemon felt himself being lifted up in the air, with Aemond and the sorcerer following quickly after him. It almost seemed like a prison, of a sort, an impossible one created by Dragon Gods to imprison something that they thought was too great a threat to battle openly. The thought alone would have been absurd if it were not the truth.
Of course, that was when Potter opened his mouth and began to sing, just as he had during their time in the treacherous waters of Basilisk Isles, against that strange darkness. Daemon supposed that it would make sense; if the Old Gods of Valyria and whatever the fuck was in Sothoryos were enemies, then similar measures could affect them both.
A sphere of calm greyness enveloped the world, but this time, it was slow to grow, as if it was suppressed. The sorcerer continued, swinging his strange scythe and its blade with great enthusiasm, enough that they created strange symbols that Daemon did not recognise around them, as Potter was singing.
Whatever the man was doing must have been working as Daemon heard a distance screeching, filled with the condensed words that made his head ache in pain as he struggled to make sense of them, until finally, he, the Rogue Prince, felt as if some rope had grabbed him and pulled him and Aemond towards the sorcerer.
Then, finally, in a flash of light, the glowing symbols surrounded them, intensified for a moment, before the world of greyness disappeared, and in its stead was eternity. It was difficult to explain what he saw in the moments after it all, only that it was infinite and chaotic, filled with impossible shapes and colours, which shifted around in an eternal dance of ordered anarchy. For that small moment, Daemon thought that he would be consumed, swallowed by it, until he suddenly felt himself pulled down, and he fell onto sandy ground with a thud.
Daemon groaned as he slowly pushed himself off the ground and looked around him. He was surrounded by an endless desert, beneath a scorching sun, with only dunes of sand being seen. Despite it all, he felt a faint feeling of relief that a desert did make quite a bit of sense.
"What was that?" Aemond asked as he did the same, and Daemon echoed his sentiment, for he felt confused given what had just occurred.
"A trap," the sorcerer spoke up, "They used the stars in the realm, entire timelines, as prison gates, to keep us there until I agree to their terms. Or maybe they would have just waited for us to rot there forever, since they want to avoid a direct confrontation with me."
"You could have fought them," Aemond commented.
Potter rolled his eyes, "Yes, but ignoring the fact that the two of you would have probably died, what would that have achieved exactly? Even if we win or lose, the consequences of this fight will always end badly for everyone on Planetos, and believe it or not, that includes your family. For now, we do need to leave this place and get back to the material realm before they find us."
Daemon did not strictly agree with the man's words. A battle was a battle; you either won or lost, but then again, magic did change things, didn't it? However, the man's last words stopped him in his tracks. The material realm… Wasn't that what Potter called the Known World? He needed to know more, "Where are we?"
"I have no idea. A realm of some sort would be my best guess. I wasn't looking for a particular destination when I started the jump, but this is certainly not the material realm. I need to concentrate for a bit to get us back. I don't have a lot of time before the Elder Dragons track us down, and this realm isn't likely to be particularly safe either, at least not to intruders."
As if the world were waiting for this proclamation, Daemon began to feel the ground shake. It was faint at first, so faint that he thought that he was only disoriented by the fall, or perhaps what he had witnessed in that fraction of a second when they left that realm of stars. However, there was no mistaking the sand shifting beneath his boots in ripples that turned stronger with every moment.
Then the sound came. It was a distant rumbling which followed the vibrations of the sands, which he would have assumed to be a storm, were it not for the fact that the sky was clear. The trembling became violent enough that there was no mistaking what it was, and Daemon squinted towards the horizon to see its origin, and that was when he first realised what it was.
For it was thousands, if not millions of horses, which galloped towards them, bringing a storm of sand behind them. The dunes themselves seemed to break apart with their approach, and Daemon was simply frozen by their numbers alone. He turned to the sorcerer, who had his eyebrows raised, "Well, it could have been worse, much worse. As much as I dislike the Dothraki, their Great Stallion isn't the strongest of deities."
Before he could ask what he meant by that, Harry Potter waved his hands, and the sand moved around them unnaturally, before spreading towards the horizon. He then raised his hand, and the world around them shifted as if it were a liquid of some sort, before releasing, sending them flying up. Should he survive this madness, Daemon would deny having screamed in fear, as he flew in the air, thinking that he would fall, only to find himself landing atop a giant hill, which seemingly grew from the ground.
He grunted as he stood up, pretending not to see the sorcerer's amused look and looked down. It seemed that the sorcerer had created a giant yet steep hill, which horses would not be able to climb. And they didn't, as the endless horde instead seemed to be circling the hill for some reason.
It was only then that Daemon realised the sheer absurdity of the size of the herd of horses that surrounded them. He could not even see the sand anymore, only the horses and the dust they left as they galloped around the hill that they stood on. There must have been millions of them at the very least, far more horses than he had ever heard of in any battle.
Potter spoke up loudly, "I need you to buy me some time until I'm ready to take us back to the material realm."
Aemond spoke up and asked, "Buy you time from what?"
Daemon would have echoed the same question until he saw something that made him freeze in his tracks. A few horses who had been circling the hill began to rise, seemingly galloping on the thick dust and sand that the rest of the herd had raised, running on the dust itself. The horses rose in great spirals, rising towards them slowly but surely.
He didn't mean to say anything, but the words simply left his mouth, "Fuck me…"
"Potter," he started, only to see the sorcerer standing there with his eyes closed and waving his arms to create many strange symbols around him. The man did not respond, seemingly working on getting them back home.
Daemon growled and turned to his nephew, "Be ready. Strike them as soon as we can."
Aemond nodded, "I will, Uncle."
Both Targaryen princes, second sons too, raised their weapons ready to fight them, and then it came, the first stallion, which dashed towards them, and Daemon rolled and swung Dark Dister, the blade smoothly cutting through the horse, which released a pained neigh, before turning into dust as it died.
Daemon did not have the luxury of being surprised by this, as another stallion leapt through the storm of dust almost immediately after the first. Daemon pivoted on instinct, Dark Sister flashing in the burning sunlight as the blade carved through the creature's neck in a clean arc. As it had done before, the horse's body broke apart the moment the steel passed through it.
This reminded him eerily of his time in the Stepstones, of beating away ambushes, though it had been pirates and sellswords, not magic horses or whatever the fuck these things were. Potter had really helped them by making this hill, forcing the horses into a bottleneck of a sort, which made things a lot easier to deal with, though Daemon could only fight for so long.
He looked at his nephew and noticed that he seemed to have begun being exhausted as Daemon had, though he had performed admirably so far. He knew that they could not continue like this, and he had no idea how long Potter would take to finish that magic of his.
The Rogue Prince then looked at the surface of the hill that they stood on, Dark Sister in hand, and an idea bloomed in his head. It was mad and would likely not work, but he lost very little by trying it. And so, before another horse could attack them again, he rolled and swung his blade to the ground at an angle. Valyrian Steel cut through stone as if it were not there, the magical blade showing its properties once more, and a chunk of the hill, barely more than a rock, separated from the slope with a grinding crack.
For a moment, Daemon thought that it had failed, until the rock began to shift and broke loose. The rock was much larger than he expected, especially given Dark Sister's reach, yet it worked anyway. The large rock fell down, crushing the circling horses below, creating some sort of sand avalanche that halted the circling horses below him.
Then, silence reigned completely and utterly, and he suppressed the urge to preen at his nephew's flabbergasted look. His sense of victory only abated when a cloud of dust appeared in the distance, taking shape into something taller and larger than anything he had seen in this realm of sand before.
The shape quickly became recognisable as that of a war horse, one that was likely larger than even Vhagar, and it was coming at them, galloping on a floating cloud of dust and sand. Daemon knew immediately that they would die should that… thing reach them, and he raised his voice, "Potter?"
The sorcerer ignored him with his eyes closed, and Daemon insisted, "Potter!
This time, the sorcerer's eyes snapped open, and he looked at the giant stallion disinterestedly before raising his hand towards him. White mist appeared before his hand, moving towards the giant beast, enveloping it.
The Great Stallion's approach slowed down before coming to a halt, the giant horse becoming a frozen shape in the air, completely and utterly unmoving due to the sorcerer's prowess.
Of course, Daemon did not have the time to celebrate, as the clear sky cracked above them, revealing an endless abyss of stars in the distance. For just a moment, Daemon saw the Elder Dragons peering down at them, but Potter simply smirked, grabbed his scythe, releasing a multicoloured slash of fractals at them. Daemon barely heard a distant roar before he felt himself being pulled into the impossible realm of shifting shapes and colours once more, before finally landing on the ground.
Daemon did not know how to explain it, only that the sand that he fell on had felt more… real than it had previously, and the world had not felt as oppressive as it had earlier. He knew, then and there, that they were back home, though perhaps not exactly in the same place that they left.
For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Daemon pushed himself up, his body aching at being thrown around every time they travelled. He looked up and smiled, "Is it done?"
"Yes, it was closer than I would have liked, but the Elder Dragons shouldn't risk a confrontation here, not when they're so invested in this realm for some reason."
Daemon wished to ask the sorcerer if he knew what that reason was, but decided that it wasn't worth it. He had seen enough impossibilities to last a lifetime, met the gods of his ancestors, though a part of him wished he hadn't.
It was then that the sky turned suddenly cloudy in an unnatural manner, and Daemon's nephew's head snapped to the side, his single eye narrowing as he listened, "Do you hear that?"
There was a rumbling, distant and at first, quite similar to what they experienced earlier, only differing by the fact that it was mixed with the sound of shouting, of harsh voices hollering in a tongue that Daemon did not understand. On the horizon, he could see hints of a settlement of some sort, with countless structures, mostly large tents.
The rumbling grew louder, and now he could see them clearly. Riders were pouring out from the settlement in great numbers. Daemon immediately recognised them for what they were, "Dothraki."
The cloudy sky thundered as it began to rain, as if the heavens had heard Daemon's proclamation. He unsheathed Dark Sister and turned towards the sorcerer, planning on asking him to return them, only for the man to be looking at one of his hands, which he had raised for a moment, with a concerned expression on his face.
A single drop of rain fell onto the sorcerer's palm, and Daemon froze as he realised that the droplet shimmered as if it were mixed with gold. Despite the danger, he couldn't help but ask, "What is that?"
"First blood. It seems like the Elder Dragons have made their first move."
Daemon did not have the time to think about what the sorcerer had just said, for the thunder of hooves grew louder by the second. The Dothraki charge was coming straight for them, war cries rising beneath the strange golden rain.
Yet, it was only then that he realised that something was wrong, for a faint golden light, much like the unnatural rain, clung to the riders and their horses alike, their bodies almost glowing as they approached. Daemon did not understand the unnaturalness of what happened, but he tightened his grip on Dark Sister, nonetheless. It seemed that they had one last hurdle until he would finally return home.
He knew one thing for certain: he had had his fill of adventures after this one. Perhaps a quieter life would suit him better after the madness of this day, which would be more than enough for a lifetime.
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Excerpt from: Of Folklore and Legends in Recent Eras
By Archmaester Samuel of Highgarden
It seems as if my expedition in Dragonstone is to be delayed, for it seemed that Prince Baelon Targaryen decided to elope with some noblewoman despite being betrothed to a Targaryen of Dorne. I normally care very little about the affairs of the politics of the realm, but as I was once a member of House Tarly, I know that such an insult would be remembered for some time.
Nevertheless, the sad fact is that with most of the royal family needing to go to Dragonstone, my trip is to be postponed, with much of my funding having gone to waste. Or at least, it would have, were it not for the invitation that I received to stay in the Citadel of Winterfell under the sponsorship of House Stark. I knew not why Rickon Stark was seemingly invested in the mystery of the Sorcerer of Dragonstone, but perhaps the support of one of the strongest Lords in the realm would help.
The North was quite an insular kingdom, at least compared to the rest of the continent, though the royal family had not cared overly much for it in the past. Its sudden rise to power was due to its surprising agricultural progress and early work in adapting its rule to benefit from the rise of magic users after the second Doom of Valyria. The Iron Throne had worked tirelessly trying to include House Stark into the fold, and even offers of royal marriages did not seem to interest them overly.
Nevertheless, I only truly became interested in a trip to Winterfell after receiving a raven that transcribed certain events during the legendary Cregan Stark's youth, specifically on the day he was raised to become the Lord of Winterfell prior to his majority. I was sure that this was incomplete, but it seemed as if the White Wolf had risked being usurped by his uncle in some way, but that was unfortunately a common occurrence when it came to longer regencies.
The most interesting part was the mention of a name, of Harry Potter, being in Winterfell during the confrontation. I could no longer hold my excitement. Harry Potter, the same name that Viserys the Peaceful uttered in the Capital, is the mystery that none could solve so far. It does pose a few questions, as the sorcerer of Dragonstone was meant to have been on well… Dragonstone before his disappearance. This evidence might just be what I need to narrow down one of the many theories I have regarding the legendary figures.
Lord Stark seemed to be interested in my aid in uncovering more on the subject, and hinted with permission to scour the library in Winterfell, with some tomes said only to be accessed by Lords of the North. I have decided to accept Lord Stark's offer and shall go to Winterfell soon. After all, Dragonstone could wait, but I do not think that an opportunity such as this one would be one that would come again.
Perhaps with this, I would be able to solve the mystery of Harry Potter for once and for all, and whether he truly is the Sorcerer of Dragonstone, and if he was, then either our understanding of his movements is woefully incomplete, or the legends surrounding him conceal truths that the histories of the realm have long failed to grasp.
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AN: I'm not really happy with this chapter, to be honest. The idea was to show that Harry wouldn't try to force a fight when he would get nothing out of it. Defeating the Elder Dragons would mean that the Outsiders' incursion would not be held back by anything, and the rules that the gods would follow would no longer be enforced. At least, that was what I was going for, though I don't think I quite pulled it off.
The golden rain will be a critical thing for the future, and something that I will elaborate on in the next chapter, likely including the possible motivations of the Elder Dragons. Don't worry, I'm not planning a big thing with the Dothraki. I would have included it in this chapter, but it had really gotten away from me. It relates a bit that Harry, Daemon and Aemond were in the realm of the Great Stallion earlier. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me, check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions on them, so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.