The House of Ice and Fire

Return of the Targaryen Wolf

Valyria 310 AC

Jon Snow/ Aemon Targaryen

Underneath a sky painted in hues of blood and bruised violet, the great smoking sea of Essos stretched out endlessly, a churning cauldron of ash and embers. A dragon rider, perched atop a massive scaled beast with eyes like molten gold, surveyed the desolation below as an endless winter covered the once smoking land and a blizzard ravaged everything with endless ferocity. The air was thick with the acrid scent of smoke and sulfur, and the once-great cities of Valyria lay in ruin, their spires and towers reduced to twisted, blackened remnants of their former glory.

Beneath the dragon rider, the ruins of Valyria sprawled like the carcass of a fallen giant, its once-proud towers reduced to heaps of shattered stone. The city, which had once been a marvel of architectural ingenuity, was now a labyrinth of crumbling walls and scorched archways. Vines twisted like black serpents around the remnants of grand palaces, their tendrils snaking through cracks in the stone as if trying to reclaim what was lost.

Amidst the devastation, the dragon rider saw glimpses of the city's former opulence: shards of stained glass windows, their vibrant colors now muted by time and smoke; ornate mosaics depicting long-forgotten legends, their intricate details marred by the passage of centuries; and fragments of marble statues, their proud faces eroded by the relentless onslaught of the elements. Each step through the ruins was a journey through history, a reminder of the majesty that had once been Valyria.

The smoking sea, a vast expanse of turbulent waters, bubbled and churned with an eerie vitality, at least, it did long ago, no the bubbles froze, the smoking sea was nothing but and snow, and endless mass of frozen water. Wisps of smoke rose from its surface, obscuring the horizon and casting a ghostly pallor over the scene as if the lands still knew that they were once fire and were to stubborn to be only ice, just like the rider himself. The sea itself seemed alive, its depths concealing mysteries as ancient and profound as the ruins that surrounded it. The dragon rider could feel the heat from the smoking sea, a palpable force that prickled his skin and made his eyes water and yet the cold winds stopped the heat form becoming over bearing, this was the only place of warmth that the dragon rider could survive in now.

As the dragon circled lower, the rider could see remnants of what was once a bustling harbor, now submerged beneath the ashen waves. The skeletal remains of ships jutted out of the water like the fingers of a drowning sailor, their masts and rigging tangled in a macabre dance. The sea, tainted by the cataclysm that had befallen Valyria, seemed to pulse with otherworldly blackened magics, a reminder of the terrible power that had brought about the city's downfall.

Even if the blood of the dragon was in his veins, the rider did not revel in his ancestors before the fall. They practiced magics blacker than sin, and all gods would condemn the magics that twisted flesh, magics of black, fire, and blood. The magic that twisted the great wyrms and mixed them with meek wyverns to make fire-breathing monstrosities that terrified both Essos and Westeros. The same creatures the rider rode upon now.

It was the blood of the First Men he claimed and honored the most. The blood of his mother, her father, and her father before him. Stubborn as they are, it was the First Men who claimed him, who fought for him, who died for him; his only regret was that he could not do the same for them a second time. The Freefolk claimed him when he was north of the Wall; the Northmen claimed him when he returned and brought the North against the true enemy, death.

But now there were no Valryians; there were no First Men, no Rhoynar or Andals, no Dathraki or Unsullied. All that was left was he; he was all that was left. The last dragon. The last dragon king. The last wolf. The last King in the North. The last man. He was merely Aemon Targaryen, one of the two last creatures with a beating heart and thinking mind. After he and his mount, there would be no more.