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(EM Vol. 2: A Wandering Melody) Chapter 7: Foolish Choices
🕑 Added 2025-05-27 14:00:16 +0000 UTCChapter 7: Foolish Choices
123 AC, Dragonstone
Tonight, she would go to Dragonmont. Tonight, she would find a dragon and claim it. Tonight, she would prove herself a true Targaryen. Tonight, she would make her father love her.
Rhaena always thought that Dragonstone looked best at night. The shadows were longer, deeper, and the wind carried with it a stillness that the day could never offer. It was also quieter. There were no Septas scolding her for daydreaming, no cousins trying to include her in games that didn’t need her, no Baela outshining her in everything without even trying. At night, the castle was hers and hers alone.
Up here, under the sky, she learned to dream. It became easy to imagine a world where her mother had lived, a world where her egg had hatched, a world where her father would love her as much as Baela. She had always woken up feeling disappointed. Well, tonight, she would change that. She would claim a dragon, and she would earn her name as a Targaryen.
Sneaking out of the room wasn’t hard. Her guards weren’t exactly the most vigilant in the castle. After all, they were in Dragonstone, away from the dangers of King’s Landing, meaning that they were safe. During a few sleepless nights, Rhaena had distracted herself by imagining ways to sneak out of her room. There weren’t guards constantly standing outside her room after a few hours into the night, rotating as a few guards slept. Instead, they started patrolling the floor, which gave her an opportunity to sneak out if she timed it right.
Rhaena put on a cloak and gently opened her door, creeping along the outer paths in the corridor, and left just before the guards returned. Her boots were nearly silent on the stone, each step deliberate. It was surprisingly easy to escape the keep. To be fair, her stepmother had flown soon after the Potters left, and her father was too angry about it to care about their security. The entire castle was distracted, and it showed.
Now, she only needed to find a dragon, which was harder than one might expect.
But she could feel it in her bones. This time, she would be successful.
She had to be.
Baela often complained that she was too quiet, too careful. Well, she was done being careful. She was done being quiet. And now, she was simply too tired of waiting. If the gods had denied her a hatchling, then she would claim one with her own hands.
She wasn’t Baela. She wasn’t the favoured daughter, the sword-wielder, the heir to Laena’s fire. She was the one who listened too much, waited too long, and dreamed of things she was never allowed to reach.
But not after tonight.
Her father had never let her claim a wild dragon, claiming that they were too dangerous and unpredictable, and yet, if Aemond could claim Vhagar, stealing her mother’s dragon, then Rhaena could claim a dragon of her own.
And it wasn’t as if Rhaena was planning on claiming the Cannibal or something as absurd. No, her target was the Grey Ghost, barely more than a story, but one that Rhaena knew to be true. She had seen him once, diving to eat some fish from the ocean, before disappearing into the Dragonmont. He was smaller than most grown dragons, but he was more than mighty enough for her.
She had heard rumours of the dragon’s lair being on the Eastern side of the Dragonmont, hence her destination. She moved with purpose now, each step steadier than the last, the cool wind tugging at her cloak. The path was steep, winding its way around the rocky slope, slick with moss and old sea spray. Her boots slipped more than once, but she didn’t stop.
She gritted her teeth and kept climbing, hands scraping against the stone when she lost balance. The world narrowed to the rhythmic sound of her breath, the crunch of gravel beneath her steps, and the ever-growing sense of heat.
Not the warmth of the mountain’s heart, she knew that feeling, the slow, constant breath of the Dragonmont. This was different. This heat pulsed. It throbbed against her skin like a second heartbeat. It made the air feel heavier, made her blood sing in her veins.
It guided her.
She didn’t know how to put it into words, but she could tell that there was something nearby, something more than just the heat from the Dragonmont.
And that’s when she saw it, a narrow crevice carved into the mountainside, half-hidden behind a tangle of dead roots and jagged stone.
She stepped closer, breath hitching as the warmth grew. Not just warmth. Heat.
Her hand brushed the edge of the rock, and she slipped inside, into the dark. The tunnel sloped downward, rough and narrow, and the heat grew thicker with every step.
There was a dragon nearby. She could feel it.
And then a loud rumble, and Rhaena thought what she had mistaken in the darkness as a spikey rock, suddenly move and open a gigantic eye.
This wasn’t the calm, skittish dragon that she had expected. This wasn’t the Grey Ghost.
No, this eye burned green like wildfire, slit-pupiled and watching her with a predatory stillness. It blinked once, and in that blink, the darkness shifted. She saw the outline now: huge, sinuous, spiked. The beast was draped across the stone like a living shadow, each jagged scale absorbing the light. Black.
She could see its back, which was filled with rows of uneven spikes.
There was only one wild dragon who was as large as the one before her.
The Cannibal.
Rhaena froze. Her breath caught, her legs screamed to run, but she didn’t.
After all, the dragon hadn’t made any threatening moves, not yet, just stared at her with its green eyes, as if surprised that she was there in the first place.
Instead, she straightened, heart hammering in her chest, and stepped forward, “If I can’t have Grey Ghost,” she whispered, “then I’ll take you. I am Rhaena Targaryen. You will be mine.”
The dragon’s eye narrowed.
She raised her hands, feeling the old words on her tongue. “Dohaerās… obey…”
For a moment, just one agonising heartbeat, it stilled.
It didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Just watched her. No, she realised that it was staring at her bracelet, not at her.
She barely had enough time to react as the dragon opened its maw, and a faint green glow illuminated the cavern. She knew exactly what that meant and threw herself to the side, rolling against the stone as heat scorched the edge of her cloak. The tunnel roared with the sound of fire, and she ran, scrambling, half-crawling, desperate.
Rhaena didn’t know if it was the fear or an act of the gods, but she was able to leave the cavern. She was so grateful to escape that she hadn’t noticed a loose stone and slipped, falling onto the rocks and tumbling down the narrow slope, skin scraping, lungs burning.
A part of her wanted to stay there for a while, and yet she felt her bracelet warm slightly, followed by a loud shriek. She limped up and saw the familiar form of the Cannibal fly down towards her.
Despite the agony she felt in her legs, Rhaena limped away, with tears in her eyes. The desperation clouded her judgment. She didn’t know how she could escape in the first place. Even uninjured, she wouldn’t be able to go to Dragonstone in time to get help, and even if she did, how could they help her? Even her father was wary of the Cannibal after all.
Why was it so focused on her?
The Cannibal rarely hunted people. He killed them if they got close, of course, but he rarely actively followed them.
And yet, that was exactly what the wild dragon was doing. Rhaena did her best to hide, to stay in narrow paths to avoid being seen, and yet the Cannibal simply wouldn’t let her. She was almost at the beach now. Perhaps someone could see and alert her father, or maybe she could hide underwater. She knew how to swim. Her mother was a Velaryon after all. She knew that her plans were foolish, but what else could she do against a dragon?
Speaking of the dragon, she couldn’t find it anywhere, even near the Dragonmont. Had she lost it? Had it finally given up?
Laughter bubbled in her throat at how close it was, until she heard a loud roar behind her.
Clouded in the darkness of the night, the Cannibal descended like a shadow made flesh. His wings barely made a sound as they cut through the air, but Rhaena felt the pressure of them—heavy, suffocating, ancient. The sand lashed at her face, and her cloak twisted around her legs as she stumbled forward.
But her legs gave out.
She hit the ground hard, knees scraping stone and sea-grit, her breath knocked out of her lungs. Her arms barely caught her, trembling, weak, bloodied. The air was thick with heat, and she turned over with effort, staring up at the monster above her.
The Cannibal was hovering above her, batting its wings with such strength that Rhaena felt the sand thrown by its wind give her a few cuts.
And yet the young girl didn’t move. She didn’t scream. She didn’t flinch.
She knew that it was useless, that there was nothing she could do.
Her father was right. She had been foolish to try to tame a wild dragon alone, and now she would pay the price of that decision.
She stared at the dragon’s maw as it opened, the green light illuminating the beach. The glow was brighter this time, beautiful in a way.
Rhaena’s mouth opened, but no words came. Just breathe. Just fear.
And then, for the first time in what felt like forever, she thought of her mother’s face. Laughing. Brushing her hair behind her ear. Whispering High Valyrian lullabies in the warm sun of Pentos.
Baela would miss her.
She hoped her father would, too.
Then the green flames came.
Rhaena wanted to be brave, but she even failed with that. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the heat and the pain, only for nothing to happen.
Confused, she looked up, and saw a gigantic glowing circle with dozens of weird symbols that she had never seen before, and somehow, it was holding back the flames.
She had never seen anything like it before, and yet, as the jet of green flames continued, the circle kept protecting her, even as the ground behind her started to melt from the heat.
A familiar voice spoke up, “Are you out of your mind, kid?”
Harry Potter stood there, in the same clothes he wore during his visit to the castle in the morning, yet he felt more. She didn’t know how to explain it. He looked very different from the carefree, yet somewhat silly man who gave them gifts. For one, he looked more intense, more hardened, perhaps there were some truths in his wife’s words about him being a warrior once.
If Rhaena had to describe it, it would be that he seemed more than a simple man. Was that why her father was so wary of him? Did he know anything about this?
Rhaena wanted to say something, but sound refused to leave her mouth. The man’s eyes softened, “We’ll talk later. “
She had been so preoccupied with Lord Harry’s arrival, and whatever magic he used, that she hadn’t noticed that the Cannibal’s dragon fire had stopped. The glowing circle disappeared, and her saviour walked forward towards the dragon, completely unafraid.
It might have been her imagination, but the Cannibal seemed to hesitate for a moment as he met the man’s eyes. However, he still opened his maw once more, only for a bolt of lightning to appear from the heavens and strike the dragon’s wings. The beast screeched and fell on the beach during the attack.
Harry Potter walked towards the dragon, calmly, and the dragon seemed to do its best to get away, before it leapt into the air, and awkwardly flew back to the Dragonmont.
She couldn’t help but breathe out, “What are you?”
“I’m just a man, like many others.”
“Men do not make dragons flee in fear,” she answered back dryly.
“Perhaps I might be a bit different from other men,” he replied with the familiar mischievous tone in his voice. “With that unpleasantness taken care of, now, let’s get you healed up before anything gets infected. Then, I suppose you’ll have a lot to explain, young lady.”
Rhaena couldn’t help but gulp, feeling like facing the Cannibal again would probably be easier than what was coming.
AN: That was surprisingly hard to write. I know that some of you won’t like that Harry spared the Cannibal, but I found no reason for him to do so. It will be explained in the next chapter, alongside the bracelet's properties. As usual, I don’t mind rewriting this depending on your feedback, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
Comments
Chris Cyrus
Cannibal did nothing wrong😤
Marius Petrauskas
nice
Łukasz Astriusz
All cruelty springs from weakness - in the most literal meaning, I think it fits Harry, as he is in a position of unquestionable.
omiguh
Good chapter, i think my only complaint would be…why wasn’t the chapter longer lol
