After another day of waiting, and before Oberyn had to pull some other stunt to meet Rhaenys Targaryen, he was finally summoned to her. Since it would be his first time meeting her, Oberyn decided to go alone. He felt it was far better and suitable if he discussed a few things alone with her. Arianne would have to wait for her turn, that was, if she ever got one.
"How was your stay in Qohor, Lord Martell?" The man leading Oberyn to Rhaenys, questioned.
It was the same man who had guided Oberyn on his first day in Qohor, helping him get familiar with the city and Blacksmith Street and settle into the inn.
"It was fun," Oberyn replied with an amused smile. "I quite enjoyed myself rummaging and roaming through the streets. They are different. Unique in their own way. I doubt there is anything like this anywhere else."
"You are wrong, Lord Oberyn," the man said, shaking his head. "Lord Aeos."
Oberyn did not immediately catch the meaning, and the man continued.
"The streets of the cities Lord Aeos rules or even the entire cities themselves are as clean and beautiful as Qohor, if not better," he said. "Lady Rhaenys says that she has been inspired by him to carry out all these works in her city."
Oberyn narrowed his eyes and did not respond immediately. He, too, had heard about Lord Aeos's cities and the development work he had done there, but he had not expected this man to admit it so frankly. In a way, Rhaenys and Lord Aeos were rivals. Both were rulers of their own territories and if both of them continued their expansionist policies, they were bound to come into conflict sooner or later.
"What do you think is Lady Rhaenys's plan going forward?" Oberyn asked. "Do you think she is going to conquer a few more cities just like she conquered Qohor?"
The man shrugged his shoulders, a nonchalant expression on his face.
"You are asking this question to the wrong person," he said. "You might think of me as someone important, but I am not important enough to know such things."
"But," he continued, cutting off whatever response Oberyn was preparing, "if I were to give my personal opinion..."
He took a pause before continuing.
"I would say that it would not be long before Lady Rhaenys has one or two more cities under her rule," he said.
Oberyn narrowed his eyes. He could feel that the man was speaking the truth and it had not exactly surprised him.
"And it is not that she would have to make much effort to capture them," he added. "She just needs to get on her dragons and that is all, I guess. I doubt there are many cities willing to risk the ire of her dragons."
"You have seen them, have you not?" he asked.
Oberyn could only nod his head. He had seen them. And he remembered all of it quite vividly. Real dragons. In flesh and blood. Something he had never thought that he would see in his life.
Every day, at least once, all her dragons would fly across the city with their ear shattering roars, which would send shockwaves through the entire city. People of the city had gotten used to it, but even after three consecutive days of witnessing them, Oberyn had not.
He remembered quite clearly the first time he had seen them. All five of them at once.
They were larger than anything he had ever seen, especially the largest of them. It was massive, and its mere presence had terrified him. A sensation he had never felt before had been induced in his body.
And from the rumours that Oberyn had picked up, he had learned that the dragons were still growing in size. Compared to when they had first arrived at Qohor, they had grown much larger.
Seeing those dragons in flesh and blood, Oberyn realized why everyone had felt small before the Targaryens. He did agree with the man. There were not a lot of people who would be willing to go against beasts of such power. It was, most probably, as simple as that for Rhaenys to conquer new cities, as the man had claimed.
Oberyn was not really afraid. He had been initially, but he had been able to recover from it very soon.
He belonged to one of those rare places that could claim to have killed a dragon. But he also understood reality.
If it was one dragon or two, there was a chance of a struggle. There was hope that a scorpion bolt could find its target. But against five? Oberyn doubted that there was a force in this world that could contend against five dragons. There was no way around it.
But if there was one opponent who could pull off a surprise, it was Lord Aeos. Given how he had fought all his battles, he was the one man you could expect to come up with some method to deal with a dragon.
"Your queen seems quite inspired by Lord Aeos," Oberyn remarked. "And here I was thinking that they would soon battle it out for supremacy in Essos."
At this remark, for the first time, the man's steps slowed a bit, but he resumed his pace in an instant.
"I do not think that is necessary," he responded. "Maybe we can come to some terms. For now, he is in the south of Essos and Lady Rhaenys is in the north of Essos. Maybe they will never collide."
"Maybe…" Oberyn remarked, offering no further comment.
"But," the man added, confidence ringing in his voice, "if a day comes that both of them have to battle it out, I do not think even Lord Aeos would be able to stop the fury and carnage of Lady Rhaenys's dragons."
"We will emerge victorious," he added.
Oberyn nodded his head. Although he had a few doubts, more or less, he agreed with the sentiment.
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