The first time Viserys Targaryen saw Sirius attempt a true skinchanger's lesson, he nearly yawned.
That surprised him, because almost everything in Narnia had managed to surprise him so far. The dragon, the schools, the city of Telmar, the easy way even common men spoke in the presence of nobles, the strange gods, the weirwoods, the absolute certainty with which Harry Gryffindor seemed to move through the world—it had all unsettled and fascinated him in equal measure. Yet this lesson, at first glance, looked almost disappointingly still.
They stood at the edge of a broad training field just below Gryffindor Castle, where the hill sloped down into open grass and sparse pine. The morning air was clean enough to sting the lungs, and far below the city of Telmar was only beginning to wake, its street lamps recently extinguished and its rooftops touched by pale light. Harry had allowed Viserys and Daenerys to watch, though from what he had said, that was less a privilege and more an opportunity to learn without interrupting.
Sirius stood in the middle of the field with his dark cloak discarded and his boots planted firmly in the grass. A grey dove had been released some distance away and now pecked idly near a wooden post, unconcerned with anything but seeds and the cold. Near Sirius stood the man who was to guide him—Varamyr Sixskins.
Viserys had heard the name already whispered more than once in the castle. Not because the man held an office, or because he was noble, or because he commanded men in war, but because he was dangerous in a way few people properly understood.
Varamyr was not physically imposing. He was lean, weathered, and broad only through the shoulders, with a beard already touched by white and eyes that rarely seemed to settle entirely on the world in front of him. There was something watchful about him, something divided, as though part of him always listened to another place. He wore no armor, only layered furs and dark leather, and he spoke with the quiet patience of someone used to teaching difficult things to impatient people.
"Again," Varamyr said.
Sirius exhaled sharply. "I was close."
"You were eager," Varamyr corrected. "That is not the same thing."
Daenerys, who stood beside Viserys with her hands tucked inside her sleeves against the chill, looked fascinated already.
"What is he doing wrong?" she whispered.
Viserys shrugged. "Standing in a field staring at a bird."
Daenerys gave him an annoyed look. "That's not all."
Viserys almost said that, from where he stood, it truly was all. Sirius closed his eyes, the bird pecked at the ground, and Varamyr occasionally muttered something about control, invitation, or will. It seemed less like training and more like a man attempting to fall asleep upright.
Then Sirius opened one eye and looked over at them.
"You two are whispering too loudly."
Daenerys immediately smiled. "I'm trying to understand."
Viserys crossed his arms. "I'm trying not to freeze."
Sirius laughed once and rolled his shoulders. He looked tired, though. That much was obvious. There was tension around his eyes and a hollowness in the face that Viserys had begun to recognize whenever Sirius trained magic too hard.
Varamyr did not smile. "If you have enough strength to complain, you have enough strength to continue."
Sirius groaned. "You're enjoying this."
"No," Varamyr said flatly. "I enjoy competence. Continue."
The dove lifted briefly, fluttered to another patch of ground, and settled there.
Varamyr pointed toward it. "Stop trying to seize it. You do not storm into a mind. You enter it."
"It's a bird," Sirius muttered.
Varamyr's expression did not change. "And you are a boy. Yet both of you object when handled roughly."
Daenerys laughed, and even Viserys smirked.
Sirius muttered something under his breath and closed his eyes again.
Varamyr began speaking in that steady, even tone that forced attention.
"You do not overwrite. You align. You do not become lost in the beat of wings or the hunger for seed. You remain yourself and invite the creature to feel you. A weak skinchanger reaches and clutches. A strong one lets the bond form before the command ever comes."
Viserys listened despite himself.
He still found the whole thing odd. Dragons made sense. A man rode a beast. A king commanded armies. A sword cut flesh. These were comprehensible powers. But this? A person entering an animal's mind and making use of its body? It sounded too subtle to be real. Too strange to be practical.
Sirius stood completely still.
The dove stopped pecking.
Its head lifted.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the bird flapped once, twice, and flew in an uneven circle through the air.
Daenerys leaned forward. "He did it."
Varamyr did not react. "Hold it."
The bird wobbled once and then made another circle, broader this time. Sirius's face tightened with concentration, his breathing shallower now. Sweat had broken across his brow despite the cold.
Viserys frowned slightly.
The dove dipped lower, then rose again.
"Not too much," Varamyr said. "Do not force the wingbeat. Feel it."
The bird suddenly veered.
Instead of circling the field, it swept toward Daenerys, startling her into a small gasp as it passed over her head once, then twice, close enough that the air from its wings brushed her hair.
Then Sirius staggered.
The dove shot upward wildly and escaped the lesson entirely, disappearing beyond the pines.
Sirius went to one knee, catching himself on one hand.
Daenerys hurried forward at once. "Are you alright?"
Viserys followed more slowly, more curious now than detached.
Sirius laughed weakly without looking up. "That was better."
Varamyr crouched beside him, not helping him rise, merely observing. "That was uncontrolled. Better than before. Still uncontrolled."
"I kept it longer."
"You also sent it toward the princess."
Daenerys folded her arms. "I don't mind."
Varamyr gave her a brief look. "That is because you do not understand what happens when a skinchanger loses his grip inside the wrong creature."
Sirius pushed himself upright again and looked toward Viserys, who still seemed skeptical.
"Still boring?" Sirius asked.
Viserys hesitated. "Slightly less."
That made Sirius grin, though he looked exhausted.
Varamyr rose. "Rest a moment. Then again."
Sirius groaned. "Again?"
Varamyr's answer was immediate. "Yes."
Viserys stared at him. "How many times does he do this?"
"Until he improves," Varamyr said.
"That's not an answer."
Varamyr finally looked at him directly, and there was something sharp in his gaze now.
"Then learn to ask better questions."
Daenerys covered a smile with one hand.
Sirius sat back on the grass, stretching his fingers. "You think it's useless."
Viserys shrugged. "Not useless. Just… less impressive than dragon-riding."
Sirius laughed once, then looked at him properly.
"You really think so?"
Viserys lifted his chin. "Flying on a dragon is power everyone can see."
"And skinchanging isn't?" Sirius asked.
He rose to his feet again, slower this time, and began pacing as he spoke, the tiredness in him sharpened by something more animated.
"I could sit outside the Red Keep and know what happened in every hall without setting foot inside it. I could be a rat in a corner hearing your council whisper treason. I could be a crow on a tower watching guards change at midnight. I could know who enters a room, who leaves it, who lies, who hides, who plots."
Viserys's expression shifted slightly.
Sirius saw it and pressed harder.
"You think this is less than dragon-riding because it doesn't roar," he said. "But dragons frighten people from the sky. A skinchanger can live outside your walls and still know everything you do."
Daenerys had gone very still.
Sirius kept speaking, and the more he did, the less it sounded like boasting and the more it sounded like truth.
"I could put poison in food through animals if I wished. I could send birds to watch every road to your castle. I could cross a city without anyone seeing me because I wouldn't need my own feet. And if I'm good enough one day, I won't only ride beasts—I'll be them."
Viserys let out a slow breath.
Not because he was convinced. Because he was beginning to understand.
Sirius pointed toward the sky where the dove had vanished.
"I can fly as a bird. Not like a man on a dragon. I mean really fly. Feel the wings. Feel the air. Feel the whole world open beneath you."
For the first time since the lesson began, Viserys felt something close to unease.
Because suddenly this did not seem like a lesser magic.
It seemed like a hidden one.
A power made for secrets.
He glanced at Varamyr.
"You have people like him in Westeros already," Viserys said slowly.
It was not a question.
Varamyr said nothing.
Harry, who had been watching from farther off with Lyanna, answered instead as he approached.
"We have many kinds of eyes in many places," he said.
Viserys looked at him sharply.
"So when councils speak in Westeros…"
Harry's mouth curved slightly. "They should choose their walls carefully."
Daenerys looked half thrilled, half alarmed. "That's terrifying."
"It's useful," Lyanna said.
Varamyr gave a low grunt. "Useful and terrifying are often close kin."
Sirius smirked at that, then winced slightly and pressed a hand to his temple.
Harry noticed immediately. "Enough for now."
Varamyr did not argue. "He pushed well."
"That doesn't mean he needs to collapse."
Sirius protested weakly, "I'm not collapsing."
Daenerys gave him a pointed look. "You were on the ground."
"That was dramatic effect."
Viserys surprised himself by laughing.
They moved toward the edge of the field where wooden practice weapons lay stacked beneath an open shelter. Sirius had barely caught his breath before reaching for one of the training blades.
Viserys frowned. "You're doing more?"
"Of course," Sirius said.
"You just nearly fainted."
Sirius rolled his shoulder. "That was mind-work. This is body-work."
Varamyr, already stepping away, muttered, "And foolishness is both."
Harry ignored that. "Half an hour only."
Sirius brightened immediately. "That's enough."
Viserys watched as one of the instructors from the castle guard came forward. This was no soft southern knight in polished plate. He was broad, scarred, and moved with frightening speed for a man his size. Sirius took his place opposite him with the ease of someone accustomed to discipline.
Then the lesson began.
Viserys had seen knights train in King's Landing. He had watched squires become battered men under Ser Barristan's stern eye. He had seen the Kingsguard spar. But this was different in flavor.
The Narnian style was brutal.
Every strike had purpose. Every movement seemed to assume the opponent meant to kill you. Sirius, though younger and smaller, moved with startling quickness. He lost exchanges often, but never the same way twice. Every failure turned into immediate adaptation.
The instructor swung low; Sirius caught it, twisted, failed to counter, adjusted his footing the next time. A feint to the shoulder made him overreact once; it did not work again. By the end of the first ten minutes, sweat had soaked his tunic and his breathing was ragged, yet he was still smiling.
Viserys stared.
"He does this every day?"
"Every day," Harry said.
"Even after magic?"
"Especially after magic," Lyanna replied. "Power without discipline rots."
Daenerys sat on the fence rail nearby, watching with delight every time Sirius landed a clean strike and wincing every time he got thrown to the ground.
Viserys kept his eyes on the training field.
He thought of himself in the Red Keep, dressed well, taught history, taught lineages, taught how to be looked at.
Then he thought of Sirius—flying dragons, learning to steal the eyes of birds, laughing while being beaten into competence with a wooden sword.
And for the first time in his life, Viserys Targaryen felt something sharp and clear settle in his chest.
Not jealousy.
Not exactly.
He wanted this.
Not Sirius's life, perhaps. Not entirely.
But he wanted weight in his limbs and certainty in his hands. He wanted to be more than a prince who had inherited memories of greatness. He wanted the kind of strength that made others take you seriously even when you were silent.
Sirius took another hard knock and hit the ground with a grunt.
The instructor stepped back.
"Again."
Sirius scrambled up immediately.
Viserys took a step forward before he realized he had moved.
Harry noticed.
"Something on your mind?"
Viserys looked at the weapons. At Sirius. At the instructor.
Then he said, more quietly than he intended, "I want to learn too."
No one laughed.
Harry studied him for a moment. "Magic or fighting?"
Viserys's answer came quickly.
"Both, if I can."
Lyanna's expression did not soften, but there was approval in it.
Harry nodded once. "Then you'll work."
Viserys straightened. "I'm not afraid of work."
Varamyr, from farther off, called back without turning, "Good. Fear won't help you when I start with ravens."
Daenerys laughed. Sirius, hearing only enough to guess the meaning, looked over and grinned despite his exhaustion.
Viserys looked back at the field, at the city below, at the strange kingdom where children studied together, and men learned to become birds.
He had arrived uncertain of his place.
Now, for the first time, he had the beginning of one.
Author's Note:
Enjoying the story?
Consider joining my Pat*reon to get early access to more chapters and exclusive fanfictions! Even as a free member you will get one extra chapter and you'll receive early access to chapters before they're posted elsewhere and various other fanfictions.Your support helps me create more content for you to enjoy!
Join here: Patre*on(dot)com(slash)Beuwulf