"Raaahhhhhhggggggg!!!" Arthur made a noise so incoherent it could barely be described as being human. His tongue had swollen so badly that it filled his mouth, pushing against his teeth, while his lips were cracked open in several places and stuck together with dried blood that tore when he forced them apart.
He tried to lift his head off the sand, but the pain that shot up from his stomach was worse than anything he remembered ever feeling, locking every muscle in his body at once, his back arching against the sand behind him while the air left his lungs in a wet rattle.
"RRRAAAGH... fuck, FUCK, gods damn it... ghhh... fucking Maelys, you bastard, you fucking BASTARD... hhhrrggh..."
The words tore out of a throat so dry that every one of them felt like it was dragging sand up with it. He looked down at his stomach, which was the only movement he could manage, expecting to see the dark rippled steel of Blackfyre standing out of him the way it had when he fell.
The sword was gone.
All that was left was the hole it had made, a wide dark gash just above his belt. The gambeson around it had gone stiff, the blood dried so hard into the fabric that it cracked whenever his stomach rose.
'Someone was here... someone pulled the sword out and left me...'
A sweet rotten smell came from the wound. A dozen black flies walked slowly across the dried blood before lifting off and landing again on the edge of the cloth.
"Get off... ghh... get the fuck off me..." He tried to swat at them, but his arm only twitched, so he gritted his teeth and pushed against the sand with his elbow until the pain drove him down again. "HRRAAAGH... gods... water... RICKARD... LLEWYN... DUNCAN, I'm here, I'm on the fucking... hhhrrgh..."
His voice broke into a cough, which brought up more blood, running from the corner of his mouth into the sand under his cheek.
The tide line was a few feet from his boots. He could see the dark wet band where the water reached, then the dry band above it.
'How long have I been lying here...'
Though he couldn't think of it for long, as any thought he had kept slipping under the pain, until he bit down on his split lip hard enough to taste fresh blood.
Though eventually he managed to remember what had happened before he woke up.
"Shit... I remember... Thirty years... he took thirty fucking years..." He spat red into the sand and set his jaw. "... I'm still here, you pale bastard, I'm still fucking HERE..."
He set his palms in the sand and pushed, refusing to lie there any longer, getting his shoulder an inch off the ground before the wound in his stomach tore open and blood ran down his side.
"GHHAAAAAAARRRRGH...
But that's when it got worse.
That's when his eyes started to burn.
It started as heat behind them, then grew until it felt as if someone was holding hot iron against the backs of his eyeballs, his vision flooding red at the edges while something wet ran down both his cheeks. He screwed his eyes shut, which made it worse, the burning pushing outward until he had to open them again just to make it stop.
When he opened them, the beach was different.
He could see every grain of sand in front of his face, each one separate, the black ones and the grey ones and the few white flecks of broken shell mixed among them, so clear that he could have counted them. The fly on the edge of the cloth was lifting off again, but it was moving slowly, so slowly that he watched its wings beat one stroke at a time.
He lifted his gaze to the sky, where a gull was crossing over above him. He could see the separate feathers along the edges of its wings, the bend of each one as it caught the wind, the turn of its head as it looked down at the beach.
'What the fuck is happening to me...'
He blinked, and the red at the edges of his sight pulsed again. When he lifted a shaking hand to his face, his fingers came away wet with blood running from his eyes like tears.
The burning eventually faded slowly to a dull throb, though the improved vision stayed. As he lay there struggling to breathe a notification eventually popped up.
────────────────────
[QUEST COMPLETED]
────────────────────
THE DRAGON'S SEAT
────────────────────
Objectives:
✓ Infiltrate Dragonstone
✓ Open the main gate for the assault force
✓ Capture Dragonstone
────────────────────
Rewards:
• 5,000 XP
• Otherworld Token
• [Book] Valyrian Compendium of Draughts and Distillations
────────────────────
The window had barely settled before a second chime sounded.
────────────────────
[QUEST COMPLETED]
────────────────────
THE BLACK DRAGON
────────────────────
Objectives:
✓ Slay the enemy commander
✗ Slay the dragon
Optional Objective:
✓ Tame the dragon
────────────────────
Rewards:
• 5,000 XP
• Otherworld Token (Legendary)
Optional Reward:
• Fragment of Excalibur
────────────────────
A third chime followed straight after.
────────────────────
[LEVEL UP]
────────────────────
Level 10 → Level 12
Automatic stat growth (Knight class):
• Strength +4 → 32
• Dexterity +2 → 20
• Constitution +4 → 32
Unallocated stat points gained: +6
────────────────────
Arthur read both windows while his breath whistled in and out through his cracked lips.
"Now," he rasped, something close to a laugh grinding out of his chest before it turned into a cough. "Now you fucking show up... ghhh..."
The notification drifted away as his vision started to darken and he felt himself being pulled under.
'NO!'
He bit down on his tongue.
He bit hard enough that his teeth went into the swollen flesh, the new pain cutting through the fog while fresh blood filled his mouth, and the beach came back into focus around him.
'If I go under now I'm not coming back up.'
There was no maester on this beach, no milk of the poppy, no Hamon left in him to slow the bleeding, nothing in his body that could close a hole that size. Whatever was going to save him had to come from the two tokens sitting in his inventory, or nothing would.
He spat blood into the sand and pulled up the Legendary token first, holding it there in his mind while he tried to control his breathing.
"Seven... Father, Mother, Warrior, whoever's fucking listening..." His voice came out as a rasp. "I've never asked you for anything... I'm asking now... give me something that keeps me breathing..."
He used it.
────────────────────
[OTHERWORLD TOKEN (LEGENDARY) CONSUMED]
────────────────────
[MYTHIC ITEM ACQUIRED: THE ONE RING]
────────────────────
Description:
A plain band of gold, unmarked to the eye, warm to the touch even in the coldest dark. It was forged in fire for a purpose, and it remembers that purpose still. Those who wear it are seen less and see more. Its true nature reveals itself only to a will strong enough to master it.
It does not wish to be lost.
It does not wish to be forgotten.
────────────────────
Arthur read it twice while his vision swam at the edges, looking for anything in those lines that said heal or mend or close the fucking hole in his stomach, and found nothing.
"Fuck," he said.
He let his head drop back against the sand. A ring that wanted to rule something was no use to a man who would be dead before the next tide came in. He bit his tongue again, harder this time, then dragged a long breath in through his teeth before letting it out slowly.
He did not ask the gods this time.
"You," he said, his eyes fixed on the empty grey sky above him. "Whoever pulled me out of my old life and dropped me in a pigsty in Harrowfield. I know you're there. You've been there the whole fucking time, watching, handing out your little rewards like scraps to a dog." He coughed red and kept going. "So listen to me. If I die on this beach, it's over. No more quests. No more fights. No more anything. Your show ends right. Is that what you want? Is it? Because if it isn't, you'd better give me something that fucking works."
He used the second token.
────────────────────
[OTHERWORLD TOKEN CONSUMED]
────────────────────
[ITEM ACQUIRED: SENZU BEAN]
────────────────────
Description:
A small green bean grown in a place far above the clouds. Eating one restores the body completely, healing all wounds and replenishing all stamina. Hunger is satisfied for ten days.
Single use.
────────────────────
Arthur stared at the window.
A sound came up out of his chest that was half a laugh and half a groan, his eyes stinging as he read the line about healing all wounds a third time to make sure he had not imagined it.
"Yes... yes, you bastards... yes..."
He pulled the bean from his inventory with a thought. It appeared in his right hand where he curled his fingers around it before it could roll away into the sand.
Getting it to his mouth was the hardest thing he had ever done. His arm would not lift, the muscles shaking so badly that his hand jerked across the sand instead of rising, so he dragged it, pulling his elbow in toward his body one inch at a time while the hole in his stomach screamed at every movement. He got his hand as far as his chin before his arm gave out completely. He turned his head instead, pressing his face down against his own fist until the bean was against his lips, then pushed it into his mouth with his tongue.
He bit down.
It tasted of nothing, dry and a little bitter, crumbling between his teeth as he forced it down past his swollen tongue.
For a moment nothing happened.
...
...
For a moment Arthur froze as he wondered if it was all a lie.
...
Then heat poured outward from his stomach, spreading through his body faster than any Hamon he had ever channelled, running down his arms into his fingers and down his legs into his feet. The hole above his belt went numb, then itched, then burned. He felt the flesh around the wound pulling together, the cloth packed into it pushing slowly out as the meat beneath closed up behind it.
His broken nose shifted back into place with a crack.
His cheekbone knitted.
The swelling in his tongue went down.
The cuts on his shoulder and chest closed.
His throat stopped burning.
The ache in his ribs where Maelys had kicked him faded until there was nothing left of it at all.
Then... the pain was gone.
All of it.
Arthur lay on his back staring at the sky, too stunned to move, before he pushed himself up onto his elbows, then sat up fully, he pulled the gambeson up with both hands to look at his stomach. The skin above his belt was smooth and pale where the wound had been, with nothing left of the hole Blackfyre had made except the dried blood crusted around it.
He touched it, pressing his fingers into his stomach hard enough that it should have hurt but it did not.
He ran his hands over his face, his nose, his jaw, his ribs, his shoulder, then got to his feet, nearly falling over because he had pushed up with far more strength than he needed, staggering a few steps across the sand before catching his balance.
He stood there on the beach, looking down at his own hands.
'It's real... it's actually real...'
He started to laugh.
It came up from somewhere deep in his chest, loud and rough, and he could not stop it. He walked further down the beach with his back to the rest of the island, laughing up at the grey sky with his arms spread wide, the wind off the sea brushing against his bare stomach where his gambeson hung open.
"I'M ALIVE!" he roared at the clouds. "YOU HEAR ME, MAELYS? YOU HEAR ME, YOU PALE FREAK? I'M STILL FUCKING ALIVE!"
He threw back his head and laughed again, then kicked a spray of black sand into the air, watching every grain of it scatter in the wind with those new eyes.
A deep rumble sounded behind him.
The sand under his boots shook and Arthur stopped laughing, turned around, and every bit of warmth left his body at once.
There was a fucking dragon getting up.
'How did I forget about that!!!'
It rose off its belly slowly, its front wings straightening first, then its back legs, lifting its huge black body off the sand until its shoulders stood higher than the walls of Camelot's gatehouse. Its torn wings shifted against its sides. Its long neck lifted off the sand, swinging its head around until those amethyst eyes were looking straight down at him.
"Oh fuck," Arthur said.
He stepped back, caught his heel in the sand, and fell flat on his arse.
He scrambled backward on his hands without taking his eyes off it, his heart hammering against his ribs, while his mind raced.
The dragon lowered its head.
It came down toward him slowly, close enough that he could feel the heat coming off its scales and the hot wind of its breath against his face.
It did not open its mouth.
It stopped a few feet from him and stayed there slowly watching him.
Arthur did not move for a long time and the dragon didn't move either.
Then, very carefully, he got his feet under him and stood up. The dragon's head rose with him, keeping level with his face, its eye following him.
He lifted one hand though it was shaking terribly. He held it out in front of him and stepped forward, then stepped again, until his palm was resting against the scales between its nostrils.
They were warm.
The dragon breathed out through its nose, a long breath that ruffled his hair, then pushed its snout forward against his hand, pressing into it the same way Quiet did when she wanted her neck scratched.
Arthur stared at it.
"You're not going to eat me," he said quietly.
The dragon rumbled and he felt it through his palm.
He moved his hand slowly along the side of its face, over the ridges of scale above its eye, and it closed that eye and leaned its head into his touch, its whole body settling lower onto the sand.
'Tamed the dragon...'
The words from the quest window came back to him, along with the tick beside them, and Arthur understood what he was looking at.
"You're mine," he said. "Gods help me. You're actually mine."
The dragon opened its eye and looked at him.
The grin started to spread across his face stopped halfway there.
He thought of the king, who had told him in the throne room about his dreams of a black dragon burning his family. He thought of Jaehaerys and Shaera, who believed dragons belonged to the blood of Old Valyria and nobody else, and of Aerys he knew would eventually go mad. He thought of the High Septon, who already preached against him for having two wives. He thought of what the realm would say when it learned that a lord with no Targaryen name, an upstart farmer from the crownlands, had walked off this beach with the only dragon in the world.
He thought of Holden who would want this dragon back.
Arthur kept his hand on the dragon's face and looked out across the water toward the black walls of Dragonstone.
"Fuck," he said again, much more quietly.
Arthur let out a long breath and sat down in the sand, resting his forearms on his knees while he looked down at the dried blood crusted across his stomach.
'How long was I lying there...'
It could not have been that long. If it had been more than a few days the crabs and the gulls would have been at him, or the tide would have come up far enough to drag him into the sea, but his body had still been lying exactly where he fell when he woke up.
Someone had come, though. Someone had walked across this beach and pulled Blackfyre out of his stomach before leaving again.
'Why would they leave me here if I was still alive!?'
The dragon made a sound behind him, something between a rumble and a sigh, before lowering its head onto the sand beside him with a heavy thump that he felt through the ground. Arthur reached over to rest his hand on its snout without thinking about it.
He looked out across the water as he sat there, which was when he noticed how far he could see.
The walls of Dragonstone were a quarter of a mile away across the strait, yet he could make out the individual stones in the battlements, the streaks where fire had scorched the walls, even the tiny figures of men walking along the wall walk with spears on their shoulders.
Out on the water a piece of charred timber was floating past the island, close enough that he could see the nail heads still sticking out of it and the pale wood showing through where the char had flaked away.
'What the fuck did that to my eyes...'
He brought up his status.
────────────────────
STATUS MENU
────────────────────
Name: Arthur Pendragon
Class: Lord
Heritage: Valyrian / Stormlands
Age: 20
Level: 12
Unallocated Stat Points: 6
Title(s): Fledgling Hero
────────────────────
COMBAT ATTRIBUTES
────────────────────
Strength: 32
Dexterity: 20
Constitution: 32 (+45%)
Intelligence: 8
Perception: 9
Luck: 8
Magic: 9
────────────────────
TRAITS
────────────────────
[Comely]
You've got the kind of face that gets you smiled at, flirted with, and forgiven for things you probably should not be.
[Sword Prodigy]
You wield a blade like it belongs in your hand—faster learning speed, tighter reflexes, and better execution with swords.
[Sharp Ears]
Your hearing is unnaturally acute. You can detect faint sounds, whispers, and movement even from across the room.
[Blood of the Dragon]
The blood of Old Valyria burns within you. Magic coils in your veins like flame beneath skin. Grants access to the Magic stat, increased dragon affinity, and heightened emotional intensity when protecting what is yours.
[Dragon Dreams]
Your dreams carry meaning. They may reveal warnings, truths, or omens. Whether they are blessings or curses remains uncertain.
[Dexterous]
Your hands and fingers are exceptionally nimble. Tasks requiring precision, balance, and control are performed with greater ease.
[Gift]
You may transfer one trait or skill to another individual. The recipient gains a weaker version. The trait or skill is permanently removed from you.
[Inventive Genius]
You instinctively imagine, design, and improve tools and mechanisms beyond your era's understanding.
[Demon Back]
When pushed beyond natural limits, your musculature synchronizes for explosive power. Strength temporarily exceeds normal human thresholds. Overuse strains the body and increases aggression.
[Linguist]
You instinctively understand any spoken language and learn magical or ancient ones with unusual ease.
[Arcane Script]
You can read any written language, rune, or magical script.
[The Shining]
You sense emotional and psychic impressions left on people, places, and objects. May induce out-of-body awareness in moments of extreme trauma or magical proximity.
[Ambidextrous]
No penalty for using either hand.
[Hyper Mobility]
Enhanced joint flexibility and range of motion.
[The World] (Stand not incl.)
You may momentarily freeze time.
Current Limit: 4.5 seconds.
Duration and frequency scale with Magic (+0.5 seconds per point).
Frequent use causes extreme exhaustion.
[Uchiha Bloodline]
Exceptional talent for unarmed martial arts and throwing weapons. Heightened reflexes and visual acuity.
└─ [Sharingan] (AWAKENED — 1 Tomoe)
Your eyes perceive motion, detail, and movement far beyond human limits. Fast movement appears slowed, and the smallest details become clear. Prolonged use strains the eyes and may cause bleeding. Further stages unlock through growth, trauma, or breakthrough.
────────────────────
BLOODLINE TRAITS — HOUSE PENDRAGON
────────────────────
[Dragonheart]
Powerful inner will. Resistance to fear, torture, intimidation, mind control, and despair. Continues fighting long after others would collapse.
[Crown of Command]
Ancient kingly aura. Soldiers fight harder under your command, nobles defer more easily, smallfolk trust by instinct. People believe you were born to rule.
[Blood of Avalon]
Connection to old magic, sacred kingship, and the hidden power of the land. Resonates with enchanted weapons, ancient relics, and places of spiritual importance. Greater likelihood of awakening magic tied to light, healing, protection, fate, and prophecy.
────────────────────
MYTHIC TRAIT
────────────────────
[Genesis]
You no longer merely construct. You author. Converts stored energy into matter with vastly improved efficiency. Complexity penalties substantially reduced. Objects possessing intrinsic magical properties may now be created, provided comprehension requirements are met. Living matter remains beyond your reach.
└─ [Revelation] (Sub-ability)
By placing your hands upon an object and focusing your will, you perceive its complete structure, composition, and method of creation. Knowledge obtained is permanent and immediately satisfies the comprehension requirement for Genesis.
────────────────────
SKILLS
────────────────────
[Observe]
[Carpentry] (12/100) (Journeyman)
[Conditioning] (74/100)
└─ Recovery (Sub-skill)
└─ +45% Constitution
[Novocaine] (85/100)
[Cooking] (75/100) (Expert)
[Tracker] (22/100) (Legendary)
[Axe Mastery] (52/100) (Novice)
[Carnal Knowledge] (45/100) (Expert)
[Shibukawa-ryū Jujutsu] (93/100) (Apprentice)
[Lumbering] (58/100) (Journeyman)
[Falling Star Style] (31/100) (Adept)
[Water Dancing Style] (27/100) (Journeyman)
[Massage] (12/100) (Master)
[Poison Resistance] (15/100) (Journeyman)
[Acrobatics] (18/100) (Adept)
[Mathematics] (60/100) (Adept)
[Hamon] (29/100) (Adept)
[Alchemy] (52/100) (Novice)
[Jousting] (85/100) (Novice)
[Horse Riding] (8/100) (Legendary)
[Haggling] (28/100) (Novice)
[Royal Swordsmanship] (68/100) (Journeyman)
[Battlefield Leadership] (52/100) (Master)
────────────────────
FAMILIARS
────────────────────
[Horus] — Pet Shop (Rare)
Falcon. Ice manipulation. Human-level intelligence. Bonded.
[Unnamed] — Black Dragon (Mythic)
────────────────────
The first thing he looked at was the numbers. Strength 32. Dexterity 20. Constitution 32. He flexed his hand, opening and closing it slowly while he watched the tendons move under the skin, feeling something different in it that he could not quite put a name to.
'Thirty-two... maybe crossing thirty did something...'
He pushed himself up off the sand and walked over to the edge of the beach, where a m pine had managed to grow out of a crack in the black rock, its trunk bent sideways by years of wind off the sea and about as thick around as his thigh. He set his feet, drew back his right fist, then threw a straight punch into the trunk without holding anything back.
His fist went into the tree.
There was a loud crack as the bark split open, followed by a crunch as the wood beneath gave way, his arm sinking in past the wrist before it stopped. Splinters sprayed out around his forearm while the whole tree shook, the branches above him shedding needles down onto his head.
Arthur pulled his hand out and looked at it.
His knuckles were not split. The skin was not even scraped, except for a few flakes of bark stuck to it, which he brushed away before looking back at the hole he had left, a ragged dent the size of his fist driven halfway through the trunk.
"Huh," he said.
He walked back toward the dragon while he looked over the status again, his eyes going back to the Uchiha Bloodline, then to the new line underneath it that he had skimmed past the first time.
[Sharingan] (AWAKENED — 1 Tomoe)
He read the description.
So thats what happened when the pain had reached the back of his eyes, and why he could now see things in such detail. A shallow pool of seawater had collected in a hollow of black rock a few paces from where the dragon lay. Arthur crouched beside it and leaned over until he could see his own face in the still surface.
His eyes were red.
Not bloodshot, but red all the way through, the irises a deep bright crimson with a black pupil at the centre and a single small black mark sitting in the red beside it,m.
'That looks fucking weird...'
He stared at it, tilting his head one way then the other while the reflection did the same, then frowned as he tried to work out how he was supposed to make it stop. He could not go walking into the great hall of Dragonstone with eyes like these. He thought about closing them, about relaxing, about the feeling of the burning fading away.
The red drained out of his eyes. The black mark faded with it, leaving the purple he usually had, and the beach around him went back to looking like a normal beach.
"Huh. That was easy."
He cupped his hands in the pool and drank though the water tasted pretty crappy. Then he sat back down on the sand beside the dragon and looked across the strait at Dragonstone.
'Why didn't they come for me?'
Maybe they had been afraid of the dragon. That made sense. The thing had burned half the fleet in a single morning, so no sane man would want to walk across this beach while it was still breathing. But Llewyn would have come anyway. Rickard would have come anyway. Duncan would have dragged a hundred men over here if he thought there was any chance he was alive.
"There must be a reason," he said quietly, letting out a sigh. "They wouldn't do that to me. They wouldn't."
*They are not real Arthur. Paper. Ink. Puppets dancing on strings.*
He shook his head hard, pushing the voice away before it could say anything else. To keep his mind busy he pulled up his inventory and drew out the Fragment of Excalibur.
It came into his hand as a shard of pale steel about the length of his forearm.
────────────────────
[FRAGMENT OF EXCALIBUR]
────────────────────
EXCALIBUR MIMIC (1 of 7)
────────────────────
Description:
One of seven fragments of the holy sword Excalibur, broken in an age long past and scattered across worlds. This fragment carries the power of Mimic.
A blade reforged from this fragment may change its shape at the will of its wielder. It may lengthen, shorten, thin to a needle, widen to a shield, split into several blades, or bend into a whip that cuts like steel. It may be made to look like any ordinary weapon, hiding its true nature from those who do not know what they are looking at. The more the wielder understands the blade, the more forms it will take.
Like all fragments of Excalibur, it holds holy light. That light burns evil, drives back corruption, and breaks the hold of dark magic on the mind and body. Creatures of darkness cannot touch it without pain.
⚠ The fragment's full power can only be used once it has been reforged into a sword.
────────────────────
Arthur read the part about breaking the hold of dark magic on the mind, then looked down at the shard in his hand.
'So that's how I got out...'
That was the spark on the horizon, the sword in the stone.
He turned the fragment over again, watching the light in the metal move.
"I need a smith," he muttered. "Somebody who's worked steel that isn't just steel."
Brin was good, better than good, but this was not iron and nails. He had heard of the smiths in Qohor, who were said to be the only men in the world who could still rework Valyrian steel, if any smith alive could reforge something like this, it would be one of them.
He put the fragment back into his inventory.
Then he pulled out the ring.
It sat in his palm, a plain gold band with no stone and no marking, the gold warm even though the wind off the sea was cold.
He turned it between his fingers.
"You know you were fucking useless back there," he said to it. "I was dying on a beach and the gods gave me a ring."
He didn't understand what was so mythic about it.
The gold was smoother than any gold he had ever touched, without a scratch or a dent anywhere on it. He ran his thumb around the outside, then the inside, then the outside again. It was a good weight, heavier than it looked, and held it in a pretty glow that he found himself watching for longer than he meant to.
He slid it onto his finger before he had really decided to.
The world went grey.
The colour drained out of everything. The black sand turned the colour of ash. The sea turned the colour of smoke, the waves rolling up the beach without making any sound he could hear properly, only a hollow sound that came from very far away. Everything at the edges of his vision was blurred and wavering, as if he was looking at it through water.
The dragon roared.
Its head came up off the sand so fast that the wind of it blew sand across Arthur's legs, its jaws opening as the roar shook the beach, its neck swinging from side to side while its nostrils flared. It shoved its snout forward to where he had been sitting, sniffing at the sand, then pulled back and swung its head around again, its eyes moving across the beach without stopping on him once.
"Hey... hey, I'm right here," Arthur said.
The dragon did not look at him. It was looking straight past him, at the rocks behind him, at the water, at the tree with the hole in its trunk, its tail lashing across the sand while a growl built in its chest.
Arthur looked down at himself, he could see himself, but it seemed that the dragon could not see him at all.
'It can't see me... I'm invisible...'
He pulled the ring off.
The colour came back and the dragon's head snapped toward him. It stared at him for a moment, then let out a rough breath through its nose that blew his hair back from his face, before lowering its head slowly back onto the sand beside him while it kept one eye fixed on him.
"Sorry," Arthur said. "Sorry, girl. I didn't know it would do that."
He looked at the ring in his palm again, a slow grin spreading across his face.
"Well. Maybe you're not useless after all."
He turned it over again, watching the light catch the gold.
"A ring that makes a man vanish. Gods, but you're a precious thing, aren't you."
He closed his hand around it and slipped it into the small pocket inside his gambeson instead of putting it back in his inventory, feeling it sitting against his chest.
He sat on the beach for what he guessed was most of an hour after that, watching the tide creep further up the sand while the dragon dozed beside him, until a movement out on the water caught his eye.
A ship was coming out from the harbour of Dragonstone.
It was a small war galley with a single mast, pulling out past the end of the causeway, then turned south along the coast of the island.
Arthur got to his feet and ran down to the edge of the water, waving both arms over his head.
"HEY! HEY! OVER HERE! I'M HERE!"
The galley kept moving. A few of the men on deck might have been looking his way, but nobody pointed, nobody shouted, and the oars did not slow. It was too far for anyone to hear him over the wind and the waves.
"FUCK! OVER HERE, YOU BLIND BASTARDS!"
The galley kept moving away down the coast.
Arthur dropped his arms and turned around to look at the dragon, which had lifted its head to watch him shouting at the water.
He looked at the dragon and walked back up the sand until he was standing beside its head, then laid his hand on its snout.
"Alright," he said. "Let's see if you know this one."
He pointed up at the sky.
"Dracarys."
The dragon's head came up, its neck stretching toward the clouds as its jaws opened, and fire poured out of its throat in a long white and orange column that roared up into the sky, a hundred feet high, two hundred, the heat of it washing back down across the beach so fiercely that Arthur had to raise his arm to shield his face. The fire went on for several seconds before the dragon closed its jaws, smoke curling from between its teeth.
Out on the water the galley seemed to slowly keep going forward until it turned towards him.
He laughed, slapping the dragon's snout with his palm.
"Good girl. Good fucking girl."
The galley stopped well short of the island, dropping anchor in deep water a good distance out, which Arthur could not blame them for. A rowing boat was lowered over the side. Six men climbed down into it, four taking the oars while two sat at the back, then started pulling toward the shore.
As it came closer Arthur saw who was sitting at the stern.
Prince Duncan had a hand on the side of the boat and his eyes fixed on the beach, he looked like shit but then again Arthur probably did too.
The boat had barely touched the sand before Duncan was over the side, splashing through the shallows up to his knees, stumbling once on the stones before catching himself, then running up the beach without stopping until he was a few feet from Arthur.
He stopped there staring at him.
"Arthur," he said. His voice broke on the name. "Arthur. You're... seven hells, you're alive, you're fucking ALIVE..."
He closed the last few feet and grabbed Arthur by both shoulders, then pulled him into a hug so hard it drove the air out of Arthur's lungs, holding on while his whole body shook.
"We buried... we held a funeral... we thought you were dead, gods, I touched you myself and you were cold, you weren't breathing, I swear on my mother's life you weren't breathing..."
Arthur hugged him back, gripping the back of his doublet. "It's alright Duncan it's alright."
Duncan pulled back, still holding him by the shoulders, then looked him up and down, his eyes stopping on the dried blood crusted across Arthur's stomach before moving to his face.
"How," he said. "Your stomach... I pulled Blackfyre out of you with my own hands, Arthur. I've seen men die from wounds a quarter that size. Your face was broken. Your chest was cut open. Now there's... there's nothing. Not a scratch. How in the seven hells is that possible?"
Arthur shrugged.
"The gods decided it wasn't my time yet."
Duncan stared at him, clearly waiting for more but Arthur did not give it to him.
Behind them the men from the rowing boat had climbed out and were walking up the beach, their hands on their sword hilts, their eyes fixed on the dragon.
The dragon saw them.
Its head came up off the sand as a growl built in its throat, a sound so deep it made the stones on the beach rattle, its lips peeling back from teeth as long as a man's forearm. It got its feet under it and started forward, its shoulders rising, the torn wings shifting against its sides. The men stopped dead and one of them drew his sword halfway out of its scabbard.
Arthur stepped between them, putting his hand out toward the dragon's snout.
"Lykirī," he said in High Valyrian.
The dragon stopped.
It stood there with its head held high, still growling, its eyes moving between Arthur and the men behind him. Arthur kept his hand where it was. Slowly the growl died away, the dragon lowering its head until its snout was resting against his palm again, its breath hot against his fingers while its eyes stayed fixed on the men by the boat.
Nobody on the beach moved.
Arthur turned his head. Duncan was standing a few paces behind him, his face gone very still, his eyes moving from the dragon to Arthur's hand on its snout, then up to Arthur's face.
The colour had gone out of his cheeks. "Arthur," he said quietly. "Do you understand what you've just done?"
"I've got a fair idea."
Duncan looked at the dragon for a long time. Then he rubbed his hand down his face, letting out a breath.
"We need to go and speak with my father."
Arthur sighed, keeping his hand on the dragon's snout.
"Yeah," he said. "We do."
(AN: So Arthur is back and he has awakened his sharingan and gotten some nifty new abilities and items. The one ring, I wonder how that'll be used. Anyway hope you enjoyed.)
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