Chapter Text
Robert I
The battle was a bloody melee around him, each side pushing against the other for what could be seconds or days. There is only one way to end this, he thought as one of his companions fell to a knight wielding an axe. He crushed the knight in question with five blows of his warhammer and searched for the dragon banner. When he found it, he smashed his way to where that damned Rhaegar stood, armour gleaming black and red, as pristine as the day it was made. He stood apart from the thick of battle, surrounded by warriors ready to do his fighting for him, ready to kidnap young girls on his command. A fresh surge of anger went through him at that, as he imagined Lyanna’s helpless face at this snake’s mercy.
“Rhaegar! I challenge you to single combat! Come face me, come and die for what you did to her!” His voice boomed like a crash of thunder in comparison to Rhaegar’s taut but clear acceptance.
As they both urged their horses forward and met in the middle of the crossing, the men stopped fighting to see their duel. Somewhere, he could hear a drum beating or perhaps it was just the roar of blood in his veins.
He rained blow after blow on the prince, who returned each one with a strike. But he could feel his enemy’s attacks growing weaker, the strength falling from his arms like beads of sweat. He landed another blow, which Rhaegar deflected and it instead struck the prince’s horse, crushing his head despite the armour. As the horse fell, the Targaryen dragged himself from its corpse, readying himself to fight in a disadvantageous position against an amounted foe. Robert dismounted from his horse as well, to the cheers of his men and the surprise of his opponent.
Not all men are as dishonourable as you, he thought but what he instead asked was the question that had been burning beneath his skin from the day the raven arrived at the Eyrie.
“Where is she? Where have you kept her!?” Rhaegar refused to answer, instead using the time to launch a series of attacks on him. Robert answered each blow with a mightier one of his own, roaring his question again and again and again, as if to make the Dragon Prince respond with the pure force of his stubbornness. Their combat was soon limited to a dance of hammer and sword, each eager to draw blood, the warriors following the tune their weapons dictated.
He heard a cry just then, a voice like Ned’s and half-turned his head to look even as he cursed himself for doing so. The Targaryen seized the opportunity to attack and he could barely keep himself from falling. Rhaegar relentlessly pressed his advantage, for he knew his only hope was to end it before his strength failed him. Even a dragon’s strength is no match for the mighty will of a thunderstorm. A hit landed on his arm. A deep cut on his abdomen. Robert endured it like the Starks endured the winter, like the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay endured the relentless waves, like Storm’s End endured the wrath of the gods themselves. As the prince’s strength waned, Robert went on the offensive. The Baratheon’s warhammer embodied his house words and became an unstoppable entity. His fury was tireless, for he fought for justice, for his beloved, his brother in all but name, and their survival.
The final strike came quickly after that, caving in the breastplate of his foe. The hammer fell and the rubies scattered. Then the Crown Prince fell and his army scattered. For a moment, as the splatter of red caught the light, blood and rubies both falling in the stream that flew serenely, uncaring of the fight, he saw a flock of eleven ravens watching him intently but they were gone in an instant.
A cry of pain and surprise escaped from the Targaryen’s lips as if the thought of defeat had never entered his mind.
“Lyanna...”, he rasped, voice as broken as his form was.
“You will never touch her again”, he stood over the vile rapist, looking down in condemnation.
The rush of victory that came to him was expected but less than he thought there would be.
What happened to him after the battle was a blur, all he could remember was a haggle of squires and knights surrounding him before he woke in a bed inside his tent. Trying to get up was as foolish as trying to speak but his efforts were enough to attract the attention of a maester.
“Your Grace, you mustn’t get up.” Ah, he had forgotten he was ‘Your Grace’ now. But he would get used to it. If the past few weeks were any indication of the life of a king, his reign would be very enjoyable.
“You were injured while fighting the Prince, Your Grace and collapsed while you were returning from the battlefield.” He snorted at the man telling him what he could already infer and then paid for it as his gut flared in response. The maester misunderstood what worried him the most.
Comprehension bloomed on the maester's face then as the man seemed to grasp what he was trying to ask.
“The battle was won after you defeated Prince Rhaegar. The loyalists are routed with many prisoners captured, Your Grace” Robert resisted the urge to sigh or curse or do both. The seven-damned man still failed to understand what his question was and that fact seemed to register to him as well.
“Lord Stark and Lord Arryn are seeing to the pursuit of the royal army while you heal. Not being extensively deep, your wounds will likely heal in a week, Your Grace, though you will have to remain bed-bound by then” One ball and no brains, that’s all he has. It was unlikely the man would ever realize what his chief concern was but he had received an answer: Ned and Jon were alive and uninjured. That brought enough relief that he allowed himself to be given some milk of the poppy and doze off.
It seemed as though he had been falling for years.
Fly, a voice whispered, seemingly above and below him at the same time. How could he fly? Even as a child atop the Eyrie he held no dreams of flying.
The grey mists whirled around him, dancing in combat as he and Rhaegar and had been just hours ago. Forget that, the voice shrieked at him, you do not need it now, put it aside, put it away.
“Why am I here?” he asked the voice but his mind already had an answer. No man is as accursed as a kinslayer and this was to be his damnation. Arguments arose within him against this unfairness but they were all leeched away from his body as he fell. The voice had a different explanation to offer.
Look down and see. For once in his life, Robert obeyed without question.
He could see the realm, yet everything that was awash with colours in life was only black and white in his dream. At the banks of the Green Fork, an antlered lord fought a winged man, the two wielding lightning and a sword of pale fire respectively. A man with cold eyes and no crown sat atop an iron throne made of blades. A queen, remnants of lost beauty on her face, sat on it and bled. He saw two armies clashing on a battlefield beneath seven stars. He saw the Arm of Dorne, shattered no more, being crossed by a great procession of men. They were met by a tall, antlered shadow but he was drawn away before he could see more. Looking to Essos, he saw cat-eyed men fleeing across mountains, chased by men riding chariots of stone. He looked further east, as far as Asshai-by-the-Shadow and dreadful Stygai but he did not see them. In their place stood two cities, their buildings reaching to the sky, their magnificence unscathed by the lack of colours. The first one was dominated by a sprawling palace, covering half the city while all roofs of the city seemed to shimmer with starfire. His eyes were set to bulge out of his head at the sheer extravagance and splendour he could see from above. The second city was less grand but far larger, thrice the size of Gulltown and King’s Landing combined. A woman stood there, tall and regal, unflinching as a man brought his dagger down; her blood flowed and soaked the moon.
He looked back, to see any familiar face; Ned, Jon, Lyanna, even Stannis. But all he saw was the Wall.
Not there, the voice exclaimed, not yet. The time for that will come.
“What do you want from me?”
To teach you to fly
“I can’t fly!”
Then you will fall.
“Why would I want to fly?” he asked sullenly, even as his hands were shaking.
There are great sights to glimpse from above. See
Robert wanted to close his eyes, simply to spite the voice but he found he could not do it. Sights rose to greet him, this time awash with colours, a thousand and one at once. A Valyrian woman, great with child, walked into a pyre and started screaming, a shrill sound that was overtaken by a roar. He saw a tower so tall that he reasoned it to be the Hightower of Oldtown, yet its height was not what attracted his attention. The tower burned so hot and bright it seemed to be another sun shining in the sky. A blue-eyed man with a dark shadow fought a boy with hair as gold as the sun, as they both stood on ruins. A winged wolf fell and flew just as he was about to hit the ground, going North from Winterfell. A stone giant pushed a girl with falcon’s wings from a tower, and then laughed as she sunk beneath the waters. Two stags battled as a cloth dragon flew above them. Three dragons flew out of an inferno, one flying East, one North and the third being left behind. A boy held a heart of glass in his hands as it crushed piece-by-piece, taking the shards as claws and roaring. His eyes burned and Robert could not decipher their colour. A kraken arose from the sea, singing a song of sirens, as it wrapped its tentacles around a dragon and pulled it beneath the waves with it. A girl wearing a face not her own healed nine ravaged women.
“I don’t understand—”
If you can’t hear the song then you will die, the voice said nonchalantly.
Fear almost gripped him then, to wrestle him into paralysation but he looked down again. The grey mists still swirled at the edges of his vision, yet the ground was stark black now.
Not the ground. There is no ground. That was true, he saw now. The black waters seemed to rise to swallow him up. He plunged into a stream, a river, a sea, an ocean, endless and dark.