THE NIGHT IS DARK and full of terrors.

Frost and snow crawl across the empire of wonderment, their iciness refusing to leave any one place untouched. The winter has been long and gruelling, the sky an inky temperamental tempest that keeps up a consistent spew of heavy rain and deafeningly loud thunder. Some say that this storm is a curse sent from the gods, as penance for the wickedness of those who inhabit the old land known as Valyria.

The possessors of most of that wickedness are the powerful rulers of the land, formidably known as the Dragonlords of the Valyrian Freehold. These Dragonlords have a lengthy and cultivated history, the origins of which depended entirely on the fearsome fire breathing beasts they now ride. They are the only known beings in all of history able to truly tame the great winged behemoths that roam the skies, and the only known beings these majestic creatures will truly obey.

This staggering accomplishment has astounded all who have witnessed it, ever since the first dragon was discovered emerging from the tumultuous glowing avalanches all those centuries ago in the Valyrian highlands. This feat resulted in the Dragonlords immediately demanding the unwavering acclaim and fealty of the "common folk" and instantly being regarded as closer to deities than to men, for what ordinary man could possibly ever even dream to control a beast?

Overall, there are now forty noble houses composing the Dragonlord families of Valyria. One, House Belaerys, has the gift of foresight. This is a fairly common gift among the esteemed rulers but a gift nonetheless. Other noble houses also possess it, the infamous members of the lilac-eyed bloodline of House Targaryen making up only a fraction of the abounding mass.

The head of House Belaerys, a dark skinned,  fair haired, violet eyed woman named Jaenara, has never experienced these strange premonitions, despite her entire family being blessed with the preternatural ability.

Tonight is the night that changes.

Jaenara is discontented with being at the helm of one of the most powerful clans in the entire realm and not being able to use their defining trait. She feels that it is her duty to represent her House, which she cannot very well do if she is unable to access a core part of what being a Belaerys is.

This is why on the night of the fiercest weather anomaly the Freehold has seen in decades, the matriarch of House Belaerys flys her dragon, Terrax, directly into the eye of the storm.

Terrax is a legendary umber-coloured scaly brute of considerable size, with wings bigger than clouds and deadly spikes protruding from his head and upper body like weapons used for carnage and massacre on the battlefield, bloody and glorious.

Jaenara herself is much like her dragon, an adventuresome young woman of good leadership and the minor implication of occasionally being a tad too headstrong. Along with her pale hair the same silver shade as all the other Dragonlords, she also bears the very distinctive eyes of the blood of Valyria, peculiar molten indigo.

Terrax's forcible wings continue on through the downpour, his large snout opening to emit earth shattering roars whenever a flash of blinding lightning manages to strike his scale clad body. Jaenara urges him onwards in High Valyrian, unwilling to abandon her plight when she has only a short distance left to travel until she arrives at her destination.

She hunches down close against Terrax's body, gritting her teeth as the wind whips around her hair and sends gusts of rain into her eyes. She presses herself against her saddle when she feels herself start to slip slightly and Terrax, in turn, shifts forward to ensure his rider doesn't fall to her untimely death. The bond between the two is exceptionally strong, even for a Dragonlord as gifted in the art of communicating with wild creatures as Jaenara Belaerys, and even for a dragon as feral as Terrax.

After what Jaenara swears is an age of flying through relentless torrent and wind, Terrax begins the swift descent to where he eventually comes to land, in the centre of the Fourteen Fires.

Burning mounts of hellish volcanic peaks, the lava that dwells deep within and is expelled from the Fourteen is said to be hotter than even the deepest depths of the fiery underworld- which some believe to be so infernal it only exists in tales of Valyrian myth. This is also where the dragons are said to have first originated from, and Terrax, despite having hatched and lived in the Freehold his whole life, cannot dismiss the undeniable feeling that he is returning home after a particularly long expedition.

The dragon steadily lowers himself into the mouth of the seventh volcano, not needing to be cautious of the white hot magma erupting all around him because fire, in whatever form, cannot kill a dragon. Jaenara herself has no need to fear the flames because all of the noble families are said to possess the near invulnerable blood of the beast, something which is widely believed occurred when the first Valyrian bonded with their dragon. This means fire cannot vanquish her either.

Once his wings have stilled and he is planted firmly on the rocky terrain below, Jaenara promptly dismounts and slides down to the ground, the small sparks that shower over them both only bringing a pleasant sensation of warmth when to others it would bring the horrific palpable pain of burning flesh.

The blood of the dragon runs thick.

Jaenara treads carefully as she moves away from Terrax, who warns for her to be careful in the form of a stressed snarl. She heeds his concern with a light touch to his horned head, before continuing on her way. Whenever she is determined to achieve something, there is very little that can be done to dissuade her.

The air is moist and hot against her skin and causes her platinum curls, still damp with rainwater, to frizz somewhat in the heat. Jaenara starts to clamber over the rocky ground, over large boulders and uneven land, slipping and stumbling, tripping and tumbling, until she finally finds her journey's end.

There, sitting rather conspicuously among a glimmering ring of lava, is what she has travelled so tirelessly over land and sea for.

Before her lies the Blood Stone, a sparkling crimson jewel of legend, forenamed to enhance the gifts of the lords of dragons. Legend speaks of smoke like figures who reside within the magic of the stone, who have been ordered by the Seven to aid whoever has courage enough to approach. Jaenara prays she is worthy of their help. She has a feeling she will need it.

"Rŷbagon issa o sērvæntš hen ęxäłtēd," She calls, eyes darting around her, searching desperately for a sign that anything is willing to listen to her pleas, "Ziry iksos nyke, Jaenara Hen lentor Belaerys, tala hen Daenaera, kipagīros hen Terrax, zaldrīzes āeksio hen Valyrīha. Dohaeragon issa naejot gryves se irudys hen issa førēbëarš."

And with that, from the sheath at her thigh, the Dragonlord produces her blade forged out of Velaryion Steel and uses the tip to slice open her left hand straight across the soft skin of her palm. The skin breaks instantly, parting as the dagger runs along it hungrily. Blood pours out of the fresh wound and Jaenara hurries to hold her hand out over the Blood Stone, watching as, true to its name, her blood seeps into the surface of the gem and is absorbed entirely.

The Blood Stone's miraculous abilities only work if activated by the pure blood of the dragon, something Jaenara wasn't entirely certain would work until it did. She'd heard tales of other sons and daughters of her fellow Dragonlords who had flown out to the Fourteen, seeking the sublime object of exaltation that had been the main recurring theme of almost all of the bedtime stories their renowned warrior parents had relayed to them on nights like this when they couldn't sleep, on nights when the wind is howling and the sky is raging.

As the last drops of her blood vanish into the maroon crystalline, Jaenara returns to Terrax. As though reading her mind, he immediately straightens, throwing his head back and tilting his wings up. He knows what she will say before she says it. In order for the Messengers of the Seven to be awakened from their century long slumber, they must be set alight by the flame of the spiked fiend.

Terrax opens his mouth wide, revealing rows upon rows of jagged fangs stained with scarlet ichor, eager to comply. His slithering tongue unfurls and with it comes forth a ferocious plume of vibrant dragonfire, heading straight for the Blood Stone. The dragonfire engulfs the stone and from the gleaming embers rises a dark whisper of air, swirling closer and closer to the Valyrian and growing in size before she is swallowed by it completely.

Blackness engulfs the seventh fire, dimming the spectacular orange to a dull glow, the sudden loss of light startling Terrax and resulting in him bristling belligerently, ready to defend himself and his rider from this new potential threat. The mount's abrupt vicissitudes of colour prompting the lava to morph into a bubbling, tar like substance, specks besmirching the cavernous hollow.

The darkness spirals around Jaenara, enveloping her entirely, and it is only when everything else has been blocked from her vision by the sable mist, when her sight has been all but stolen from her, that she truly begins to see.

The images come quickly at first. They flit in and out of the corners of her mind's eye, never stopping long enough for her to understand and she is left grasping fruitlessly at the flashing depictions of the future, struggling to comprehend-

There.

Clear as day, more vivid than any flame she's ever ignited, Jaenara can finally, at long, long last, see.

It blurs slightly at the edges before clarifying. In it, there is a baby. The baby doesn't resemble any Dragonlord's descendant Jaenara has ever heard of, but she reasons with herself that it must have something to do with at least one of the noble houses, if not her own.

She persists, trying to see more, to understand more...and then she does.

The Messengers surrounding her begin to whisper to her, as if some unseen, omnipotent force has suddenly breathed life into them and ordered them into existence. Their voices are coarse and coated in the telltale rust that settles into the octaves of the tone when the being has been silent for well over an aeon.

In the beginning, Jaenara cannot fathom the meaning of their words or even distinguish them as distinct intelligible sibilants. But as the volume of the otherworldly increase, she begins to properly decipher the structure of their speech:

From your noble blood
A child shall come
Born not of goodness nor virtue
Birthed instead of blood, rot, fire, and sin 
Hair and eyes resembling the darkness she is akin to 
Hers will be the dance of vengeance and valour

The words are still flowing but Jaenara can no longer hear them. Her ears are rushing, with the sound of her own blood or with something more sinister she does not know.

All she knows now is that this child prophesied by the dark Messengers of the Seven will live long after her death and long after the Great Doom Aegon Targaryen has already foretold.

These are the last thoughts she is consciously aware of having before her vision blurs, her body crumples, and she falls.

————————

When Jaenara wakes, her head pounding like her skull is trying to wage civil war on itself and her heart beating as if it is attempting to escape her cage of ribs, the Messengers have dispersed, no doubt returned to the stone, snd all is as it should be. The lava is spuming, her dagger is back in its sheath, and the storm above has belatedly ceased.

She remembers nothing of what she saw and nothing of what she heard. She remembers nothing of the baleful prognostication made by the ethereal spirits, and they will not remind her.

With a broken groan falling from her lips, she gets to her feet, the cut on her hand already healed, and glances at the ash covered jewel, still sitting in the ring of lava. Almost as if blinking, it glints ominously back at her.

During the climb back down, her mind is whirring and burning with the unanswered question of what happened. Obviously something happened but with the way her own psyche is so stubbornly determined to stay ignorant it's almost as if there are other forces at work, doing their absolute damnedest to prevent her from recalling the events of the night previous.

Approaching her dragon, Jaenara reluctantly comes to the settlement that she needs to return to the Freehold. And soon. She can always fly Terrax out to the Fourteen to try and attempt the entire affair in the future. At least she now knew that the Blood Stone was indeed not a myth. With that in mind, she groggily climbs astride Terrax (who had waited for her dutifully all through the night) making haste as she orders him to start for the Freehold.

Terrax flaps his large wings and takes off out of the mount and away from the Fourteen Fires, both dragon and woman inhaling large gulps of fresh air, untarnished by volcanic ash, once they are airborne.

As Terrax soars and glides higher amongst the clouds, Jaenara still mulls over struggling to recall the night before. She knows what she came to accomplish, and despite not remembering having any significant, mystical vision, Jaenara cannot help but think of a girl she has never met. A girl with dark hair and dark eyes and an unsettling ambience.

Deciding to chalk it up to a rough night spent inside the Seventh Fire, Jaenara resolves to simply put it out of her mind and concentrate on getting home. Swallowing her bitter disappointment in herself at having failed to have a vision of what awaits her.

Preferably, she would like to return before nightfall, before the world is once again blanketed in onyx and obsidian, the sparse stars, waning moon, and flame torches the only sources of light throughout the realm.

With this in mind, Jaenara orders Terrax to quicken his pace, anxious not to waste another moment of daylight. She may not remember what happened in the Seventh Fire, but she certainly remembers the old reiteration her mother loved to recite when she and her siblings were young boys and girls, and what her mother's mother was told when she was young, and her mother before her, generations of Belaerys' conquerors passing it down through the ages, from mother to daughter, father to son.

Whatever occurs in the night shall surely be made known in the light.

The day is light and full of truths, for surely no malevolent entity can hide where there are no places to be found.

The night, however, is something that invites all ill omens. The night is where the ghouls and ghosts of the land skulk, where the very scum of humanity crawls into being, where innocents are slaughtered oft as if atonement for the origin of monstrosity itself. The night is where the evil lurks.

Bantis zōbrie issa se ossŷngnoti lēdys.

The night is dark and full of terrors.

Author's Note:

i hate this sm omg 😭

the language that certain lines are written in is high valyrian and roughly translates to:

Rŷbagon issa o sērvæntš hen exäłtēd - Hear
me O servants of the exalted

Ziry iksos nyke, Jaenara Hen lentor Belaerys , tala hen Daenaera, kipagīros hen Terrax - Tis I, Jaenara of House Belaerys, daughter of Daenaera, rider of Terrax, Dragonlord of Valyria

Dohaeragon issa naejot gryves se irudys hen issa åncēstørs - Help me to bear the gifts of my forebears

Bantis zōbrie issa se ossŷngnoti lēdys - The night is dark and full of terrors

REMEMBER I AM NOT A HIGH VALYRIAN EXPERT

btw if its not clear, the prologue is set in old valyria before the great doom and jaenara's vision is abt what happens during hotd with the dance of dragons.

pls ignore any grammar mistakes and don't forget to vote and comment 🤗🤗