Chapter 10: Echoes of Balerion, A Prince Forged in Fire
King's Landing was a symphony of deceit, a constant, cloying hum of ambition, fear, and whispered treacheries that NJ's weirwood-enhanced truth-sense registered as a perpetual, low-grade dissonance. The Red Keep, for all its outward grandeur, was the rotten heart of this sprawling decaying fruit, its red stones saturated with the psychic residue of centuries of paranoia, cruelty, and desperate power plays. NJ found it… stimulating. Winterfell's ancient, elemental magic had been a profound wellspring, but the Red Keep was a living, breathing theatre of human folly, a far more complex and immediate challenge for his intellect and his evolving powers.
His Joffrey persona, the petulant, easily-bored prince, provided him with an almost perfect cover. Few looked past the golden hair and the sneer to the cold, ancient mind working beneath. He used this underestimation to his advantage, making seemingly capricious demands that allowed him to explore the less-trafficked corners of the vast fortress. He had "inspected" the kitchens (absorbing the frantic energy and surprising efficiency of the head cook, along with a useful knowledge of common poisons and their antidotes from a discarded herb box), the kennels (a chaotic burst of canine loyalty and simple needs), and even the dungeons, under the guise of wanting to see where "traitors were kept." The latter had been a chilling experience, the very stones screaming with centuries of pain, terror, and despair, a raw, agonizing essence he'd had to carefully shield himself from absorbing too deeply, though the echoes still left a cold stain on his psyche.
But his primary target, the one he had been meticulously planning to access, lay deeper, in the bowels of the castle: the resting place of the Targaryen dragon skulls. Robert, in his boorish disdain for the dynasty he had overthrown, had ordered them removed from the Throne Room where they had once awed supplicants, consigning them to a dusty, forgotten cellar. NJ had learned of their location from a careless comment by Grand Maester Pycelle, whose essence, absorbed from his oaken desk, contained a veritable library of Red Keep lore, including the disposition of these once-mighty relics.
Gaining access required a blend of princely arrogance and calculated timing. One sweltering afternoon, when the King was out hunting and the court was drowsy with summer heat, NJ feigned a fit of pique, complaining of the "stifling air" in his chambers and the "tedium" of his lessons. He dismissed his tutors and guards with a Joffrey-esque tantrum, declaring he wished to explore the "cooler, lower levels" of the Keep on his own. His reputation as a spoiled brat, prone to unpredictable whims, actually worked in his favor. The Kingsguard knights assigned to him, weary of his moods, reluctantly allowed him to wander off within the "secure" sections of the castle, with stern instructions not to stray too far. Ser Boros Blount, in particular, seemed almost relieved to be rid of him for an hour.
NJ, of course, had no intention of merely seeking cooler air. He navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the Red Keep's underbelly with a confidence born of absorbed knowledge and heightened senses, the direwolf essence making him preternaturally aware of shifting shadows and distant footsteps. He found the cellar easily enough – a vast, vaulted chamber, thick with dust and the silence of ages. And there they were.
Nineteen of them, arranged in a macabre procession. Skulls, some no larger than a mastiff's, others vast enough to swallow a horse whole. Their bone was the color of polished obsidian, their empty sockets like windows into forgotten eons. The air here was cold, not the damp chill of a cellar, but an ancient, profound coldness, a stillness that felt… expectant. Even without touching them, NJ could feel a colossal, dormant power radiating from these remains, a primal energy that prickled his skin and made the weirwood essence within him stir with a strange, almost wary, recognition. Fire and Ice, meeting in the depths of his soul.
His gaze was drawn to the largest, most formidable skull at the far end: Balerion the Black Dread. Aegon the Conqueror's mount. The dragon whose fire had forged the Seven Kingdoms. Its teeth were like black swords, its cranium vast as a carriage. This was the source, the apex of the power he sought here.
With a deep, steadying breath – a purely physical reflex, as his psychopathic core felt no true fear, only a cold, exhilarating anticipation – he approached Balerion's skull. The sheer scale of it was awe-inspiring. He reached out a hand, his fingers, small and pale against the ebon bone, making contact.
The world exploded.
If the weirwood had been an ocean of ancient memory, this was a supernova of primal fury and incandescent power. An unimaginable torrent of sensation ripped through him, a firestorm that threatened to incinerate his very consciousness. He felt the molten heart of a volcano, the unimaginable heat of dragonflame, the searing agony of victims consumed in that inferno. He felt the exhilarating, terrifying sensation of flight – soaring above mountains, diving through clouds, the wind a roaring symphony against colossal, leathery wings.
He felt Balerion's ancient, alien intellect: a predatory cunning, an immense, reptilian arrogance, a profound connection to the raw magic of Old Valyria. It was a consciousness that had dwarfed kingdoms, a being that had considered humans as little more than fleeting, occasionally useful, insects.
And woven through it, the echoes of Balerion's riders: Aegon the Conqueror, his iron will, his dreams of empire, the weight of a crown forged in fire and blood. Maegor the Cruel, his ruthless ambition, his paranoia. Viserys I, and even the fleeting touch of Princess Aerea Targaryen, who had claimed him in her desperate flight and met a horrific end. Their wills, their emotions, their commands – all were imprinted on the dragon's essence, a chaotic chorus of human ambition riding a wave of elemental power.
The magic was overwhelming. It was nothing like the earth-bound wisdom of the weirwood or the subtle instincts of the direwolf. This was raw, untamed, destructive creation, the very essence of Valyrian bloodmagic, of fire made manifest. He felt the ghost of Valyrian sorcerers, their intricate, dangerous rituals, their catastrophic overreach that had led to the Doom. He understood, with a clarity that seared his mind, the source of Targaryen power and the seeds of their madness. Dragons were not mere beasts; they were conduits of a terrifying, volatile magic.
NJ's mind, his carefully constructed Joffrey-body, reeled under the onslaught. He felt his own identity, the core of his being, cracking, threatening to shatter under the immense pressure of Balerion's ancient, fiery will. The dragon's ego was a colossal weight, seeking to dominate, to consume. For a terrifying moment, he felt Joffrey, the boy, and even his own psychopathic persona, dwindling, about to be extinguished, replaced by the resurrected consciousness of the Black Dread.
NO! With a supreme effort that dwarfed even his struggle against the weirwood, NJ's intellect, the cold, hard core of his original self, fought back. He was not a Targaryen to be dominated by a dragon's will. He was something else, something new. He focused all his mental strength, the entirety of his IQ, not to reject the essence, but to contain it, to subjugate it, to absorb its power without being consumed by its primal consciousness. He visualized his mind as a crucible of absolute zero, quenching the dragon's fire, breaking it down, analyzing its components, and integrating its power on his own terms.
The struggle was titanic, lasting moments that felt like an eternity. Slowly, agonizingly, he gained control. The dragon's roaring fury in his mind began to subside, not into silence, but into a contained, smoldering power, like a caged inferno. He had done it. He had absorbed the essence of Balerion the Black Dread, and he was still himself.
He stumbled back from the skull, his Joffrey-body shaking uncontrollably, drenched in sweat, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The cellar seemed to tilt around him. He felt… transformed. A fierce, burning energy now coiled within him, a counterpart to the cool, deep magic of the weirwood. He felt an almost unbearable urge to roar, to unleash the fire that now seemed to part of his very being. His eyes, if he could have seen them, might have flickered with an unnatural, golden luminescence.
He spent what felt like hours in that dusty cellar, moving from skull to skull, touching each one, though none had the overwhelming potency of Balerion. Vhagar, ancient and vast, gave him the echoes of Queen Visenya's stern will and Prince Aemond's reckless courage during the Dance of the Dragons. Meraxes, Sunfyre, Dreamfyre, Caraxes – each yielded fragments of their riders' personalities, their unique bonds, their triumphs and tragedies, and the subtle variations in their fiery magic. He learned of the Dance of the Dragons not as history, but as a visceral, heartbreaking reality of fire, blood, and kin-slaying that had crippled the Targaryen dynasty and decimated their dragons.
When he finally emerged from the cellar, hours later, staggering back towards his chambers, he was a different being. The Joffrey mask was still in place, but beneath it, a dragon's fire now slept, coiled around the icy heart of the weirwood, all contained within the formidable intellect of a reborn psychopath.
The integration of this new, fiery power took days. It was a volatile, demanding essence, far more so than the others. It warred with the patient, ancient magic of the weirwood, a constant internal tension between fire and ice, destruction and preservation. But NJ's mind, now accustomed to such internal alchemy, slowly found a way to weave them together, not into a harmonious blend, but into a dynamic, potent equilibrium, like a storm held in check, ready to be unleashed. He felt a surge in his own force of will, a new, almost tangible aura of command that he had to consciously suppress to maintain his Joffrey persona. His tolerance for physical heat, he noted with detached interest, had increased significantly.
It was into this newly forged internal landscape that Ned Stark arrived in King's Landing. The new Hand of the King looked weary, burdened, his honest Northern face already showing the strain of the capital's oppressive atmosphere and the news of his son Bran's "accident" and subsequent assassination attempt. NJ observed him with a new perspective, colored by the dragon's predatory gaze. Ned Stark, with his rigid honor and his naive belief in justice, was like a lamb venturing into a den of wolves – or perhaps, dragons.
NJ watched the initial meetings of the Small Council from afar, gleaning information from servants' gossip, from discarded notes he "found," and from the very walls of the council chamber, which he managed to touch during a "princely inspection." He felt the oily insincerity of Littlefinger, the chilling Watcher-like presence of Varys, the quavering subservience of Pycelle, and Renly's restless ambition. Ned Stark, trying to investigate Jon Arryn's death and Robert's finances, was already enmeshing himself in a web of lies from which NJ knew he would not escape.
His first direct encounter with Varys, the Master of Whisperers, came a few days later. The eunuch, smelling faintly of lavender and something else NJ's heightened senses couldn't quite place – dust and secrets, perhaps – approached him in one of the Red Keep's gardens.
"Prince Joffrey," Varys said, his voice soft and unctuous, his hands clasped within the sleeves of his silk robe. "You seem… recovered from your Northern ordeal. And perhaps… enlivened by the capital's air?" His smile was bland, but his eyes, NJ noted, were incredibly astute, missing nothing.
NJ activated his truth-sense, augmented now by a faint, fiery perception from the dragon essence that seemed to burn through superficial deceptions. He felt the intricate layers of Varys's persona: the feigned humility, the carefully constructed concern for the realm, and beneath it all, a vast, hidden network of information and a long, deeply concealed agenda that NJ couldn't yet fully grasp, though it felt… foreign, somehow, not aligned with any Westerosi house.
"The capital is… diverting enough, Lord Varys," NJ said, affecting Joffrey's bored tone. "Though the stench from Flea Bottom is less than princely."
Varys chuckled softly. "Ah, yes. The city has its… perfumes. One learns to navigate them. Just as one learns to navigate its many currents of information. Knowledge is power, is it not, Your Grace?"
"Knowledge is for maesters and dusty old men," NJ retorted with a sneer. "Power comes from a crown and a sword." He was deliberately playing the fool, testing Varys's reaction.
The eunuch's smile didn't falter. "Indeed, Your Grace. And a wise prince knows how to wield all three." He bowed, and was gone, melting back into the shadows of the court as if he were made of them. NJ felt a cold respect for the man's skill. Varys was a true master of his craft. But NJ now had advantages Varys couldn't even conceive of.
The Tourney of the Hand was announced, a grand spectacle to welcome Lord Stark and, more importantly from Robert's perspective, to provide entertainment. Knights and lords from across the Seven Kingdoms began to flock to the city. NJ anticipated the event with keen interest. It would be a prime opportunity to observe the realm's martial prowess, its political alliances, and its hidden intrigues. His absorbed skill from Jaime Lannister, augmented by the echoes of countless other warriors, would allow him to analyze the combat with an expert eye. His heightened senses would pick up on whispered conversations in the stands, his truth-sense would parse the boasts and flatteries.
His ambition, already vast, now burned with a dragon's fire. The Iron Throne was no longer just a goal; it was his birthright, not by Baratheon blood, but by the sheer, overwhelming power he was accumulating, the power of the ancient forces that had shaped this land. He now carried within him the icy wisdom of the First Men and the fiery heart of Valyrian dragons. He was a prince of ice and fire, a concept that resonated with ancient prophecies he was only just beginning to fully comprehend through the weirwood's and dragons' essences.
The Long Night was coming. He felt it in the weirwood's ancient dread, he felt it in the dragon's primal awareness of cosmic cycles. The petty squabbles of these Westerosi lords were a distraction from the true threat. He would win their game, yes. He would take the Iron Throne. But not for glory, not for Joffrey's sadistic pleasures. He would take it to forge the Seven Kingdoms into a weapon, a bulwark against the encroaching darkness. He would be their savior, whether they knew it or not, whether they wanted it or not. A savior with a psychopath's mind and a dragon's heart, cloaked in the skin of a boy king.
From a high window in Maegor's Holdfast, a place that thrummed with the echoes of Targaryen power and paranoia he had recently absorbed, NJ looked down upon King's Landing. The city sprawled beneath him, a tapestry of human endeavor and human folly. He felt the dormant fire of Balerion stir within his chest, a promise of the power he would one day unleash. The game was set. The players were moving. And he, the ultimate hidden piece, was ready to burn his way to the top.
(Approx. 3700 words)