The Cannibal burst forth from the volcanic maw of Dragonmont, surging straight into the heavens.
Its colossal black wings beat the air like rolling storm clouds. Vertical pupils burned within its eyes, a sickly green alight with fury and ancient hatred, as it vomited that same baleful flame across the sky.
Heat rolled from the beast in crushing waves. Each breath of fire lit its scales from within, as though embers glowed beneath polished stone.
Those scales were flawless, dark as midnight glass, smooth and unblemished. Dragons were creatures of mingled hues. Reds veined with black. Bronze streaked with green. Blue washed with copper. Yet the Cannibal was singular.
Pitch black from crown to tail.
Nothing broke that darkness but its hateful green eyes.
Proud beyond measure, the dragon would suffer no insult to its dignity. The human clinging to its back was no rider in its mind, only prey. Its prey.
Clearing the peak of Dragonmont, the Cannibal hurled itself into the open sky.
Higher.
Ever higher.
As though to challenge the heavens themselves.
I am flying.
Aegon was flung upward with it. The howling wind tore at his silver hair, burned his eyes, and stole his breath until he could scarcely keep them open.
If he could not win the Cannibal's acceptance, he would end as meat in its belly. or maybe end in paste.
The screaming gale became countless knives of ice and steel. There was no evasion, no refuge.
The Cannibal punched through the clouds. The world spun until all things lay beneath Aegon's feet. He did not dare look down. He yielded himself to the dragon's motion, moving as it moved, dancing with it.
Dragonstone. Driftmark. King's Landing.
On the ground, they seemed vast beyond measure. From the sky, they were nothing at all, mere motes scattered across the earth.
The sensation of flight stirred something deep within him. It had been many years since Aegon had last known it.
He had ridden a dragon once before, only once, fleeing death upon the sea. The Triarchy had taken his young dragon from him. One of the darkest hours of his life.
When Aegon was born, a dragon egg had been placed in his cradle. That egg had hatched into Stormcloud.
Before the Dance, the boy had never truly ridden him. At the Battle of the Gullet, Aegon had clung to Stormcloud's neck and barely reached Dragonstone alive. Along the way, arrows riddled the dragon's belly. A crossbow bolt pierced clean through its throat. Mortally wounded, Stormcloud spewed scalding black blood and smoke, and died within the hour.
After Stormcloud's death, Aegon never flew again.
Nor did he claim another dragon.
Riding a hatchling and riding a colossal wild dragon were not the same thing. The difference in height, distance, and endurance was beyond comparison. The Cannibal's body was wrought for war and conquest, its stamina vast and inexhaustible.
"I am the king of the world, riding a black dragon!" Aegon laughed, gripping the jagged spines and iron-hard scales with all his strength.
The storm could not be avoided.
So he embraced it.
High above the world, astride the Cannibal's back, Aegon beheld the immensity of world. From such heights, all things lay beneath him. He was the tallest peak. The longest river.
Then, without warning, the wind screamed louder still.
The Cannibal surged forward, accelerating in a violent burst. Its leathern wings cracked the air like thunder.
Savage light flared in its green eyes. The king of wild dragons would not allow such defiance of its pride.
Above the clouds, the Cannibal unleashed a succession of lethal aerial maneuvers.
It felt like a living siege engine, plunging from peak to abyss again and again.
The dragon soared, slowed, twisted into sinuous curves like a striking serpent. It climbed, dropped, veered left and right. Each dazzling motion stacked peril upon peril.
"Cannibal, descend!"
"Cannibal, fire!"
"Cannibal, land!"
The dragon ignored every command. Now and again it spat its ghastly green flame, rolling waves of dragonfire that burst apart and rained down as embers, burning until nothing remained.
Green clouds blossomed across the sky.
A world of fire.
A river of flame.
Aegon bowed his head and endured, barely.
As dragons grow, their bodies, scales, and flame grow with them. Dragon scales resist fire, but they are not immune. Young dragons burn easily. With age, their fire grows ever hotter and more destructive.
A hatchling might ignite straw.
In their prime, dragons such as Balerion or Vhagar could melt stone and steel.
The Cannibal was younger than those legends, yet its fire was still fearsome, hot enough to liquefy common steel.
The dragon rolled again, spinning violently through the air. Aegon's vision whirled. One heartbeat of weakness and he would be flung from the sky, dashed into ruin.
The Cannibal roared and leveled out, then spiraled upward like a living vortex.
Aegon was battered senseless by the turbulence. His strength bled away with every breath. The dragon was the storm itself.
Still, he endured.
Second by second.
To the very edge of the world.
With a thunderous crack, the Cannibal reached a staggering height, then plunged straight down like a falling bolt loosed from the gods. The wind howled in a deafening rush.
"AAAAAH!" Aegon screamed as adrenaline flooded his veins and his heart thundered in his chest. From the highest heights to the deepest plunge, his body was stretched to its absolute limit.
The Cannibal slammed down upon Dragonmont.
As it descended, it thrashed violently, trying to hurl Aegon into the volcano's waiting jaws.
The dragon was confused.
Never before had it encountered a would-be rider so unyielding, so utterly mad. Most who faced the Cannibal perished at first sight, reduced to charred flesh and bone within its belly.
The Cannibal opened its jaws. Smoke poured forth, followed by a torrent of sickly green flame. Its fury echoed across Dragonmont, the mountain trembling beneath its bellow.
"I cannot lose. I must endure. Endure to the end. There is hope." Aegon was dizzy and half senseless, but he had no other choice.
Targaryens could endure heat, but they were not invincible. Aegon had been hardened only a little. He could not wholly resist the fire of the king of wild dragons. Burns scored his back and hands. Worst of all, green flame washed over his head, scorching his hair away, though the rest of him was spared.
Yet Aegon did not let go.
This was the final moment.
The true dance with the dragon.
"Cannibal, fly with me!"
Even amid the roaring green inferno, Aegon shouted, his voice unbroken.
-------
A/N:
Read ahead on Patreon, 23 advance chapters available, with the first 2 free.
patreon.com/Captain_Lag