After the sky was drowned in sickly green fire, the Cannibal began to thrash once more, its vast body black as endless night, struggling to fling Aegon into the molten rock below.
"Fly, Cannibal!"
"Fly!" Aegon shouted again, but to the dragon he was nothing more than a noisy insect clinging stubbornly to its hide.
When the flames finally faded, the Cannibal shifted to a steadier perch high upon the eastern slope. It no longer flew. It no longer breathed fire.
The dragon turned its head and fixed Aegon with those baleful green eyes.
After such furious struggle, it sensed that this tiny morsel burned with a stubborn flame of its own, a will blazing bright and unyielding.
"Cannibal, move!" Aegon called again.
The dragon did nothing. It neither stirred nor loosed its fire. Instead, it shook its massive head slowly, its great green eyes, like twin beacons upon a black sea, locked upon him.
The meaning was plain.
Get off.
For a long moment, the Cannibal remained still. No fire. No violence. No effort to throw him aside. It only watched Aegon, then shook its head once more.
"What does this mean…?" Aegon wondered weakly. "Have I won?"
Utterly spent, he slid down from the dragon's back.
The Cannibal chose to spare the little morsel, just this once. It had hunting yet to do, and no desire to waste further time upon a pest.
With lonely, powerful beats of its wings, the proud dragon prepared to take flight again. One mercy had been granted. Do not trouble me again.
"Is this… the final trial?" Aegon thought. Yet the Cannibal had not submitted.
This was its final warning. Leave now, or persist in a madness that could only end in death.
"Cannibal, we are companions!" Aegon cried desperately. "We will share glory and dreams. Fly with me!"
He had to seize this chance. It might be the only one fate would ever grant him.
At least the dragon had allowed him to live. That alone meant something.
"I am a true dragon! I am Aegon Targaryen!"
"Follow me, Cannibal!"
Bald from fire, his eyebrows burned away, Aegon staggered forward once more. The Cannibal felt the faintest flicker of regard for the tiny creature before it, yet the proud king of dragons would never suffer another to stand above him.
The thunder of beating wings swelled. The wind surged. Aegon ran toward it again, refusing to yield.
The Cannibal's mercy was fleeting. If it was not taken, it would turn to ash.
Boom.
The dragon's patience shattered.
Sulfurous green smoke poured from its vast jaws as the Cannibal reared its neck and unleashed a blazing fireball. It burst in midair, becoming a rain of emerald flame that fell without mercy. Where the fire touched, even stone began to melt.
Heat.
Dryness.
Pain.
Torment.
In that instant, Aegon felt every flame of his life ignite at once. His courage. His will. His resolve. If he missed this moment, regret would haunt him for a thousand lifetimes.
Run.
That was his only thought.
Madness ruled the world. Running was the instinct of men. Aegon endured the inferno and the hellscape, shouting as he ran.
He was not weak. He was fast enough, strong enough, taller than most boys of his years. His talent had never been lacking, only refinement. Once broken and indifferent, he had been reforged by fire and trial alike. Facing death, he had to release everything within him.
And it was not only fire that threatened him.
There was also the dragon's black tail.
Beyond flame, a dragon's physical might was no less deadly. Claws as long as swords, heavy as steel, sharp as razors. Teeth that could shear through a knight's plate. A whip-like tail capable of shattering wagons, breaking warhorses, hurling men fifty feet through the air. Dragons favored fire, resorting to brute force only in close combat or moments of fury.
Crack.
The Cannibal's tail lashed out like lightning, swift enough to break a horse's spine. No man could survive such a blow.
Aegon had to break through flame and fury alike. He had to mount the dragon again.
To seize life from the jaws of death, this was the moment.
Trusting his sense for fire, Aegon dodged clumsily. Some flame he could endure. One strike from that tail would mean death. Between two evils, he chose the lesser.
The distance was not great. Through smoke and fire, through blurred sight and searing pain, he narrowly avoided the killing blow. The Cannibal's tail smashed into the rock, shattering stone.
The dragon was not all-powerful. Its immense size robbed it of some swiftness. In that razor-thin margin between life and death, Aegon's instinct saved him again and again.
When the tail failed to kill him, the Cannibal's rage only deepened.
Boom.
Through the green smoke, Aegon saw the dragon's massive head surge forward, wicked eyes fixed upon him, jaws opening wide.
Snap.
The Cannibal lunged. Aegon changed direction at the last heartbeat, escaping death by inches. Those serrated fangs could swallow cattle whole. What hope had a boy? The dragon's long, serpentine neck bent with terrifying ease.
"We are companions! Cannibal, fly with me!" Aegon shouted.
He feinted left, then rolled hard to the right as the dragon struck, scrambling and sprinting toward the mounting place once more.
He charged through roaring flame, past snapping jaws and the whipping tail.
Now his burns were no longer confined to his back. His arms and calves were scorched as well. Only his thighs had been spared. Crawling and clawing forward, enduring the heat, he finally reached the place to mount the dragon.
This time, the Cannibal showed far greater tolerance. After one last surging wave of flame, it ceased breathing fire.
When Aegon climbed upon its back again, the dragon did not strike.
The Cannibal turned its head, silently watching the dragon-tamer advancing through fire. A small, bald boy.
It gazed upon the half-naked youth, hair burned away, garments in tatters, struggling forward through the inferno.
The dragon loosed a long hiss.
It felt a will like fire. Lonely. Proud. Unyielding. Burning bright.
A heart of iron, forged through countless trials.
The black dragon remembered the long years of its past. Never tamed. King of Dragonstone's wilds. Apex hunter. Solitary survivor. Master of ambush and endurance.
Strength. Pride. Savagery. Cunning. Cold resolve. Rage.
Without these, it would have perished long ago, claimed by the cruelty of the wild.
A companion.
One like itself.
The Cannibal considered it. The years had indeed been long. And lonely.
"Cannibal, I understand you," Aegon cried. "I am like you. We are the last true dragons!"
His resilience, his wounds, his refusal to break stirred something deep within the beast.
A tiny human, yet burning with flame and defiance.
The Cannibal's fury ebbed. With a thunderous roar, it surged skyward.
"Cannibal, fly!" Aegon cried in joy, even as agony wracked his burned flesh.
The dragon answered with a roar of its own, shaking the heavens like thunder.
"To the end of the world, together!" Aegon shouted.
The dragon beat its vast wings and rose into the sky, drifting free and unbound, like a ship loosed upon the endless blue.
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A/N:
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