Fanfic / A Northern Dragoness

A Northern Dragoness is an A Song of Ice and Fire fanfiction, written by CaekDaemon (also author of The Many Sons of Winter) that takes place more than a century before the books.

It is 161 years after Aegon's Conquest. The last dragons that helped to forge the Iron Throne in fire and blood are dead, but the Targaryens still reign in the Seven Kingdoms. King Baelor the Blessed rules with pious heart and gentle hand, but the realm still feels the effects of the Dance of Dragons that happened in his father's youth, and of the Invasion of Dorne initiated by his brother Daeron that ended when Baelor offered a peace treaty.

Baelor is married to his eldest sister, Daena, but the marriage has never been consummated: considering his vows as septon above his duties as king, Baelor keeps Daena and her sisters, Rhaena and Elaena, under confinement, claiming his desire to keep their innocence pure. Daena, willful and adventurous, chafes under these restraints, and hopes for a way to escape her imprisonment.

To her surprise, these hopes are answered: Lord Cregan Stark, Warden of the North and probably one of the most powerful men in Westeros, has heard of Baelor's vows, and has traveled south with his heir Jonnel to fulfill the Pact of Ice and Fire, which promised a Targaryen princess to House Stark. Although King Baelor is reluctant to marry one of his sisters to the heir of House Stark, Lord Cregan will not be denied his price — and, for Daena, the Starks could not have come soon enough.

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This fanfic has examples of:

• 0% Approval Rating: Baelor is, if not hated, at least disliked by many lords of Westeros, because he allowed Dorne to go unpunished for their treacherous murder of Daeron (and many other lords and heirs) under a peace banner.
• Actual Pacifist: Baelor not only abhors war, but he also forbids his people from doing it. He does not even defend himself when Daena slaps him. Deconstructed because Westeros is a society where usually martial strength is an indicator of power, and, as King, Baelor should technically be in charge of directing the Seven Kingdoms' armies: his pacifism only weakens his hold over the Seven Kingdoms.
• Adaptational Name Change: Baelor's great project is renamed the Great Sept of Naerys.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Aegon Targaryen (known in the time of the books as Aegon IV The Unworthy) is nicer than what he would become in the future. For example, he tries to be a good father to his son Daeron (even if their interests clash) and the only reason he still tries to have children with Naerys even though her health is at risk is because he knows House Targaryen could die out at any moment and he is the only male in the age of having children. It's also worth noting that this story takes place when he is a younger man.
  • A specific interpretation of this is where he "bought" a blacksmith's wife. Said blacksmith was abusive towards her and Aegon interrupted the blacksmith beating her with his offer.
  • There's no mention of Cassella Vaith, a Dornish hostage he slept with under Questionable Consent and then sent to be executed.
• Adapted Out: Daenarys, daughter of Aegon and Naerys, does not appear.
• Ambiguously Gay: Baelor's unwillingness to consummate his marriage to Daena and his close friendship with the High Septon makes people think Baelor may be homosexual.
• Anything but That!: Daena all but begs Jonnel to marry her, because if he does not then she would be sent back into confinement.
• Arranged Marriage: The Pact of Ice and Fire aims to unite the Targaryen and Stark bloodlines. Daena couldn't be more happier about it, Jonnel is much more reserved on the matter.
• Awful Truth: It takes Jonnel a long time to admit to Daena that he was married before, and that his first wife died because of her multiple miscarriages.
• Badass Boast:
  • Lord Cregan is going to fight against Aemon the Dragonknight just with his fighting gloves and Ice. When Hand of the King Viserys Targaryen asks if they should ask for more armor or a shield, Lord Cregan replies that Aemon is armored enough for their fight.
  • He also gives a good one to Daena, combining the words of the main houses of the Seven Kingdoms to underline his hope that they will be able to get revenge on Dorne.
    Lord Cregan Stark: Baelor and his promised peace have done nothing more than delay the inevitable. There will be justice for all that the Dornish have done against these lands, I promise you that, good-daughter. When it does, they will learn that ours is a fury that has grown strong, and that although we hold our honor highest of all, it is for that honor, for duty and for family that we strike against them. When all is over and done, they will look to their lands, drowned in fire and blood, and know that the Seven Kingdoms has roared and that winter has come.
• Badass Bookworm: Lord Cregan Stark. He manages to defeat Aemon the Dragonknight by using Ice as a lever against Aemon's Dark Sister.
• Berserk Button: Dorne, for Daena. The Dornish killed many lords, including Daeron Targaryen, by breaking Sacred Hospitality, a capital insult to the Westerosi lords. The other Kingdoms' army beat back the Dornish, until just before dealing the killing blow, a horrified Baelor stopped the attackers and proceeded to shower Dorne with gold and exemptions, giving them a much needed respite and allowing them to rebuild their army, to the horror of everyone else. Baelor, a hopelessly pious and naive ruler, hoped to broker peace through the Faith of the Seven, blind to the hate he was generating among his lords and family at not avenging the fallen lords. Baelor's fanaticism has also turned the Faith of the Seven into this for both Daena and Elaena.
• Berserker Tears: Aegon and Aemon furiously fight each other while crying over Naerys' death, blaming each other as they do so.
• Big Sister Instinct: Daena immediately jumps on the opportunity of leaving King's Landing by marrying North to take her youngest sister Elaena away from Baelor's influence.
• Brother–Sister Incest: The (unhappy) marriage between Aegon and Naerys. Daena was willing to have it with Baelor, but he never tried.
• Cain and Abel: Aemon hates his brother Aegon for the way he treats Naerys. At points, he's even close to get his sword and skewer him.
• Conspicuous Consumption:
  • To Viserys' horror, the two and a half million gold dragons Baelor wants to spend on his Great Sept. It's twice what Aegon the Conqueror spent on the original Sept of Remembrance, which was fortified and had barracks for the Faith Militant, and that's the figure he arrived at after Lord Manderly convinced him to tone down his original plans — 7,777,777 gold dragons — enough, in Aegon's estimation, to build an entirely new King's Landing in the shape of a seven-pointed star with streets of marble and running water for every house. Most of it's intended to go into salaries and charity, but the expense of the sept is exacerbated by the high-end materials he wants, transport expenditures, and the highly-ritualized construction conditions he wants to impose.
  • Lord Darry's made a lot of money in the ongoing summer, but keeps wasting it in useless luxuries. Cregan baits him with the idea of investing more in his own keep to make it larger and better defended, with the eventual hope of eventually outshining Riverrun.
• Cosplay Café: While looking for their mother in Lys, Aegon and Aemon come across a high-class brothel called the Red Keep after the Targaryen castle itself while its courtesans are all dressed in the style of the current royal family, much to Aegon's amusement and Aemon's horror.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Aemon, the Dragonknight, is one of the best swordsmen in the realm. Cregan Stark defeats him in less than a second.
• Death by Childbirth:
  • Jonnel's first wife, Robyn, died after suffering her third miscarriage.
  • Naerys dies after giving birth to her and Aegon's twin children - the boy dies, but the girl survives.
• Deconstruction: The story deconstructs Dorne's Combat Pragmatist and Determinator status, traits that allowed them to resist Targaryen rule for centuries, by showing how their willingness to use every dirty trick in the book makes them despised by the rest of Westeros.
• Dirty Coward: Daena regards Baelor as a coward hiding behind the Faith of the Seven as an excuse to never actually behave as the king he nominally is.
• Do Wrong, Right: After Daena's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Baelor, Viserys tells her that, while he agrees with what she said, he would have preferred if she did it in private.
• Droit du Seigneur: Jonnel is extremely happy to know the right of the first night is long dead, since he thinks Baelor might be gay and isn't interested to learn if the groom can be bedded instead of the bride.
• Egocentrically Religious: Baelor, crossed with The Fundamentalist and Too Dumb to Live. He's obsessed with an interpretation of the Faith of the Seven that caters to his own chaste, Suicidal Pacifism preferences while ignoring the resentment his decisions generate among his family and lords. He thinks he can pray away all the ills of the kingdom, locks his sisters in confinement (ignoring that two of the three utterly hate the arrangement, that Targaryen princesses could be key to the dynasty's survival and that the main book of the Faith indicates women should have families) and desperately wants to avoid war (more out of cowardice than anything else), even to the point of refusing to appoint Masters of Law and Whispers (feeling the very fact he needs either means the Faith doesn't have all the answers) and paying exorbitant amounts of cash to Dorne and beg forgiveness for entirely warranted attacks while ignoring colossal breaches of Sacred Hospitality (even though it's one of the main tenets of the Faith). He's also willing to spend obscene amounts of money in charity and a magnificent Sept, but that's seen as a point in his favor by the smallfolk, some of whom turn out to be veterans from the Dance of the Dragons who were too mutilated to return to their normal way of life.
• Everyone Has Standards: According to Daena, even the notoriously brutal clansmen of the Mountains of the Moon (descendant of the First Men that were displaced by the Andal kings that took the Vale, and who have been carrying out a guerrilla war for millennia) would have considered Baelor's actions an injustice towards his people.
  • Aegon is aghast when Daeron says he thinks he takes joy in sleeping with Naerys while she is crying.
• Exact Words: Just before the duel between Aemon (completely armored) and Lord Cregan (with only duelling mittens as armor) begins, Jonnel mutters that the fight will be quick. A minute later, Aemon has been disarmed.
• Expensive Glass of Crap: Lord Darry spends gobs of money arranging for a dinner of peacock. Unfortunately, his cooks don't have the slightest idea of how to prepare peacock and ruin the expensive meat.
• Fairytale Motifs: At the beginning, Daera is a Girl in the Tower and the man who imprisoned her is a Targaryen, whose Animal Motifs is a dragon. However the method of rescueing her is by marriage rather than dragon slaying.
• Fee Fi Faux Pas: Moredo Rogare, Viserys' good-brother (via his wife Larra), makes the serious mistake of gifting Daena a bottle of Dornish wine made on the same year Daeron the Young Dragon (along with many other lords and heirs) was killed by the Dornish while under a flag of parley. Rogare only gets out alive because he is under guest right and Viserys tells him to never come back.
• Foreshadowing: Baelor commands Aemon the Dragonknight, with absolute conviction, to guard a mysterious key embossed with the Seven-Pointed Star, even above his duty to protect royalty. Whatever it opens, it's headed for the Red Keep, and will arrive in seven months...
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • Daena Targaryen marries Jonnel Stark before the Maidenvault is even built. With the eventual birth of Daemon (the son of Daena with her cousin Aegon) avoided, the defining events of the next century, the Blackfyre Rebellions, will be completely averted.
  • Naerys dies giving birth to twins, at least ten years before her canon death. One of the twins, named Rhaenys, survives.
  • Word of God is that as Aemon was sent to Lys on a mission to rescue a Westerosi noblewoman that had been captured and taken there as a slave, Naerys' melancholy worsened enough that she died instead of living.
• Freudian Threat: When Aegon starts to get a bit too irritating with his "japes", Viserys threatens to send him to Lys — after being castrated.
• Gold Digger: One of Aegon's mistresses is hoping to have one of his bastards so she can get money from him. Aegon does not seem to mind, though. His father Viserys appears before they can do the deed, though.
• Growling Gut: Played for Laughs when Elaena hides in her sister's wheelhouse and she is found by her uncle Viserys because of this trope.
• HA HA HA—No: After catching him making love to a merchant's widow, Viserys responds to one of Aegon's jokes in Chapter Six with a chuckle and then smacks the wine cup from his son's hand and drags him out of his room.
• Hated by All: Dorne is essentially this for all of Westeros. Not for resisting Daeron's conquest, but for how they totally ignored each and every rule and ancient custom to do so - including guest right.
• Heel Realization: Aegon realizes how rotten his behavior has been when he realizes that neither his son Daeron nor his wife Naerys can stand him.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Daena flat-out considers Baelor this for keeping her and her sisters locked in their rooms and basically depriving them of living their lives to the full.
• Heroic BSoD: With Naerys dead and their newborn son Aelyx dying, Aegon demands the executions of everyone in attendance at the birth. After his father stops this from being carried out, he remains awake for days while taking care of his surviving daughter, Rhaenys.
• His Heart Will Go On: Jonnel is still mourning his wife, Robyn Ryswell, who died six months in a miscarriage before the beginning of the story. His fear that something similar may happen to Daena nearly leads him to attempt to join the Night's Watch, before his father slaps those notions out of his head.
• Hypocrite: Baelor will imprison his sisters, close brothels, force nobles to make peace and halt any attempts to restart the war with Dorne on the grounds that it is the will of the Seven - while deciding to ignore that the Dornish committed one of the biggest crimes against the Seven by breaking Guest Right, and that the Seven also support having children and making justice.
• I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: When Aegon tells his father that perhaps it would be better if a regency was declared for Baelor (citing the fact that he is completely nuts), Aemon agrees with him, and then mutters he never thought he would say that.
• I Have No Brother: When Baelor makes the mistake of punching Daena's Berserk Button and then calls her "sister", she replies that, as far as she is concerned, he has never been her brother.
• I Resemble That Remark!: After Daena makes her "The Reason You Suck" Speech at Baelor, calling him a weak coward, he not only does not reply, he goes to his sept to pray.
• Innocently Insensitive: Baelor thinks that his sisters would actually welcome being confined and kept pure. Rhaena did. Daena and Elaena didn't. He also proclaims peace with Dorne at every turn, ignoring how the Lords are itching for revenge on the Dornish after their murder of Daeron and many heirs under a parley banner. Then he proceeded to repeatedly jump on Daena's Berserk Button while giving his blessings to her before she leaves for Winterfell.
  • When Jonnel gives Elaena a few tips on how to fake being pregnant, Daena teasingly asks if he has any little bastard children (since he seems to know a lot about the matter), unknowingly triggering Jonnel's memories of his first wife's miscarriages and death.
• In Memoriam: In-Universe, Baelor decides to change his plans for the new Great Sept of King's Landing, choosing to consecrate it to the memory of Naerys.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Viserys and the Kingsguard barge in on Aegon and Lysa about to make love and throw Lysa out.
• It's All My Fault: Jonnel blames himself for his first wife Robyn's death, thinking there may be something wrong in him that caused her miscarriages.
  • Aegon blames himself for the death of Naerys.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Aegon makes a good point in that, since he is the only male Targaryen that can have children (Viserys is too old, Aemon and Baelor have made vows of chastity and Daeron is eight years old), he needs to have as many children as possible, even though he knows Naerys does not want to have children and being pregnant puts her at risk.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Aegon and Daeron. Aegon feels crushed when he gifts Daeron a hawk for hunting, and Daeron awkwardly replies he dislikes hunting.
• Loyal to the Position: Even Aemon the Dragonknight, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, dislikes Baelor.
• The Man Behind the Man: It is made obvious that Viserys is the actual power, and the one thing preventing the collapse of the Targaryen monarchy, especially after Daeron's untimely death and Baelor's fundamentalist ways.
• Marital Rape License: Naerys hates having sex with Aegon, and according to his POV scenes he doesn't enjoy hurting her either. But the realm needs legitimate Tagareyn heirs, and thanks to Baelor's refusal to consummate his marriage Aegon and Naerys are the only couple who can produce those heirs.
• Moment Killer: Aemon the Dragonknight interrupts Daena and Jonnel a couple of times, preventing them from even kissing.
• The Mourning After: It's only been about six months since Jonnel's first wife died, and he is nowhere near recovered from that trauma by story start. This considerably complicates his relationship with Daena.
• Ms. Fanservice: Daena. She makes good use of her assets to make sure Jonnel will accept to marry her.
• My God, You Are Serious!: Aegon laughs after his father Viserys drops his Freudian Threat. A few seconds later he stops laughing and realizes his father is really considering it. Subverted when Viserys then reveals it was a joke.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Someone slaps the King, is told that they cannot strike the King and answers that they have just done so. Is this Daena or Tyrion?
  • Like his descendant, Donnel Arryn spends a while puzzling over the inheritance of hair color in the royal family.
• Named by the Adaptation: The twins born to Naerys are named Rhaenys and Aelyx.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Daena calls Baelor out for being a coward unwilling to do anything to reply to Dorne's treacherous murder of their brother Daeron and many others under a flag of parley - in front of multiple lords from all of Westeros. This causes Baelor's hold over the Throne to weaken, as the nobles consider Baelor's lack of response a possible breach of the vassal-lord arrangement.
  • Elaena's escape could have been this as well, but fortunately Viserys manages to avoid problems by making it look like he had previously approved for Elaena to go North as Daena's handmaiden.
  • When Baelor found out about Megette (who had become Aegon's mistress after he got her away from her abusive husband), he had Viserys send her back to her husband, because he claimed her being Aegon's mistress was an insult to the Mother, the Father and the Smith. Megette was beaten to death by her husband within a year.
• Oh, Crap!: Played for Laughs. When Jonnel meets Baelor for the first time, he panics when the King smiles at him, thinking the King may be homosexual.
  • Lord Manderly as he explains what the construction of the Great Sept, as built on Baelor's orders, would entail, while Viserys becomes more thunderous as he hears of every added expense.
  • A much more serious example is when Baelor pledges to rebuild the Sept of Remembrance using the old plans. Plans that includes quarters for the Faith Militant. Viserys and his sons discuss the possibility that he may revive them as a way of countering Daena's claims that he is weak. Which could very well cause both the North (Old Gods) and the Iron Islands (Drowned God) to rebel. They ultimately dismiss the idea, but considering how in canon he may have been planning to forcefully convert these areas to the Seven...
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Elaena turns her hair black with ashes and - at Daena's suggestion - puts her egg under her dress to make it look like she's pregnant. Jonnel fakes believing the disguise until he points out that she still looks Targaryen, and her false name is too similar to her real one.
• Pet the Dog: For all his fanaticism, Baelor isn't completely blind to Aegon's suffering after the death of his wife and son. In fact, he arranges to change the Great Sept he's building to consecrate it in her name rather than his, and adding plans for a statue of them both. Aegon's touched by the gesture, especially knowing how much that sept means to Baelor.
• Poor Communication Kills: Aemon's wild goose chase to Lys and Naerys's Death by Despair could have been avoided if someone looked closely enough at the Swann genealogy to realize that Johanna had been missing for decades.
• Pragmatic Hero: During his duel with Aemon, Cregan considered grabbing Ice from the blade and bludgeoning Aemon with the pommel (an actual swordfighting technique known as a mordhau or murder strike), but he thought that would be unfair.
• The Promise: Pretty much the only thing that keeps Daena from killing Baelor (even if it means being labelled a kinslayer) is the fact that she promised her parents she would take care of her siblings. At the same time, she also reasons that part of this promise includes "protecting" Elaena from Baelor's fanaticism.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Westerosi nobility. This is Played for Drama as it's a source of bitterness towards Baelor due to his shielding of Dorne.
• Rage Breaking Point: Baelor's attempt to bless Jonnel and Daena before they leave for the North stops midpoint when his platitudes press Daena's Berserk Button too many times.
  • Viserys smashes a cup when he finds out why and how Baelor wants to expend two and a half million dragons on the construction of the new Great Sept. Aegon mentally remarks that he had never seen his father angrier than that moment. However, he does calm down somewhat when Baelor decides that instead of the planned Great Sept, he'll rebuild the Sept of Remembrance in honor of Naerys, with the added benefit that it won't be nearly as expensive.
• Really Gets Around: Aegon, as per canon. At age 26, he boasts of having slept with at least 121 different women, and proclaims that he intends to make it to the eight hundred.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Daena throws one at Baelor for his lack of will to act against Dorne for what they did, and for not doing what a king should.
• Refuge in Audacity: Elaena sneaks out of the Red Keep by dying her hair and claiming to be a maid left pregnant by Lord Manderly, the current Master of Coin.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Cregan is even harsher on the people who turned on Aegon II than in canon, despite himself being an ally of Rhaenyra; what seemed like one of his softer moments, agreeing to marry Black Aly, turns out to have been a means to drain House Blackwood of resources in the face of the oncoming winter (the Blackwoods had also been loyal to Rhaenyra through the Dance, but he marked them as traitors for shielding Corlys Velaryon).
• Shipper on Deck: Elaena thinks her other sister Rhaena would be the perfect bride for Baelor. She's pious and chaste, what's there not to like for The Fundamentalist?
• Shout-Out: The letter Aegon and the guards write to the Martells is similar to the Zaporozhian Cossacks' letter to Mahmud IV.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Daena wants a husband that will treat her better than Baelor.
• Soldier vs. Warrior: Cregan Stark versus Aemon the Dragonknight. Aemon is far more experienced in duels, but Cregan's much more used to actual fighting.
• Start of Darkness: This story shows Aegon (the future Aegon the Unworthy) when he still gave a damn about anyone else, and finding out that neither his son Daeron nor his wife Naerys can stand him. It is implied this may be what prompts his future turn towards what he becomes in the books.
• Too Dumb to Live: Baelor refuses to name a Master of Laws and a Master of Whispers, the former because only the Father can be a master of law, and the latter because it would be a threat to his peace. This means the Seven Kingdoms are left without someone that directs the interpretation of the laws and without the means to keep an eye on inner and outer threats. He also gave the Dornish several million gold dragons as compensation, which means they are now able to restore their lands and armies and prepare themselves for the next fight against the Seven Kingdoms.
  • He also decides that the Great Sept is to be built (to a cost of two and a half million gold dragons) using the best Myrish glass and statues made of stones from the place where the Andals first landed in Westeros, while every block is anointed with holy oils. And that's the only part Lord Manderly (the Master of Coin) got through before Viserys smashed his cup.
    • Even the current proposed cost is greatly reduced from Baelor's original budget of 7,777,777 gold dragons. Manderly persuaded Baelor to accept 2.5 million as good enough, since 2 and 5 add up to 7. He did try to make it a little bit over a million, but two and a half million was as low as Baelor would go.
  • This is Lyonel Tyrell's opinion on the last Gardener king: how the heck did he think he had a chance to fight the man who just burned the greatest castle in the Seven Kingdoms and come out alive?
• Trademark Favorite Food: Aegon prefers wine (Arbor Gold, to be exact), though Aemon vouches for the variety of ale.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The nobles views towards the Dornish breaking the Sacred Hospitality.
• Troll: Whoever it was who convinced Moredo Rogare that a Dornish red made in the year of King Daeron's murder would be the perfect wedding present for Daeron's sister.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Baelor tries to pray for a peaceful resolution to every problem he encounters, even those that are obviously not going to get fixed up that way. If it weren't for his uncle Viserys, the Seven Kingdoms would have probably broken down already.
• You Are Too Late / Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The mission Aemon was sent away for (indirectly leading to the death of Naerys), searching for a kidnapped noblewoman in Lys, turns out to have been almost completely unnecessary - the letter was sent sixty-five years before. It was actually addressed to Viserys I, his great-grandfather, and nobody noticed after it got lost and resurfaced. Still, the by-then elderly noble was delighted to be "rescued" after establishing an empire in Lys and was considering returning home to see how her family had grown in the years since.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Cregan Stark doesn't see any future for the Tullys, thinking that at most they'll last another 150 years. This is why he takes the opportunity to advise and ingratiate himself with the Darrys, to keep a strong Northern influence upon anyone who eventually ends up controlling the territory.