'When we were but seven name days old, Hardly half the height of the throne and twice as foolish, there was a boy we often played with in those rare hours when our tutors weren't breathing down our necks.
He wasn't kin, but he lived within the keep and had a way of making the dull stretches/moments of the day pass quicker. To be fair, he was decent company, if you ignored the fact he was arrogant as a rooster in mating season and guarded his toys like a carthaginian over gold.
He owned a wooden doll carved to look like Alexander. Yes, that Alexander, with the little wooden spear and helmet and all. We were fascinated by it, gods know why.
Maybe it was the detail in the carving, or maybe we were just bored and it was the only thing we didn't have. So, one day, we did what any half-witted noble brat would, we asked him to let us play with it.
He said no. Flatly. Pushed us on the ground. Then he ran. Took off like a rabbit with a hawk overhead, clutching that doll like it was a royal heirloom. When he'd made it a good distance away, he stopped, turned, stuck out his tongue, and pulled down his lower eyelid like some back-alley fool.
Mocked us right there in the courtyard like we were the jesters and he the prince.
And then... gods be good. My father saw.
He didn't say a word at first. Just watched. Hours later, when I stepped foot into the palace, thinking the matter forgotten, he met me at the door.
No warning. No mercy. The back of his hand cracked across my face like a whip. I hit the floor harder than I'd care to admit to save my reputation.
We were seething.
Not the kind of childish sulk one has after losing a game, but a quiet, coiled fury that scorched beneath the skin. Our veins didn't feel like they carried blood of the gods that the priests were always so fond of preaching about.
No. In that moment, it felt like we were filled with something fouler.
Like the rage of demons clawing up from the underworld, thirsting for nothing but vengeance.
It was the kind of anger that made your vision blur, that made you want to scream, break something, or hurl words you'd never be able to take back.
Truth be told, what we wanted, deep down, buried beneath layers of reason and fear, was to shout at our father. To look him in the eye and declare, with all the childish venom in our lungs:
"Dearest father… you look like someone who, gods forbid, might be a bottom."
But we weren't suicidal.
Because while we may have been petty, we weren't stupid. We were a mere boy, soft of voice, light of frame, hardly taller than his sword, and he was Augustus Caesar. Holy Imperator of Rome.
The Son of Mars, First Citizen of the Principate/Empire, and in all but name, a god walking amongst men. His frown could move armies. His nod could doom cities. And we… well, we still got nosebleeds when we stood up too fast.
Then suddenly he knelt. Took me by the shoulders, calm now, eyes heavy with disappointment. No anger, just that dead calm that made your guts twist and your balls tingle. He shook me once. Not hard. Just enough to make sure I was listening.
"You know why I struck you?" he asked, not even letting me blink.
"I'm not angry," he said. "Just disappointed."
Then came the words I've never forgotten:
"A Caesar does not ask and get denied. He takes."
Our rage vanished the moment he said it, gone like the Carthaginian bastards after the Punic Wars, burned into ash and memory. His final words didn't just silence us.
They rewrote us. That one line, that cold truth spoken with a soldier's calm, dug into our bones like a blade and stayed there. From that day forward, we no longer asked.
We took.
It started small. Petty, even. When we turned eleven name days old, we challenged that smug boy, the same one with the wooden Alexander doll, to a duel in the courtyard.
A friendly spar, they called it. We beat him bloody. Took the doll from his limp hand as he wept. Honestly, we think we may have hit him so hard it rattled something loose.
The lad turned soft after that. Wore perfume. Sat weird. Might've become a bottom in his later years. Gods know. We didn't regret it then, and we sure as the Styx don't regret it now.
Regret was a luxury for children and poets. Our life didn't leave space for either. When we were fourteen, the gods tore the world from beneath our feet. Our father died.
The realm broke. Civil war erupted like rot in the belly of the Empire. The filthy Persians swarmed over the border and snatched Aegyptus. The Germanic filth crossed the Rhine and took Gaul, like lice crawling through a dying man's hair.
Then came the throne.
And with it, his voice, our father's voice, echoing in our head like a ghost we couldn't bury. So we did as he taught us.
We demanded what was ours.
We told Germania to kneel. They laughed behind their trees, hiding like wolves in the thickets, striking only when the odds favored them. So we set their forests ablaze.
Every last one. Burned the bastards out like rats in a hayloft. No roots, no shelter, no escape.
Then we turned east. Told the Persians to yield. They refused. We marched on their homeland, razed their cities, burned their capital to cinders, and slaughtered forty percent of their people.
Men, women, children, it made no difference. We took what we wanted. Not because we were cruel, but because we were Roman.
And Rome remembers.
They sang songs of our victories in the streets. Built statues in our image. Called us the Son of Mars reborn, the Living Flame of the Empire. The people knelt in worship.
As for those we conquered?
They called us a madman.
Let them.
But alas… we did not expect to die like this.
The ruler of half the known world, conqueror of Gaul and Persia, destroyer of tribes and cities, Son of Mars, brought low not by blade, not by poison, not even by betrayal… but by a bull.
A dumb, fat, snorting animal with more balls than brains, and one of those balls(Horns in this case) happened to collide with ours.
We were trying to save a friend. A carpenter, of all people. He'd worked on our bathhouse roof. Honest man. Called us "Domine" with a grin and once stole wine from the kitchens for us when we were twelve.
When we were twenty two name days old, He slipped near the pens, and we—fool that we were—jumped down to pull him back.
Then came the bull.
We felt the hit before we heard it. Something crunched. Something shifted. Then came the pain, white, sharp, and Hellish in its intensity. The kind of pain that makes you believe in the gods again just so you have someone to blame.
We collapsed. The world spun. Our vision dimmed like the last torch in a dying crypt.
We heard the screams then, panicked voices of commanders and legionaries rushing to our side, boots stomping in chaos, armor clanking, someone weeping like a child. We couldn't see anymore.
Our eyes had given up. But our ears still worked, and in those final moments, we weren't thinking about our empire(We were thinking about it), or our wars(This too), or the statues of us standing proud in the capital(Yep, You guessed it right).
No.
We were thinking one thing:
"Will the historians… gods help us… will they write us off as gay for dying while saving a carpenter?"
We know how those bastards write. One scroll turns into ten rumors. Then some fool bard sings a ballad. Then some greasy senator with an agenda adds a footnote:
"He died protecting a man of lower birth. He was… probably a bottom."
We do not fear death. But that?
With that we took our last breath.....
.
..
...
Planetos – Essos
In the narrow, piss-soaked alleys of Braavos, where even the wind walked in silence right now, a silver-haired boy no older than fourteen name days huddled behind his sister.
The girl stood tall for her age, small and frighten, her violet eyes wide with terror as their last protector, Ser Willem Darry, clashed steel with shadowy blades.
The clash was brief. The assassins were faster. Colder.
"The Lannisters send their regards," one of them sneered as his blade found Willem's throat, the knight collapsing like a felled statue, his blood soaking into the cobblestone.
Viserys clutched his sister tighter, his fingers trembling, but not with fear. Not anymore.
Something shifted in him then. The eyes that once wept for dead dragons and broken legacies hardened. The boy vanished. In his place stood something else. Something colder. Older.
He stepped out from behind Daenerys, his voice low, almost thoughtful, almost bored.
"Don't you think…" he began, eyes locked onto the killers like a vulture studying carcasses, "…you talk too much for ants?"
His tone didn't shout, didn't plead. It simply was. A quiet threat, wrapped in arrogance that only royalty or madness could wear.
[DING! Forget the dragon, The Phoenix has awakened!]
{Author's Note:}Hey everyone! This is my first time writing a novel, so the writing might be a bit rough around the edges, but I'm giving it my all!
If you enjoyed the chapter, I'd love to hear what you think down in the comments. And if you're feeling generous, maybe drop a few power stones into this beggar's den?