The Dragonpit

Behind him is Elseyris, changed into her riding clothes, and her face bright with excitement.

"Thank you for offering to fly with me. I shall fetch Nenyan and meet you back here, if that would be well?"

With a big grin, Elseyris bounded off down the tunnel that led to Nenyan's little cave. He was still quite small, so didn't need very much space, and she found him curled up in his nook, dozing. She approached him, and quietly called his name, to catch his attention. When he raised his head, she stroked his long, pale snout, and he trilled happily at her touch. Slinging her riding gear over one shoulder, she looped his reins loosely around his neck, leading him back up into the central area of the pit, and began to prepare him for riding.

"Nenyan. He looks a bit puny next to Glutton, but he's just a baby, really."

Elseyris clambered up into Nenyan's saddle, as he shook his head a little and stretched.

"After you, My Lord," she said, with a polite nod, and an earnest smile, gripping Nenyan's reins, in readiness to take off.

After Aegon is in the air, Elseyris digs her heels into Nenyan's sides, and her bounds forward, lithe and light, and leaps into the air, and swoops upward with a beat of his wings.
She steers him up towards Glutton, reaching him swiftly, and they begin to soar alongside him.

Elseyris closes her eyes, enjoying the rushing wind on her face and in her hair. This is my freedom

With her eyes still shut, her head tilted slightly backwards, she calls over to Aegon. Even on this relatively still night, the rushing wind made speaking between dragons a little difficult.

"Isn't it wonderful! Sometimes, I wish I could just stay up here forever. It makes everything going on down there seem so small and unimportant."

She opened her eyes and looked over at him, beaming with joy.

"Why not?" she shouted back, elevating her own volume.

"I suppose I am, I've been flying Nenyan since I was 4. I'm not an expert or anything, and I'm sure I'd have no chance with another dragon that I knew less well, but I feel like flying is something I was always meant to do. How long have you had a dragon?"

"That soon, goodness! No wonder you aren't used to it!" she shouted back in surprise.

"Fly him for another year or two, and I'm sure it'll become second nature. It's in our blood. After all, you did manage to get him to let you ride him."

She steered Nenyan a little closer to Glutton as she followed Aegon's path along the Blackwater, hoping to save both their voices from excessive strain.

"Tell me about Dragonstone, I've never been there."

"It sounds wonderful," said Elseyris, wistfully. "I'd love to visit it someday, if I'm ever allowed to leave King's Landing."

Her eyes became sad for a moment, as she gazed over the Blackwater and everything beyond it. 

"Perhaps His Grace would let me visit Dragonstone if you took me there?"

She follows his lead, circling overhead a few times, to give Glutton time to land securely, before steering Nenyan down into the clearing, scrambling a little on reaching the ground, like an excitable dog trying to change direction too quickly. When he finally steadied himself, she swung herself out of the saddle, hardly making a sound as she landed, and sidling over to a spot that looked like a suitable place to sit. Settling down in the grass, she patted the spot next to her, indicating for Aegon to join her.

"As much as I love flying, having to shout is an undesirable side-effect," she said with a smile, brushing aside her windswept braids. "And the occasional mouthfuls of one's own hair!"

Her brow furrowing at the unexpected question, Elseyris looks at Aegon with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion;

"I'm 14, turning 15 in June. Why do you ask?"

"He scares me so much. I often wonder when he will tire of us and just have us killed, my mother, sister and I. All for something that was not our doing."

She felt a deep sadness, and something like anger, grip her heart, but she pushed the feelings away, focusing on Aegon's face;

"Are you suggesting that I join in the war?"