Aenar's Folly

So it was that 77 years following Aegon’s Landing, the claimants Maegor II Targaryen upon Balerion the Black Dread and Aenar Targaryen upon Vermithor the Bronze Fury, did battle to determine whether the line of succession would pass to the descendants of Aegon the Conqueror’s sister-queen Visenya or Rhaenys.

The combatants met on a field a few leagues outside the walls of Kings Landing, near Hayford Castle, in an expansive plain that would before known thereafter as Claimant’s Field . A crowd gathered, with the entire Royal Family in attendance. Aenar’s family was placed under guard of Ser Trajan Waters, sending a clear message to the claimant that if he fled the wives of his wife and children would be forfeit. It was whispered by some that the presence of the Knight Inquisitor served a far more nefarious purpose; that he had been given orders that if Aenar was to prevail in the duel the blood of his kin was to stain the grass as Maegor’s last act of vengeance.

Though Princess Areyna and Ser Daegar stood with their dragons at the ready to act as the seconds to their respective claimants, their service was not needed this day. Maegor arrived first, the long shadow over the assembled crowd announcing Balerion’s presence. As the massive beast landed, its wings buffeted the crowd, causing many to stumble back from the strong gusts. Maegor sat proudly atop the beast in black scale armor chased with crimson, the Valyrian blade Blackfyre in his hand. Despite assertions by many that upon sobering up, Aenar would flee rather than face the challenge he had issued, the instigator of this dispute arrived shortly after upon Vermithor. Of the dragons living, only Vhagar and Balerion himself exceeded Vermithor in size; his bronze scales of comparable density and tan wings stretching wide across the plain.

The two male dragons glared balefully at each other, and Balerion spread his wings and hissed, flames as black as his scales dancing across his teeth. With a last cautious check to make sure the four short chains between belt and saddle were fastened, a crack of the combatants' steel tipped spears send both beasts into the sky. As both dragons were older and much larger than their surviving brethren, they were also slower, made ponderous by their very size, and ascended gradually, in ever widening circles around one another.

A dragon’s scales are largely impervious to flame; they protect the more vulnerable flesh and musculature beneath. As a dragon ages, its scales thicken and grow harder, affording even more protection, even as its flames burn hotter and fiercer. In the fullness of their power both dragons could and did melt steel and stone with their flaming breath. When two dragons meet in mortal combat, therefore, they will oft employ weapons other than their flame: claws black as iron, long as swords, and sharp as razors, jaws so powerful they can crunch through even a knight’s steel plate, tails like whips whose lashing blows have been known to smash wagons to splinters, break the spine of heavy destriers, and send men flying fifty feet in the air.

Thus, after a few circles as the beasts surveyed one another like predators closing for the kill, jets of flame were launched at one another more as a means of testing the waters than intent to do damage. Nonetheless, the superheated flames quickly rendered the air around the field difficult to breathe, causing some in the crowds below to faint from the inherent tension of the contest and physical toll of the heat.

The opening act behind them, the two dragons closed for the kill, impacting with a terrible force and thunderous crash that would make the jousting lists seem tame in comparison to the witnesses in attendance. Their roars echoed across the Crownsland plains as the two grappled and tore at one another, the Black Dread and Bronze Fury proving the truth of their bynames. Though Vermithor fought fiercely, his rival’s age offered him one advantage that made the difference that day: this had not been Balerion’s first duel. After the Doom of Valyria, many dragonlords had come to blows in a violent struggle to claim what remained in the ashes, some from families much more powerful than the Targaryens. Aenar Targaryen, father of Aegon the Conqueror, had not fled to Dragonstone without incident, slaying those that stood in his way while mounted upon the Black Dread.

So it was it was, that when the opening came, Balerion punched the claws of its hind legs into the points where Vermithor’s wings met his shoulders, the long blades punching clean through the back to hold the younger dragon in a vice grip. Crippled, as he could not move his wings due to the extensive damage, Vermithor roared in pain, an ear-splitting sound which echoed miles in every direction, as it clawed at the belly and face of Balerion desperately with the legs still of use. Though he managed to claim Balerion’s left eye and leave deep gashes in his scales, it was a futile action, the fight already won. The Black Dread’s jaws closed around Vermithor’s neck, tearing his throat out as its remaining eye watched the life drift away from the Bronze Fury with a triumphant and primal roar, still holding the slain beast in its vice grip as the exertion of his massive wings kept them aloft.

The victory was not flawless however. As Vermithor’s throat was viciously torn out, a spurt of flaming arterial blood bathed the right side of Maegor’s face, leaving a series of scalding burns as it seeped beneath the gaps in his armor. It is said that Aenar yielded at that point, chained to a dead dragon as he pleaded for mercy from his cousin. But Maegor and Balerion had none, the Black Dread releasing its grip to send the dead dragon and living Aenar plummeting to their doom. Vermithor crashed to the ground with thunderous force, Aenar trapped beneath in a sickening crunch.

As Balerion landed beside the slain dragon, Maegor dismounted. Though weak form his wounds, the victorious king was intent on seeing his slain foe for himself. Aenar was found next to Vermithor corpse, barely clinging to life. If there was a bone in his body not shattered, a maester would have been hard-pressed to find it. His legs were twised at numerous angles and his ribcage had splintered out from his chest, piercing his lungs and heart. As Aenar lay drowning in his own blood, Maegor gave him the mercy he had begged for, severing his head from his body with a single strike from Blackfyre. Taking up the golden crown of King Aenys I, he announced “The King is Dead, Long Live the King!” before tossing it into the air where it was reduced to a molten pool instantly by Balerion’s black flames. Though Aenar’s widow and children were spared, Ser Daegar did not even have a chance to think of fleeing before  the point of Ser Trajan Water’s thin blade sprouted from the front of his throat, the assassin twisting the blade slowly as the knight died upon it.

Thus, the reign of King Maegor II was secured and the event known as Aenar's Folly settled.