In the years following the Pact between the First Men and the Children of the Forest, skinchangers were not considered heretics or monsters.
Instead, they were revered as prophets and priests.
But four thousand years later, the fair-haired, blue-eyed Andals invaded.
Armed with weapons forged of fine steel and chests painted with the seven-pointed star of their new gods, they crossed the sea, driven by unwavering faith.
Speaking of this, one couldn’t help but curse: damn it, four thousand years ago they were already a Bronze Age civilization.
After living alongside the magical Children of the Forest for four millennia, their magical civilization failed to develop, their technological progress was utter garbage, and their entire civilization simply stagnated.
Four thousand years, and they still hadn’t transitioned from a mature Bronze Age to an Iron Age.
What a joke!
It served them right that six of the Seven Kingdoms were easily swept away by the invaders.
They weren’t entirely wiped out—most chose to surrender, switch allegiances, or intermarry with the Andals.
Only the North, protected by the natural fortress of the Neck, barely managed to preserve the power of the First Men.
The Neck could be understood as the ultimate chokepoint of Westeros—a treacherous pass where a single man could hold off ten thousand.
Furthermore, there was no secret backdoor to bypass it, making it the only viable land route, though a sea route did exist.
Just how difficult was it to traverse the Neck?
During the War of the Five Kings, a demoralized force of ironborn used a mere sixty-three archers to hold off a Northern army of ten thousand for three whole years!
When the Andals invaded, the Starks were not the sole ruling power in the North.
Besides the Starks, there were many other powerful lords, such as House Bolton, who had a fondness for flaying men.
Despite the twisted tastes and perverse natures of the young flayer and the Leech Lord, their family’s foundation was truly no weaker than that of the Starks.
Back then, several Stark lords had been flayed by the Boltons, their skins turned into cloaks.
Utterly ruthless.
Returning to the main topic, as the Starks unified the North, they also gradually underwent a process of distancing themselves from the ways of the First Men.
Although the Starks constantly boasted about having the blood of the First Men and clung to the tradition of worshipping the Old Gods, they were no longer pure First Men.
The last recorded skinchanger monarch was the Lord of Sea Dragon Point, known as the Warg King, a staunch ally of the Children of the Forest.
But the Starks killed him and his sons, slaughtered his beast companions and greenseers, and took only his daughters as spoils of war.
Would true First Men ever slaughter greenseers?
Did they forget the sacred Pact signed with the Children of the Forest on the Isle of Faces?
Only the wildlings beyond the Wall and the crannogmen of the Neck could be considered orthodox First Men.
They still retained their reverence for greenseers, whereas the Starks merely possessed First Men blood.
It wasn’t just House Stark.
The Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the Highgarden lineage of Garth Greenhand, and the Durrandons of the Stormlands (the Baratheons only inherited Storm’s End after Aegon’s Conquest)—they were all descendants of the First Men and shared thousands of years of faith in the Old Gods.
Back then, skinchangers were not monsters to be hunted down by the masses.
However, after the Andals successfully invaded Westeros, the Faith of the Seven—a religion with no actual gods—replaced the primitive yet very real Old Gods.
It was somewhat ironic.
Among the great houses of the South, the godswoods, which once served as sanctuaries for the Old Gods, gradually became mere gardens for ladies and children to play in.
Skinchangers and greenseers were increasingly demonized, treated almost like the Others—creatures to be killed on sight.
If anyone south of the Wall was found communicating with animals, the people around them would execute them immediately.
Thousands of years passed like this.
By the time of Eddard Stark’s children, wargs had become nothing more than myths from fairy tales.
Even if you loudly proclaimed yourself a warg, others would only laugh and mock you for daydreaming.
Therefore, Jon, Arya, Bran, and even Robb all fiercely resisted their warg nature at first.
Instead of developing their talents, they wished they could seal them away forever.
Dany’s talent as the Mother of Dragons was absolutely on par with that of a greenseer.
Greenseers appeared once in a million births; during the peak of the Old Gods’ worship, there were at least one or two in every generation.
Dany, however, was perhaps the only Mother of Dragons in the entire five-thousand-year history of Valyria.
A true genetic mutation.
In the original timeline, Daenerys resisted her talents and instincts even more than Jon did.
She wanted to play with her dragons, but her companions and subjects feared them.
She wanted to take them hunting freely, but she was too overwhelmed with official duties to spare the time.
Fearing they would harm people, she locked them away, ignoring the mournful cries of the adolescent dragons.
She wanted to mount a dragon and fly away, leaving everything behind, but then she remembered her duty to her people.
By then, she had even stopped having dragon dreams, almost unilaterally severing all connection with her dragons—though her black dragon could still sense when she was in danger.
That Daenerys was a kind queen, but a failed Mother of Dragons.
She had her priorities backward, obsessing over her identity as a queen while completely abandoning her title as the Mother of Dragons.
It wasn’t just a title; it was the fundamental meaning of her existence.
But the current Dany was different.
Even without a teacher, she used her own methods to develop her innate abilities.
Her efforts paid off.
While the black dragon flew, Dany used the soul connection of her dragon dreams to share his vision.
Wargs could not only gain the five senses of an animal but also occupy a wolf’s body with their human consciousness.
It wasn’t merely controlling its behavior; it was transforming into the wolf, essentially possessing it temporarily.
The reason Dany was only considered a lesser dragon-warg was that her control over her dragons was far inferior to a warg’s control over their animal companion.
She could only receive the black dragon’s sensory information.
Let alone becoming the dragon, she couldn’t even control his actions.
Furthermore, unlike skinchangers who could control different species of animals, Dany couldn’t even establish stable dragon dreams with the white dragon or the green dragon, let alone other creatures.
It wasn’t that the other two dragons were rejecting her.
How to put it…
it was somewhat like having only one skill slot available.
As her connection with the black dragon grew tighter, her dragon dreams with the other two became increasingly rare.
In truth, wargs also had a limit to their skill slots.
Those with high talent could control multiple animals, while those with poor talent could only control a single dog—dogs being the most docile and easiest to control.
Varamyr, who could control six animals, earned the glorious moniker of Sixskins.
Ser Jorah had told Dany that every dragon had only one master, and a person could only ride one dragon.
Until the current master died, no one else could ride their dragon alone.
Of course, an outsider could hitch a ride as a passenger, provided they were accompanied by the dragon’s master.
Similarly, a Targaryen who already had a dragon could not claim another.
“Huh, what is that?” Dany was suddenly jolted awake.
Just a moment ago, in a fleeting glance, she had seen an unusual sight.
The black dragon’s vision was astonishing; he seemed able to see scenes dozens of kilometers away from an altitude of a thousand meters.
It wasn’t very clear, and it didn’t last long, but the colors of the Red Waste were far too monotonous—a uniform dark red.
Previously, through the black dragon’s perspective, Dany could only see the blue sky, the red comet, and the dark red plains in varying degrees of clarity.
Suddenly, the moment the black dragon turned, Dany saw a patch of white abruptly appear on the endlessly dark red ground.
Was it a city?
Or a cluster of uniquely colored rocky hills?
‘Big Black, stop playing around.
Help me find that white thing from just now…
I think it’s a city,’ she urged eagerly in her mind.
According to Dothraki tradition, one should not name animals.
But Dany didn’t consider her dragons to be mere animals; they were legendary beings, no less significant than humans.
So, she had named them early on.
Well…
Big Black, Little White, and Little Green.
Alright, those were just nicknames she often used.
Not calling the black dragon Deathwing would be a complete waste of his hellish black and red scales.
However, the name Deathwing drew too much hostility, and she didn’t want her baby dragon to die prematurely.
Once he was invincible in this world, she would let him declare it himself with his maw reeking of sulfur and death: *I am Deathwing, the Destroyer, the End of All Things.
I am the Cataclysm.* Yes, that would be incredibly epic.
The other two names were much more ordinary: Jade and White Jade.
The green dragon was as translucent as jade, his body resembling the finest emerald—a vibrant, life-filled green.
The white dragon’s main body possessed the warm luster of white jade, but along the lines of his bones ran a sun-like platinum hue, exuding a sacred aura that commanded reverence.
If anyone asked, she would tell them that the black dragon’s scales sparkled like black crystals, hence the name Black Diamond.
Jade, White Jade, and Black Diamond—all beautiful, harmless, and beloved gemstones.
The names lacked any aggression, perfectly masking the fact that they were the most brutal creatures in the world.
“Screech—” The black dragon found the patch of white Dany was looking for, gleaming like a mirror’s reflection.
The dragon’s pupils contracted, and the white gleam on the dark red earth continuously magnified.
“It really is a city!” Dany cried out in delight.
It was roughly thirty kilometers southwest of the khalasar, just outside the scouting range of her water-gathering riders.
“We almost missed it.” She patted her chest in lingering fear.
The black dragon was still a hatchling, after all.
He couldn’t sustain his flight for long before flapping his wings and dropping back into the woven basket on Dany’s back.
Dany immediately sought out Jorah and told him what she had seen.
“This…” The knight looked astonished, surprised not only by the appearance of a city but also marveling at how far the hatchling could see, and that Dany could share his vision.
“Princess, I have never heard of any cities in the Red Waste, nor did I know that humans ever settled in this place that even demons despise,” he said cautiously, rubbing his chin.
Dany, however, recalled the dried riverbeds they had encountered earlier.
“Perhaps it’s a civilization lost to the river of time.
It was too far away for the dragon to see clearly, but I know the city is massive—definitely not a mere village.
And we both know that the Red Waste of today could never sustain a large city.” “An abandoned city?” Jorah nodded thoughtfully.
“Let the scouts check it out first.
At the very least, it will offer shelter from the sun.” Thirty kilometers was only an hour or two on horseback.
Before noon, Aggo returned with two other warriors.
“Khaleesi, you were not mistaken.
It is indeed a city of stone, entirely white.
But there are no inhabitants.
The gates are broken, the houses collapsed, and only wind, sand, and flies wander its streets.
It is a dead city with no name, forsaken by the gods.
We should avoid it.” “Why?” Dany asked, puzzled.
“It’s better if it’s empty; we can occupy it as we please.
If there were residents, I’d be worried about their attitude toward our khalasar.” Jhiqui’s voice trembled.
“Once the gods depart, evil spirits come out to hunt at night.
It is best to avoid such places.
Everyone knows this.” “It is known,” Irri agreed.