#founding of Valyria story/Azor Ahai intertwines

[reginarubie]

Sneak peek of next chapter of «Empress of the World»

A little sneak peek of the introduction of the chapter and of Samwell Tarly trying to make sense of the various legends around the figure of Azor Ahai, the Last Hero and whatever other name he is known as. 

Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.

Lady Sansa’ voice had been flat and emotionless, but her eyes… despite her blank expression, her blue eyes were filled with emotion as she spoke of the unspeakable lengths the women would go to spare their children pain in their own sorrow as she held the prince Jacaerys tighter to her chest, lulling him with her voice. In that darkness, the Others came for the first time…they were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain.

(...)

All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through the frozen forests and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.

Certainly, Samwell thinks, any child who’d be recounted such a tale would wet the bed and hid scared beneath the sheets of his bed, because these were not tales meant for children’ ears, yet lady Sansa had assured him she had known them since she had been able to leave her nursery as a child.

These were the days ‘fore the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken those lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods, the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch.

So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends had died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to us it, shattering in million pieces. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of white spiders as big as hounds. And it had been then, that from their lair in the forests, the children had been found, they had banished the Others who had followed him with their magic and welcomed him, unarmed into their lands, frozen but still enduring. 

Lady Jeyne had taken the word from her then as prince Jacaerys had woken and started to fuss, she lacks the weaving-story talent of lady Sansa and her words were straight to the point. 

They dined together and the last hero, alone at last but having found the children, begged them for their help. Swore before the Heart Tree of all Heart Trees that his intentions were good and that he meant them no harm, told them he wished to banish this plague from the world and set things to right again. They spoke for endless nights, an hundred and an hundred again and in the end, his desperation to defend his land and his people even if could stand only alone moved the children who taught him the secret of blade-forging and gifted him an armour of old runes of power meant to defend him, they taught him magic to build a wall to keep the winter monsters away so the last hero returned home after years of search and instruction. He built the Wall and created the Nights Watch and together weaving magic into the blades and the armour they banished the Last Enemy to the Lands of Always Winter and he returned victorious with the sun shining upon his brow.

 Lady Sansa had commented on how legend wanted him to be a Stark and that House Karstark which was born as a cadet branch of House Stark bore the blazing sun of winter as their coat of arms in remembrance of this hero who had saved them all. 

(...)

The Valyrians instead believe Azor Ahai to be the first dragonrider ever, that he was an hero from a flourishing, rich city from a land now forgotten and lost, that he had escaped the fall of his people and had voyaged hard and true with few companions and bringing with him the Gods of his people, cruel Gods who demanded blood. During the shadow time, as the empire of New Ghis started out and the land was all englobed in darkness he had voyaged and landed in the Valyrian peninsula, he had lost his boats and ships and had decided to find refuge on land, he had walked and walked in the darkness and cold, until his companions were dead and his Gods lost and forgotten but during his voyages he had stumbled upon a river of lava descending from the flaming mountains and he had followed it for warmth as livestock and animals still living in those perilous lands, the only warm remained with all the frost on the world, the flaming mountain slumbering but still alive. Thus he had proceeded barefoot, the soles of his feet burning and his hands blistering as he prayed to his Gods to give him strength to find a way to save his dying people left behind on the ascent of the mountain. The blood oozing from his burned body as he laid almost dying he had made the last mile strengthening his resolve with words of his lost homeland and the Gods took pity and pride on him and thus he reached the inside of the flaming mountain, a cave warm and filled of starlit gems and stones. There a woman made of flame nursed him back to health, burning away his illness and thus building his resistance to the flames, after he was back in health he started to explore the cave and found there, laying ready to be hatched the first dragons eggs. He nurtured them and called forth from them the first dragons, when the dragon was big enough to spout fire he used that fire to create from the iron of a falling star a magnificent blade, but that was not enough and thus he had settled near the fourteen flames and when the time had come and his blade had broken against the shadow he had forged one anew in the fire of his wife’s soul and he had banished the shadow from all lands. He then had cremated his wife’s corpse and had dispersed the ashes where he founded his city, the tomb lacked tombstone but for one inscription which said enemies of the dragon beware and tremble, this is Valyria.

Lady Sansa if asked would tell that she did not know if her son was this Azor Ahai reborn, all she wished for her son was happiness, she had told him, as the wind coloured the air with citrus scent of the lemon tree under which they had ended up sitting on a bench near the lovers fountain.  

But, she had told him, my son has been born with an heavy burden to carry. And if belief he is chosen to battle the shadow will defend him, so be it. I will be the lantern lighting his journey until he’ll be strong enough to carry one on his own. 

Actually since I’ve been styling Valyria and its empire not only on the Ottoman Empire, but especially on the Roman Empire I’ve also used part of the story of Rome and its origins to intertwine it with the legend of Azor Ahai, the discovery of the fourteen flames and the dragons and the birth of the dragonriders. 

I’m sure many of you know that Rome, by legend was founded by Romolus after he killed his brother Remus. The story is more complex than that, long story short Mars, yeah the God of war, laid with a virgin vestal, Rhea Silvia and sired from her two twins, Romolus and Remus, who were entrusted to the Tevere river to their fate (probably being eaten by beast but that’s beyond the point — that happened because as a virgin priestess Rhea Silvia was supposed to remain pure — but instead of being eaten the twins were adopted by a she-wolf who nursed them and they grew up; as they did they ended up either imprisoned or leading a group of ex-prisoners (or both tbh) so they decided to found a new city, Rome, and to decide who was supposed to lead it they entrusted the reading of the signs, since they couldn’t settle of what they signs meant either when Romolus was chosen and created the confines of the city he meant to build, Remus started to do jumping-jacks (no, I’m not even joking) from one side of the confines to the other and back basically keeping to surpass armed the sacred limen (confine) of the city and thus angering the gods, so Romolus killed him and thus Rome was born on a land touched by fratricide. And that is the original legend, but later in the years the poet Virgilio was tasked by Augusts (if I recall correctly) to write a epic poem (of the likes of the Iliad and Odyssey) which would speak of the origins of Rome before Romolus and Remus (also to set his power over the Senate and the people of Rome presenting himself as prince of virtue defender of the true values of Rome) and so the origin story of Rome became even more complicated. 

If any of you have read the Iliad there is a character called Aeneas who was some sort of prince of Troy and that escaped the falling city bringing on his shoulders his father — Anchise — his Gods and his family as well as a sword who seemed to be linked to the very essence of Troy.

Yeah, I am talking of this guy here, to whom apparently was entrusted the legacy of Troy in search of a new land after their homeland had been conquered by the greeks. Anyway, long story short, Aeneas starts a voyage to find a new home for the refugees from the fallen Troy and in doing so he voyages the Mediterranean, also stopping in Carthage (where he has an affair with Queen Dido, who he leaves and who kills herself after he abandons her — thus creating the mythical origins of the hatred between romans and carthaginians —) and after that he manages to land in Italy where the people around the river Tevere were populations battling each other. There he lives and dies and his son Julio Ascanio founds the city of Albalonga and is the grandfather of Romolus and Remus as Rhea Silvia was of his blood. 

Now, Aeneas wasn’t only a prince of Troy son of prince Anchise he was also son of goddess Aphrodite (aka Venus) and thus his son Julio Ascanio was actually grandson to Aphrodite thus Romolus and Remus and the romans after them claimed descent from two gods, the goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite/Venus and the god of war Ares/Mars; Octavian Augusts as all the Julii before him claimed descent from Romolus and Remus and thus from Aeneas and Julio Ascanio back to Troy and its princes. So in the Aeneid Aeneas also  has a dream/vision in which he is shown all of his descendants and between them one who is supposed to restore and defend the morals of Troy — spoiler alert: it was written to be about Octavian Augustus, but centuries later Dante used an expedient to make it about Jesus so to create the figure of the lampadoforo for Virgilio who holds the lantern and lights the way for those who come after him but does not shed light on himself thus making him a suitable guide for him in his descent in the Inferno and rise in the Purgatory, tho he cannot enter Paradise even tho he lived and died a pagan) — anyway, thinking about Aeneas story I decided to use the idea of a refugee prince from a faraway fallen land reaching new shores and intertwined that with the legend of Azor Ahai and the discovery of the dragon eggs in the fourteen flames. 

Also, the inscription on the tombstone of supposed Nissa Nissa is instead inspired by the movie Il Primo Re, a movie completely acted in some sort of ancient latin dialect which recounts in a way less legendary the story that could’ve been of Romolus and Remus, brothers whose contrast founded Rome, also because while claiming descent from the God Mars the romans considered themselves warriors and conqueror at their core and it made sense with the view they had of themselves for such a line to be included in their founding. 

So enemies of the dragon beware and tremble, this is Valyria, actually comes from that movie, and in the original was tremble, this is Rome. It is an immensely powerful scene and if you are interested, to see how I actually imagined the Valyrian-Azor Ahai entombing his Nissa Nissa after having cremated her, this is the vibe I was thinking of, and you can find it here. 

Sorry for how long this turned out to be, but I watched the First King: birth of an Empire again last night and I was so inspired that I wrote the legend of valyrian azor-ahai immediately after it and wanted to share it.