Luke Velaryon: The Last Dragonborn C1 (Patreon)

Chapter 1: From Storm to Snow 

Lightning split the heavens apart, for one blinding instant, the world became white and Lucerys Velaryon saw the vast shape of Vhagar descending through the storm behind him like some ancient god of doom. Then darkness swallowed everything again, leaving only rain, thunder, and terror.

“Arrax!” Luke shouted over the roaring wind and his dragon screamed in answer. 

Rain hammered against them so hard it felt like stones striking flesh. Luke could barely keep his eyes open, his soaked cloak whipping wildly behind him as Arrax fought to stay airborne. They had long since lost any sense of direction. North, south, east—it meant nothing beneath the black clouds surrounding Shipbreaker Bay. All Luke knew was that they could not afford to go down. If they fell into the sea, the towering waves and savage currents would drag both him and Arrax to the depths of the sea. 

Luke gritted his teeth. Arrax was supposed to be faster than Vhagar. He was smaller, lighter, and quicker in the air than the old beast hunting them. Under a clear sky, they might have escaped already, but this storm had turned the world into chaos, and neither he nor his dragon could distinguish in which direction they were flying. He had never flown in such horrible weather, and neither had Arrax. The wind clawed at Arrax’s wings, savage enough to tear both the dragon and the rider from the heavens, while thunder drowned every sound and rain stung their eyes blind. 

Luke searched desperately below for any sign of land. A forest or cliffside, anything would do. If they could land and hide beneath some trees or in a cave, perhaps Vhagar would lose sight of them long enough for the storm to pass. But below them, there was only the sea, black as a bottomless abyss, its waters churned white by monstrous waves crashing against one another. 

Then Vhagar appeared once again.

Luke never even saw where she came from, one moment there was only darkness and rain and the next, a massive jaw erupted from the storm itself.

“Arrax—!”

Vhagar lunged with terrifying speed, her maw yawning wide as Arrax shrieked and Luke hauled on the saddle straps, sending his dragon diving downward just as her jaws snapped shut where they had been a heartbeat before.

The sound rang across the sky like stone upon stone, a deep, thunderous crack that chilled Luke to the bone as Arrax plunged toward the dark waters beneath them.  Rain blinded him, and the wind tore screams from his throat before he could even hear them himself. Behind them came Vhagar’s roar, deep enough to shake the storm.

“Faster, boy, faster…”

Arrax obeyed as best he could. Luke felt the fear coursing through him as if it were his own. Arrax was young, little more than a hatchling by dragon standards, terrified and trying so very hard.

The sea rushed toward them at terrifying speed, and Luke clenched his jaw, forcing himself to stay calm. At the last possible moment, Arrax twisted violently sideways above the crashing waves, narrowly avoiding the water. Luke hoped—prayed—that the older dragon would be too large to turn in time, but the gods were not with him that day. 

The old monster wrenched herself away from the sea, her vast wings beating against wind and rain alike, continuing her chase

How could something so huge move so fast? She was old enough to have seen Aegon the Conqueror take the Seven Kingdoms, yet she hunted them through the storm like a dragon half her size and age.

Luke’s stomach twisted with despair. He wanted to go home. He wanted his muña. He wanted the familiar sounds of Dragonstone—the echo of his family's voices through its halls, Jace's teasing, Joffrey's endless mischief, Aegon trailing after him wherever he went, little Viserys laughing so hard he could barely breathe. He wanted to hear Baela and Rhaena bickering over something neither truly cared about. Gods, he even wanted Daemon lecturing him again. 

Luke had promised he would not fight. He had gone as an envoy, nothing more, and so he had endured Aemond's taunts without answering them. He had done everything right. He had delivered his message, refused every provocation, and left as he was supposed to. Yet Aemond had chased him into the storm all the same. Still he hunted him. Still he wanted him dead. 

A flash of lightning illuminated Vhagar again, so much closer now, and Luke’s breath caught painfully in his throat.

Once, long ago, Vhagar had not been something to fear. She had belonged to Aunt Laena then. Luke remembered flying with his aunt as a child, remembered her laughter carried away by the wind as the great old dragon soared through clear summer skies. Vhagar had seemed ancient even then, vast and powerful beyond imagining, but never monstrous. Never terrifying. Back then, she had been part of the family.

He wondered if she remembered him. If the old dragon still knew the small boy who had once played beneath her wings and gazed at her with wonder instead of terror. 

Moments later, he received his answer. 

Arrax swerved desperately after avoiding another attack, but Lady Fortune betrayed them both. Luke barely saw the cliff appear through the rain before Arrax nearly slammed into solid stone, his dragon twisted away at the last second and lost too much speed.

Vhagar struck.

Luke heard Arrax's scream, a terrible, agonizing sound that echoed even above the thunder. Everything shook violently as Vhagar's jaws closed around Arrax's neck and head in a single bite.  Blood exploded across Luke's face, hot against the icy rain. For a terrifying instant, he was paralyzed. Luke could only stare, his mind completely blank.

Wh-

Arrax’s body convulsed beneath him, and Luke could not breathe, could not think. This has to be a nightmare. 

Arrax-

Arrax's corpse plummeted toward the sea, dragging Luke down with it as the storm raged around them. Wind howled in his ears while blood and rain blinded him alike. The last thing Luke saw was red.

Arrax, he thought as darkness swallowed him whole.

***

Luke’s head lolled weakly with the motion of the wagon. Every bump in the uneven road sent pain crawling up his spine, the cold biting through his damp clothes nearly dragged him back into unconsciousness before he could properly wake. His body felt heavy, sluggish, as though the sea itself still clung to him.

Then sunlight stabbed into his eyes, and Luke winced, hissing through his teeth as a pounding headache flared behind his skull. He tried to raise a hand toward his temple only to freeze when he felt the rough rope biting into his wrists.

His hands were bound. That startled him fully awake. Luke jerked upright so suddenly the wagon rattled beneath him and his vision blurred for a moment before slowly clearing into focus. He blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what he was seeing while panic clawed its way into his chest.

The last thing he remembered was Vhagar, Arrax screaming, and blood exploding across his face as his dragon’s head vanished between those monstrous jaws.

The memory hit him like a blade through the chest. His breath caught painfully, and tears filled his eyes. For a terrible moment, the world around him faded beneath the crushing grief threatening to drown him whole. 

Arrax was dead.

Arrax.

He was not merely his dragon, but his companion since infancy. Rhaenyra had placed the egg in his cradle the day he was born, and Arrax had hatched not long after Luke had said his first words, curling protectively around the infant and hissing at anyone who approached, including Luke’s parents. He even bit Laenor, nearly taking one of his fingers, despite Arrax being a recently hatched dragon. 

He was his protector, his friend, and his confidant. The other half of his soul, and now, where once warmth layed, there is only coldness, an icy feeling that sends shivers through Luke’s body. 

It hurt, it hurt so much he couldn't breathe. 

Tears fell from his eyes one after another. Arrax was gone.

Gone.

“Hey, you. Finally awake?”

The unfamiliar voice dragged Luke from his grief. He blinked away tears and looked up, and only then did he realize he was not alone in the wagon.

Three other men sat in the wagon, their hands likewise bound. Another man guided the wagon from the front bench, dressed in worn armor and holding the reins of a broad draft horse. Looking around further, Luke realized there were more wagons ahead and behind them traveling down the road in a grim procession.

A prisoner convoy, the realization made his stomach tighten. Who captured him? Aemond? No, his uncle would never leave him untouched this long, he would have taken his eye already, simply out of spite. The thought of his uncle ignited fresh anger inside him, grief and rage twisting together until his chest felt hot enough to burn.

“You were trying to cross the border, right?” the blond man across from him continued. “Walked right into that Imperial ambush same as us.”

Luke stared blankly. Cross the border? Imperial ambush? What in the seven hells was this man talking about? The confusion distracted him from his anger and grief as he processed the blonde man’s words. 

“And that thief over there,” the blond continued, jerking his head toward the filthy man beside him.

“Damn you Stormcloaks!” the thief snapped. Judging from the grime coating his face and the smell surrounding him, the man had not bathed in at least a fortnight. “Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn’t been looking for you, I could’ve stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell by now.”

Luke frowned. Skyrim? Hammerfell? None of those names meant anything to him.

“You there,” the thief said suddenly, pointing toward Luke. “You and me, we shouldn’t be here. It’s these Stormcloaks the Empire wants.”

“We’re all brothers in binds now, thief,” the blond man replied. Yet the disdain with which he pronounced “thief” made it abundantly clear he did not consider the other man any sort of brother.

Luke swallowed his hatred and grief before finally speaking.

“Who are you?” His voice came out rougher than expected, so he cleared his throat. “Where am I? Is this one of the hells?” If anything, he ought to be dead. To be torn from his dragon, even in death, felt like the sort of cruel punishment only the gods could devise, and the thought that he might be trapped in one of the Seven Hells did not sound half so mad as it would have a few hours before. 

The blond man barked out a short laugh.

“I am Ralof of Riverwood, lad, and we are far from any hell. Unless you mean being prisoners of the Empire, in which case you’d be right enough.” He shifted slightly in the wagon. “We’re in the south of Skyrim, near the border with Cyrodiil.”

Luke stared at him. None of the places mentioned thus far sounded remotely familiar.

“Is this Essos?” he asked. He was quite sure it wasn’t, as Corlys’ heir, he had studied all the maps of the Known World since he was a boy, and there was no Skyrim, Hammerfell, or Cyrodil on any of those maps. 

In truth, nothing about this made any sense. He should have drowned in Shipbreaker Bay. If by some miracle he had survived, he should have awakened in a cell beneath Storm's End. Instead, he had found himself here, wherever here was. At the very least, he was beginning to think this was no hell at all, and that he yet lived. 

Ralof frowned.

“I’ve never heard of ‘Essos.’ Is that where you’re from?”

“No,” Luke answered. “I’m from Dragonstone.”

“Dragonstone?”

“A small isle in the Narrow Sea.”

“Never heard of a Narrow Sea either, but I’m no scholar.” Ralof scratched his beard. “Could have sworn you were from High Rock.” 

Luke's confusion only deepened. 

His clothes remained damp with seawater, and the scent of salt still clung to his skin and hair, so by all indications, very little time had passed since he had fallen into Shipbreaker Bay.  Yet, instead of drowning, by some miracle or curse, he had ended up here, in a wagon, a prisoner of some Empire in the middle of a winter-touched forest, going gods know where. 

Luke forced himself to breathe slowly. His grandfather had once taught him that a man lost at sea could not afford panic. 

When you're lost, pick a direction and keep moving. Panic kills faster than the sea. Survive first. Understand later. 

Those were the words of the world’s greatest sailor, and Luke clung desperately to that lesson now.

“What is a Stormcloak?” he asked instead.

If he could not understand where he was, then perhaps he could at least understand who these people were, and in what situation he had stumbled into.

Ralof opened his mouth to answer.

“Shut up back there!” The sharp nasal shout came from the wagon driver, though he was largely ignored.

"Surely even in your Dragonstone, people have heard news of the war in Skyrim? The Nords are tired of spending our blood fighting the Empire's wars and paying for the Empire's decadence with our taxes. Ulfric is our rightful High King. He's leading the fight to drive the Empire out of Skyrim, once and for all."

I have never heard of Skyrim before, Luke thought. His mind was going towards one word of what Ralof said: “rightful” High King. 

“What do you mean by 'rightful'?” 

Ralof answered, explaining the rebellion in low tones while the wagons rolled onward, and Luke listened carefully despite his growing discomfort. A rebellion started after a man tried to take a throne that belonged to another. The similarities to home left a sour taste in his mouth. Ralof himself seemed decent enough, but Luke could not help instinctively recoiling from the idea of a usurper, not after everything happening in Westeros.

“What’s wrong with him, huh?” the thief interrupted their conversation, nodding toward the gagged man seated to Luke’s right.

The interruption visibly annoyed Ralof, who gave the thief a hard look.

“Watch your tongue,” he snapped harshly. “You’re speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King.”

Luke’s gaze shifted toward the gagged man. The usurper, his mind whispered. A lifetime trapped in seemingly endless succession disputes, a lifetime of listening to others criticize and belittle his mother and brothers, himself included, had made him wary of those who wanted to claim what belonged to another.

“The Jarl of Windhelm…” the thief breathed shakily, eyes widening in horror. “You’re the leader of the rebellion. But if they captured you…”

Fear spread visibly across the man’s face.

“Oh gods…”

Luke gripped the cloth of his trousers.

“Where are they taking us?” 

***

OMAKE

Planetos Gods: And so, Lucerys Velaryon died in a storm above Shi-

Akatosh wisking Luke away: Nope. 

Planetos Gods: You cant just-

Akatosh: Just did. (Leaves)

Planetos Gods: Surely that won't affect our world, right? Right? He took him to another world, fate will continue it- 

Older Luke, looking at A Song Of Ice And Fire “script”: FUS ROH DAH!