First Moon, 205 AZ
Corlys Velaryon
It was a fine and pleasant morning that greeted Corlys on the last day of the first moon of the two hundred and fifth year of the Age of Zaldilaros, or as Westerosi would refer to it, the two hundred and ninety-eighth year of Aegon's Conquest.
For his own part, Corlys had decided to enjoy the fine morning in the best way that he knew how. Eluding or rescheduling as much of his lessons and responsibilities that he could so he could climb up to the parapets of the highest tower in New Tide and just enjoy the view overlooking the city of Jacaria.
Once he had taken in the view, as he had a thousand times before, Corlys sat down to read. It was a pastime that he had developed when he was very young. He had heard it said once that a reader lives a thousand lives before he dies and the man who never reads lives only one.
It was more true than you would think, especially for Corlys. Whenever he read of certain historical events, he truly felt that he had lived them. Sometimes there would be a strange sense of familiarity, a desire to correct the text and insist that something wasn't quite right or that they had misinterpreted a quote or decision but he could never quite comprehend why.
At other times he would wake up in the night having dreamt about the things he had read in such vivid detail that he felt as if he had relived memories. He had brushed it off every time, insisting to himself that he was simply that dedicated to his studies that he was imagining how the events he read about actually transpired. Yet he could never explain why he woke up feeling like he had lost something important whenever he had one of those dreams.
Nonetheless his obsession with reading continued and it was especially focused on history, and not just any history, but a particular period of history, one that was of founding importance to his house. Primarily it was the time between 60 and 160 AC if one wished to keep the timeline in the same calendar. As the Age of Zaldilaros only began in 93 AC, and transitioning between BZ and AZ made for quite a messy retelling of history, Corlys generally preferred to remember historical events in the Westerosi dating.
Some might consider that a heretical opinion, especially from the man that would one day rule the Velaryon Empire, but Corlys really could not care less. This was after all simply for his own convenience and in the privacy of his own mind and if it was ever exposed he would use that same position as future ruler of the empire to shut up all dissent. Power did have its perks.
Not to mention, on a scholarly level, one could not deny the intrinsic links that existed between House Velaryon and House Targaryen, their histories and their origins were intertwined and the century and a half since the Dance had done much to dissipate the hatred that had once existed between them.
But he was rambling now. Shaking off his thoughts, Corlys focused back on the text and immersed himself in the 'The Sea Snake', the biography of his namesake, Corlys the First. He must have read the book from cover to cover a hundred times already, yet it had never failed to stir those strange feelings of familiarity in him, almost like a nostalgic and wistful recollection of old memories. Though given that he had been reading this book since he was very young if his father told the tale true, he was most likely just remembering deep down that very first read that must have enthralled him so for him to dedicate so much of his time to these historical studies.
The life of his ancestor and namesake were truly fascinating, not just to him but to many across the Empire. Corlys was well aware that an Abridged Edition of the biography had been published for the less learned and dedicated to study for themselves and learn the story of their legendary founder as well but it was very much paraphrased and in Corlys' honest opinion, failed to truly capture the grandeur and grandiosity of Corlys the First and the incredible story of his life and death.
In truth even the unabridged edition failed at times Corlys thought, especially whenever he was in one of those strange moods. Those strange nostalgic feelings were strongest whenever he recollected on the period of history during which Corlys the First had lived, and at times especially when he thought of particular events in his life.
Or people. If there was anyone that drew Corlys' attention as much as his famous namesake, it was his namesake's wife. She had been born a princess of House Targaryen but had lived and died as a Lady of House Velaryon and was crowned posthumously by her son as the first Empress of their house alongside her husband as Emperor. Viserra Velaryon née Targaryen had had as eventual a life as her husband, especially once the pair had married and had shared all events from that day onwards.
Together the two of them had overseen the Conquest of Tyrosh and the Retribution Against Slaver's Bay, the children they had raised together had overseen the Chimera Cull and the Triunification, and together the entire house had rallied together in the War Against Targaryen Tyranny, the Dance of the Dragons, where Corlys and Viserra had made a legendary last stand in the skies above the burning ruins of their own beloved castle High Tide, the very same castle that they had burned to deny their enemy the satisfaction of claiming it for themselves.
In many ways they owed everything to Corlys the First and Viserra the Sea Dragon. They were the founders of their dynasty, of the House of Zaldilaros Velaryon. Nothing that their descendants had accomplished would be possible if they had not laid the foundation. That was why every year, Corlys' family and the empire as a whole celebrated Zaldilaros Day on the first day of the second moon.
The date had been intentionally chosen because it was directly in between what history had judged to be the two most meaningful things Corlys and Viserra had ever done. Their triumph over the Morghon Riots in Tyrosh in Second Moon, 92 AC, the event they traced their calendar from, and their legendary last stand at High Tide in First Moon, 132 AC. On that day, they would commemorate the lives and deaths of the founders of the Zaldilaros Creed and Dynasty and along with Empire Day in Eighth Moon immortalizing the Triunification and the Proclamation of the Empire with Jacaerys' coronation, Zaldilaros Day was the most important holiday in the entire year within the Velaryon Empire.
Of course, it was not just Corlys the Sea Snake and Viserra Seastar that fascinated Corlys. Their children had accomplished deeds he would argue were as great as theirs. After all their four children and their two gooddaughters had been the ones responsible for overseeing the Chimera Cull and the Triunification and had accomplished many other things of note and built reputations for themselves in the years before the Dance.
Jacaerys the Great, Lucerys the Loyal, Laena the Lovely, Daeron the Daring, Baela the Bold, Rhaena the Radiant, each name stirred those wistful feelings of familiarity and nostalgia in his heart, though perhaps a little less so for the latter two. Their deeds while Corlys and Viserra had lived were great indeed but what they did after their parents had perished had always left him feeling the most curious.
For on the very same morning that Corlys and Viserra had laid waste to High Tide and battled with the Targaryens over its ruins, taking the lives of two dragons and one Targaryen and grievously wounding Queen Rhaenys Targaryen, their four children and their two gooddaughters would lead the house into battle slaying first three Targaryens and their dragons at Storm's End and then again the same number at Bloodstone.
Historians and scholars considered it a master plan, a brilliant strategy which had ultimately brought House Velaryon victory in the Dance of the Dragons. Yet Lucerys the Loyal had fallen in the battle and Daeron the Daring's dragon Terrax had been slain. At times Corlys felt a strange sense of sadness at that thought, despite the fact that all these people had died centuries ago. One hundred and sixty-six years to be precise.
Nonetheless, to satiate his curiosity, Corlys had long studied the years after the Dance in both Westeros and Essos religiously. In Westeros, the damage done to House Targaryen's reputation by the so called One Moon War could not be underestimated. In a single day, seven Targaryens and eight of their dragons had been massacred and in the weeks that had followed, much of the Stormlands and Dorne had been razed to the ground before a humiliating peace had been enforced upon them by the victorious Velaryons.
Queen Rhaenys, whom many laid the blame for this disastrous war on and now mocked as the Burnt and Broken, would not long survive the grievous injuries she had incurred in the Battle Above Driftmark. She would perish barely three years later in the year 135 AC, with the Iron Throne passing on to her grandson Aemond, a young man of nine and ten.
Despite riding Vhagar, Aemond was seen as young and untested by many of his vassals, especially due to his limited involvement in the Dance, and with House Targaryen perceived as weak after that war and with years of resentment and anger brewing for his and his predecessors' attempts to strengthen their centralized rule of the kingdom and their abandonment of the Stormlands and Dorne to the Velaryons' tender mercies after the first day of the Dance, the realm rebelled.
Elements of the Starry Sept and the Faith of the Seven resentful of blatant Targaryen control and perversion of the Faith's tenets allied with the nobility fearful of their obsolescence and removal under continued Targaryen rule. It was like the rebellions against Aenys and Maegor come again but even more complex and brutal with lords calling for independence or the deposition of the Targaryens and septons and firebrand preachers splintering the Faith of the Seven into a dozen sects each claiming to be a reformation of the religion to its 'true form'.
Westeros had burned as Aemond proved that he was no weak king and with the aid of his surviving family members and their dragons, he would bring the continent to heel over the coming decades, attainting many, many lords for their treason and executing many septons to reunify the Faith under his absolute control. It was called the Thirty Years' War by some who noted that it took thirty years before Aemond had crushed the last embers of resistance though others criticized that name, insisting that it was many separate conflicts with periods of peace and stability in between campaigns and outbreaks of revolt.
Whatever the name you used for the conflicts, by the time the dust had settled and Westeros had submitted wholly to his house once more, so much blood had been spilled and so much time had passed that the window of opportunity for Aemond to take his revenge on House Velaryon had long since vanished as the gap in dragon numbers and magic knowledge between the two houses had grown only greater in that time. Aemond would not go to war with House Velaryon again, and neither would any of his heirs.
Even today House Velaryon still maintained its lead though it was no longer so great of one that they could destroy the Targaryens without blinking an eye at the cost to do so. Such a promise of mutual destruction was useful in keeping the peace between both houses and also to prevent both of them from becoming prone to complacency or infighting so perhaps in some ways, the continued existence of the other was beneficial for both houses. A strange idea after all the devastation their feud had caused but a true one nonetheless.
With the east and south forbidden to them by treaty, House Targaryen had turned its attention to the west and north. They had annexed the Night's Watch and the Wall formally, giving them over to the neighboring North and House Stark to administer before conquering the frigid Lands Beyond the Wall and placing them under the stewardship of the Thenns, the most civilized of the wildling tribes who had bent the knee to them. House Thenn as they now preferred to be called, still ruled from a castle at the First of the First Men known ever since as the Fist of Thenn.
The Targaryens had bypassed the infamous refusal of Silverwing to pass the Wall for Queen Alysanne by going around the Wall entirely by way of Skagos. Many considered the conquest of the frigid Lands Beyond the Wall to have been a pointless war for nothing but glory and prestige but Corlys didn't really care what the Targaryens did in their own continent so long as it did not trouble his house and that it seemed had also been the opinion of his ancestors at the time.
If conquering the frozen Lands Beyond the Wall was what the Targaryens had needed to nurse their bruised egos after the Dance of the Dragons, by all means, let them. Better that than them crossing the Narrow Sea for a second pointless round with their own house. That had been the thought of his ancestors at the time and Corlys agreed with them.
Of course north had been but one of two directions left available for the Targaryens. To the west, the voyages of Ryon Redwyne had found success. He had discovered several great islands and archipelagoes in the Sunset Sea, including many that were inhabited by a strange culture of seafarers that resembled the Northmen of Westeros in their coloring and bearing.
After determining that their tongue was like that of the Old Tongue of the First Men, the Maesters of Westeros had eventually concluded that these men in the Sunset Sea were descendants of Brandon the Shipwright's fleet which had sailed into the west and never returned to Westeros. At the time, the Shipwright's realm had had a very prosperous population boom after a long summer and with the fears of a long winter coming, many had boarded his fleet in search of new lands to the west.
In the thousand years since the Shipwright's ill-fated voyage, these distant and seafaring cousins of the Northmen had slowly spread across most of the islands of the Sunset Sea in longships and other boats though they had never developed ships advanced enough to make it back to Westeros. The Targaryens had eventually conquered and colonized these islands after the Thirty Years' War, adding them to their realm and per their usual tradition, allowing the local nobles to keep their titles if they would only swear fealty.
Further beyond the various islands in the Sunset Sea, Ser Ryon Redwyne would eventually discover the far eastern coasts of the continent of Essos, with his voyages and those of others eventually revealing the true size of the continent; Asshai-by-the-Shadow, far from being in the far east of the continent, was actually in its center. The Targaryens had since laid claim to those far eastern coasts of Essos that were westward across the Sunset Sea from them and their colonies had grown prosperous in those virgin lands.
In the current day, after more than a century and a half of Targaryen efforts, Westeros was quite different to how it had been when his ancestors had still resided there. The regionalism which had once plagued and divided the kingdom was gone for the most part and only Houses Stark, Arryn, and Thenn remained of the so called Great Houses that had ruled the regions. The Baratheons were extinct, the Tyrells and Tullys had been reduced in power, the Lannisters had been attainted for treason, and the Targaryens of Dorne had been reabsorbed back into the main line with a strategically placed marriage of heirs.
The current Targaryen ruler was Aemond, the Second of his Name, the namesake of the famed Aemond the Restorer who had won the Thirty Years' War and restored the pride and prestige of House Targaryen after its devastating loss in the Dance of the Dragons. Aemond II boasted the titles of High King of Westeros and Warden of the Sunset Sea, King of the Andals, the First Men, and the Rhoynar, Master of the Faith, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.
It was a most impressive collection, and one that would have impressed Corlys as well had the collection he was set to inherit not been even grander and greater. One day, he would be hailed as 'His Imperial Majesty, Corlys of the House of Zaldilaros Velaryon, the Fourth of his Name; By the Light of the Seven, Emperor of Essos, Sovereign of the Summer Sea, King of the Dominions, Lord of the Tides, and Supreme Defender of the Faith.'
What made this collection of titles truly grand was not the titles themselves for they were just words. It was the lands and peoples they represented, the lands and peoples in which his father and one day he as his successor would hold real, tangible power over. From the Narrow Sea and the Stepstones in the west to the Bone Mountains and the Great Sand Sea in the east and from the Shivering Sea in the north to the Summer Sea in the south, the Velaryon Empire stretched over all lands within those bounds, even if the extent of its rule differed.
From the coasts of the Narrow Sea to the Sarne River and the Painted Mountains and including Sarys, Essaria, Tarhor, Tolos, Elyria, Velos, Viserria, the Basilisk Isles, Naath, the Summer Isles, and the Stepstones, was the Velaryon Empire proper, the territory formally labeled on the maps as the Empire of Essos and subject to the magistrates, legations, bureaucracy and direct rule of the House of Zaldilaros Velaryon.