FIRE AND BLOOD ( CHAPTER THREE ) "WELCOME TO YOUR LIFE, THERE'S NO TURNING BACK"
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290, KING'S LANDING
STANNIS BARATHEON LIKED TO THINK HE WAS A REALISTIC MAN, he liked to think that he was always prepared and constantly vigilant. He had known that one day in the future there would be a Targaryen resurgence, whether it was just of their loyalists rebelling or the surviving Targaryens themselves, he hadn't known but he had known something would happen because one day the Martells and Tyrells would get sick of Robert treating them like dirt. He never, ever, could have predicted the return of the Princess Aerea with not only two armies, but four dragons in her wake.
He was still part-way stuck in the scene of the massive golden dragon (Meraxes, he remembered the Targaryen Princess calling him) diving down from the sky. Never in his twenty-six years did he ever think he would see a dragon flying the skies. He had thought he was imagining it but next to him, Petyr Baelish had let out a terrified whimper and on his other side, Renly had gasped loudly.
There had been a moment where he thought that Princess--Queen, he corrected--Aerea would just kill them all and be done with it. She didn't though and Stannis truly didn't know if that worried him more because there was no way that the Targaryen would let the crimes against her family go unpunished, especially when her power would go unchallenged throughout the Seven Kingdoms and beyond with her dragons. She was planning something, Stannis knew, and that could be better or worse than the other option.
He supposed the fact that she didn't outright kill him was a good sign, though. There was no way that the Targaryen wouldn't be claiming the throne for her own and the last thing Stannis wanted was another Aerys--an Aerys with dragons--sitting on it.
He knew that his brother wasn't really meant to be king, he was a warrior, not a ruler, but he was better than Aerys, for sure, even if he was driving the Kingdom into severe debt with all of the feasts and tourneys he was hosting.
He knew that the Kingdoms would be unstable due to the sudden change in power--especially with a Targaryen sitting back on the throne, a woman sitting on the throne, and he didn't know if she would realize that. When the new Queen had allowed Stannis to keep Dragonstone and gave him a spot on the Small Council before preceding to allow Renly to also keep his lordship, he realized that she did acknowledge that there would be consequences to her actions and was doing all that she could do lessen then--even if it meant letting the family that damn near drive her own family to extinction keep power.
With that in mind, Stannis had realized that if she wanted what was best for the realm, who was he to stop her? What does it matter if she is a woman, if she is a Targaryen, if her judgment on the metal monstrosity of a throne is better than Robert's?
