Maegor Waters

Maegor Waters, formerly known as Maegor Targaryen, is the rider of the dragon Morghul. The first child of the marriage of Lenore Blackwood and Aenys Targaryen, Maegor was expected to one day become Lord of the Seven Kingdoms before the intrigues of court saw the marriage of his parents annulled, his last name stripped from him, his mother executed, and his father dead. Disappearing days after his father's suicide, Maegor has at various times appeared and vanished in Westerosi politics. There have been few confirmed sightings of Maegor or his dragon in the past ten years, but there are a plethora of rumors regarding his exploits in that period.

Appearance and Character
Maegor's appearance is hard to pin down: though everyone agrees he possesses the silver hair and purple eyes of his father, and that he is just a hair over six foot, the specifics are harder to pin down, for they change too often, and people see him too infrequently. He just goes clean-shaven just as often as he wears facial hair, and he wears his hair long as often as he does short. His personality is similarly enigmatic. Often appearing detached and aloof, Maegor seems to have his head trapped in the clouds. It is not often that this is painstakingly stripped away to reveal the bright, vibrant man underneath.

Early Childhood
Maegor was once destined to be King. Many would rather forget that fact--Gods know Viserys and his ilk have spent long enough trying to wash it away, but a lifetime of scrubbing would not be enough to remove the memories of a silk-swaddled Maegor from the world. Though his name is now Waters, there are many still living who remember Maegor Targaryen.

Maegor is not among them. His first memories are as Maegor Waters, far from King's Landing and Dragonstone, in the halls of the Eyrie. For the man who would once be King, the life of royalty and its trappings are shadows that loom over him: undeniably present, but lacking detail.

How the royal babe came to be at the Eyrie is a story few know the details of. With the execution of his mother and the suicide of his father in 367 and 368, respectively, the child of their erstwhile union was easy enough to erase from the history books. When Maegor disappeared from Dragonstone mere days before Prince Viserys arrived to assert his will over his newly-acquired domain, it was assumed by many that his influence had beaten him there and ensured the boy--the only remaining challenge to his future inheritance--permanently dealt with. Most assumed Maegor had been killed; it was easy to imagine a three year old getting lost in the depths of Dragonstone. Some, not willing to attribute something so malicious to the future Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, assumed he had instead shipped the bastard boy off to some forgotten corner of the globe, where he would live out his life doing whatever it is bastard boys do.

Their ideas weren't too far from the truth. The child had been stolen away from Dragonstone in the dead of night, taken away to some distant land to be raised in secret. It just wasn't Viserys who did so.

Though men are often quick to denounce Lenore forty years after her passing, one must remember that the Princess was not always so universally reviled. She had a magnetism that charmed most all the Realm, and that had afforded her a great deal of friends and allies. Most were killed or disgraced alongside her. Those that were not, their numbers vanishingly few, and growing fewer by the day as the influence of Viserys's faction ran unchecked, made their way to Dragonstone to extract her son. Long before the sun rose, while the entire island slept, Maegor and his egg were wrapped in black and spirited away to the hold of a merchant's ship. By the time the farmers took to their fields and the fishermen went out to sea, the vessel was long gone.

From Dragonstone, the ship sailed north, eventually coming to land at Gulltown. From there, the party traveled north through the Vale. Few in numbers, they made it to the Eyrie only by sheer luck and strength of arms. The final journey up the side of the mountain was easy in comparison.

They found a court ready for war. The Warden of the East, Roland Arryn, who had inherited the title from his father only weeks earlier, had made no secret of his admiration for the royal couple. When their marriage was annulled and their child stripped of his station, he was one of the first and loudest voices to call for an uprising to exact justice for Lenore. It was no secret that such a war, righteous or not, would be ill-fated. When Maegor showed up on his doorstep, dragon egg in hand, and Roland chose to give him shelter, those close to him let out a collective sigh of relief. War had been prevented--if only for now.

The Eyrie
And so came Maegor, dubbed Florian Stone, to the Eyrie. Ostensibly the bastard of a cousin of the main line and a Lyseni prostitute, Florian was nevertheless hidden from those suspected of being less-than-loyal to Roland. In a castle like the Eyrie, where visitors could be seen half a day before their arrival, such undertakings were rather simple. It's unclear whether the King's court ever came to recognize Maegor Waters and Florian Stone as one and the same, but even if they did, the Eyrie's isolation and Roland's strong base of support in the Vale made covert actions against them difficult, and overt actions impossible.

This safety afforded Maegor a great deal of freedom. While he was not provided the life he would have had as a royal, he was not exactly left wanting, either. Roland raised him like he would his own child. Tutors in most every subject imaginable were provided for him, in addition to regularly scheduled lessons with the castle's Maester and Master-at-Arms. Maegor never showed much of a gift for anything the latter two had to teach him, but he did have a natural proclivity for painting that has waned over the years. His frequent travels left little time to hone the art.

Among his truest companions in these early years was the younger cousin of Roland, Alaric Arryn. Only a few months younger than the Arryn, the two were constantly making trouble together, and often trained in the yard together under the tutelage of Ser Vardis Ruthermont--though Alaric was much more proficient than Maegor.

The Mountains of the Moon
As the boy grew older, doubt began to fester in the minds of those few who knew his parentage. If the boy were really the trueborn son of Aenys and Lenore, then why had his egg not yet hatched? The easiest explanation was that he wasn't, and that the accusations that his true father was Crispian Celtigar were true.

Those concerns were silenced in the early days of 377 AC when at long last, in the dark depths of a moonless, starless night, the forgotten egg hatched. From its shattered remnants emerged a dragon, as inky black as the night of his birth. When the servants came in the morning and discovered the small dragon draped around his master's shoulders, their screams summoned guards from across the castle. It was fortunate that the loyal men of the Winged Brotherhood were among the first to arrive; the secret would have been too hard to keep otherwise.

A dragon was not something that could remain hidden indefinitely. After only a few short weeks, it was decided that Maegor, now twelve, and his dragon would be better off if they were raised deeper in the Mountains. The party that set off into the Mountains of the Moon was an odd sort, with a Maester's acolyte, a pair of knights of the Winged Brotherhood, a septa, a merchant, and a pair of other other guardsmen. Though such a small, ill-armed group would usually make easy pickings for the Mountain Clans, the inclusion of a dragon was enough to ward off most of them. Those foolish enough to attack anyway did not live long.

In the depths of the Mountains, feeding off of sheep, goats, shadowcats, and whatever else he could find, Morghul grew strong. Though they spent most of their times in small villages high up in the mountains, little word of Morghul spread, largely because the villages were so isolated (and really, what reason did those who interacted with them have to believe that a dragon had resided in their village for a time), but also because the villages were not keen to out their protector: so high up in the mountains, the dragon and armed men were often a saving grace in the frequent Clansmen raids.

When the mountain passes sealed with snow, the party would descend back to the Vale, where they would winter at the keeps of various Lords and Ladies, though primarily in the Gates of the Moon, where Roland held court. Though Morghul was much more visible there, the snows that inhibited travel also inhibited the spread of news regarding him.

The Kingswood Tourney
When Roland Arryn announced he would attend the Kingswood Tourney in the early months of 379 AC, Maegor was quick to insist that he be allowed to follow; he had spent all of his life, as best he could remember, in the lands of House Arryn. He wanted to see the Realm. Roland was at first hesitant--leaving the Vale put Maegor at great risk--but the Lord finally relented. Morghul, rapidly growing given his free rein of the mountains, was hard to conceal on the journey, but his penchant for sleeping during the day and hunting and night made sightings of him infrequent.

Maegor, upon hearing of the impending tournament, had set upon trying to procure a suit of armor for the joust. Though he had not yet been knighted, he intended to compete as a mystery knight, and through those feats earn great renown. He had dreams of becoming the next Barristan the Bold, or Aemon the Dragonknight, winning renown despite his young age and forcing the Realm to learn his name. He had dreamed that, at the end of the tournament, he would unmask himself, and the whole world would know his name.

It did not go quite the way he planned. With little coin of his own and even less time to properly requisition such a suit of armor, a sullen mood fell over Maegor, who thought his dreams dashed against the rocks. He watched the first sets of tilts with little enthusiasm.

That changed when Roland's lance left a man bleeding to death on the field. Roland, who had spent a lifetime reviling the warmongering ways of his father, was mortified, and quickly retired from the lists.

Maegor was not quite so horrified. He had seen men die worse deaths already during his tenure in the Mountains of the Moon. Almost as soon as Roland was out of his armor, Maegor was formulating a plan with his closest cohorts, Alaric among them. With Roland effectively incapacitated, they would sneak into his tent, equip Maegor in his armor, and have Maegor contest under Roland's name. Everyone present thought it a tremendous idea, being as young as they were.

Everyone but Alaric, who was quick to denounce the whole idea as childish fancy. Following a short argument, Alaric excused himself from the tent. Maegor would not see him again until after they returned to the Vale.

Dressing Maegor in Roland's armor was difficult, but not impossible. Squires the lot of them, the teens were familiar with how to affix the suit to him, and even though it did not fit the lithe form of Maegor perfectly, as it had Roland, it fit well enough that none would notice the change without drawing near to him.

Whether through skill or fortune, Maegor progressed well into the lists, unhorsing or narrowly edging out victories against knights and Lords many years his senior. "Roland Arryn" became a crowd favorite, the unfortunate demise of his earlier opponent swiftly forgotten by the fickle public. When at last it came time for the semi-finals, "Roland" found himself placed against Baelor Targaryen, an uncle who he had never met.

The two relatives went at each other for seven passes, neither managing to gain an advantage over the other. Both were almost unhorsed in the seventh round, but as the crowd held their breath, both recovered. The joust would have been the stuff of legend, had it not been so marred by the ensuing scandal.

As they lowered their lances for a deciding eighth pass, the cheers of the crowd turned to ''screams. ''Galloping down the list at speed, Maegor, inexperienced as he was, craned his neck to see what the commotion was. He had just spotted the spout of scarlet pouring from the Royal Dais when Baelor's lance took him on the side of the head.

When he next awoke several seconds later, it was on the ground, his helmet set aside, and his--no, Roland's--squire looking particularly alarmed. To make matters worse, as though being discovered impersonating a High Lord was not bad enough, Morghul was soon on the scene. Maybe it was the commotion that drew him. Maybe he had somehow felt the stress and pain of his rider, and had decided to come and rescue him. Whatever the case, Morghul, now pushing two, landed beside the concerned squire. One blurry-visioned glance at the dais, where a body now laid in a pool of crimson and the King was conspicuously absent, was all Maegor needed to come to his decision: he had to run. Mounting Morghul, "Roland Arryn" took off towards the south on dragonback--much to the shock and awe of an already alarmed public.

It was likely only the commotion surrounding the failed assassination attempt on King Aenar that allowed Morghul to get as far as he did before the dragonriders present set out after him. By the time they took wing, the swifter, younger dragon had already disappeared into the thick foliage of the Kingswood. The Royal search parties that came after were no more fortunate. Maegor Waters had disappeared just as swiftly as he had appeared, leaving behind nothing but a powerful impression on those who saw him.

To Maegor's advantage, the spotting of a hitherto unknown dragon rider shot through the continent as quickly as ravens could fly. What followed was a litany of "sightings" that drew the men and women searching for him farther afield. When he did at last leave the Kingswood a few weeks after the tournament, poorly clothed and filthy, the actual sightings of Morghul and his rider were impossible to determine from the fraudulent ones. That became a moot point when, several months later, Maegor arrived at the gates of King's Landing.

Petitioning the King
With Morghul continuing to grow and the King's men hot on his heels, Maegor became acutely aware that the life he was living would in no way be sustainable. The King's men would eventually find him.

With this in mind, Maegor flew to the gates of King's Landing in 380 AC, where he promptly landed and waited. It took no more than ten minutes for most of the dragon riders present to sally forth to meet him.

The image of the four of them was equal parts enchanting and haunting, and has been the subject of more than one song. Morghul, Cyrax, Starfyre, and Viserion, all arranged before the King's Gate.

No one is quite sure what was discussed that day, Aenar and Maegor being the only two still living who were privy to the conversation in its entirety. Most suspect it was some sort of deal for Maegor to be permitted freedom to travel Westeros, for while he had committed no crimes, the Crown found the return of the former heir they had thought dead deeply concerning. Legitimate child or not, none could deny the threat his return he posed to the line of succession--something which bothered Viserys to no end.

At the end of the meeting, the smallfolk that had gathered under the shelter of the King's Gate to watch what some expected to erupt into an all-out brawl between dragons instead watched as Morghul flew back the way he came, and the other trio returned to King's Landing. Those familiar with the personalities of those present suggest that Prince Baelor, who was opposed to his brother's schemes, and who had some degree of respect for Maegor following his performance in the Kingswood Tourney, was largely responsible for convincing his father to leave the bastard boy be. Whatever the case, Maegor left unharmed, though he has never gone near King's Landing again.

Visit to Dorne
Finally free to travel the Realm at his leisure, Maegor did just that. He had thus far been largely confined to the Mountains of the Moon. The opportunity to see the rest of the continent was something he intended to take full advantage of.

The first location Maegor visited was Dorne, where he spent almost a year. The heat, though considered oppressive by most, was a welcome reprieve for him, given that he had spent his life in the often snow-filled valleys of the Vale, where the wind cut straight to your bone. Heat did not seem so miserable in comparison.

Though he visited many Holdfasts during his time in Dorne, it was Starfall that commanded most of his attention. There, he met Ysilla Dayne. Roughly of an age with him, and beautiful, too, the two were quickly enamored with one another. It was a short affair, lasting only a few months, but it left a lasting impression: shortly after Maegor left Starfall, Ysilla discovered she was with child. The child, born with dark hair and purple eyes, came to be named Aelor Sand.

The Lords Declarant
Of course, the world did not pause while Maegor contented himself with traveling. Maegor had been unfazed by the deaths at the tournament, but Roland had not. When Maegor returned to the Eyrie in the opening days of 382 AC, he found his home much different than he had left it. Alyssa, the lady who had been almost a mother to him, was dead and buried, and just as swiftly forgotten; in the days prior to his arrival, Roland had taken a woman of the Clans, Valla of the Redsmiths, to wife, hoping a forge a new era of peace between Valeman and Clansman.

It was not as well-regarded a move as Roland had hoped. Though happy to see his foster son return, Maegor was not as happy to see his foster father again. The man had changed in their brief time apart. Killing a man had caused damage that Maegor was not sure could be repaired. Still, the Lord was quick to order Maegor knighted. After an austere ceremony including an overnight vigil in the castle's sept, Roland knighted Maegor. Allegedly, the knighthood was in recognition of the valor and skill Maegor had shown on the tourney grounds outside the Kingswood. He would soon come to realize that this was not the case.

It did not take long for Maegor to realize the depth of the predicament the Lord found himself in. Upon hearing of his return, Alaric, who had been named the Keeper of the Gates of the Moon, sent a missive up the mountain asking for Maegor's company. Hoping to reconnect with his old friend and once more find his footing in the mad world they now inhabited, Maegor found anything but that. The wine and food flowed freely, and the rift torn between them by Alaric's refusal to assist Maegor at the Tournament was quickly mended.

Then, Alaric spoke of business. He did not like the man Roland had become--not the least because of the dishonor he had done his sister by sleeping with a serving girl at the Tournament (an event Maegor had not previously known about). Furthermore, the Vale did not like the man that Roland had become. The marriage he had planned was seen as an abomination. How could he bring a Clanswoman, the same sort that they had fought for thousands of years, into the Eyrie as equals--nay, superiors? He spoke of the Lords Declarant and their plot.

By the time he posed his question, Maegor had already guessed it. Back the Lords Declarant, and in doing so, help them depose Roland with as little bloodshed as possible. He also understood why Roland had insisted on knighting him: he had likely hoped that the action would pull Maegor into his corner, and thereby secure his reign.

Maegor was non-committal as their dinner wound down, and as he went to retire to his rooms. He had been placed in an impossible situation: back his best friend, and guarantee the death of his foster father, or warn his foster father, and ensure the death of his best friend. He found both equally unpalatable. So he chose a third.

When servants came to wake him the next morning, they found him absent, his bed untouched. Maegor had retreated into the depths of the mountain that night. He would not be seen again until long after the Crisis of the Crescent, as it came to be called, had ended. The relationship between Maegor and Alaric has never truly recovered.

Early Years
The adventures of Maegor during this period are too many to accurately recount here. He traveled wherever his whims and his dreams--or maybe they were the same thing?--took him. He traveled the deserts of Dorne, the great snowy forests of the North, and the rolling fields of the Reach. He stayed among the smallfolk and the nobility alike, providing small services and telling stories for food and a place near the fire. The bastard and his dragon had a habit of arriving at the most peculiar of times: more than one village was saved from bandits or wildlings due to his fortuitously-timed arrival, and countless weddings found themselves hosting one more guest than they had expected. By the time Maegor was seventeen, he had already been knighted. It was not a grand affair--the old hedgeknight residing in one of the villages Maegor had rescued found it obscene that such a man had not been knighted earlier, and took it upon himself to do so--but he became Ser Maegor all the same.

The black dragon was most often sighted in the vicinity of tourney grounds, where Maegor would disguise himself as a mystery knight and compete in the lists. Quite a few times he emerged victorious at these small, regional affairs. The winnings were often distributed among the smallfolk present. Before long, sightings of the black dragon, real or imagined, were being reported at most every tournament in the Realm, and crudely-made puppets, dolls, and carvings of the pitch-black dragon grew popular among the smallfolk.

Though Maegor spent some time just about everywhere in the Realm, save the Westerlands, Dragonstone, and the area immediately surrounding King's Landing, there were certain areas that he was known to frequent. Among them were the Riverlands, where he made fast friends with Brandon Tully and his children. Within a few years, Riverrun had easily become the location in which Maegor had spent the greatest amount of time. Raventree Hall was another favorite--of course the son of a Blackwood would find comfort at her childhood home.

During this time, Maegor sired a fair few children. While he is no Aegon the Unworthy, there still exists a considerable amount of bastards with silver hair and purple eyes scattered throughout the Kingdom. No one, including Maegor, is certain of all of their identities, primarily because they have been kept largely hidden. The oldest of these children are Aelor Sand, who was born of a several-month long tryst between Ysilla Dayne (later Ysilla Yronwood) and Maegor on one of his first trips to Dorne in 381, and Daemon Snow, who was born to Maegor's first true love, a peasant woman from a village in the vicinity of the Dreadfort named Mira, in 383 AC. They lived together for almost a year before Mira died in childbirth, at which point Maegor made a deal with House Stark of the Dreadfort to look over his infant son.

The Great Famine
Maegor was one of the few to see the Great Famine coming. Having foreseen the beginning of the famine several moons ahead of time in one of his dragon dreams, Maegor made his way towards King's Landing, eventually coming to stay in Dragon's Rest. There, Maegor met Alester Steelsong, then a boy of eleven in search of a knight to serve. Knowing that the years ahead would be difficult, and that he would not always be able to do the things that would be required of him in such trying times, Maegor elected to take the boy on as his squire--a proposition that the boy's father was quick to accept.

Alester did not quite understand the man he had come to squire for at first. Then again, not many did. In those days, Maegor seemed obsessed with something. One of the first things Maegor had Alester do was travel to the market at Duskendale and buy as many wagons full of grain as they could afford, which made little sense to the boy. What use did they have of grain? They were not merchants peddling wares, after all, and if they were, there were much more profitable wares to peddle than grain.

When the first signs of the famine appeared in the next moon, Alester was quickly silenced. Clearly, the knight knew something he did not. They spent the entirety of the famine ferrying grain to the places worst affected by the famine, and dealing with the men and women forced to turn to banditry to avoid starvation. The North, being the worst affected of the mainland Kingdoms, saw the bulk of their attention.

Love
When Maegor at last stopped in Riverrun again shortly after the end of the Famine, he discovered the eldest child of his cohort Brandon, Serra Rivers, had bloomed into a beautiful young woman. Of all of Brandon's children, she had always been the one that most enjoyed his stories. Sharing his sense of adventure, she had always been eager to hear tell of the many places that Maegor had visited, and the many things he had done, and the many people he had met. A decade and a half his junior, there was no physically affection between the two of them, though they quickly became intellectual partners.

It was here that Maegor began to paint again, a hobby he had largely left behind after he had left the Vale. When Maegor's dreams led him to the city of Oldtown following Patrice Hightower's death in 395 AC, she proved to be of great assistance in his research.

Always curious and never afraid of a challenge, the young woman proved Maegor's peer in most things. When their relationship turned physical following the death of Serra's mother, Sanelle Bracken, in 397 AC, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

The War of the Three Thieves
When the War of the Three Thieves began in 396 AC, none really thought it would last longer than a few weeks. Pirate "Kings" had inhabited the Stepstones for hundreds of years, and even if this set have proven themselves able to steal a dragon egg, there was little reason to assume they were capable of withstanding the combined might of the Royal Fleet and the strongest dragon yet living.

Beyond the Wall
He went there and found Dark Sister bruh

Essos
He lived here and fought with mercenaries bruh