For most, to disturb a dragon was to invite a swift and brutal end. To all, to disturb one untempered by the claim of a rider was to ask of a yet swifter one.

Feralised by solitude and living a long yet indeterminate amount of time deep within the bowels of Dragonstone's Dragonpit in self-exile, one dragon in particular fit the more deadly latter. They were not the only dragon residing down there, dwelling unclaimed within the gaping caverns and damp tunnels, and their circumstances were barely unique, but it made them no less lethal and, as dragons so often were, irritable to disturbances.

And so, it was all the more unforeseen when, one frigid evening, the tunnels carried forth the distant, gentle melody of a man's singing from further up the narrow halls.

"Drakari pykiros..." it began. "Tīkummo jemiros. Yn lantyz bartossa..."

The dragon stirred. Closest to the platform at that time, they were the only one within reasonable earshot of the voice, and so only they were roused by it. None other of the Pit's lurking residents would dare venture up with them already there.

The voice drew nearer. It never wavered — not once, as if he who approached held little fear for what he knew he was due to encounter.

For what he wanted to encounter.

In between his words, only the crackling of the lit torch he'd retrieved from a sconce and the faint scuff of his boots against the dirty stone floor broke the silence. He turned the corner and slowly ascended the few hewn steps to enter the main chamber, his torch held up near his head of straight silver hair.

Daemon Targaryen continued to sing, "saelot vāedis. Hen ñuhā elēnī: perzyssy vestretis..." He slowed to a stop at the apex point of the platform, and as he gave the rest of his stanza, he carefully lowered himself into a crouch to lay his torch on the ground with a feather-light clink of its metal. "Se gēlȳn irūdaks, ānogrose..." Never once did he take his eyes off the dim silhouette of the dragon slowly rising its reptilian bulk up from where it had been lazing.

"Perzyro udrȳssi." He, too, willed himself to rise, cautiously. A menagerie of guttural sounds uttered like that of falling trees and groaning towers trickled forth from the dragon's maw as the two came to observe each other; one respectful, another of brewing ire. Still, he sang. "Ezīmptos laehossi, hārossa—"

The rest of his echoing verse was swallowed up by the almighty rush of wind and searing dragonfire that streaked overhead in a wide arc to scorch the rocky ceiling of the chamber. The dragon's roaring flame lit up the wide grotto for the several moments it was projected, bathing shadows onto Daemon's illuminated face and figure as well as the fore of the dragon's own squamous body.

Now, he seemed a tad more cautious, as he ought to be.

But Daemon refused to cower. He could not; not now, when he had walked himself right into an audience with a looming dragon that would prey on the first sign of weakness. The threat of war approached beyond the Dragonpit and he needed this dragon as the first to heed the dragonsong and prepare to take a new rider, however soon that may be.

"Hae mērot gierūli, se hāros bartossi, prūmȳsa sōvīli," he crooned sweetly. "Gevī dāerī..." His last verse died on his tongue, its final syllable reverberating until it faded into the hush in its absence, and so closed the age-old Valyrian ballad.

"We shall fly as we were destined; beautifully, freely..." the meaning echoed in the hearts of those blessed with ears to listen.

Only time would tell whether Daemon's spirit had successfully soothed the imposing creature currently staring directly at him, and only him.