A/N: Poor Davos, lol.
Chapter is going up early today because I'll be leaving to celebrate my birthday with my dad's side of the family in just a bit and don't know when I'll be back home later!
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"Signal the rest of the fleet to steer clear of the whirlpool! Relay orders to focus on the Ironborn ships and to fire at will!"
One would think Davos Seaworth would be used to dealing with the insanity of his superiors at this point. After all, he's been in the service of Stannis Baratheon for more than twenty years now. Not that he's regretted a single day of it, mind you.
Most men might have thought less of Stannis for daring to punish them after they went out of their way to smuggle food to a Castle under siege. But Davos wasn't most men. Besides, people often mistold the story anyways, making him sound more altruistic than he actually was.
He hadn't braved the Redwyne Fleet's blockade of Shipbreaker Bay and snuck his way into Storm's End out of the kindness of his heart or anything like that. No, he'd done so as a calculated risk, knowing full well that starving men would pay him a better price than men with full bellies who didn't have to worry where their next meal was coming from.
It was opportunistic and selfish… just as accepting Lord Stannis' deal had been. For the cost of a ship's worth of onions and salted fish, along with the first joint from each finger on his left hand, Davos had bought something that he considered far more valuable than any amount of gold. He'd bought a future for both him and his family.
And what a future it had turned out to be. Twenty years on and seven sons, Davos could safely say that he had no regrets. If anything, he was more baffled by just how far he'd risen. It was one thing to serve under Stannis as a landed knight. It was another entirely for him to be promoted to Master of Ships and be given command of the entire damn Royal Fleet!
Yet here he was all the same, commanding not just the Royal Fleet but the Redwyne Fleet as well, the combined force of ships enough to completely outnumber their enemies under any normal circumstances. Unfortunately, these were not normal circumstances. The Ironborn had a secret weapon in the form of the greatest, largest Kraken that Davos Seaworth had ever heard of, let alone seen with his own two eyes.
… AND THE DAMN KING HAD LEAPT INTO THE WATER TO FIGHT IT!
As he throws out orders left and right, trying his best to keep an eye on the developing sea battle, Davos' gaze unfortunately keeps gravitating back to the center of this entire mess. Despite them all being at open sea, there's a chunk of water that has developed into a place no one wants to go between them and the Ironborn Fleet, forcing them to go around it to get at their enemies.
This 'island' as impossible as it is, is the massive main body of Euron Greyjoy's Kraken, thrashing up the water and making the waves incredibly choppy in the process. For a time, it had descended deep beneath the surface, but that hadn't stopped the water in the center of the battle from being incredibly treacherous as well as dangerous.
Now? It was back near the surface again, and it was all Davos could do to wonder what the hell was going on.
After all, from the moment the King leapt overboard… Davos had thought him lost. What could one man, even one equipped with a Valyrian Steel Sword, possibly do against a creature of this size? Their only hope had been to try and kill it with bolts from the Scorpions, but even then Davos had assumed they would lose dozens of ships in the process.
But no. Axel Baratheon had decided otherwise. The King hadn't waited for the Kraken to reach them. He hadn't waited for the monster to make the first move. Instead, he'd thrown himself into the water to fight it. And the craziest thing was… he was still alive down there, as far as Davos could tell.
The Master of Ships can't pay too much attention to what's going on in the water to be fair. He still has a fleet to lead and a naval battle to win, after all. But the mere fact that the Kraken has yet to attack a single one of their ships tells a story. It makes it clear that the King is still down there fighting and keeping the damn thing distracted, somehow.
How? Davos doesn't fucking know. But it's not his place to question it either. Besides, so long as Euron's beast is out of the picture, the Ironborn are outnumbered three to one. They can't possibly win this, though there hasn't been a retreat called yet. Probably because they think it's only a matter of time before-
"THE KING!"
Davos' head snaps around so fast he's pretty sure he hears a crack. His eyes go towards where a sailor is pointing over the choppy waters in the middle of the battle, but there's nothing there.
"What are you pointing at, sailor! Get back to work!"
"B-But… but I swear Lord Seaworth, I swear I saw him!"
Furrowing his brow, Davos stomps over, staring out at the water. He shouldn't let himself get distracted… but who is he kidding, he's already fucking distracted.
"Where? What did you see man?!"
"I saw… I saw the King in the air. He was f-floating, he was, I swear it! And then… the Kraken breached and was reaching for him… b-but he went back down! Shot down like a Scorpion Bolt, he did!"
Davos grimaces as he tries to make sense of the sailor's rambling. It sounded like the Kraken had probably thrown Axel up into the air for a moment and then the King had fallen back down.
How the hell he was surviving such things, Davos didn't know… but then to be fair, nobody could explain how he'd survived the wildfire either, at least to Davos' satisfaction. The Seven had healed him? Maybe… but Davos had never been a very religious man so he couldn't be sure.
The Master of Ships opens his mouth to tell the sailor to get back to his work, but before he can… a shadow suddenly falls over the ship. Davos turns, half-expecting to see one of the Kraken's massive appendages bearing down on them right then and there… but it's not quite that.
It IS one of the Kraken's tentacles, thicker around than a damn castle tower and larger than anything Davos has seen in all his years on the seas. However, it's not coming towards them. Rather, it's pulled out from the water, stretching up into the sky… and at the top of it, Davos can make out a person if he squints.
"What the bloody hell…"
Pulling a Myrish Far Eye from his belt, Davos quickly points the thing at what must be the King of Westeros. What he sees… takes his breath away and leaves him even more frozen in shock than ever before. But then to be fair, even if he won't learn about this until later… most of the men in the naval battle have turned to stare at this point in time so it's not like he's alone in his stupor.
At first glance, Davos had assumed that the Kraken held Axel Baratheon in its clutches. But that's not the case. No, rather… it's the King who is holding onto the Kraken's appendage. He… he's flying. There's no other way to describe it. His feet are touching nothing and he's pulling the Kraken up, his face scrunched up in concentration and exertion.
Euron Greyjoy's monster comes out of the water foot by bloody foot, revealing several massive, gore-caked holes lancing through its main body. Davos finds himself staring at one blankly for a long moment before realizing that he's actually staring all the way THROUGH one of the holes out the other side, where he can see ships exchanging fire in the distance like some sort of weird tunnel view.
Only for a split second though, as the King continues to lift and the Kraken comes further out of the water. Its dead, Davos finally realizes. Euron's Kraken is dead as can be, blood enough to drown a thousand men pouring out of its wounds and into the water beneath it as the massive monster dangles limply from Axel Baratheon's grasp.
How? How is this possible? The King is flying. The King just killed a Kraken by himself with nothing but a single Valyrian Steel Sword. And now he's somehow lifting something more than a hundred times his size without any help.
Davos might have had more than twenty years to get used to Stannis Baratheon's particular brand of insanity… but he's finally starting to realize that the Lord doesn't hold a damn candle to his nephew's madness! Indeed, Axel Baratheon's particular brand of crazy seems intent on dragging the rest of the world with it!
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So he flies now apparently.
Funnily enough, it's not THAT surprising when he takes a moment to really think about it. In fact, part of him feels like he should have always known he could do this. Another part wonders if his weeklong 'bath' in wildfire might have awakened something new in him. Something beyond what he'd already been capable of.
Either way, he's done it. The Kraken is dead. All that's left… is to take out the trash. As he rises to his apex high above the naval battle going on below, Kraken held by its appendage, Axel tries to figure what he's going to do next. He considers his options, but truth be told… there aren't many good ones.
Maybe he should just let the damn thing's corpse drop back into the water and sink to the bottom of the ocean, but he's loath to waste it. However, his first instinct, which had been to toss the thing at the Ironborn Fleet, isn't a good idea either. By now, his enemies have split in half just like the combined Royal and Redwyne Fleets. They've sailed around his and the Kraken's part of the 'battlefield' in order to do battle with his ships.
If he throws the Kraken at either half of the Ironborn Fleet, he's likely to cause collateral damage among his own men. Brave men who had come all this way to fight in his name. No, Axel won't do that, even if the idea of killing Euron Greyjoy with the carcass of his own damn beast IS tempting for a fleeting moment. Only fleeting though, because Axel really wants to kill the warmongering bastard with his own two hands while looking him in the eyes.
That still leaves him with a massive kraken corpse though and- oh… now there was an idea.
He hadn't realized it, but… they're actually not too far off from the Iron Islands at this point. Out there in the distance, past where the Ironborn Fleet had come from, Axel can even make out what he thinks is Pyke if he squints hard enough.
… Yeah, that would work. Or rather, he hoped it would. He's never actually done something like this before, after all.
Slowly, he begins to… spin. Holding onto the Kraken's tentacle is easy enough despite it's size, though making sure the damn thing doesn't tear off and leave the main body to drop into the water below is a bit tougher. Eventually though, Axel gets a good swing going. He spins around and around, but he finds he has no problem maintaining his balance and sense of direction the entire time.
It really does feel like he was made for this. Flight. He just… had to figure out how it worked.
Huffing and puffing, exerting himself more than he's ever done in his life, Axel builds up enough momentum that the Kraken's body is spinning through the air with him at this point. And then, at what he hopes is just the right moment… he lets go and the Kraken gets to fly too, albeit posthumously.
A grin spreads across Axel's face as he watches the carcass sail through the air. A hundred miles. Two hundred miles. Three hundred… hm, he thinks he hits his target. But he can't be sure, not from this distance. And as tempting as it is to fly over really quick and check, Axel isn't about to abandon his people, not even if they have the numerical advantage in a big way.
He-
THWIP!
Instinctively, Axel tilts his head to the side and the thick wooden trunk of a Scorpion Bolt goes sailing past his face by half an inch. His eyes narrow as he turns and looks down at where it came from. Staring up at him in slowly mounting horror are Ironborn men crewing an Ironborn ship near the edge of the waters where he and Euron's Kraken had their cataclysmic battle.
A slow, wicked smile spreads across Axel's face and he draws Stonehart from its sheath once more. He'd put the Valyrian Steel away once he realized the Kraken was dead, but he no longer needs both hands to carry the damn thing. The King points his sword down at the Ironborn Ship like it's the point of a spear… and then he drops.
Ironborn Sailors howl and scream as he comes down like a comet, Stonehart's tip piercing right through the chest of the man standing at the ship's helm. And then further still, as Axel rips through the entire Ironborn ship from top to bottom.
Only once he's in the water below does he shake the corpse off of his blade and then thrust himself back up, coming out the top again through another part of the boat. Just like that, the Ironborn Galley is already taking on water, two massive man-shaped holes causing it to start to sink at a rapid pace.
But Axel barely pays it any mind. He's already looking for the next ship… where he does the exact same thing. Again and again, Axel flies forward, treating himself like an impossibly tough, impossibly fast, entirely reusable Scorpion Bolt. Some of the Ironborn try to fight back, firing at him or even attempting to swing at him with their axes in the brief moments that he flies past them.
None can do a thing to him though. They can't even break his skin, even as Axel breaks their boats, one by one. Until eventually… he breaks their spirits.
Coming up out of the water as another Ironborn Ship begins to sink, Axel looks and sees the portion of the Ironborn Fleet that he hadn't managed to get to yet has turned and begun fleeing back towards the Iron Islands.
His own fleets quickly give chase, of course. Seeing this, Axel nods his approval… and then focuses on one Ironborn Vessel in particular. Black sails. Red hull. Everyone has told him in detail what Euron Greyjoy's ship looks like.
Euron is retreating to the Iron Islands as well. For a moment, Axel considers stopping him here and now. It would be easy to destroy his boat and drown the man right here and right now. But no… where would the fun in that be? He'd have a lot of unhappy knights and warriors on his hands if they didn't get to partake in a single fight, after all.
Besides… he wants them to see what he's done to Pyke. He wants Euron in particular to see what he's done before the man dies a dog's death.
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A/N: Axel is having FUN now.
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