Chapter Text
If only it wasn’t such a clouded, rainy day, Dany allows herself to think just once. If it wasn’t so dark, if not for the gloomy twilight and suffocating fog spanning across the entire bay, she would have seen; Rhaegal would have seen… But they did not; and nobody else did; blinded by either inexperience or outright malice, they have foreseen naught of the treachery and betrayal awaiting. She is tempted to blame her oh so important advisors, yet cannot deny that she, herself, had forgotten about Euron as well, despite him already costing her Ellaria, and eventually Asha, it would seem.
And now… Oh, and now!
Viserion and Jorah, these names she still cannot utter without her voice breaking a little. Rhaegal, it’s even worse with him, although she isn’t sure how it can be; she didn’t see him die, after all. Only heard his screams, only saw snippets of what had been transpiring; he disappeared in the overcast skies before the sea has taken him; not seeing his actual death should be a relief, not – this. This grief, raw, twisting, scalding; enormous, just as her love for her child is.
Missandei; sweet, stalwart Missandei. Knowing the kind of torture Euron and Cersei would unleash upon her dear friend, she cannot banish the foulest thought – it’d be better for Missy to die in the shipwreck, to sink into the bitter waves of the sea. She hates it, hates it so terribly it makes her sick at first, leaving her wrung and shaken, trembling, wishing it was her they have taken instead.
It shouldn’t be different from that day in the pit. The two of them stood there together, hands clasped, fates intertwined till the end; and it seemed acceptable, a fitting death, one that would be remembered, one that would befit the last of the dragons and her most faithful. But then, Dany climbed upon Drogon’s back and had flown away, leaving everyone behind, cursing herself for every moment of freedom. And it feels, now, that she is doing the same. Flies, unmarred and unchangeable, while her family pays for her sins.
Viserion, Jorah. Rhaegal. Missandei. Tyrion and Varys are still alive, but it feels that she has lost them quite some time ago, and she still has no idea why, what was it she did that made them hate her so.
No, she knows.
Jon.
She had chosen Jon over them, over everything, over the whole world; and she still chooses him, contrary to everything that has happened, everything that even may happen because of their actions.
Because she loves him. Because she trusts him, even though she has learned better; she cannot stop, doesn’t want to.
She wonders if they are already aware of the truth. If this attack is the direct result of that; the first attempt to remove Daenerys Targaryen safely – safely for the true heir, that is.
If Jon has guessed the same and, worse yet, if he condones it.
Consequentially, if that is the reason for his continued absence.
For he should have been here already. She made sure a messenger had been sent right away, ordered to tell Jon about the attack, to tell him to come to her side immediately; and she dares to hope that the message isn’t needed at all, because Rhaegal - oh, Rhaegal – surely Jon felt, surely he would have been already on his way to Dragonstone?.. Yet it seems just as likely that he felt naught, that he remained blissfully unaware, and she is both glad for it, glad he doesn’t suffer a broken bond, and hates him all the more, for it is Rhaegal, it is her son, her child, and he deserves better, he deserves better than this indifferent man calling them ‘beasts’, still seeing nothing in them but convenience.
Else, he would have come here long ago, come to Dany and Drogon, to what little remains of their family.
But a part of her that is yet to grow distant, a part that aches for Jon, for that look of epiphany in his eyes he gives to her and to her alone, tells her to keep waiting. For just a bit longer, just so…
And she waits.
His ship will arrive any moment now, she is musing; hoping, really, that the ship has already docked and she is simply yet to hear. It's been – days, even when it doesn't feel like days, more of a little eternity. They are lost somewhere between Rhaegal's agonized scream and this uncertain hour on her balcony, gray and fogged and cold; it is all like that, she doesn't truly remember what it's like to stand in the sun. When was the last time she felt the summer heat, saw the glowing golden light? The answer cannot be in Essos.
By the gods, she thinks, faint, is it possible that Jon has never in his life known the sun, the real sun, not the pale likeness of it barely illuminating his world?
The thought almost drives her to tears, or, rather, the one that is linked to it does. She wants to show Jon her sun. She wants to take him to Essos, to feed him a ripe peach from Pentos' gardens, to ride the Great Grass Sea side by side with him, to explore olive shrubs of Meereen with him. She wants to take him home.
And she knows that he would refuse.
She closes her eyes against the fresh wave of despair, and keeps them closed, breathing through her mouth, trusting Torgo Nudho to keep guard while she can't. And she doesn't see the ship under gray sails come, doesn't know, not until there is noise outside the Chamber and the doors open with haste. She turns, a broken, tearful smile twisting her features as she goes, to those doors, expecting to see Jon, forgiven quickly for his tardiness by the simple fact of his coming when called upon; but Jon isn't there.
Instead, Ser Davos meets her eyes, and she stalls, astonished, shocked at his appearance so badly that it takes time to understand what exactly it is she is seeing.
He looks half-dead on his feet, dried blood still clinging to his skin and mustache where he didn't manage to scrub it off clean; clothes in disarray and dirty as well. He looks like a soldier fresh off a battlefield, but there wasn't supposed to be a battle coming their way. Only hers. Hers, not his, not –
She realizes at once, but no sooner than Ser Davos breathes forcefully and starts, voice rife with emotion, “Your Grace, Jon – lord Snow – ”
“No,” she whispers, no, he cannot, it cannot be. Davos stares at her for all of a second before going right over her denial.
“He was alive, when they've taken him, Your Grace,” he says. “But he wasn't himself, and I don't know if… I am sorry,” he finishes awkwardly.
No, keeps ringing in her head, no, not Jon, not him too. Viserion, Jorah, Rhaegal, Missandei; she cannot take any more; it is like the ice breaking all over again, the black water taking him away before her eyes, extinguishing the fire.
But never succeeding, for, alongside the vile, sickly feeling she can taste on her tongue, there is something else. Something, that, while entirely foreign, is nonetheless recognizable. It is dark, viscous and hot, hot like molten gold; and the screams are ringing now instead of useless pleas. And the screams? They are what she wants to hear, this time.
She thought before, her dragon had awoken when Rhaego died, when Drogo stared at nothing with his khalasar falling apart around them. Yet the truth of her words spoken to Mirri Maz Duur holds; Daenerys had had no need for any scream and cry and inhuman wail of hers.
She needs them now.
She needs to hear Euron and Cersei shout until their throats bleed of any sound. She needs to watch them trash on the ground and tear off their own clothes and skin trying to escape. She needs Euron to claw out his eyes he laid on her and Missy the day of parley; and she needs Cersei to cut open her trice accursed, empty womb.
She is going to burn them, and after that – everyone they’ve ever loved, everything they’ve ever held dear. Maybe, just possibly, she thinks with scalding clarity, it will be enough.
Ser Davos steps forward, blocking her path.
“Stop this, Your Grace,” he says, firm despite the subtle terror in the crevices of his face.
She can feel the sneer pulling her lips, has to school her expression into a mask of somewhat regal anger. She wants to bare her teeth; truly, at the moment, she isn’t above lunging for his neck.
“This isn’t you,” he foolishly insists. “You are hurt, and you are letting vengeance prevail over sense. This is you lashing heedlessly out.”
“This,” she breathes in answer, “is me being just. Who are you to tell me otherwise, you, the man who left Shireen alone; the man who tried to stop Jon from riding? How dare you?”
He stares at her, shaken, driven to tears yet rooted in place – an old, sturdy tree, but she is the storm.
“Jon – Jon told you I tried to stop him? Does he, does he believe that?”
“What does it matter? He rode alone. He was alone when they killed him, alone when his brother fell dead in front of him, alone when he stayed behind to give us time, alone now! You call yourself his advisor, his friend; yet you are here, safe in our ancestors’ castle, and he is not!”
Her own voice breaks during this speech, and she is forced to keep on through the wracking sobs and ever growing pain seated deep in her belly, pulsating in her veins.
It’s worse than facing Jorah’s betrayal, than seeing him fall to his knees with confessions of both treason and love on his lips. Because, this time, Daenerys isn’t the one wronged; indeed, she is just as guilty.
It was her and her dragons Jon had been protecting from the dead; it was Tyrion, her Hand, who had sent Jon there in the first place, no matter Dany’s attempts to stop their folly.
And it was her to turn her back on Jon when he told her the truth. The things they both have been desiring for their entire lives, Dany – a family, Jon – a mother; they were suddenly in each their grasp, and Daenerys refused hers and tried to forbid Jon his. She did so out of fear, yes; for she has felt threatened ever since stepping foot in Winterfell. The threat has come from his family, from his loyalty to the Starks that has kept him firmly a northerner, never a Rhaegar’s son; only ever Lyanna’s. And she could not abide by that desire of his, not when he intended to tell their every secret to her enemies – for the Starks are her enemies, openly and proudly, and he has been utterly blind.
So much for a Stark never breaking their word; so much for perpetuity.
She has been protecting herself, her claim, even her life; yet it meant breaking his heart. She could see it; everyone could see it, how he wouldn’t bear to stay in the same room with her, how he wouldn’t tolerate her closeness anymore, how at the feast he would sit facing away from her, would barely toast her. The triumph in Sansa’s cold eyes left her mortified and vulnerable.
She cannot deny in good faith, not even to herself, that she is at fault here. She pushed Jon away after he declared his intention to tell them the truth; sent him on the road with the armies while taking the sea and the sky for herself. He did tell her that Rhaegal hadn’t been ready; if only he hadn’t done so to support Sansa during the War Council. If only he truly cared, she’d have listened. He didn’t; neither did Dany; and their silent war has cost them Rhaegal’s life, Missandei’s freedom, and now his own; along with so many lost for his loyalty and her fear.
Alright then, she calmly decides. Let it be fear.
Out in the skies Drogon roars fiercely, echoing her grief and rage. Determined now, she steps forward, her focus on the action ahead, on what needs to be done; and Davos blocks her once more.
“I cannot stop you, Your Grace,” he says, hiding neither his sadness, nor desperation. “But I’m begging you to wait.”
“Wait for what?” she mocks. “They couldn’t have reached the city, not yet. Once behind those walls, he is lost to me completely.”
“I don’t presume to know what’s happened between you two,” Davos tells her much softer, “but I think, we both understand you’ve lost him a while ago. If you move now, if you try to free him while on the road, I’ve no doubt they’d kill him at the first sign of a dragon approaching. Cersei won’t allow for anything less.”
She clenches her fists so hard, her nails pierce the skin. He is right. She knows he is right; knows Cersei needs Jon alive only to kill him with Daenerys watching, and if Daenerys is the one to cause his execution, all the better.
He’ll die, either way.
The realization, along with her earlier sorrowful ruminations, nearly drives her insane. But there is more at play, that she isn’t sure anyone but her has been trusted with. The order, given to Melisandre on the eve of the battle for Winterfell. And also that single time Dany spoke on Drogo’s death and Jon, in turn, told her about Ygritte – the only other woman he’d loved.
“If he dies, he dies,” Dany says.
The words are dry and bitter in her mouth like ashes of pyre. Someone gasps; Tyrion, standing in the doors, watching unashamedly. Slightly behind him, there is Varys, unreadable as ever, but she doesn’t care for either of them. “It is better a fate than becoming her prisoner.”
They are gaping at her, horrified. Tyrion flails.
“Cersei is not – she is not unreasonable, not a monster, Daenerys! Do you really hate so much, that you would deprive Jon of a mere chance to live? Has he wronged you that terrible, did something you cannot forgive?”
In that very moment, she sees he doesn’t believe in her – if he ever believed, even. He would never have said this otherwise; he would have looked for any different explanation. Instead, he looks to blame her, and only her, it feels like.
Her, who has done everything possible, who has sacrificed it all. Her, who is being stripped of an ally after ally, a friend after friend, a child after child. Who will be the next one they are taking from her? Torgo Nudho? Drogon?
She swallows the bile and the hatred.
“I do not doubt your love for Cersei,” she whispers, and he flinches. “And I ask you in return that you do not doubt my love for Jon.” She breathes in, reaches with a careful hand and takes the silver pin off his chest, ignoring the look of devastation he adopts. How dare he, failing her on every account, uttering these hurtful accusations – still think himself worthy of the position? “I should never have given it to you. To Olenna, yes. And after her, to Jon. You have never cared for me the way they cared.” She pockets the pin, mindful of the needle. “Jon will wear this, or no one will. But you, lord Lannister, will never have a say in our lives again.”
She gestures for the Unsullied and watches dispassionately as they escort Tyrion out of the Chamber. He won’t be harmed. Simply guarded, quite closely, until it is time for the Lord of Casterly Rock to swear his oath and depart. (And then some more. She is under no illusions after this display).
In accord with her latest expectations, Varys makes no sound to protect the man he’d brought into her service. It is both revealing and disheartening. She truly believed they have found understanding; truly relied on his promise to criticize her to her face.
She ought to expel him from her ever diminishing court. Varys may have given her Ellaria – yet he failed to even mention Arianne and Quentyn, and has cost her Dorne in the end, for the Princess and the Prince haven’t forgiven transgression – if supporting a usurper could be called so mild a word. She cannot find fault in their decree; in Varys’ mistake, however? She can, and she does.
His inability to predict Cersei’s deception, to glean the scam of their agreement? Tyrion may be understood, soft-hearted fool of a brother that he is; but not him. He had fled Westeros altogether once learned of Tywin’s murder, - he had fled Cersei. He was the one to tell Daenerys about Baelor. He should have been prepared.
At best, he’s been remiss in his duties. At worst, he has set her up for failure. For what reason, she has no idea. She could say it was out of spite, because she’d chosen to ignore his wise exhortations in favor of the Great War, and she would have believed that had his ‘mistakes’ not started before she’d even heard the name Jon Snow for the first time. As it stands, she has no clarity; only resentment, and disappointment, and guilt.
Steeling herself, she looks at him directly.
“Find out how it all could happen. We have been betrayed, clearly. Find me every last one responsible, lord Varys, and for once do no mistakes. I won’t accept any more of your excuses.”
He gives her a thinly veiled smile.
“I’ll have need of a few ravens, my Queen.”
“Very well,” she agrees, curt, and dismisses the man. She doesn’t expect anything to come out of his ready attitude but, at the very least, his absence, together with the absence of his self-important smiles.
Done with ordering these arrogant men around, she leaves the Chamber, the tower and eventually the castle. It’s raining outside; the feeling of water soaking her through is as unfamiliar as the winter cold once was. She hates it; longs for the heat of deserts and seas of grass; but such is her life now, her home; another consequence of her choices.
Get used to it, she wills her heart. Get used to rains, and snows; to kingdoms full of starved children, jealous maidens and selfish, lying men. They wear their chains like badges of honor; let them.
You become no different; just more of the same, echoes his voice, so much more than a simple memory that she almost cries in relief – of him having come to her, escaping Cersei safe, alive -
But he is, indeed, a memory, standing between her and staring at her expectantly Drogon.
Your family hasn’t seen its end, he whispers, a sad, tender look in his eyes. And you won’t be the last.
But I will, she answers, and goes forward, climbs up Drogon’s wing. You would have done the same for me.
She believes it, too, that he’d never let her suffer captivity, be it in Cersei’s hands or the Night King’s own. He had gone to war for Rickon; something Robb Stark had never tried to see through, having lost his sight on his sisters to little wars and love. Daenerys isn’t Rickon, isn’t kin. Only a lover, so easily discarded, traded for a dream of a northern family. A part of her understands – the part that had chosen Drogo’s child over the brother who’d once had done everything to keep her alive. Maybe, now is her time to pay for that choice. She doesn’t know; and truthfully, doesn’t care.
She is going to find them, find the men who took Jon and strive to deliver him into Cersei’s cruel, waiting arms. She is going to kill them, and perhaps, to force them to kill Jon with just her presence.
She is going to fly with Drogon to the city, after. To free Missandei, whatever the way, whatever the cost.
She is going to burn the world for these two, even though she knows neither would ever forgive her.
She is the last Targaryen, though. She is well beyond forgiveness.