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Chapter Text

She’d been here before. 

Sat within the flickering flames with soot collecting on her pale skin. Underneath the heat of the flames licking at her skin, she could still feel the cold metal of the blade that had plunged into her breast. It was like ice compared to the flames that surrounded her. Bright and flickering as they licked at her pale skin.

He had killed her. She had loved him, promised him the world, and he had killed her. Stabbed a dagger into her chest in front of the very throne she had been fighting to claim for her whole life. She had only ever loved him. Loved him and cherished him and basked in his presence. 

Her head was spinning, her vision blotted out by the smoke that was choking her every breath. She was dead, stabbed in the chest by a man she had thought loved her. Yet, she was here; feeling the heat of the flames against skin and listening to the cracking of pure wood as it burned.

There was a voice crackling within the flames. The words indecipherable from the popping of burning wood. 

Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys Fireborn, Daenerys Twiceborn. It was wrong. The Gods decreed.

She must’ve been dreaming. Maybe this was what the Dothraki meant when they talked about the great grass sea in the sky. She had dreamed of the endless fields on occasion, when she had still rode behind Khal Drogo as his wife at the head of his Khalasar. It had been so easy to think of them night after night, after her time with her husband. Before she had been hardened by loss and death and betrayal. Maybe this was her afterlife, the afterlife the gods had seen fit to gift her. She wouldn’t mind if it was, she wouldn’t mind if this was it.

This had been the moment where she had been reborn, where her children had been born. It had been here that she had finally begun living. It was bittersweet, to be stuck here for all of eternity when it had been here that she had begun living for the first time. Out of her brother's sight and free of a husband who enjoyed her only when he could mount her. 

It was bittersweet to be stuck without the ability to move forwards. If this was to be her eternity, then it was probably more than she deserved.

She hoped her children would receive more kindness than her. She prayed that Viserion and Rhaegal were together, flying over the many oceans and gliding amongst the clouds. When Drogon joined them in death, Daenerys expected that his brother and sister would be waiting for him in the afterlife. That they would tussle over dead sheep and snap at each other in play like they had been doing all of their life. 

What she wouldn’t give to have them with her. She could still feel the phantom sensation of warm scales against her palms, the echo of Viserion’s singing as she drifted through the skies after her brothers. She hadn’t deserved to be taken from the world so soon, so young. She had still been a child.

Oh, Viserion, her poor sweet Viserion. She had been killed and turned into a mindless beast, her intelligent mind snuffed out like a candle. 

And Rhaegal, her beautiful son. She could still see the moment he had been taken from her. How blood had sprayed when the scorpion bolt had torn through his chest before another had pierced through jaw and taken him to a watery grave. No dragon deserved to rest under the water. They were beings of fire, fire made flesh, and too the fire they should have returned. 

Yet, two of her children had been laid to rest beneath the water. She could still remember watching Viserion slide from the ice into the freezing water below. Her daughter, only seven, still just a babe, the youngest of her three children. Even if only by a few moments.

And Drogon, her poor, sweet, stubborn son. He was alone now, with none in the world who wouldn’t kill him the moment that they set eyes upon him.. She could only hope that he had left, that he had spread those massive black wings of his and took to the skies. That he flew far away and never turned back. 

Twice born, you must change your fate. Live, and be born again.

Daenerys barely noticed when the fire began to die down and the ashes settled into a thick blanket on her shoulders. The surrounding ground collecting its own blanket of powder over the chunks of still smouldering charcoal that littered the dirt. But when an insistent little snout pressed firmly into the meat of her bare thigh, her attention was caught. Her face was covered in ash and the smoke was making her vision hazy, but she would be able to recognize her son even if someone had carved out her eyes. 

It was Drogon, smaller than she could ever remember him being. With his soft scales the size of finger nails and the spines on his head barely taller than her thumb. Everything about him was smaller than she remembered. From his translucent wings to the tip of his barbed tail. She could only blink down at him with pale eyes, her mind blank. 

And like always, where Drogon went, his brother and sister followed. Viserion and Rhaegal, with soot-covered scales, crawled towards her, hauling their tiny fragile bodies towards her on leg and wing. She could only watch as her children climbed up her body, their tiny claws leaving pinpricks of pain on her pale skin. Drogon, in the way he had always been, claimed his favorite place on her shoulders, wrapping his tail around her neck like he had done it a thousand times before.

Viserion and Rhaegal latched onto her bare breasts, suckling for the milk that would have been for her baby. Rhaego hadn’t ever been able to nurse from her chest, but it felt right for her other children to take his place. The babe had been born with scales and horns, the blood of dragons running throughout his veins, so it was only right for dragons to take his place.

Their claws bit into the tender flesh of her chest, but the pain was insignificant in the face of her children’s hunger. It was only instinct really, how her arms moved to cradle her children against her chest, ignoring the little squeals they last out as she moved them. She felt complete with her children there. She gazed down at them, gaze soft. She moved a hand upwards to cup Drogon’s head against her cheek before she moved to stroke his scales.

If this was to be her eternity, then it was more than she deserved. 

She sat there, blanketed in ash and a dying warmth, with her children cradled in her lap as Drogon nuzzled against her jaw. She was content to sit there forever. Naked and dirty, but content.

But as the fire died, movement caught her eye. From between coal laden branches, her own pale violet eyes locked gazes with Ser Jorah Mormont. 

He looked exactly like he had that day so many years ago. Only seven years, but Jorah had looked so much older by the end of them, had looked so much older when he had died. His hair was darker than it had been, and the wrinkles on his brow were far less prominent than they had been before. There were still wrinkles marring his skin, but he looked much less worn than he had. Even while tracking through the desert, age had not yet become his enemy, nor the sickness that had scarred his skin.

When Daenerys had last seen him, he had had blood leaking out of a hundred cuts and the light had been fading from his blue, blue eyes. She had held him and wept over his still chest as snow and ash had rained down around her and the smell of death had sunk into her pores. He had loved her, even in the end, especially in the end. Even when she had never loved him back in the way he had wanted her too. The way he so desperately wanted. 

He looked so young as he stood there in front of her with one of her bloodriders beside him, Aggo she thought. Dressed in ragged Dothraki leathers with dust and soot on his face, he stared down at her with awe written plainly on his weathered face. 

This had happened before. She had been here before. She had sat there in the remains of her husband's funeral pyre, holding three newborn dragons to her breasts as the remains of Drogo’s Khalasar, her Khalasar, stared on at her with wide eyes, reverent eyes. 

She wasn’t supposed to be here, not again, not after everything that had happened. Yet she sat, with needle sharp baby fangs biting into her tender nipples as her children suckled. Blood mixing into the milk from the puncture wounds, causing her babies to drink as much blood as they did their mothers milk. The pain was there, proving against all odds that she wasn’t dreaming. 

She had witnessed many terrible things in her dreams before, but never pain. Not once.

She stood, ignoring Ser Jorah’s offered hand. Her clothes were gone, burnt away in the fire. She stood bare before her people, yet no eyes lingered upon her naked body. They were all trained upon the miracles that she had brought into the world. After hundreds of years without the sighting of a dragon, she was now blessing them with the sight of three of them. 

Her other two Bloodrider’s were standing at the front of the crowd, the gifts she had made of her wedding presents in their hands. They hadn’t believed that she could be a Khal. Jhogo had said to her face that a female Khal would bring shame to him and to the Khalasar. That being a Bloodrider to a woman would be as good as castrating him and throwing him from his horse. Aggo had been less offensive in his words, but had shared the sentiment with Jhogo. A woman leading a Khalasar was not done. 

Kovarro had been the kindest, offering to travel with her to Vaes Dothrak. Escorting her to the Dosh Khaleen to become one of them and serve as counsel to the great khals.

All three of them had denied her claim as Khal, but now, they stood before her, holding their gifted weapons and dropping to their knees. They were hers, now and always. Before and now. 

“These are my children! Drogon after my husband, Viserion after my brother, as cowardly as he was, and Rhaegal after my oldest brother, the last dragon no more!” Daenerys called out, her voice strong as she held out her arms to show off her children, “Rhaego may have died in my belly before he could mount the world, but his brothers and sister, the Khalakka’s and the Khalakki, will ride on in his honor! The milk that was meant for him will fill their stomachs until they are full. They will grow and they will fly and they will give me the world!” These words rolled off of her tongue in the native Dothraki tongue, the harsh syllables rumbling in her chest and up her throat. “You are my Khalasar, you are my people and I promised that anything that hurt you would die screaming. In return, would you help my children give me the world? Would you ride into the battle with my children flying above you?”

They were screaming now, men, women and children. Hollering in the way that only the Dothraki could. Perched on her shoulder, Drogon screamed with them, his high pitched wail only riling her Khalasar up further. Viserion and Rhaegal detached their mouths from her breast to join in on the cacophony. Their thin calls rising up above the harsh desert. 

Tears prickled at her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. If this was real, if this was not the afterlife she was promised or some convoluted dream that her heartbroken, dying mind was dreaming up. Then she had been given another chance. Something that many had prayed for yet had never received. 

Jorah was looking at her as if he had never seen her before, as if she was something ethereal and unreal that had appeared before him out of a fog. 

“Khaleesi…” the man breathed, his voice filled with awe. The adoration on his face was palpable in a way that was so known yet so foreign to her. He had never been able to stop loving her, even when he knew that she could never love him in the way that he wanted her too. 

But that was irrelevant now. She could figure out the intricacies of her personal relationships later. Right now, she had to get her people out of the desert. 

~oOo~

She could feel her children’s minds pressing up against her consciousness. That was something she hadn’t been able to feel until she had ridden Drogon for the first time in her last life. Her children’s thoughts were simple now that they were babies again. Vague impressions and images that she couldn’t quite catch. 

But they were alive, all three of them. Sweet Rhaegal, stubborn Drogon, and light hearted Viserion. They were all here, healthy and alive.

The trek through the red waste was not doing them any favors though. They needed more to eat than the little chunks of roasted horse she was able to provide them with. It was not doing her any favors either. Her body was still weak from her labor and without rest, she was only going to get weaker.

“Khaleesi, you must rest!” Irri was persistent in her worry, bold enough to ignore Daenerys' dismissal of her concern.

“I am alright Irri, I need to continue on, I need to get us out of this desert.”

Yet, even as she said that, she knew her handmaiden was right. She was sore from riding in a way she hadn’t been since her first weeks as a Khals’ wife. Her silver, usually such a comforting presence underneath her was causing her nothing but pain. Agony was shooting up her back and her head was dizzy from the little water she had managed to swallow. 

“She is right Khaleesi, you need to rest.” Ser Jorah added from atop his horse on her other side. “You cannot get your Khalasar out of the red waste if you cannot think and you cannot think if you are weak.”

She wanted to scoff, “What am I supposed to do then do you suppose? Lay down on a nice feather bed? Ask for a servant to bring me grapes and wine?” She demanded, “No, my pain will not last forever and I can rest once we get to safety.”

She should rest, she knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to when she could see her people growing more haggard as the days passed by. What good would it do to rest? She knew where she needed to go, how to make sure that her horde would be fed as well as her dragons. So even with the sun beating down upon her and the red dust that was being kicked up into her eyes, Daenerys kept her Khalasar moving, stopping only at night to let her people sleep and eat. She sent out scouts like she had done before, but this time, it wasn’t Aggo, Kovarro, and Rakharo that she sent out. She needed all three of her bloodriders hale and healthy, not one dead and one injured.

It was three other men that she sent out. It felt selfish for her to do, sending these men out into the Red Waste when she knew what would happen to them. She felt cruel, but she couldn’t justify not sending out scouts. Ser Jorah wouldn’t take her at face value if he told him she knew where she needed to go. For all he knew, she was still the same little girl that he had been besides for the past months. 

“I promised to protect them. Promised them that their enemies would die screaming. How do I make starvation scream?” She had asked so long ago, and she asked again now after the death of her silver. The horse having fallen as she talked to Doreah.

“What did your brother say about them, Khaleesi?” Her handmaiden had asked as Daenerys walked alongside the horses to give herself a break from the saddle. Drogon was perched atop her shoulder as she fed him bits of meat from her blood stained fingers. 

“He said they ate meat, but I already knew that.” She replied, slipping another piece of burnt horse through the gaps in the basket that was hollering her other two dragons. 

“Did he tell you what kind of meat?” Doreah continued, her eyes trained eagerly upon Drogon’s wings. 

“My brother didn’t know anything about dragons Doreah. He didn’t know anything about anything. He was a cruel little boy who got upset whenever something didn’t go his way.” She bit out in reply.

Doreah was clearly taken aback by her harsh response. The handmaiden barely had time to look surprised before the commotion of her silver falling over caught her attention. 

“Have her cut up for meat, blood of my blood.” She ordered taking only a moment to mourn the horse. She had been a steady stead, but her loss was nothing compared to the loss of her dear friends or the loss of her children. Compared to the loss of Missandei and Jorah, the death of a horse could not compare. 

She couldn’t let her people starve because she was upset over the death of a horse. Her children ate their fill of roasted horse flesh, especially since Daenerys knew now that they required for the meat to be charred. She wouldn’t have to feed them like that for long. She would continue to pamper them, but within a few weeks they would be able to broil their own food without a second thought. 

Drogon had always been the biggest of her dragons and his appetite reflected that. He was ravenous for his food, nipping at his brother and sister for the food in their mouths, before Daenerys put a stop to it with a sharp reprimand. It was easier now that she had experience, for her to control her children. Well, not control them, one could never control a dragon, nor attempt too. Dragons were free creatures. But it was easy to slip into the bond between the four of them and communicate what she needed from them or for them to tell her what they needed from their mother. 

Unlike last time, where the bond between her and Drogon had been the most prominent, with his siblings slipping into the background of her mind, Daenerys could feel all three of her children much easier than she had been able to before. She could feel them all almost the same, though Drogon’s bond felt a bit bigger than his siblings. It made sense, she supposed. While all three of the dragons were her children, Drogon was hers in an entirely different way. She was his rider and he was her mount. It made sense. 

She couldn’t do much as she waited for the three Dothraki she had sent out to return, so she kept herself idle by entertaining herself with her children. When one of her men returned injured, she had his wound dressed by one of the women in her Khalasar. The widow had a talent for sewing, which she made use of as she briskly stitched up the wound on the man’s side. He hadn’t found anything, just like Daenerys knew he would. But the information was new to Ser Jorah and her blood riders. 

Like Ser Jorah had told her, the lamb men in the direction that the man had gone in did not take kindly to the Dothraki. Even if it was only a single scout. Another one of her men returned, his head in a bag. His wife, now a widow, came forward wailing.

“His soul, they killed his soul!” She cried, cradling her husband's severed head in her hands. 

When the last man finally returned, with his neck intact and a grin on his dark face, Daenerys wished she could feel as relieved as the rest of her Khalasar did. 

“Qarth, the city is called, they have said that they would welcome the Mother of Dragons with open arms!” The man, Zollo is name was, said, his face bright as he brandished the bags of food and skins of water that had been gifted to him. Along with that, a fresh horse had been gifted to him to allow his own steed a rest. 

Zollo looked so proud of himself and Daenerys didn’t have the heart to tell him that the nobles of Qarth only extended an invitation to her with the intention of using her Royal blood and her dragons to gain power and reputation for themselves. 

“What do you know about Qarth?” She asked Ser Jorah, for his benefit rather than hers. She knew more about the city in the desert than he did. It would allay the man’s worries to know that she was not intending to go in blind. 

“I do not know much, Khaleesi. I know that it is a rich city, home to many noblemen,” he hesitated, “I also know that the desert around the city is called the Garden of Bones, and that with each traveler that is turned away from the gates, the garden grows.”

“Well, that’s just lovely isn’t it.” Daenerys replied, unable to keep the derision out of her voice. But, like last time, she had no other way to keep her Khalasar alive. 

Her dragons still suckled at her breasts days later, even with the amount of meat they were eating. Daenerys was glad she could do something to keep them well fed. She knew what they needed this time, yet it was still a struggle to feel like she was doing the right thing for them. Her Khalasar as well, needed more food, more water. So she ignored everything telling her to run away and never return to Qarth, and herded her Khalasar towards the city.

~oOo~

The Thirteen of Qarth managed to be even more arrogant and self assured then they had been last time. Or maybe Daenerys was just better at reading people than she had been before. She wasn’t yet what she would come to be. She wasn’t the Breaker of Chains or the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, she was just a little girl that they thought was beneath them. A little girl who just happened to have dragons. 

When Xaro Xhoan Doxos volunteered to speak for her and foster her presence in his city, Daenerys could feel nothing but dislike for the man. As he cut his palm and swore on his blood to keep her safe within the city, Daenerys tuned him out. She plastered a placid smile on her face, the one that always made men assume that she knew nothing, and held her tongue. Her Khalasar needed supplies and she needed a bath, so she could play along. 

She had been so taken with the dark skinned man in her last life. He had shown her kindness and offered her riches beyond her imagination. If she hadn’t still been fragile and reeling from the death of her husband, she probably would have taken him up on his marriage proposal. This time around, Daenerys knew that the man had none such riches to speak of. She could see the power hungry desperation in his eyes. Like all men, he craved power and influence, which he was sure that Daenerys could give him. She would do no such thing. 

The Spice King was also just as smarmy than he had been before. He had been so quick to jump to propositioning her. He wanted a night to lay with her in exchange for a single ship. He was blatant when he leered hungrily at her. He made her skin crawl. 

Somehow, the man managed to be even more persistent in his attention, even going so far as to invite her to his abode to speak. Daenerys knew this was another attempt to try and sway her attention towards him. She agreed only to keep him from trying even harder. 

She made her way to the grand manse of the Spice King, dressed in a sturdy dress woven from fine gold and tan threads. It had been a gift from Xaro Xhoan Daxos, and while she did not like the man, she knew better than to deny a gift while he acted as her benefactor and was the only thing keeping her in the city. 

She kept her Kovarro with her as she went, not stupid enough to go into the Spice Kings abode without someone to defend her. Her bloodrider walked a few steps behind her, his arakh in hand. The curved weapon was part scythe and part sword. Made for easy use from the saddle of a horse, the weapon was imposing when wielded by a man like Kovarro. The man was tall, stern looking and his braid was long. The bells braided into his hair jingled as he stalked behind her. The man walked more like a great cat than a stallion. Sure in his steps and his clear eyes sweeping over anything that might be considered a threat.

The manse had clearly been designed with grandeur in mind. With marble walls and pedestals carved to look like the roaring faces of animals or the bodies of women laid bare. Every surface in the main chamber was decorated in finery. Pelts draped over tables and hung on walls, golden dishes placed strategically over every surface. 

Daenerys curled her lip at the display as she moved to take a seat on one of the provided finely woven chairs. Kovarro took a position behind her shoulder, his arms crossed against his thinly clad chest. While she had taken to wearing the gifts of clothing that had been given to her, her khalasar preferred to remain in the leathers that they had. The Dothraki leathers and woven skirts made them stand out starkly against the dyed fabrics and gold jewelry that the Qartheen wore. 

It was almost ten minutes later that the Spice King deigned to make an appearance.

“I am terribly sorry for my lateness, Mother of Dragons!” The man proclaimed as he swept into the room, “I found myself unable to sleep! Nightmares plagued my mind until the birds began to sing in the sky, and by the time I had put myself together the time had flown by!”

The falsely apologetic tone in his cheery voice was obvious. This was a move she was familiar with. Leave your guests waiting so that, by the time you had graced them with your presence, they had worked themselves up into a panic. 

“Not at all, my lord, I enjoyed the moment of quiet that the time afforded me.” Daenerys replied, smiling back at the fat man placidly. At her back, Kovarro shifted as he detected the hidden disdain in her voice. Good.

The man went one, ignoring the Dothraki that was guarding her. It was hard not to ignore the Spice King out. The man was clearly trying to show off his wealth, waxing poetic about the city and the part he had in maintaining it. He clearly believed that he had been the sole man to raise the city to its supposed greatness. The Thirteen put forward an illusion of wealth, the fronts of their clothes draped in finery and embroidered with golden thread, while the back of the outfit remained blank. It told her much about the front that the noble lords put up. 

The Spice King moved on to talking about all the exotic items that he had in his possession. He blabbered on about the jewels he had bought, about the rare, wild animals that he had had hunted down for their pelts, and about all the rare trinkets that he had gained over the years. Daggers of glass, marbles that were said to contain their own worlds within, gold gilded chests and so much more. He wanted her to know what he had, what he could offer her in return for a few nights with her. 

“-and of course, the crown jewel in my collection, the dragon egg!” His voice was giddy, likely knowing that this would catch her attention. And it did.

“Dragon egg?” She asked, shocked. 

The Spice King looked smug. It made his already fat, perspiring face look even worse than before. Clearly, he had been counting on her interest in the dragon egg. 

“Why yes! Years ago, a dragon egg happened to come into my possession! I had considered selling, you understand, they are worth so much! But now that you are here, I will celebrate the fact that I never got the chance!” The rotund man explained jovially, “would you like to see it?”

Daenerys wouldn’t have been able to decline the offer even if she had wanted to. She kept her features schooled into expression of expectant excitement, her eyes showing none of what she was truly feeling. 

Why would this man offer her a dragon egg? Didn’t he know that giving her another dangerous creature wasn’t something he should do, didn’t he know the damage that dragons could do? But then she remembered, this man hadn’t seen the destruction that her children could bring. No one had. Right now, Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal were the size of small dogs, not the massive hulking beasts that they had come to be. 

The Spice King thought her harmless, and was naively dangling something extremely dangerous in front of her without knowing the consequences for his actions. 

She stood, taking the man’s elbow when he offered it, ignoring the way the man lay his opposite hand on her arm. The hand was sweaty and the metal of his rings was warm against her pale skin. He led here through his quarters, purposely, she suspected, moving through lavishly decorated rooms to impress her. 

Eventually, he led her to a smaller, more secluded room in the back of his manse and hidden at the top of a staircase. The room was equally as decorated as the rest of the rooms. There were furs and feathers decorating the wall, right alongside beautiful fabrics trimmed in gold. This room seemed to be where he kept the most precious of his possessions, given the elaborate lock on the door. Nothing that a little dragon fire couldn’t melt through though. 

Standing in the middle of the room was a carved marble pedestal. It was clearly the center piece of the room, with a pretty purple velvet pillow, made of a no doubt expensive fabric, resting on top with the golden tassels at its corners trailing down over the edges of the stone. And on the center of the pillow, sitting in a divot created by its own weight, was a beautiful scaled egg. 

It was just as beautiful as her own eggs had been. The colors were a lovely mix of sea foam green and a delicate silver that glistened in the light streaming in through the windows. 

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” The Spice King declared, patting her hand with his own damp one as he led her closer, “One of the wonders of the world, one that grows rarer and rarer with every passing year!”

Daenerys couldn’t bring herself to look away from the egg in front of her. She was close enough to touch it, to run delicate fingers over the raised ridges of the eggs scales. She could feel the warmth emanating from within it, even if nobody else would have.  

“It could be yours!” The man prattled on, clearly taking her interest as an invitation, “I would only ask for one thing from you Daenerys Stormborn.” 

“And what would that be?” Daenerys asked, never taking her eyes off of the egg.

 She knew what he wanted, he couldn’t have been more obvious in his intentions if he tried. He thought her a little girl who would naively accept any conditions if it meant that she could have the pretty, shiny thing that had been dangled in front of her.

“I would only ask for the glorious honor of becoming your husband! To be wed to the wonderful dragon queen would make me the happiest man in Qarth!”

It was as much as she had expected.

“Such an offer does me great honor, Spice King. Would you allow me the courtesy of a few days to consider your offer?” Daenerys replied, playing into the fake courtesies that would placate the man. She knew she would never have to accept the offer. Xaro Xhoan Daxos would make a move to steal her dragons within the next day or two. As much as she hated the idea of putting her children into the hands of the likes of Pyat Pree, she knew the warlock would not harm them. She needed the warlock to kill the other members of the Thirteen for her, and afterwards, it would be child’s play to kill Pyat Pree and detain Xaro Xhoan Daxos. 

“Of course, of course! Take your time my lady! Walk the streets and enjoy the sights of the greatest city that ever was and will ever be!”

The man led her outside, kissing her hand in farewell with his wormy lips. And she left, Vakarro following behind her.

“Khaleesi, was that egg like the ones that the Khalakka’s and the Khalakki hatched from?” The Bloodrider asked lowly in the guttural dothraki tongue. He did not speak the common tongue that was used by the Qartheen. So he could not know what she and the Spice King had talked about, but he had seen the eggs that her children had hatched from. 

“Yes,” she replied, “It will be mine.” 

Vakarro nodded. The Dothraki understood what it meant to take something. They took what they wanted. “The Khalasar will have a new Khalakka.” He agreed

“Or a Khalakki.”

How had she missed this the first time she had been in Qarth? The Dothraki had pillaged the city after the death of the Thirteen, Pyat Pree and Xaro Xhoan Daxos. But somehow they had missed the dragon egg that the Spice King had in his possession. She knew that if they had found it, the man or woman who had found it would have brought it to her. 

What had changed to inspire the Spice King to personally invite her to view the egg and propose marriage to her? She didn’t know.

~oOo~

Like she knew would happen, she returned from a conversation with Xaro Xhoan Daxos to find Irri dead and her dragons taken. 

The meeting held between the Thirteen went much the same as before. She demanded that her dragons be returned to her and Pyat Pree revealed that he had been the one to take them, with Xaro Xhoan Daxos’ help. The warlock killed the other eleven members of the Thirteen, slitting their throats and leaving them to choke to death on their own blood. 

Ser Jorah was against her going to the Tower of the Undying, he urged her to load a ship and sail for Astopor, but there was no world or time that Daenerys would leave her children in the hands of warlocks.

She climbed to the tower, and was unsurprised when she appeared somewhere else after circling the base of it. 

There was the Iron Throne, the throne that she had died in front of. The snow that was raining down around her reminded her far too much of the ash that had been drifting through the air as she had stood in front of it. As she had been killed. As she had been stabbed by a man she thought she would spend the rest of her days with. She had loved him with every fiber of her being, yet he had been so quick to turn on her and stab his dagger into her heart. 

She turned away. 

She fought her way through the icy storm that was howling outside. The freezing winds whipping her hair into her face and biting at her skin. She kept moving forwards, fighting against the winds that tried to push her back. When the tent came into view, Daenerys entered it without hesitation, even when she knew what temptations awaited her within.

It was warm in the tent, the air moist with sweat and condensation. The desert bred a certain air that was either hated or loved. 

And Drogo was there, sitting crossed legged on the dusty ground. His braid was as long as she remembered, oiled heavily to make it shine and the strands braided together by deft hands. His eyes were clear and bright with life. Rhaego sat upon the dusty ground in front of his father, his pudgy hands grappling clumsily with a toy made of horse-leather. His hair was dark where it curled against his ears. His eyes shined as he looked up at his mother with a gum filled smile. 

Her heart hurt. This could have been her future, her life. It had been taken away in the blink of an eye because of her own stupid decisions. She had killed her husband and the unborn babe within her belly. This was only a sick mimicry that was trying to lure her into staying. 

She was tempted. But she could hear her children crying out for her. Their shrill cries echoing against stone walls that Daenerys couldn’t see. 

She turned away. 

She exited the tent, the wailing cry of an infant rising in her wake. 

She didn’t find herself back in the snow, instead, she was sitting on a terrace made of a sandy colored stone, a dress of fine blue cloth flowing softly around her legs. There were hands on her hair, softly brushing though the fine white strands to untangle any knots that they found. 

Missandei’s soft melodic voice was humming absentmindedly from behind her. Daenerys caught a glimpse of a delicate dark-bronzed hand from the corner of her eye. A tear slipped down her cheek unbidden. 

She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t expected that the Maegi would be able to use events that hadn’t yet happened to try and keep her there. She hadn’t known. If she had known, she wasn’t sure she would have let her dragons be taken at all. 

She could live with the deaths of Drogo and Rhaego, it had been a lifetime since she had first mourned them and she had been strong enough to shoulder it then. But Missandei, Missandei had died so recently. She had died so terribly and so alone. Her head taken from her and her body tossed aside like it was a scrap of meat to the dogs. 

Missandei had asked her to burn a city, and Daenerys had. 

“Are you well, your Grace?” Missandei asked from behind her, likely noticing how Daenerys had tensed. Her voice was just as soothing as it had ever been, the woman’s accent pulling at her heartstrings.

This wasn’t Missandei, she knew. It was just a cruel illusion of her dearest friend. But unlike Drogo and Rhaego, Missandei wasn’t dead. She was alive in the hands of Kraznys mo Nakloz, being used as a scribe and dressed in the ways of a pleasure slave. 

“No, but I will be.” Daenerys replied, standing abruptly and walking towards the door leading inside, “We will be.”

She was standing in the snow, Drogon and Rhaegal standing behind her. She was dressed in the white furred dress that she had preferred during her stay in the north, her cheeks pink from the cold and her breath misting in front of her face. Jon Snow was there, a smile on his face and a healthy pink tint to his cheeks, his eyes shining as he looked at her. 

Daenerys turned around and walked away. 

She was in the tower again. The screams of her children bouncing against the stone and burying themselves in her skull. Her dragons sat on top of a stone table in the middle of the circular room with chains around their thin necks. 

“They miss their mother. They want to be with you.” 

Daenerys jumped at the voice of Pyat Pree. The man’s voice caused her hair to stand on end. Her children were distressed at the appearance of the man, their wails picking up in volume. 

“Do you want to be with them? You will-“

“I know,” Daenerys stated as she interrupted the man. “They are my children, they will be with me, but we won’t be with you.”

The man stopped, his bug-like eyes trained on her and his blue lips dipping into a frown. 

“Your magic may be stronger in their presence, but they are stronger in mine. They are stronger than you and they are only babes. Qarth will burn when the time comes, but for now, you will burn in its place.”

The man stared at her, his eyes intent, and even in the face of her words he stood unshaken. That was alright, Let them believe her incapable.

“Dracarys.”

Her children went silent behind her, and then fire was streaming past her body. The flames were too fast for the man to dodge, even with his strange habit of changing places in the blink of an eye. The fire caught him in the face, burning away pale skin and leaving roasted flesh in its place. 

The man was screaming, screaming as his skin and clothes burnt away. He fell to the floor, his shouts failing in his throat before he went silent. The Maegi was just an empty shell made of meat now. No soul, no life, just meat. 

The chains around her children’s necks crumbled into nothing and then they were on her. Drogon jumped upwards to perch on her shoulder, nuzzling against her face, before Viserion jumped to the same shoulder and shoved her brother off of their mothers shoulder. Drogon screeched as he tumbled downwards, more angry than scared, before Daenerys caught him. Viserion chittered in laughter and Drogon screeched and screamed from his place in his mothers arms. 

Daenerys giggled at her children. It was lovely to watch them play. 

Raegal was still sitting on the table, clearly more interested in the pile of cooked meat steaming against the stone floor. 

Her other two children stopped arguing when they realized their mother wasn’t looking at them anymore, which meant that their attention turned towards the corpse in the room. 

“No, you cannot eat him,” Daenerys said, “you will not eat the Maegi, you don’t know where it’s been. Or what it has been doing.”

Her children looked so sad. Rhaegal crooned out a pleading sound and Daenerys had never been so torn.

“None of that,” she chided, scooping Raegal into her arms, ignoring how he squeaked in protest, “I will not have your taste tainted by the flesh of a Maegi. They are rotten things you know.”

She turned and walked away. 

~oOo~

Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Doreah were exactly where they had been before. Doreah laid peacefully in the bed with Xaro Xhoan Daxos beside her. They slumbered peacefully as members of Daenerys Khalasar entered the room. A few of her people moved silently to surround the bed. 

It hurt to see Doreah laying in the bed of someone who would have her tied to him as nothing more than a status symbol. Doreah had taught her how to please Drogo, how to make her husband hers in more than name. It was a betrayal that still stung even after years. 

Aggo ripped the necklace from around Xaro Xhoan Daxos’ neck with the curve of his arakh. 

The man startled awake at the movement, sitting up in a flash of speed with vitriol on his tongue before he registered the Dothraki in the room. 

Daenerys stared down at the circular key in her hand as it was passed to her. It was a pretty thing, useless but pretty. From their perches on her body, her children sniffed curiously at the necklace. 

“Put them somewhere.” She commanded, her voice sure. She ignored how Doreah had awoken in the bed and was pleading tearfully, and handed the key to one of her bloodriders. “I have need for them so do not kill them. I don’t care what you do with them otherwise. And open his vault, I want to see if he truly is as rich as he says he is.”

She knew what wasn’t in the vault. She only needed the vault to be opened so that everyone else could see how empty it was. She knew the vault was empty, but Ser Jorah had heard the man boasting about his wealth almost as much as Daenerys had, given how the older man never strayed far from her. 

“Come.” She commanded Ser Jorah, turning to leave as her bloodriders grabbed Xaro Xhoan Daxos and her former hand maid. She ignored how Doreah’s pleas grew louder as she begged her khaleesi for forgiveness.

She ordered the rest of her Khalasar to spread out and loot Xaro Xhoan Daxos’ palace and the Hall of a Thousand Thrones. She needed the gold and Jewels that the Thirteen liked to flaunt so openly. Her Khalasar were to collect the gold, jewels and expensive pelts and clothes. As her Khalasar went to do that, she had Ser Jorah accompany her to the Spice Kings quarters 

“Where are we going Khaleesi?” The older man questioned as he followed her through the winding paths that connected the buildings that made up where the Thirteen resided. 

“I need to get something.” She replied. 

When the Spice Kings manse came into sight, Daenerys couldn’t help the way her pace picked up. She was running by the time she got to the room that was holding the dragon egg. The door was locked, but a quick stream of fire from Rhaegal solved that problem. 

The egg was exactly where it had been before, sitting perfectly upon its velvet pillow. She took the egg into her hands, cradling it. Her heart soared as she felt the warmth emanating from inside of the scaled eggs. From her shoulders, Drogon and Viserion peered down at the egg with curious eyes, while Rhaegal sniffed at it from his place tangled around her arm. The green dragon chirped curiously. 

Ser Jorah was hesitant as he stepped up beside her. 

“…Is that another dragon egg?” The man asked, his voice filled with stunned disbelief.

Daenerys cradled the egg to her breast. The warm scales pressed into her skin through the fabric of her dress. Rhaegal crawled to the egg and draped himself over the egg like a blanket. Daenerys cooed down at her son. 

“Have a pyre built, Ser Jorah, and have Xaro Xhoan Daxos and my handmaid brought before it.” She ordered softly, her eyes trained on the egg in her arms. 

“…As you wish Khaleesi.”

She walked the streets then, with her children on her shoulders and an unborn infant in her arms. The pyre was built in the garden where the party that was held in her honor when she had first arrived in the city had been held. Furniture had been broken apart and piled high, and wooden decorations had been tossed in the pile as well. It wasn’t as well made as Drogo’s pyre had been, less intricate and more just a pile of wood. 

It would suffice. 

She watched as the last bits of tinder were piled high with a small smile on her face. 

When Xaro Xhoan Daxos was led forward by two men from her Khalasar, his face was as pale as it could be for a man of his coloring. Doreah was brought forward right alongside the man. Her former handmaid crying and pleading as she was led towards the pile of wood.

“Khaleesi please, he said you would never leave Qarth alive!” The woman cried, tears streaming down her face. Daenerys had survived this betrayal before and she would do it again. Doreah would be serving a better purpose this time around than starving to death in a locked vault. 

“You betrayed me, Doreah.” Daenerys replied idly, her voice cool. “I could have had you locked within the empty vault of the man you were sharing a bed with, but you will serve a better purpose.”

Doreah’s eyes went wide when she noticed the egg nestled carefully in Daenerys arms. Her gaze darted to the pyre and Daenerys could see the moment that the women realized what was going to happen. 

Doreah started thrashing, screaming as she was dragged towards the unlit pyre. 

“Khaleesi! Khaleesi please don’t do this!”

“Your death will bring life, Doreah.”

She motioned for her two prisoners to be tied to the pyre. They were dragged forwards, Doreah thrashing and wailing as she tried to break out of the arms holding her. Xaro Xhoan Daxos was shouting, promising her goods and boats and soldiers. Dead men always tried to plead for their life when they finally realized they had lost. 

“Gag them.” She ordered 

Doreah cried out around the cloth that was placed in her mouth, tears wetting her face. Xaro Xhoan Daxos strained against his bonds, a vein in his temple bulging as he tried to break free. The man's eyes were wild, the whites of his eyes standing out starkly against the darkness of his skin. 

“Thank you, Xaro Xhoan Daxos. Thank you for teaching me this lesson. For me to not take the words of a handsome man at face value.”

“I am the king of Qarth! I can help you now, truly help you now!” Xaro Xhoan Daxos shouted as he was approached with his own gag, “We can take the Iron Throne, I’ll bring you a thousand ships! All that you dreamt of can be-!” He was cut off by the gag that was shoved into his protesting mouth. 

“Your death will bring me another child,” she replied softly, “that is all I could ever want from you.”

She walked forwards with her children perched on her arms and shoulders, and the sea and silver egg cradled in her arms. She ignored Ser Jorah’s call for her to wait. The man was still overprotective, even after seeing her walk out of the funeral pyre. He thought her still the fearful little girl that he had counseled in confidence. And maybe, she had been in her last life. 

She knew her actions in the future would prove her the opposite, but she couldn't wait for him to get over his fear.

She stepped between Xaro Choan Daxos and Doreah, ignoring muffled pleas from either side. She stepped up onto the pyre until she could turn to sit perched on top. She stared out at her Khalasar, at Ser Jorah, at the citizens of Qarth that were daring enough to come closer.

She didn’t hesitate.

“Dracarys.” She commanded. All three of her children opened their fanged jaws, their throats glowing before they spat triplet streams of fire into the pyre below. The wood went up in a tower of fire. Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Doreah were screaming in pain as the fire licked at their skin. Daenerys paid them no mind. 

Her clothes were burning away under the heat and her children were basking in the heat of the flames. She kept her eyes trained downwards on the warming egg in her lap. As the fire built and the smoke started stinging her eyes, the egg grew hotter and hotter. She watched in wonder as the egg began to crack. The pale shell gave way under the pressure pushing at it from within. A tiny snout, smaller than her other children’s had been, pushed outwards. A tiny screeching mewl was what she heard as a tiny, delicate nose poked out of the hole in the shell. 

Daenerys carefully used her fingers to crack the edges of the hole, making sure she was gentle as she peeled away bits of shell. As the last of the shell fell away, the little dragonling was able to crawl out of its shell. It was a tiny thing, with silver and sea foam glistening in the firelight. Daenerys could feel the baby’s mind buzzing against her own. Warm and airy as it came to life.

This one looked different from Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal. She, and it was a she, had a slimmer face and a longer neck. Her wings were bigger as well. She was smaller, her build delicate, made for speed and grace, where her siblings were built for war and brute force. 

She looked like a piece of treasure where she sat curled in Daenerys lap. Drogon, brave as ever, climbed down her naked body to sniff at his new sister. His bulky black and red body contrasted so vividly against the baby’s pale coloring. Daenerys watched with fond eyes, her expression soft as she gazed down at her children. Following their brother, Rhaegal and Viserion climbed towards her lap to sniff and nudge at the fledgling. They seemed to accept the new dragon, she could feel it through the bond she shared with them. She could also feel the satisfaction of her presence and the warmth of the fire through the bond that tied them together. 

The baby blinked open hazy silver eyes that gleamed like a fine opal. She was a gift, this daughter of hers. A beautiful gleaming gift. In her last life there had been no mention of other dragons or dragon eggs. She hadn’t thought to seek out any more eggs after her children had hatched, happy and content with only three. She would have been overwhelmed with more dragons before. If she had to deal with the masters and fight the wars she had fought, if she had to raise another dragon while her first three were terrorizing the countryside, she wouldn’t have survived.

But now? Now she knew how to control her children, how to guide them with a firm hand.

As the fire raged around them, her children curled together on her lap in a tangle of wings and tails. They were content to bask in the warmth of the fire. 

What would she call this one, she wondered. She had no desire to name this innocent after another dead man like she had done before. If they hadn’t already been their names, Daenerys would’ve named Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal something else this time around. But she couldn’t take their names from them. 

Arlinnōn, she decided, would suit her delicate little daughter nicely. The high Valyrian name meaning change, meaning metamorphosis. The birth of her daughter was the first of many changes that were to come. Daenerys would change her fate, change the fate of those dear to her. Ser Barriston, Missandei, Ser Jorah. She would keep her own safe in the years to come . 

As the fire started dying around her, Daenerys could see her Khalasar staring at her and her children in awe. She rose to her feet, straining a bit at the weight of all her children in her arms, and shook the ash from her body. 

“Arlinnōn!” she declared, shifting the bodies in her arms enough to show off her new daughter, “Your knew Khalakki! She will be swift as the wind and as beautiful as the endless sky!” Her voice was high and clear as she brandished her children for all to see.

As she spoke, her dragons lifted their small heads to lend their voices to hers, screeching their life for all to hear. 

The Khalasar fell to their knees once again. “Khaleesi!” They cried out, their voices joyful as they chanted the names of her children. “Drogon! Rhaegal! Viserion! Arlinnōn!” they accepted the new dragon into the herd as if she had hatched right alongside the first three. 

Chapter Text

It was so laughably easy to purchase a ship from a nearby port. Qarth was known for its trade, so the ships that sailed to and from the city were frequent and their captains were always looking for new ways to make a few coins. Sailors were very eager to pass along a sturdy ship in the face of a hearty portion of the gold that her Dothraki had plundered from the city.

In return for one of his finest ships, a captain was very happy with the collection of solid gold goblets and other gilded tableware. The massive swan ship was beautiful. With swooping sails and an intricately carved bird built into the bow. It was big enough to hold her small khalasar and her dragons. 

“We will sail for Astapor.” She told Ser Jorah when he asked what she planned to do, “the Unsullied there will be useful, as much as I don’t want an army of slaves.”

“As you say Khaleesi.” The man replied, his brow furrowed. He clearly didn’t know what to think about the change in her demeanor. If Daenerys had not known what she had known, she would have been scared by her own behavior. She wasn’t who she had been before. She had been fifteen, a widow and trying to find her way in the world. 

She was fifteen again, still a widow, and still trying to find her way in the world. But she knew now, of the horrors that waited for her. She knew what horrors that the Unsullied had been through, what Missandei had been through. The boys taken from the arms of their mothers as babies and abused in the guise of training everyday since. 

She would be able to treat them better than Kraznys mo Nakloz ever had. They had followed her loyally until the day she had died, even when she had offered them their freedom. So, once again she set sail to Astapor on a single ship. 

Her khalasar was not eager to board the ship. They believed that if a horse would not drink from a body of water, that the water speaks poison. The sea was filled with salt, and as such, horses would not drink from it.  It had taken some convincing from her to get them on board, but once they were all loaded and the ship set sail, they settled down.

when they realized that they were not dying as they glided across the sea, her khalasar had taken to laughing as they let water splash against their palms. 

She had some of her people trade for some roots of ginger when she had had them out buying supplies for the voyage. It would only be a few days on the ship, but she knew the khalasar would appreciate the ginger when the sea sickness came on. It had been unfortunate to watch her people be sick the entire time they were at sea. She hoped that the ginger would prove helpful. 

She had the goods that had been taken from Qarth stored in the hull of the ship. She mostly took items that she would be able to sell once she and her khalasar landed in Astapor. The noble men in Astapor would be eager to purchase the fine pelts, golden items and other miscellaneous precious items. With the exception of a few smaller items that her khalasar took as personal tokens. Beaded necklaces, fancy daggers, anything that caught their eye really and that was small enough to be kept in their bags or wrapped around a limb. Kovarro, on the other hand, had found a massive long sword somewhere. It was almost four feet long, and the blade almost four inches wide. With a golden hilt and cross guards, the sword was shiny and straight. 

It was everything that the bloodrider was not. Light and shiny, instead of the dusty steel that the Dothraki favored. The man seemed to have taken a liking to the weapon, enough to ask Jorah if he could show him some moves for the sword. It was odd to see the man holding a sword instead of an arakh. Kovarro was tall enough for the sword to not look ridiculous as he wielded it, but it was still so odd to see the man, dressed in Dothraki clothing, holding a very clean, very shiny sword. 

Aside from the riches that she had taken from the city, Daenerys had found some books that had caught her attention. The leather bound tomes contained illustrations of various mythical beasts that were said to have roamed the world thousands of years ago. Spiders made of ice, Dragons that ruled the sky and monsters from beneath the sea. The ink work was beautiful, the lines flowing together and the small details so carefully placed . 

One of the books had even been written in her mother tongue, high Valyrian. It wasn’t about anything significant, but the familiarity of the words written on the pages was comforting. The new books in her possession earned a place in her cabin besides the books that Ser Jorah had gifted to her during her wedding. It brought her Comfort to flip through the pages when she took time alone in her cabin. 

When she wasn’t doing that, she was watching her three oldest children as they darted through the sky and dove beneath the waves to catch fish in their needle sharp teeth. They were bigger now then they had been at this point in her first life. It might have been the fact that she knew how to feed them from the beginning this time around, but personally, Daenerys thought it was because of how much stronger her bond with them was. Something about the connection just funneled life into their scaled bodies. 

Daenerys was glad that her children were happy out on the water. 

Dragon, Viserion and Rhaegal darted too and fro as their mother watched, their youngest sister settled firmly in her arms. The youngest dragon was still too young to fly, barely a week old. And she was smaller than her siblings had been. She was growing, slowly but surely, but it seemed that she was just a smaller variation of dragon. The horns on her head were curved more so than the other three’s, the two main ones protruding from her sloped forehead and curving gracefully to the sides. Her tail was whip-like, only a few fingers wide around. Even the tip of her tail was different. Where Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal had tails like spiked clubs, Arlinnōn’s tail ended in a frilled fin that was shaped more like a spade. Smooth and sharp. 

Along with her slender snout, the dragonling gave off a softer feeling than her siblings. Still sharp and hot, but softer somehow. Like the slowly dying coals of a bonfire. Her scales gleamed in the sunlight along with her siblings, the water's reflection dappling against her hide. The soft sea foam and silver of her colors made her stand out against the wooden boards of the boat.

Daenerys knew now that she could hatch more eggs than just her first three. She hadn’t even tried before. She knew that there were other dragon eggs out there in the world, there had to be. Magister Illyrio had to have gotten the ones he gifted her from somewhere. They had most likely been stolen from the Targaryen’s or the Velaryon’s centuries ago. And if four of them had been stolen and hidden away from the world, there was a high chance that there were more of them out there.

And besides that, Arlinnōn was not related to Drogon or Rhaegal by blood. Which meant that there was a possibility of her mating with one of them when she was old enough. Which meant, as long as Daenerys could keep her children alive for the years to come, the skies might once again be filled with dragon song. And wouldn’t that be a sight, the sky filled with more wings than had been seen since the Dance of Dragons. 

It may have been the arrogance talking, maybe she was a woman in the throes of hysterics, but Daenerys wholeheartedly believed that she could keep her dragons under control. One day, dragons would once again rule the skies. Daenerys wouldn’t build dragon keeps like her ancestors had, but she would ensure that all her dragons, even if it only ended up being the four she had now, had somewhere to land at the end of the day. She would build roosts for them, if she ever ended up living in one place for long enough. 

They would have pits of fire for them to bask in and deep pools of water for them to lounge in. She would ensure that her children had the best that they could have. 

Rhaegal, her sweet boy, brought her a fish. It was still wriggling as Rhaegal sent a burst of white-hot flame at its scaled body. She watched as the wood underneath the fish charred right alongside it. 

Rhaegal nudged the still smoking fish forewords and gazed up at Daenerys with imploring eyes. She smiled widely at her son. Through the bond that she shared, she could feel vague impressions telling her that he wanted his mother and sister to eat. 

“Thank you Rhaegal.” She murmured to him in her mother tongue.  She was truly happy to see her children taking care of each other. 

She sat herself on the floor, uncaring of how undignified it made her look. Her dress, a fine thing made in a regal blue, bunched around her waist as she sat cross legged on the wooden floor, the burnt fish sitting in front of her. She reached for it, uncaring of how it still smoked, and picked it up in one pale hand. It was warm against her skin where it would burn anyone else. She settled Arlinnōn in her lap, before using her hands to tear pieces off of the dead fish. 

She used nimble fingers to entice Arlinnōn into eating. Her daughter sniffed curiously at the morsel that Daenerys offered her, before unhinging her jaw to swallow it down. 

“They are growing quickly, Khaleesi.” Ser Jorah commented, looking down at where she sat. 

“They are,” she replied, feeding another piece of fish to her daughter, “But not fast enough. They will be giant's but right now they are still so small.”

“We will be in Astapor by nightfall, your Grace.” He continued, trying to distract her from the topic of her dragons, “Some say the Unsullied are the greatest warriors in the world.”

“The greatest slave soldiers in the world, you mean.” She replied, snorting derisively, “I know the distinction means quite a bit to some people, it means quite a bit to me, but I still intend to buy them, but I know that most will not accept an army of slaves following a foreign queen.”

And didn’t she know it. She had seen first hand what the people of the seven kingdoms had thought about her and her army. They had reacted with distrust and disgust. Given that she had burned a city, they hadn’t been quite wrong in their behavior, but they had been doing the same even when she was only there to fight their wars for them. Which lost her two of her children and her closest friends and advisers. 

“They are a means to an end, khaleesi.”

“I know that, but it does not make me feel much better.”

She turned back to her children. Arlinnōn had apparently finished eating and was content to doze in the warmth of the sun. Drogon and Viserion had noticed the attention that her daughter was receiving and were clearly jealous. The two landed on the deck, their claws scraping against the wood as they crawled towards her. They nuzzled against her body, rubbing their heads against her legs and stomach, before climbing besides their much smaller sister. Or, they tried to at least. They were bigger now, with wide wings and big heads. Even one of them was almost too big to sit comfortably on her lap. 

So, when Viserion and Drogon both tried to climb onto her lap, they only ended up in a whining, tangle of wings and tails. 

She laughed, loud and clear as her dragons mewled petulantly.

“Oh, my poor children!” She giggled to them in high Valyrian, “too be to big to lay in your mothers lap.”

Drogon draped himself over her knees dramatically, closing his eyes and wailing plaintively. Daenerys giggled again.

“They act like children?” Ser Jorah pointed out, sounding somewhat disbelieving.

“Of course they do Ser, they are children. They act as they are.” She replied. 

“I know you think of them as your children Khaleesi, but they are dragons, they are wild animals, not children.”

Daenerys shot him a look that could melt stone. 

“You may not believe Jorah the Andal,” she said, her tone sharp and her pale eyes blazing, “but they are my children, mine!” She bared her teeth. 

For a moment, Ser Jorah could have sworn that his Khaleesi’s eyes had gone slitted. The pupil as sharp as her supposed children. Then he blinked, and the image was gone. 

She had been right, her brother had not been the last of the dragons from the line of Targaryen. She was. 

Daenerys took a deep breath to calm herself as she turned to look out upon her khalasar. Like last time, most of her people were suffering from sea sickness. But unlike last time, the ginger root she had purchased was helping. Most were still able to find their feet when before they had been curled up and throwing up sick on the wooded boards. They were doing much better with the ginger shoved in their mouths for them to chew on. They also seemed to enjoy the flavor, which was a nice addition. Still, they were not enjoying the voyage. 

Daenerys eyed one particular Dothraki man who couldn’t seem to stop being sick. His head between his knees and a grey tinge to his copper skin. 

Clearly, some of her people were more sensitive to the rocking motions of the boat. 

She was so lucky that her khalasar was loyal enough to follow her over the ocean. To follow her over something that scared them so much. 

-

The shores of Astapor were just as beautiful as they had been before. The clean cut pale stone that made up the docks was almost white in color, worn down where the city's people had walked their desired paths. For years upon years, feet had treaded paths on the stone. Sailors had dropped off goods week after week for years. The history was worn into the stone. 

The water's reflection was dappling against the stone, against the wooden hulls of countless ships that bobbed in the lapping waves as they sat moored up in the harbor. 

Tented stalls lined the docks, selling whatever the ocean had given them that day, fish and urchins and clams. The air smelled like salt and fish as Daenerys breathed in. Hand made goods, woven blankets and neatly stitched clothing displayed in neat rows. A seamstress working at her loom as the sun streamed down to dance across her lined face. 

Daenerys watched the motions going on on the docks as her own ship pulled up to moor. She stood on the deck, her hair flowing down with her back, a single silver bell entwined in a small braid near her temple. She was dressed differently than she had done her first time in Astapor. Gone was the sturdy blue dress that she had worn before, replaced by more practical, but no less beautiful clothing. She still wore the golden fang necklace that she had come to favor around her neck, but now she was wearing a pair of soft tan trousers made from deer hide and a blouse made from a billowing pale pink fabric. The sleeves at the tips of her fingers, brushing against her skin pleasantly. She had a rectangular cloth draped over her shoulders, purple and gold, patterned with entertained rectangles. She had a pair of slippers on her feet, made of leather, with flowing patterns burnt into them by a cobbler. 

The dagger that she had strapped to her arm under her sleeve did not need to be mentioned. 

The outfit was comfortable and much less revealing than a dress. It was less feminine than usual, but she didn’t want to give Krazneys mo Nakloz any more reason to ogle her. The owner of the Unsullied had enjoyed leering at her with his beady eyes and making inappropriate comments about her body in Valyrian. The man’s assumption that she could not speak the same language as he had proved to be a boon when it became clear what kind of man Kraznys mo Nakloz was. The slaver was crass. He seemed to enjoy imagining what her body looked like beneath her clothing and laughing at her apartment idiocy. 

All she had to do was feign confusion, paste a bland, empty look on her pretty face and the man had loosened his tongue. 

Daenerys watched carefully as her boat pulled up along the docks. Her Dothraki looked out onto the waterside, leaning over the railing as they took in the sight of the busy dock market. Sights like this were rare to the horse people. They roamed the vast grass plains that resided past the desert. And the dessert was not home to many docks. 

Men and women on the shore looked on with curiosity in their eyes as the plank was dropped and a heavy rope was looped into a metal loop that was embedded in the stone, specifically for keeping stopped boats in place. Unsullied guards were posted on various spots along the shore. The men standing straight, helmets and spears in hand. The black leather armor that they wore stood out against the beiges, greens and browns that the people on the dock wore. The armor was likely sweltering in the heat, but the Unsullied never twitched in the face of the heat. The men stood like statues on their feet, never moving, never fidgeting. Hours upon hours, day after day, the Unsullied were made to stand guard. They were not permitted breaks yet they never complained. The act of complaining had been trained out of them before they could walk capably. They had been beaten and starved while they were still learning how to toddle around on chubby baby legs. Had pieces of themselves cut away at the whims of men who thought themselves better. 

Krazneys mo Nakloz delighted in his ownership over the Unsullied. He used the feeling of power that they provided him with to keep his ego boosted. He basked in the control of owning the army of carefully crafted killing machines. The fat man loved the control. After all, who was going to deny the man who held the reins of an army anything?

Arlinnōn croaked from her place in Daenerys' arms, likely picking up on the less than happy turn that her mothers thoughts had taken. Arlinnōn had become more sensitive to her moods now that she was growing older. Her thoughts were becoming easier to distinguish now that the dragonling was growing older. Still hazy, like they were covered in a film of grease, but easier to read. 

Daenerys ran a soothing finger up her daughter's snout, the dragon's eyes fluttering closed at the touch. It was like petting an oversized cat with scales in place of fur. Daenerys would not have been surprised if Arlinnōn had started to purr right then and there. 

She continued to pet her daughter's snout, her fringes trailing up to the dragon's forehead to curl around her little horns. 

Astapor was not a kind city and Daenerys would be stupid to leave herself and her children unguarded within its walls. She had assigned Jorah and Kovarro to herself, though Jorah would have stayed by her side without the order, and she had ordered two guards for each of her dragons. And because she was intending to keep all of her children together in the hull and deck of her ship, that meant that there would be eight Dothraki with her children. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake as she had in Qarth, leaving her children with her handmaidens and only one guard. Here, they would never be left alone with less than two guards. 

Her dragons were her most valuable possessions. Without them, she was nothing. They were her authenticity, they were her proof of heritage. Ye, she had all the signature features of a Targaryen. Hair a soft pale white and her eyes a jewel-like amethyst purple that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world. No one could deny that she was at least part Targaryen, even if they didn’t think her a pure blooded one. 

Her father was King Aerys II and her mother was his sister-wife, Rhaella. She was a Targaryen in name and blood, but she was also a girl and barely into her teenage years. She was the younger sister to two different, more legitimate heirs, Rhaegal and Viserys. Her brothers had been the next in line for succession. But Rhaegar had died defending a Stark bride that he had stolen from another man, starting a war because he decided that he wanted another woman instead of the wife that had already bore children for him. Viserys had let his fear and greed consume him until there was nothing left but rage and insecurity.

Viserys had been the oldest male heir for years, yet no one had taken him seriously in his claim to the iron throne. Men had laughed in his face rather than back said claim. 

And she stood there as heir apparent to the iron throne, ignoring Jon Snow. Her brother had been humiliated and scoffed at and he had been the male heir. Viserys had sold her off to a Khal, then he had died and she had hatched dragons. She had hatched dragons, and they were the only reason that her meager khalasar followed her. If she had left Drogo’s pyre without her children, she would have been taken to Vaes Dothrak, her fate decided by the khals, and then left to rot in a building full of widows. 

Without her children, without the clear symbolism of three dragons to match the sigil of her house, she was nothing but a little girl playing games far above her station. 

So she would ensure that nothing would happen to her dragons until they were big enough that the thought of her protecting them was laughable. 

-

“The Unsullied have stood here for a day and a night with no food and no water.”

Kraznys mo Nakloz was just as Despicable as Daenerys remembered him to be. The man weighed enough for three men, his stomach protruding under his tokar and the oiled beard on his face doing nothing to hide the chin underneath it. The oils in his hair and beard gave off a pungent odor, sweet and sickly from the wafts of scent that were assaulting her nose. He held a whip in his hands, a golden thing that could be used to hurt at a moment's notice. The green of his clothing was a striking green that honestly meshed well with the tanned color of the man’s skin. If everything else about the man’s appearance wasn’t as unappealing as it was, Daenerys might have even considered the man to have a kind face.

But the look in his eyes and the practiced sneer on his face dissuaded that notion before it could bloom. 

Daenerys followed after the man as he guided her and her guards across sandy stone bridges and towards the center of the building that surrounded her. Ser Jorah stood behind her shoulder and Vakarro followed behind her like a shadow, sword on his hip and his arakh in hand. Kraznys was speaking in high Valyrian, under the impression that she, a Targaryen, did not know how to speak the language. It would be funny, except- except Missandei was there, translating for a slaver who had owned her since she was a small child. 

Missandei’s hair was coiled close to her head, tied back to keep it out of her face as the afternoon breeze blew by. Her golden eyes seemed to glow in the bright sunlight, the sharp slant of them making them bird-like in the set of her face. Baby fat still clung to her cheeks, collecting in the hollows of her face and filling it out. 

The girl was younger than her by a few years, closer to two and ten than Daenerys own five and ten. Missandei was a child, yet she stood behind Kraznys dressed in flowing fabric that was far too revealing for her age. Her skirt was a pretty yellow and green pleated thing. Her barely there breasts being accentuated by twin pieces of fabric that connected from her collar to her skirt and held down in the middle by a thin belt. It showed off her navel and the space between her breasts immodestly. 

The collar she was wearing was a hideous black thing, like all slave collars. A black strap of leather with burnished silver clasps and a silver hoop in the front for clothing or a chain to be attached to. Currently, it was keeping the cloth covering her chest from falling. 

She was beautiful, ethereal as she stood there in the sunshine. Daenerys' closest friend, a woman who had held her as she wept and supported her at every turn. even as she stood there as a child, Daenerys couldn’t stop seeing the woman she would come to be. Like a mirage overshadowing the girl in front of her. Daenerys shook her head to dismiss the image.  

Missandei stood by her master's side, her hands clasped together in front of her body as she translated the high Valyrian that Kraznys was speaking, repeating the words into the common tongue. The Nathi accent she carried in her throat was the most beautiful sound that Daenerys had ever heard.

“They will stand until they drop-” Missandei said. 

Daenerys did her best to keep the heavy grief she was feeling from reaching her face.

“-That is their obedience.” The scribe finished. 

“They may suit my needs,” Daenerys said once it was clear that Kraznys had nothing else to say, “Tell me of their training.”

They were walking into a courtyard now, crossing the last few paces of a sandy bridge to step into the open space. The yard was framed by stone walls and pillars. The sunny golden stone making the space far prettier than it should be. Unsullied stood in formation, lines and lines of straight backed men. The formation separated to allow the small group of people to pass to the front of the courtyard, before stepping back into their formation as soon as they had passed. 

“The Westerosi woman is pleased with them, but speaks no praise to keep the price down. She wishes to know how they were trained.” Missandei had turned to her master to speak to him in Valyrian.

“Tell her what she would know and be quick about it. The day is hot.” Was all Kraznys had to say, waving his hand in clear dismissal.

Missandei nodded, turning back to Daenerys. 

“They begin their training everyday at five. Everyday they drill from dawn till dusk until they have mastered the short sword, the shield and the three spears.” Missandei began, her tone clear, “Only one boy in four survives this rigorous training.”

A lump grew in her throat as Missandei talked. Her eyes drifted over the assembled Unsullied where they stood in the courtyard. There were at least a hundred men assembled before her. One hundred fully trained soldiers for the lives of four hundred other boys. 

“They fear nothing.” Kraznys said in broken common. 

“Even the bravest men fear death.” Ser Jorah scoffed, finding the idea ridiculous. 

“The knight says that even the bravest men fear death.” Missandei told her master, looking unsure in the face of someone challenging her master's words. 

“Tell the old man he smells of piss!” Kraznys shot back, Missandei flinched.

“…Truly Master?”

“No, not truly! Are you a girl or a goat to ask such things?”

Missandei recoiled at the venom but dutifully turned to speak. It hurt Daenerys heart to watch Missandei be belittled and insulted by a man four times her age. 

“My Master says that the Unsullied are not men. Death means nothing to them.”

Kraznys shifted, his expression lighting up as an idea came to him. Daenerys didn’t like that look, especially when she knew what said look proceeded. 

“Tell that ignorant whore of a westerner to open her pale eyes and watch.”

Missandei didn’t blink as she translated the words into something more palatable, “my Master begs that you attend this carefully, your Grace.”  Daenerys almost snorted, Missandei really had a talent for smoothing over the jagged edges of Kraznys words.

Kraznys walked down the short steps and forewords a few paces until he came to stand in front of one of the many Unsullied. He beckoned the soldier forward, and when he was close enough to touch, Krazny reached forward to shove the shield that the soldier was holding aside. With the shield out of the way, Kraznys reached to slide a knife out of the holster strapped to the Unsullieds’ hip. With the blade in one hand, the master reached up to slice away one of the straps that held the soldier's chest piece in place. Daenerys grimaced, turning towards Missandei.

“Please tell your Master that this showing is unnecessary.” She said, resigned. Kraznys mo Nakloz was a cruel man and given the opportunity, would prove that fact again and again. Kraznys did not even wait for Missandei to translate her words. 

“She’s worried about their nipples? Does the dumb bitch know that we’ve cut off their balls?” Kraznys said as he traced an exposed nipple with the tip of his blade, before he dug the tip into the man’s flesh. 

Daenerys didn’t blink as Kraznys sliced at the man’s nipple until it was only hanging on by a thin strip of skin, and then he severed that as well. Kraznys let the bloody nipple fall to the dusty stone.

“Here, up I’m done with you.” Kraznys dismissed, flicking the soldier's chest piece back into place and shoved him back towards the formation. 

“This one is pleased to have served you.” Was the only reply that Kraznys received, in a clipped tone with no inflection. The Unsullied slipped back into his place in the lines of soldiers without a hitch in his steps. There was nothing on the visible parts of the Unsullieds’ face that showed the pain he must have been in. To show that he had just been mutilated. 

Kraznys was grinning as he turned back to Daenerys.

“To win his shield, an Unsullied must go to the slave markets with a silver coin, find a newborn, and kill it before the mothers eyes. This way, my Master says we make certain that there is no weakness left in them.” Missandei spoke alongside her master, translating in sync with the man. 

Daenerys' eyes went tight. She knew how many Unsullied there were. Right now there were eight thousand of them within the city. Eight thousand blooded soldiers. Eight thousand dead babies ordered at the hands of men who decided that it should be so. 

“So, you take a babe from its mothers arms and slit its throat?” Her voice was hard, “Do you pay for the mothers pain with the silver or do you keep it for yourself?”

“She is offended. She asks if you pay for the mothers dead baby with the silver or if you keep it for yourself.”

“What a soft mewling fool this one is,” Kraznys scoffed, “Tell the sunset savage that the silver is paid to the baby's owner, not the mother, like it should be.”

“My Master would like you to know that the silver is paid to the baby’s owner, not the mother.”

It was said so matter of fact in Missandei’s musical voice. Like Kraznys had never even considered that he might pay the mother for the pain that had been caused. Daenerys' disgust felt like it was crawling up her throat. 

“How many do you have to sell?” She asked, keeping her tone light and the venom she felt hidden away. Kraznys would die, this she knew. She just needed the Unsullied. 

Kraznys held up eight fingers. 

“Eight thousand,” Missandei clarified, “Master Kraznys asks that you please hurry. Many others are interested.”

At that, the man dismissed himself. Daenerys watched as the man left the courtyard, the Unsullied parting like the sea to allow him and his scribe a clear path. Missandei followed at his heels, her head bowed. 

Daenerys had to stop herself from calling out to the girl. She mourned the loss of her presence deeply. 

“Eight thousand dead babies.” Daenerys said, disgust and grief mingling in her throat.  She could feel grief deep in the marrow of her bones. The ghosts of thousands of babies haunted this city. Their blood stained the stone and their mothers grief was screamed for everyone to hear. She could almost hear it, the cries of infants cut short and their mothers wails taking their place. 

And Missandei. Missandei was there but she wasn’t at the same time. This wasn’t the woman that Daenerys had come to love. This was a little slave girl who knew nothing of the world aside from what her master had allowed her to see. A girl who distracted herself from the horrors around her by learning everything that she could. She devoured languages whole, learned obscure facts about everything she could. 

Daenerys dropped down the last step of the stairs, her slippers thudding against the stone, before she walked out of the courtyard, following the same path Kraznys had taken a few moments ago. Ser Jorah and Kovarro followed after her, guarding her flank. 

“They are a means to an end Khaleesi, I said so before.” Ser Jorah said, his tone grave as he broke the silence, “Once you own these soldiers, you will be able to make your way back to Westeros.”

“Soldiers, not men. I will own an army of slaves. Men with their humanity trained out of them and used like tools until they break.” 

“You need them, your Grace, even if you do not want them.” 

“And after I own this army of slaves, what will I be?” She asked. She knew what she would be. 

“You’ll be fair to them. You won’t mutilate them to prove a point. You won’t order them to murder babies. You’ll see that they are properly fed and sheltered. A great injustice has been done to them. But closing your eyes and turning away will not undo it.” Ser Jorah told her, repeating himself in a mockery of her past life. 

“That was never my intention, Ser.” 

And it wasn't. She needed Grey Worm by her side once again. She could not become the breaker of Chains without an army. And Ser Jorah was right, she would do well by the Unsullied. 

Her feet were leading her back towards her ship, taking a path that led her and her guard along the docks. It was a beautiful day in a terrible city. Her feet padded gently against the stone before it transitioned to wooded docks. Activity buzzed around them as she made her way through the stalls and crowds. When she noticed the cloaked figure shadowing her and her guards from a few meters away, she couldn’t help but smile. It was a small crooked thing but the joy that filled her was tremendous. 

Tall and dressed in a cloak of dark brown fabric that pooled around his ankles. If she hadn’t been keeping an eye out and known that this was when the man would finally decide to make himself known, Daenerys knew she would not have seen him. Even Ser Jorah, with his years of experience, had no hope of keeping up with the age knight. Barriston Selmy had been a member of the Kingsguard for almost forty years. He had been a Kingsguard for her father before he had been murdered. 

After the death of King Aerys, Barriston had still been beholden to his vows, even as he worked side by side with the man who had killed the king he was charged to guard. He was a sworn guard, pledged to serve his king, no matter who the king was. 

Then Joffrey, the cruel boy king, had done Daenerys a great favor even if he hadn't intended to. He had dismissed Ser Barriston from his service, releasing the man from his vows. He had freed a man who had been loyal to the Targaryens since he had been a boy, when there was still a Targaryen roaming the world. Ser Barriston had not enjoyed how Aerys had ruled his kingdom but he had been exceptionally loyal to Rhaegar. His loyalty to her family had not wavered, even through the reign of two different, non Targaryen kings. But the same loyalty, his loyalty to his vows, had kept him from seeking her and her brother out. She couldn’t fault the man for that, as much as she wished to have had him present when she was younger. 

She continued to walk along the docks, her pace even and steps steady, with Ser Jorah and Kovarro following along. She frowned when she noticed the little girl staring at her from behind the edge of an animal cage. She quickly pasted a smile on her face, so as not to scare off the maegi before it could be revealed as such. 

The little girl's hair was ragged and her nose scrunched up when she smiled. She was a cute child. With her ball in hand, the girl darted away, clearly knowing that Daenerys would follow her. Daenerys would. She followed the girl along the dock, weaving in between crates as the girl darted away. She followed along until the narrow part of the dock flared out into a more open area near the edge of the docks. She could hear the water lapping against the wood, and hear gulls squabbling over discarded fish bodies. 

The girl stopped, turning to Daenerys and holding the ball up towards her. Daenerys smiled and the girl took that as a cue to drop low and roll the wooded ball across the wood to Daenerys. 

Daenerys crouched down to grab the ball, standing up and examining it in an over exaggerated manner. When the girl smiled wider and motioned for her to unscrew the ball, Daenerys smiled back even wider, showing her teeth before she flipped out the knife from her sleeve, the hilt hitting her palm with a smack. She dropped the ball to the floor, dropping to her knees alongside it and stabbed the knife through the surface of the ball. 

The maegi flinched as if struck as the knife sunk into the wooden dock beneath the ball. Daenerys' wrist twinged with pain from the force she had put behind the blow. She didn’t look away from the girl as the scorpion's death rattle echoed from within the wooden ball. Her teeth were bared, lips stretched tight over her gums. Her pale blouse floated for a moment before settling around her, the sleeves falling down to conceal her hands. 

She grinned bright and sharp as Ser Jorah shouted in shock behind her. The ragged girl stumbled backwards as the cloaked figure that had been following them surged forward from the shadow of a stall. Ser Barriston followed after the maegi, his booted feet thudding against the wood before he came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the pier. The maegi girl had jumped into the water below, saving herself from the sword on the knight's waist and the straight dagger in his gloved hand. Daenerys turned around, peering up a wall that opened up into a higher level of the docks. The girl was there, having used her magic to shift from place to place, like Pyat Pree had done. The girl bared her blue stained teeth and hissed threateningly down at Daenerys.

Daenerys hissed back.

The maegi fled. 

“Your Grace!” Ser Jorah exclaimed, kneeling down beside her. His weathered hands moved to check her hor injury, gently grabbing her hands and turning them to check her palms for blood. 

“The House of the Undying sends its regards.” She said, looking down at the brackish green blood that was beginning to soak through the wooden balls’ seem. 

“How did you-?” He cut himself off when he noticed Ser Barriston approaching. 

Daenerys stood, brushing dusk off of the knees of her doe-skin trousers. She turned to Ser Jorah, reaching for his arm and carefully wiping the flat of her blade against the thickest part of his sleeve. The green blood stood out against the dirty white fabric, shining in the sun. 

“I’ll get you a new one.” She murmured under her breath, sliding the knife back into its sheath and hiding it from the world once again. She stood straight, turning to face the oncoming knight head on. 

“State your name and purpose.” She demanded when the man was a few paces away.

“I am Ser Barriston Selmy, your Grace-“ the man began.

Ser Jorah startled at the man’s words, his hand going to the pommel of his sword.

“None of that.” She chided, cutting her face towards her knight, but her eyes remained on Ser Barriston, “if he meant me any harm, I would already be dead.”

“Do you know of him?” Ser Jorah asked, still tense but he made no move to draw his sword. He likely didn’t expect her to know of the knight. 

“I know of him,” she affirmed, “I know that he is one of the greatest fighters in the Seven Kingdoms. I know that he served my father faithfully and served my brother even more so, and I know him as the lord commander of Robert Baratheon’s Kingsguard.” 

Her purple eyes were sharp as she gazed at the old knight but her heart was filling with warmth. This man had been a steady presence in her life until the day he had died. He wouldn’t die this time. She wouldn’t let him. She would kill before she let Ser Barriston bleed out in a dirty alley

“King Robert is dead-” Barriston began again. 

“And the boy king was stupid enough to let you go?” Daenerys interrupted. 

“Yes, your Grace. I have been searching for you, Daenerys Stormborn, to ask your forgiveness. I was unable to protect your family, I was sworn to do just that and I failed,” Ser Barriston knelt, his knee hitting the wood with a thud, “Inas Ser Barriston Selmy, Kingsguard to your father. Allow me to join your Queensguard and I will not fail you again.”

So earnest, so noble. 

“There is nothing to forgive, you could not seek me out, beholden to your vows as you were, and Aerys invited death to his doorstep and welcomed it in. You could not have saved him.” Daenerys said, keeping her voice steady. 

She wanted to throw herself at the knight and weep into his shoulder. She wanted to keep him so close that he could never be in danger again. But she restrained herself. Even when it felt like her lungs were trembling in her chest. 

“Rise Ser Barriston, rise as a member of my Queensguard.”

He rose. 

-

Daenerys took the man back to her ship. Ser Jorah protested, not liking the idea of having a man that she barely knew in close proximity to her. Privately, Daenerys thought that he was so apprehensive about the other man because there was a chance that Barriston knew about what Jorah had done to be pardoned by Robert Bathatheon.  

Kovarro broke away from the group when they hit the deck of her ship, moving towards the entrance to the hull with a few words in dothraki from Daenerys. He stalked away on light feet.

“This way.” Daenerys said, moving towards the heavy wooden door that led to her quarters. Her khalasar watched the newcomer with curiosity and caution in their eyes. 

She pushed open her door and entered the room. Sun was streaming in through the portholes, lighting up the wooden walls with the glow of the afternoon. Aside from her bed and the table that took up a corner of the room, the rest of the space was filled with the items that had been taken from Qarth. Her books littered the table, a couple of them open to pages that had caught her interest. Her bed was covered in soft pelts, from deer and horse, to a noticeable orange and black tiger pelt that took up quite a bit of space. And crowning all those different furs was her white hrakkar Pelt, the one that Drogo had gifted her in Vaes Dothrak. 

Daenerys didn’t mind the clutter. It made her cabin feel lived in. She made her way over to the small table, gathering her books in her arms and setting them carefully atop her bed furs. 

“Sit.” She motioned to the knights. They did, Jorah eyeing the older man suspiciously and Barriston pretending not to notice. 

“How did you find me?” She asked, settling into her own chair. 

“I knew of your time with the Dothraki, so I traveled towards the Grass Sea with the intention of tracking down your khalasar, but before I could arrive there I heard that your Khal had died and that you had taken a small group of Dothraki across the Red Waste. I am very sorry for your loss, you Grace. The loss of a husband is a cruel thing.”

“Thank you Ser. The pain of loss is immense, but his death brought me dragons.” She smiled, equal parts grief and happiness.

“Truly? I have heard the rumors saying that a Targaryen had hatched dragons, but you can never tell the falsehoods from the truths when it comes to the voices of small folk.”

She laughed, absently feeling emotions of her children as they awoke in the hull. She had asked Kovarro to bring them to her, which meant that they had to be awoken from their slumber. She could feel their irritation from being awoken but a wave of her intention sent towards them calmed her children when they realized that she wanted them near. 

“I know, rumors have a habit of being uncontrollable.” She replied, her tone light and a smile on her face, “but this one is true. They say I hatched dragons from a pyre and I did, Kovarro is in the hull waking them.”

“I have only ever seen skeletons of dragons, your Grace. The ones kept in the red keep to be precise.” Ser Barriston said, his wrinkled face awed, “To think that there are once again dragons in the world is unbelievable, to think that there are three of them is even more so.” A pause, “there are three of them?”

Daenerys grinned like a shark, “Four.”

The man startled.

“Four!”

“Would you like to meet them?” Daenerys asked, still grinning widely.

“There is nothing else in the world that would please me more, your Grace.”

Daenerys stood from her seat, smoothing down her clothes as she made her way to the door, already knowing that her children were moving across the deck towards her. She opened the door to the sound of rattling shrieks. Daenerys smiled as she held the door open for her older children. Viserion, Drogon, and Rhaegal. At the size of large dogs, they were still able to walk through the doorframe into her cabin. 

Drogon came first, his bullheadedness not letting him do anything else. The black claws that tipped his wings scraped against the floor as he crawled forwards, his tail rasping against the wood as it swayed from side to side. Viserion and Rhaegal followed after, Viserion nipping at Drogon's flank as she tried to shoulder past her bigger brother. 

Daenerys made her way to her bed, her children following at her heels. Kovarro entered the room as well, following after her children. Arlinnōn was draped over his arms, the sea foam and silver of her scales standing out against the man’s copper skin and brown clothing. 

She sat on the edge of her bed, slipping her feet from her slippers and pulling them upwards to tuck them underneath herself. Her children followed her, using a flap of their wings to launch themselves up onto the pile of furs covering her bed. They curled themselves around her, Rhaegal bullying himself into her lap. Kovarro approached the edge of her bed. She held out her arms and her smallest daughter was deposited gently into her hold. 

“Thank you Kovarro.” She murmured. The man grinned back at her, his eyes glowing. It wasn’t everyday that an ordinary man got to hold a dragon in his arms. He was lucky that Arlinnōn liked him enough not to bite his fingers off with her sharp needle teeth. 

Daenerys pulled Arlinnōn close, resting her on top of Rhaegal. The green dragon huffed smoke out of his nose but didn’t protest the added weight. Her children’s natural sleeping position was a tangled lump of tails and wings, so Rhaegal was content to bear the weight of his sister. 

Drogon and Viserion had decided that her bed furs were the perfect place to bury themselves and were doing just that. Using their snouts, they were lifting the edges of the furs and then quickly trying to shove as much of their bodies underneath them as they could. Given that all of them could barely fit on her bed, they weren’t doing that well.

“The black one with the red on his horns and wings is Drogon, the cream and gold one is Viserion, and the green and bronze one is Rhaegal.” She told Ser Barriston.

The man’s eyes were wide, shock written plainly on his face. The man’s hands were trembling at his sides from where he had stood in shock. She knew the feeling. Dragons were otherworldly, looking at them was like looking into the eyes of a god. People loved their gods, numerous as they were, but looking into the eyes of a Dragon was somehow more intense. Or maybe it was because Daenerys had never locked gazes with a deity.

Ser Jorah was watching her with fondness in his eyes from his place at the table. This sight wasn’t a new one for him. Even if he didn’t believe that her dragons were her children, it was clear that they loved her and that she loved them. It was endearing to watch. 

“And the seafoam and silver is Arlinnōn, she is from a different clutch than the other three, that is why she looks different. She is the youngest of them, I only hatched her a few weeks ago.” She stroked her daughter's snout as she talked about her. 

The old knight jerked, sitting down heavily in his chair, the wood creaking beneath him, “Are you telling me that you managed to get your hands on a different dragon egg and then you managed to hatch it?”

There likely wasn’t much in the world that could rattle Barriston Selmy, but what she had managed to do rattled even her, and she was the one who had done it. And it was clearly rattling the knight.

“Yes,” she answered with a smile, “I found her egg hidden in one of the mansions of the Thirteen of Qarth, the Spice King to be specific. He wanted my hand in marriage and was willing to offer bribes in return. So, I came to know about another egg that had much more worth to me than anything else the man could offer me. And then he died, and no one was there to stop me from claiming her as my own.”

“I heard about that, word of Qarth’s instability is beginning to spread. None know what to do when there is not someone around to tell them what to do. The trade routes that the city was known for have collapsed without the figure heads.” Ser Barriston told her, latching onto a topic that wasn’t dragons to give himself a reprieve from the sheer absurdity of the beasts before him. 

“Pyat Pree, the leader of the House of the Undying, the house that sent that assassin after me today, and the Merchant King, Xaro Xhoan Dazos, conspired to kill their fellow Thirteen and steal my dragons, in return, I killed them.”

“I respect that, an eye for an eye.” The knight replied, “I’ve done my fair share of killing in my life, for lesser reasons than yours, I cannot fault you for your reactions. You were threatened and you retaliated.”

“I burnt them,” Daenerys said, lowering her voice until it could barely be heard, “I know what my father was and I still did it.” 

She couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Mirri Mazz Dur had killed her child and taken her husbands’ light and Daenerys had killed her for it. Pyat Pree was going to have her and her children kept captive in his tower until the world stopped turning and she had killed him for it. Xaro Xhoan Daxos had taken her children from her and Dorsey had killed Irri and so she killed them for it. Their deaths had given her life in return, given her four dragons. She didn’t regret what she had done. She couldn’t. 

The old knight looked wounded, closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat. He took a deep breath and looked Daenerys in the eye.

“Your father had peasants burnt alive because he wanted it so. He had sons and daughters of noble houses burnt alive because they insulted him in some inconsequential way. You defended yourself against people who sought to harm you or ones that already had. That is the difference between you and Aerys. You feel regret over your actions, Aerys didn’t know what regret was.”

Daenerys smiled, wide and true, her eyes glowing in the sunlight. She had needed to hear that. 

“Thank you Ser, I needed to hear that.” She said, her voice soft, before she turned back to Ser Jorah. “Moving on, I have a plan to gain the Unsullied’s allegiance without having to spend a single coin.”

“How do you suppose we do that Khaleesi?” Jorah asked.

“You won’t like it,” Daenerys huffed, “it will work, but you won’t like it.”

“You seem to love proving me wrong, your Grace, I expect you will do it again this time.”

“I am going to give Kraznys mo Nakloz a dragon.” 

The protests came immediately from both knights. 

“Your Grace, you cannot possibly-!”

“Khaleesi, what-?”

She held up a hand to stop them before they could continue. 

“Not truly, I would never do that, but Kraznys has to believe it to be so,” she explained, “if I trade a dragon for the Unsullied, Kraznys will undoubtedly ask for the largest one when I deny him more than a single one, and Drogon-“ her son perked up at his name, “-is perfectly capable of defending himself. I just need Kraznys to publicly hand me ownership of the Unsullied and they will be mine to command. Kraznys mo Nakloz will die for his sins and the masters who supported him will as well.”

Her explanation garnered considering looks from her two knights.

“That could work, Khaleesi, but there is still so much that could go wrong.” Ser Jorah sighed, “but we do not have enough gold to purchase the Unsullied and there are no other armies at hand for you to miraculously claim.”

“I want the scribe as well.” She said, her tone sure, “the girl is too young to be with Kraznys and I won’t allow it for longer than need be.” 

“I don’t think the master will have any trouble including the girl in the deal if you are trading with a dragon.” Jorah agreed.  

“Good.” She said, moving to continue stroking Rhaegal and Arlinnōn. Drogon and Viserion had finally settled down, content with the amount of scales that they had been able to cover with Daenerys’ furs. It wasn’t actually a lot, but with their heads covered, they were content to rumble at each other as they dozed. 

“I will tell Drogon what to expect, so he will not fight when the time comes, so we will be prepared. As soon as the Unsullied are mine I can have Kraznys taken out.”

She stroked a hand up Rhaegal's warm spine. Petting up the plates of armor on her son's back brought a sense of calm to her mind. The day had been trying. She was in the presence of a man that had been dead to her, and had seen Missandei for the first time in this new life of hers. She needed to sleep, and to cry. She wanted to sleep until she didn’t have to do this anymore, but life wouldn't let her do that. She needed to rest before she broke down. 

“That will be all for today, I need to rest.” She said, closing her eyes and leaning back against whichever dragon had laid behind her. She heard the scrapping of chair legs against the wooden planks and two pairs of footsteps making their way towards the door. The sounds from outside became unmuted for a brief moment when the door was opened. The laughter and chatter of her khalasar, the sound of water lapping against the hull. It sounded so peaceful. 

As soon as she heard the door close, Daenerys couldn’t stop the tears from welling up beneath her closed lids. Her breath hitched in her throat and suddenly she was leaning forward over her children and weeping. 

She didn’t want to be here, she had already done this before and she was so tired. She was tired. She had done her part and she had died for it. But she was here again, whether by accident or by the will of the gods, she was young again. She had been twenty and two when she had burned kingslanding and now she was ten and five again. She was a child playing conqueror. 

She had killed propel and if she continued on the path she was on, she would kill more. But she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t stop. What other purpose did she have if she wasn’t trying to regain the Iron Throne? 

She wanted to sleep, and she didn’t want to wake up.