A/N: I'm afraid I've been thinking lately—a dangerous pastime, I know—but I had an idea that I just can't get out of my head. Behold the first chapter of that idea. You might be thinking that this sounds exactly like the beginning of the Season 7 / Episode 2 "Stormborn" of Game of Thrones, and you'd be right. Things will change as the idea develops. By you clicking on this story, you've consented to read a rated "M" fic that will inevitably contain F/F. Oh, and you're also agreeing to be cool with spoilers for Game of Thrones if you haven't already seen it. As a final note, it'd be really awesome if you kept any hate to yourself and only offered praise for what you like and constructive criticism for what you don't if you decide to leave a review.
Disclaimer: I am not in any way associated with George R. R. Martin, HBO, etc. The characters and storylines found within this fic belong to their creator, and no copyright infringement is intended.
STORMBORN
I.
It began as any tale of war and love and woe might, on a thunderous night where the gods hailed their fury down upon the world. Dragonstone sat atop its ancient seat in the earth, besieged by the elements on all sides. Waves that might swallow a man grown, would that they could, crashed against its sandy shores. A wicked wind kicked up a thick mist as it howled over the groaning sea. Torrential rains pelted the very stones of the keep, making their own mark upon centuries of erosion. The sky was alight with blue fire, but it mattered little. Come what may, the seat of House Targaryen would yet stand upon the morrow.
"On a night like this, you came into the world," Tyrion Lannister recalled, sliding his hands over the weathered stone of the table before him. Across its surface sat all the great houses in their seven kingdoms. A speared sun, the sigil of House Martell, shone proudly from the south, and the lions of Lannister growled menacingly in the east. Other figurines sat scattered across the board like pockmarks, but his eyes lingered for just a moment too long upon the three golden beasts.
"I remember that storm," came another soft voice—Lord Varys, the Spider and once-Master of Whisperers. He, too, stood with his soft, powdered hands stretched out across the realm, facing the balcony where the rain pushed a cold breeze into the room. "All the dogs in King's Landing howled through the night."
"I wish I could remember it," spoke the woman there, outlined against the night as the darkness turned her rounded edges hard. Daenerys Targaryen turned then to face them, loose ringlets of silver hair shining in the candlelight about her shoulders. "I always thought this would be a homecoming." Her footsteps echoed around the war room of her ancestral home, bouncing from one stone to another. "Doesn't feel like home…" She came to rest before the great table, eyes downcast to gaze upon the Seven Kingdoms—hers by birthright.
"We won't stay on Dragonstone for long," Tyrion promised, his expression as sympathetic as his words were encouraging.
"Good."
It was a curt reply, to be sure, and spoken in the harsh tone of an impatient ruler in place of a forlorn friend, but what more could he expect? To be so close to victory and, yet, so far… Well, he could only imagine. It was only a moment after his lips had pursed into a hard, thin line that he turned from her and lifted his goblet. A hearty sip of the finest Dornish wine seemed to serve as a far better response than anything he had left to offer.
Daenerys watched his retreating form from the farthest corner of her vision. "Not so many lions," she commented, turning her attention back to the tabletop. Her hands moved to its surface, drawn by the unspoken promise of supremacy it offered.
"Cersei controls fewer than half the Seven Kingdoms. The lords of Westeros despise her." Varys spoke with the confidence not of a eunuch but of a man in greater power and title than he held. His plump fingers dug into the rough stone across from her, but he met the gaze of his queen as evenly as he dared. "Even before your arrival, they plotted against her. Now—"
A sculpted brow quirked in response, but her expression otherwise remained neutral. "They cry out for their true queen?" A mocking lilt entered her tone. "They drink secret toasts to my health?" She withdrew her hands from the map and wrung them before her. "People used to tell my brother that sort of thing, and he was stupid enough to believe them." Her pace was slow as she rounded the table, inching ever closer to the Spider.
It was in seeming disinterest that she lifted her own sigil off the board and inspected the figurine, a dragon with its wings stretched in flight. "If Viserys had three dragons and an army at his back, he'd have invaded King's Landing already."
Tyrion's eyes narrowed upon his queen, watching her as she studied her mark upon the map. "Conquering Westeros would be easy for you, but you're not here to be queen of the ashes," spoke the dwarf, his hands then clasped firmly behind his back. It was a reminder, gentle but firm. Sacking the capitol with three dragons grown and an army of foreigners would only serve to distance her further from the throne she sought and the loyalty that came with it.
At this, she looked up from the carved figure before putting it back in its rightful place and squaring her jaw. "No."
"We can take the Seven Kingdoms without turning it into a slaughterhouse." Of this, Tyrion was sure. Daenerys possessed the qualities of a true queen, one that the people of the realm deserved and would support, but he could not be sure if patience sat among them. "If the great houses support your claim against Cersei, the game is won."
Her hands resumed their wringing.
"With the Tyrell army and the Dornish on our side, we have powerful allies in the south."
As if a memory long forgotten had been sparked by his words, the queen's eyes snapped up from the table, and she turned to face Varys fully. "I never properly thanked you for that."
Taken aback, the eunuch was silent for a moment before withdrawing his hands from the great table and responding. "They joined our side, My Queen, because they believe in you." His words were cool and measured, but a flicker of worry flashed across his features like the sky's blue fire across the horizon.
"You served my father, didn't you, Lord Varys?"
There was yet another pause before he answered. "I did."
"—and then you served the man who overthrew him."
She now had the full attention of everyone in the room. Even Tyrion had sense enough to look worried, his wine long forgotten as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and tracked her movement. A dwarf he might be, but blind he was not. Even a fool could guess his queen's intentions, and what might happen next, but an unwitting spider? He would send a silent prayer up for the man to any god that might be willing to listen.
"I had a choice, Your Grace: serve Robert Baratheon or face the headman's axe."
"—but you didn't serve him long." Her eyes remained cold, but a small, knowing smile pulled at the corners of her lips. She had him beneath the heel of her boot. "You turned against him."
Again, taken aback, Varys let out a quiet hiss of air. Spittle dotted his lower lips and his heart thumped painfully in his chest, but still he met her gaze. "Robert was an improvement on your father, to be sure. There have been few rulers in history as cruel as the Mad King." If he had struck a nerve, her countenance did not betray it, nor did it waver from the smirk she wore. "Robert was neither mad nor cruel. He simply had no interest in being king."
He hadn't even had the time to draw a breath before she spoke once more.
"So, you took it upon yourself to find a better one."
The accusation hung in the air for a long moment before Tyrion thought to interject. "Your Grace…" he began, eyes lowered to one jewel or another fixed to the dark material of her garment. When she turned to him, arms crossed at the wrist over her navel almost expectantly, he found that he could not meet her gaze as the Spider had. "When I was ready to drink myself into a small coffin, Lord Varys told me about a queen in the east who—"
"Before I came to power, you favored my brother." She rounded back on the eunuch like a hound after its bone, fury boiling beneath the surface of her skin now. She had no interest in hearing the rest of her advisor's tale, lest it end in her wrath turned upon those who did not yet deserve it. "All your spies, your little birds, did they tell you Viserys was cruel, stupid, and weak?" She watched as his eyes dipped down, breaking from her unspoken challenge. "Would those qualities have made for a good king in your learned opinion?"
The Spider seized the opportunity to speak, his brows furrowed and skin creased in a strange mixture of concern and indignation. "Until your marriage to Khal Drogo, Your Grace, I knew nothing about you, save your existence and that you were said to be beautiful."
Daenerys lifted her chin, refusing to relent under the charm of his sweet, panicked words. She had never been fond of flattery. "So, you and your friends traded me like a prized horse to the Dothraki."
"—which you turned to your advantage."
If he had thought that the repetition of what was known would break her, he had judged her poorly. She would not be deterred. Still, the question burned in her throat like the flames of her dragons. It begged to be released into the space between them, to do whatever damage it may. "Who gave the order to kill me?"
Tyrion's eyes darted from his queen to the eunuch and back again. There was a small part of him that trusted Varys, for the things he had done. That part of him yearned to put an end to this mummer's farce. However, there was a far greater part of him that still distrusted the Spider, even more so for the things he had done, and that part of him longed to see the queen get the answers she sought.
"King Robert," Varys answered, having the good sense to look at least nearly ashamed.
Like a prowling lion of Lannister stalking its prey, she moved closer to him. "Who hired the assassins?" Closer, still, she came. "Who sent word to Essos to murder Daenerys Targaryen?"
"Your Grace…" he interrupted, nodding his bald head in equal parts fear and respect. "I did what had to be done to—"
"—to keep yourself alive."
Once more, Tyrion found his voice. For the moment, it seemed as if the soft spot he held for the Spider, his personal savior, had won out. "Lord Varys has proven himself a loyal servant." As he drew breath to continue on in the other's defense, the queen then rounded on him.
"Proven himself loyal?" she snapped, her glare as sharp as dragonglass as it bore into him. "Quite the opposite." She fixed him under her gaze for only a moment longer, almost as if daring him to again speak out against her, before turning back to her prey. "If he dislikes one monarch, he conspires to crown the next one. What kind of a servant is that?"
Though he held no love for or any likeness to dragons, her words sparked a fire in the Spider's belly. "The kind the realm needs." His words were as firm as he dared, his eyes now narrowed into a glare of his own. His anger, like hers, boiled just beneath the surface, but a cold sweat still prickled across his powdered skin as he spoke. "Incompetence should not be rewarded with blind loyalty. As long as I have my eyes, I'll use them."
Daenerys stood still as the stone beneath her feet, studying him as if he was the most curious wonder she had seen in all her years. Blank was her expression, but her silence was permission for him to continue.
"I wasn't born into a great house. I came from nothing. I was sold as a slave and carved up as an offering." He did not break their gaze a second time, as he had found his courage. Eunuchs had often been compared to cravens, some even saying that they belonged to two sides of the same coin or that they had been cut from the same cloth, but none would have dared in that moment. For in that moment, he looked into the eyes of the dragon queen unflinchingly.
"When I was a child, I lived in alleys, gutters, abandoned houses. You wish to know where my true loyalties lie? Not with any king or queen, but with the people. The people who suffer under despots and prosper under just rule. The people whose hearts you aim to win.
"If you demand blind allegiance, I respect your wishes. Grey Worm can behead me, or your dragons can devour me, but if you let me live, I will serve you well. I will dedicate myself to seeing you on the Iron Throne because I choose you—because I know the people have no better chance than you."
A long pause stretched between them, filling the room with silence and a thick, cloying tension. In that moment, the sound of whipping winds and unrelenting rainfall served as her response to him. Then she broke the silence.
"Swear this to me, Varys." Her head canted ever-so-slightly to the side as she continued to study him, deciding his fate. "If you ever think I'm failing the people, you won't conspire behind my back. You'll look me in the eye as you have done today, and you'll tell me how I'm failing them."
Concern still creased his brow, but he gave a small nod of acquiescence regardless. "I swear it, My Queen," he offered, remembering then to bow his head in the respect one should offer their ruler, earned or otherwise. In the farthest corner of his vision, he saw Tyrion release the breath he had been holding and nod his approval.
Their collective relief was short-lived, however, as the queen once more resumed her prowling. Soon they stood breast-to-breast, her mask of cool wrath still fixed firmly in its place. "—and I swear this: if you ever betray me, I'll burn you alive."
The sunken apple of his throat bobbed as he swallowed and his bowels finally unclenched. He offered her a polite smile and another dip of his head. Beneath his fine velvet smock, his shoulders lifted about his ears as he shrugged. "I would expect nothing less from the Mother of Dragons."
For the first time since she had begun her assault, she relented and released the Spider from beneath her heel. He had won her respect for the moment, and she showed him as much with the small, genuine smile that curved her pink lips. This battle was over, and neither had lost. He had won his life and she his promise of loyalty—for whatever that was worth.
"Forgive me, My Queen," came a fourth voice, one she had almost forgotten was present. Grey Worm stepped forward from the far corner of the room, posture as tight and stern as befitted the captain of the Unsullied. "A red priestess from Asshai has come to see you."
A/N: Well, that's it for Chapter I. Chapter II will come later this week.
R.I.P. Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All. You will be missed, my tiny hamster overlord.