"We need to go," Viserys remembered Ser Darry saying as he shook him awake, "My prince, take your sister, we must leave, now."
Viserys, half asleep, stumbled out of bed and accepted the bundle handed to him. His sister was very small and seemed very light. The wind blew harsh and strong and cold outside. Daenerys, his mother had named her, and died.
(It'll be all right, my little dragon-prince, she'd said, catching him as he stumbled on the docks. It'll all be all right. You'll see.)
"Where are we going?" he asked plaintively. Ser Darry shook his head and looked back and forth in the hallway before beckoning Viserys out of the room. He paused. "Should I take…"
"Hurry, my prince," Ser Darry said, "There's no time."
Viserys held Daenerys close against his chest and followed the old knight as he limped through the dark hallways. It was unpleasant here, dark and dank and Viserys was sure there were ghosts living in the walls somewhere. "Why do I have to carry her?" He asked. "Where's her wet nurse?"
"Already at the ship," Ser Darry said in a rough voice. "Waiting for us. Hurry! The garrison here is less loyal than I'd hoped."
All betrayers, Viserys understood, darkly. They were all treacherous, small-minded. Wasn't that what his father had always said? He hurried faster. His little sister seemed to grow heavier and heavier the further they went.
They stumbled across the beach in the dark just as Daenerys woke and started to cry. He tried to hush her, but she wouldn't be quiet. The boat was just ahead and the wind buffeted him back.
Ser Darry lifted both of them into the waiting hands of the men already on board, and then leapt on himself. "Cast off," he said in a rush, "Now! Do it!"
No one took Daenerys from him for a while. Viserys, irritated, held her even though his arms were starting to ache. The shore seemed to recede quickly, and the waves heaved the boat from side to side, making his stomach lurch.
"Are we going back to King's Landing?" He asked, when Ser Darry found him again and finally took the bawling (stinky, heavy) Daenerys away, no doubt to give to her wet nurse.
"No, my prince," Ser Darry said, and looked out at nothing in particular. "Not just yet."
~.~
In Lys, for the first time, their welcome began to fade.
Even after Ser Darry's servants had driven them out of Braavos (Daenerys had cried, but they were cold, and her tears made no impression) they had been welcome at noble house after noble house, each remembering the old blood of Valyria and the longetivity of the Targaryen's reign.
The gifts were lavish, the houses were great. The women cooed over Daenerys's beauty and the men questioned him about his plans to return to Westeros. Soon I will build an army, he assured them, and return as the rightful ruler. Westeros cries out for the hand of her true master.
It sounded grand enough, and he was still young.
But that faded. Robert sat firmly on the Iron Throne and the Free Cities knew where its money came from. A prince with nothing to his name but a crown, some heirlooms, and a younger sister was not worth much in their greedy, small minds.
In Lys, with the lady Aylinah, even Daenerys noticed their disdainful glances and whispers behind their hands. "I don'like it here," she said in a small voice. "I want to go home."
"We will," Viserys said tightly. She had let them in, true enough, but with the air of allowing strays over her doorstep. "Soon, we'll go home," though Daenerys didn't know the home he meant, too young to remember anything of it.
"I haven't much room here," Aylinah said after a week of minimal wining and dining and leaving them to their own devices, "And I have a business to run. I think it would be best for you to move on."
Viserys drew himself up. "We are the blood of the dragon," he reminded her, voice still cracking. "Do you forget?"
You are the dregs of the blood of the dragon, her faintly disgusted gaze seemed to say. Nothing more. "You're no longer welcome here," she said, much less delicately, and Viserys balled his hands into fists and breathed in through his nose. I will remember you, he thought, we both will, me and Dany, we'll remember our enemies when we return home.
~.~
Ser Darry was nine months dead when they had to sell the first of their heirlooms. No, not they, he, because there was only one of them, really. Just him and his little mewling sister, crying that she was tired, she was cold, she wanted to go back to the little house with the red door. "Don't whine," he told her, "A princess doesn't whine," but that only made her sniffle the more.
Viserys found a likely looking shop with finely wrought silver and gold in the window. He'd brushed out his hair to a shine and dressed as well as he could, but he still felt the weight of the shopkeeper's gaze linger on patches where fine silk was wearing thin. Weighing, judging.
He swallowed to get the bitter taste out of his mouth.
"How much would you pay for this?" He asked immediately, laying the ring on the counter. It was his, wrought for him when he was small in the shape of a dragon. He couldn't wear it anymore, but…
The shopkeeper looked at him, then picked up the coin and examined it. His eyes brightened, small and greedy in his round face, and then he offered a price that was insultingly low.
"Fine," he said, "I'll take it somewhere else, then."
"Nowhere will offer more for something so obviously stolen," the man said with a grin full of teeth. Rage boiled up.
"This is a heirloom of the blood of Old Valyria!" he yelled, snatching the ring back. "Of my house! You dare, you dare-" he spluttered, lost for words. The shopkeeper looked unimpressed. "You will regret the day you crossed me," Viserys hissed, finally, and stalked out the door.
There was no other store of the same quality. Others offered even less. Danerys was beginning to go hungry, and so was he. He went back a day later and sold it for half the initial offered price.
~.~
Viserys laid awake at night in an inn in Norvos, staring up at the ceiling. There was a soft rain falling and he thought about going home.
He would get everything back, all the things they'd lost (his mother's crown, finally gone, and for so little). The land would rise up, the common people rejoice to see their king come home. They would drag the Usurper's dogs down, and Viserys would kill the Usurper himself.
Viserys wished there were still dragons in the world. What an entrance that would make! He smiled, just a little.
Someone shifted on the other bed. "Viserys?" Daenerys said in a small voice. He closed his eyes and sighed, heavily. His sister. Ah, yes, his sister. Beautiful. Worthless. Like everything else he'd taken (and ultimately sold). If his mother were here instead of Daenerys…
But she wasn't, and that was because of his younger sister.
"What," he said, shortly.
"I'm scared," she said. "I can't sleep." Viserys clenched his jaw.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Tell me a story?" She said. "Like you used to. About dragons, or about the Seven Kingdoms, or…"
"Be silent," Viserys said, and felt a little rush of pleasure to finally say it aloud. "I don't care what you want, little sister."
Silence, for a moment. Then Daenerys' voice, still small and confused, "But I'm…"
"Scared? Good," Viserys said. "You should be, because you're making me angry, and you don't want to make me angry, do you? Like waking a dragon. You don't want to wake a dragon, do you?"
Daenerys fell silent. Viserys flipped over and looked at what he thought was her direction. "I have spent all this time looking after you, and what have you done? You're just – weight. I should have sold you before mother's crown. I would, if I thought I could get enough money to buy the army to take me home. I'd sell you to anyone."
He heard the little hitch in Daenerys' breathing. It bothered him. "Don't cry," he snapped. "Dragons don't cry."
"I'm sorry," Daenerys said, after a few moments, and Viserys felt a little bad. He wasn't sure he hadn't meant it, but he felt a little bad for saying it.
"We'll get home," he said, after a few moments. "You'll see. Everything will work out as soon as we go home." As soon as he found his army.
Daenerys didn't speak again. Viserys wished he hadn't sold the crown. He should have kept the crown. Kept the crown and sold Daenerys.
He didn't close his eyes to sleep that night.