Hello, guys! I'm so glad you clicked on my story. I hope this first chapter will be an interesting read for all of you and that you'll tune in for the rest.
A few things you need to know about this story: first of all, I'm going to use the book canon, which I'm much more familiar with. There will be some spoilers for the entire series, mostly surrounding certain character deaths.
While pairings are not very important here and I won't be focusing on them, there are still some you should expect: SansaxSandor, RobbxTheon, DaenerysxArianne Martell [because I aim to have a little bit of balance between slash, femslash and het.]
Another important thing: I have to offer a special thanks to hazel-3017, who is acting as my beta for this story. I can't even begin to explain how helpful she's been.
Now that all that is out of the way, I hope you will all enjoy reading this.
Chapter 1 – The Beloved Queen
September 17, 2012,
Saint Augustine Psychiatric Hospital,
Irri.
The Saint Augustine Psychiatric Hospital had recently been renovated. Gone were the cracks in the painting and the uneven walls, the old furniture and the checkered tiles. Everything seemed brighter now. Shiny and appealing in a way that was supposed to make the patients feel more at home.
Irri missed the old place.
She had started working there three years ago, right after her parents and her little sister had died in a car accident; about the same time her lover had decided she wasn't good enough for him anymore. Moving halfway across the country to get away from her pain, Irri had fitted all of her belongings into two small suitcases, and when she had unpacked them in her new home bought from her parents' money, they seemed like heavy treasure chests waiting to be discovered: there was the gold pendant her sister had given her; the pink dress her mother had made for her; and that pair of shoes her father had insisted were hideous—all of those little things that kept her grounded.
Irri knew what it was like to float aimlessly, and she remembered how welcoming Saint Augustine's dark corners had been when she first started working there. She understood how tempting it could be to get lost in those shadows. It was known to happen; people forgetting themselves because no one cared to coax them out of their shells. But Irri refused the temptation. She had a purpose there and couldn't afford to get lost. She was a nurse, and her job was to help her patients get better.
But how could she help them beyond their medical needs? There was so little she could do for them, and at the end of the day, when she crawled back to her little apartment, her heart was shattered three times over. The white, shiny floors, the new windows and the brightness made it so much harder to hide how broken they all were. It seemed like the renovation had stirred up old ghosts, and now there was something different on everyone's faces, like a new set of frown lines or a darkness inside their eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me my daughter called? I know she called me."
"I'm sorry, but she hasn't. Not today. Maybe she will tomorrow." She wasn't going to call, though. She never did.
Grace Green was nearly eighty years old, and from what Irri understood, she had been at Saint Augustine for nearly ten years. Her daughter had not called once.
"What do you think happened to her daughter?" a new nurse, barely out of nursing school, asked. "No one just forgets their mother in a place like this without a reason." Missandei's eyes were quick, sharp and curious, no doubt trying to think of a possible explanation that didn't seem too terrible for both mother and daughter.
"But they do. It is known to sometimes happen," Irri responded. Seeing the other nurse instantly deflate made her rethink her words. "Maybe she doesn't know where her mother is. Maybe she is unable to call. Maybe it's too painful." Maybe she's dead.
"Maybe." Missandei shrugged her shoulders and seemed to let the subject go, but Irri was sure that it wouldn't be long until she started asking around again. She thought about warning her against it, because some things were just better left to settle by themselves, but decided against it. Missandei would learn soon enough that she couldn't save these people, no matter how much she wanted to.
"It's eleven. Could you please go check on Mr. Loraq? I have to get a patient ready for an appointment with the new doctor. She wants to talk to our dragon queen."
The nickname had seemed like a cruel mockery at first, but the nurses in Saint Augustine all said it fondly and with a small smile. Dany was a sweet, troubled girl who was always so impeccably polite one would think she was raised in a noble family. Her stories were something of a legend throughout the hospital, and the other patients often tried to coax tales from her.
"The Dothraki were fearsome warriors, and the Free Cities trembled before them. My sun-and-stars rode in front of thousands of men."
"My brother and I, we are the blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon." Her brother was dead. Had killed himself when she was sixteen.
"My children, they grew so big. Drogon was the biggest, and when he unfolded his wings they blocked out the sun." She often talked about her children, the dragons, and it earned her looks of both wonder and pity.
"I was Queen of Meereen once, and Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men. I was Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles. I walked through fire once and I did not burn."
Her brother had set himself on fire. Their house had burned down and she had been the only survivor. She had walked away from it physically intact, but something had cracked inside of her then.
"I am the daughter of King Aerys Targaryen and Queen Rhaella. I am sister of Rhaegar and Viserys, born on Dragonstone during a great storm." From what Irri had gathered, Dany had no family whatsoever. She and her brother had been bounced from one foster family to the other until he was old enough to take care of her on his own. No one in Saint Augustine knew what had happened to her parents. There was no aunt, cousin, nor friend to visit her.
"I am Daenerys Targaryen, the Stormborn, the Unburnt. Daenerys Targaryen. Daenerys Targaryen." She was Danielle Thornburn no matter how hard she had convinced herself she was someone else; her name written down in ink on all of their records of her.
Dany had been admitted to Saint Augustine five years ago, after having attempted to set a woman on fire. She claimed that the woman was some sort of a witch, a maegi, that had killed her husband and unborn son. The poor lady had suffered terrible burns on half her body, but the young, self proclaimed queen had gotten away fairly lightly. Her lawyer had been Illyrio Mopatis, well known throughout the country for his high-profile clients. He seemed to have taken a special interests in Dany, and decided to take her case pro bono. Irri knew she could have never afforded him otherwise.
Irri shuddered at the thought of what kind of interest the fat, greedy man had taken in someone as young and beautiful as Dae...Danielle. Saint Augustine was a renowned hospital, famous for its doctors and the revolutionary progress they managed with their patients, but it was still a psychiatric ward—a terrible cage to be caught in for anyone. Dany was small and delicate, and the years spent there had left her too thin and too pale, as if she was always on the verge of collapsing. She was still beautiful, in the same way that pearls were beautiful when they scattered all over the floor because the string that held them together had broken. Her shoulders were forever drawn back, her back as straight as a sword, and Irri often wondered how she was able to do it. Why haven't you crumbled yet? She wanted to ask.
Today, Irri found her sitting on her bed and staring out of the window. It was a sunny day in mid-September, but while the sun was shining, it didn't give off any warmth. Dany's face was bathed in the light, and she had dark rings around her eyes, colored a deep purple; like bruises.
"Irri, I dreamt about Meereen again last night." She didn't turn to look around, and for that the nurse was glad. It was hard to withstand her gaze most days, but when she spoke of the things she'd dreamt, it was like Dany changed from within. Her face held a hardness to it that wasn't there most of the time, and it fueled an inner fire that was not supposed to burn so brightly after five years. "You were there again. You called me Khaleesi. I remember that."
The first time Irri had seen Danielle, the girl had been silently eating her meal and staring straight ahead with a determination probably born out of desperation. Maybe she had heard Irri coming into the cafeteria, or maybe her eyes had just latched onto her and projected some fantasy woman, but one second she'd been calmly eating her food, the next she had been in front of Irri with a hopeful smile on her face and talking rapidly in a strange, harsh language.
"Irri, it's me. Don't you remember? I was married to Khal Drogo, I was Khaleesi. You were one of my wedding gifts, you were my handmaiden and my friend, you...you...You must remember, Irri, you must."
But there hadn't been anything to remember, and the look Dany had given her when she'd said as much had kept Irri up at night for weeks afterwards.
"Irri? Do you think I'll ever get out of here?" The question was spoken in curious and detached tones, nothing like that hopeful longing with which she had looked at Irri all those years ago.
"Of course you will." The answer was automatic, but it was meaningless, and they both knew it. Even if she were to get out, that day would not be somewhere in the next week, next month, or even the next year.
Dany didn't look like she had heard her. She kept staring out of the window, the harsh, yellow sunlight streaming onto her face, making her silver hair glow like a burning crown around her head.
September 17, 2012,
Saint Augustine Psychiatric Hospital,
Daenerys Targaryen.
She had always known who she was, what she was. Viserys had called her Daenerys when they had been alone, but he had told her that she had to keep responding to Danielle in public.
"It's because they're after us. They want to kill us, Daenerys, the men that took everything away. They took everything, Daenerys, they're even trying to take our names, but we won't let them. We are the blood of dragons."
Dragons.
She had dragons; three of them. Yes, she remembered Drogon's onyx black scales and his burning eyes, how they flew together over Meereen's bricks and bones. Rhaegal, her wild dragon child who burned the great pyramid of Yherizan and claimed it for himself. And Viserion. Her Viserion who was lost to her and never did come back.
Daenerys remembered other dragons as well: a three headed beast with blood red skin upon a black field, the Targaryen coat of arms; gold dragons, the kind that her Jorah had betrayed her for; and the Dothraki dragon that had grown in her womb, with skin like copper and silver hair.
Growing up, there had been days when Daenerys hadn't even gotten out of bed. Waking up had meant leaving behind a world she knew, had meant leaving Daenerys Targaryen at the foot of her bed and assuming the role of Danielle Thornburn for yet another day. So much changed along with a name, and it was impossible for anyone to understand. Danielle Thornburn was an orphan girl who kept her head bowed low and her eyes glued to the ground, and Daenerys...Daenerys was a queen.
"Danielle, could you tell me about your brother?"
This doctor was new, a tall woman with bright red hair and an exotic accent. This was the first time she talked to Daenerys, and she had probably introduced herself at the start of the session, but Daenerys couldn't remember her name. M, something.
There were so many doctors, so many names, so many demands. Tell me about your brother. Tell me about your parents. Tell me about your foster parents. Tell me why you burned Mirri Maz Duur. Tell me about your hallucinations. Tell me your name.
They didn't understand anything, but it was unfair to judge them based on that. No one else understood, apart from Viserys, because they couldn't remember the lives they had left behind. Sometimes it was better to forget, because people had lived cruel, hard lives that had ended tragically. Some had lived in misery and desolation. Some had lived in palaces. It was better for them not to remember, and maybe, occasionally, Daenerys envied them terribly.
"Danielle?"
She closed her eyes for a second and imagined what her life would have been like as Danielle Thornburn only. Maybe she would have been satisfied with it. After all, what could she compare it to? Maybe Vise...Victor would have been kinder and gentler, less like a king without a crown and more like a brother.
He had never remembered his violent death or the way he had behaved towards her during their time with the Dothraki—both a blessing and a curse. She hadn't wanted him to know he'd been killed, but at the same time it had been horrible to grow up around him when she knew what he had looked like dead. If she tried hard enough, she could even remember the sounds he'd made while he had died, and the smell of his burned skin.
"Danielle?"
"That is not my name!" She slapped her hands down on the table, making the various pens and papers the doctor had brought with her tremble and shake. "That is not my name," she repeated, her voice so much softer now, like the queen inside had momentarily risen from her deep slumber before leaving Dany to face her doctor on her own again.
"What's your name, then?" There was a strange light in this little office, a strange light that made the doctor's eyes glow red for a second too long.
"My name is Daenerys Targaryen," she replied, raising her chin an inch. The doctor regarded her with cool interest and played with the ruby on her pendant.
"And what does Daenerys Targaryen have that Danielle Thornburn lacks? Why would you choose one name over the other?"
Because Daenerys is a queen. Because she is strong and brave and capable. Because she was important and needed.
"Because it's my true name. I remember it."
They had taken her family, her husband, her child, her kingdom. They had taken her revenge when they'd saved Mirri Maz Duur, and they had claimed her sanity when they had locked her up in Saint Augustine. They would not take her name.
"Daenerys Targaryen." The doctor's voice was like a song, running through Daenerys and echoing inside the office. "Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men." She was shuffling the papers she had brought with her, no doubt looking for all the titles that were featured on one of them. "The Stormborn, the Unburnt. Baptized by fire's burning kiss." But she wasn't looking at the papers, she was looking straight at Daenerys, and when she leaned forward, she whispered in the same lilting melody, "Your Grace."
"Do not mock me." She had meant for the words to sound commanding, but what came out was little more than a strangled plea. "Please. Please, do not mock me." Queens did not beg, and the Mother of Dragons had to be fearless and she had to be wise. "You don't know anything. You can't know." She clenched her fists as tightly as she could, hoping it would mask their tremble.
"I would never presume to mock you, Your Grace. I am merely someone interested in the well-being of one as special as yourself. You see, there are not many people in the world who have your gift, and most of them are terrified of it. They strive to hide it as far into themselves as possible, but it doesn't work. Those people will eventually lose their minds."
"But not me?"
"Not you. Never you. You are brave enough to embrace what you are and accept the fate that was set in front of you. I have seen the great road you must walk on, Daenerys Targaryen, you who are so beloved by fire." She smiled serenely and leaned back in her chair, the red spill of her hair violent against the white of her doctor's robe. She looked so harmless, this woman who talked like she knew everything, but Daenerys felt a cold ribbon of ice wrapping itself around her spine.
This woman is not to be trusted, she told herself. The air around them was thick and heavy with an undercut of power that felt almost tangible, and Daenerys knew that this changed everything. She is powerful. She might mean harm.
She believes me.
In the end, that was all that mattered.
"What have you seen?"
"I have seen you in the flames, and I know what lies ahead. A world that bows at your feet, a world remade. You will need patience, Your Grace, because your time has not yet come, but believe this: I have heard the flames sing for you, and your song is glorious." The redheaded woman was smiling again, and her eyes glowed like Drogon's, her lips the curve of a bloody arakh, her ruby pendant burning like dragon fire.
Daenerys Targaryen remembered.
Once upon a time, she had been little and carefree and simply free. Memories of her old life and her new one had blended together, but there had been no horrific battle scenes, and there had been no smell of cooked meat. She had been a princess riding a dragon one day, and she had been playing in the garden of her latest foster family the next. It had been a time when she and Viserys had still been in foster care, but her memories of him were never pleasant—he was always snapping at her and telling her to leave him alone, because you don't understand, you stupid child! You don't understand, you never did and you never will.
Daenerys had wanted to tell him, I don't understand, but I remember. Her brother had been haunted by so many monsters, and he hadn't known how to fight them, Viserys never had. She'd wanted to tell him how she hadn't understood, but that she wanted to help, and maybe he could explain it all to her. Daenerys had always known she couldn't keep her brother close, and his death was a certainty that forever lurked in the back of her mind, but maybe she could make the most of her time with him if only he'd allowed it. Maybe then he would have understood that he had her.
Looking back, she couldn't help her bitter laughter at her own foolishness. Viserys had never thought of her as anything more than a burden, not even a useful one until she'd married Khal Drogo—but there had been no armies here, no use for a little girl that had once been a queen.
She remembered growing up and never feeling right in her own skin. There was too much old blood in her, fierce and strong and determined, to ever feel satisfied in Danielle Thornburn's little shoes. She was Daenerys Targaryen, a dragon queen in a world that had never known of dragons. She kept to herself and tried to talk as little as possible. There was no need to seek out others when in her head she heard the most amazing stories about the bravest and fiercest of knights from the Seven Kingdoms. If she concentrated enough, she could hear Ser Barristan's kind voice and let herself get lost in the memories.
There were weeks, months, years that Daenerys didn't remember herself as Danielle. She had let herself get swept away by a harsh, violent world that respected her, a hot, blazing world drenched in blood, but a world in which she had carved a place for herself. Danielle had gotten up early in the mornings and tried to make ends meet, she had gone to school and struggled to get decent grades, but Danielle wasn't real and Daenerys was, even though her world had gotten lost through time.
Daenerys remembered a woman.
She had started noticing her when she was about thirteen, which was a miracle by itself. That woman was the only thing Daenerys remembered from her life as Danielle, the-thirteen-year-old, as she had spent most of that year in her head, riding with her sun-and-stars through the Dothraki heat.
One day, when she had been walking home from school, Daenerys had caught sight of a shadow. A white shadow that seemed to billow in the November wind, too far away to clearly make out. She had turned around fully and squinted to see what it was, but she hadn't been able see that far. It had been on the other side of the road, and she'd been in the busiest part of town—there had been so many cars between her and the white wisps of shadowy smoke she had noticed, but she had to be there, she had to see. What was it? There had been an instinctive pull towards the apparition, and Daenerys had found herself wondering what it would look like up close, how the white light would feel like when she ran her fingers through it, how...
"Kid, what the hell are you doing?"
A car had stopped inches away from her. She hadn't even realized she had moved, but suddenly she'd found herself in the middle of the road, cars honking all around her.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed? Get out of the way!"
Her heart had been hammering in her chest, but she'd been strangely calm. A wave of contented tranquility had embraced her from all sides, and rather than running towards the safety of the sidewalk, her eyes had searched the other side of the road for the...for what? There was nothing there. She had been so unnaturally disappointed then, her eyes filling with tears she'd tried so hard to ignore until she'd gotten home.
When Daenerys had gone to sleep that night, she'd dreamt of blue roses; their sweet smell mixing with the nauseating stench of blood. When she'd woken up, it was like nothing had happened. For days, she had gone on with everything as usual.
But then, when she had been out shopping for food one day, she had been jolted out of her complacency. It had been around the end of November—she remembered because it had started snowing outside. Nothing much, but enough to merit a warmer coat. Viserys had given her a long shopping list, but she'd had no idea how she was going to buy half the things on it with the little money they'd had. She had been in the store when she'd raised herself on the tip of her toes to reach for an item on her list, placed inconveniently on the top shelf, and when she'd made to put it in her shopping cart, she had found that woman standing right in front of it. She had been tall and slim, clothed in a white dress with dark hair falling over her shoulders in waves. She had been like a shadow made solid in the middle of the store, and she had seemed to radiate a crisp coolness that had made Daenerys shiver. There had been a stillness to her that should have frightened Daenerys, but hadn't, rather it had made her feel at peace.
She'd taken a step towards the woman, and then another, and Daenerys had looked at her straight in the eyes. Grey eyes, kind eyes. Old, old eyes. The woman had been so close, Daenerys had been able to smell her, a flowery sweetness that had hidden something else, something bitter, something like death. Suddenly, Daenerys had been terrified.
She'd dropped what she had been holding, turned around, and she'd run out of the store into the streets, running all the way home. Viserys had yelled at her, and he had been furious when she'd refused to go back to the store, but she wouldn't have been caught dead there again.
After that, she had kept seeing her everywhere. Outside of school, looking at her through the window. At the table of a restaurant, watching Daenerys as she passed by. Behind a bookshelf in the library, silent but watching. Always watching.
She had never moved to approach Daenerys, and she didn't seem like she wanted to hurt her, but her eyes haunted Daenerys with every step she'd taken. Finally, she had steeled herself and gone to approach the woman one day before going to school.
It had been January, the snow thick and fluffy. It had still been night, but outside the sky had started to take a purple pinkish hue, and even though it had seemed pleasant and inviting, the air outside had been frigid, and Daenerys had shivered under her multiple layers of clothing. The woman had been dressed in her thin, white gown that fluttered and trembled in the wind. Daenerys had walked over to her and stared. She had prepared a speech for the next time she would encounter the woman, had rehearsed it in front of the mirror, but at that moment, she hadn't remembered one word of it.
"Who are you? You're always following me, but you never do anything. What do you want?" The questions had been as good as she could give considering the situation.
"I'm a friend." She had smiled a little, and the quirk of her lips had made her look so kind and beautiful, and somehow that had made her smile seem so, so sad. "I've been asked to watch over you."
"Who asked you to watch over me?" For some reason, Daenerys had dreaded the answer.
"Someone who loves you very much, Daenerys Targaryen." She had towered over Daenerys, and her voice had been sure and sonorous, carrying though the howl of the wind. Just standing there in the cold, she had looked as if she was something born out of the winter's snow.
She hadn't been able to hold her stare for long before Daenerys had lowered her gaze to the ground. The woman's feet had been bare and there had been blood on them. A chill had run down her spine, but it hadn't had anything to do with the cold outside. Paying closer attention, she had been able to see blood on the ground as well, little drops of red that had dripped from the woman's fingers.
Daenerys remembered the smell of roses that masked another, deeper scent. Blood. Blood. An overwhelming stench of blood, both old and new.
She'd taken a step back. She had wanted to run, but had found herself unable to.
"What are you? Is that your blood? Is it...did you kill someone, did you...?"
"Don't be frightened! Please, don't be frightened, Daenerys." Her voice had been frantic. "It's my blood. It's always mine. I tried to hide, I tried, but I can't sometimes, not when you're so close."
"Hide it...? Hide it how...?" It had dawned on her in a second, and then she'd had to ask herself...Do I want to know?
Yes.
"Show me. Show me what you are."
It would have been better not to know.
The woman had closed her eyes and breathed a heavy sigh, and suddenly there had been blood on her hands, blood on her feet, and pouring onto her gown, a deep, red blood coating the snow on the ground.
Daenerys had screamed.
"Get away! Go! Get away!"
She had closed her eyes tightly, hoping that if she couldn't see her, the memory wouldn't burn itself into her brain. She had choked out a sob, and soon enough, tears had been streaming freely down her cheeks. They had been tears of mourning. She had cried and cried and cried, her eyes shut close so hard her eyelids hurt, and hadn't stopped until a neighbor had found her in front of their apartment building and guided her back inside.
Daenerys never stopped thinking about the sad woman, but she never saw her again.
Daenerys remembered many things: what a stallion's heart tasted like, and how five different kinds of pills felt like when she swallowed them dry every morning. How the flames had gently kissed her skin, and how they had torn Viserys apart—what the smoldering remnants of their house had looked like after the blaze of fire had been put out.
She remembered Daario Naharis smiling at her and Ser Jorah kissing her. She remembered reading Wuthering Heights and being praised for her well argued essay—and decorating a small Christmas tree by herself, because Viserys refused to help.
She remembered summer rain on her bedroom window in Saint Augustine, and the Meereenese draught—the house with the red door, and the apartment on the fifth floor of a tall, grey building.
There was one memory that stood out, vivid and clear among all the others. She wasn't sure how old she had been, but surely no more than six. She didn't recall which foster family she had been living with at the time, only that she had been playing in the back garden. It had been hot and sunny, probably in the middle of summer, and she'd had her hair pulled back into a braid.
Daenerys had been looking around for a toy of some sort when she had turned around and seen him. A tall man in black armor, his breastplate shattered. She had been unable to see anything inside the hollow of his chest, but it hadn't frightened her, not one beat. He'd had a helmet on, but she had clearly made out his face, handsome and gentle, with sad eyes of dark purple, and silver hair like her own. When he had come closer, she had thought vaguely that maybe she should go inside, because she hadn't been allowed to talk to strangers, but even donning his polished, broken armor, the man hadn't look like he was capable of ever hurting her. He'd crouched in front of her and smiled.
"Hello, Daenerys." It had seemed like the most natural thing in the world that he would know her name. Her real one.
"Hello, mister. What are you doing here?"
"I came to meet you, princess," he'd answered and pulled off the gloves he had been wearing, moving his newly bared finger to touch the tip of her nose.
"Well, I'm not a princess. I'm a queen." It hadn't meant to sound spoiled, it was simply pure fact. She had once been a queen, and she knew it. Had always known it.
"My apologies, Your Grace. Of course you are. A dragon queen." He had laughed, and she'd found herself blushing with delight at his presence. His laugh had died out, though, and soon enough he'd been regarding her with something akin to pain written on his face. "I wanted to meet you, once. I wasn't given that chance before, sweetling. I wanted to ask you something very important, Daenerys of House Targaryen." He had leaned forward as if he wanted to share a secret with her.
"What? What did you want to ask me?" She had rarely been that impatient, but she had felt her heart pounding and her palms starting to sweat.
"I wanted to ask for your forgiveness. There are so many things waiting for you, my brave little dragon queen, so many dark and evil things that I was not capable of defeating. I wanted to protect you and your brother from all of them, but I couldn't. I never meant for such a great burden to fall on your shoulders. I'm so sorry I failed you. Could you ever find it in yourself to forgive a fool like me?"
"Of course I forgive you. But what do I have to forgive? There's nothing! Nothing to forgive." She had desperately wanted him to believe her, she had wanted to make him believe that there had been no need to carry that terrible weight on his back. She'd had no idea what he was apologizing for, but it hadn't mattered. There had been nothing to forgive, although she had known, she'd just known that while her words were soothing, he would never truly believe her.
He had taken a deep breath and closed his eyes. He had seemed to be searching for an inner strength, and when he'd looked at her next, it had been with a softness that had made her ache.
"There's a great darkness waiting at the end of your road, but I have faith in you. However, you shall need strength to walk upon it, and all men must draw their strength from somewhere. So draw strength from knowing you were loved, Your Grace. You were loved by so many once, and you still are. And no matter what else happens, you will always be loved by me."
He had raised his hand to her face again and wiped at the corner of her eyes, and she had closed them at the warm touch, letting out a shaky breath. Her heart had felt so full, she'd thought it might shatter.
When she had opened her eyes, the man had been gone, and Daenerys had been alone once more.
Sometimes, Daenerys thought it would be so easy to slip back into Danielle Thornburn's skin. She could start slow, starting by actually responding to the name. She could stop talking about her old life and maybe, eventually, they would deem her sane enough to try living on her own again.
But Daenerys couldn't bear the thought of being Danielle again.
They were both locked up, they were both insane in the eyes of the law, they were both alone, but Daenerys could be brave where Danielle was not. She could be fair and just and determined, and Daenerys, at least, was loved.