DAENERYS

The horizon breeds nothing. It stands at attention, glowing with crimson fire as the sun dips below it, but nothing comes forth. Westeros has eluded her thus far; a shadow on the wall, a crown of smoke. For seventeen years she's waited to see it crest that invisible line out in the sea, to watch the continent her ancestors' ancestors had conquered appear before her, blood-red dragon sails flapping above her like the wings of her very real dragons that heralded death for their mother's enemies.

And Daenerys, at the head of the greatest fleet ever seen in the Narrow Sea, upon the deck of her flagship Balerion, is denied again.

Night is coming, and Dorne has yet to break the horizon. Navigational theses drawn up by her Master of Ships, Yara Greyjoy, have been proven inaccurate. The anticipation builds in had built in Daenerys' chest for days now, contained tightly in her bones and flesh and painted Dothraki vest. She'd been urged to take up garb less alien to the people of Westeros, with the intent to make her transition to Queen of Westeros as painless as possible. Daenerys is quick to hotly remind her advisers, notably her Hand Tyrion Lannister, that she is not in Westeros yet, and besides, the lissome and supple material cradling her body is far more scant than any Westerosi raiment, letting the sea wind through her every pore.

They would be landing in the Kingdom most odd and foreign to the other six, so separate from the lands her family had ruled in, where they'd walked, where they'd lived.

She'd tried to confide in her Small Council a circle of people who Daenerys could bear honest stirrings of the heart. But that had gotten her nowhere. Both Yara Greyjoy and the eunuch Grey Worm, the Commander of her Queensguard, don't truly understand. It was a matter of upbringing; Yara claimed her true home was the sea, like any ironman's; that it didn't matter if her home in the Iron Islands was barred from her.

Grey Worm, she can hardly blame for being oblivious; he had no inkling of where he'd come from, his first memories of whips and blood, daggers and screaming mothers. Though Daenerys doesn't doubt he felt purpose serving her, Grey Worm has difficulty grasping the concept of home as a spread of land that one belonged to.

The story is the same with the rest of them; Varys, Master of Whisperers, gives her perfumed words, and she swallows them before she realizes his counsel is not suited to matters of the heart; Missandei, who filled the role of Daenerys' Master of Tongues, still views the world through black and white eyes. "You are the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Your Grace," the Naathi translator says. "If you want to go to King's Landing, every man on every ship in our fleet will get you there."

Tyrion decides, in misguided kindness, to explain to her why she is wrong to feel as she does.

"You don't like that we're landing in Dorne, Your Grace? The Kingdom that your brother chose his first wife from?" Tyrion had jested as they spoke belowdecks one night, his mouth agape in mock surprise. "Who have been waiting for an heir to Aerys' throne to return and drive my family into the sea? Who will follow you into the depths of all seven hells?"

"Aegon the Conqueror did not land in Dorne," she had replied. Her hand had brushed against her face, brushing a lock of platinum hair from her eyes, and her face had felt stonier than normal. Her jaw was tight. "If he had, King's Landing would be a great deal hotter. None but Rhaegar ever walked in Dorne. My people's dominion was north."

"Ahhhh," the dwarf drawled, waggling a drunk finger at her. "Your family. Not your people. Your people are north and south, east and west, from the Wall to the Broken Arm. When we get to Sunspear you will be surrounded by them. Trust me to know subjects from blood. The first, I let my brute of a nephew slaughter with impunity, and the second I sniped while he shat."

"You still haven't told me why you killed your father."

"I recall telling you we needed more wine than we had. This single skin is half of what we had in the Great Pyramid that afternoon. We have a crucial deficit, Your Grace; could we not trade in a few of these extra Dothraki for more?"

Daenerys smiles at him as he chuckles, but her heart still pangs in her chest, unsatisfied.

"Highgarden will be between us and King's Landing . . . and the Arbor within sailing distance once Dorne is fully in our grasp. I will live, Your Grace."

Daenerys had grinned at him sadly, hoping Tyrion didn't notice her staring out of the window over his shoulder. She wished terribly to have someone around her whose mind wasn't as expansive as Tyrion's or Varys', but enlightened enough about the ways of the world to give wise counsel. Grey Worm was single-minded; Missandei was obvious and Yara impervious.

She stands out on the prow of Balerion, the wind tearing at her as even under a now-black sky, she rushes towards home. But how long would it be? How many more weeks and weeks would it be before Daenerys saw that great black behemoth of a chair before her, where the last Valyrians had sat? How long until she could breathe, fall and let the Iron Throne catch her?

Something prods her in the back, and she turns to see a great winged serpent coiling itself upon a sturdy wooden cross. The deck sprouted the perch almost like a second mast, and even after weeks at sea she cannot believe that the dragons' great bulks don't implode any of the ships they land on.

One or two torches burn in sconces along the deck railing, and in the flickering light she can see the rich, gold-vanilla scales of Viserion, his green slitted eyes boiling in the darkness. Again his massive, four-foot-wide snout brushes the small of her back. He sniffs, and keens low in his throat. The breath smells of burnt wood, burnt meat, like smoke and a dinner hall. Daenerys turns to her surrogate child, her green eyes meeting his. There are times she regrets locking him and his brother Rhaegal under the Great Pyramid. She had let their brother Drogon go free, she rode him in battle. Sometimes she wishes there were three of her. Three mothers for three dragons, three Queens to satisfy all who needed one.

With unbelievably gentle motion that says nothing of his size, Viserion bumps his nose against his mother's hand. Daenerys runs it between his nostrils, over layers of scales as silky as milk, over spikes along his mandible, down the dragon's stocky muzzle.

Viserion's throat lowers, his eyes flickering onto Daenerys, until she hears spikes grate against wood. The question is pointed, more polite than Drogon but less suave than Rhaegal. A ride?

The rest of the ship sleeps, all except for a scattering of Unsullied crewmen making sure Balerion doesn't crash in the night. Daenerys clambers up Viserion's body, hauling herself onto his wing and shimmying along until she straddles him at the juncture of his neck and his torso. Ever attentive, all she has to do is whisper "Sōvegon" and he obeys. The sails are flattened against their masts as Viserion's golden wings carry him into the air. He ascends high above the Targaryen fleet in a matter of moments, all of her ships a gathering of candles against a black sheet. Somewhere out her in the night are Drogon and Rhaegal . . .

But even up here she couldn't find a spell to throw her forward in time, further towards the Iron Throne. There was one man who might've seen what she could. He chould've stripped her down to her basest emotions. After all, he'd been there when she had no dragons or Unsullied, no ships or soldiers, only a Khal who loved her and three beautiful eggs.

And he was most likely insane, or dead.

Could even dragons for sons replace an Andal?