He didn't know his name.
He didn't know who he was.
He only knew that he was inhabiting the body of a girl named Daenareys Targaryen.
Still unsure of what he was, and how he came to be, he stared at the creature in front of him.
Its red eyes, as hot as burning coals, looked at him expectantly… hungrily.
The thing let out a hissing sound, belching out a sputter of orange-red flame from its nostril. Its thin, membranous, dark wings flapped in restlessness while its small head craned in his direction.
And there were more, he felt movements on his right leg - small, sharp claws digging on his (her) bare, smooth skin - as another creature crawled its way up towards him.
The third one was crooning at his chest, nuzzling, biting.
He winced.
Feed it.
Some part of him whispered.
It's hungry. Feed it.
He moved his arm, planning to bring the creature close to his (her) chest. However, he had only moved an inch when he felt, rather than saw, the girl rousing from her short slumber within the recess of his (her) mind.
He sensed the girl's lingering despair; her anguished, her rage, her regret at the loss of her husband and son. But with a strong determination that he found admirable, the girl shook its compelling grasp and gradually awoke.
Immediately something tagged at him, silently telling him to retreat back.
So he did without question.
He withdrew from the surface and found himself facing a house with a red door that he knew the girl was very fond of.
He turned the door knob and pushed the door open.
As soon as he entered the house, the girl's consciousness resurfaced.
He kept the door half-opened, just enough to sense the Targaryen Princess opened her eyes and saw what the world had become after she had stepped into the fire and live.
…..
There was great joy in Daenerys as she fed two dragons on each of her breasts; the cream-and-gold dragon suckling at her left while the green-and bronze on her right. Though its sharp teeth were painful against her skin while they fed from her milk, but the maternal instinct inside her - that had immediately risen up as she sensed the little ones' hunger - overwhelmed any thought about stopping them from suckling her teat.
She was their mother now and so she must nurse them.
What's the use of her own milk if not to feed her children?
Her son was lost but these new hatchlings might as well have been born from her own womb.
She had awakened them from petrified stones.
Daenerys had paid it with fire and blood.
…..
Lying down on the burnt ashes from the funeral pyre, amidst bones of her deceased husband and his stallion, along with the maegi who was an instrumental to everything Daenerys had lost, she smiled at the two dragons nursing from her breasts, while she nuzzled the black-and-scarlet one that was draped across her shoulders with its long neck coiled around her neck.
That was how Jorah found her.
She was naked. Yes. Her long silken white-gold hair gone. But Daenerys was unhurt and it was enough to bring the knight to his knees in utter shock and relief to see her alive, and unburnt.
As the men from her khas saw her, they soon fell to their knees as well, bowing so low that their faces were pressed against the scorched ground.
Their arakhs placed at Daenerys feet.
"Blood of my blood," they murmured, cried, and shouted.
And the rest from her khalasaar followed, all men and women and children, they knelt and bowed their heads.
They murmured Daenerys name, the name they knew her by, and then the names they called her now - The Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons - words spoken in worship, reverence, and full of hope.
Slowly, Daenerys rose up to her feet and listened to her dragons flapped their wings and let out a sharp cry.
Some of her people lifted up their heads in awe, however, there were some who looked in either fear or uneasiness.
And that very night the world was graced by the sounds of living dragons.
The first one in a hundred years.
…
He kept the red door half-opened, still peering outside and listening to the girl's thoughts.
The red comet was called shierak qiya.
He hear the Dothrakis say.
It meant the Bleeding Star.
If it was sign brought by Gods, he wondered how many people would bleed and die in the coming years.
…..
It is the herald of my coming.
He listened to the girl think. The Princess' eyes stared at the blazing comet in the skies.
The gods have sent it to show me the way.
Her thoughts were loud enough to cause a slight vibration within the room that he stayed; thoughts that were almost similar to his own upon awakening in that world.
Later, he listened as the girl's handmaid, Doreah, quailed after the Targaren Princess had spoken her intention.
"That way lies the red lands, Khaleesi. A grim place and terrible, the riders say."
"The way the comet points is the way we must go," Dany insisted.
…
He would soon realize, it had been a part of him which pushed the girl to her final decision.
Subconsciously though it was…
For the girl would lead her people to their doom.
Death awaited some of them in the red lands.
…..
He listened as the Knight - now the girl's Queensguard, Jorah Mormontv- gave counsel on what was best to do with their ragged band and where they should go.
"Hatchlings," Ser Jorah said. "One swipe from an arakh would put an end to them, though Porto is more like to seize them for himself. Your dragon eggs were more precious than rubies. A living dragon is beyond price. In all the world, there are only three. Every man who sees them will want them, my queen."
"They are mine," Daenerys said fiercely. "No man will take them from me while I live."
"You will not live long should you meet Khal Pono. Nor Khal Jhaqo, nor any of the others. You must go where they do not."
After they had finally reached a decision.
The Targaryen Princess and her retinue set out for the red waste, where none of the other Khals would go.
He watched as the Targaryen Princess climbed on top of her silver mare and wore something that evoked a memory from him.
Vaguely, he remembered seeing a blonde girl who had garbed herself in a lion's mane - though he was certain that she was from a different house, a house with crest of an eagle - and Daenerys wore the lion's skin nearly the same way.
Devoid of that lovely white blonde hair, and bald as an egg, the Targaryen Princess used the hrakkar's head - the white lion from the Dothraki Sea - as a hood whilst she used its pelt to serve as a cloak. Her dragon - the one in colour of cream-and-gold – used its sharp claws to perch upon the lion's head.
Not wanting to be parted from its mother, the dragon's tail coiled around the princess' arm securely.
Lion and Dragon.
He found it fitting somehow that the girl would garbed herself in a lion's skin and with a dragon by its side.
Would it give the girl courage perhaps as they ventured deeply into the desolate land?
…..
There was a small part in Daenerys who had expected to be consume when she had stepped into those flames.
Had there been another price she had paid, without her knowing, for surviving unscathed?
Other than being the blood of the dragon, was there something else that allowed her to live?
Daenerys couldn't help but think….
Unbeknownst to her, Death now followed her wake.
…..
The house with the red door was where he lived now.
But if he allowed himself, his consciousness to seep out - though not enough for the girl to become aware of him – he was able to understand what was transpiring outside.
Through her eyes, he was able to see.
Through her ears, he was able to listen.
But never, never was he able to do more than that.
He was the girl's captive.
And she wasn't even aware of it.
….
"We follow the comet," he heard the girl say to her khalasar.
So the people followed with nary a sound of protest… for the girl's word was law.
They called her the Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons.
Someone that brought them hope.
Hence, they traveled under the protection of the night, where the cold became their balm against the harsh glare of the sun and the sweltering heat during the day.
It was unwise to travel when the sun was up, or their water would run out fast due to the thirst brought about from the scorching heat. So they rest beneath their tents while the sun baked the ground outside until they could see heat rising from the red earth.
For him, however, travelling in the night became a torment.
He grew restless, more and more during the nights when the Targaryen Princess remained awake to lead her khalasar across the wilderness that stretched on miles on end, through leagues of sand and stone and red clay.
A restlessness that suddenly stopped when the first man died.
It was an old man, already weakened with old age, he was the first to fall.
And it seemed the man's death had appeased the writhing darkness inside him, a cloying darkness that he wanted to unleash.
It troubled him greatly.
But it didn't end with the old man.
No, it was only the beginning.
As the khalasar made a snail marched further and further into the barren wasteland, people and horses began to die out; one by one, or by twos, until it became more than five in a matter of three days.
They left a trail of dead bodies behind, of people that the two Khals had considered weak, whom they had left with Daenerys; the women, the children, the old, the sick and the cripple. The same went for the horses, they were slowly dying out to see their journey through the end.
But it seemed there was no end to it.
He could sense the fear, and the uncertainty that the Targaryen Princess felt when her people slowly grew less in numbers.
Still she pressed on, her back straight and her chin held high even when she too had loss the roundness on her face and grew gaunt as days passed by.
She remained steadfast, projecting the strength when her people couldn't find any within them.
…
Gradually, their stores of water and food ran out.
There was no rain and no game to be found.
The outriders that the princess sent ahead only found shallow, stagnant water.
Now, they ate the meat from their dead horses, forcing many to walk on their own feet where they too wasted away, succumb, and joined the others to ride into the night lands.
He still wondered if he had been the reason that the Targaryen Princess had chosen their current destination to traverse, or a higher power had sent the comet for Daenerys to lead many to die in the barren wasteland, and in turn fed the clawing darkness inside him.
He no longer knew.
He still didn't know what he truly was yet.
The only thing he understood, however, was that he became strong when people died.
….
Death followed death.
Weak children, wrinkled old women, the sick and the stupid and the heedless, the cruel land claimed them all.
Day followed night followed day.
As he and the three dragons grew in strength, the rest withered and died.
…..
Their prospects grew grimmer still.
And the Dothraki began to voice out their thoughts.
"Have the comet led us to our deaths? To hell?" They began to mutter in fright, their eyes fell upon the red, blazing comet that had been guiding them in their journey.
The Bleeding star indeed, where many had already lost their lives following it.
He sensed Daenerys' growing worry when they still hadn't encountered travelers along the way.
She sought Ser Jorah to asked him.
"Are we lost? Does this waste have no end to it?"
"It has an end," the knight answered wearily. "I have seen the maps the traders draw, my queen. Few caravans come this way, that is so, yet there are great kingdoms to the east, and cities full of wonders. Yi Ti, Qarth, Asshai by the Shadow..."
…
The girl's mounting despair was like a flood that washed over him, overwhelming and nearly drowning him.
He saw through her eyes as she searched the horizon.
The comet mocks my hopes.
He heard her think, almost in anguished.
Have I crossed half the world and seen the birth of dragons only to die with them in this hard hot desert?
He wanted to comfort her, assure her that she wasn't going to die and everything was going to be alright.
This girl that he had grown so very fond of in his time locked within her mind.
But he couldn't do anything, not while he was stuck there.
He wasn't even certain if he would be able to get out from there.
Though he knew that he had gotten stronger now.
The princess had lost the third of her Khalasar and those deaths had fed him until he felt the power within him grew.
Yet he remained there in the house with the red door.
Some part of him told him that he won't be able to escape from there under certain circumstance.
However, he could only hope that he would do so soon.
…..
The next day, the princess' outriders finally found a city up ahead.
"A city, Khaleesi," they cried. "A city pale as the moon and lovely as a maid. An hour's ride, no more."
Daenerys ordered them to go and see what manner of welcome they would receive from this unknown city.
The riders weren't gone for long.
Once more, the scouts came back with grim news.
"This city is dead, Khaleesi. Nameless and godless we found it, the gates broken, only wind and flies moving through the streets."
…..
A dead city and a dying khalasar.
It seemed death was everywhere wherever they went.
Had he cursed this people when he came to this world?
Had he brought them to their deaths because of his presence?
What was he really?
Was he the harbinger of death?
….
The Dothrakis were apparently afraid to stay in the city.
"When the gods are gone, the evil ghosts feast by night. Such places are best shunned. It is known."
Such places that Daenerys could use to provide shelter for the people who would surely die out there. Best not to ignore it, when there were also those walls to consider that would protect them from any possible attackers once they begin to sleep at night. (If such attackers were able to cross the waste and reach them.)
Daenerys led her khalasar to the city.
Despite the people's fear to enter it, they followed their Khaleesi.
….
Something good had come out from their exploration in the ruins.
The city wasn't truly dead after all.
The people found some vegetation, figs growing behind a collapsed wall, in corners of a cracked streets and deserted alleys, and fruit trees in secret gardens.
They also found clean water too.
….
Much later, he observed when the knight entered the Princess' tent and presented her something.
"I've brought you a peach," Ser Jorah said, kneeling.
He smiled in amusement at the man.
He knew what the knight felt for the Targaryen Princess. Only a blind man couldn't see the longing in the man's eyes every time they fell upon Daenerys.
Nonetheless, deep down, a tiny part of him bristled at the man's gall. Ser Jorah was old enough to be Daenerys' father.
...
"Fruit and water and shade,"
Daenerys said after she had savoured the peach.
"The gods were good to bring us to this place."
Yes, the Gods had been good to bring them there.
But they might have their own reason too.
…..
It seemed his wish to escape from the house with the red door had finally arrived.
When night fell, and as the princess closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, he suddenly found himself standing over her slumbering form.
In what appeared to be a body of his own.
Outside and free at last.
The princess' handmaidens, who lay beside her, were half-asleep.
So when he appeared, he saw one of them – Irri - gave a start, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open as if to scream, like she was seeing a ghost that she had been telling Daenerys earlier that day.
Not wanting to wake the Targaryen Princess, he moved and was gone from the tent.
He didn't know how he did it but next thing he knew, he appeared outside the city gates.
He had only wished to be far and had imagined the gates.
Then, he was there.
...
For a while, he stood there, somewhat astonish.
Are these my powers? To travel from one place to another in a blink of an eye? He silently wondered.
To test if he could do it without the moment of panic of being discovered, he tried it again.
He visualized the place somewhere ahead of him.
He concentrated and wished to be there.
And then he was.
Somehow he had expected there to be a sound like a CRACK. He knew that there should be, but he appeared in silence, moving like a shadow in the night.
...
Another minute had elapsed, he stood there, contemplating what to do next.
He truly had no knowledge of how he came to be in that world.
He couldn't remember anything at all from his past.
The only thing he recalled was a voice telling that it was time and he vaguely sensed that he had been waiting there for a long, long while.
He decided to visit the place where it all began, where he had appeared, and when the comet had blazed the brightest.
He needed to go back to the place where Daenerys had burnt her husband in a funeral pyre.
Was it possible to travel that far? He speculated.
There's only one way to find out.
And with that, he thought of the place where he wanted to go and willed himself to appear there.
This time, he sensed a change when he traveled, it felt like he was slipping into a cold, dark abyss right before he appeared again in his destination a moment later.
He arrived at the same scorched ground where he remembered waking up the first time.
He also realized that he had appeared in front of three Dothraki warriors who had set up a camp there.
Immediately, they jumped to their feet, shouting in surprise and screaming their usual war cries. The sharp sounds of their arakhs being drawn out rang in the night.
He could almost feel its deadly sharpness as their blades cut through the wind.
However, after one looked at him had the three warriors freezing at once.
He could only wonder what he must looked like to them.
He hadn't actually seen himself in a mirror to know enough what made these three warriors appeared almost like they were ready to bolt out of there.
Then, he felt it.
The writhing darkness that he was able to control while he had been inside Daenerys' mind during the nights.
Now, however, he was no longer held by a mental cage.
And the darkness that he feared that would consume him, crept to the surface and wrapped itself around him.
There was now a hunger in him that wasn't there before.
He was certain that he hadn't been a man to desire violence and death on someone. Yet there he was, the first one to lash out at the three Dothraki warriors, who must had been sent to follow Daenerys' trail and the Khalasar she led.
He vowed that they would be gone before they could even take a step forward in the Princess' direction.
Like a fleeting shadow, he moved.
The three Dothraki warriors let out war cries and raised their arakhs, ready to meet him in battle.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author's Note: Thank you so much for reviewing, favoriting and following this story. I would like to thank toile grant, Manaliac, saashi samy, Annamonk, faymay, itachisgurl93, lightwalnut62 and Guests reviews. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and review!
Words written in bold and italics are quotes from the books if you noticed it. In fact, I did plenty of tweaking to fit this chapter to what really occurred in the canon. So I'm using Daenerys' POV from the book as a reference to the sequence of events that followed.
