She tried to visit Drogon and Rhaegal, each night before she retired to her chambers. The dragons slept in the Godswood, where the ancient trees encircled the yard—so dense that even the cold winds of a winter the Starks had always known was coming—could not reach them.

If ever the nightmares broke through the shallow surface of her consciousness, Dany knew to seek them out, winding her way down flights of spiral stairs and unlit corridors. The hammering drumbeat of her troubled heart led the way.

The pair brought a calming warmth back into her bones. She could watch them for hours, curled up against one another for mutual heat. They reminded her of stable cats, innocent and content, nestled together in the hay.

The northerners feared them, distrusted them much as they distrusted the Dragon Queen whose legacy they carried on the leathery spans of their wings. And the army she'd brought, from over the sea. It mattered little that they'd fought alongside the armies of the north to end the Long Night. It mattered not at all, that Dany herself had crested an icy wave of terror, to face down the King of Night.

Whenever she remembered the way his pale, unnerving eyes had paralyzed her, she thought of the first time she'd watched a storm madden the waves on the sea. She'd felt so similarly powerless. She'd feared for her own life. And the lives of her people.

~

Drogon stretched his neck out with a dramatic sigh that made the leaves of the great weir-wood tree tremor like harp strings. Reminding her not to lose herself in the waking nightmare of the past. She relaxed her tense shoulders gratefully. The dragon's yellow eyes watched her, half-open. Half-closed.

Dany smiled, though whether the gesture ever reached her eyes, she wasn't certain.

Her children had despised the north, at first. Now they'd grown accustomed to the wind and snow. More so even than Dany herself. They were conquerors, she realized with a shiver. Wherever they landed, they were quick to settle.

Whether or not the natives welcomed them with open arms.

"How could anyone not see how beautiful you are?" She wondered aloud, the sadness in her tone surprising even her.

Rhaegal cocked his head to the side, almost like a puppy. He struck a gentle, quavering note, deep in the hollow of his throat. She skimmed her fingertips down the side of his neck, admiring the seamless ripple of emerald and gold scales, as he leaned into her touch.

She remembered how she'd fought them, once. How she'd chained them away, for burning a child. An innocent child.

It was like fighting the fire within herself.

She wondered what that child might have been, had he not met his fate prematurely from an adolescent Drogon. She recalled how she'd confronted the dragon, and for the first time since he'd hatched in the fire of her own rebirth, she'd felt genuine fear. She'd been afraid he would hurt her, maddened by captivity.

Instead he'd simply roared down over her small frame. She'd steadied him with her gaze. She'd gentled them both, and their brother as well, with her own willpower.

Drogon cast his serene yellow gaze down at her now, less hostile than her memories would lead her to believe.

Fire cannot kill a dragon.

Captivity, on the other hand, certainly could.

~