AN: Being a huge fan of self-insert (SI) stories and those that alter certain characters to make them less obviously stupid, I had begun to wonder what I was missing. There were great Jon Snow SIs, some for the other Starks, some for Stannis or Tywin or others, but rarely have I seen anyone replace Daenerys. I agree that her storyline, for many seasons, needs very little improvement – although her character is flawed, it's not painfully stupid, and her mistakes make sense. Also, she celebrates some decisive victories and has a believable story arc, so perhaps few people saw the necessity to make a Daenerys SI. Neither did I, truly. Then the last seasons came, and just like many other previously three-dimensional characters, Daenerys was butchered to fit into the role she was assigned. Not wishing to start another of those discussions about the ending, I decided I would fill the void the last seasons left in my reader's heart myself. Just like those other stories that try to fix broken plot points and also make their character succeed just a little more (wishful thinking, I know, but the kind of poultice I need applied to the wounds of the last seasons), this is my such story. It consists of 10 chapters, each showing either a scene from my alternative Daenerys's past or from the time when she finally sets foot onto Westerosi soil. These chapters will mostly create an alternate version of season 6 of the TV show, while the flash-back chapters show scenes from various previous seasons. They will reveal the changes I have made to canon over time.
This is the "Queen that was Promised", then. I will not call it a SI for the persona I am going to blend with Daenerys is not my own. This is a work of fiction, and I the author am not the characters. Therefore, I also decided against a first person narrator. That being said, I hope those of you who feel somewhat likewise can follow me on this dragon-back joyride in which a slightly different Daenerys sets out to actually save the world. With Fire and Blood!
A Saviour From Above
The air was painstakingly cold, like a torrent of whiteness howling around the heads of the men standing in the middle of nowhere. They had gathered at the orders of their commander and now stood there, ice in their beards and hollows in their bellies, looking at each other with unease. There were hundreds of them, yet barely a sound could be heard. No one spoke, few even dared to breathe audibly. Most just lowered their heads trying to come to terms with what they were about to witness. All of them were afraid to look into each other's eyes for fear of what they might see – or that they might not see anything at all, no disgust, no anger, no opposition. Deep in their guts, the men of Stannis Baratheon's army knew what was about to happen was wrong. But it was also their only hope. They felt torn, beaten, hungry and helpless.
They certainly looked like helpless tiny dark specks in a pale and vast sea of nothingness from above.
Footsteps in the snow broke the silence, occasionally interspersed with the clicking of metal gauntlets or armour parts. And among the heavily armed soldiers giving off those sounds, a girl walked. As she approached, the men drew closer, no longer able to keep their eyes off the scene. They understood the path she walked down upon, but her wide doe-like eyes betrayed the fact that she had not realized it. Not yet.
Then the men stepped away, opening up the pathway towards the pyre. Some expected the girl to react then, to speak of the sudden realization that dawned upon her, but to their silent horror, she remained calm. It was only when the red woman stepped onto the scene that the girl halted her own steps and frowned.
"Where's my father?" she demanded. "I want to see my father."
The red woman, her hands crossed in front of her, half shook her head. "It will all be over soon, princess," she replied, appearing to sound kind.
The girl was having none of it. She shook her head, she stumbled backwards, but before she could even voice her thoughts, two soldiers grabbed her by the arms. As she started to cry, the other men looked on. Quietly. Breathlessly. Unbelieving.
"Where's my father? No, you can't do this! Father, where are you? Please!" The girl's voice was turning into a panicked sob. "Let me see my father! Father, where are you? Don't let them do this!"
She didn't see him, obviously, but he saw her. Both Stannis Baratheon and his wife Selyse stepped forward to look at their daughter. Their only child. She was the one disfigured by greyscale, yet it was their faces that had turned to stone now.
"It's what the Lord wants," her mother mumbled. "It's a good thing." It sounded like a question.
Her husband did not speak a word.
But the red woman did. Staring intently at the crying girl, she raised her voice and turned, as if speaking to the crowd of onlookers. "Hear us now, my Lord, to you we offer up this girl, so that you may cleanse her with your fire and that its light may lead our way."
"If we didn't… we would all starve here," the girl's mother told herself, "but if we make this sacrifice…"
"Accept this token of our faith, my Lord, and lead us from the darkness," the red woman went on, grabbing a torch and stepping closer. "Lord of Light, show us the way!"
The girl, now bound to the stake, put all her strength forward to pull on the ropes binding her, all the while pleading with her mother to save her.
Selyse mumbled something under her breath, more to herself than to anyone else. Stannis just hardened his heart, hardened his face for what was about to come. The red woman's eyes lit up as the fire of her torch reflected in them.
Then a roaring sound broke the eerie chill of the winter winds around them. As if the thunders of the sky had all come crashing down upon them, as if the earth had been ripped open in a yawning sound, as if the monsters spoken about in the legends of old had come back to life, a deafening noise brought everyone's thoughts to a halt.
Darkness shot through the sky above them, making them flinch and raise their shields, not even beginning to understand what was happening. All they knew was that something hit the earth, and hit it hard, for the ripples it created made their legs, already shaking from what they had just witnessed, tremble even more. Heads began to turn in unspoken questions, but no one dared to move more than their shields or swords. Not even the red woman, flaming torch still in her hand, seemed to be willing to act.
Or perhaps she was just the first to see.
See the darkness that emerged from the white storm around their camp. See the scales, black like obsidian with a shimmer of crimson blood. See the wings unfold, large and leathery and wide as the sails of a ship. See the teeth, long and white and shimmering inside the wide open mouth of a monster. A beast.
"A dragon," someone said.
"Zaldrizes," the red woman whispered.
The girl, still whimpering for her mother, had ceased pulling on her ropes. To her it seemed the red woman had forgotten about her, for whatever reason, and she wasn't willing to remind her of her original plan. She only wished she was able to turn her head… for then she would have seen them.
Two shapes approached from whence the monstrous dragon had landed, slowly but without hesitation or fear. One of them, a tall knight, was clad in shining armour and a cloak of white so fine, he almost seemed to blend in with the snowy craze around him. The other, a woman, was plain to see for everyone in her pitch-black armour. The engraving on her chest showing a three-headed dragon led many men to believe they were being haunted by the ghost of Visenya Targaryen.
They were not too far from the truth.
"What is this about?" Selyse Baratheon asked her husband quietly, but frantically nonetheless. "Is this a sign?"
The approaching knight took off his helmet. Stannis drew closer, not even looking at his wife, but speaking – whether to her or himself, it would never be known.
"This is impossible," he muttered.
The white knight's voice was warm like a golden late summer's day, and it found a way directly into the hearts of the men listening so closely they did not even dare to breathe.
"You have the honour of being in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Queen of Dragon's Bay, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons, the Breaker of Chains."
As his words ebbed away, ghostly silence followed, as did the armoured woman who so closely seemed to resemble the stories of old. Her silvery hair, cautiously braided, gave her away far better than any crown could ever have. The blood of Old Valyria was strong in her, everyone could see it.
"Thank you, Ser Barristan. Now please, go and get the lady," she said, and her voice sounded as if it came from a strange dream.
The white knight did as he was bid, and as his heavy boots drew closer, not one of the guards close to the pyre seemed to muster the courage to interfere. None of the other soldiers dared speak a word, nor did Stannis or his wife. They seemed to be in daze from which it was hard to wake. The red woman, however, torch still in her hand, found her courage before the knight had reached the pyre.
"Forgive me, Your Grace, but I must insist your man back down. While it may seem an injustice to the unseeing eye, what we have gathered here to witness is the Lord's will. It is a holy ceremony. The Lord of Light is looking upon us," she said calmly.
The knight didn't desist. He stepped onto the pyre as if he had not even heard the red woman, but the fact that he looked down upon her made it clear that he had.
"Help me, please! Please, I want to see my father," the girl sobbed.
The red woman did not even look at her, instead facing the warrior queen approaching her. "Your Grace, surely this is a misunderstanding. Allow me to proceed, and you will see it is for the best. Death by fire is the purest death."
The armoured queen was close now, her blood-red coat swirling in the howling wind. She looked around the gasping people as if singling out each and every one of them before turning her gaze towards the red woman.
"Melisandre of Asshai, it appears we have a misunderstanding indeed. Allow me," she mimicked the other woman's tone, "to clarify my position. If anyone here feels as you do, if anyone wishes to offer up this girl as a sacrifice, he is welcome to do so, provided he can take her from Ser Barristan."
With that, the old knight drew his sword, unsheathing the marvellous onyx glow that only Valyrian blades could boast of.
"He is but one man, but one of the greatest swordsmen in living memory. Barristan the Bold… a legend, some say. You may feel free to approach… at your own peril," the queen went on.
"Please, please, help me!" the girl cried.
The light on the red woman's torch flickered like a maniacal dancer. Yet, nothing else moved when Ser Barristan's blade cut the ropes binding Shireen Baratheon, and no one even uttered so much as a word when he opened up his arms and put his white cloak around the little one's shoulders. Only when he began to walk away with her, away from the pyre that would have been her death, away from the red woman who saw her as a means to an end, away from the parents who had been willing to sacrifice it all – only then did someone speak.
"No." It was Selyse Baratheon. She turned to her husband. "What is she doing? My daughter, our daughter, she is… Do not let her…"
She stumbled forward, but her husband held her back with a strong movement of his arms, his gaze still fixated on the Targaryen queen and her yawning monster of a dragon.
"My daughter," Selyse whimpered. But no one heard her. "Shireen…"
"Cousin Shireen, it is a pleasure to meet you," the dragon queen said, for no one's ears but that of Ser Barristan and the frightened little girl in his arm. "Though I would have wished for our first encounter to take place in more pleasant circumstances, my greatest desire is for you to know how much I look forward to getting to know you. We will have much to speak of in the days to come. But now… I take it you got into these… predicaments… because you wished to help, is that true?"
The greyscaled girl looked up at the woman who called her cousin, her body still shaking, but without too much of a doubt, she nodded.
"Good," Daenerys Targaryen smiled. "You can help me. Would you please stay here for a while and take care of my dragon while I speak to your father? It would greatly ease my mind to know he was in good hands."
A brief moment of silence followed.
"My father, will you hurt him?"
The queen shook her head slowly. "I have no such intentions. But we must speak, and urgently so. Will you take care of my dragon while I am away?" She pointed towards the scaled figure behind her, whose crimson eye stared back at the little girl.
Shireen inhaled the icy air, eyeballing the massive creature. Then she looked at the dragon queen again, whose smile seemed eerily reassuring.
"Is it safe?"
"For you, it is," Daenerys promised. "You are a lady of House Baratheon, you have dragon's blood. You are blood of my blood, Shireen Baratheon, and dragons know their kin. I have told him about you. Go ahead, he means you no harm. Go. He has been waiting to meet you."
She nodded once more, twice, but finally the girl returned the gesture, and with a hand cautiously put forward, Shireen approached the dragon. Her heart trembled with fear as she came closer, watching the giant torso expand with every fiery breath. Her fingers were shaking, but only until they touched the dark scales for the first time. The dragon's red eye turned around and looked at her, but Shireen felt no fear. None at all. She looked him in the eye and understood.
There truly was power in her blood…
The dragon queen smiled, exchanging a small glance with her loyal queensguard, before turning around and once more making her way towards the pyre.
By now, the well-armoured knights of the Baratheon army had gathered their wits again, and so had Stannis Baratheon. They formed a closed front when the dragon queen and her legendary bodyguard approached, but only Stannis appeared to be unafflicted by what they had just born witness to.
Daenerys stopped. A cold breeze made the tips of her hair dance in the wind. Her eyes met his. He did not flinch from her gaze. Somewhere, the red woman's torch still made cracking noises.
"Stannis Baratheon, I would speak to you on matters most urgent. Given the unfriendly weather conditions, I would prefer we withdrew to your tent, yet I am aware of the fact that your current predicament forbids you from sharing bread and salt with me, as custom dictates. Therefore, in the face of painfully cold winds, allow me to break tradition and offer you bread and salt myself."
Ser Barristan extended his arm, offering up a bundle wrapped in cloth. Someone took it and handed it to Stannis, who needed but a short glance to see she was speaking true. It was bread. Real bread.
"While I am aware this can be but a gesture unfit to fill the stomachs or your starving soldiers, rest assured that more of this is on its way. Tell your men to look east, for it cannot be long until my men arrive, and they will bring with them enough provisions so no man here must suffer any longer. I hope you accept, Lord Stannis."
Her words spread like wildfire among the men, and felt almost as warm to them. But not everyone was pleased.
"You stand in the presence of the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms, and you will address him as such," Selyse insisted.
Daenerys smiled at her, warmly. "The matter of kingship is an issue best discussed with a fire close by, do you not think?"
To many men's surprise, Stannis almost seemed like he was about to nod, but the red woman's voice was faster.
"He is the Prince that was promised. It is the Lord's will that he should reign, for he will bring about the dawn."
The dragon queen turned her head to the red woman, slowly, ever so slowly, and she smiled again. This time, her smile was as cold as the air around them.
"If I required the council of someone who has never fully mastered the arts of reading the flames, I would let you know, red priestess. Yet right now, all I require is to speak to my kinsman in peace, and your persistence is keeping me from it. So I would advise you to hold your tongue. I would hate for you to die today, for we both know the Lord still has a role for you to play, yet and still, for the sake of calmness, I might consider allowing my dragon to do as he wills. Death by fire is the purest death after all, you say. I wonder what that means for death by dragonfire?"
Violet eyes locked with red ones. Everyone held their breath.
"I accept," said Stannis, suddenly. Selyse looked at him with quiet disbelief.
Daenerys turned towards him again, smiling once more. "I am glad for it."
"Would you please follow me, then? We may speak in my tent… Queen Daenerys."
AN: Next update on Thursday, April 1st (no April Fool's joke). See you, and please leave feedback!