Hi there! And now a bit of Dark Daenerys for you!
"When Daenerys opened her eyes again to the world, she wondered for a second why had he done that. Jon Snow. Her lover, her nephew, her family. Why did he kill her? Well, a few months later, as she advanced on Slaver´s Bay again with her Unsullied and freedmen, she guessed it didn´t matter anymore. He was doomed. As Westeros was, once she flew back there on dragonback. Or maybe not. She didn´t want to sink to the same level as her kinslaying nephew.
"Why are we here again, my queen?" asked her loyal Grey Worm, uneasy. She couldn´t really blame him, as her ancestral land was not the safest of zones even with the extra protection of Drogon, but she had to come here. Before taking her path of conquest again, she needed to step on the same soil that saw her family born.
"To get all the equipment we need" she said, seeing how her men sacked the ancient town, unburrying hundredths of artefacts. Valyrian steel, armour, statues, jewellery… everything she would need to launch her campaign again. And better. "Follow me" she ordered her commander, walking away from the group. "According to the registries on Dragonstone, the Targaryen state in Valyria was… around here."
"Did you do all this to find your ancient home, your Grace?"
"No, but I wanted to visit it" she explained, entering through a window she managed to find. Grey Worm went behind her, finding himself in a manor worthy of a noble House. A minor one, of course, but a noble House. "I heard that Daenys the Dreamer had a diary of her prophecies before writing her book. It is said that when she and her family fled Valyria, she hid it in her home… for the heiress."
"You believe you are that heiress"
"Who else? Aegon?" she said with a bit of spit, anger flowing inside of her as she mentioned Jon Snow´s real name. "Go there, I will search in the family wing. Reunite with me in an hour. And if you find something else…"
"Be careful, my queen" said the eunuch, reticent to part with her even for a few seconds. "Drogon burn most of the stone men, but there could be more. You know what the grey plague can do."
"I know" she answered, remembering Ser Jorah, her poor bear knight, who got infected with the deadly disease. "Meet me here in an hour, not a second later, Torgho Nudho."
"Yes, my queen" they parted ways. Daenerys took the route towards what seemed to be the family room. She soon found herself in a room decorated for a young maiden, full of floral paintings in the walls and vases with red dragons. The girl opened the wardrobe, which turned out to be empty but for a single female battle armour Dany´s size. She soon found herself donning the armour, looking at herself in the broken mirror. A mirror a bit bigger than herself, which could mean the previous owner was a little bit bigger than…
"Daenys the Dreamer" she muttered, pushing the mirror aside and started putting the room upside down. She found some ancient rune books, some jewellery with the Targaryen symbol and a hairbrush. The queen was about to give up and search in another room when she accidentally knocked a big vase, which revealed a fake wall. She picked up the vase and started taking it down, revealing a chest hidden inside.
"Your Grace?" Grey Worm appeared on the door of the room, looking at his queen while she threw the vase away. He was about to ask what she was doing when he noticed the chest. He helped her dragging it out of the hole. "The men gave the alarm, we need to leave right now" the Unsullied looked at the collection of items the queen managed to collect. "Is this all"
"Wait" Daenerys went back to collect one last little chest that caught her attention since she entered the room. The key was in the keyhole, so she was a little tempted to open it there, but she didn´t want to risk her men´s safety anymore, so she just took it and went back with her commander.
Drogon was in the middle of the ring of men when she arrived, burning more and more stone men who dared to approach him. the smell of their burning skin was so disgusting that she felt nauseous, so she ran towards her son and climb on his back. Giving her followers the order to return to the ship, she took off to finish off these poor souls.
Once everyone was safe, the queen got off her dragon in the ship, wanting to analyse her treasure. The Unsullied presented her with hundredths of precious jewels, thousands of swords and daggers, even six dragon eggs, which she caressed with love. Nothing could replace the two sons she lost, but she wasn´t against more children. Then came the turn of the treasures rescued from her ancestral home, which Grey Worm took to her with some reverence. A red priest from the Temple of Volantis, Kinvara, stood by her side as one of her advisors. It was fair, as she was the one that resurrected the queen.
"R´hollor is pleased with your achievement, my queen. I have seen in the flames that you have successfully retrieved all the instruments needed for House Targaryen´s restoration and future."
"We will see that" she opened the bigger chest first, finding the diary of the Dreamer, a crown and a circlet of valyrian steel and red jewels, a sword and several items more, but what really caught her attention was a little key with a handle who pictured a dragon on a side and a wolf on another. "Curious" Daenerys said while handing the book to Kinvara. "Wonder why something allusive to Jon Snow was left here by Daenys."
"Maybe she saw him too" Grey Worm answered, a little bit worried. His queen gave him a careful look, inspecting the other items.
"Oh, she definitely saw him in your future, your Grace" Kinvara intervened in that moment, holding the book open over her lap. Daenerys wanted to burn her for that, but the priestess shook her head. "Listen:
Hear me, my descendant, the Unburnt Queen
A curse of barren womb the magic of your blood might lift
New life to our own and prosperity it will bring
When dragon and dragon finally again meet"
"Of all the absurd prophecies in the world…" Daenerys laughed like a madwoman, knowing exactly what it meant. Jon Snow, damn Jon Snow again, the only man who could give her human children. She needed him, she needed him alive, damn all the gods, to bring new life to her House. It was not that she hadn´t enjoyed his ministrations and attentions, because, hell, she did, but her mopey nephew had murdered her. And she had to let him live? He was a fucking danger! If he managed to bond to a dragon as he did his direwolf… her attention came back to the other chest the Dreamer left behind. She opened it, finding some very elaborated shackles of valyrian steel with dragons and wolves engraved into them.
"I have heard of this" Kinvara suddenly looked exited, seeing the things as Daenerys lifted them. The queen felt a little bit of repulsion at them, they were so much like the ones slaves of the Ghiscari would wear before she freed them… but if they were reserved for Jon Snow, a kinslayer traitor, she was willing to tolerate them. "Valyrians used to put them on rebel dragonriders. It was said that it cut down their magic."
"Are you sure?" Dany continue to analyse them.
"Well, the ones I saw in the magic book was different, but I guess these were specially made for a dragonrider and warg" she chuckled. "It appears Daenys left you everything to subjugate and conquer."
"The Dreamer was indeed very specific… in both items and prophecy" Daenerys looked at the Red Priestess again. "Anything else she left?"
"Here:
Look beyond the shinning diamond of Bran
In the Haunted Forest where the haunted wolf lurks
Blind the Raven, burn his ancient eyes
Do it quickly before the pack came by"
"Humm" the Haunted Forest. She had once heard her former lover talk about it. It was a place Beyond the Wall, where a grove of weirwood trees grew and the Free Folk hunt. The place was close enough to Hardhome too, the place where the massacre of the wildlings occurred the previous War of the Dawn. "It seems that my dear nephew has gone to hide in the North again, among his friends the wildlings" she commented, proving the little key on the shackles. Perfect fit. "No matter, I will find him anyway."
"Your Grace…"
"Torgho Nudho, tell the men we will alter the course. We will disembark in Eastwatch by the Sea."
"Your Grace…"
"I said we are hunting a runaway dragonwolf" Daenerys said firmly, imagining those cuffs closing around her nephew´s wrists. It was surely going to be a sign to behold. And then… then she had all the time in the world to torture him for what he did to her. She nearly licked her lips when she pictured his hopeless expression…
"Your Grace, perhaps we should focus on the Starks first" the Unsullied finally managed to say, after delivering the order to head to Eastwatch. "We are, after all, directing ourselves towards the Usurper Sansa Stark´s territory and…"
"No… for now" the queen said. "For now, focuss on the wildlings and my nephew" she raised a fist. "After all, I want Aegon to be there when I defeat his precious North. I want to see his expression as I reduce the cousins he valued as siblings to charcoal and rain fire over the Godswoods. I want him to see my Wrath."
"As you wish, your Grace" Grey Worm accepted. He also wanted to see that, it would serve the traitorous bastard right for murdering his queen.
-In the Haunted Forest-
"Ghost! Ghost, are you there?!" Jon Snow called while searching for his best friend. He had gone a little bit away from the hunting party, something he usually didn´t do but had to because his direwolf went running away. He continued searching, getting more and more isolated until he finally found the animal. It was struggling with a net that kept him in place. A net clearly placed there by humans.
At first, Jon became confused. The Free Folk had enough respect for him to know the former Lord Commander of the Night´s Watch, his pet too. His wolf was out of limits, if he get caught in a trap, the hunter himself has to free him… but that was not happening. No, the albino was left in there on purpose. Jon unsheathed his sword, entering the clearing carefully. Nothing happened, but the frantic attitude of the animal as he approached him was worrisome.
It happened fast as a lightning. As soon as he was close enough to cut the net with Longclaw, men with spears jumped on him. He defended himself and the direwolf as best as he could, but the mastery of arms of the strangers was incredibly. It didn´t take long for them to knock the sword out of his hands and subjugate him. one of them stood right in front of him, so he raised his eyes to see who was going to end him.
"Grey Worm" he recognized. So he was going to be the one to murder him. An avenger to Daenerys. Well, it beat Bran and Sansa´s hired knives. "Are you going to kill me?"
"I want to, but someone wants to see you" the Unsullied made a sign and he was dragged away from his canine friend, towards the sea. There, a great shadow covered the sun for a few minutes, making the northerner go cold. "Drogon" he whispered, waiting for the soldiers to leave him alone and at the dragon´s mercy. But then he saw it. The person ridding the dragon, her long silver hair failing over her dark valyrian armour. "Dany"
"Your Grace for you. You lost your right to call me that a long time ago" she said, dismounting. The girl out her hands on her hips, examining him with critical eye. He looked more savage than before, more… unkempt. That wouldn´t do it, she thought with a flick of her tongue. "You don´t look surprised."
"Should I?" he asked. She had forgotten he had also returned from the death.
"Maybe not" the man took another peek at her dragon, who was peering at him in curiosity. "Are you wondering if he is going to kill you?"
"Is that even a question?"
"Oh, no, dear nephew, you are not going to die. Neither Drogon nor I am kinslayer" the like you was left without saying, torturing Jon. "Besides, I need you" she continued. "You see, the magic in our blood… is a very fragile thing. Easy to lose if we marry just anyone. That´s why our ancestors marry between the family" Drogon exhaled a tuff of smoke when she said that. "A tradition that must… unfortunately… continue."
"No" Jon said, refusing to look at her. "It´s a sin. Incest is…" a slap silenced him.
"I´m not asking permission" Daenerys raised her hand, stained with blood from the open cut she made on her nephew´s cheek. She was wearing armour, so it wasn´t strange that she managed to hurt him that way despite their difference of strength. "Targaryens don´t ask permission from men or gods, we impose. I impose. And you, Aegon, owe me, so I don´t need your permission."
"Then what?" he asked with a little bit of rebellion in his voice. The queen smiled, she has been waiting for that. "You think I´m not going to fight that? Execute me, Daenerys, because I´m not doing this. Use Grey Worm if you don´t want to have my blood in your hands, just do it and be done with this."
"As I said, I am not a kinslayer. And you are a necessary evil"
"And how do you want to keep me contained?" he continued, wanting this to be over with. To taste the fire and be released from this world. "You know I´m a warg, also that I have the blood of the dragon…"
"I´m glad you asked. Grey Worm, hold the prince down and expose his hands" the Unsullied pushed Jon into his knees, making other two held his hands in front of the Queen. For a second, he believed his aunt was going to cut them, to cripple him to make him easier to manage, but that was not what she had in mind. She held out a set of elaborate cuffs in front of him before closing them around his wrists. In an instant, Jon Snow´s world took a turn and he started to feel weak. Weaker than any other moment in his life, as if his strength was sucked in by the cuffs. "And… how do you feel?"
"I… I feel weak. And Ghost…" gods, his poor direwolf, where was he? He couldn´t reach him with his mind. "I can´t feel him" he said, a little bit nauseated, looking straight at her in the eyes. "What? What did you do to me?"
"Daenys surely knew what she was doing" the woman felt victorious now. "This cuffs are a modifications of the ones our Valyrian ancestors used to subjugate rouge dragonriders. This pair were specially made so they also work on wargs" she tugged on the chains attached to the cuffs, easily sending him to the ground. "How are you going to refuse me now?"
"Somehow…" Daenerys raised an eyebrow before dragging her reluctant nephew to the dragon. Chained to her seat, he flew with her into the sky until it was late and they couldn´t be seen from the earth. Then she directed them to Winterfell, ordering Drogon to light fire to the Heart Tree. "NO!" he screamed when he saw the sacred tree become charcoal, which caused a smile of pleasure in Daenerys. "No…"
"I forgot you followed the Old Gods" she said, sardonically. "But well, I think we have a perfectly good Godswood in King´s Landing to celebrate our wedding. No, Aegon?"
-A year and a half later-
"I proclaim you Daenerys of House Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhyonar and the First men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm!" the High Septon finished with the ceremony, placing the crown of Valyrian steel Daenerys brought from Daenys the Dreamer´s chambers. She presented herself in front of the crowd of Followers of the Seven before heading to the new Temple of R´hollor, to have her coronation in front of the Lord of the Light´s Followers, Grey Worm behind her holding her nephew´s chains, practically dragging him to see her triumph.
"And to seal my coronation, let the traitors be consumed by the purifying flame of the dragon!" she announced as Drogon descended over a pyre where Brandon Stark, his Small Council and his sister Sansa were put, along with the dragon eggs. She looked at Aegon for a second, who seemed about to be sick as she shouted Dracarys and her son lighted the pyre on fire.
Jon stared at the pyre that was consuming nearly all the family he had left along with some friends, not knowing when the bloodcurdling scream left his throat. A scream that mixed with the ones Brienne, Davos, Sam, Tyrion, Bran and Sansa were emitting as they were slowly burning by dragonfire. Near him, Sansa´s only son and heir, young Eddard Stark, watched as his mother was consumed in the most horrible way with an expression of terror in his face. Jon stared at him, praying to the Old Gods to guard him and Arya, to guard House Stark…
"The Queen ordered you to see" Grey Worm said, forcing him to look as his loved ones screamed in terrible pain, as their lives were taken slowly and the crowd cheered at the Usurper´s death. Then he did the most unmanly thing in his life… he fainted. He felt to the ground completely unconscious, barely being caught by the Unsullied as he hit the floor. Daenerys glared at him in disdain. What a Targaryen he was! Missing the birth of new dragons! And weren´t they the most incredibly sight ever? A sight of her triumph.
-The next day-
"Wake up" Grey Worm told him as Jon finally returned to the world of the living the morning after the gruesome coronation. He touched his head with his hands, feeling the cold of the cuffs against his skin, something he still hasn´t gotten used to despite the time he has been on them. Some servants entered the room, bowing to him as they filled a bathtub with hot water. "You need to change and dress."
"Why?" he asked, trying to remember something that help him understand what was happening there.
"Your wedding, you need to prepare for it" the boy looked at him without understanding. "The Queen publicly announced your betrothal yesterday, signalling today as the day of the wedding" Jon didn´t feel good enough to get out of bed that day, let alone get married, but he didn´t have a choice. "Your seven namedays old cousin, Eddard Stark, is waiting for you at the sept."
"I know" Jon said as he removed his clothes. He got on the bath, wondering if he should try to escape. He deserved a worse fate than this as a kinslayer and oathbreaker, Bran and Sansa perhaps did because of their usurping of Daenerys… but little Eddard would pay for it then and he couldn´t allow that. He was innocent.
When he got out of the bathtub, there were a bunch of clothes waiting for him. Without asking, he started to get dressed… until he found out what the last one of them was. A Maiden cloak. He stopped when he saw it. Of course, typical of Daenerys. She wanted to show her superiority by cloaking him. and he didn´t have a way to avoid it, least he wanted her to murder an innocent. So he put it on and allowed it to happen. The wedding by the Seven, the one by the Old Gods below a burn weirwood and the one by the Red God.
"It was very tiresome, wasn´t it, nephew?" Daenerys said as she undressed herself, revealing her beautiful naked skin. Jon just waited, sitting down on the bed. "What are you waiting for? Get undressed" he did. "What? Am I not enticing to you anymore?"
"Promise me that you are going to allow Eddard to return North after this is sealed"
"But of course, how else could he be my Warden of the North?" she answered sweetly, enjoying to see his reticence. "Come here, you know what to do in a wedding night. You showed me enough times in that boat" he shuddered, remembering it. "Are you going to come or do I have to call Grey Worm to tie you up?"
"No" he answered, advancing on her and closing his eyes.
-Years later-
"The Others had those horrible glowing blue eyes, something so haunting and malicious that you could never forget" Jon said, telling the young fourteen namedays old girl who was sitting in front of him the tale of the Long Night. Lyanna Targaryen was her fourth child and second daughter. The fourth out of five… the only one that visited him. also the only one that apparently looked like him. He wouldn´t know, not really, because his wife refused to let him see the children they made together. "And when they come, with them comes a freezing that you could think will slip into your soul and bring you death."
"Have you seen them?" she asked, enthusiastically. When she first arrived into the forbidden section of the Maidenvault, she wasn´t sure what she was going to find in there. Or who he was, when she actually found him. She only knew that he looked like her and was nicer than most people in the court, who just mentioned her lack of obvious Targaryen features. But, after a few meetings, she was sure. He was her father… and she liked him much more than her mother or siblings.
"Many times, I even killed one" Jon said and was going to add something else, when he heard steps in the hallway. "You have to leave now"
"But…"
"Daenerys can´t find you here, you know why" he hurried her, looking at the door with anxiety. Lyanna pouted, but left through her secret passage, thanking the gods she was wearing breeches and not those horrible dresses her mother wanted her to wear. Once outside of the Maidenvault she ran to her room, where she changed for court. Yes, court was being held and she was late. The princess ran towards the Throne Room… in time to hear her mother announcing her betrothal to Maron Martell, future prince of Dorne.
The fight that followed that between mother and daughter was like a new Dance of Dragons. Daenerys believed that it will assure her least beautiful daughter a future, while Lyanna didn´t care about that. The man she was pledged to marry was a whore, even more than his mother, and she wasn´t going to stand that. Not now nor ever. In the end, the queen simply ordered her to do her duty, a great mistake. Just like with her namesake and grandmother, it spelled disaster.
"Come!" Lyanna told her father as she irrupted into the Maidenvault. Jon looked at her in surprise as his brazen daughter practically dragged him out into the gardens. "Let´s escape together. Let´s go to your North to see the snows, Winterfell and beyond the wall. Let´s see everything!"
"Lyanna, we can´t…" the princess gritted her teeth. She was done hearing people tell her what she had to do. A dragon didn´t answer to gods or men… neither another dragon, she thought as she called her mount, a blue dragon called Syrax.
"Get in" she and her father climbed into the animal before taking off into the sky, while the Unsullied that were supposed to be hunting them down could only gape in amazement. Jon stared at the ground, a little bit worried, but enjoying the fly. And the freedom he was just beginning to feel again, after so many years inside the Maidenvault…
-A few days later on dragonback-
"It´s beautiful" said Jon, feeling the same cold against his skin as in childhood. It was so familiar that he almost heard the laughs of Robb and Theon on the yard, Arya following them… he touched the perpetual snow on the ground, a sensation that he had almost forgotten… it felt like home. "I should go visit my mother´s tomb now that I can"
"Yes, we should" Lyanna answered, a winter rose in her hand. "I heard grandmother loved these" she smelled it. "It´s pretty"
"Grandmother?"
"Do you think I´m stupid?" the girl raised an eyebrow at her surprised parent. "How much time do you think it took me to figure out that you are my father? We even look alike, for the Seven´s sake!"
"I… I didn´t want you to have troubles with your mother…"
"Well, she now has" Daenerys appeared in the Goadswood in that moment, along with the Lord of Winterfell himself. She had taken a different route to arrive before them on Drogon, something that worked in her advantage. Jon instinctively searched for a sword, an instinct he never lost, but then remembered he hasn´t carried one for years. "Come back now and your punishments won´t be so hard." She glared at her daughter. "Lyanna… I would never have realised you would be the first one of my children to ride a dragon…"
"Yes, I suppose" the princess advanced towards the queen, apparently in defeat, before she pulled out a dagger and took a hostage, the Lord Eddard. This one looked at mother and daughter with fear. "Shouldn´t have underestimated me."
"A mistake I won´t make again" said the Dragon Queen, crossing her arms. Jon wanted to separate the teens in desperation, but was intercepted by Grey Worm, who dragged him away by the chains of his shackles. "What now, my dear? Are you going to turn kinslayer?"
"That wasn´t my plan, I just wanted to see Winterfell before I have to marry the Whore Prince" she backed away. "Or better, not marry him at all."
"You have already caused enough trouble, running away from a marriage"
"One would think me aptly named, don´t you think?"
"Indeed" Daenerys advanced. "You already saw this ruin of a castle, come back without fighting and I will pardon you."
"I don´t feel like it" the Defiant Daughter said, touching the burned weirwood with her back, praying to the old gods for strength to defeat her mother. She then stepped into the burning remains of the weirwood… the ground seemed to disappear and both teens fell into the pit as the astonished adults could only see. As she fell, Lyanna could only hear two things, the wings of a raven flapping and…
"Go backwards"
Hello! Hope you are enjoying your time in isolation, hidding from the virus. To answer the questions of one of my readers, yes, I´m planning on doing some continuations, but that would depend on which of them are more popular between them. Or perhaps on inspiration, as I have more ideas for a continuation in some than in others. Well, I hope you are well in this time of hardship and all your family is okay. Until next time! Review!