AN: When I posted the first chapter of this story, I honestly believed I would be finishing it before the start of Season 7. Silly me. I haven't watched S7 yet, but I bet there are already discrepancies. I find myself in the same unenviable position as George Martin himself: the scriptwriters have far surpassed my ability to keep up. Oh, well. Rather than revise this story to fit series canon and storyline, I'm just going to write it as it appeared in my head, and let the reader treat it as an AU.

"You drink too much," Daenerys said.

Tyrion waddled to the sideboard, glass in hand, and reached for the bottle there. "I have two talents. I drink, and I know things." He filled his fancy stemmed glass. The bottle hovered over a second one on the table as he looked at her inquiringly; when she shook her head, he set it down .

"You already know what a hangover feels like. I doubt you'll learn anything else from emptying that bottle."

"No." Tyrion set the glass on a table beside his chair and eased up into it, toes hanging above the floor. "But knowing things sometimes leads me to drink." Absently, he touched the pin on his left breast, the one that marked him as the Queen's Hand.

"What else leads you to drink?" She turned partway towards the open window. From here, she could see much of the harbor and the high hills that enclosed it. She could see a portion of the city that adjoined the docks as well: warehouses, ship's chandlers, taverns, brothels.

"Fear," Tyrion said, reaching for his glass. "Remorse. Loneliness. Anger." Its rim paused at his lips. "Boredom. Contentment." He took a deep swallow. "Thirst." He set it back down.

Was he in one of those places, drowning his hurt? Was he already losing himself in another woman's embrace? She hoped so. But it had been cold and tactless of her to suggest he would, only a moment after he had declared his love for her on his knees and begged her to take him with her – contemptuous, even. Her inexperience with men had betrayed her there: telling him he would soon find dozens of women to replace her had been intended as a compliment, but the look in his eyes when the words crossed her lips had told her the enormity of her mistake.

"It was the right decision," Tyrion said quietly. "It was wise, and brave."

"It was necessary," she replied. "That's all."

"That as well." He slid down off the chair, picked up his goblet, and headed back to the table. "I once chose love over prudence, when I played the Great Game back at King's Landing." He refilled the glass carefully, not looking her way. "It very nearly cost me my life."

She continued to look out the window, watching the ships busy with their preparations. She looked, too, at the blackened masts pushing up out of the water. How many of the men she had burned alive had been Masters? How many had been just men doing a job? And how many had been slaves, forced to fight for causes they had no stake in, like her Unsullied? "What I told you," she said, eyes on the sun sinking into the bloody sea. "About feeling nothing, just wanting the whole scene to end and be done."

"Powerful rulers often feel the presence of destiny," the little man said, tipping back his goblet. "It makes the bad ones feel that anything they do is right, regardless of consequence. To the good ones, it imparts a longer view. This was only the first time for you, I'm afraid. It won't be the last."

She turned half toward him. "It wasn't the first time."

"Oh?" He paused with the glass at his lips. "You spurned the entreaties of another man?"

"Yes." A moment later: "My brother." She watched Tyrion's face blank. "He was on his knees too. And the pleading in his voice was far more urgent."

Tyrion stood frozen, waiting. Daenerys had never mentioned her brother to him before. She thought he might have heard the story from Jorah, but apparently not.

She turned back to the window and went on, "He was good to me when we were little. It was only when he got obsessed with the idea of reclaiming the throne that he changed, became impatient and hurtful and uncaring. He'd get angry about something and hurt me – he never struck me, but he liked to twist and bend my arms until I cried. He called his little fits of temper 'waking the dragon.'" She looked unseeing at a point over Tyrion's head. "And when I became old enough to interest a man, he sold me without a second thought. He told me he'd let forty thousand men have me if it would buy him an army.

"He gave me in marriage to a Dothraki warlord – a 'savage' and a 'killer,' he called him - in return for his support, a deal brokered by a man in Pentos still loyal to my family. I think Magister Illyrio believed he had arranged an alliance sealed by marriage, but my brother was too arrogant to think of a horse nomad as an equal. He thought he was buying Drogo's support." She shook her head. "As if any Dothraki would turn sellsword for a woman, let alone a Great Khal.

"After the wedding, Drogo took his khalisar east, to consult with the oracles of the Dosh Khaleen about the coming war. In his mind, he was already acting on his part of the agreement. But apparently my brother expected us all to just jump into ships and sail straight to King's Landing." She shook her head again. "He thought giving orders to servants and seeing them obeyed taught him all he needed to know about being a king. He could never have led an army or ruled Westeros. If someone had handed him a crown and set him on the Iron Throne, he would have been dead or imprisoned in half a year.

"Magister Illyrio urged Viserys to stay in Pentos until our return, but my brother didn't trust Drogo enough for that. I was his only asset. If the Dothraki disappeared with me, he would have nothing else to sell. So he trailed along in my new husband's khalisar, while Drogo and the rest of his people took their measure of him." She paused, then went on, "He was pompous and condescending, and tried to treat everyone he met as if they were his hirelings. He couldn't even sit a horse, so he rode in a wagon like the cripples and children, and thought himself privileged, oblivious to the contempt of the Dothraki all around him. He quickly became irritated at the length of the journey and being put off when he pressed for his reward, growing more sullen and insistent as time went on.

"I became with child before we reached the Sacred City, which I think frightened him. He had given me to another man, but I don't think he had realized that meant losing control of me. After the heart-eating ceremony, when the Dosh Khaleen declared that my son would ride the world, he knew he was being pushed aside, and decided he was tired of waiting.

"He burst in on us during the feast that night - drunk, or perhaps mad at last. He was wearing a sword – in the Sacred City, where carrying a weapon is forbidden on pain of death. He drew it, and touched my belly with the point and threatened to carve my baby out of me if Drogo didn't give him what he was owed." She looked down. "My husband promised him he would do exactly that, and that soon Viserys would wear a crown of gold that men would tremble to behold. My brother should have known better than to think he'd really given in – only a blind man could have missed the murder in his eyes – but he lowered his weapon and stepped back.

"The Khal's bloodriders seized him and took his sword. Then they forced him down and held him on his knees while Drogo tossed a handful of gold chains into a kettle over the fire. I would never have guessed that a campfire could be hot enough to melt gold, but there was some black stone burning among the logs that made it too hot to stand close to. Viserys came to his senses then, and realized what he'd done, and what was about to happen. He called to me to stop them, pleading, in a child's voice I hadn't heard from him in years. Do you know what I felt?"

"Nothing?" He said uncertainly.

"Impatience," she replied. "He was vain and foolish and weak. He wouldn't have learned from one lesson. If my brother had been spared death for threatening the life of the Khal's wife and child that night, he would have done something more outrageous later, and Drogo would have ended up killing him anyway. Why not now, I thought, before he did some real harm? Just get it over and done? So I stayed silent and watched my husband pour the gold out over my brother's head and listened to his screams. I watched him die and be dragged out like a sack of garbage. I don't even know what happened to his body. I never asked."

If I look back, I am lost. Daenerys stepped to the table and filled a goblet. "The journey we start tomorrow will take us to rendezvous with the Tyrells and the Dornish fleet, and then to Westeros. What do you suppose might go wrong?"

"Much," said Tyrion, emptying his goblet.

She refilled his glass, hers still untouched. "Then, shall we review the plan?"

-0-

"Not a bad costume," Daario said, looking the woman over: another whore masquerading as Daenerys Stormborn, a popular attraction in brothels all over Slaver's Bay since her rise to power. Her skin was light, though not like Daenerys's; probably from one of the Free Cities, he thought. Silver-blonde hair exactly Dany's shade, and braided behind her head in a similar fashion; face thinner and a bit older. And which of my drunken associates thought this a clever idea? His eyes dropped to the long blue riding jacket. "The outfit is a bit dated. The breeches and boots are all right, but she hasn't worn that coat since we came to Meereen."

She smiled, dark eyebrows flickering. Her eyes were blue, but without the violet tinge that appeared in Dany's when she was in a certain mood. "That's all right, so long as they think of her when they see it."

"The hair is perfect, though, the best I've seen. Other girls never seem to get the color right. Where did you get the dye?"

She lifted the long silver mantle from one shoulder and let it drop. "No dye, I was born with this. It seems a Targaryen must have dallied with a tavern wench in my pedigree sometime before the Fall. He still puts in an appearance every few generations. Great-grandmother had the full kit, according to my mum – pale skin, silver hair, violet eyes, all of it."

Did she pick up stewpots from the fire without burning her hands, as well? He grunted. "Listen. I hope you've already been paid, otherwise you're wasting your time here. I really didn't want company."

"I've made so much money since yesterday noon, I'm tired of it," she said. "Every merchant, sellsword and caravaneer in Meereen wants to fuck the Queen, it seems. I thought sharing a table with the man who's actually fucked the Queen would buy me a little rest." She added, meeting his eyes, "Especially tonight."

Daario scoffed. "What do you know about it?"

"Only what everyone knows. You laid the heads of your partners at her feet so you could give the Second Sons to her. You killed a man in single combat to win a smile from her. And sometime after she began her rule here, she let you into her bed. But now she's sailing off to claim her kingdom, and you're staying in Meereen. And you're not with her on her last night here, so…" one of her hands had been under the table since she had sat; she raised it now. The stems of two goblets were gripped between her fingers. "Mine. A bit fancy for this grog shop, but then so's Arbor red. Do they stock it just for you?"

"They do." He took a deep breath and let it out in resignation, and drew a penknife from his pocket. She smiled and placed the glasses on the table as he set to work on the bottle's seal.

-0-

Theon sat naked on the side of the bed while Milli knelt between his spread knees, fingers combing through his pubic hair. Though he felt like crawling away and hiding, his face and ears did not redden; shame had become such a constant part of his life that mere embarrassment had no place in him. He silently endured the girl's close examination of the inch-long stub Ramsey had left of his manhood, searching her face for her reaction.

"This isn't so bad," she said. "Your helmet is gone, and most of the shaft. But I'm guessing you can still make your water standing up. And…" His thighs and buttocks twitched as she cupped his shriveled stones in her hand. "He didn't take these. That's important. The Unsullied make do with far less. Most of them have voices like girls, but they hunger for a woman's touch, and they're eager to learn how to make us happy." Milli placed her hands on top of his thighs to brace herself as she rose to her feet. She stood looking down at him. "You never undressed me," she said softly.

He hadn't. She had helped him out of his own clothes often enough if she was already undressed; if she hadn't been, he would pull off his own while she disrobed. Theon had been neither patient nor gentle with the girl, and had often taken her with most of her garments still on. "No," he said.

She said nothing, just watched him. He rose, a bit unsteadily, and faced her with no more than a forearm's length between them. When he reached for her, she closed her eyes and let a soft breath escape her lips.

-0-

"The dwarf is tainting us with his bad habits," Grey Worm said as he held the goblet to Missandei's lips. He tipped it, and she smiled at the taste of the fragrant wine.

They were clothed again, lying on a chaise wide enough for two. He had seemed unselfconscious in the water as he held her. But, both dressing and undressing, he had turned away from her to take off his breechclout and put it on again. Small steps, she told herself.

She took the vessel from his hand and touched the rim to his lips in turn. "I don't know if I would ever have seen your smile, had he not talked you into taking your first glass. Though I could have done without the jokes."

"I was afraid of you." He took the glass and set it down on the small table beside the divan on which they lay. "I still am."

She lightly touched the healing scar of the wound dealt him by the Sons of the Harpy. "And what do you have to fear from me?"

"Fear of disappointing you. I can't expect to impress you with the way I handle my spear."

Was there a double meaning to his words? She wondered. The Captain of the Unsullied was not a subtle man, though she was certain that his thoughts ran deeper than he generally let on. She said carefully, "That isn't what drew me to you."

"No," he said. "But I don't know what did. Or what I need to do to keep you. That makes me afraid."

Missandei turned and brought a thigh across his hip, claiming him. "Let me make you a promise," she said. "If you are ever in danger of losing me, I'll tell you, and why. I may even offer a suggestion for doing something about it." She added, "If that wouldn't offend your manly pride."

"I have never had that sort of pride," Grey Worm said, and pulled her closer. "And I have never felt more like a man than when I am with you."

-0-

"The problem is one of supply," Tyrion said. He and Daenerys were standing at the rail of her balcony, looking down at the darkly shining harbor. "Armies generally provision themselves by taking what they need from farms and communities where they camp or along their route – often at swordpoint."

"I can't do that," she said.

"No." He sipped from his goblet and set it on the stone rail. "You are coming to Westeros as a liberator, not a conqueror. The Breaker of Shackles, returning proper governance to the Seven Kingdoms after years of war and uncertainty." He rested his forearms on the rail – with some stretching, since it was as high as his shoulders - and stared at the lights of the ships. "That won't be an easy sell. Your army is mostly foreigners who don't even speak the language. It will be all too easy to paint them as invaders. And the leaders of your battle fleet are Ironborn, pirates whose raids along the coasts and river towns of Westeros are legend. You cannot despoil your own subjects, like some petty lord come to seize what he can in the confusion of war."

His young queen rested her hands on the rail. It seemed to Tyrion that her gaze lingered on the dockside taverns below them. "I have gold," she said. "We can buy what we need."

"Certainly," he said, "but not in Westeros. The people have suffered years of loot and pillage, burned fields and slaughtered livestock. I doubt many of them can still properly feed themselves, let alone anyone else. What they have left, hidden under the floorboards or buried in the woods, they won't likely sell at any price."

Daenerys cast a doubtful eye upon him. "You might have brought this up earlier."

"Each crisis in its own time. You had enough to occupy your attention. There are solutions. It's just a matter of choosing between them."

"Solutions. Such as?"

"Buy what we need from the Free Cities. You'd need to detail ships to bring it here, and other ships to guard them on the journey." At her smile, he said, "What?"

"Just enjoying the irony. Ironborn tasked with protecting shipping from pirates."

"From Euron Greyjoy, even, if he's given up the idea of making you his queen. But I think Yara might actually enjoy meeting her dear uncle on the high seas in an even match." He went on, "Convoying supplies across the Narrow Sea would reduce our options in the coming war. Our strategy would no longer include the ability to fight and move all our troops by water. We must divide our forces, else where we land is where we will march from."

"Then it's good we won't have far to march. I'm told you can see Dragonstone from the highest towers of King's Landing."

"Not quite," he said, picking up his goblet again.

Daenerys turned her back to the view and rested her backside against the rail. "You said we had options to choose from."

"Yes," he said, "courtesy of our friend Varys."

A bird had arrived from Dorne earlier in the day: the Tyrells and whoever was ruling Dorne these days had pledged their support in the defeat of the Lannisters, though the 'Sand Snakes' had stopped short of supporting Dany's claim to all the Seven Kingdoms. Danaerys said, "The Tyrells helped depose my family. Since the usurper died, they've switched sides with every change in the wind. And what's left of the Dorells just murdered their own king, and his son. How far can I trust them, really?"

"We can trust them as long as you have something they want. They need you if they're to get their revenge, so they won't move against you until my sister is deposed, at least. Though I don't doubt The Thorn is already plotting." Tyrion replaced the goblet on the rail and went on, "Highgarden is a cornucopia. They could easily provision our forces if we could guarantee safe passage – no small feat, but possible." He hesitated.

"But gold isn't what they'll want in payment," she said. "Is it?"

"They'll ask for the usual, I'm sure. Position, privilege. A seat or two on the Small Council." He hesitated again.

"What else?" She waved a hand at his uncomfortable expression. "I know well enough. Didn't that woman marry her granddaughter to three pretenders? She has a grandson, I suppose."

"Several. The oldest is a bookish, clubfooted fellow named-"

She shook her head. "It's too soon for that."

"Agreed." Tyrion said slowly, "The Lannister troops will be just as hungry as ours, perhaps more so. But the Royal treasury is empty, and I'm sure Cersei won't spend the family fortune on food and fodder. No doubt Olenna is rubbing her hands together at the prospect of seeing a Tyrell cloak slipped over your shoulders. But she may be less inclined to haggle the price of our provender with the Lannister army sharpening its swords in front of her gates."

"So, we contract – short term – with Andalos and the Flatlands, and so buy time as well as food." Dany turned back to the rail. "Do you really think she'll march to the Reach instead of reinforcing King's Landing, with us so close?"

"If she doesn't feed her army, it won't fight for her," Tyrion said. "If she doesn't know that, my brother certainly does."

Queen Daenerys stared off into the dark. "I may not be able to spare him."

"I know." He lifted his goblet and was disagreeably surprised to find it empty. "That you would even consider it means a great deal to me." Unspoken between them was the fate of House Lannister after a Targaryen was once again on the Iron Throne. His family had much to answer for, but the chief architect of the plot to steal the crown was already dead, by Tyrion's hand. Cersei, he was sure, would flee Westeros or kill herself before surrendering the Iron Throne. If Dany could find it in her heart or her plans to spare the life of her father's murderer…

As if reading his thoughts, she said, "Casterly Rock is yours, if it still stands when this is over."

"I doubt I should have time to visit it," he said. "The kingdom is a shambles. The Queen's Hand will be very busy for years after you mount the throne." And if Jaime was still alive then, and the old rules and customs not swept away, it was he who would sit at the head of the table in the Lion Hall. Only his oath to the Kingsguard had taken that right from him; whatever Jaime Lannister might be after the War, he would never be a member of Dany's Queensguard, which meant that the Lannister ancestral home would be his inheritance once more. And Tyrion much doubted he would be welcome there.

-0-

"She commanded us to seal the temple door after her, lock her in alone with all those beasts," Daario said. "She had to remind me that I'd sworn to obey her, because all I wanted to do was steal her a horse and run like the wind with her."

"You wouldn't have gotten more than a few miles," the woman said. "Not chased by Dothraki."

He made no answer. "We did what she wanted," he went on in a lower voice. "Then we hid and watched. I kept trying not to imagine what she was doing in there, unarmed and surrounded. What they were doing with her. Mormont was afraid for her too, I could tell, but I don't think it even crossed his mind to disobey her.

"Then we saw the smoke coming out of the peak of the roof, almost instantly turning to flame. The whole roof was ablaze in seconds. She had fired the temple, taking with her all those bastards who had stolen Drogo's men and left her when her husband died.

"I knew it was already too late, but I started to leave our hiding spot. Mormont clamped a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. 'Wait,' he said. I turned, wanting to smash his face in – he'd said he loved her, wasn't he even going to try? But then I saw the way he stared at that pyre. The fear was gone from him, and his eyes were full of … expectation.

"A crowd gathered all around the burning temple. It seemed crazy, but it was if they were all waiting for something too. That was when the doors we'd jammed shut burned off their hinges and collapsed. It was like opening the damper on a blacksmith's furnace. The flames shot up to the clouds, and you could feel the heat from where we were, a hundred yards away. The doorway was yellow-white, too bright to see into. But I saw something in that furnace blast. A shadow moved, came forward, through air that looked hot enough to melt steel." Daario took a deep swallow from the goblet. "It was her. Naked as the day she was born, and untouched by the fire. She stood on the stoop in front of that door, the draft lifting her hair, just looking us all over like she was waiting for something. Gods, she was beautiful. And terrifying. And all the Dothraki, men, women and children, fell to their knees, even the ones on the other side of the temple who couldn't see her. There's a prophecy among them, about a mythic warrior born in flame who'll lead them to victory in a battle against the greatest foe the world has ever seen. I'd never heard of it, but I guess she had." He shook his head and reached for the bottle, surprised to find it nearly spent. He filled his glass and topped off hers, and it was empty. "I don't usually go on and on about old lovers to another woman."

She looked meaningfully at the empty bottle. "After downing most of that, I'm just glad you're still saying 'she' instead of 'you.'"

"I know who I'm with." He raised his glass a hand's with off the table and set it down again. "Actually, I don't. What's your bloody name?"

She gave him an odd little smile. "Do you want the one I give my clients, or the one my parents gave me?"

"Neither, if you're going to be that way about it."

"They're the same," she said, lifting her glass. "Alluquere."

He frowned. "What sort of name is that?"

"Foreign." She held the glass to her lips.

Daario stared over the rim of his glass and the rail to the harbor, at the fleet which would be gone with the morning tide. "I can say without shame or conceit that I have fucked a great many women, every one I really wanted. I know how to get close, to gain their trust and their interest. By the time I shared her bed, I thought I knew everything about her that was important to know. But standing among those thousands of people with their noses in the dirt, seeing her wreathed in flame and looking down at me as if she was looking right through me, seeing me in a way no woman ever had, I realized I didn't know her at all."