09x09, 'The Last Dragons'

Soon there will be a coronation. She'll be declared queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the First Men, the Andals, the Rhoynar.

She should be jubilant.

Instead, she's melancholy. For a reason she can't give voice to.

Jorah is the reason.

She knows the laws of gods and men she is supposed to uphold in her role as protector of the realm. Whilst she wants to break the wheel into a thousand pieces, certain things are expected. Marriage to a high lord, for one.

Jorah is destined to be lord commander of her queensguard. She has already promised him the honour and she would not dream of taking that away from him.

But she knows the cost that goes with it.

No wife, no children. A life of celibacy.

She knows, ultimately, what she wants.

Him.

And how can she do that if she is the queen and he is her knight?

Olenna Tyrell's voice echoes through her mind.

You're a dragon. Be a dragon.

She wants to be. To disregard what others might think and do as she pleases. But she has to be careful. Too many changes too quickly could cause a revolt—she's had too much of a bad experience with that in Meereen.

At the same time, she can't bear to think of a life where she doesn't have the chance to be with the man she has fallen in love with, so slowly and incrementally that she hadn't even noticed it happening. To think that they could have a lifetime apart, like her mother and Ser Bonifer Hasty, makes her heart ache. Hurt beyond anything she's ever known before, even losing her sun and stars. This, what she feels now, is love, real love, she is sure of it.

She can't bear the thought of sacrificing that.

She tries not to think of it again until she is alone in her chambers, surrounded by empty bed sheets, with Jorah so far from her, in the White Tower.

Her heart feels it all too keenly, and calls out silently across the distance for something it can't have.