Daenerys
She was breaking her fast on a bowl of cold shrimp-and-persimmon soup when her seamstress brought her a ornate gown, an airy confection of ivory samite patterned with seed pearls. "Take it away," Dany said. "The dining table is no place for lady's finery."
The dress was made for the upcoming marriage of her nephew to Arianne Martell and Dany would do her part as a royal princess. When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and soft leather sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a smooth linen gown of deep blue, and her vest was secured by her ruby studded belt. Her handmaidens had braided her hair in an intricate fashion with three separate braids overlapping from the sides to join into a single one in the back of her head. Her kingly brother would disagree her choice of dress though. "You're a princess of House Targaryen, the blood of Aegon the Dragon and you should look like one," her brother would say whenever he finds her as such and Dany didn't wanted to make any scene in her nephew's wedding.
With all that was going on with her nephew's marriage, Dany could only imagine how her own marriage would be. Willas Tyrell seemed to be a sweet guy for a cripple. He courted her gently, always being sweet with her with only a merest brush of his lips on the back of her hand or her cheek. He had an unrequited love for animals, horses, dogs, cats and other birds which followed to her dragons as well. He always seemed happy to see Drogon as well. Dany thought that he would not be so bad a husband to have. Moreover the Tyrells had the largest army and are the richest house in Westeros second only to the Lannisters. Dany was only a little girl but even she knew that an alliance with the Reach would mean much for them if another rebellion was to occur. After all you could only burn the castles and cities with dragons but an army is needed to take and hold them.
Dany mounted her silver mare with Ser Jorah and the bastard of Driftmark, Aurane Waters beside her. The newly made Master of Ships had offered her to show her the newly made ships in replacement for the ones drowned in the recent storm after Viserys death. The storm had been the worse, worser even than the one during her birth. It had claimed a good part of the royal Targaryen fleet along with Vhagar and Meraxes, the huge war galleys which formed the central piece of the Targaryen arsenal in the sea along with their sister, Balerion. Only Balerion remained now and the storm had really left them in a bad way.
They left the high red walls of the Red Keep behind and made their way through a poorer part of the city where modest brick houses turned blind walls to the street. There were fewer horses and nobles to be seen, and a dearth of palanquins, but the streets teemed with children, beggars, and rats the color of dusk. Pale skinny men in dusty linen tunic stood beneath arched doorways to watch them pass. They know who I am, and they do not love me. Dany could tell from the way they looked at her.
Ser Jorah would sooner have tucked her inside her palanquin, safely hidden behind silken curtains, but she refused him. She had reclined too long on satin cushions, letting horses bear her hither and yon. At least when she rode she felt as though she was getting somewhere. Though eventually Ser Jorah agreed with her, it was only half-heartedly. Dany had took him into her service when she'd turned fourteen. He had come back from his exile in Essos after hearing Eddard Stark's demise in the hands of her brother. The Usurper had wanted his head after some trifling affront. He had sold some poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night's Watch. Absurd law, Dany thought. A man should be able to do as he likes with his own chattel. If her brother had ruled the north then, he would never have troubled Ser Jorah for it. When Ser Jorah came to her last year he was an older man, past forty and balding, but still strong and fit. He was different in the southern court. Instead of silks and cottons like the southron lords, he wore wool and leather. She had asked him to accompany her to the harbor today. Despite the heat of the day, Ser Jorah wore his green wool surcoat over chainmail, the black bear of Mormont sewn on his chest.
The sound of some hubbub in the street intruded on her worries. Dany peered out cautiously to her right. They were passing through Cobbler's Square, where a sizable crowd had gathered beneath the leather awnings to listen to the rantings of a prophet. A robe of undyed wool belted with a hempen rope marked him for one of the begging brothers.
"Corruption!" the man cried shrilly. "There is the warning! Behold the Father's scourge!" He pointed at the fuzzy red wound in the sky. From this vantage, the distant castle on Aegon's High Hill was directly behind him, with the comet hanging forebodingly over its towers. A clever choice of stage, Dany reflected. "We have become swollen, bloated, foul. Foul lizards kill Kings under their roof, and murders babies in their mothers' arms. Whores who steal married men from their wives are called as Queens. And the festered things fornicates over the blood and brains of innocent children which still wets their cursed bed! Even the High Septon has forgotten the gods! He bathes in scented waters and grows fat on lark and lamprey while his people starve! Pride comes before prayer, maggots rule our castles, and gold is all . . . but no more! The Rotten Summer is at an end, and the Mad Prince is brought low! When the assassin did broke him, a great stench rose to heaven and his skin and brain soaked the earth and his blood flows as a river, as red and corrupted as his tainted blood!" He jabbed his bony finger back at comet and castle. "There comes the Harbinger! Cleanse yourselves, the gods cry out, lest ye be cleansed! Bathe in the wine of righteousness, or you shall be bathed in fires of hell! Hell!"
"Hell!" other voices echoed, but the hoots of derision almost drowned them out. Dany took solace from that. She gave the command to continue, and they moved through the erupted crowd like a ship on a rough sea as her guards cleared a path. Foul Lizards indeed. The wretch did have a point about the High Septon, to be sure. What was it that Moon Boy had said of him the other day? A pious man who worships the Seven so fervently that he eats a meal for each of them whenever he sits to table. The memory of the fool's jape made Dany smile.
Scores of tales and rumors had come up with the rise of the comet, the Bleeding Star. The old men muttered that it omened ill, but Daenerys Targaryen had seen it first on a night a few days after her visit to the House of Undying. Thousands of tales revolved around the comet. Commoners believed that it marked the end of House Targaryen and the dragons. Another tale said that it is the justification of Viserys' death by the gods while some others claimed that the gods were mourning her brother. While some bold men declared that the bleeding star was the tears of the Queen Ashara Dayne, the shining star of Westeros and the Queen in the North. They said of how great the greif of Queen Ashara's was for her husband, her son and her brother before she died and it was her tears which turned into a blasting comet coming down to doom them.
She has heard the stories before, of King Eddard, the King in the North and his Queen, Ashara Dayne. Dany had only been a babe at her wetnurse's breast when Eddard Stark declared his northern kingdom independent and turned traitor to her brother, Stark's rightful king. The Usurper dog hid well in his northern castle afraid to face her brother. In the end Rhaegar delivered justice for the Usurper and his family and punished them for their betrayal. Dany was only a little girl when Eddard Stark, Ashara Dayne and their son were executed for plotting against their rightful king. Almost eleven years have passed since the deed was done but still there were hushed talks about it among the people.
Dany never heard of women's tears turning magic. There was a waterfall in the high mountains of the Eyrie called as Alyssa's Tears. A strange thought passed her of what if the comet was Ashara Dayne's tears. Even if it was true the Queen in the North was long dead with her husband and son, surely her tears wouldn't have waited this many years to doom them. Her tears would've dried to her bones by now.
The streets grew emptier as they passed through the narrow, curving Hook after their descend from Aegon's High Hill. The curved pathway which would take them straight to the River Gate. Her guards went before her and behind, leaving Ser Jorah Mormont and Aurane Waters at her side. Her mare's hooves clicked against the ground softly, and Dany found her thoughts returning to the Palace of Dust once more, as the tongue returns to a space left by a missing tooth.
Child of three, they had called her, daughter of death, mother of dragons, child of storm. So many threes. Three fires, three mounts to ride, three treasons. "The dragon has three heads," she sighed. "Do you know what that means, Jorah?"
"My princess? The sigil of House Targaryen is a three-headed dragon, red on black."
"I know that. But there are no three-headed dragons."
"The three heads were Aegon and his sisters."
"Visenya and Rhaenys," she recalled. "I am descended from Aegon and Rhaenys through their son Aenys and their grandson Jaehaerys."
"Blue lips speak only lies, isn't that what Maester Pylos told you? Why do you care what the warlocks whispered? All they wanted was to suck the life from you, you know that now."
"Perhaps," she said reluctantly. "Yet the things I saw . . . "
"A blue star dying off in fire and blood, a king with a frozen crown, a pair of cold grey eyes . . . what does any of it mean, Princess? gods' son and mummer's hero, you said. Who is this gods' son and this mummer's hero, pray?"
"Just a hero in name," Dany explained. "Mummers use their likes in their follies, making up things just to give the heroes something to fight. I don't know about this gods' son though."
Ser Jorah frowned.
Dany could not let it go. "His is the song of ice and fire, my brother said. I'm certain it was my brother. Not Viserys, Rhaegar. He had a harp with silver strings."
Ser Jorah's frown deepened until his eyebrows came together. "Prince Rhaegar played such a harp once," he conceded. "You saw him in the House of Undying?"
She nodded. "There was a woman in a bed with a babe at her breast, not my brother's wife though or Aegon. My brother said the babe was the prince that was promised and told her to name him Aegon, same as my nephew."
"Prince Aegon was Rhaegar's heir by Elia of Dorne," Ser Jorah said. "But if he was this prince that was promised, the promise was burnt along with him when your fa-, when he died with your father in King's Landing."
"I remember," Dany said sadly. "Rhaegar's daughter died as well, the little princess. Rhaenys, she was named, like Aegon's sister. There was no Visenya, but my brother says the dragon has three heads. He says that it is Aegon, Jaeherys and me but we are not like Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenya, are we? Is it true what he says about the song of ice and fire?"
"It's no song I've ever heard."
"I went to the warlocks hoping for answers, but instead they've left me with a hundred new questions."
By the time they reached Fishmonger Square there were people in the streets once more. "Make way," her guards shouted, holding back the crowd with the shafts of their spears. The unshaven and the unwashed stared at the riders with dull resentment from behind the line of spears. They passed through a riot of stalls and curses and groups of people. A mummer on stilts was striding through the throngs like some great insect, with a horde of barefoot children trailing behind him, hooting. Elsewhere, two ragged boys no older than seven were dueling with sticks, to the loud encouragement of some and the furious curses of others. An old woman ended the contest by leaning out of her window and emptying a bucket of slops on the heads of the combatants. In the shadow of the wall, farmers stood beside their wagons, bellowing out, "Apples, the best apples, cheap at twice the price," and "Blood melons, sweet as honey," and "Turnips, onions, roots, here you go here, here you go, turnips, onions, roots, here you go here."
They passed through the market square beside the River Gate, as it was named on maps, or the Mud Gate, as it was commonly called.
Winesinks, warehouses, and small houses lined the streets, cheek by jowl with cheap brothels and the stalls of street vendors. Cutpurses, cutthroats, spellsellers, and moneychangers mingled with every crowd. Fishmonger Square was one great marketplace where the buying and selling went on all day and all night, and goods might be had for a fraction of what they cost at other places, if a man did not ask where they came from. Wizened old women sat with their wooden planks of fish, clams, oysters and other sea food negotiating prices with the buyers. Seamen from half a hundred nations wandered amongst the stalls, drinking spiced liquors and trading jokes in queer-sounding tongues. The air smelled of salt and frying fish, of hot tar and honey, of dirt and stench and oil and smoke.
Aurane Waters gave an urchin a copper for a skewer of honey-roasted quail and nibbled it as he rode. When he saw her staring at him he gave a wink which made her blush despite herself. They saw beautiful bronze daggers for sale, dried squids and carved onyx, different kinds of fruits and freshly stewed broths and soups.
The Mud Gate was open, and a squad of City Watchmen stood under the portcullis in their golden cloaks, leaning on spears. Across the Mud Gate the long stone quays were filled with the ships from the Summer Islands, Westeros and the Nine Free Cities. She saw chests of saffron, frankincense, and pepper being off-loaded from a ornate ship named Vermillion Kiss. Beside her, casks of wine were being settled down upon the docks from a wine cog. The banners floating from her masts proclaimed that the cog had just arrived from Arbor, an island located off the southwestern part of Westeros. A burgundy grape cluster on blue marked the cog to be one from Lord Paxter Redwyne's fleet. Wine from Arbor, Dany knew, they were considered to be the best wine in Westeros. Farther along, a dozen crates and pallets were trundled up the gangplank onto a carrack, to sail on the evening tide.
As they made their way toward the harbor, Ser Jorah rode closer to her and laid a hand against the small of her back. "My Princess. You are being followed. No, do not turn." He guided her gently toward a brass-seller's booth. They dismounted from their horses and reached the booth where the shop keeper was shouting to them.
"This is a noble work, my princess," he proclaimed loudly, lifting a large platter for her inspection. "See how it shines in the sun?"
The brass was polished to a high sheen. Dany could see her face in it . . . and when Ser Jorah angled it to the right, she could see behind her. "I see a small pale sickly child."
"That is the one," Ser Jorah said. "She has been following us since we entered the square."
The ripples in the brass stretched the stranger child queerly, making the child seem long and gaunt than she already was. "A most excellent brass, great lady," the merchant exclaimed. "Bright as the sun! And for the Mother of Dragons, only thirty copper stars."
The platter was worth no more than three. "Where are my guards?" Dany declared. "This man is trying to rob me!" For Jorah, she lowered her voice and spoke in the Common Tongue. "She may not mean me ill. Maybe she just wants to see her princess, perhaps it is no more than that."
The brass-seller ignored their whispers. "Thirty? Did I say thirty? Such a fool I am. The price is twenty honors."
"All the brass in this booth is not worth twenty honors," Dany told him as she studied the reflections. The pale girl had the look of the Quartheen about her. Viserys had been killed by an unnamed assassin, has he come to get me too in some disguise. Or could she be creature of the warlocks, meant to take me unawares?
"Ten, Princess, because you are so lovely. Use it for a looking glass. Only brass this fine could capture such beauty."
"It might serve to carry nightsoil. If you threw it away, I might pick it up, so long as I did not need to stoop. But pay for it?" Dany shoved the platter back into his hands. "Worms have crawled up your nose and eaten your wits."
"Eight coppers," he cried. "My wives will beat me and call me fool, but I am a helpless child in your hands. Come, eight, that is less than it is worth."
"What do I need with dull brass when I feed off plates of gold in the Red Keep?" As she turned to walk off, Dany let her glance sweep over the stranger. The pale girl was near as lean as she'd looked in the platter, with unwashed brown hair atop her head falling over her shoulders. She wore a tunic dyed green which had gone dirty and had a yellow cloth as a waistband.
Only fools would stare so openly if she meant me harm. All the same, it might be prudent to head back toward her guards. "The child does not wear a blade," she said to Jorah in the Common Tongue as she drew him away.
The brass merchant came hopping after them. "Five coppers, for five it is yours, it was meant for you."
Ser Jorah said, "A child that age and size could hide daggers all over her body and still roam around innocently."
"Four! I know you want it!" He danced in front of them, scampering backward as he thrust the platter at their faces. "Does she follow?"
"Lift that up a little higher," the knight told the merchant. "Yes. The child pretends to linger at a stall but she has eyes only for you."
"Two coppers! Two! Two!" The merchant was panting heavily from the effort of running backward.
"Pay him before he kills himself," Dany told Ser Jorah, wondering what she was going to do with a huge brass platter. She turned back as he reached for his coins, intending to put an end to this mummer's farce. The blood of the dragon would not be herded through the market by a small child.
The Qartheen girl stepped into her path. "Mother of Dragons, for you." She thrust a jewel box into her face.
Dany took it almost by reflex. She gave the little girl a smile. The box was a sphere of carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. "You are too generous." She opened the box when the girl asked her to open it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. As she reached inside the box, the scarab unfolded with a hiss.
Dany caught a glimpse of a malign black face, almost human, and an arched tail dripping venom . . . and then the box flew from her hand in pieces, rolling over to a good few feet away from her. Dany stumbled to the ground, losing her footing trying to get away from it. As she fell down, the brass merchant let out a shriek, a woman screamed, and suddenly the people were shouting and pushing each other aside. Ser Jorah slammed past the people trying to reach her, but was having a hard time with the crowd. She heard the hiss again. She turned to see the manticore racing at her, hissing. Dany never took her eyes off it and suddenly she heard the click of a dagger and another hiss. The manticore had stopped in its track as a dagger was driven through it. It's curved tail pricked the hard steel twice for no avail before hanging limp from the dagger. Ser Jorah and her guards came with longswords drawn in their hands.
"My princess," Aurane Waters held his dagger out to her with the dead manticore as if a offering, grinning his tricksy smirk and winking his right eye at her.
Author's Notes: Another quick chapter of Dany. Now this could be confusing especially that King Ned and Queen Ashara part. I've always said that there was much to the Ned/Ashara story than we know. Hopefully I'll bring that up as the story moves up. As always thanks for the follows and favorites. And leave a review.
Replies to the review for last chapter.
To Herr Dunkelheit: Thanks for the review pal. Andrew killing Jaime is partly because of his skill and partly because of his rage. You can see that in the chapter itself that he comes off as some different man from the one who killed Viserys. He was angry for what happened to his family and had only one thing in mind, vengeance. He was ready to kill all those innocent people (there were guards who doesn't have anything to do with the murder of his family) who was just doing their duty in his quest for revenge against Rhaegar (I don't appreciate that kind of behaviour). And seeing the white cloak was like throwing oil over raging fire and Jaime was the first one to feel the sting.
To justinmil22: Thanks for the review mate. I'm sorry that I can't reveal that now because that will give away the plans for the story. But I can assure you, the north is still a wolf's place, not Braavos.
To Blade of Lava: Thanks for the comments mate. I'm glad that you like this story.
To lockblock: Thanks for the comment mate.