09x12, 'Break the Wheel'

"It'll be strange without them," Jorah says quietly.

Daenerys nods.

Of course, it's not really a surprise. It's natural that Missandei and Grey Worm should want to follow their own hearts and dreams. She wants them to be happy.

She'll stay true to her promise: she won't keep anyone who does not wish to be here. She won't construct new chains for them to wear.

But they are the family she'd constructed herself from nothing. They are the people she trusts more than any in this world. She'll miss them.

Jorah will never feel it the way that she does, but he will feel their loss, and that brings her some comfort in the pain.

If only things could stay like they are now.

But things must change, and it's the foolish hope of a girl to wish for things to remain in stasis forever. Isn't that the lesson she's supposed to have learned? That the girl can't live beside the queen?

Jon had shared his memories of Maester Aemon on the ship from Dragonstone to White Harbor. It seems that her relative had many pearls of wisdom to share.

Love is the death of duty. That's one that's been rattling inside her brain ever since Jon told her about it.

I was told I had to give Jorah up, she thinks to herself. But I didn't. I have the crown now, and Jorah is the lord commander of my queensguard, but I can't bear things to stay like this.

The one area where she does want change.

Love is the death of duty. She knows that in a week, a month, a year, whenever the right time becomes available, she will risk it all for the chance to be with him, to make up for all the years they've lost.

Most would think her beyond foolish, prepared to risk the crown for an exiled knight, but strangely she thinks that she would have Missandei's full backing, and that more than anything gives her strength.

And will only make her feel her friend's loss all the more keenly.