Chapter 8

Robb POV

"Here you have it. Dragonstone Island." Daenerys spins around as she introduces our destination, her light sundress floating in the wind around her body, making a mock-dramatic gesture with her arms. I laugh a little at her enthusiasm.

"Well, someone's excited." I smile as I run to catch up with her heightened pace.

Daenerys shrugs. "It means a lot to me. You'll find out soon."

I've spent much of the walk here intrigued about Daenerys's mystery locale, and now that we've arrived, my curiosity hasn't really decreased. Her excitement and obvious emotional connection with our destination made me wonder if we could be going to a sentimental place full of memories from her childhood, but surely no family in Westeros would bring up a child in such a forbidding place as Dragonstone Island. The only hint of former civilisation is the remnants of once-imposing battlements at the island's highest point, but given Westeros' long history, a ruined castle in this city is not an unusual sight, and none of them have been used for thousands of years. The rest of the island consists of steep hills and unfriendly coniferous forests, and the sort of unforgiving, jagged rocks that were the reason lighthouses were invented, the grey waters of the Narrow River spewing aggressively against them. The river's shallow in this area, and there's a pebbly strip of land fairly untouched by the river that Daenerys and I walk across to reach the island.

I tread carefully behind her, still sceptical about Daenerys's apparent familiarity with this place. She seems to sense this, and speaks up. "You don't like this, do you?"

"Er, it wasn't what I was expecting." I say truthfully.

She reaches the shore of the island, and stops, and faces me fully. "Typical Stark. Caught up in their cosy little suburb in North Westeros, with no real taste for the unknown. You thought I was about to show you the cute little terraced house I was born in, like your one on Winterfell Avenue, didn't you? Well, you're wrong. I thought you were the kind of Stark who could keep a secret. Who I could trust. Who might have some secrets I could be trusted to keep. Who wouldn't be scared of somewhere like Dragonstone. Who would listen to me when I said I know this place, and it isn't dangerous. I thought you were different, Robb Stark." She spits out my last name.

I cast my eyes down. I had high hopes for trust, and even friendship, with Daenerys, but it seems I've already put a foot wrong. I clear my throat. "Maybe I am just a typical Stark. Starks fear places like this, but Starks are also brave. Brave about unknown islands, and brave about trusting girls they just met. And even if I am a typical Stark, surely a typical Stark can change?"

She smirks, a look of mischievous curiosity on her face. Perhaps she isn't the only one good at persuasion here. "Follow me. You deserve a chance, Stark."

Daenerys POV

We climb the rocky paths through the volcanic forests of Dragonstone, still in comfortable silence, Robb's mind on whatever secrets he may have, and my mind on my own. I visit the island when I need to be alone, or to think about something, and I always feel a strange sense of…longing when I come here. Déjà vu, you might call it. I lived here during the better days of the Targaryen family, and even though I can't remember it, when I come back here, a wave of nostalgia comes over me, as if some part of me still has memories of that simpler time. My brother would laugh if he knew, of course. He isn't one for sentimentality, and his goal is to become so successful that everyone will forget that our parents and their mistakes ever existed.

I pause for a moment, and inhale sharply, the same way I always do at this point on the walk up to Dragonstone Castle. There's an inconspicuous gap in the overgrown hedges, and if you know that the gap is there, you will see it beyond the hedge, where the path gives way to a clearing filled with long grass, in the centre of which is the ruined castle. When I was younger, I always used to come here and imagine myself as a girl from a fairy-tale, peering through the magic woodland, chancing upon the fairy queen's castle, and finding out that the fairy queen was my long-lost mother. Or something like that. Now, of course, I've grown out of such imaginings, but it still never fails to excite me, looking at the ruins through the gap in the hedgerow, and thinking that I am a direct descendant of the lords and ladies, hundreds of years ago, who built an imposing castle on this very site.

"Robb?" I call, realising that I've stopped here for so long that he's probably either grown bored or become lost somewhere on the path behind me.

"Yes? I was wondering when you'd awake from your…stupor." He's closer than I thought, leaning against the nearest fir-tree, observing the pensive, vacant look on my face.

I snap out of my daze, and hit him lightly on the arm. "Shut up," I tease, and then sober up. "Come. I was in a stupor for a reason."

I push away the overgrown weeds of the hedgerow, and wade through the long grass in the clearing, around the ruined walls of the castle, with Robb a few paces behind me. He still doesn't look nearly as excited as I feel about the castle, but I can forgive him now. Westeros and the surrounding areas do have their fair share of castles, and Iron Throne High school journeys are practically synonymous with rainy guided tours of ruins. My emotions got the better of me earlier, and I took it out on his family. I now see it's nothing to do with that, just that he doesn't know yet what makes Dragonstone so special.

But he will soon.

There's a rocky outcrop at the edge of the clearing, looking down the slope to the river, where the tranquil grass of the clearing abruptly gives way to harsher crags, and you're reminded that Dragonstone is not just a place of peace. Like I need reminding.

I gesture for Robb to sit beside me on the crag, and decide to break the silence. "So…" I trail off.

"So." He repeats, smirking, a conclusive note in his voice. I survey the view; this crag extends far enough that you can see most of the city if you stand at its far end. I watch over Westeros, starting from the mountains in the North, to the ancient suburbs that Robb calls home, through the well-to-do areas in the South, Lannisport, and The Reach, and the city centre, close to the river, that some nickname King's Landing. I then turn to the roaring current of the Narrow River, separating Westeros from the Essos region beyond, with a wistful look in my eyes. The river was probably exactly like this when I was born, during that raging thunderstorm my brother always told me about. Cynicism then replaces my dreaminess, as my eyes drift to Essos, and its barren countryside occasionally interrupted by small, grimy towns rife with poverty. Towns like the one I live in.

"I was born here." I finally say. If I delay it any longer, I'll probably never tell him why we're here at all, and then I'll later regret not being more forthcoming.

I've captured his interest, so I continue. "There's a small village at the bottom of these rocks, and every generation of my family lived there, before my parents died. A guy called Stannis – in his twenties, his younger brother's in our class, I think – bought our old house, I've met him once or twice, and he's isn't really the sort of guy I want hanging around my old family home. He's pompous – I think he works as an academic or something – and he seems to think this whole island belongs to him. Even when my ancestors built this very castle." I finish resentfully.

I sigh, thinking about this island, and all that it signifies. "I only lived here a few months, my mother died giving birth to me, and my dad…you know what happened to him. But I always feel something when I come here. More than I ever do in my brother's bedsit in Pentos, where we're seen as unfortunate children of deranged parents, who need people like Jorah and Illyrio, care workers, as they pretentiously call themselves, to control us. The call of my destiny, I guess, to put it dramatically. Like one day I'll live here again, rich and successful, the Targaryen name no longer seen as scandalous. It's times like this that I think that my brother isn't naïve or unrealistic when he says I'm the Targaryens' last hope."

Robb's eyes glaze off, gazing thoughtfully into the distance, his face surely mirroring my own. "And yet, you don't want to be noticed in school?"

"No. The best way to raise your position in a society like this is to make people forget you for years, so they don't realise just how important you're becoming until it's too late."

Robb smiles at me. I can tell he's impressed. What he finally replies with surprises me, though. "I'll help you."

"I'm sorry?" I reply, confused. I expected sympathy from him, not an offer of help.

"I'll help you. I'll help you reclaim all that you and your family deserve, if you help me."

"Help you with what?"

He sighs in resignation. "Help me with the Lannisters. They killed my father, now we need to bring them to justice."

A/N: Longest chapter yet! Now that I've reached the milestone of 10k words, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who's seen my story, and thought enough of it to follow, favourite, or give me all the positive feedback I've received. I hadn't written anything for a while when I started this story, although I used to write a lot when I was younger, and I honestly had no idea how it would turn out or if people would like it. So I'm so thankful for all the interest ITHS has received. Thank you all so much. - C