The Dragon and the Hawke 46
Daenerys sets the letter she had received from her nephew down on her table. She was alone in her chambers, everyone off doing whatever it was that they would inevitably choose to do. Marian was once more wandering the Pyramid, Sansa and Tyrion were in Winterfell awaiting their brother, and everyone else was dealing with matters that were individually important.
She was fairly certain that Missandei and Grey Worm were having a long overdue discussion about what was and was not okay to stare at while bathing. She had nearly forgotten that conversation, as it had happened more than a year ago. It was hardly believable that Marian and Missandei hadn't talked to him until this point.
But what was more pressing than her advisor's personal matters, was the news that Aegon was having more trouble than anticipated. From his report, he was down nearly a fifth of his true soldiers and nearly half of the volunteers from Meereen were dead or enslaved. It was disappointing, but it was somewhat expected; the Dothraki had ruled the Grass Sea for untold generations and weren't likely to give them up easily.
If there was one silver lining to the matter, it was that she was beginning to believe in Aegon's loyalty to her Empire. Even with staggering losses, he was unwilling to surrender what little land he had taken from the horse lords. He had even managed to get a keep built before the Dothraki put it to the torch. His men were abandoning him in droves, but he stayed at it.
And seeing as he was being stupidly loyal, she should pen a letter to him to tell him to retreat his armies until more forces could be sent to aid in the attempted conquest. Either more men, Marian, or the Dragons, any of the three would be good enough, in her opinion. She set the letter down and nodded to herself, thinking that this would work out splendidly.
The sound of sniffing draws her attention to the window, where Drogon has poked his head through and was blinking at her with gleeful anticipation.
She smiles and stands.
She hadn't spent enough time with her children, as ruling three city states and the surrounding land was incredibly time consuming when you actually put effort into it, and as such she had decided to dedicate the second half of her day to the three dragons. When she had taken an hour to tell her children the news, they had been so ecstatic that she ended up feeling lower than the buried masters.
Thankfully, there would be no interruption to get in the way of enjoying the day with them. She waves for Drogon to pull his head out of the window, and then climbs onto his back once he has done so. She grabs onto his scales, by now the size of large rocks and big enough to act as hand holds, and her grin turns into a gleeful laugh as he takes off.
The two of them are soon joined by Viserion and Rhaegal, the dragons exchanging barked greetings to one another as they wheel about above the city. Looking down, Dany could see all of her subjects, flowing through the city as though it were all one massive ant hill. Her eyes darted from the city, to the horizon, to the countryside, to the bay, and everywhere in between that caught her fancy.
This eventually directed her eyes back towards the Pyramid, and in time to see the tail end of a message that was playing for her. Back when they had taken Astapor, Marian had established a flag system for the dragons so that they could communicate at long distance, and the current signal being sent out was somewhere along the lines of, "trouble, return" repeated over and over again.
Dany furrowed her brow, but slapped Drogon's side twice, and the dragon caught sight of the flags when he turned his gaze in the direction she had slapped. The black dragon grives a disappointed roar and tilts himself, coming in for a slow glide towards the castle. As they were approaching, the signal flags shifted their message to indicate that the trouble was in or near the throne room. More accurately, they said, "Danger, Mother, Danger, Chair" which roughly translated to danger in the throne room to the dragons.
This is why Drogon did not hesitate to smash through the walls of the pyramid in a rush to get to the throne room. His head snakes around in search of the danger, but Dany knows that there could really be only one thing of note near the throne room without her in it, and she slides off of Drogon's back to rush into the White Room.
Inside she finds four people she, three of which she did not know. There was a large man holding his head and saying the same word over and over again, a boy in some kind of sled, and a girl at the cusp of womanhood. Holding the young woman was the only one she knew, Barristan. Drogon, having snaked his head in after Dany, screeches a greeting to the aged knight. He may not be a dragon like mother or Marian, but Barristan smelled like a lot of dead gold mask men, and that merited some respect.
After his roar there is a spark from an untended breach, one just hanging in the middle of the chamber, that soon deposits Marian before collapsing.
The mage turned goddess locks eyes with Dany and Drogon and asks, "So… Who wants to know what kind of day I've had?"
Everyone in the room stares at her, and then Barristan clears his throat and says, "I will admit, I am more than curious."
"Not here," Dany tells them before Marian can start, "Marian, I need you to repair the throne room, Drogon destroyed it in his haste to find the danger the flags spoke of."
"He actually listened to them?" Marian looks at Drogon and nods in appreciation. The dragon nods his head and then pulls back from the doorway so that the humans can exit as well.
Once out of the White Room, Marian takes a single look at the throne room and winces, "Oh, ouch, sorry."
"You did not intend for it to happen," Dany assures her as she steps beside her, "Fix it and all is forgiven."
"Want me to make a dragon roost where the wall was?" Marian asks
Dany blinks, then nods.
The mage smiles and sets to work on fixing the chamber. While the mage is doing that, the Queen turns to the three newcomers. She sees that the woman is trying to get the giant man to grab the sled with the boy in it.
"Hodor, get Bran, we've got to be presentable!" She tells him, and the big man looks up at her, then around, then nods.
"Hodor," He tells her as he picks the now named Bran up in the sled and starts towards the exit.
The young woman sighs in relief and starts to move after her, but stops when she sees that Daenerys is looking at her with interest. She quickly bows in respect, not sure where to go. Barristan luckily keeps her from staying in place by stepping in front of her, "Come, I'm sure her majesty would prefer to hear your tale in a more comfortable location. Tell your friend to follow me, I will lead you to a better place to speak."
The girl nods and follows the aged knight, with the massive Hodor close behind her. Dany watches them turn a corner before her attention moves to Marian. She blinks when she sees that her friend is done with her work. The Throne and steps had been repaired, but instead of replacing the wall Marian had laid it flat and created a landing platform for the dragons so they could come to the throne room whenever they wished.
"Every time I see your abilities at work, I am both more in awe, and more inoculated to the spectacle," She tells her friend.
"I know," The goddess agrees, "I'm hoping that if i show off enough, people will get bored of me and stop thinking I'm some kinda god."
Dany decides that it would probably be best not to inform her friend that her intended goal had been shot full of arrows and dumped in the Doom. Instead she just rolls her eyes and then turns to follow after Barristan and the children, "What are their names?"
"Whose? Oh, the kids? Well the girl is Meera, the kid on the sled is Bran, and the big one is Hodor."
"From what little I saw, he does seem partial to the word."
"I know, can't for the life of me figure out why."
"I'm sure we'll have our answers before long."
"True enough."
The pair lapse into silence for a few minutes as they traverse the pyramid before Dany realizes something and smiles, "I look forward to being there when you tell Missandei you traveled without her permission again."
Marian stops dead in her tracks, blinks a few times, then declares with absolute certainty, "Fuck."
"Go," Dany waves her off, "I will wait until you both have joined me."
Marian smiles, gives her a pair of thumbs up, and then runs off. After a minute she runs back, "Right… where is my wife, exactly?"
"With Grey Worm in the Markets," Dany tells her.
"Oh, uh, that could take a while…" Marian furrows her brow and then snaps her fingers, catching the small talisman she conjured and hands it to Dany, "There, now I'll hear everything near you, so no need to wait up!"
Dany takes the talisman and tucks it into one of her pockets. She had been very glad when Marian introduced her to pockets, which were ordinarily where assassins and rogues hid potions back in Thedas, and now had them in all of her clothes. Pockets were quite literally a godsend.
"Very well, I will learn their story, and when you have finished being told off by your wife, you will join us and explain why you were there."