Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun.

Book 2

Chapter One-Hundred and Eleven

The Khaleesi wished for her to dress in red and black today, and Irri knew better than to argue with her; Irri did not mind the colours so much as they were the colours that were her Queen's own royal house from the land that she had never seen but ached to return to. Irri would do anything to make her feel better, but the cut of the dress was the problem; how the Meereenese managed to walk in these without falling over their feet still eluded her.

But she managed; she would suffer a thousand things worse for the Khaleesi than an uncomfortable dress. And so Irri rose from where she was sitting and left the chambers in the pyramid that the Queen had claimed and made her way towards the throne room, she would not have left the Queen's side, but the Queen herself had sent her back to change when she had chosen a cream gown instead of one that she had liked instead.

As Irri walked through the corridors towards the throne room, she glanced at the Unsullied that lined the walls; if she didn't know better, then she would think that they were statues that someone had built to intimidate anyone who came to stay here, but she did know better. She knew how quick the eunuchs could be with those spears of theirs and how deadly as well.

The Queen was already holding an audience when she finally returned to the throne room, and so Irri quickly and silently hurried across the throne room and strode up the steps to stand on the left side of the Queen's throne, her head slightly bent and her hands clasped in front of her.

The great skin of the white lion that had been a gift from the Queen's great Khal covered her legs and was pulled up to her waist; since the attack, the Queen had trouble keeping warm even in this warm land. In her arm, she held a golden goblet that was filled to the brim with persimmon wine that had been heavily laced with milk from the poppy plant to help her deal with the pain, and she needed more and more of it as of late.

She did not wear the false arm today; it had been a gift from one of the slave owners in the city to earn her favour; it had been made from white gold and had purple gemstones inserted along the length of it. The Queen had accepted it warmly and thanked the owner who had given it to her warmly, for a moment the beautiful girl who had been wed to Khal Drogo had returned to her, but it had only been for a moment and the Queen had fed him to her dragons little more than a week later when the weight of the arm caused her pain.

All the three of them were in the throne room now, they did not drift far from their mother now, the gold and the green ones were resting at the foot of the steps that lead to the throne and they were both the size of a huge dog. The black one was the size of a half-grown stallion and had its great head resting in its mother's lap, glaring at anyone who came too close to his mother, and its wings flapped gently, ready to pounce at a moments notice.

Irri still blamed herself for it, for allowing that man to get so close to her. For allowing him to hand her that broach, for simply staring like a dumb ox as the broach unfolded into an insect, a manticore, and it jammed its sting into Daenerys's arm.

What happened after still haunted her dreams, the screaming and the begging and the blood. Irri was Dothraki and a woman, she was no stranger when it came to blood, but there had been so much of it. The arm had to come off, and it had to come off quick. But the damage had been done, the poison had not gone deep enough to cost the Khaleesi her life, but it still burned under her skin and caused her a great deal of pain and thus, she needed milk of the poppy in order to deal with the pain.

But there was nothing that could be done for her mind; she had changed. Irri did not know enough to know if it was because of the poison or if it was simply the pain of the event, but her Khaleesi was gone, replaced with a stranger that Irri struggled to recognise. Her Queen was as strong as any Khal, and she was not weak, but she had changed. There was a cruelty in her now.

"It's Viserys." The Queen had told her one night when they were both in bed, catching their breath after she gave the Queen her pleasure for the night. Irri was sitting behind her and running her fingers through her silver hair. "He's come back to haunt me, ever since the sting. I can hear him in my head, and he tells me what to do. He was weak, but he was my brother, I missed him, and I hate him, and I love him, and I won't leave. He makes me do cruel things, but I cannot send him away. Not again."

Irri did not know what to say to that, and so she had simply kept running her fingers through the Queen's hair and pressed kisses to her neck in order to get her mind away from the subject; it was easy enough to do.

The seneschal, who stank too much of dead flowers, called in the next petitioner. He was a former slave whose sisters had been the property of one of the great masters who had survived the Queen's purge, he had been treated as well as a slave could be treated by a man who owned him, but his sisters had been pleasure slaves and had endured a thousand brutalities in their time, from both the master and his sons, and as soon as she was given her freedom the older sister had cast herself off of the highest wall that she could find, the younger was a shell of herself.

The Queen's rage grew with every word, and her dragons could taste it in the air, they wanted blood, and the Queen was an indulgent mother and was quick to give her sons whatever it was that they wanted. The order came fast, the master was to be castrated, and his oldest two sons were to be taken to the most famous brothel in the city where they would be chained and used for the cheapest coin that the city used. At the same time, as their Father watched, the rest of the males were to be put to the sword while the wealth of the family would be claimed by the Queen, including all the profit the sons made.

The petitioner walked away happily, but Irri knew it would not make the masters still in the city happy, they already hated her, and this would simply make them hate her all the more, but it was not Irri's place to say so and so she kept her head bowed as more of the petitioners came in to speak of their complaints, desires and wishes like the Queen was a maegi at their beck and call.

After twenty of the petitioners had come and gone, Irri saw the signs that her Queen was tiring, and when she was tired was when her most terrible rages began to flare up and when that happened was when the fires began to start.

She knew better than to suggest that the Queen do anything, she still bore the bruises from the last time that she had made that mistake. But if she smelled burning flesh one more time she was certain that she would never be able to get it out of her nose again.

So, she had to be subtle when it came to it. Irri drifted closer to the throne, swaying her hips slightly. She placed her hand gently on the Queen's shoulder and the Queen looked up at her, the rage and madness had turned her eyes black. "What?" Her voice was a bark, the black dragon tilted its head up to look at her. Smoke slipped out from behind its sharp teeth as its red eyes burrowed into her.

"I am weary Khalessi, I wish to be abed again and the bed is not the same without you." She lidded her eyes and bent forward, trying to show off her tits more and hoping that the stupid dress meant that she wasn't going to end up falling into the Queen's lap, if nothing else she doubted that the black dragon liked to share his favourite spot.

It worked, the Queen grinned and it reminded her of how Doreah had described how the Queen's brother had looked when she had tempted him to bed before the poor girl had died in the Red Waste. Recently, more and more often as of late, Irri had wondered if Doreah had been the lucky one to die in the wastes, she had been spared from the worst of it, the worst of seeing how far Daenerys had fallen.

The Queen rose from her seat, Irri helped to steady her and Jhiqui picked up the fur of the lion when it fell to the ground. The petitioner who had been speaking to the Queen, a goatherder from outside the walls, let out a complaint and took half a step forward and that was the last step he ever took as the Queen barked out a command in valyrian and the dragons descended on to him, and the three women walked out as screams filled the air along with the stench of cooking meat, ripping flesh and broken bones.

As soon as they were back in the Queen's apartments, Jhiqui laid the white fur down on the bed while Irri walked out into the walled garden and gathered some fruit into a bronze bowl and walked back in with it, as soon as she was back inside the Queen dismissed Jhiqui and Irri was alone with her, one wrong word or one wrong step and she would be the next meal.

"Put that down over there; I'm not hungry." She wasn't sure how that could be; the younger woman had brought up her breakfast of melon and hardboiled eggs. The poison had made her stomach tender, so she could barely keep anything down even on a good day, she had always been too thin, but she had lost so much weight since the sting and losing her arm.

But arguing with her would simply get her killed, or worse, and so she placed the bowl of fruit on the table and walked over to the bed and crawled on to it next to her and waited for the Queen to tell her what she wished for.

"Hold me." As soon as the command was given, Irri wrapped her arms around the Queen and dared to be bold enough to press a kiss to the top of her head, and that was when she felt the Queen start to shake against her.

"Are you cold, Khalessi?" She hummed against her hair and used her foot to drag the white fur closer towards them, but before she could reach down to pick it up and cover them both with it, Daenerys shook her head.

"No, I am frightened."

"Of what, Khalessi?"

"Of me, I don't know why I can't stop. I don't know where the rage has come from; I don't know why Viserys won't leave me alone."

Irri did not know what to say; she never did. So instead, she simply kept running her fingers through the Queen's silver hair and stared into the distance as the madwoman she loved shook and sobbed against her.

End of Chapter One-Hundred and Eleven.