She blinked awake in the dark and the cold. Her back and neck ached and her fingers were white cold. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, staring into the empty sockets of the skull opposite her. The lights at the edges of the room flickered and glimmered, making the sockets look like pools into which she could fall forever. She pulled her knees up to her chest and stared back at skull, her gaze never wavering. "What was your name?" She asked, her voice echoing around the room. The dragon didn't answer.

Once she would have known who it was. Once she would have known, everyone would have. The skull would have been displayed prominently in the throne room for everyone to marvel at. But now it was shoved down here, in the dark and the cold. An relic from a past age that everyone wished didn't exist. Like her.

She hadn't meant to sleep down here, but she didn't want to be alone. Sansa had moved to the apartments given to the northern prince, leaving her to sleep alone. But she couldn't sleep, so she had gone down into the tunnels again, where she felt comfortable, and just started walking. She didn't know when she had decided to come to the cellar, the darkness of the tunnels all blended into a single path, but she remembered making the choice to come here. She had walked the line of skulls. There was no order to them. Big, small, some pristine, others cracked and falling apart. Several were covered by dusty sheets and others left exposed. The one staring at her was perhaps twice the size of a horse's, flanked by two larger skulls. She liked to think they were parents still looking over the shoulder of their child. Perhaps they were.

She knew the names of many of the dragons of course, she had been raised on their stories. Those named for old Valyrian gods, Arrax, Terrax, Tyraxes and Vermithor and others. What they were gods of, she had no idea, the names survived the Doom of Valyria in these dragons, but now the dragons were dead, so were the gods. Then there were the others, given the more common names of Westeros after the Targaryens had come here. Seasmoke, Moondancer, Quicksilver. Just as dead, and mixed in here with all the others. Nothing in their bones told them apart. There was only one skull that she could name, the one that she had curled up beneath, safely surrounded by long jawbones and deadly fangs that still glinted sharp. The largest of them. Balerion the Black Dread, the dragon of Aegon the Conqueror himself. It had seemed fitting to sit down here. The dragon of the first Targaryen, the man who brought a continent to heel by fire, the raised it up with justice and peace, and her, the last Targaryen, reduced to skulking in tunnels, hiding in the skulls of her family's greatness.

What would it be like to fly one of these dragons? She had ridden horses before, and remembered the wind rushing through her hair when they got to full gallop. But it had to be better when you rode a dragon. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine looking down on the city from above, seeing the people walking the streets, the soldiers on the walls, the crows and pidgeons on the rooftops. Would the Red Keep still look like a cage, or just a square of stone. But the dragons are dead, and she would never know. Never know what it liked to be able to go whereever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Kings and swords would forever be a danger to her and all she had to fight back with was a dagger in the dark.

She took the dagger out and stared at it. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever owned. Her mother's crown had been beautiful, but that hadn't been hers. It had been Viserys', before he had been forced to sell it. The things in Illyrio Mopatis' manse had been beautiful, the birds, the tapestries, the gold. He had let her look, let her brother touch, he said they were hers, but they were no more hers than the dresses that the Lannisters forced her into to hide her family colours. But this dagger was hers. Whoever had disgarded it in the tunnels no longer lived or no longer cared, it was hers now. Her dagger and her name and her friend. But now her friend was leaving, the dagger and the name were all that was left, and only one of them gave her any agency.

The door at the top of the steps leading into the cellar opened. Pale light hazed in, dawn light. How long had she been down here. She needed to leave, get back to her room before someone came looking for her and found her bed empty. But the entrance to the passage was on the other side of the cellar.

A noise from the door told her that someone was coming down the stairs. She glanced out and saw a middle aged man in servants' attire descending the stairs. He held a lamp in one hand and was whistling tunelessly. "Now where were they?" He asked absently, as he started rummaging through boxes stored closer to the entrance. "The Queen needs candles." He said in a quiet mocking tone. "Bring me candles!"

Having rummaged through one box he turned to another. After a few seconds of rummaging he tipped it up and several hemp bags tumbled out. He looked in each one in turn before stuffing them back into the box.

He then turned to a third box on the other side of the room and froze. He panned his lamp back across the room, slowly. "What's that?" He stalked deeper into the cellar. He was approaching her position. Had he not seen Belarion's skull before. Then she froze and looked down, to where the dagger was still in her hand and flashed with the light of the servant's lamp. She tucked the dagger behind her back and scurried back deeper into the shadows. But the noise alerted the servant who slowed, approaching cautiously. Go away, it's a rat, a rat!

But he didn't go away. He came closer and flashed his light into the mouth of Balerion and saw her in the shadows.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, shocked and surprised.

"I… fell asleep," she said, trying to make her voice sound groggy. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand. "What time is it?"

"Just gone dawn." He held out his hand and she took it and pulled her up. "But what are you doing down he-" He froze and went silent. Daenerys saw his face, his eyes wide and alarmed, looking down at the dagger in her right hand.

Daenerys opened her mouth to explain that she just kept it for self-defence, but the man turned and started to run and yell. "Help!" He screamed.

Dany grabbed his sleeve before he could run far and plunged the dagger into his side. Blood ran hot and wet. His voice was still echoing around the hall as she brought the dagger up and slashed his throat. More blood sheeted the ground and spilled onto Balerion's great fangs.

"I'm sorry," Dany said as the man convulsed on the ground. She dipped a finger in the blood and drew tears on his face, before stealing away into the dark, making sure not to leave a trail of blood as she escaped back into her tunnels.

A/N: I know this is short, but the next chapter is also up as well to make up for it.

House Awesome: Thanks for pointing that out, I've gone and changed the hands over. We'll be back in Dragonstone soon to see what's going on there.