Daenerys Targaryen
It was then that she first began to feel her own strength and realised that her elder brother Viserys — whom she had respected, loved, and feared all those years — was nothing but a pitiful wretch. A worm, not a Dragon.
At the feast held in honour of the dosh khaleen's favourable prophecies, her foolish drunken brother had drawn his sword, pressed it against her belly, and threatened her…
Khal Drogo crowned him with molten gold.
Weak dragons — or those who merely pretend to be dragons — bring shame upon House Targaryen. She did not pity her brother. Almost…
Much happened afterward. A wineseller tried to poison her, and one of the captive women she had saved — the maegi Mirri Maz Duur — chose vengeance and doomed Drogo through her accursed healing.
Drogo was dying, and Mirri Maz Duur said her husband could only be saved through the sacrifice of another life. Thus Daenerys lost her unborn child, Rhaego, the Stallion Who Mounts the World.
Nor did she truly save her husband. Aye, he remained alive, but only as a breathing husk, no longer the man of fury and passion he had once been. He could not even speak, nor did he see what happened around him.
Weeping, Daenerys smothered her husband — her sun-and-stars — with a pillow. Afterward she ordered a funeral pyre built, laid Drogo's body upon it, bound the treacherous maegi beside him, and placed upon the pyre the three dragon eggs gifted to her by Illyrio Mopatis.
Daenerys entered the flames as nothing more than a young girl, the widow of a great khal. The fire could not harm her. She emerged from it the Unburnt and the Mother of three newly hatched dragons. She became the first khaleesi in history whom Dothraki men agreed to serve.
She named her wondrous dragons. The black one, the largest and fiercest, she called Drogon. The green one she named Rhaegal, and the cream-and-gold dragon Viserion.
Together with the remnants of her khalasar she travelled ever farther east, crossing the Red Waste. And all the while a blazing comet burned across the heavens like a fearful omen, heralding something new and terrible.
It called to her. Guided her onward...
The first great city where she halted was Qarth — ancient, wealthy, and deceitful. Towering spires rose there, alongside broad plazas adorned with fountains and statues of dragons, griffins, and manticores.
The rulers of Qarth called themselves the Pureborn. It had taken tremendous effort merely to secure an audience with them. Yet they gave her none of what she needed to conquer the Iron Throne. She received neither ships nor warriors, and the Pureborn had little desire to aid her — only her dragons interested them.
Within the House of the Undying, lair of the city's warlocks, she nearly perished, lost amidst sorcerous visions, but Drogon saved her.
At the harbour of Qarth, Daenerys narrowly escaped death once more at the hands of the Sorrowful Men. From certain death she was saved by the famed knight Ser Barristan Selmy, former Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. From that day onward he and his companion, Belwas the Strong, remained constantly at her side.
There too she found three ships sent by Illyrio Mopatis. The magister urged her to return to Pentos, but instead, following prophecy, she sailed not westward but into Slaver's Bay, where she came ashore at Astapor.
It was said that Astapor had been built of brick and blood, and that all its people were made of the same. There Daenerys posed as a buyer for the Unsullied. She promised to trade her largest dragon — Drogon — in exchange for them. On Jorah Mormont's advice, she pretended not to understand the Ghiscari dialect of Valyrian spoken there by all.
She deceived the Good Masters.
The moment the bargain was struck, she unleashed her dragon upon them, whilst the newly purchased Unsullied, acting on her command, began slaughtering the slave masters. Astapor fell at her feet like ripe fruit. Corpses lay everywhere — Masters, guardsmen, all who had ever been seen with whip in hand.
All were put to the sword.
Daenerys gained a city, eight thousand six hundred Unsullied, and another five thousand five hundred gelded boys not yet finished with their training.
Thus real power came into her hands.
And she gained a loyal and capable companion in Missandei — a girl with a rounded, often smiling face, dusky skin, unusual eyes that drew the gaze, and a voice high, strong, and melodious.
She left Astapor in the hands of three former slaves — a healer, a scholar, and a priest — whilst she herself marched onward to conquer Yunkai.
Why had she begun all this? At times she believed she wished to help people and free them from slavery. Often, she no longer knew how to answer that question herself.
Yunkai was defended by sellswords, yet they proved easy enough to win over to her side. Afterward slaughter swept through the city, the Masters were butchered, and power passed into the hands of former slaves.
Her army, now grown vast, marched onward toward the next city — Meereen.
Before reaching the city, she narrowly escaped another attempt upon her life, and there she also learned that her faithful Jorah Mormont had in truth been a spy for King's Landing in Westeros.
She gave him a chance at redemption. Together with Grey Worm, commander of the Unsullied, he entered Meereen through the sewers and succeeded in opening the gates.
The city surrendered.
Yet Jorah never truly repented, nor admitted his guilt.
And so she was forced to send him away…
(End of Chapter)
P@treon: /SadRaven
🥳The story is complete and available in full on my P@treon!🥰