POV: Daenerys Targaryen, The Narrow Sea
I was free.
It tasted strange, that word. Viserys would have sold me like a broodmare. Illyrio had schemed over cheese and wine, expecting me to accept my fate with a pretty smile.
But I had not married Khal Drogo.
Someone else had. A girl I barely knew, though I had watched her at the wedding feast with a knot in my stomach. I saw something in her eyes I could not reconcile with my own terror.
She stood there in those ridiculous Dothraki skins that barely cover anything.
But when she saw Drogo for the first time? She bit her lip so hard I thought she might draw blood.
She shifted her weight, rubbing her thighs together in this unconscious, rhythmic way that made me look down at my plate because it felt too intimate to witness.
She wanted him.
She had looked at Khal Drogo, that towering savage with his bells ringing and his braid swinging and his eyes cold as winter, and she had desired him. What kind of person looks at a monster and sees him as...
I still did not understand it. The memory unsettled me, sitting heavy in my gut. It made me wonder if I had imagined the whole thing, or if perhaps there was something broken inside me for not feeling that same fire.
After the wedding, the Khal had taken his khalasar east. To free slaves, they said. My brother went with them.
It made no sense. The Dothraki do not break chains. They forge them.
"Look there!"
A shout from the sailors nearby drew me out of my head. They were pointing at something in the clouds.
A soft thud drew my attention closer. I turned toward Ghost. The great white wolf was sleeping, but his ears twitched.
The sound was coming from behind him.
...
The night before the wedding.
I had been alone in my room, watching the servants prepare a table for a lonely meal. They were setting out plates and wine when the door just... opened.
A man entered, carrying a wooden chest under one arm like it weighed nothing.
Vermax flew from beside me and landed on his shoulder.
He wore armor that looked like dragon scales, it fitted him like a second skin. And the sword strapped to his wrist...
Blackfyre, the Conqueror's blade, passed down through generations until it vanished in the blood and fire of the Rebellions.
And this man wore it casually.
The servants saw him and immediately stopped dead. They bowed so deep their foreheads nearly touched the floor tiles.
He sat down without a word. Didn't ask. Just placed that heavy chest next to him and looked at me like we'd been meeting for supper for years.
I found my voice, though it was thin and trembling. "Are you... are you the one who created Vermax?"
He nodded once. Sharp. Then he popped the latch on the chest.
Inside sat three large, oval objects.
Dragon eggs.
The air left the room. I couldn't breathe.
"They are petrified," he said.
He picked up the green egg, turning it in his hands, feeling the weight of it. Then he slid the black egg across the table. It skidded to a stop in front of me.
I stared at it, too shocked to move my hands.
A maid drifted in to serve dinner. He didn't touch the food. He simply looked at me, his eyes dark and unreadable.
"Aunt," he said. "You have two choices. You can live with me. Or, I will give you that house with the red door and the lemon tree. A quiet life."
Aunt?
I searched his face for Rhaegar, for Aerys, for anyone I knew, "Who... who are you?"
CRACK
The egg in his hand cracked.
I watched unable to breathe… the shell cracked apart and a small Green and bronze dragon emerged!?
"Aegon Targaryen.... Trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark."
One of the maids raised her hand. An orb of water gathered in the air, floating like a bubble. He washed his hands in it and started eating.
"It's up to you," he said between bites. "And stop biting your lip, or you will bleed."
...
I had made my choice.
On the deck, the massive direwolf rolled over, groaning in his sleep. This revealed two small shapes nestled against his fur for warmth.
One was green and bronze. Vhagar. Aegon's dragon.
The other was black. Pure black, darker than a moonless night, its eyes opened slowly as it sensed me.
Rhaelon. My dragon. Named in honor of my mother, who had died bringing me into this world.
I knelt and reached into the pouch at my belt, pulling out a strip of dried horse meat. I tossed it toward them.
"Dracarys."
.....
POV: Tyrion Lannister, The Narrow Sea
"Port! Hard to port, you fucking louts!"
I looked at the parrot on the railing, shouting orders in a Northern accent.
I am taking naval commands from a bird, I thought, pouring more wine. Tywin would be so proud.
I'd wasted the last week doing the unthinkable: studying fucking birds.
It was absurd. I had always preferred philosophy and history, but this bird... it had ignited a curiosity I found difficult to extinguish.
The morning I fled the capital, I'd noticed a group of birds gathering in my room, Parrots, ravens, golden eagles, and those frantic little hummingbirds that hover as if suspended by the strings of a puppeteer.
If I wasn't wrong, a flock had followed Robert north. Another contingent had flown west, trailing the gilded carriage of my sweet sister.
Cersei. The thought of her brought a grim smirk to my lips. Tywin had finally cracked the whip, recalling her and the children to Casterly Rock. She'd screamed, she'd raged, she'd wanted to follow Jaime north to Winterfell, but one does not simply say no to Tywin Lannister.
Robert had been all too happy to leave her behind. His Hand, Jon Arryn, looked less pleased with the arrangement but kept his counsel. And Jaime? Despite Father's orders to return to the Rock, he'd spurred his horse north, sticking by Robert's side.
And here I was, on a journey to Braavos, letting a bird lead me into the middle of nowhere.
"Ship!" the boy in the crow's nest shouted.
I raised my Myrish lens, squinting through the glass.
Out of the fog, a behemoth emerged. A Braavosi vessel with a white wolf that had red eyes.
"At least you aren't leading me to the Drowned God."
I went to the cabin to retrieve the chest. It wasn't my own; it was this bird's hoard.
I'd gone through it the night before. Most of it was rubbish, shiny pebbles, bits of glass,
But the rest?
A golden pin, shaped like a Hand. I'd seen it on Jon Arryn's chest a hundred times.
A dagger with a dragonbone hilt. Littlefinger's blade.
And the sword. Lamentation. The ancestral blade of House Royce, lost during the storming of the Dragonpit a century and a half ago.
But the necklace... that was the piece that made the wine turn sour in my gut.
Valyrian steel, delicate, fit for a queen. I'd scraped off the dried, flaky substance crusting the links and eventually realized what it was.
Dragon dung.
I'd laughed then. A bitter, hollow sound in the dark cabin. The necklace of Rhaenyra Targaryen, given by her uncle-husband Daemon. History tells us Sunfyre devoured her in six bites.
So, the dragon shit was... well, she could have just dropped it. But given the way it was encrusted, it must have passed through the guts of a dragon.
I hauled the chest onto the deck. The crews were already laying down the planks.
With my new legs that were straight, a spine that didn't twist, I could use a few privileges. Like walking across a plank without looking like a wobbling duck.
As I stepped onto that Braavosi ship, I saw a table set for two. Sitting there was a young man with the Stark face. long, solemn, dark hair curling over his collar.
And beside him sat a girl with silver-gold hair and violet eyes.
But my eyes were drawn to the young man's shoulder.
A mouse sat there. Silver fur. Purple eyes. It was cleaning its whiskers with an air of supreme arrogance.
"Tyrion," the boy said. His voice was the one I'd heard coming from the parrot. "You made good time."
I dropped the chest on the deck with a heavy thud. "Your navigator is pushy. And he shits on whoever angers him."
I climbed onto the bench opposite him. A maid poured wine. I drank deep, relishing the burn.
"Rose?" Jon asked.
"She already got her reward," I said, wiping my mouth. "Mistress of the biggest brothel in the city. Well, I had added a few lines in that ledger, about her contribution."
Jon nodded. He pushed a plate of cheese toward the mouse.
"Your daughter is in Braavos," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "In my home. Tysha is there as well. The servants will be informed of your arrival when you get there."
I nodded. I couldn't trust my voice for a moment.
I looked at the chest I'd brought to distract myself. "Your bird's collection. Seems fair you take it back. There is a dagger in there that belonged to the late Lord Baelish. And a few other... historical curiosities."
Jon nodded, accepting the return of his stolen goods.
I took another sip of wine, my hand shaking only slightly.
My gaze drifted back to the mouse on his shoulder. "Is he Viserys?"
"No."
"Sigh," I exhaled, disappointed. "I thought that girl is Daenerys and you turned her brother into..."
"You have a very rich imagination," Jon cut in, a smile tugging at his lips. "Anyway, if you want, I have work for you after you reunite with your daughter and her mother."
"What now?" I asked, weary already.
Jon opened the chest, rummaged for a moment, and pulled out the golden pin. The Hand of the King.
He tossed it through the air toward me.
....