章 2380: 15
15.
Tossing and Turning.
304 ac.
King's Landing
Daenerys made her way down to the beach, crossing the ramps and its long stone steps. She was accompanied by Grey Worm and Lord Varys, who escorted her to the place where they had found a drunk and fainted Tyrion after being missing for three days in a row. In all that time, Dany had begun to believe that his betrayal had come sooner than expected, but when they verified that his brother Jaime and Cersei remained locked up and unaware of his whereabouts, they concluded that her lord Hand had returned to his old habits of getting drunk in the brothels of the city.
"Are we sure it's him?" Daenerys asked Lord Varys, who had stormed into her office with news of his location some moments before. "Any chance that it'd be another little...man?"
"Captain Aurane is familiar with the Lannisters, your Grace," replied her Master of Whispers.
"And this Captain Aurane...is he to be trusted? He served Cersei after all."
"Cersei believed he was serving her. In fact, he was an ally of Lord Stannis..." he said, and there was an amusing edge to his tone.
They reached the point where a group of sailors was gathered and among them, who Daenerys assumed was this Aurane. The man indeed looked disconcertingly familiar but Daenerys didn't remember from where.
A warm smile spread across his face when he saw her arrive. Both he and the sailors bowed to her.
"Queen Daenerys, it is an honor to finally be in your presence," Aurane said.
"Get on your feet, captain," Daenerys ordered, "My advisor here tells me that you know the whereabouts of the Hand, Lord Tyrion Lannister. Where is him?"
Aurane and his men rose to their feet and pointed the way to a stone formation that loomed above them. Behind them, was him. He lay on the sand curled up in a ball, the stench coming from his dirty, scruffy frame reaching them. Beside him, several emptied wine bottles.
"Lads!" the captain shouted at his aiders, "Bring the stream!"
Before Daenerys could react, the sailors threw a bucket of water at Tyrion. It wasn't something she would have stopped anyway.
Tyrion awoke from his drunken unconscious state, upset and confused. Between babbling and cursing, he met the gaze of his acquaintances staring at him in bewilderment.
Dany sighed and shook her head. She turned to Grey Worm and addressed him, "Take him to Red Keep for a bath. "And make sure he doesn't leave his chambers."
As she walked back the way she came, she crossed Captain Aurane, who curtseyed and regarded her long and extensively. Dany frowned and all the way back to Red Keep she wondered where they had met before.
***
Dear brother,
The wind blows strong and bold here, but the resilience of our people is just as mighty. Their tempers, however, boil, and the more time runs out the more dissenting voices rise up against your decision.
I will continue to vouch for union and claim loyalty to your reign.
Nonetheless, patience wears out over time, and our memory and hearts still recall the dire times that the South brought upon us. The North remembers. We trust that you will know how to make this clear to the Dragon Queen and her allies.
We look forward to the return of Ned Stark's children.
Your sister Sansa, Lady of Winterfell.
Jon rested against the column as he read the letter. When he finished it, he pinched his eyes and let out a deep sigh. Around him the ravens croaked as if mocking him, reminding him of how far he was from his initial goal of joining forces to save the North from her imminent doom. Even with the presence of the wight to accompany his testimony, the Southern Lords had turned out to be even more stubborn and hard-headed than the Northerners.
"Why would we march to save a self-proclaimed independent kingdom, leading our men to die in a hostile land, leaving our families unprotected from threats of all kinds, all to serve a King who refuses to bend the knee to the Queen to which he comes to ask for help and resources?" a Lord of conceited bearing had questioned after the initial shock the wight had caused, "I suggest that if this is true, if indeed an army of...whatever it is that you have brought, march towards us, we must cut the passage further south by erecting a barrier on the Neck."
"You have not seen it," Jon warned adamantly, " You have not seen what the Night King is capable of. He will find a way to get past any barriers raised once it gets through the Wall."
"And what makes you so sure that this Night King will break through a wall that has been there for thousands of years?" questioned another Lord.
"The wall is not impenetrable. The Wildlings came close to doing it. There are tunnels and ways to get through it, " he reminded them. His gaze traveled to Daenerys who was sitting serenely in her seat listening intently without a comment. If she had made known his proposal of a marriage alliance to her allies and advisers, Jon had no way of knowing for sure. "Our only true chance is the North, Your Grace. It is the first line of defense. This is not just my war. It is everyone's war."
"It seems like pride to me, King in the North. Otherwise, you and your people would be on your knees right now, begging for our help," said Yara Greyjoy, Theon's sister. "My suggestion is the same. Let the North fall and we will deal with what's left on the Neck. How many good men does the North have left, anyway?"
"I am sure your brother would not agree with you, Lady Yara, am I not?" the soft voice of Daenerys interrupted. Everyone remained silent and waited for her to continue now that she had decided to intervene, "The concerns of my allies are mine as well, King Jon. And as you have heard, this is not a decision left solely in my hands." Her rather composed face seemed conflicted and a part of him hoped that deep down, she believed in him. He did not know where that desire to want to reach her came from. "But King Jon is in the right. This war concerns all of us, not just him or the North. I will evaluate my options and make my decision known as soon as I consult with my advisers."
There were few things he still had faith in. Daenerys was close to becoming that glimmer of hope that he wanted to hold in the midst of all that desolation.
A creaking sound brought him out of his thoughts. Jon looked up to see that curly-haired Essossi woman walk through the door and stop in surprise to see him also in the rookery.
"King Jon, I didn't expect to find you here," she said.
Jon straightened and clasped his hands behind him, bowing his head slightly in recognition. The woman's voice came soft and well-intended.
"My lady," he addressed her. "I was on my way out."
She stood a few steps before him, her hands, on the contrary to him, clasped on her front. They seemed to carry something.
Jon found her an amicable person, asking him about his name since her father was Ned Stark and he, Jon Snow.
"Your name, your real name, is Aegon Targaryen. In honor of the conqueror and your slain brother," were Bran's cruel words, which still haunted him every time someone brought up the subject.
Jon continued to embrace his identity as the bastard Ned Stark, more than he ever imagined he would ever do.
"We have no marriages in Naath," she explained. "The Seven Kingdoms seem very attached to that custom. Do you have a wife yourself as well?"
Her question came out of the blue.
"No," he said quickly. He was frankly surprised that she even wanted to talk to him. Was she enquiring in order to bring information to Daenerys? Or was it just curiosity? He certainly didn't sense any ulterior motives behind her words. "Perhaps I can ask you a question, my lady?"
"I am not a lady, but may you ask me a question, Your Grace," she replied and smiled softly.
"It's about Daenerys. Queen Daenerys, I mean," For some reason, his words tangled up in his mind. He sighed. "What about her? Did you really come all the way here following her? Why?"
"Why? Because she is my queen. She is our queen. And not because she is the daughter of some king we did not know. But because we chose her," she said vehemently. "She freed us and allowed us to live that freedom on our terms. I have witnessed the cruelty of men in my own skin, and those same men beg for mercy when she came to the defense of the weakest. Westeros will be lucky to have a monarch that will take care of its most vulnerable people when her reign begins."
If Jon huffed incredulously, it was because of the improbability of such a person existing, and not because her speech sounded too skewed.
"Isn't too of a far-fetched notion that one person could be all of this?" he sincerely questioned.
"I've seen it with my own eyes. And you will see it too," she said confidently. "I have seen men come to the queen and try to belittle her for being a young, outcast woman. Men who have approached underestimating her intelligence and being misguided by her beauty. They tried to scare her, they made fun of her, and others even tried to charm her, but Daenerys never respected any of those men. But she does respect you. Hopefully, you'll come to see it someday."
***
Later that day, Dany walked through the door into Tyrion's chambers and found him there, sitting on a long chair with his blank stare on the floor, while his damp curls fall limp on his forehead. The maids that came and went around him, looked up at her and saw in her gaze the order to leave them alone. Dany came to sit next to him but on the other edge of the long chair.
"You have done severe stupid things from Meereen to here, Tyrion Lannister, but you have never disrespected me so openly," she said in a monotonous voice and far from showing any emotion. She didn't even bother to look at him. "When I gave you the pin, I really believed that at least I had that and maybe your faith in me. But now I realize that none of those things were ever there."
"I'm sorry—"
"Don't even try," she cut him off, her tone sharp. However, he insisted,
"Tysha," he said, "Tysha," he repeated again, pinching his eyes that seemed to be flooding with tears. His voice was laden with pain and Daenerys finally looked at him in surprise. He was crying. "He knew it all this time..."
"He who? He knew what?" Daenerys asked.
"It doesn't matter anymore," he said, defeated, "It doesn't matter anymore..."
Daenerys remembered then. Tysha was the name of his first wife. Something that she knew because Tyrion himself had told her, of how being a naive young man he had fallen in love with a prostitute that his brother bought for him.
"Tysha, your wife, right?" she harped on.
"My brother Jaime, he knew everything..."
"Sure. He paid Tysha to make you believe she loved you," Dany recalled. An extremely sad story. A part of her wanted to sympathize with him, after all, Daenerys had also foolishly and naively believed that such unconditional love had existed.
Tyrion's face turned to see her with eyes filled with pain, guilt, shame, and something else...regret. Deep regret. "That is not the whole story."
Then Daenerys heard him confess the rest of a story that only got more tragic. When he was done with it, Dany couldn't help but pull away from him and walk across the room to put distance between them. Before she had been full of resentment for herself, now she felt that she should also feel it for that poor woman.
"You have done well, you have done well," said a Tyrion whose abashment was open and raw, "You should execute us tomorrow, all of us. End this cursed family of traitors."
"Yes, I should," she grunted, "You are not just a disloyal opportunist whose misery you have used to justify your own corruption, you are as wicked as all of them who bred you." Her fists clenched as a surge of anger and bitterness overcame her. Suddenly she felt how all those feelings that she had fought hard to bury deep in her heart came back with a stronger force. "What you did was just send him down the same path, right Tyrion? Only a mind like yours can make love so sordid, so disgusting, and hateful."
His brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean? Who is...?"
"Dovaogēdy!" Daenerys called out. In a second the Unsullied filled Tyrion's chambers. Since she had returned, she had never felt so much force in retaliation coming from her. Fighting the Lannisters and Euron Greyjoy had not felt like revenge but justice.
This time Daenerys wanted vengeance.
Notes:
Next chapter: The dragon must punish the lions. A walk through the city.
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