บท 1593: 9
Chapter 9: Your Friends Close, Your Enemies CloserNotes:
Hi! I hope you all doing well.
I made it my goal to keep the chapters in an average of 2 or 3k words, so I had to split this chapter into three parts.
Part 1 and 2 are up now. So this is a double update 🔔 🔔
Enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
9.
Your Friends Close, Your Enemies Closer.
As the gates opened for her, a hollow sound echoed in the long corridor, filling the empty space with anticipation. Dany took one step forward and then another, her back upright and arms hanging limp at her side. She took in the surroundings as she walked in, appreciating for the first time, what Red Keep looked like when unscathed, and with no blackened ruins nor fallen walls rubble.
Her heart hammered in her chest. She took a deep breath. Her astonished gaze lowered from the great arches of the ceiling to meet the figures of Yara Greyjoy and Grey Worm waiting at the end of the corridor; they were also her last allies in the life she left behind.
When Daenerys met them, Yara lied a red and gold mantle at her feet, with the emblem of House Lannister.
"Red Keep is yours, Your Grace," she said.
When they both made to kneel, Daenerys shot out a hand to halt them.
Footsteps followed close behind. She swallowed hard but made no move to acknowledge Tyrion's presence.
She had thought he would stay behind, more concerned for the sakes of his siblings rather than interested in her. However, his interference in her exchange with Cersei had taken her by surprise as his defense of her when Cersei accused her of murdering those children. Dany could still see them — the children. Both with their heads open and bleeding out on the cobblestones where they landed after she destroyed the scorpion.
She knew she was wrong to take all the blame for it but she couldn't help but feel like...she could have prevented it. She came to get it right this time but she couldn't avoid this mistake.
Daenerys still didn't know what to make of Tyrion other than wait for a major transgression that could seal his fate.
He cleared his throat and pulled her out of her thoughts.
Dany looked at him with an arched eyebrow.
"Would you allow me to escort you to the Throne Room, Your Grace?" he asked.
***
Can you imagine what it looks like in the mind of a girl who can't count to twenty?
The Iron Throne was a dull sight. The memories that brought back to her and the feelings that this room evoked sent a wave of sick through her.
When she stood at the foot of the steps to the Throne, a stream of sunlight washed over her face, seeping through the empty hole in the window where the emblem of House Lannister had previously been etched in the stained glass. In the past, the very sight of it had unleashed a rush of violent, unforgiving anger within her, and she had sent forth Drogon's mighty breath on it.
This time, seeing it through the eyes of somebody wiser and less driven, Daenerys felt nothing but relief.
In another life, this has been her entire goal. Her reason, as she told Jon. But now I in light of the many woes and the hurt it brought her in the path to it, and the much greater things she has built (and renounced to, for now) after it, Daenerys saw the Iron Throne as nothing but an ugly chair.
But even so, as the ugly and disgusting object that it was, it still meant something to her: grasping the power to change things for her and for those she loved and were worth fighting for.
Daenerys left her qualms at the foot of the stepstones and climbed up until she finally sat on her throne, for the first time.
***
She took the chambers that had belonged to her mother Rhaella. The King's chambers had been inhabited by the usurper, his supposed heirs, and then by Cersei, and Dany didn't even want to look at them. She ordered that everything that belonged to them shall be burned or thrown into the streets. That with monetary value sold to feed the poor. It wasn't about pride or revenge, just not wanting to deal with it for the time being.
Once left at her own, Dany removed the tight corset from her gown and slipped into a black robe that covered her entire body. She poured a glass of wine and went to the balcony to look out over the city.
People were slowly crowding the main streets again while fires were lit on the walls; the Lannister soldiers' posts now belonged to the army she had brought.
Grey Worm suggested public execution for those who served Cersei, but this time Daenerys did not allow it. Instead, Daenerys took away their weapons and honors and sent them back home to their families. Some of them were content, some of them were not.
It was always the aftermath what she dreaded to deal with, for she found no thrill nor contentment in it.
A knock on the door startled her and an Unsullied soldier announced Tyrion.
"I thought you'd be at the celebration," was the first thing he said.
Her Hand stood in the archway to her bedchamber, taut and serious.
"How are you faring?" he asked softly, a hint of untraceable emotion in his voice. "I thought you would be at the celebrations."
Insecurity, Dany realized. That was the feeling Tyrion always carried when he was in her presence these days. She couldn't hope for anything else.
"Varys's little birds have yet to be tracked. The wildfire still lies beneath us," she reminded him.
"One day at a time, Your Grace," he replied, walking a few steps further inside. He cleared his throat, "It seems this doesn't feel fulfilling for you, and I want to understand why. At what moment it changed? You were so eager to come home."
What do you know about coming home? She wanted to ask him. For all his discourse about being the outcast of his family and never really finding a home in his family, he'd never stopped loving them. He belonged to them — to this place — in a way that Dany never belonged anywhere, not even in her little village in Essos.
"I can't recall," she simply answered. And she added with a sharper tone, "Your family made sure to make this place feel alien."
A pregnant silence; she watched him approach and a glimpse of something shiny in his hand caught her eye.
It was the Hand pin. The pin she had given him along with the trust she deposited into his person.
Tyrion extended it back to her, staring at her in silence.
So this was it, Dany thought. Somehow it felt hollow, being him again leaving her.
"You saw it," Daenerys accused, her words coming with a bitter aftertaste, "You saw me kill those children. You saw me not hesitate. Because of that, you decided that I'm no longer trustable."
Something like a chuckle came out of his mouth. He looked defeated.
"I did not! I saw Cersei forced your hand. You were only protecting your child."
"Is that so?" Sarcasm hinted in her tone.
He took a deep breath.
"I promised you this, Daenerys, I have never stopped believing in you. And though I haven't been the most efficient Hand in Westeros history, I promise you Daenerys, I did believe in you. And I still do."
She heard him intently.
"Look, I have failed in my appraisals and my assistance has been rendered compromised. You've shown us that your clever mind is sometimes more than enough to carry on with your plans and for that, I ought to step aside and hope that you will fare well without my interference."
"So this is about your family?" she questioned him.
Tyrion stared at her with those huge beaten puppy eyes, not daring to cross her.
Daenerys felt her mouth reeling in pain, realizing how much their betrayal still hurt, not because they stopped believing in her as Tyrion said but because of their unaltered loyalty to their families.
She didn't have that.
Not in this life nor in the last one.
"So Cersei was right," she mumbled in a low tone.
And I am just a child clinging to the last shreds of a legacy gone, she thought.
"Daenerys..." he tried to say but she cut him off.
It doesn't matter what you wish, Tyrion. I don't need you but I will still keep you by my side.
"I need your guidance," Daenerys lied, voice clear and tender as a new resolve making over her determination. She said the words she knew he would want to hear. "I need you, Tyrion."
His gaze softened, his posture unwind.
Daenerys realized then, the best way to vindicate herself would come through pretense.
***
Her face was like a piece of porcelain and her hair glistening white like a mantle of snow under a stream of moonlight. She looked distressed by his presence but never saw Jon standing there. In truth, he wasn't sure he was there with her either, only that he could see her.
Dany.
The same force that had pulled him out of his dreams with her last time, tore him out of it again, and in the distance, Jon heard his own name being called.
His eyes opened slowly fighting against the heaviness of his eyelids. Blurred shadows became clear and the voice that seemed distant was now closer and familiar.
Arya.
"Jon, are you here?"
Jon looked around for something he could recognize but saw only wooden walls and a window overlooking a sky that was too bright to look upon. Where was he?
"Where are we?" he asked.
Arya shifted on the bed. She was sitting on the edge, careful not to hurt him.
"We are going back home, brother," she explained.
"Where?" he asked again, more confused.
Jon then realized that he was lying in the same bed.
"We are on a boat back to White Harbor and then to Winterfell. We couldn't have taken you back home through the roads," she answered.
Images accrued in his memory out of a sudden, of a battle beyond the wall. It was more of a hunt than a battle. The dead were everywhere and in the distance, the Night King staring at him with frozen, piercing eyes.
"The Night King...the dead..." he started but Arya cut him off,
"Sandor got it safe."
"Sandor?"
"The Hound," he eyes blinked rapidly, "It's a long story, but what matters is that you are alive and the wight is with us, locked up and...alive for the rest to see what we saw." His little sister's big eyes shone with unshed tears. "Gods, Jon, I thought I was going to lose you!"
He cleared his throat and made to move on a more comfortable position, "What happened?"
Arya helped him to sit, rearranging the soft pillows beneath his back.
"We made it to the fist of the first men, just as that message said, and we prevented them from surrounding us, do you remember?"
Another memory rushed in, of a land of ice and fire burning in a perfect circle.
"We set the ice on fire," he recalled.
"Yes," she confirmed, "It was your idea. You said the message warned us that the Night King would try to surround us but you suggest we surround them with fire instead." She paused and took a deep breath, her expression serious and angered, "But you fool! you have to use yourself as bait! She took a hand to her face and held back a sob, making Jon himself want to cry, "You ordered them to take me away and the last thing I saw was you being devoured by those things."
He shook his head, remembering himself drowning in the icy waters, "I fell...in the ice."
Arya sniffed and nodded.
"And how did you survive?" she asked him this time, "Did you die and came back again?"
Jon swallowed hard and felt his heart turn over.
"Tormund told me," Arya explained at seeing his face filled with horror.
He cursed his wildling friend. Jon felt exposed and vulnerable, more than ever. Almost ashamed that she knew.
Wanting to avoid delving into the details of that event at all costs, Jon went on to tell her about the recollections that flooded his memory,
"It was Benjen," he revealed, "He was there, again."
"Again?"
It was what Bran and Meera Reed had told Jon about their travel back through the Haunted Forest and the sudden, ghostly appearance of their uncle Benjen, whom he had not seen since he disappeared while ranging the lands beyond the wall.
Jon never thought he would ever see him again.
And now he was gone, for good.
"We have to find out who sent the message," Jon said, his mind traveling through thousands of thoughts at once. Now it was occupied with the responsible behind the message that alerted them to the deathly trap they were walking into.
"Isn't it obvious? It was Bran!" claimed Arya, still fidgety and stressed out.
"Why would he send us a message without a name?"
"I don't know, Jon. He is being Bran. He's changed. Who else could've been?"
That was the question he found no answer to, and it was killing him. The message tried to prevent them from going ahead with the plan as if the person who wrote it knew about the threat of the dead and did not need proof to believe it.
It couldn't be Bran.
"I need a rest," Jon requested, feeling the beginnings of a headache taking him again.
"Of course," Arya said, rising from the bed and slowly walking backward, before stopping and regarding him with apprehensive eyes. She rushed back to his side, mindful of his poorly state, "Gods, brother, you really scared me to death," she told him, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Jon closed his eyes in pain and regret. "Stop being a fool Jon," she scolded him before leaving him be.
***
A current of sea air hit him as it did to the sails of the ship with all its might but it did not make him weaver. In fact, Jon just stood there on the prow, watching the blurred bluish silhouettes on the horizon as the whistle of the wind sang in his ears, making the thoughts in his mind less noisy and haunting for a second; solitude is all he was after in those moments.
Arya did not insist on requesting more information about what happened beyond the wall or his experience with death, as if in her brother's reluctance she found all the answers she needed. Jon wasn't about to bring up the subject. He himself felt confused by the events that were happening around him as if little pieces were missing. The images that haunted him in his dreams were beginning to feel less like such and more like visions.
Silver hair.
Amethyst eyes.
Dany.
The woman he visited in his dreams was a stranger and at the same time a familiar face. How could she be? If it was Daenerys Targaryen, the only feasible answer he could think of, then why was his mind showing it to him? Did it have to do with his purpose? Was it a sign that he should call on her and her dragons to fight this battle? Those were the only assumptions he could make.
They needed Daenerys Targaryen.
***
King's Landing
To all the Great Lords and Ladies of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros,
Your presence is requested by Queen Daenerys Targaryen I at King's Landing during the Great Council that is to take place after the dethronement of House Lannister.
Her Grace counts on your presence and unless a more extraordinary happenstance hinders it, a refusal to comply with this request will be henceforth be considered an act of open rebellion.
With sincerest regards,
Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen.
***
Dany stared at the scroll Tyrion extended the invitation to the great council and sighed.
"What doesn't please you now?" her Hand asked.
She looked up at him, "I thought I made it clear that I will not require the presence of the North or the Vale. And the Riverlands is still in shambles; it will be hard for Lord Edmure Tully to attend or to send somebody on his behalf." Dany reached for the inkwell and with a feather, crossed out a part of Tyrion's message.
Instead, it read:
To the Great Lord and Ladies of Westeros,
Your presence is summoned by Queen Daenerys Targaryen,
"Because I hadn't been crowned yet," Dany explained when Tyrion looked up questioningly at that change.
…The unmotivated refusal to comply with this request will henceforth be seen as an act of unmotivated hostility.
"Then the blame will be on their side, excellent choice of words Your Grace," Tyrion congratulated her. "You almost sound like my father," he commented more absently.
If he saw Dany wince he didn't show it.
"May I suggest, if Her Grace allows me," Lord Varys began as Daenerys and Tyrion looked at him, "...that we leave out Lord Tyrion's name."
Tyrion's response was a shrill, "Why?" While Dany only cocked her head to the side.
"It is not an insult on your person, my Lord. But you and I know that the Lords of Westeros will not be easily malleable if they read a letter from a Lannister proclaiming the downfall of House Lannister..." he explained.
Dany saw the subtle change in Lord Tyrion's features. Congeniality aside, he turned to glare at Lord Varys.
"Fair annotation, Lord Varys," Dany said, "but hiding my allies from the Lords and Ladies of Westeros will not make them more inclined to accept me as their ruler," replied Daenerys, standing up from her chair at the head of the small council table. Tyrion, Varys, and her were the only ones reunited for now.
Dany walked over to the arch of the balcony that overlooked the River Blackwater and sighed.
"Send our message, my lords," Daenerys ordered, "And let them decide for themselves. Something tells me that either way, fate is our final judge."
***
White Harbor
Jon felt physically better when they disembarked in White Harbor, but emotionally he was still distracted and dejected by what had happened. He found himself wishing he could just tear the sorrow off his chest and lay his grievances down.
Arya's apprehensive gaze followed him around and he wondered if the time had come to tell her the truth. Jon squeezed his eyes shut and decided he wouldn't do it just yet. Even if his wish was to clean Lord Stark's honor, he decided it wasn't just about that.
If he began to let the truth out, the less control he would have over it.
Jon knew that Arya would insist on telling Sansa. And once Sansa had the truth in her power, the Gods only knew the chaos that could ensue.
The priority is war with the dead, he told himself.
Just before Bran came back with the truth Jon had been sure he could trust his oldest sister but something changed after Bran came and with the appearance of those dreams and the unease that they settled in his mind.
While reunited with Lord Manderly, treating with matters that concerned the safety of the North should Winterfell fall, Jon watched as a servant approach the old Lord and whisper something in his ear while surreptitiously handing a piece of parchment into his hand. Lord Manderly looked at it and then hesitantly at Jon.
"Is there something my Lord wishes to tell me?" Jon inquired him.
The Lord took a deep breath and handed him the latter.
"Your sister the Lady of Winterfell sent word," he said, "Daenerys Targaryen sits on the Iron Throne. The dragons are back."
Jon himself drew a sharp breath in.
As he eyed the parchment, he ascertained that it was Sansa's writing and not anyone else's.
At his side, Arya reached out a gloved hand to check it out herself.
"Does it mention if Cersei is dead?" she asked.
"Only that the new Queen is assembling a Great Council and has invited to all the great Lords to take part of it. All of them except for us," Lord Manderly grumbled as if it meant an offense to him.
"A Great Council, you say?" Jon asked.
"It is your sister's word, my King. Although, if the Dragon Queen hasn't invited the North, how Lady Sansa came with this information?"
"Lord Baelish," Both, he and Arya, answered his question out loud.
A pause pregnant with silence. No one in the room really knew what to do with that information except Jon.
"Those ships," said the King, walking around the table towards the windows and pointing out at what he referred to; two great ships he recognized as cargo ships. "Are they still sailing for King's Landing?"
"My King cannot be speaking seriously..." someone in the room blurted out.
Everyone started to protest but Jon just looked at Arya.
"What does the wight serve us if we cannot gather the greater number of soldiers?" he questioned her.
"Then, we'll send a representative. You cannot simply show up to your enemy's lair and pretend it won't attack you," Arya replied.
He scoffed like it couldn't be more obvious.
"It can't be anybody else!" he said.
"Why not?"
"Only a King can treat with another. We have nothing to offer her, nor even our fealty. If the worst scenario comes to happen, then at least they'll be alerted...we could still have a chance of survival."
Arya laughed in disbelief.
"Who are we?"
Jon walked up to her and looked into her eyes.
"The Red Priestess that brought me back told me her Lord raised me from death for a purpose and I think that purpose is this, fight until my dying breath to protect the Realm of Men," he explained, speaking in an almost pleading voice, inviting her to believe what he was saying. "There must be a reason for Daenerys to have the only three dragons in more than a century, and I need to make her see that."
"You are still a fool!"
The Lords of White Harbor Lords watched the exchange in horror, unaware of Arya's manners.
"But I'll go with you," she finally said.
Notes:
I'm kind of in limbo regarding Daenerys and Tyrion's relationship. Initially, I wanted to redeem it in this story but for now, I think Daenerys's heart would be too bitter to even consider it.
We will see.
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