บท 2370: 5
5.
Better be a dragon
before you die a sheep's death.
Her hand was resting on the bowl of boiled porridge, the heat emanating from the recipient totally imperceptible to the skin of her hand. Dany had forgotten what it was like to be immune to fire, a skill that death had taken from her in the other life.
"It still amazes me," Tyrion said beside her.
Also breaking their fast at the table where Missandei and Lord Varys.
"I always thought the bit of emerging from the fire rather figurative."
Dany removed her hand and brought it under the table; Tyrion's voice pulling her out of the depths of her thoughts.
She met his eyes, now permanently concerned, and asked, "Is there anything else you thought just figurative?"
The sounds of cutlery clashing and moving stopped; Missandei and Lord Varys watched in silence as tension settled in the room.
Tyrion just leaned back in his chair and gave her a defeated smile.
"Nothing else since I've known you," he replied.
Do you really know me at all? She wondered, growing unease by the day. Tyrion's presence was more distressing to Daenerys than she could have imagined. Every time she saw him, she remembered his contorted and contrite face the last time she saw him before she had been murdered by Jon.
You slaughtered the city, he had reproached her.
And she should have answered, "And you did everything in your power to see it done".
***
Daenerys heard them arguing heatedly behind her, meanwhile, she remained unfazed, recalling times when she found herself in the same position in the past (in the future?) — people clashing over matters of war.
"If you want the Iron Throne, take it. We have an army, a fleet, and three dragons. We should hit King's Landing now. Hard. With everything we have. The city will fall within a day," Yara Greyjoy argued, earning a disapproving look from Tyrion and Varys.
"If we turn the dragons loose, tens of thousands will die in the firestorms," Tyrion rebuked.
Dany let out an audible sigh, causing everyone to look at her. She surprised even herself.
"The dragons would never turn against the people, unless I commanded them to," Daenerys made it clear, looking straight at Tyrion and Varys. "But that doesn't mean Cersei won't take that as an opportunity. The city is still sitting on top of several caches of wildfire." Her eyes met Lady Olenna's. "And we know she has no qualms about making use of it."
The regent of The Reach did nothing more than watch her back indifferently.
Daenerys looked away and licked her lips.
"I'm not going to become queen of the ashes," she declared, uncaring of Tyrion's approval this time.
"That's very nice to hear," Lady Olenna finally spoke, "Of course, I can't remember a queen who was better loved than my granddaughter. The common people loved her, the nobles loved her. And what is left of her now? Ashes. Commoners, nobles, they're all just children really. They won't obey you unless they fear you."
To some extent, she was right. Daenerys remembered nothing but fear, even after King's Landing.
And yet…
***
"And what things would you change?" Bran makes this question out of sudden while they're taking their supper. It is the night before the day they have set up to make the first attempt.
Daenerys is still full of doubts. Just a few days ago, she was in the village, under a lemon tree, remembering.
Remembering what? She wonders now.
"Sorry?"
Bran stares at her, almost amused.
"You asked me what I would change and I answered whatever was necessary to stabilize the lost balance—"
"—those weren't exactly your words," Daenerys remarks.
"—and now I want to know what you would change. What thing you would do differently."
She lets out a soft breath as she leans against the back of the chair and looks up at the ceiling, her lips involuntarily pursing. Her empty gaze is the reflection of a mind trapped in memories that blurred over time. Or maybe it's that she's wanted to get away from them all this time.
"King's Landing," she says, crossing arms over her chest and resting one hand over where her heart is.
"Everything?" Bran asks again, tilting his head, "Or just how it ended?"
***
Dany smiled tautly, coming back from the memory of her conversation with Bran. She hadn't allow herself really to mull over the thing that happened in King's Landing. The thing that hadn't happened here yet. It was so painfully regretful, her mind sometimes couldn't stand it and would avoid at all costs.
She decided that, in order to keep at it she needed to hold on something.
And that something was her rage.
"Lord Varys," she addressed him, "What were the exact words you used when reunited with Lady Ellaria and Lady Olenna in Dorne?"
"Fire and blood," answered in unison the women aforementioned.
The Spider's mouth pursed into a taut line.
"Fire and blood, your Grace, but—"
"That's right. Fire and blood," Dany cut him off, eyed at him sharply. "My family reigned with fire and blood for almost three hundred years."
When his face paled, one side of her mouth lifted into a small smile and she allowed herself to enjoyed the moment profoundly.
Then she sighed ruefully.
"And all that is left now, is me. I'm grateful to you for your council. I'm grateful to all of you. But you have chosen to follow me and I am not going to make my family's mistakes, not again. Cersei is going to use the innocents of the city against me. I know that. But I have never risked the safety of innocents —innocents whom I intend to save— to win the throne; I have put the throne aside before and I'd do it again."
"Then how do you mean to take the Iron Throne? By asking nicely?" Lady Olenna taunted her.
Daenerys snickered. She recalled fondly her sharp tongue.
"It doesn't mean I'm going to sit around idly while the Lannisters prepare their defenses. We will lay siege to the capital surrounding the city on all sides and then, we'll take the city."
"But we won't use Dothraki and Unsullied," Tyrion cut in, hurriedly walking around the table, "Cersei will try to rally the lords of Westeros by appealing to their loyalty, their love for their country. If we besiege the city with foreigners, we prove her point. Our army should be Westerosi."
"And I suppose we're providing the Westerosi?" Lady Ellaria asked him.
"You are," answered Tyrion, reaching a figurine that resembled a Kraken in a longship. "Lady Greyjoy will escort you home to Sunspear and her Iron Fleet will ferry the Dornish army back up to King's Landing. The Dornish will lay siege to the capital alongside the Tyrell army. Two great kingdoms united against Cersei."
"So, your master plan is to use our armies? Forgive me for asking, but why did you bother to bring your own?" Olenna asked.
"The unsullied will have another objective—" Tyrion tried but Daenerys stopped him.
"We won't take Casterly Rock," she stated, standing up and taking away from his reach the figurine of the Unsullied helmet.
Tyrion blinked in surprise.
"Cersei will try..."
"No, she won't. Cersei does not intend to leave the safest place in Westeros for her now."
"Excuse me, your Grace, but I think you don't know my sister as I do."
"And I don't need your knowledge on Cersei. I need you to tell me about your brother."
He swallowed hard. "About Jaime?"
She could see how all the air left his lungs and his face turned a ghostly white.
Why couldn't she see before his love for his brother would ever be greater than any shred of faith in her?
"Cersei is obviously not wasting her time in war strategy, is she? Also, Euron Greyjoy's fleet is a problem I have to solve before it becomes a real problem." She frowned and looked at Lady Olenna. "Which takes me to you Lady Olenna."
"Just when I thought I was growing roots!" the old lady complained.
"You haven't mentioned what will happen with High Garden now...now that your descendants are gone." Although disguised, Dany saw a flash of sorrow cross her eyes. "If I've learned something about tragedies, is that that is the moment the crows come flying to feast on the carrion. Tell me, Lady Olenna. Who are the crows of The Reach?"
***
When she adjourned the meeting, she still asked for a private word with Lady Olenna. Daenerys remembered that she had given her an advice back then, on the way she was handling her campaign — or better said, the way she was mishandle it by letting Tyrion led in her stead.
He is a clever man, your Hand, was what she said. I have known clever men and I outlived them all because I ignored them.
Daenerys wanted to hear it again, maybe this time differently now she had changed her course of action.
"Would you take a bit of advice from an old woman?" Daenerys nodded and she said, "Better be a dragon before you die a sheep's death."
***
Daenerys walked out of the castle and with one hand signalled to her Bloodriders that she did not need an escort. She reproached herself for how much she depended on them back then. When she met their intense dark eyes she remembered that she had led them to die a cruel death for the sake of ungrateful people who would never accept them. Daenerys felt unworthy of their loyalty more than ever.
As she made her way down to the beach, she met a ruminating Tyrion.
"You know, these days I wonder if you regret making me your Hand," he said.
She did it. But she didn't admit that.
"Well, why do you believe I gave you that pin?" she asked him.
Tyrion looked over at her with a lightly inquisitive stare.
"Was I charming?"
When she didn't laughed or even smiled, he turned serious,
"I think you wanted a friend," he finally said.
"We are not friends," she stated, clear and consice, "I made you my Hand because you looked into my eyes, and you told me the truth about my father in spite of the fear you were feeling. Fear you felt at your own failing."
She walked until she was in front of him, looking down at him haughtily.
"Because that's what happened. You failed. You treated with the slavers and you failed. Yet you looked into my eyes in spite of the fear you were feeling and I thought then you have seen the truth in me."
"I did. I do," Tyrion insisted with a hint of desperation in his voice, "I know you are who you say you are, who you want to be. You are not here to become the Queen of the Ashes."
Dany recoiled as if he had hit her chest. The dragons began to fly closer, perhaps sensing the turmoil.
"Find a way to reach word to your brother, Tyrion. I know you can and will find a way. Reach him and offer him this: surrender the city and Cersei, and you will have an open, fair trial."
He followed her close behind.
"He'll never abandon her. He loves her," he was almost pleading.
She turned around abruptly.
"Then what are you doing here? You know how this will end," she reproached him, her voice edging.
"If I give you the city, will you spare at least his life?"
She laughed bitterly. Then that was it. This was the clear borderline between his loyalty to his family and his faith in her.
She breathed in sharply and then shook her head while laughing, "You want to reconcile both realities but you can. This was a mistake."
***
Heaven seemed to Daenerys a sacred and secret place. It was her hiding place. The place where no one could reach her. However, even in the cold, dark night, hidden among the clouds that piled up above the sea, Daenerys felt her skin burn. A terrible feeling of imminence creeping up her back and neck.
In her heart and mind she felt Rhaegal and Dany could only imagine what it was like for him to return to this place. Perhaps for him it has not felt like dying but like remembering something not yet lived, that is what she wanted to believe, because the idea of him remembering all the pain was unbearable.
Jon, she thought fleetingly and couldn't quite determine if it was her own mind or if it was Rhaegal.
She didn't have time to ruminate on that too much as Euron Greyjoy's fleet made an appearance to ambush Yara Greyjoy.
Not this time, she thought as she ordered Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal to fly down.
***
"I'm not going to complain. It seems like a beautiful way to die," Euron said as the dragons surrounded him. His body was almost completely charred, his face nothing more than pieces of melted skin. "You and I are not that different, circumstances put us face to face rather than side by side. But I respect you, Dragon Queen. It takes great courage to be a monster."
And with that, Rhaegal gobbled him up.
***
It was dawn when Dany landed back at Dragonstone. The Iron Fleet continued on its way to Dorne almost whole and now she had to attend to the matter of The Reach, but first, she wanted to sit on the sand and just watch the sun rise on the horizon.
Maybe I'm dead and haven't realized it yet.
"Glad to see you back safely, Your Grace."
Dany almost grunted. Lord Varys did a great job of scaring and disturbing her but Daenerys disguised it as annoyance when she glanced over her shoulder.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, but whispers have come from the North about King Jon Snow and a more than daring endeavor to capture evidence of a threat that he insists is in your best interest to know and in the interest of every person in Westeros."
Fuck, she thought. Fuck, indeed.
Notes:
As I wrote this and picked up some of the actual dialogue from that episode, I realized that Lady Olenna is a device within the dialogue that Bryan Cogman used to point out the obvious and sweep it away. I mean, I do that all the time but I am not a TV show screenwriter, it feels actually cheap.
Next chapter: Jon and Arya have a conversation. Suicide Squad Mission. Dany sees how Jon died in the alternative timeline.
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