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Daenerys woke up chattering, her fingers in a frozen grip.
Her joints cracked as she stretched, mist still rising outside her windows. Some of it crept in through cracks in the stone, crafting an illusion of dust dancing in the soft sun.
It was odd to wake up cold when it had been so long Spring. There was no vestige of Winter to blame, much less in King’s Landing, yet there she laid rubbing her feet together as if to create fire. This is my old age, Daenerys resigned herself, nestled quietly into her sheets although she knew better than to expect sleep would come again.
The crack of the chamber doors brought with it a cup of steaming tea, carried in the hands of her oldest friends—hands that remain supple even now, a knowing smile on a face that defied wrinkles. Missandei’s blessed face is doll-like in her seventh decade, free of blemishes despite all that has ever lied beneath that smoothness.
Was it time to awaken already?
“Old friend,” Daenerys complained, “I thought I had found success in barring you from attending me.”
“This one believes an exception was made for namedays,” Missandei chuckled, holding out the brewed tea that Dany gratefully accepted in her slightly shaking hands. When she sipped, she was met with the perfect temperature, and a touch of spiced honey within.
“‘Tis is a touch warm for such a heated brew,” Dany noted, a gentle smile playing on her lips.
Missandei remained unperturbed. “This one heard the queen whisper and whimper in her sleep, as her Grace does before she wakes shivering.” When you dream of those lost to you, her friend is kind enough not to mention.
“In so many years, is there aught I have hidden from you?”
“Little and less. Shall this one leave you?”
“No, no. Stay with me a moment longer. I have great plans for this day, and would rely on your support.”
“It is no small feat, my queen, to face one’s eightieth nameday.”
“No small feat indeed,” Daenerys echoed, an old woman sipping tea and shivering in bed, speaking more to herself than Missandei. These days, she often spoke to herself, as she did when she was a girl but not at all in the same manner. “Tell me, my friend, how has this day already arrived?”
“From cocoon forth a butterfly, as lady from her door,” Missandei recited, “emerged — a summer afternoon — as only the clovers understood. Till sundown crept, a steady tide, and men that made the hay; and afternoon, and butterfly, extinguished in the sea.”
“You have been translating poetry again,” Daenerys noted, pleased to hear it.
“She fills her hours now that her Grace has dismissed this one from her service,” Missandei smiled sweetly. Daenerys received and cherished her first kiss of the day from her dearest companion, drowsiness fading as the sun rose high in the sky.
Being dressed was a significant matter, one that stolefrom Dany the entirety of the morning. Her chief attendant swept in after the delicate layers of heated linen had been wrapped round her, for no purpose other than to keep her warm throughout the day. A gentle corset is tied to her waste, the malleable bones within it worn to flexibility. Her feet were placed in soft slippers of doeskin, embroidered with freshwater pearls that remind her of another pair of shoes long ago. These fit, however, molding to her in a way that will not ache the following day.
Her half-bodice is black leather, atop red samite with a cloth-of-gold shift peeking through at each opening. When her sleeves were brought, young Lady Aubrey Beesbury spoke, every bit her Tarly mother in the stiff set of her back. There was a wildness in her eyes, however, an ancient sort of mischief that Dany was fond of.
“Your Grace, may I be so honored as to be of the first to wish you a blessed nameday, and on such an auspicious day nonetheless,” the woman bowed, her brown hair covered as befit a lady of the Queen’s household.
“You may,” Dany murmured, “and now, my lady, my lashings?”
“None today,” Lady Aubrey trilled, pleased at being able to say so, “your duties do not call upon you today, and the Small Council does not expect you due to the festivities. I have prepared a visit to the kitchens whence you shall distribute the customary token of appreciation, and overlook the foods to be sent to the smallfolk upon this day, as is your generous decree.”
“Goodness,” Dany chuckled, losing a shoe and gaining a silk stocking, “are there no petitioners? Have the thieves of King’s Landing taken rest for my nameday?”
“They are to be fed and given charity at your command today, your Grace. Even the lowlives of the city know how kind their Queen is.”
Another day or decade, Daenerys would protest taking such liberties with her people, yet today she does not. In fact, she is content to rest and listen to the harp player in the adjacent room spining silk with her voice. Dany hums along as a brush with a moonstone handle is taken through her hair—a gift, she recalls when the light catches it on every soft turn through her silver-golden hair. It never turned, not entirely, although white and grey are peppered throughout. Stark colours, she muses to herself.
“The Great Hall has been magnificently decorated,” Lady Aubrey tells her after rushing about to secure a dozen other matters, “your granddaughters have done well to make you proud, silver Queen. The Feast of Seven Friendships of this year shall eclipse all those of the past.”
“Even that the one year when the Hall flooded with ale?” Dany wonders, “do you recall? There had been a scuffle between two landed knights which commenced a cascade of the ale barrels, until every lord and lady was hopping about as if they were rabbits.”
Lady Aubrey smiles indulgently. “Before my time, your Grace. Now, shall I review your schedule once more? There is to be luncheon in the gardens with the Essosi delegation, followed by the procession through the city upon an open carriage, oh, and have I mentioned that the dragons were released this morn? Prince Aemon did arrange it most brilliantly, of course.”
“Were they, already?” Daenerys asks, disappointed. She had not seen nor heard. This was one of few days in King’s Landing when her three firstborn were free, for they mostly lingered upon Dragonstone where they did not require chains, contented to the Dragonmont. Once, it was custom for Daenerys to ride Drogon this day, circling the capitol to shrieks and cheers from below, but she has not flown in years. Her hip troubles her too much for it.
“It was most brilliant,” one of the chambermaids pips, a young girl of red hair and green eyes. Jeyne, Dany almost says, but that had been the girl’s mother before her.
“How wonderful,” she sighs, leaning back to have her locks braided and pinned beneath a lovely netting of rubies and obsidian.
Her melancholy is not permitted to last, no, for it is interrupted with a face that is her own from an odd five-and-twenty years prior. To think I was once so beautiful, and thought myself old even then, Daenerys thinks, accepting vigorous kisses upon each cheek.
“Mother,” Princess Alysanne says brusquely, petulant in the moment even in her two-and-fiftieth year. “I have gone to the trouble of procuring for you a present, although we both know you shall despise it, so let us get it over with.”
“A wise idea,” Daenerys laughs, pulling the top from a lavishly carved box and finding within vain delights. “oh, my darling, you should not have.”
Within the chest were three gilded crystal eggs, crafted masterfully in a Myrish style with inlaid gems that made the orbs seem as if they were crackling with fire within. It was lovely, but Daenerys had little use for fair objects.
“I did say there was no purpose to any gifts,” Alysanne cackles, “my mother has not enjoyed a present of mine for, oh, ten, perhaps twenty years? Yet still I endeavor to please her to my dying breath.”
“Stop that,” Dany chastises, grinning, “in my old age, sweetling, I have such little use for pretty pieces. Yet these are thoughtful and I shall cherish them as they were gifted me from my daughter.”
“That is not the entire gift,” Alysanne scoff, summoning all the ladies. “Good women, yes this shall involve you, do not try to escape—upon my signal we shall all make a crack sound, shan’t we? Oh, come now, Lady Aubrey, it is in good fun! Mother, do close your eyes. Are all prepared? Allow me hear your best crack, if you would.”
Various noises ring out as Dany closes her eyes, ranging from believable to pure mummery, and a sigh of I suppose it must do brings Dany to fondness.
“Crack, ladies!” Alysanne cries, and sweeps about, the volume rising in the room until Dany is beside herself with laughter at the desperate sounds being made all around her—
“Open your eyes, Queen Daenerys the First of her Name!” Princess Alysanne bellows, and when Dany does, three beauties of unparalleled delight stand before her; one silver-haired in the deepest black, one silver-golden with a black streak and a babe upon her belly clad in emerald, and a third of dark hair and long face in soft cream that looked as if it would melt in the mouth. All three were flapping cloaks that matched their gowns about, giggling and taking flight.
Her eggs had hatched, she supposes is the idea. Foolish, yet it makes her laugh.
“Oh, my loves!” Daenerys cries, holding open her arms and rushing her granddaughters into an embrace, “oh, how perfect a surprise this is!”
“So there are gifts you enjoy after all,” Alysanne snarks, her arms folded.
“Blessed nameday, Grandmother,” Visenya, Rhaella, and Lyanna sing out as one, their voices melding from flawless pitch as they have been doing all their lives. Daenerys always adored to hear them singing together. They are grown women now, two with children of their own, but a grandchild remains a grandchild.
“It only blessed is for I have now seen you,” Daenerys sighs content, ushering them all to sit beside; Rhaella in particular, for her pregnancy had not been a simple one. Maester Tarly was heaven-sent, Daenerys always proclaimed, and in him she held complete trust—even if he did prefer to conduct childbirths through his assistants, remaining in the antechamber unless he was needed. He will be uncomfortable long before you feel so, Jon would laugh after each of their children were born, for that reason I will have no other maester for you. “But where is your brother? Where is Aegon?”
“He herds the dragons to Dragonstone,” Lyanna answers, a bright smile upon her face, “he shall be present at the feast in the eve, as will our cousins.”
“Finally, there is good news!” Dany claps, making japes and summoning pastries for her three beautiful granddaughters. There is another, her lovely Daenaera, but the girl is far off making peace and trade with a particularly troublesome Pentoshi Prince. Her letters spoke extensively of this rogue of a man, lamenting his difficulty. Thankfully, the man had a sister who kept a good head on her shoulders, and her hair was black as the night’s sky, her eyes green as the deep forest…
Daenerys counts Pentos as won, and her granddaughter’s heart as lost. The thought brings her joy.
“And Aemon? Where is my son?” Dany asks her daughter, mayhaps pointedly.
“Off listening to your petitioners,” Alysanne waves away, “he does so love doing that. It makes him feel important.” Dany raises an eyebrow to Lady Aubrey, who furiously checks her list as if her lie did not just now crumble to dust.
“Is this fitting quite finished? We do plan to have the Queen make an appearance before the sun sets, ladies, by your leave,” she barks, and with a few pieces of jewelry fastened along with perfumes and a spot of rouge applied, Daenerys is sent out to meet the day.
If her Council was pleased to see her depart the luncheon early to attend them, they did a remarkable impression of acting as though they did not. Samwell, at least, was her ally, as he had ever been one to Daenerys’s husband.
A chorus of blessed namedays went about, and Prince Aemon shifted from Daenerys’s chair to the one beside her, bowing to kiss her hand.
“We thought not to burden you with matters of state on this day, your Grace,” he says loudly. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he leans closer, “my wife did say she would entertain you. Did she upset you, Mother?”
Dany is pleased to hear that they are speaking. “Not at all. I only wished to be at my own Council meeting. Have I disrupted proceedings, Lord Hand?”
He rears back, bowing. “Never, my queen. Shall we?”
Master of Laws Hoster Blackwood introduces the list of potential replacements for Master of Coin, the names on which Daenerys half recognizes. She recalls their grandparents, at the least. More often than she realizes, she leans to allow her Lord Commander Grey Worm remind her of something or other, permitting Aemon to take control. He was four-and-fifty, her eldest, and a thoughtful listener. Like his namesake, her maester kin she had heard so much about, Aemon was as learned as he could be. He’d forged six chains at the Citadel in his youth, and each of them served him well.
“My niece Princess Daenaera has done more to settle Pentos than the Velaryon fleets making noises at Braavos have, my lord,” Aemon snaps at Lord Monterys Velaryon, her Master of Ships. There is the other side to him. He could be impatient, a touch too stern. As a man, Dany supposed he could get away with it.
Aemon and Alysanne were the sun and the moon, in terms of temperament. Unfortunately nowhere did their personalities clash so much as in their own bedchamber, where they had once been so complementary. She had waited years longer than she expected, waited long enough. Too long, some said behind her back.
Always a Prince, never a King, courtiers said of Aemon and had for ages. Not for much longer now. Daenerys only wished to see one last Council meeting, for she would announce this eve her abdication in Aemon’s favor.
King Aemon, the First of His Name, she dreamily thinks to herself. When they thought of names, Maester Samwell had told tales of the first Aemon, son of the Conciliator, and then the Dragonknight who loved Naerys, and then the Maester who could have been crowned. All three would have been excellent rulers if they’d ever reached the height, yet each had not, for their own reasons or another. Waylaid by destiny. Daenerys thinks for one excruciating moment of the first child who moved within her, the one she wished to name Rhaego.
Aemon had a brother he would never meet. An odd thought.
Council ends nearly without her notice. “Oh, have we finished already?” Daenerys asks, passing it off as a jape when looks are sent her way. “Never mind then, my lords. We shall feast soon, so to be met.”
On Aemon’s arm she departs the room, Grey Worm trailing softly behind. Heavier than in his youth—they had both gained a fair hand of weight in their old age. Are you having a babe, Lord Commander? she teased him at times, and they both laughed no matter how many times she told it. What use was it being old, if she could not repeat the same jokes?
“Did you watch the dragons set free?” he asks her off-handedly.
“Oh yes, most wondrous,” she compliments. He gives a nonplussed look that spells out his disbelief.
“You did not?” he tuts, “honestly, Mother, I sent the time with your steward. What am I to do with you?”
Relieve me the weight of this crown. “Forgive an old woman her forgetfulness, son.”
At that, he clicked his tongue. “Must we moan and groan even today, my queen? Your family is all present and the Seven Kingdoms as well. I would see you be merry, Mother.”
Daenerys does smile for him, at least. “The lords and ladies are assembled, I understand. Have you met with them? Made all the appropriate noises?”
“I have done as you command, as I always do, and only wish that pleased you entirely,” he nods, “at times I fear that you still miss your progresses overly much. Surely you see the wisdom, your Grace, in having the nobles come to the capitol to witness your and Father’s many reforms upon their journey and inspire in them a desire to implement such in their own fiefs—”
“I do, I do,” she gently assures him, “I miss the travels of my youth with my beloved by my side, that is all. My prince of Winter who is gone from me, and your beloved father.”
Aemon coughs, a slight sourness that never sat well upon his handsome face appearing. It was Jon’s look, one that melded flawlessly into his long Stark features. On their son, it was always out of place. “Yes, may he rest.”
“On my nameday you will not give me these old griefs,” Dany scolds. A flash of indignance crosses his eyes, quickly giving way to guilt.
“I give you none at all, Mother.”
Daenerys smiles, holding her eldest living son’s hand in hers. He takes it as a need to lean on him, and offers her support with both hands, searching her face for any sign of pain. “Are you well, my queen?”
“I wish to see my family at peace on this day.” His hands drop, the sour look returning.
“This has little to do with me, your Grace. I am the image of courtesy and gallantry, although my goodwill is neither noted nor appreciated, per custom.” He sighs, rubbing at his temples. “Mayhaps Father was correct after all.”
He catches Dany’s eyes and has the decency to look ashamed. “I speak foolishly, Mother, you know this. I would not have the very purpose of my life if… ah, I shudder to even think thus. I wish you had seen the dragons this morn, they were ever so brilliant.”
“Brilliant,” Daenerys echoes, a shade of a whisper.
“Grandfather!” a tiny voice barrels down the hallway, booming louder than the body that carries it. A trampling of small feat beats down the waxed floors, hurtling face first into the open arms of the man she called for. “Grandfather, grandfather!”
“Has my sweetling found me?!” Aemon gasps, in the manner does with children, “oh, my dear, is this the fancy gown of which you told me? How lovely you are, precious child!”
The girl—sweet little Elaena, the surpassingly lovely bastard babe of Daeron’s Jacaerys—giggles pink, clutching her doll. “This is my robe, Grandfather!”
“So it is,” Aemon murmurs, grinning and raining kisses on the girl, “only it is so pretty on you I thought it to be a gown. Your silly grandfather. Come, darling, have you wished our queen a blessed nameday? She is eighty today.”
“Eighty?” the girl says with wide eyes, shyly wishing Daenerys and cuddling into Aemon’s chest.
“Can you count to eighty?” Daenerys says sweetly, kissing the girl’s brow, “if you can do so, I shall let you stay awake past your bedtime, lovely.”
The girl pouts. “I—I only know fifteen...”
“Next year, then,” Daenerys promises, “for now, I should think your father searches for you.”
“I will escort her,” Aemon promises magnanimously, kissing her little fist, “it has been long since I have seen my nephew. I shall discuss with him the matter of Master of Coin, Mother, if you would wish to join.”
Is there any a woman wishes to do less on her eightieth nameday? Dany kisses Aemon’s cheek. “No, my love, be on. I shall complete my schedule for the day and meet you upon my feast this eve.”
“As you say, my queen,” he bows, nodding to Grey Worm and motioning for his own personal guards to remain at his side. They were men good as brothers to him, men who would die for him, and Daenerys thought of them as bloodriders. As khas. It gave her no small relief to know Aemon had such men.
Grey Worm leans closer to Dany, watching her son and Hand be off with Elaena. The child names him grandfather although he is her granduncle, for she knows not her true grandfather. The thought makes Dany sad, an old ache never healed. She had thought losing Rhaego the worst pain a mother could feel, and then another after, but it was an entirely different ache, losing a child who had already grown to manhood. Losing a son, who was also father and husband.
Jon had been the one to raise the rebels who killed him from their knees, to pardon them and take from them lands and concessions. Daenerys could not do it.
“My queen, the time is here. Lady Arya awaits you.”
“Has she arrived already?” Daenerys says faintly, “I did not realize. Let us not keep an old friend waiting.”
Arya is quiet as a shadow when she comes upon Dany. The woman is a quick as a snake, swift as a deer when she appears, silver like lightning dancing through her closely cropped Stark brown hair. The sight of it has Dany blinking twice, a sudden difficulty breathing in her tightly arranged clothing.
“All these years gone, and yet you still see him in me,” Arya chuckles, bowing her head and no more. There is no offense. At this age, knees bent and never went straight again. Here in this old abandoned garden that she has heard it said her mother once enjoyed to walk in, she does not call for courtesy.
“I see you remain spry, Lady Arya.”
Arya makes a face. “Oh, don’t you start.”
When they approach the memorial, they stand in silence. It is a handsome face, a charming and smiling one that stands tall before them, a likeness similar yet so different from the flesh. I left him in his grandmother’s arms, Daenerys reflects, laying gentle flowers picked for her at the bottom of his stone-carved boots.
Daeron was actually Queen Rhaella’s great grandson through Jon’s blood, but that is no consequence. Her tall and strong son, the youngest and the last yet the first to depart. Daenerys touches the outstretched hand of the statue, willing heat and life into it. It remains stone.
“Even in grey slab, he has my brother’s look,” Arya sighs, “his coloring, anyway. You let him have that much.”
“It was all his father wished to leave him. Even if he had been called upon to pass the Stark name, my Jon would have been pained to do so. It never rested easy on him, carrying that legacy.”
“The legacy he carried flawlessly,” Arya muses, “it was the name, only the name. We fought on it more than once—what is a name? I used to ask him. I myself have held a hundred, but never was I not myself beneath it all.”
Dany hums, slightly irked at being corrected on the mind of a man she’d spent decades with, but Arya and Jon had a bond even Daenerys could not intrude upon. Once, at the funeral in Winterfell, Arya had confessed feeling similar. That was the last I ever rode a dragon.
“You are not the only who quarreled with him over names,” Daenerys reminisces, accepting the guiding hand of her friend leading her to bench. “This boy of ours, Daeron. What a row we had in naming him! Rhaegar was what I wished, after my glorious brother and his father, but Jon refused ardently. It had been so simple, with Aemon and Alysanne… he broached a dozen others, yet none satisfied me. I did remind him that I was carrying the babe and should have a voice to choose, yet he stormed off as he rarely ever did.”
“Prince Rhaegar,” Arya tests, the words smooth as silk on a tongue that had once known Braavos’s salty sprays, “it would have been a second tragedy. Best that it had not been.”
Dany sighs. “Mayhaps. I did ask if Jon hated my brother after all, but he said he did not, in a voice so quiet I could hardly hear. Instead he told me that he at times wondered how much of Rhaegar was in him, truly, for there was a part of him that had never felt Eddard Stark’s son. To hear myself oft compared to his sire was another cause for his brooding. Thus, Daeron was borne, for love of a child who need not carry the burdens of his parents.”
Her eyes begin watering, weathered cheeks shaking beneath the weight of her wet eyelashes. “He was my favourite, I confess. A mother should not have favourites, yet…”
“We cannot help ourselves, can we?” Arya laughs, releasing her queen’s hand, “it is the fathers who can love their babes equally, those fools.” Daenerys thinks that is true, but doubts her children would agree. Aemon in particular.
“Would that we could travel North together once more,” Daenerys rues, cursing her body grown old and less hardy. She had ridden across the Dothraki sea in this body, the Narrow Sea a thousand times, to the ends of the world and beyond—yet it now failed her. “It was my love’s wish to be buried beside his mother and the man who raised him, yet to have a grave to garnish would be my great pleasure.”
“Every man who has ever been the King of Winter should rest beneath Winterfell,” Arya counsels, “and it was not his intent to be parted from you, your Grace. My brother did think of you until the end, and wished for you to live beyond him. He would not have us sniffling over his tomb when we could be doing other things. Besides, we have both left of ourselves pieces with him. He was never, and remains not, alone.”
“So he is,” Daenerys laughs, wiping away her tears, “oh, Arya, how glad I am to have you, as friend and counsel. Would that you would remain on in King’s Landing as you once did, perhaps to seat on Council. There is ever one open to you.” Aemon needs wise councillors, those who were born before this lasting summer and know of great sacrifice.
It was not their fault, but the world was full of children, now, nary a winter-bred warrior among them. They were fat men and giggling maids, plentiful bread and sunshine well into the hours of the day.
Dany gazes on the scar across Arya’s right ear where the top half is missing. A clean cut. A reminder.
“I confess I cannot fulfil your wish, Daenerys, not for all the love in the world,” Arya smiles, “yet I renew my invitation for you to visit Starfall once more. We did have such pleasant times.”
“Terribly pleasant, yes,” Daenerys agrees faintly. She tries to bring those times to mind, but they wisp away before she can catch more than the children shrieking with laughter, Lord Edric’s bare chest as he taught the naked babes to swim, the red of summerwine accidentally spilled in Ghost’s fur as he sat panting in the Dornish heat.
Are those times gone already? Daenerys sighs to herself.
Lady Aubrey slinks into the garden, her list ever at hand. “Your Grace, Lady Dayne. Shall we ride into the city now?”
Dany smiles weakly, closing her eyes for a moment to think of Daeron once more. His children remained, each of them as daring as their father, yet it had once been her son who accompanied her on her rides into the city.
Many years. Moments. She thinks of his little feet as they once were, paddling away from her in the Summer Sea. Daeron, come back! Daenerys had laughed at his determined strokes, straining to catch his elder siblings and cousins. Daeron, come back, she could still hear herself saying, a dull roar carved on the bottom of her heart.
The feast in the eve requires a change of dress, this more hastily arranged than the last, although a glance in the glass reflects a perfectly coiffed woman, short and lovely in a hairnet and crown. She is still beautiful, Daenerys thinks.
“Aren’t you beautiful,” Alysanne teases, “remain near, Mother, lest some rogue snatch you up! You must do the same for me, for I have also made myself horribly lovely, although it does feel ridiculous to do at a certain age, no?
“I am tired,” Daenerys confesses, “the city… oh, Alysanne, you are a vision, my dear.”
“Quite, quite,” Alysanne laughs, “now, what is this about the city?”
Arriving in King’s Landing had been heartbreaking, so many decades ago. She had never seen it before yet she had dreamed of it, and often, and leagues of ruins greeted her. The city is no longer ruins. It was built in the image of a dozen different inspirations, taking from the various lands what was good and leaving off that which was not. On Dragonstone, Daenerys had found Rhaegar’s old journals that spoke of a sewage system he wished to plan, of roads and pathways to widen.
There is much work to be done, her brother mused in his elegant handwriting, and a handful of letters from a brother of the Night’s Watch were also found. It seemed Stannis Baratheon had preserved for history all that he had felt duty-bound to, and Daenerys’s first Stark child was named for this very brother of the Night's Watch whom Jon had served with.
Aemon comes to her now, head high and regal in his doublet embroidered with his personal sigil, the quartered Stark wolf with the Targaryen dragon. That pleases her as he kisses her cheeks, her knuckles, and does a stiffer version of the same to his sister Princess Alysanne.
“Come, your Grace, we have many to meet,” he ushers, “sister, shall you join?”
“Far be it from me to steal the affection of the masses from you, dear husband,” Alysanne replies. Dany nearly cuffs her ear for the slight, but Aemon leads her away.
Their first attendance is paid upon Lord Jason Marbrand, red-haired and bearded in his flame colors.
“Our Warden of the West,” Daenerys greets once he bows and pays obeisance to an unnecessary degree. Well, it was a tad necessary, to emphasize the love between his House and the Crown. The West, so newly divested of Lannisters upon Tyrion’s death a decade prior, remains unstable. “How doth Lannisport fare? We were much aggrieved to hear of the passing of your good councilor Lady Tysha in this season.”
“As grieved as I was to lose her,” the man speaks loudly, “she was no true Lannister yet she was the best of them, your Grace, and Casterly Rock less for her absence. The West is well in your name, good queen, the queen’s peace reigning. Many gifts have been sent upon our behalf for the love borne—”
“Yes, and we wish only to be worthy of such love,” Aemon interrupts, the massive hall full of guests awaiting them, “we shall meet upon the morrow, no, my lord? I look forward to speaking more at that time, of the West.”
“As you will,” Lord Jason bows once more.
He looks nothing like Tyrion, Daenerys thinks, although she is well aware that Tyrion was only distant kin to this new lord. Then again, there were no children from Tyrion to look like Tyrion, which was the dwarf’s own design. Dany shivers to recall it; let my father’s line die, he had declared once, in a privy council celebration thanking him for his work in completing the sewage system of King’s Landing, meant as a jape yet Dany knew he was serious as death. Lady Tysha’s forgiveness and love was all he desired, by the end. The woman had never again given her hand in marriage to her once love but they had ruled side by side for many years.
Dany prays that was enough.
They meet with the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, a balding man near Aemon’s age, unfortunately named Robb. Daenerys confesses she is a touch icy with this Lord Robb, the Usurper’s name before it had been that of Jon’s brother. It was understandable, of course, this son of Lord Edmure Tully and the widow of the Young Wolf. Lord Robb stood by his constant companion, one Brynden Bracken, and thanked Daenerys for her inquiry as to his expansion of hunting rights to his peasants, as Dany and Jon had done in the kingswood ages prior.
The conversation stalls, for there are no children to inquire after. Lord Rickon Stark was his heir and his elder, off drinking plentifully with Lady Arya.
“Khaleesi,” another group calls, the Dothraki included in her earlier luncheon feast. Breaking away to attend them, she smiles, thinking of the silver bell hidden in her hair, the sound loud enough only to touch her own ear. “Khaleesi, we visit upon your khalasar in Vaes Daenerys,” the broad man who styled himself Khal Edo says with limited Common Tongue, “is unlike any we have seen, these ones and I.”
Vaes Daenerys, she nearly laughs to hear. The Dothraki quarter was a southwestern portion of King’s Landing where those who had remained with her across the sea made their lives. The Dothraki way had no place in Westeros as a whole, yet the trading of those goods which Westeros rarely saw made the area plentifully rich. Her khalasar had a difficult time to settle, which did not entirely displease Daenerys. Her own discomfort in settling to Dothraki custom was brought to mind.
“The Andals flock to it and exchange many gifts for the wonders sent from our brothers in Vaes Dothrak,” Daenerys says in accented Dothraki, “such intricate work had never been seen on these shores before.”
“It is not the Dothraki way,” Khal Edo’s bloodrider, whose names escapes Daenerys, sneers, drinking from an immense elephant horn.
“No,” Dany admits, “but it is a good one, no less.”
When Aemon pulls her off again, Daenerys untangles her arm from his and kisses him once more. “My son, go make merry with these lords on my behalf. I shall rest upon my seat on the dais.”
“Your Grace,” Aemon says with furrowed brow, “they are here to meet their queen. If it is your wish they attend you at your seat, this can be arranged.”
“No, no. You shall more than suffice, I am sure, yet I ask that you escort your wife along with. She is quite charming, and well-loved.”
“Among many of Princess Alysanne’s good qualities,” Aemon grunts, bowing and retreating.
There are so many (too many) lordlings and ladies here, Westerosi and otherwise, merchants and captains. They swarm all around with faces Dany does not recognize, has not recognized in thirty years, yet still she makes the effort. Jon used to make it easier, whispering the name of the noble who approached in her ear from their sigil alone. Her hip aches.
Courses are served that Daenerys rarely accepts, until the dessert begins arriving and Daenerys realizes that she has eaten hardly none of the food. Had so much time passed already? Hunger did abandon her these days, and it was often Missandei who reminded her eat. Missandei was not present, not one for late carousing, for she preferred to rise with the sun and work her poetry whilst the dew remained.
Dany does accept Tyroshi honeycakes as she sweeps an eye around, lingering on the Dornish party wrapped in sandsilks. The faces are all so young, flush with the pleasantry of an evening spent in rich company. Daenerys no longer recognizes a single one.
“Do you suspect rebellion?” a wicked voice whispers in her ear, and she turns to meet the wide boyish smirk of her three-and-twenty year old grandson, Ser Daemon Targaryen with his chiselled jaw, dancing grey-blue eyes, and a shock of silver hair. He wore earrings paired with a button undone from the top of his embroidered tunic, a lazy sort of dress that fit his broad shoulders as a second skin.
“I suspect you of mischief, young Daemon,” she chuckles, rubbing his cheek as she was sure a dozen tittering maidens desperately wished to. He let them, Dany did not doubt. Daemon was a rascal.
“Not at all, grandmother,” he gasps, holding her hand and grinning, “I am eager to test this sword against something, is all. You deprive all us lads any glory in the field, what with this immense peace of yours.”
“Your glory is at sea, I am told.”
Daemon snorts. “If it is, it is no great one, for my sister bested me to Pentos, did she not?”
“Princess Daenaera is the Sea Snake reborn, Lord Monford did tell me once of his niece, lauding her Velaryon blood,” Daenerys laughs, “the same blood flows in your veins, my darling, and your time shall come.”
“One could say my time has come, grandmother, for she is off missing this grand feast, while I remain by your side, a vigilant eye upon the Dornish party.” He accompanies his words with a wink and a call for more wine, for the two of them. A flagon is furnished, but Daenerys declines more than half of a cup.
“Where is your brother Prince Jacaerys?” Daenerys questions. “I have not met him of yet.”
Daemon shrugs. “Would that I could say the same, your Grace. He near snapped off my head earlier, when I dared bring dear auntie Rhaella wine at a moment of her being overly warm. Does the Citadel breed maesters, or hunting dogs?”
“You are such a sweet boy,” Dany sighs, “bringing your aunt wine. Your father was much the same. Tell me, Prince Daemon, did you pay visit to your father’s memorial?”
Daemon flicks at his own earrings, winking off at some girl in the hall. Daenerys does not chastise him—children were for scoldings. Grandchildren were to love. “Hm? Indeed, of course. I am his dutiful son although I recall neither hide nor hair of the man. He appeared most handsome as usual. Suppose it is in the family,” he casts an eyes at Daenerys, winking at her this time, “for he did have the most beautiful woman in the world for a mother, no? Queen Daenerys, Khaleesi of Beauty, First of her Name and Unrivalled in all—”
“Cease your endless flirting, cousin,” Aemon’s Lyanna commands, a smile on her lips, “he only wishes to be your favourite, grandmother, desperate for a woman’s love any way he can find it.”
Daemon leans over Daenerys, finding dark-haired Lyanna’s eyes with challenge in his own. “I need not be grandmother’s favourite, cousin Lyanna, so long as I am yours.” He makes a kiss at her, uncouth and terrible as he is.
“You need be more careful with those kisses, cousin,” Lyanna teases back, tipping closer.
“Or what?”
“Or else I may kiss you back,” she threatens, and the both of them laugh, returning to their seats. Lyanna was Daemon’s elder by two years, and now married to a scholarly Blackwood, yet Dany had always wondered between them…
It did not matter anymore. Nothing had ever come of it, although even Jon had suspected it might. If Daeron had lived, a betrothal might have been made, but Daemon was a mere six when his father perished. Besides, Aemon was loathe to betroth his children. He always had to make a point, her son.
“Still on the Dornish?” Lyanna asks, Dany soon realizing her eyes had not yet drifted.
“Oh, no,” she waves away, “merely thinking.”
“Of?” Daemon prods, accepting a dozen lemoncakes on her behalf. Dany tastes one, recalling Lady Sansa, her first chief attendant, who had been sweet on lemoncakes and rigid in her running of Daenerys’s wardrobe. Whatever Dany had missed from a septa, she learned well from the ever-beautiful Lady Sansa Arryn. The woman had passed five years prior, surrounded by her children and grandchildren and the husband who bowed to her every command.
“The two of you,” Daenerys admits truthfully, “my lovely Lyanna and darling Daemon. What better grandchildren could any woman ask for, I wonder?”
“Indeed,” Daemon agrees, as Lyanna coos.
“Truly,” Dany continues, spurred on with affection filling her, “Lyanna, you did bring our family joy and peace, the name granted you one your Stark grandfather did weep to hear. As did I, but I was weeping already just to see you born.”
“And mine?” Daemon chuckles, sucking sweet syrup from his finger, “did you weep to hear it as well? My lady mother tells it otherwise.”
Dany must be amused at that. “Oh, Daemon. Making peace is a strange thing over so many years. Princess Arianne’s daughter had only just named a daughter of hers Meria whilst her Tyrell father was in something of a sortie with us over one trade issue or another, and a slight was suspected. Of course when your troublemaker of a father presented you with the name Daemon, we did fear a war of wombs was at hand. Thankfully peace was made between Highgarden and the throne, else I would have feared for my gooddaughter’s health.” We all laughed about that, years later, she reminisces. Princess Arianne had been a good friend, in a strange manner, and her loss along with Lord Willas’s sincerely felt by the Queen and her Prince-Consort.
“To think I heard it said Princess Arianne was never fond of her husband,” Lyanna teases, her eyes meeting Daemon’s.
“Fond enough,” Daenerys sighs, “fond enough, children. There were heirs made between them for Highgarden and Sunspear alike, although they lived apart and perhaps preferred other lovers in their older age. So it is, at times.”
“Princess Meria’s son is a wise prince, at least,” Daemon says, as if he has a head for such things. “We were comrades in smashing the fearsome Tigers at sea, and enjoyed several nights of delights I shan't share in good company. Now he reigns and never boards his ships any longer, poor bastard.”
“Thus Princess Arianne’s insults, if they ever truly were insults, have been put to rest. I would say the same for Highgarden, yet it is known that Lady Margaery rules in truth.”
“Snarky old hag,” Daemon gulps his wine, to which Daenerys tsks. “Apologies, I mean no offense to the Virgin Queen.”
The Virgin Queen, Dany nearly laughs along. A funny name for a woman who had been wed thrice, although never again following the death of Tommen Baratheon. Tommen Lannister.
Still. One did have love affairs.
Not me. If Daario Naharis had ever counted, he was long forgotten.
“You do remind me of your grandfather, you know. Most pleasantly so,” Daenerys says suddenly, clasping Daemon’s hand. The boy who is a man gazes back at her, until his eyes turn into what is nearly sincerity.
“I wish I could have known him longer.”
But Jon’s time had ended even as Daemon was still a squire. These children, it was in their hands the future lay now. Before her sits a child, Dany thinks, yet weren’t they all children once? Daenerys thinks of Lyanna’s namesake and her own brother Rhaegar. It was many years into her reign that she thought of them and realized that they too had been children, the Usurper and Eddard Stark not more than twenty years.
It was the closest Daenerys had ever come to sympathy for Robert Baratheon.
When the feast began to hint at winding down, the older participants slowly leaking from the Hall, Queen Daenerys stood up with Prince Daemon’s assistance, calling order and requesting ears.
She thanks her guests for coming, speaking names where she could remember them and mentioning grandparents where she could not. Goblets are raised to her a time or twelve, until Daenerys breathes deeply and calls to her children, the two who came before her arm-in-arm. Their touches still flow easily between them, Dany notes.
“I am an old woman now, and the honor of serving as your Queen one that has been the purpose of my life for 60 years! With heart full, I choose this moment to present you Prince Aemon, Princess Alysanne, brave and dutiful children of the dragon,” she smiles, and motions for them to rise to the dais, each holding a hand. “They have waited many years, my friends, and I hereby declare that from the morrow, my wise son and fierce daughter shall reign as your King and Queen!”
A roar rises up in the hall, surprise giving way to approval, Aemon and Alysanne exchanging a harried glance between them. “Mother?” Alysanne whispers, perplexed.
“Smile, my dears,” Dany urges, “this is your moment. My abdication is signed and witnessed.”
“Your Grace,” Aemon says wondrously, waving to those who would be his subjects, “I cannot…”
“You need not,” Daenerys assures, yet they two bend before her still, kissing her rings and praising her loudly into the hall. A toast is called for, all the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered as one until the light from the chandeliers is painful for how it splinters the tears gathering in her eyes.
It is upon Aemon’s arm that she is escorted to her chambers once more, her feet aching despite her comfortable shoes. She ate little, yet still her body is heavy as iron, as steel, and walking feels as though she wears armor every step.
Ser Barristan was near this age and wore armor as a second skin, Daenerys thinks humorously, to herself, for Aemon had not an idea of any Ser Barristan. How could he, summer child as he was?
“Mother,” he speaks hesitantly in hushes, looking about as if there may be eavesdroppers, “were the words you spoke true?”
“Oh, yes,” she promises, softened by the near boyish tone of his voice. “I am an old woman, son, and the throne requires someone more vigorous.”
“Yes, yes,” he hastens, “but do you do this for…”
“For?”
“For, well,” he sighs deeply, pulling away, “for me, mother? Am I… ready?”
Daenerys clasps her hands to her chest, smiling fondly. “Who is ever ready, Prince Aemon? Yet I trust that you shall do what is right.” She hums, watching his face, “and with Princess Alysanne by your side, no less.”
Aemon goes a tad sour at that, his hands finding the pockets of his breeches. “I am sure that harpy will be as difficult as she has always been.” Daenerys gives him a pointed look, at which he relents. “I apologize, my queen, I know you hate this word.”
“Turned on my daughter, no less.”
“Your daughter, but I am the one married to her,” he notes. “For thirty-five years, we have been wed.”
“A marriage you fought tooth and nail for, once,” Daenerys sighs, tired of this discord. “Most happily wed for majority of them.”
“I was only fighting one man, then.” Jon. He could not understand, at first. Aemon scowls, as if he is not wearing that man’s sigil on his chest, as if he does not carry that man’s sword at his side. “Even him, I never quite won over, so perhaps I should have known. He had some wisdom, that old man.”
“Aemon,” Daenerys frowns, feeling tears come to her eyes, “are you truly so estranged as this?”
Aemon seems to come to his senses when he sees her, guilt flashing across his eyes. “No—not so estranged. We are merely… of different minds, more oft than not.”
“On what matters? Those of your children?”
Aemon breathes from his nose. “I should not have spoken, your Grace, I apologize.”
Daenerys takes his wrist, bringing him to look at her eyes. “I am your mother, Aemon. Do you forget this? Forget how I cradled and fed you, remained awake at nights and rocked you until you slept at my breast? Read you stories, taught you to ride a dragon? Am I not this same woman?”
“Of course,” he says quickly, “you are this and more. Everything I have, I have from you.”
“Not everything,” Daenerys reminds him, “there is your father in you, and losing him hurt all of us deeply, my darling.”
Aemon swallows. “I lost him long ago.”
“Never,” Daenerys swears.
“No? The man practically refused my wedding feast. He came to my wedding only for Alysanne weeped that he present her, and that for the love of his daughter. There was no peace between us…”
Jon had struggled to accept the union, yes. It had been his desire to forbid it, but Daenerys could not do so. It was obvious from when they were children, and she loved them too much to deny them after Aemon had threatened to leave behind his throne and steal his sister away if leave not given. We will have your blessing or not, but we will never abandon one another! I promise you this! Jon sat in silence at those words, face as hard as ice. Aemon had always been beloved of his parents—the boy he was had not known the true pain of their disapproval until it was upon him.
“There was,” Dany assures, “wholly complete when you put Lyanna in his arms.”
“For the children’s sake, we pretended.”
“Oh, Aemon,” Daenerys weeps to hear, “he tried so hard. He loved you more than you know, and it was for you he tried to understand. Forgive him his faults, we gave you all we had to give.”
“He chose Winterfell,” Aemon mutters, “Winterfell. Over Dragonstone’s crypt, he chose Winterfell, for Dragonstone is mine and he could not bear it.”
“He chose it for it was his home, Aemon. Did he abandon myself, did he abandon Daeron and Alysanne? Never once, son. Your father would never abandon his family.”
Aemon seems uncertain, but it was better than him being sour. “Darling,” she softens, touching his face, “go to your wife. Love her as you always have. Your father rests in peace only for his family is at peace, or do you not remember his final moments? You were the last to hold his hand, kiss his brow. He waited for you, Aemon.”
Daenerys is eighty years old today, but not so old that she cannot hold the weight of her son’s grief as he sobs. She is grateful for this quiet corner, a part of the world where only they exist. So rare is the castle this way.
“Alysanne,” he chokes out, “she does not understand.”
“She does,” Daenerys kisses his temple.
“She does not,” he moans into her shoulder, embracing her tight as the storm passes through him.
“She does,” Daenerys insists, “or why else were her eyes the first you found when I announced your rule? Why else does none but her make you so angry, if not because she does understand, Aemon?”
Aemon released a harsh laugh into her gown, pulling away and composing himself before her, until he is Prince Aemon of Dragonstone once more. The redness of his face fades quickly, and he swallows away any residual heaviness. “I apologize, Mother. I know not what came over me.”
“Life, Aemon,” she giggles madly, “it is relentless, I fear.”
“I fear the same,” he laughs along, kissing her knuckles.
“Go to her,” she urges him once more, squeezing his hand.
“I will,” he promises, appearing as exhausted as Daenerys feels, “we shall speak more on the morrow, yes?”
“As we will, dearest child,” she promises.
“Blessed nameday, Mother,” he wishes, one last time. “I do love you.”
Within her chambers, the coldness is chased away by the warmth of knowing that whatever is to come, it is no longer in her hands. Queen Daenerys releases the weight that has lived upon her shoulders for so long now it would have made a lesser man hunch. When she slides into her silk sheets, she nestles in, listening to the soft tinkering of the bell in her hair that was forgotten in her undressing. The bell of victory, she thinks to herself, a smile as soft as snow stretching across her face, even as her eyelids remain gently blinking. Sleep does not come quickly. She can still find the taste of the warm tea Missandei brewed her on her lips, although that was hours ago.
A tap, tap, tap knocks against the glass of her window, and Daenerys tilts her head to find a bird sitting upon the sill, perhaps upon a foolish quest for corn. A raven, black as night with blinking black eyes, tapping as if to speak, as if it knows her.
In the distance, dragons roar.
Is it that time already? she wonders drowsily, reaching for Jon’s outstretched hand.