From Stormborn to Dragonborn

by RhaenaTargaryen

Summary:

After the death of Daenerys Targaryen, she is taken by Drogon to a group of monks in the mountains of Skyrim. Using an ancient form of magic, they bring Daenerys back from the dead to face her true destiny as the Dragonborn. Enraged by what Jon and the Starks did to her, Daenerys vows vengeance against the people of Westeros. But one day, Drogon disappears and Daenerys leaves the temple in search of her last living son. Unbeknownst to her, Drogon's mind is taken over by Alduin and Daenerys must accept her fate as the Dragonborn. In this strange new land, Daenerys will meet new friends, a lover, and people who can accept her as their own.

Notes:

I've been bouncing this idea around in my head for a few months now and I've finally decided to try to write it down. I will be going through the storyline with "Daenerys" as my new character.

Chapter 1: West of Westeros

Drogon’s wings catch the air as he flies above the sea, heading towards the west. He lets out a scream of rage as he flies, his mother held tight in his claws. A light rain has started and he draws his claws closer against his belly to protect his mother from the rain. He wanted to rip and claw and shred. He wanted to burn the world to ash just like his ancestors threatened to.

It had felt good, unleashing all of his fury onto the iron chair that had contributed to the death of his mother. The only thing that had stopped him from burning the traitor Snow to ash was his mother’s love for the man. Even as she bled out, she still felt love for him. That was why Drogon could not take his life, despite his deep desire to. He’d taken great pleasure in frightening the man as he rained fire down upon that room.

There was nothing left for Drogon now. He brothers were both dead, killed by the living dead man and the pirate. His mother bled out in front of the iron chair that meant so much, killed by the family she wanted her entire life. He could never serve Jon Snow the way he and his brothers had served their mother. He was alone.

Or was he?

Another scream of rage claws its way out of Drogon’s throat and his eyes narrow at the approaching land. When he’d tenderly picked his mother off the ground, he’d felt a flicker in the back of his mind, from a land far to the west. It wasn’t the only one. He’d felt several places in the world calling out for him to place his mother. Old Valyria cried out to him, the home of both his and her ancestors. The mountains called for her to be placed to rest in her ancestral home.

Other voices called too. A small voice called him from Volantis. The Red Priestess of Volantis called for him to bring his mother to her. He knew of the magic that brought Jon Snow back to the land of the living and he didn’t know if he trusted it. He also knew his mother hadn’t felt like the east was her home. She’d always wanted the land of her father to be her home.

The last, largest, voice called from this strange, cold land. All he saw in his mind was a group of men and women wearing long, black robes. Their faces were covered. They called his name, asking him to bring his mother. So that was what he was going to do. Old Valyria offered nothing but death. Volantis offered life but sadness. This place, this Skyrim, land of the Nords, offered hope and future.

Drogon lowers himself through the clouds as he flies above trees colored red and orange and yellow. He flies above rivers and lakes, stone houses and men crawling around the ground like little ants. None of them look up. None realize that death flew above. He flaps his wings harder as he passes a village and mountain. Another voice calls him from the large mountain but he ignores it.

Blood boiling, Drogon resists the urge to roar as he flies above another stone city, a rich countryside, and trees that he wanted to rip and bend and break. He stops only a few times to eat and drink and rest before he would gently lift his mother back into his claws. He crosses a river, flying towards the mountains in the west. The voices grow louder, screaming for him to bring his mother into the mountains. He does.

Drogon flies over another, small, stone city as he turns in the direction of the mountains. He ignores it as he flies higher and higher until he comes across a stone building nestled deep into the mountains. Knowing the voices would be found within, Drogon flies down to the building, roaring as he does.

A group of men and women walk out of the building, garbed in black robes, and look up at his arrival. They say nothing as he tenderly sets his mother down on the ground before him. Her hair, once pulled back into tight braids, now hang loose and tangled around her face. His body had kept her as safe as he could from the rain and other elements but she still looked windswept. Her skin was growing paler. There were loose tatters of clothes hanging from where his claws couldn’t protect them. She was partially naked, but the men and women didn’t seem to care.

A man steps forward from the group and kneels before Drogon’s mother. He touches a hand to her forehead before nodding back at the men and women behind him. “It is her, the Dragonborn. The Dragonborn has come.”

A soft voice sounds from the middle of the group. “Just as you said she would come. But she is dead, master. Do you truly intend—”

“Yes.” The man rises from his crouched position. “The Red Priest of Myr and the Red Priestess of Asshai have already broken the laws of the world and brought their chosen heroes back from the dead. They, foolishly, believed that it was the power of the Gods that granted them the ability to resurrect a man from the dead. They, in their blind arrogance, didn’t understand the power they held. What use did Beric Dondarrion have in this word? Neither was Jon Snow the savior that everyone thought he was. Daenerys Targaryen will save the world in a way neither of those fools ever could. The world will die without the Dragonborn.”

“Perhaps another can be called by the Greybeards.” The soft voice whispers again, belonging to a small woman, smaller than Drogon’s mother. “Is she truly the only Dragonborn alive?”

The man, the leader, Drogon realizes, turns towards another man, red wrapped around the collar of his robe. “Saetar has the gift of foresight. What have you seen? What will become of the world if Daenerys Targaryen leaves it before she can destroy the dreaded one?”

“The world will die.” The man, Drogon assumes to be Saetar, answers, voice deep. “Alduin will eat this world and everyone in it. No one will be safe from him. Melisandre and Thoros have already unleashed the terrible magics that bring a man back from the dead. We understand that magic far better than they ever could. They were arrogant and were sad that their friends were dead. The world would not have died without Beric Dondarrion and Jon Snow in it. That is why there were no true sacrifices for them. They were insignificant. The world will die without her.”

“Are we in agreement?” The leader faces each of the men and women, who all incline their heads at him. “Good. Prepare her body for the spell. She will not be pleased to find herself half-naked in the presence of strangers when she wakes. Stay away from Drogon, as well. It wouldn’t do to have him eat one of us before the spell is performed.”

Drogon backs away from the men and women as they move around him, the leader, the prophet, and his mother’s body. Some go inside. Some kneel before his mother. The ones who go inside return with a cloaked cage, candles, water, and clothing. They remove his mother’s dress, ignoring her nakedness, and place soft robes over her body. One of the women brush out his mother’s hair before braiding it in a long braid down her back, reminding him of the day of his birth.

They finally all kneel on the ground, save for the leader who lifts the cloak from the cage. A single, white bird sits in the cage, and the man opens the door. The bird twitters once before flying from the cage, circles the group, and lands on the shoulder of the soft voiced woman who’d expressed her concerns about bringing Drogon’s mother back from the dead. The woman gasps softly.

The leader and Saetar both look at her. Saetar inclines his head. “You have been chosen by fate, Sappri the Bold. Do you accept your fate?”

The woman, Sappri, removes the hood of her robe, showing off short blonde hair and blue eyes. Tears leak from her eyes but she nods. “I will do what must be done. I accept my fate.”

Each of the men and women, save for Sappri and the leader, pick up a candle and bow their heads. They each start to whisper, though Drogon cannot hear the words they say. Sappri moves to stand at the head of Drogon’s mother and she closes her eyes. The leader faces Sappri from Drogon’s mother’s feet, and the both of them reach out towards the other above the body before them. The leader and Sappri grip hands and the leader bows his head.

Sappri’s body rocks back and forth as more and more tears slide from her eyes. The leader’s body starts to tremble as his voice grows louder. The air around Drogon and the humans fills with a fiery tension. Soon, both Sappri and the leader are both shaking uncontrollably as the leader’s voice gets darker and louder. The voices around them grow deeper, sounding almost demonic.

Drogon rears back as the woman, Sappri, bursts into flames, but she doesn’t scream. The woman smiles as the skin melts from her body and the robes drift down to the ground, turning into ash. Her blue eyes fill with joy as she looks upwards to the sky. Just before her heart stops beating, she lets out a joyful laugh, and then her body tumbles to the earth, dead and broken.

The men and women immediately stop speaking their spell, and the leader bends his knee so that he’s kneeling between Drogon’s mother’s legs. He reaches out and touches her hand. They all wait, with bated breath, for a twitch, a gasp, a scream, a sigh. They all wait for something. Anything.

A whine starts up in Drogon’s throat and he wants to roar and roar and roar. He wants to spit fire down onto these little humans who filled him with such joy that his mother would be returned to him. If they didn’t bring her back, then he would kill them. He would burn them just as surely as he burned the iron chair that had taken his mother’s life. He would—

A heartbeat fills the air. A sweet smell of woman, mother hits Drogon and he rears back again. He moves closer and the men and women do not flee from his approach. His gold-colored eyes rest on his mother. Her chest starts to rise and air leaves her nose. She lived.

Purple eyes open, blinking rapidly.

The leader removes his hood and stares down at Drogon’s mother. “Welcome, Daenerys Stormborn, to Skyrim.”

Chapter 2: Awakening in Skyrim

Daenerys’s eyes open, blinking repeatedly. A group of men and women surround her, wearing black robes. A man kneels between her legs, staring down upon her. His eyes are so dark they appear black. His hair was the same color as his eyes. He nods. “Welcome, Daenerys Stormborn, to Skyrim.”

Skyrim? She had never heard of such a place. She couldn’t remember seeing it on any of the maps she’d looked at over the years. The real question was, how far away from Westeros was she? What had happened to her?

The castle was crumbling around her as Daenerys made her way down the hall, heading for the great door that would lead her to the throne. Her Unsullied had already deemed this part of building safe enough for her, and she decided to walk through the halls alone. She wanted to see the throne her ancestors sat for the first time alone. Drogon waited outside for her.

The great door opened and she walked into the throne room, covered in ash. Slowly, she made her way across the room, staring at the Iron Throne. It moved closer and closer to her, until she walked up the three steps to stop on the floor it rested on. Her hand hovered over the throne, hesitating only a few seconds, before her fingers rested on the hilt of a sword. Her smile was great.

She had won.

The door opened behind Daenerys and she turned to see who it was. Jon stared back at her from across the room. She smiled and turned back to the throne. It was then that she’d told him a story about her brother, Viserys. Towards the end of his life, there were few stories about him that brought her any joy, but the stories about the throne and their family always did.

Were there truly a thousand blades? It hadn’t looked like it.

Jon had interrupted the happiest moment of her life, a moment she’d wanted to share with him. He was her family too, after all. Wasn’t he happy that the terrible Lannister’s had finally been defeated? Aegon and Rhaenys had been his siblings by blood. She’d avenged them that day. Why was he angry? Why was he yelling at her?

Daario had been right before. Daenerys was a conqueror. The only way to save the people of the world was to take it, and she would. She would free all of them from the tyrants of the world just like she’d done with Cersei and the masters and the Khals. With Jon at her side, they would be invincible.

Jon had kissed her then, so sweet and gentle and loving. Daenerys loved him more than she’d loved anyone else. More than Viserys, more than Drogo, more than Daario and Jorah. Together, they would create a world that people would be proud to live in.

The pain was unimaginable when Jon’s dagger sunk into her chest. At first, Daenerys couldn’t believe what had just happened to her. She’d looked at the hilt sticking out of her chest and then back up at him. He’d stared at her, pain in his eyes, until she’d fallen back, him catching her before she struck the floor.

Daenerys’s lips had quivered, liquid beginning to pour from her nose and mouth. She’d tried to speak, to curse, to yell, but she couldn’t. The pain was too great, and no words could come to her lips. Jon had held her as the life ebbed from her body, and yet, she still loved him. Her eyes closed for the last time.

Gasping, Daenerys tries to sit up but the man’s gentle hand on her shoulder pushes her down. “Calm yourself, Dragon Queen. You are safe here, in this land. You have no idea how beloved you will be to the people of Skyrim.”

A group of men and women stand in a circle around them. A temple not thirty or forty feet away.

“Who are you?” Daenerys doesn’t care if the man is insulted by her words or not. “What do you want from me?”

A growl fills the air and Daenerys jerks her head around to see Drogon moving towards her, his eyes filled with a mix of worry and anger. She reaches out a hand towards him and he lowers his head for her to touch his face. “It’s okay, my darling. I’m okay.”

“Interesting.” Another man steps forward, a red piece of cloth on his collar. “In my visions, I watched you fly on this dragon. We’ve heard stories, even here, of a woman who mothered dragons. In this land, dragons used to be considered monsters. Perhaps in yours, it is not the same.”

“I’m not answering any questions until you answer mine.” Daenerys feels herself fill with anger and Drogon tilts his head at her, waiting for a command. It does not come. She may have need of these strange people. “Where is Skyrim? And who are you?”

“Skyrim is to the west of your homeland. I am Saetar, the prophet of our group.” The red collared man says. “It is I who witnessed your death and called your Drogon to us. Our group has no name, though you might think of us as akin to the red priests and priestesses of Asshai. Our leader is the man sitting before you. His name is Kyris Ironhand.”

Daenerys looks at Kyris, Saetar, and the rest of the men and women surrounding her. “If you are similar to the red priests, does that mean you brought me back from the dead? How? I knew of someone in—”

“Jon Snow.” Saetar shakes his head, disgust clear in his voice. “And the other, Beric Dondarrion, were not brought back to life the way you were. You have learned before that life can only be paid for by death. A life was taken to bring you back.”

Dread fills Daenerys. “You killed someone to bring me back to life? Who?”

Kyris gestures behind Daenerys and she turns to look. A body, a woman, lay behind her, bloody and charred and broken. She’d been burned alive, but it wasn’t like Drogon, who burned his victims quickly. Daenerys turns back to Kyris and Saetar, fury on her face. “How could you kill one of your own people to bring me back? Why is my life worth so much to you?”

“You are the hope of all Skyrim.” Kyris rises to his feet, holding out a hand for her to grab. Hesitating just a second, Daenerys takes it and allows him to pull her to her feet. Unsteady, Kyris holds onto her hand until she feels safe on her feet. His hand is warm in hers, and she feels it’s loss as soon as it is gone. He turns to the rest of the group. “Had it been I who was chosen to bring you back to life, I would have gladly given my life for it. So would Saetar. So would any of them. Sappri made her choice. She could have said no.”

“Sappri…” Daenerys looks down at what is left of the woman’s corpse. She’d given Daenerys a gift, the greatest gift. “Why? You say that I am the hope of all Skyrim. I have never even been to Skyrim. Do you want me for my dragon?”

It would not be unusual, if that was what these people wanted. How many others had tried to use her for her dragons? Xaro, Pyat Pree, Doreah, the masters. Jon Snow, Sansa, Bran, and Arya…

Kyris chuckles and shakes his head. “Gods, no. The last thing we want from you is your dragon.” At Daenerys’s confused look, he continues. “The dragons of Valyria were not the sole dragons that ever existed. The Doom killed all the dragons on your side of the world, save for those that belonged to your family. Dragons also existed in Skyrim but died off or disappeared long before your family reigned as kings. Saetar has seen a vision. The dragons will return to Skyrim, soon.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Daenerys glances at Drogon. “Do you expect me to fight the dragons with Drogon? He is not fully grown. I don’t know how many we could fight before we would die ourselves.”

“Not fight, no, at least not with Drogon.” Kyris glances at Saetar. “Saetar has witnessed the greatest, most evil dragon returning to our world. His name is Alduin. The only person who can defeat Alduin now is the Dragonborn. You are she.”

“What is the Dragonborn?”

“There have been so few.” Kyris crosses his arms and stares up at the sky, the mountain air blowing a breeze through his hair. “Dragonborn are humans that possess blood and souls of dragons. It might be why you had such a strange connection to not one, but all three of the dragons you hatched. That should not have been possible. It was likely your blood from being Dragonborn that made you the most powerful Targaryen in the world.”

Daenerys frowns and looks at Drogon. She’d always thought it was odd that she had special relationships with each of the dragons, instead of bonding with one like all her ancestors had. She had a bond with each of them, leading all three into battle. They’d all followed her orders, even Rhaegal, who’d followed her commands even after he’d been bonded to Jon. It hadn’t made sense to her. Still, more questions remained.

“You say you don’t want my dragon,” Daenerys looks at Kyris. “How do you expect me to defeat Alduin without him? I’m no soldier. I fought in the Great War but I was desperate to survive. I have no real skill with a sword.”

“We will teach you how to fight.” Kyris looks around at the other members of the group. “There are masters of one-handed blades, two-handed blades, bows, and daggers here. We can teach you magic as well. But the skill that will bring down Alduin is one that we cannot teach you. The ability to Shout.”

“Shout?” Daenerys tilts her head, confused. “I don’t understand.”

This time, it is Saetar who speaks. “There are those in Skyrim who can learn how to Shout, a magical ability that dragon’s have perfected. You will quite literally be able to shout spells at your foes. Some people in Skyrim have also learned the ability to Shout by practicing with the Greybeards. They have learned how to Shout and teach students their skills, though very few have what it takes to perform the magic.”

Before Daenerys can respond, a cold gust of wind blows through the mountains and she wraps her arms around herself, suddenly freezing. Kyris’s brow furrows and he looks around them at the group. “In all of the excitement, I had not thought of your comfort. My apologies, Daenerys. Saetar, see to it that Sappri’s body is put to rest. We will celebrate her life tonight. Hidara, go with Estanya to the kitchens to ready food for Daenerys. Maenara, you will lead Daenerys to her rooms.”

Saetar nods and he approaches the corpse behind Daenerys. Two of the women, one of them a gold skinned woman with pointed ears, break away from the group, nodding to Kyris as they go. A third woman approaches Daenerys and bows her head. “Welcome to your new home, Queen Daenerys. I am Maenara. Come with me, please.”

Daenerys turns to follow Maenara but stops and turns back to Kyris. “What of Drogon? Can he remain as well?”

Kyris nods and gestures to the courtyard. “We have no lodging for him to stay in, so he must remain outside. But he is welcome, and we will feed him. I ask that he not fly out of the mountains though. Alduin will not first appear in Skyrim for six months. It would scare people.”

Drogon makes a snorting noise but he lowers himself to the ground, resting his head on his claws. His golden colored eyes never leave Daenerys. She hesitates for a few seconds before turning to follow Maenara.

She didn’t know if she could believe any of this. She just wanted to go home.

Notes:

So, I still want Daenerys to wind up with Ulfric by the end of this fic, but halfway through writing this chapter, I kind of got the idea to have her start a relationship with Kyris because I already like him so much. Thoughts?

Chapter 3: Creatures of Legend

Maenara leads Daenerys through a long hallway. The hall stretches so far Daenerys can’t see the end. Every ten feet or so there is a door on the left or right, leading away from the hall. She hears pots banging in a kitchen and the whistle of arrows in a training room. Not all the doors are open as they pass, but the few that are show rooms full of beds, weapons, and other items. The stone walls are strangely bare.

Daenerys turns to Maenara. “Does the temple lead inside the mountain?”

“Oh, aye.” Maenara smiles at her. “It goes quite far. We could house hundreds if we so chose. That would be unusual though. The temple is remote and most would be too frightened to try to climb the mountains to get here.”

“I had a question,” Daenerys says, hesitating. “Hidara or Estanya, I’m not sure which, but one of them had gold skin and pointed ears.”

Maenara throws her head back and laughs but stops as soon as she sees the affronted look on Daenerys’s face. “I’m sorry if I offended you, Daenerys. It was Estanya with the gold skin. She is an Altmer, or a High Elf is something else you could call her. Do you not have elves in Westeros?”

Daenerys scoffs. “Elves are creatures of legend. They’re not real.”

“Then how do you explain Estanya’s appearance?” Maenara stops abruptly in-between two doors. She points to the one on the right. “This is Kyris’s room. And you’ll be across the hall. He wants you close to him in case you need him.”

Maenara opens the door to what will be Daenerys’s room and they walk in. The walls are bare, save for a single bookcase, but there is a large bed that takes up the majority of the room. Both blankets and furs lay on the bed, making it look very comfortable to her. A door stands off to the side, leading to, Daenerys presumes, a bath and chamber pot. It wasn’t much but it was comfortable enough looking.

“We tried to decorate it as you’d like.” Maenara shrugs, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “We know you’re a queen and are probably used to much more lavish attentions. If you do not like your room, you could choose another or we could send someone to Solitude with coin to buy you more preferable comforts.”

“This is fine.” Daenerys shakes her head and lowers her hand to rub against one of the furs on the bed. “I’ve suffered through much worse conditions. This will be comfortable enough for me.”

Before Maenara can respond, a growl comes from Daenerys’s belly. The other woman grins. “Hidara will bring you food soon. Will you be joining us after to put Sappri to rest or shall you remain inside where it is warm? If you do, Kyris will come speak to you after the funeral.”

Daenerys looks at Maenara’s happy face, considering. She strangely knew, somehow, there would be no judgment from these people if she chose to stay inside.

She wanted to say no and bury herself beneath the blankets, not coming out for any reason. The Daenerys before Drogo would have hidden herself away, but she is a queen, or… should she say she was a queen? Someone else was sitting on her throne in Westeros right now. Meereen had never truly been her home. Her Khalasar was either back in Westeros or had already climbed the ships to return to Essos. The Unsullied were with her beloved Grey Worm.

She was alone.

“Did—” Daenerys clears her throat. “Did Sappri really die to bring me back to life? Why would she do that?”

“Aye, queen.” Maenara’s brow furrows. “Or… Daenerys? I’m not sure what I should call you. I mean no disrespect. Skyrim has a king so I don’t wish to be offense to either of you.”

“I suppose Daenerys is fine.” Daenerys shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable. Who was the last person to call her by her actual name, without the word queen before it? Jorah, she thinks, in Meereen before she banished him. Jon had called her Dany. “So tell me, why would Sappri choose to die for me? Did you force her?”

“No!” Maenara shouts, making Daenerys jump. “Please don’t think that about us. Sappri was chosen to make the sacrifice but she had a choice, Daenerys. She was asked if she was willing to die for you. She said yes. If she had said no, another choice would have been made. Kyris himself would have laid down his own life for you if it was him that was chosen. The survival of Skyrim means that much to us.”

Daenerys nods, understanding. The survival of Westeros meant the same to her. “Sappri made the greatest sacrifice one can, for me. I will attend her funeral.”

Maenara smiles brightly again and backs towards the door. “Great! Sit and get comfortable. There are more robes on a shelf if the ones you wear are not to your liking. I will have Hidara or Estanya bring your meal.”

Nodding again, Daenerys sits on the edge of her new bed, watching the other woman shut the door. Her hands stroke the furs and blankets. As grateful as she was to these people for bringing her back to life, all she wanted was to go home to Westeros. If she was truly the hero of Skyrim, and needed to save them from this Alduin, she would do it. Kyris had explained Alduin wouldn’t come to Skyrim for six months though. That would give her plenty of time.

Plenty of time to return to Westeros and make Jon, Sansa, and the rest of the faithless Starks pay. How many men had she sacrificed fighting the White Walkers? Her son, Viserion, had died trying to save Jon. She very nearly died for the sake of all of Westeros. As had Rhaegal. Jorah, as well. And Missandei… her sweet Missandei, who’d shown true bravery and loyalty upon the ramparts of King’s Landing. She loved them all. From the lowest peasant to the greatest nobleman.

And they repaid that love with manipulations, trickeries, stabs to the back, and a final dagger to the heart. They would pay now, oh yes, they would pay.

Daenerys would return to Skyrim to face Alduin, but only after she handled matters in Westeros. Jon was sitting on her throne; she was sure of it. She would finish the job she’d done on the Red Keep and allow the castle to come down upon his traitorous head. Then she would move North, where she would burn Winterfell to ash with Sansa inside. It mattered little to her now if Arya and Bran were caught in the fire.

She would burn them all.

The door opens and the golden-skinned lady walks in, holding a bowl of something that smells delicious. Daenerys’s stomach growls again and Estanya smiles. “It’s venison stew, Daenerys. Hidara is a fabulous cook. Why don’t you eat and one of us can come get you before the funeral? Skyrim is a cold place for us foreign girls.”

“You’re not from Skyrim?” Daenerys’s eyes linger on Estanya’s ears. “Maenara called you an Altmer. What do they call the people local to Skyrim?”

“The people of Skyrim are Nords. Many of them look similar to you, though I’ve never met one with silver hair and purple eyes.” Estanya settles herself on the bed next to Daenerys, watching the queen take a bite of the stew that tastes as delicious as it smells. “I was born in the Summerset Isles. My father moved us here because he is a Thalmor.” She makes a disgusted look but doesn’t explain what a Thalmor is. “Mother hated Skyrim and left my father. He was never around much anyway. I was found by Saetar and have been here ever since.”

Daenerys dips her spoon in her stew but doesn’t take a bite. “If you… if you were given a chance to go home to the Summerset Isles, would you do it?

Estanya seems to contemplate her answer for a few moments before she shakes her head. “No, as there’s nothing left for me in those lands. My father is here and my mother is who knows where. I will likely never see either again. But my situation is different from yours.”

“Mine?”

“Aye.” Estanya makes a guilty look. “Saetar has seen much of your trials. You left much of yourself behind in Westeros when Drogon fled with your body. The kingdom created by your family. A kingdom that would have been destroyed by the White Walkers had it not been for Aegon the Conqueror. A lost chance of a family with Jon. A lover.”

Daenerys realizes she should probably feel shame her lover had also been her nephew, but she’d been raised a Targaryen. If things had been different, it was Viserys whom she would have wed. She would not apologize for both being a child of incest and practicing it herself, but she felt the need to ask anyway. “Do the people of Skyrim have a problem with those born of incest or who practice it?”
Estanya shrugs. “Some people despise it and others don’t care. You don’t even want to know what goes on in the orc strongholds.”

“Orcs?” Daenerys laughs and shakes her head. “I’ve read about them in books. And Elves, of course. I’m not even sure if all this is real.”

“It is real, but you will see it for yourself.” Estanya rises from the bed and gestures towards the bowl. “I will leave you now. I must help prepare to lay Sappri to rest. Maenara says you will join us.”

“I will.” Daenerys nods. Sappri gave her life for Daenerys. It would be the highest of dishonors not to celebrate the woman’s life. “I’ll be there.”

Estanya opens the door and nods, smiling. “Someone will come get you when it is time.”

“Thank you.”

Daenerys is alone, holding a bowl of stew growing cold. Gods, she just wanted to go home.

Chapter 4: Holding the Funeral

Notes:

Warnings are a cremation in this chapter.

Daenerys wraps her arms around herself after pulling her hood up over her head. It was a cold night, thought the wind had died down while she’d been inside. When Estanya had come to get her for the funeral, she’d said they were lucky not to have snow. The thought made Daenerys shiver. She grew up in Essos and was more used to a summer climate. The North of Westeros had been horrible for her, but even worse for Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion.

Drogon grumbles and moves closer to her, the heat from his body radiating off of him. Daenerys smiles. He was trying to warm her. Many of the members of the group who’d brought her back from the dead stare at Drogon in awe. None of them in fear. It was unusual to see people not be frightened by her dragons. It wasn’t an unwelcome feeling for Daenerys though. She’d loved, when the dragons were still small, when Jorah, Missandei, and Barristan would toss them bits of meat from their plates when they’d thought Daenerys wasn’t looking.

The smile dies from Daenerys’s face. Why was it that the most loyal of her people had died the most tragically, all for her?

Barristan the Bold. Years before Daenerys had been born, Barristan had heroically saved her father’s life at Duskendale. There was no better warrior in Westeros, and he’d died an undignified death. If age did not take him, then he deserved a grand death, fighting great warriors to defend his queen. The Sons of the Harpy learned soon after what she would do to the ones that harmed the people she loved.

Missandei of Naath. Daenerys had loved Irri, Jhiqui, and, before her betrayal, Doreah, but none of her friendships with them compared to the love she had for Missandei. They’d talked to each other, giggling like girls over the men in their lives. She was Missandei’s queen but they were also friends. Daenerys would have burned the world to ash to get Missandei back. And Missandei died, standing upon the ramparts of the place Daenerys longed to call home. Daenerys brought vengeance down upon Cersei’s head for that death.

Jorah the Andal. The man who had seen her at her best, her worst, her weakest, and her strongest. Never once, even when he was sending the letters to Varys, did he waver in his love for her. He was her knight but, more importantly, her friend. He was her first friend. Jorah had been the first person, outside of Daenerys, the dragons saw after they were born. He’d been the first ever to kneel before her. And he died, fighting side by side with his queen, killed by the Night King’s men, while a certain red-headed coward bad mouthed Daenerys in the crypts.

They were not the only ones, no. The ones Daenerys missed now.

Viserion had fought bravely, north of the wall. He’d been the kindest of Daenerys’s dragons. He loved to eat chicken, and he especially loved it when she fed him from her hand while he rode on her shoulder. Rhaegal was his favorite brother, and they would play all day if she’d let them. It was Rhaegal who screamed and tried to catch Viserion as he fell toward the ground, a spear made of ice in his neck. Viserion’s deathly scream would live on in Daenerys’s nightmares for the rest of her life.

Then there was Rhaegal, her green. Goat was his favorite meal, and he would gorge and gorge on as much as she would allow him. He hated to share, but he always let Viserion have some anyway. Rhaegal’s reaction to Viserion’s death had hurt her to her core but didn’t shock her. The two of them shared the closest relationship amongst the three brothers. She’d been so proud of him when he’d been able to fly after the battle of Winterfell, and she’d nearly gone mad with grief when he tried so valiantly to stay in the air when the scorpions pierced his body.

They were all gone now, but they weren’t the only ones she lost. No, there were still the traitors. The ones who would suffer when she made her way back to Westeros.

Tyrion Lannister. Daenerys should have beheaded the man the moment he stepped foot in Meereen. He’d given her nothing but false promises, ridiculous plans, and betrayal. Nothing but betrayal. The man clearly never wanted Daenerys to beat Cersei in the end. Tyrion was likely serving as Hand of the King for Jon Snow. Tyrion would die for it.

Sansa Stark. Daenerys had been nothing but cordial and open when she’d gone to speak to Sansa for the first time. The woman had given her nothing but disdain, arguments in front of their men, and betrayal. The moment Sansa could, she betrayed Daenerys on the hopes Daenerys would be murdered by someone else. That was the moment Daenerys lost any respect for the other woman. If Sansa wanted Daenerys dead, then she should have done it by herself. A dagger to the heart. Arya had given her one after all. Sansa would die for it.

Jon Snow, the greatest betrayer of them all. Aegon Targaryen was the name the man was given at birth, but he was no true Targaryen. He did not have the fire of a Targaryen in his heart. His heart was as cold as the Stark blood. There had been no honor as Jon lied to his bannermen, claiming Daenerys forced him to submit. He hadn’t had the balls to tell them he bent of his own free will. She would have ridden North anyway, without his submission. Then, he put his knife in her heart after telling her that he loved her. Jon would die for it.

A hand wraps around Daenerys’s elbow and she looks up into Kyris’s dark eyes. He tilts his head, questioningly. “Are you well? You can go inside if you are cold.”

“No.” Daenerys shakes her head. “I am fine. I was just thinking.”

Kyris nods slowly. “I imagine you are thinking of Westeros. I can’t blame you for that. We will speak more inside. I was wondering if you would have Drogon light the pyre? Normally, we would light it with torches but it seems… symbolic, to have the dragon do it instead.”

Daenerys nods and looks over at the funeral pyre, so similar to the ones the saviors of Westeros had been burned on. She remembered Jon’s speech. She turns to Kyris. “What happens during a funeral in Skyrim? Is it different from what happens where I come from?”

“I suppose yes, and I suppose no.” Kyris shrugs. “There are many different types of people that live in Skyrim. Many of the Nords of Skyrim are buried beneath halls of stone, in tombs, deep in the ground. Here, we burn our dead.”

“I meant…” Daenerys stares at the woman, what is left of her, clad in black robes. “Do you talk about her. Say what you loved about her. Anything?”

Kyris chuckles softly and shakes his head. “And say what, Daenerys? There is nothing we can say that will ease her passing to the next world. I hope to one day see her in Sovngarde, but it is possible I will never see her again. Words are beautiful and they may ease the pain of the ones here, but they are just words. I will grieve tonight in silence. As will all of them. Many will find comfort in each other, over the coming days. Burn her whenever you are ready.”

Daenerys nods and looks up at Drogon. Her family had burned their dead with their dragons for centuries, and she would be the first who would do it since the last dragon’s fell. It wasn’t a Targaryen lying on the pyre but someone who supported her, Daenerys. She looks at Sappri’s body and whispers, “Dracarys.”

Drogon steps forward from her side, rears back, and blasts the pyre with his fire. None of the people beside her shout, jump, or cower. Many of them just watch as the pyre quickly burns, big, black and gray waves of smoke drifting into the night air. Some of the women start to cry, while the men wrap their arms around their shoulders. Others bow their heads, whispered words on their lips. Saetar presses his hands to his face, hiding it from them.

Kyris stands beside Daenerys, jaw clenched and eyes rimmed red. She blinks at him. He was taller than Daario, though not as tall as Drogo. His black hair was cut short and his beard trimmed. The robes did not fully hide the fitness of his body. He was strong, likely a soldier in a past life. What had led him here? Daenerys reaches out a hand towards him and takes his, not knowing why. Compassion, perhaps. He’d lost a friend tonight.

A small smile touches Kyris’s lips and he turns to look at Daenerys. He squeezes her hand and doesn’t let it go as he turns back to face the pyre. Neither of them lets the other go.

They hold hands as the body and wood burns.

Chapter 5: Vengeance, Brandy, and a long Talk

Daenerys looks around the room she’s just been brought to after the funeral. The door clicks behind her and she sighs. Estanya had been leaning against a tall, dark haired man as they led her to this room, across from her own. Kyris. She still wasn’t sure what drew her to the man, so much so that she wanted to offer him comfort. She was grateful to them for bringing her back to life but that didn’t mean she wanted to hold the hands of any of the rest of them.

The bed is the same size as the one in her room. There are two chairs next to the bed, pointed at each other. Daenerys sits down in the chair facing the door. Her eyes close and she wishes that she could just go to sleep. There was much to plan for.

First, Daenerys would regain her strength and find out how far Westeros was from Skyrim. Then, she would fly back to Westeros and start in the North. Winterfell would burn and Sansa would burn with it. Bran and Arya would be unwanted casualties but they’d shown no support to her when she arrived in Winterfell. Afterwards, she would fly to King’s Landing and finish the job she’d started on the city, by destroying the castle. Tyrion and Jon would burn.

Perhaps Yara Greyjoy could offer naval support, not that she thought she needed it. It had been she, not her army, that took King’s Landing. She hadn’t even needed all three of her dragons. One was enough.

Daenerys sighs again. She didn’t know what her future would look like once that was over, save for coming back to Skyrim to kill Alduin. What came after that was the question. There would be no returning to Westeros once the quest against Alduin was completed. The only Westerosi who had been grateful for her was Yara. Everyone else was happy for her to offer her weapons, army, and dragons… until the war was over. Then she could have died for all they cared. The Westerosi were not her people.

Not anymore.

A burning feeling fills Daenerys’s eyes and, try as she might, she cannot stop the tears that form on her lids and begin to slide down her cheeks. She was not one for tears and could count on one hand how many times she’d cried in the last decade. Drogo’s death had destroyed her, as she’d pressed the pillow down upon his face. And then Jorah… her knight who stood by her side through everything. Never had she cried so much. Never would she cry so much again. How she wished she could have love him back the same way he loved her.

The door opens suddenly and Daenerys hastily tries to wipe away the tears, but they keep coming. Kyris freezes in the doorway, glances behind him, and swiftly steps inside and shuts the door. He moves over to a dresser next to the bed, lifts a bottle, rounded at the bottom, and pours the liquid into two glasses. He brings one of them over and hands it to her, taking a sip out of his own as he does.

When Daenerys sniffs the drink, she grimaces. He chuckles and sits down in the seat opposite her. “It’s Colovian Brandy. It’s expensive so I don’t get to drink it very often but I thought your arrival was an opportune time to get another bottle. I have spiced wine as well. Estanya might share with you some of her Argonian Bloodwine if you ask her.”

“This is fine.” Daenerys takes a drink and grimaces as it burns down her throat, though she smiles when her body instantly warms and she takes another drink. “It is very good. I do not partake of drink very often and, when I do, it is usually wine. I’ve never tried brandy before. But… Argonian Bloodwine, there’s no blood in it, right? And what is Argonian?”

Kyris tips his head back and laughs but Daenerys does not feel ashamed by his laughter, for some reason. Normally it would bother her. Kyris takes another sip of his brandy and looks over at her. “There is no blood in their wine, though it smells like it, I think. It’s red wine. And Argonians… well, they are reptile-people. You’ll know one when you see one. Same for the Khajiit. They look like cats.”

“Cats?!” Daenerys glances warily at her brandy before back at him skeptically. “Reptiles? Surely you must be kidding. There are no people that look like lizards or cats.”

“And surely,” Kyris’s brow rises. “You’ve never met a person who looks like Estanya, yet here she is, with golden skin and pointed ears. You are a rider of dragons and yet you have never heard of the seemingly impossible becoming possible? There are millions of people who believe dragons are mere legends, told in stories, but here they are, brought back to life by you.”

Daenerys frowns but takes another drink of her brandy. She remembers the way Jorah had scoffed on the Dothraki Sea when she’d told him her ancestor Aegon and his sister-wives had dragons. He’d asked her if she’d ever seen dragons before. That hadn’t mattered to her. She knew they were real. She believed. Perhaps cat-people and lizard-men were not impossible to believe in. Kyris didn’t seem the type to lie.

The two fall silent for a time, quietly drinking their brandy, before Kyris gives her a long look. “You were weeping when I came in. I have a feeling that it wasn’t about Sappri. Do you miss your home?”

“I don’t have a home.” The thought destroys Daenerys, for it is all that she has longed for, but she knows it to be the truth. “Westeros didn’t want me. As much as I wanted it, they didn’t want me in return. Westeros ended in a dagger to my heart.”

“So you want revenge.” Kyris nods. “No one can blame you for that. You very nearly gave your life to save the people of Westeros and they thanked you by betraying you. Cowards now rule Westeros. I am a Nord and we value strength. The people of Westeros are not strong. You deserve better.”

Daenerys shakes her head. “I do not think Skyrim will give me what I wish.”

“You wish for a home.”

More tears threaten to come and Daenerys purses her lips, trying to push the feelings aside. “It is all I have ever wished for. My brother, Viserys, he told me that home was Westeros and we must do all we can to get back there. Once he died, I took up his quest. Dragonstone didn’t feel like my home, despite my being born there. Truth be told, even when I stood in front of the Iron Throne, it didn’t feel like my home either. Perhaps I don’t have a home.”

“This could be your home.” Kyris gestures around the room. “Not just this temple but the whole of Skyrim. Once everyone realizes who you are, you will be beloved by the people. You will be respected and loved. I don’t think the thing you want most is a home, but to be loved. Westeros was not home because you weren’t loved there. You were hated and feared. You were betrayed and murdered. I’m not saying life will be easy for you here, and there will be people who hate and fear you, but more who will love you. Some of us already do.”

“But you don’t know me.” Daenerys shakes her head slowly. “How can your people love me if you don’t know me?”

Kyris sighs and looks down into his cup before taking one last drink of it. “Sometimes it gets so lonely, up here in the mountains. Saetar has been watching your journey for so long, knowing that you would one day be the hope of all Skyrim. He can see the future and has been watching over you. He’s told us all the good things you’ve done.”

“What about the bad?”

Shrugging, Kyris sets his cup down. “None of us were too terribly fond of you burning King’s Landing to ash but many of us understood why you did it. If you could not rule through love, as you wished to do, then you must rule through fear. What better way than to destroy that which you thought you loved most? Everyone would have feared that you could do the same thing to them, and you could have. Everything you did prior to that we thought was necessary or not bad at all.”

Daenerys starts to speak but stops when Kyris interrupts her. “For someone who did something so violent as to burn down her own city, why did you offer me comfort tonight?”

“I—” Daenerys’s lips part and she hesitates for a moment. “I did not like to see you in pain. The others were taking comfort in each other, save for you and Saetar. I thought you needed compassion.”

Kyris lips tilt up into what, Daenerys reckons, is a rare smile. “I did. I’ve known Sappri since we were young. We grew up in Solitude together. She was a lover once.”

Heat fills Daenerys’s cheeks. “She was your lover? I’d think you might be more… emotional over a lover’s death.”

“Once.” Kyris’s smile disappears. “She was my lover once. She preferred another once we joined here. It’s a lonely existence here in the mountains and we find what comfort we can. It seems that my comfort was not enough for her. I’ve found other loves here and I will find more.”

“Your people seem so…” Daenerys’s face turns hotter still. “Open. Were you angry that Sappri moved on from you?”

“Not angry, no. Perhaps hurt is the right word.” Kyris chuckles again and shakes his head. “I said that we find comfort here, whatever we can. Another took me in her arms that night. I’ve probably laid with every woman here at least once, save for Estanya. She has no taste for Nordic men. What I felt tonight was love for a friend, not a lover.”

“It was kind of you to allow her to move on, and for yourself as well.” Daenerys clears her throat and finishes off her brandy. “I think I would like to go to bed now.”

Daenerys rises from her seat but almost instantly tips forward, her arms flailing as she crashes down into a firm chest and strong arms around her. She freezes, her face pressed into soft robes and a hard body. Kyris steadies her and his arms tighten around her before he pulls away only far enough to look at her. He tilts her head up and she blinks, trying to see straight. He smiles down at her.

“It seems the brandy is too strong for you, queen. You’re so small. We will talk more tomorrow about your quest and begin your training. You can sleep in my bed or I can help you back to yours.”

Purple eyes drift over to the warm looking bed with soft furs before Daenerys looks back at Kyris. “M-my room,” she clears her throat again. “Ah, my room, please.”

Kyris’s belly moves against hers as he chuckles again before he boldly lifted her into his arms. Daenerys doesn’t stay awake long enough to make it back to her quarters.

Chapter 6: A Decision to Stay

Daenerys rubs her forehead as she sits down at a table in the temple’s library. It wasn’t near as impressive as the Citadel’s library, so she’s heard, but it was comfortable looking, with plenty of books lining the walls. Estanya had awakened her early, much to her chagrin, brought her to the kitchen for bread, butter, and some kind of berry, and brought her here.

The Altmer woman puts a book on the table and Daenerys continues to rub her forehead as she pulls the book towards herself. The Art of War Magic. She looks up at Estanya. “Why are you giving me this?”

“Do you have a headache?” Estanya smiles and shakes her head. She raises her hand and points it at Daenerys. “He gave you that nasty brandy, didn’t he? I can’t drink the stuff. Here, let me heal you.”

Before Daenerys can react, a soft, golden white light fills the air in front of Estanya’s hand. The woman points it right at Daenerys’s head and immediately her body starts to become warm, the ache in her head immediately disappearing. Estanya closes her hand and the light disappears. Daenerys laughs. “How did you do that?”

Estanya laughs too, a soft, girlish noise that transforms her face. “It’s magic, queen. The Elven races have strong affinities for magic. It’s not quite so easy for the other races but it’s not impossible for them to learn. To answer your first question, that is why I gave you that book. You’re going to learn magic.”

“I can’t learn magic.” Daenerys laughs again, incredulous. “I’m not a witch.”

“Neither am I.” Estanya shrugs and places a second book on top of the first one. 2920, Volume 04 – Rain’s Hand. “I’m an Elf and you are Westerosi. You’re very similar to the Nords, I would say. Nords can perform magic if they practice. So can you. Kyris thinks you’ll need more work on your magic than you will on your swordplay. Saetar says you already know how to use a sword.”

Pain fills Daenerys as she thinks of the single time she’d wielded a sword; the day Jorah was killed by the wight army. She tries to push thoughts of her most loyal friend out of her mind. “I only used a sword once and I imagine I was not very good at it. I was fighting for my life, so I did what I thought I needed to do.”

“Hm.” Estanya taps the books with her fingers. “You might enjoy a one-handed sword much more so than a two-handed one. You’re so small. Perhaps a bow would work better for you than either of those. Kyris thought you might enjoy magic the most but perhaps not. You’ve got the blood of the dragon within you and dragons do not hide. You don’t seem one for stealth. I think a bow would be good, and daggers.”

“I haven’t used those either.” Daenerys shrugs apologetically. “My brother never allowed me to wield a weapon before he died and I had my dragons and armies after. I never needed to use a weapon until the battle against the white walkers. That was out of necessity and I wasn’t very good at it.”

Estanya smiles before setting two more books on the stack. “You survived, did you not? That is what counts. The skills you will learn here will save your life time and time again. There are powerful magic users, excellent marksmen, and people who can teach you just about everything to do with fighting with whatever weapon you desire. You can do whatever you wish here.”

Daenerys looks down at the growing stack of books before her. She didn’t want to learn magic, use a bow, or find out how to properly use a sword. What she wanted to do was rush out to Drogon, climb on top of him, fly back to Westeros, and set two castles on fire. She wanted to watch her former lover and his sister burn. Would the people here just let her leave though?

The other woman steps towards the table and sits opposite Daenerys, her hand coming out towards Daenerys’s and lands on it. Daenerys swallows past a lump in her throat. This was just like at Winterfell with Sansa. All she’d wanted was to create a family between them and Jon, Arya, and Bran. She wanted a family… and Sansa ripped that away from her. The Starks would soon learn what happens to those who betray her.

Estanya squeezes Daenerys’s hand. “I suppose you don’t give much of a shit about what’s happening in Skyrim?” Daenerys opens her mouth to deny it but Estanya shakes her head. “I understand. When I came here, I would have done anything I could think of to get back home. I hated Skyrim. It didn’t take long to realize I don’t have anything left back there. What do you have left in Westeros?”

“I—” Daenerys frowns. What did she have left in Westeros? Grey Worm had no fondness for the place, if he even survived trying to get justice for her. If he was alive then he had more than likely already started leading the Unsullied and Dothraki away from there. “I suppose the only thing I have there is justice.”

“Does that justice truly mean so much to you?”

Anger fills Daenerys and her nostrils flare. “They used me, manipulated me, killed those I loved the most, and stabbed me in the back after everything I did for the kingdom. Justice, anger, and revenge is all I have now.”

“Is it?” Estanya’s hand twitches and Daenerys wonders if the woman would jerk away like she’d once done with Sansa. The woman’s hand doesn’t move further though. “There are still millions of people in Essos who adore you. We may not be much here at the temple but we support you. The people of Skyrim will love you soon enough. You can find joy here if you choose to stay.”

“I have a choice?” Daenerys continues to stare at their joined hands, fascinated by them for some reason. “I figured your people would try to stop me from leaving.”

Estanya snorts and squeezes Daenerys’s hand before letting go of it and rising from the table. “We’re a lot of things here, Daenerys, but we’re not fools. No one here is brave nor foolish enough to try to chain Drogon. Nor are we foolish enough to force you to stay when you don’t want to. You’re supposed to be the hero of Skyrim, so it wouldn’t be productive to force you to stay here and risk you turning your justice upon us.”

Daenerys watches as Estanya moves around the library, gathering several more books. She figured they would try to stop her from leaving. Finding out they wouldn’t even try made her wonder if she should stay a little longer. There was no harm in allowing Jon to warm her father’s seat for a little while longer before she burned him in it. Sansa and Jon would grow complacent. They would not expect her attack, whenever it came.

Yes, she could remain in Skyrim for a time, learning whatever they want her to learn.

“Okay, this should be enough for now.” Estanya sets five or six more books on the table. “You can start reading some of these today and tomorrow you’ll begin learning some small spells. Kyris is skilled at destruction magic. Maybe he’ll be able to teach you a little bit. I need to go check on Maenara. Is there anything else you need?”

“Not right now, no.”

Daenerys watches the other woman leave before she sighs and pulls the closest book to herself and opens it. Strange looking symbols stare up at her from the first page and she bends over the book. It doesn’t take long before she’s fully engrossed in the book, eagerly flipping the pages. She’d always loved reading as a child but Viserys hadn’t been able to get her many books. He’d very rarely allow her to read a letter, though she imagined that was because he didn’t want her to see him being turned away by so many potential allies.

She doesn’t know how long she reads before the chair opposite her shifts and she jerks her head up to see Kyris smiling down at her. He pulls the seat out and sits, nodding at the book in front of her. “Good choice. That one is all about destruction magic. I brought that book here when I came. It’s a favorite of mine.”

“I like it.” Daenerys runs her fingers over some of the symbols on the page she’s on. “I don’t see how reading about destruction magic can help me learn how to do magic but I like the book regardless.”

Kyris’s grin grows larger. “Reading about it won’t make you know how to do magic but it’ll help you understand what’s necessary to learn. Everyone can learn how to use magic, not just witches. It could take months or even years for you to get to the level I am at now with my destruction magic. Speaking of months… Estanya thinks you might be deciding to leave us soon.”

Feeling her cheeks darken, Daenerys closes the book and shakes her head. “I decided to stay for a little while. Maybe a few months so I can learn how to fight. Alduin is coming back to Skyrim in six months. I’ll work here for a little while and then I’ll go take care of my business in Westeros. Afterwards, I’ll return and destroy Alduin for you.”

The grin disappears from Kyris’s face. He stares at her impassively for a few seconds, making her feel on edge. “I couldn’t stop you even if I wanted to.” He smiles again at her shocked face. “Yes, I won’t stop you from leaving if that’s what you really want. But I have to ask, what if Jon finds a way to kill you once you return to Westeros? He could use one of those bolts. He could find an archer brave enough to try to shoot you off Drogon. What happens to the people of Skyrim if you die there? They die here. Alduin will bring about the end of the world.”

Daenerys’s eyes fall back to the books in front of her. “You expect me to just… get over what they did to me? They murdered me.” Her voice raises at the end and she feels tears sting at the corners of her eyes. She firms her lips. No, she would not cry.

A hand lands on Daenerys’s, much like between her and Sansa, and her and Estanya. The hand is large, warm, with a light dusting of black hair against the knuckles. The fingers slowly curl underneath her own fingers. His thumb brushes her knuckles and she swallows past a lump in her throat before she looks up into his dark eyes.

“I don’t expect you to get over what they did to you. If I were you then I probably would have already climbed on my dragon and flown to burn the whole place to ash. The difference between us, I think, is you are much more forgiving than I am. I ask that you stay here for the next six months until Alduin returns, destroy him however it is you’re supposed to, and then, if you still have revenge in your heart, go do that then.”

The two of them sit in silence for a few minutes, holding hands. Daenerys finally nods. “I will remain here until Alduin is defeated. I won’t risk my safety returning to Westeros. If I survive Alduin, then I will return to Westeros then.”

Kyris smiles again and he strokes his thumb across her knuckles again before he stands. “Thank you, Daenerys. Now, I will leave you to your reading.” He lets go of her hand and steps away from the table. “By the way, you’re welcome in my quarters at any time to drink my brandy.”

Daenerys isn’t able to hold back a laugh as he winks at her and leaves the library. She feels heat fill her cheeks again as she reopens her book. There was much to learn within the next six months.

Notes:

I took a look at my stats a few days ago and found out that I was 69 comments (I giggled like a 12 year old) away from 1,000 comments threads. 1,000 comments is such a huge deal and I got the idea in my head to do a little "contest" as a reward. I'm not really one for requests since I have so much on my plate already, but I decided that my 1,000th reviewer will receive a gift fic from me in the fandom that they comment on. It'll probably be just a one-shot (unless I get struck by a massive wave of inspiration) and will likely not exceed 2500 words, but you will get to request the type of fic I write. There are some ships/genres/subject matters I'm not comfortable with so this won't be a free-for-all but I will do my best to give you a great "reward" for sticking by me for the past 2 years, reading my stuff.

Current countdown: 25 to go.

Chapter 7: Arrows and Love

Daenerys shakes her head at her arrow. To be fair, it was in the target. Barely. At the edge of it. And it was her sixth shot of the day. If she were a decade younger, she might have thrown down the bow and walked away.

“Go on.” A deep voice calls out from behind her. “Go get your arrows and come back. You always get your own arrows.”

Sighing, Daenerys gently lays down her bow and starts towards the targets. It had been three weeks since her conversation with Kyris in the library, and already she was regretting her decision not to return to Westeros before dealing with Alduin. Now, her days were spent reading in the library, learning how to tell what ingredients were safe to eat or mix together for potions, and fighting with weapons.

Her magic ability was… well, practically non-existent. The most she’d felt was her fingertips warm. Kyris had praised her but it only made her feel empty. She knew she’d failed him there.

“If you’re quite done daydreaming, queen, would you like to continue shooting?”

Normally, the tone and words would have angered Daenerys, but she was so fond of Armek that she couldn’t bring herself to be frustrated with him. On the first day she’d met him, she’d called the dark-skinned man a Summer Islander without thinking, as she’d seen them from time to time in Essos. He’d laughed, and said he was a Redguard, not a Summer Islander in that slow, deep voice of his. She liked him.

Him and Kyris, Estanya and Maenara, all of them. Daenerys was starting to think of Skyrim as a sort of home. It wasn’t her home, but it was a home. And for someone who has never had a home, it felt nice.

Daenerys returns to her spot and lifts her bow, grabs an arrow, sights the target, and shoots. The arrow whizzes through the air and hits the target. The edge. Armek grunts. “Good. Again.”

“Good?” Daenerys shakes her head, incredulous. “I barely hit the target. I wouldn’t call that good. If I were in battle then I would only win if I got lucky. Why can’t I just rely on Drogon?”

“Because you’ve been relying on Drogon since he hatched.” Armek crosses his arms across his broad chest and leans his hip against the table holding more bows and arrows. “You’ve relied on him and your armies and your advisors. What if you have to go into a cave here in Skyrim to find some ancient tome to help you destroy Alduin? You can’t take Drogon down there with you, and often you will be questing alone. Your weapons skills need to be better or else you will die.”

“Yes. I understand.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “Do you? You don’t seem to understand that you’re not going to become an expert markswoman overnight. Your first day you couldn’t hit a target. Now you can. Soon you will be able to get a bullseye. After that you will be able to hit a moving target. Alduin will not appear in Skyrim for months. You have time.”

“I—” Daenerys furrows her brow but nods. “I do understand. I just wished I would be better at archery than I have been at magic.”

Armek cocks his own eyebrow. “Magic isn’t where my strengths lie, I’ll admit, but Kyris has been singing your praises the last few days. Well, not that Kyris is much one for singing. Ah, you know what I mean.”

Daenerys picks up another arrow and nocks it. She sights and shoots, momentarily enjoying the thwack noise as it hits the target. “I think Kyris might just have too much hope in me. He thinks everything I do is brilliant, even when I know I’m not doing well. I haven’t been able to do a single spell.”

“I thought you were able to heat up your hand.”

“Yes.” Daenerys admits. “But I wasn’t able to form fire. My fingertips just grew warm.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself there,” Armek smiles again, his teeth a bright contrast against his dark skin. “I can’t even do that and I’ve lived in Tamriel my entire life. I feel much more at home with the wood of a bow in my hand. If you, who has only lived in Skyrim a few mere weeks, has done more than I at magic, then you are doing well.”

“Finer words couldn’t be spoken.”

Armek and Daenerys both look over at the doorway to the shooting range to find Kyris standing there. His lips curve into a smile as his eyes drift to the targets. “Well done. It may not seem this way but you’re learning quickly. Daenerys, I’ve come to ask you to share dinner in my quarters tonight. If you are amenable.”

Daenerys nods. “Of course. I will meet you in your quarters tonight.”

“That’s all.” Kyris nods at Armek before turning back to the door. “You’ll get her to that bullseye soon, I know it.”

Armek laughs as Kyris leaves the room. “That one is always good company, isn’t he? Speaking of good company,” Armek winks at Daenerys. “Have the two of you shared more than a meal together?”

“I—” Daenerys scoffs and turns to face the targets again, her cheeks warming. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, don’t be a blushing maiden.” Armek laughs harder, his deep voice booming in the room like thunder. “I know that’s not what you are. Maybe once, but not now. We all see the way he looks at you. It would be a surprise to everyone if he hasn’t bedded you yet. Though, maybe you prefer another man in the temple? Or perhaps a woman? Several members of our little group have expressed interest.”

“Women?” Daenerys thinks back to the single time she’d bedded a woman and remembers it had brought her pleasure, but not near as much as being with a man had. “Not women, no. And I haven’t noticed any of the men here… noticing me.”

“Maenara will be disappointed.” Armek sighs heavily and shakes his head. “I woulda liked to watch that. Most of the men here have noticed you, save for those whose eyes are blinded by their own loves. Purple eyes and silver hair? And a queen to boot? You’re quite the lovely find. I wouldn’t mind taking you to my own bed, though I’ve never noticed you noticing me the way your eyes seem to follow Kyris wherever he goes.”

“My eyes don’t follow Kyris!”

Armek chuckles. “Oh, aye, they do. You both stare at each other whenever you’re in the same room. A couple of the boys have made some bets on whether or not Kyris is just going to throw you on a table in front of everyone.”

Daenerys’s cheeks burn brighter. “I would never do that!”

Not even when she was married to Drogo did she do anything mad like that.

“No, nor would Kyris.” Armek shoves off from the table and picks up an arrow before passing it off to her. “Why not give him a chance? No one will push. It gets lonely in the mountains and we find our comfort where we can. You don’t have to marry him or anything ridiculous like that. Just find some pleasure where you can get some.”

The thought of Daario enters Daenerys’s mind. She’d grown to love Drogo eventually. She and Jon had loved each other before they’d even bedded. Daario had been different. He loved her before they bedded but she hadn’t loved him. Had never loved him. They had taken great pleasure from each other.

She knew she could never love again after what Jon did to her… but bedding was different. It didn’t need to be more than that.

“I’ll think over what you’ve said.”

And Daenerys would. She would.

Chapter 8: Dancing Candlelight

Daenerys studies herself in the mirror that Maenara had given her several days before, turning this way and that. She runs her brush through her long hair, enjoying the silky feeling against her fingers. For years, she’d been adding braids to her hair for every victory and taking the braids out for every defeat. It was the Dothraki way.

Well, Daenerys did cheat a little when it came to her braids. She was supposed to cut off all her braids when she suffered a defeat so the world would know of it. She’d only unraveled the braids. Still, it was because of the Dothraki that Daenerys discovered who she was and what she wanted to be in this life.

The first few days of living in the temple, Daenerys had meticulously braided her hair as she’d done back in Westeros. She wanted the people at the temple to know her status and know how many victories she’d achieved. Things had changed since then, though. No longer did she care what they thought of her braids and victories, but what they thought of her. Ever since, she’d been braiding her hair straight down her back like she’d done during Drogo’s funeral.

Now, Daenerys’s hair sits wavy against her shoulders and down her back, wondering if she should braid it at all. She thought she looked younger with it down. Younger, innocent, child-like, with her purple eyes shining in the dark. Perhaps she should pull it across her shoulder? She didn’t know why she was thinking about this so hard. Kyris wasn’t in love with her, nor she with him, but it was different.

Different than with Drogo, Daario, or Jon. Daenerys had loved Drogo but she knew their relationship wasn’t a healthy one. She’d been considering suicide before she learned how to bed him from Doreah. Daario had been someone who loved her but she didn’t return the affection. Jon… Jon was different. They both loved each other. Apparently, one of the two of them loved the other more.

Kyris was someone she didn’t love, though was growing fond of. It didn’t have to be anything more than that. She could stay in her quarters tonight and he would accept it. She’d learned that much about him, at least. But did she really want to close the door on a relationship with everyone here? There hadn’t been many moments when she’d felt lonely in the temple. They were good people.

It’s possible she could be happy here.

Decision made, Daenerys runs her brush through her hair a few more times until it shines and sets down the brush. She could be happy here, with him. It may not be all that she’d hoped for but she could be happy. Jon could rot in Westeros until she returned for him. She’d never sit her father’s throne again but she would ensure the Targaryen’s have had their final revenge against the ungrateful bastards that used them for their own selfish gains.

Jon, Tyrion, and the rest of the Starks at the top of the list.

Daenerys runs her hands down her robes. She’d never cared for what kind of clothes she wore. She hadn’t cared what pretty, see-through dresses Viserys put her in nor the outfits she wore among the Dothraki. The blue dress she wore in Astapor might have been her favorite though. The clothes hadn’t mattered to her. She was as comfortable in “Dothraki rags”, as her charming brother called them, as she was in her regal Targaryen colored dresses in Westeros. The robes here didn’t bother her, though she did wish she could dress more nicely on occasion.

Especially now.

Sighing, Daenerys turns away from her mirror and steps towards her door. She moves across the hallway to Kyris’s door and knocks on it. She only waits a few seconds before it opens, revealing the dark-haired, dark-eyed man. He smiles at her and motions her inside. “Thank you for dining with me tonight. I’m sure you’ve had other offers.”

“Until tonight,” Daenerys glances around the room, noting the lit candles placed around the room, dancing merrily against the walls. “I didn’t know I had any offers. Maenara is interested, apparently, and so is Armek.”

Kyris laughs and Daenerys smiles, enjoying the sound. It didn’t seem like he laughed often, though she hadn’t known him long enough to really know this. He moves further into the room and pulls a chair out from a small table next to his bed. She takes it gratefully and allows him to push her chair in. “Thank you.”

“Not surprised about Armek. All the ladies here like him.” Kyris takes his seat across from Daenerys and slides a bowl over to her. “Maenara is very picky, though apparently even she can’t resist your eyes. Does this look good to you?”

“It looks delicious.” Daenerys smiles down at the venison stew, apple pie, and some kind of bread. She picks it up and inspects it. It’s yellow with some type of spice on it. “What is this?”

“That’s garlic bread.” Kyris picks up a piece of his own bread and dips it into his soup. “I guess they don’t have that in Westeros? They put butter on the bread and add garlic to it for flavoring. I like to mix it with my venison stew. Try it.”

Daenerys follows Kyris’s lead and dips the bread in the soup before bringing it to her lips. She takes a bite and barely withholds a moan of pleasure. “That is delicious.”

“Try a cup of the wine.” Kyris reaches forward and grabs a bottle before pouring it into the cup next to Daenerys’s bowl. “It’s spiced wine. I think you’ll prefer it over what I offered you last time.”

Taking a sip of the wine, Daenerys can’t help the small moan this time and licks her lips. “I love the berries used in this. Are there blackberries? I can taste cinnamon too.”

“Blackberries, juniper berries in small amounts, some cinnamon, and other spices. It’s no Colovian Brandy but I still like it.” Kyris smiles again. “Try the stew without the bread.”

Daenerys does, and she enjoys it just as much as she’d enjoyed the bread. “Maenara is a wonderful cook.”

“This is actually Estanya’s.” Kyris dips his spoon back in his bowl and takes a bite. “Maenara only cooks when she’s forced to. Estanya actually enjoys her time in the kitchens. Speaking of Maenara, you said she has an interest in you.”

“Ah,” Daenerys coughs around the venison in her mouth and swallows before she speaks. “Armek told me Maenara has shown interest.”

“Do you return any affection for her?”

“I enjoy her company,” Daenerys says carefully. “But I have no preference for women. I’ll have to let her know.”

Sensing her reluctance, Kyris shakes his head. “You don’t have to be worried. We’re a pretty open group. Maenara will move on to someone else willing to have her. And believe me, they’ll be willing. Some of our group are exclusive to their partners and others are more carefree. You’ll find Maenara is of the carefree sort.”

“And what about you? Are you of the carefree sort?” Daenerys is shocked by her brazen question, but she doesn’t back down either. She needed to know if he would be her lover. “I’m not so carefree.”

“Nor am I.” Kyris leans back in his chair and studies her. “When I was younger I was but I prefer to only be with one person now and, I cannot demand but only ask, that my partner be the same way. Do you… have affection for Armek?”

Daenerys shakes her head. “I enjoy his company, like Maenara, but I do not wish to bed him. He’s my friend.”

Kyris nods slowly and opens his mouth but before he can speak, Daenerys does. “I didn’t think you were the type to shy away from a conversation, and you should know by now that I’m the same. You and I both know what you’re really asking. Why not just ask?”

“Well,” Kyris chuckles. “I should have known better than to carefully choose my words around the Mother of Dragons. You’re right. You aren’t the type to shy away from a conversation. I should have been plain. I wish to bed you the duration of your stay here, if you’re amenable. There’s… something about you. I wish for it to continue until you leave to go fight Alduin but that may not be what you wish.”

“I suppose we’ll have to see how things go the first time.” Daenerys glances down at her plate. “You want it to continue until I leave. That means this is only a temporary thing.”

“Aye.” Kyris says reluctantly. “This place is my home. I couldn’t imagine ever leaving it for long. As much as I would like to say it is, but I don’t think this place is your home. You’re meant for better. Better than this place. Better than these halls. Better than me. I’m just one more placeholder in your life on your way to what you actually deserve.”

Daenerys’s brow narrows. “Don’t say that about yourself. You’re more than that to me. You brought me back. Can’t we just see where this goes without saying we’re doomed from the beginning?”

“I’m afraid I might have a clearer understanding of our situation than you do.” Kyris’s eyes narrow, sorrow filling them. “But yes, let us do this your way. Now eat. I have the entire night planned for us.”

Notes:

I reached my 1,000th comment a few weeks back and decided that every 250th comment after will receive the same gift-fic prize that the last person did. The gift-fic will be your own request/idea and it will be in the fandom that you comment in. It'll probably be just a one-shot (unless I get struck by a massive wave of inspiration) and will likely not exceed 2500 words, but you will get to request the type of fic I write. There are some ships/genres/subject matters I'm not comfortable with so this won't be a free-for-all but I will do my best to give you a great "reward" for sticking by me for the past 2 years.

Current Countdown: 50

Chapter 9: Who could Rule through Love?

Daenerys finishes her meal far quicker than Kyris does and she stares around the room while she waits for him to finish. It was clear that Kyris lived simply, with very few personal items in the room. The bed was covered with warm looking furs and a dresser had a few daggers on it. There were some alchemy ingredients on another dresser. It just seemed so… impersonal. And he’d lived here for years.

The light from the candles dance against the walls and she smiles at the beauty of it, despite it being eerie as well. Fire had always fascinated her ever since she was small and Viserys was telling her about their house words. Fire and Blood. Daenerys frowns. Look what happened to the strongest House in Westeros. Jon was likely sitting on the throne while Daenerys was, yet again, an exile in hiding. This time it was a Targaryen that destroyed his own family.

That would end one day. After Alduin was defeated, if she did not die in the attempt, she would return to Westeros and remind the people of the strength of House Targaryen. The real strength of House Targaryen. Not Jon pretending to be one of them.

“I lost you.” Daenerys turns back to face a smiling Kyris. “Where’d you go?”

Daenerys hesitates. She knew he couldn’t force her to stay here but would he be disappointed she was still thinking about returning to Westeros after Alduin was defeated? Would he actually try to make her stay? She should be honest. “I was thinking about Jon and Westeros.”

“I imagine they’re on your thoughts a lot.” At her nod, Kyris lowers his fork to his plate and wipes his mouth. “I would be as angry as you are if I were in your place. Quite frankly, I might have already charged back over there if I were you. You’ve shown great restraint and all for a bunch of people you’ve never met.”

“It’s the right thing to do.” Daenerys picks up her glass of wine and takes a sip of it. “I see what I’m doing for Skyrim as a similar situation to what I did for Westeros against the White Walkers. This time apparently, I’ll be fighting a dragon instead.”

“Likely many of them. Does that bother you?” Kyris stares at her, his own fingers wrapping around his glass. “Fighting other dragons? You consider your dragons to be your children.”

Daenerys shakes her head. “I’ll do whatever I’ve got to do to protect Drogon and the people of Skyrim from Alduin. I don’t know what you know of my family history but there have been Targaryen’s that went to war with each other, battling dragons against each other. This is similar except I have no relationship with Alduin.”

“And what of your relationship with Jon?”

That was a harder question for Daenerys to answer. She was still furious with Jon over what he’d done to her and what he’d likely stolen from her. It would surprise her if he wasn’t sitting on the throne he so adamantly told her that he “he did not want.” Still, there was love and hurt and loss between them. To say she was completely over him would be a lie, and she didn’t wish to lie to Kyris.

“I don’t know.” Daenerys answers slowly and looks away. “I still feel love for him. I don’t think I’d be this angry if I didn’t still love him. He was one of the few Westerosi that looked at me and didn’t automatically hate me as the Mad King’s daughter. That’s what they all thought of me. He and Lady Olenna and Yara and Ellaria were the only ones beyond Tyrion that were willing to give me a chance to prove I wasn’t my father’s daughter. The rest… I could have stabbed the Night King through his heart myself and I’d still be unworthy of them.”

Kyris’s hand nudges against hers on her wine glass and she lets it fall into his. His thumb rubs against the back of her hand and she finally looks up at him. He smiles sadly. “You shall not face the same from the people of Skyrim. There will be those who distrust you for being an outsider but many will be grateful. You’re a hero in Westeros but you’ll be treated like one in Skyrim.”

“Will I still be a hero if they find out what I did to King’s Landing?” Daenerys blurts out on a topic the rest of the group had shied away from. “I burned the city and intended on ruling a kingdom of ash and bone. What would they say about that?”

“I don’t know.” Kyris shrugs, not seeming to care about her angered words. “What I do know is why you burned the city. You wanted to rule the kingdom through love but that kingdom isn’t one that can be won with love. All the people of Westeros know is fear and respect. Aegon wasn’t loved. He was feared and respected. Maybe love came later, as his rule continued into age, but love didn’t win him the crown. Love didn’t hold Jaehaerys his crown. Love certainly didn’t hold your father’s crown for two fucking decades. You needed to win them with fear and conquer and, whether they knew it or not, liberation. Respect would have come. And one day love, just as it had for the other violent conquerors before.”

“I wanted to be better than them.” Daenerys says quietly. “I wanted to break the wheel.”

Kyris nods, his smile kind. “You wanted to make life better for them and they spit in your face because they didn’t know you, didn’t like you, and didn’t trust you.”

“They didn’t even try to get to know me.”

“True. But we have.”

That was true. Their group had been nothing but kind to her from the moment she woke up. Many had asked her about her childhood and what life was like with the Dothraki. Others gasped as she retold the story of her liberating the people of Dragon’s Bay. Was it still Dragon’s Bay or had the people overtaken Daario’s men upon discovering the Mother of Dragons was dead? That was yet one more thing to be sad about. How many children had slid back into chains because Jon Snow killed Daenerys Targaryen? She supposed Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark didn’t give a fuck about those children.

“Are you finished with your food?” When Daenerys nods, Kyris lifts her plate and bowl from the table and he moves them over to one of his dressers. When he turns back to face her, he winks. “Normally I walk my dishes back to the kitchens after I’m done eating but I think there are more pressing concerns tonight.”

Daenerys can’t resist a smile. “And what, tell me, are those pressing concerns, Kyris?”

Kyris huffs out a laugh. “Well, I was hoping we could see to a certain problem I have beneath my robes right now. If you also have a problem that needs attending to.”

It had been so long since she’d been bedded. Jon was the last, and it’d been in Winterfell before he discovered the truth that they’d last been together. How many months had it been now? Yes, she could do with a bed partner and Kyris was rather easy to look at. He was taller than Jon and more muscular. She could find pleasure with the man, if nothing else.

Did she want there to be more between them than base lust? She’d thought there could be love with Daario one day but it hadn’t developed for her, nor with Jorah though she never bedded him. Her relationship with Drogo hadn’t entirely been healthy either, or with Jon as he’d killed her in the end.

Yes, she desired Kyris, and wanted to see what they could be together.

Daenerys holds out her hand for Kyris to take.

Notes:

This chapter is so short because I want to put a lot of time and focus on the bedding next chapter 😏😏😏 Daenerys/Ulfric are endgame but she will have a short lived relationship with Kyris which will let her heal from Jon a little bit.

Chapter 10: Don't cry, Lokalaat

Notes:

Warnings for this chapter include a sex scene and very light BDSM.

Kyris’s hand is warm in hers and he leads her over to his bed. He indicates for her to sit down. “Let me stoke the fire. I know you’re more used to a warmer climate.”

Daenerys leans back against the bed as she watches him move towards a fireplace built into the wall. He stokes it. It was true that she was far more used to warmer days. Living in Essos almost her entire life, she’d rarely seen snow. And when she did, it was only the lightest flurries. It wasn’t until she’d gone North of the Wall to rescue Jon that she’d witnessed snow for real.

Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal hadn’t liked the North. Viserion died there. Rhaegal and Drogon refused to eat. Daenerys hadn’t been offering Sansa empty platitudes. She’d thought the North was beautiful, but nothing was more so than the falls Jon had led her to. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, save for her son with Drogo in the warlock’s spell and the dragons. She wished that they had just stayed there forever. A thousand years…

No one would have been able to find them there.

The room slowly starts to heat as Kyris lays another log upon the fire. He rises from his crouched position and turns towards her. His nearly black eyes darken further as he takes in her relaxed position. “I have to admit, I love the sight of you in my bed.” He smiles. “I imagine I’ll much more enjoy the sight of you naked in my bed, though.”

“You’ve already seen me naked.” Daenerys waits for shame to fill her, but it doesn’t come. She’d been dead when he’d seen her without her clothing. For some reason that didn’t bother her. “When Drogon brought me to you to bring me back. Though this is a much more enjoyable experience, I have to admit.”

“You’re not wrong.” Kyris’s eyes slide down Daenerys’s body hungrily. “Take off your clothes.”

A shiver fills Daenerys. Those were the same words she’d told Daario the first time they’d been together. Hearing the order from Kyris was even more exciting than it had been to give it. Her fingers reach up to the ties at the neck of her robes and slowly starts to unlace them, her eyes not leaving Kyris’s the entire time.

The robes quickly fall to the floor, leaving Daenerys only in her undershirt and trousers. Kyris shakes his head when she reaches for the hem of her shirt. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll be the one to take those off. Remove your boots and lay back on the bed.”

Daenerys toes off her boots and slides back further into the bed until her head rests against one of the feather pillows. She watches as Kyris’s own robes fall from his body and he starts pulling at the laces at the top of his shirt. He slides it off, showing a hard span of muscle and flesh. Black hair stands out vividly against his pale skin, leading from his pecs down to a trail that disappears beneath his trousers.

“See anything you like? Wait,” Kyris smirks and pushes his trousers down his legs, stepping out of them. “How about now?”

“You’re arrogant.” Daenerys laughs and shakes her head. “Yes, I enjoy what I see.”

She couldn’t help but compare him to her former lovers. Shorter than Drogo but taller than Jon. About the same height as Daario. His skin isn’t quite as pale as Jon’s but far lighter than Drogo’s had been. Jon barely had any hair on his body but Kyris has less than Drogo did. Her eyes land on Kyris’s cock. Again, smaller than Drogo, but larger than both Jon and Daario.

Yes, she was quite happy indeed.

“You like that.” Kyris steps towards the bed and presses his palm flat against it. “You enjoy an arrogant lover. Not too arrogant but still. Deny it.”

Daario and Drogo both fill Daenerys’s mind. Yes, she did enjoy it when a man was a little bit arrogant. Well, in Daario’s case, completely arrogant. “I can’t deny it.”

Kyris’s other hand wraps around Daenerys’s ankle and starts to slide up her leg. His voice is husky when he says, “Lift your hips.”

Daenerys does so wordlessly, feeling him pull down her trousers, leaving her only in her strange Skyrim undergarments and undershirt. Kyris kneels on the bed and pushes her legs apart with his hands. His eyes roam up her legs to the junction where they meet, covered by the cloth. “Fuck. If I’d known you were this beautiful, I might have tried to court you earlier.”

“I wouldn’t have been ready.” Daenerys closes her eyes, unable to look at him as she says, “I was still thinking of Jon.”

“You’re still thinking of Jon. Look at me.” Kyris cups her cheek, his finger stroking a line against the bone under her eye. She opens them. “Do you want to stop? I won’t bed an unwilling lover. Say the word and we will not speak of this again until you’re ready for it.”

“I—” Daenerys hesitates before shaking her head. “I don’t want to stop. I want to move on. Jon is my past.”

“I’m not your future though.” Kyris gives her a sad look but shakes her his. “I can be your present. I’m satisfied enough with that.”

The thought makes Daenerys sad, but she doesn’t say anything as Kyris slides back down to the bottom of the bed. Her eyes slowly close as his lips press soft kisses into the skin of her ankle. His hand strokes slow circles into the skin of her other leg. Both his hand and lips move at an agonizing pace as they drift up towards her knees and, by the time they reach them, she is softly panting.

“I love that noise.” The fingers of Kyris’s left hand dig into her thigh while he sucks on the skin of her other thigh. “Louder.”

The wet noises coming from her thighs has Daenerys’s breath coming out sharper, her hips thrusting forward at the same time. Kyris pulls her undergarments off her in one fluid motion. His lips seek out the junction of her legs and her eyes fly open when his lips close upon her there. “Gods!”

Kyris chuckles and the laugh reverberates through Daenerys’s body. Her hips thrust forward again but Kyris’s hand clamps down on them, pushing her back against the bed. She whines but the noise quickly turns into a moan when his tongue pushes inside of her. It thrusts in and out and his hand not on her hip pushes up underneath her shirt, quickly finding one of her breasts.

Daenerys grips the pillow beneath her head with one hand but her other one comes down to rest on Kyris’s head. He grunts when she threads her fingers through his hair and pulls gently. His thumb brushes against her nipple and her hips jerk up again. She throws back her head against the pillow and moans loudly.

Suddenly, Kyris pulls away from her and Daenerys lets out a whimper. “No,” his voice husky. “You’re not going to release until I’m inside you. Put both your arms above your head.”

Confused, Daenerys does as he says, and watches as he pushes her undershirt up her chest, kissing her hips and belly and ribs as he does. She lifts herself up to help him take the shirt off and lays back down, her arms still above her head. Kyris kisses the rest of the way up her chest, stopping only briefly to brush his lips against each of her breasts, until he gets to her neck, jaw, and lips. He nips at her lips before he pushes himself up over her. One of his hands come up to take both of her wrists in his grip and holds them down against the bed.

“Is this okay?” He nods at their joined hands. “I like to play a little in bed. If you don’t like it then we don’t have to.”

Daenerys remembered some of the Dothraki liking to “play” like this with their lovers. Some had tied their lovers up with pieces of cloth, spanking them at the same time. It hadn’t been something she’d done with Drogo or Daario, and it would have been humorous if Jon had even suggested it. She tries to move her wrists but Kyris holds them down firmly. Not hurting her, but not letting go either. Despite hating to lose control in a normal situation, she doesn’t mind letting it go in this one.

“Yes.” Daenerys nods. “This is okay. No more though, for now.”

“Of course.” Kyris’s eyes darken and he nudges her thighs further apart, settling between them. “If at anytime you want me to let you go, tell me. Understood?”

“I understand.”

Kyris leans down and takes her lips. She moans into his mouth just as his cock brushes against her. His grip around her wrists tightens as he angles himself until the head of his cock pushes inside. Daenerys wraps her legs around his waist as well as she can, pulling him against her until he slides all the way inside. Kyris grunts and rips his lips away from hers, his black eyes shining in the firelight.

“Fuck. You’re full of surprises. I was going to go slow.”

But slow was not what Daenerys wanted, and Kyris realized it. He starts pumping his hips, lowering himself until their chests touch. She cries out every time he slides back inside her, filling her and making her feel whole again. His lips can’t seem to decide where they want to be, touching lightly against her chin, her cheeks, her jaw, her forehead, her temples, everywhere he could reach.

“Ky—” Daenerys whimpers again and arches her back, meeting his thrusts. “Kyris.”

“Yeah,” Kyris grunts and thrusts harder into her, his eyes meeting hers. “What do you need?”

Daenerys feels the achingly familiar building sensation within her belly, knowing she’s close. She tugs on her wrists. “I want to touch you, please.”

Kyris immediately lets go of her wrists and she grabs his head, sinking one of her hands into his hair and the other wraps around his back. She drags his head down to hers and their lips meet. They kiss roughly, spit sliding down their chins but she doesn’t care. She needed him, needed inside him, needed him inside her, needed him to heal her.

The building sensation grows with every thrust he gives Daenerys, until she’s crying, begging, sobbing for release. Kyris’s hand comes down to grip her hip and he grunts again. “Come on. Come for me, Dany.”

At the sound of her nickname, Daenerys’s insides start to spasm and her thighs jerk and shake around Kyris’s hips. She throws her head back on a silent cry just as she feels him still on top of her and warmth fill her. Seven fucking Hells.

Kyris lazily kisses all over Daenerys’s face, one of his hands cupping her cheek. A few tears start to slide from her eyes and she closes them, not wanting to ruin the moment. His lips find them though and kisses them away. “Don’t cry, Lokalaat. Please don’t cry.”

“Lokalaat?” Daenerys opens her eyes and looks up at him. “What does that mean?”

“It—” Kyris chuckles, his cheeks darkening further than their lovemaking had already made them. “It means beloved. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Beloved. Daenerys smiles. She knew their relationship would be short lived, but it did mean something to her.

Notes:

I'm kind of shipping Kyris and Daenerys right now.

Chapter 11: Throw Your Fire

Daenerys sits cross-legged in the training room. Her eyes are closed and she holds her hand palm up in front of her. Kyris paces behind her but he stays quiet, thankfully. She smiles as that thought fills her. Kyris had become such an important part of her life since they made love for the first time half a month ago. They couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other, barely able to keep their lovemaking to the bedroom.

There’d nearly been a very uncomfortable moment when Estanya walked in the training room they are now in… while they were kissing and tearing at each other’s clothes like they were in their teenaged years. Secretly, Daenerys wished that he’d just have at her again instead of trying to get her to fill her hand with fire. She was starting to think they were making fun of her, making her believe they could form fire in their hands when they really couldn’t. She didn’t see the need for it anyway. Drogon was all the fire she needed.

Kyris stops pacing right before her. His hand touches her shoulder. “Relax. You’re getting frustrated.” His voice suddenly takes on a teasing note. “Think about what I’m going to do with you when we get back to my room.”

“I do believe,” Daenerys smiles despite her frustration at the fire. “That thinking about that will further distract me. You’re a tease. Perhaps we could just go now and create fire of our own.”

“Who is the tease now?” Kyris laughs and steps away. “Picture the fire in your mind and fill your hand with it. We have given you all the books we have for you to learn. This is the last step. There is nothing more we can do for you.”

Frowning, Daenerys pictures fire in her head and flexes her fingers. If he wanted fire, he was going to get fire or she would die trying. She allows her mind to settle on that single thought. The sound of pacing ceases behind her. All she could think about was the heat and sparks and loving beauty of fire. She thinks about the hot bath from Pentos, the flames that had killed the witch and brought dragons back into the world, and the fire that had killed all the Khals, making her the first and only Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea.

“Lokalaat!”

Daenerys eyes pop open to see Kyris standing in front of her. She opens her mouth to ask him why he disturbed her, when she feels the flick of flames against her hand. Looking down, she stares at a ball of flames dancing in her palm. The fire entrances her, just as it had done every time before when she’d killed someone or had one of the dragons do it for her.

“Lokalaat.” Daenerys looks up at Kyris. “Throw your fire at me before you lose your strength.”

“What?” Daenerys shakes her head. “Absolutely not. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I have excellent shields.” Kyris raises his hands. “Now hit me with your fire.”

Daenerys hesitates before pointing her palm in his direction. She thinks of the fire pushing away from her. The fire flares brightly and shoots towards Kyris. Something blue leaves his palms and covers his front, deflecting the fire that reaches him. Shoving harder with her mind, Daenerys tries to break through his shield but can’t.

Finally Daenerys slumps over and the fire disappears entirely. Kyris laughs again and steps towards her. His arm wraps around her back and he pulls her against himself. His lips touch her temple and she closes her eyes, enjoying the feeling of his comfort. Her body feels tingly everywhere. “What is wrong with me?”

“Nothing, Lokalaat.” Kyris kisses her temple again and rubs her back slowly. “You just used all of your Magicka, that’s all. It’ll take some time and then you’ll feel back to normal.”

“I want to try again.” Daenerys grins despite her sudden fatigue. “Can we try again? That was amazing.”

Kyris chuckles and lowers his hands down to hers, gripping them gently. “Why don’t we see if you can stand before we try again. This can take a toll on your body. You have time to learn.”

Daenerys allows Kyris to lift her to her feet, only for her knees to buckle beneath her. Kyris’s arms incircle her. His heart beats strong and slow against her head. “As I thought. We will try again tonight or tomorrow. Now, I will take you back to my room.”

“Mm, no.” Daenerys says, though her body is screaming at her to stop. “I have so much to learn.”

“And you will.” Kyris’s chest seems to vibrate against her head. Was he restraining another laugh? “You’re doing so well, Lokalaat. So well. You do not need to learn my peoples’ ways in such a short period of time though. Alduin is not returning to this world tomorrow. You have time.”

Frustrated, but also knowing he’s right, Daenerys nods. The last thing they needed was for her to collapse and need to recover before training again. Her archery skills were starting to come together, and now she could use fire! She wouldn’t need to rely on Drogon so much anymore. While he flew above, she could fight. Of course, she would much prefer to fight while on dragon back. Kyris was right there too though. She has been and may well be in a situation where Drogon couldn’t be with her. She would need to defend herself when not with him. This was the way to do that.

The door opens and Estanya walks into the room. She grins when she sees them locked together. “I sincerely hate to interrupt, but Kyris, something has happened.”

Daenerys feels Kyris’s head turn towards the Altmer. “Is everyone alright?”

“We are.” Estanya hesitates. “Armek just sent us a message from Solitude. When he arrived there, the place was in uproar. Apparently, Ulfric Stormcloak issued a challenge against Torygg for the right to the throne. Torygg accepted.”

“Ulfric?” Kyris keeps an arm around Daenerys’s waist but moves back enough that he can scrub a hand down his face. “This is not good. Ulfric is the far superior warrior to Torygg. Skyrim has been on the edge of a war for this long; why can’t they wait a little bit longer? Alduin is coming and we need Skyrim to be united against him.”

Estanya shakes her head. “That damn Ulfric. And you and I both know he’s not doing this for the good of Skyrim, but for the good of Ulfric. All he is doing is dividing the country. I don’t care what the Nords do under normal circumstances, but these aren’t normal times, Kyris. Daenerys will need aid and she will need more than just us for this task.”

Kyris’s arm tightens around Daenerys’s waist. “I had hoped to have Torygg’s aid but it seems that he will die.”

Daenerys hesitates before she looks up at Kyris. “You make it sound like Torygg has to do this challenge but he accepted it. Could he not have refused the challenge? He is the king.”

“Well,” Kyris eyes Estanya for a second or two before looking down at Daenerys. “You’re not wrong. Torygg could refuse the challenge. He would never do so because it would bring dishonor upon his name. Nords value strength about all else. They would not see their king as strong if he refused this challenge. No one will follow High King Torygg if he does not prove himself a true Nord.”

“And you are so certain that he will die?”

Estanya laughs. “Oh, yes, we are. Ulfric is a bear of a soldier. They even call him the Bear of Markarth. A war veteran. Torygg is skilled in combat but nothing compared to Ulfric. Torygg must know that he is facing death.”

“Alright,” Kyris frowns and shakes his head. “There may yet be hope for Torygg, but I imagine it will be Ulfric we ask for aid with Daenerys against Alduin. There is nothing we can do about this now. Send Armek a message that I want him at that duel, if he can manage it. He will purchase a horse and race here with speed to let us know the outcome. I am retiring to bed.”

“Yes, Kyris.” Estanya bows her head at him and winks at Daenerys. “Enjoy your evening.”

As Estanya closes the door, Kyris’s hand slides up Daenerys’s spine and into her braid. “Will you join me in my bed tonight?”

Daenerys smiles up at him and rests one of her hands on his chest. “Lead the way.”

Notes:

I reached my 1,250th comment a few months back and decided that every 250th comment after will receive the same gift-fic prize that the last person did. The gift-fic will be your own request/idea and it will be in the fandom that you comment in. It'll probably be just a one-shot (unless I get struck by a massive wave of inspiration) and will likely not exceed 2500 words, but you will get to request the type of fic I write. There are some ships/genres/subject matters I'm not comfortable with so this won't be a free-for-all but I will do my best to give you a great "reward" for sticking by me for the past 2 years.

Current Countdown: 20

Chapter 12: I Never Want to Stop

Daenerys’s glazed purple eyes stare up at the ceiling, her legs wrapped around Kyris’s hips as he rocks into her slowly. Over the past few weeks, they had made love in many positions and he had done it hard and fast, gentle and slow, caressing her face and pulling her hair. It reminded her of the times with Khal Drogo and the Dothraki, as the two of them would fuck like dogs in the mud under the stars or make love with her on top of him.

This was so much better than those days.

Kyris’s hands link through hers and he presses her down into the mattress, his weight heavy and his chest brushing against hers with each deep, slow thrust. Daenerys arches her back and closes her eyes, moaning softly as she tilts her hips up to meet each of his thrusts. His lips move along her collar bone, up her throat, and to her lips, where he nibbles before pushing his tongue into her mouth and against hers. Every moan is sucked into the other’s mouth.

Daenerys feels that familiar building sensation within her and she whimpers. Kyris releases one of her hands and cradles her face with his own. “Look at me,” He says breathlessly. “Open your eyes, Lokalaat.”

“Kyris,” Daenerys opens her eyes and looks up into his, dark as the night sky. “Kyris.”

“Lokalaat,” Kyris grunts and starts to move quicker, his thrusts no longer as deep. His breathing comes out harsh. “Dany, I-I—”

At the sound of her nickname, Daenerys cries out and her insides spasm around Kyris’s cock. Her hips jerk forward and back uncontrollably as she digs her nails into his biceps, desperate to hold onto him for as long as she can. Her pleasure sends him over the edge, and warmth fills her as he empties his seed inside of her. His body falls fully upon her but Daenerys doesn’t mind as she wraps her arms around his shoulders, clinging and not wishing for him to leave her too.

As Kyris’s cock softens, it slowly starts to ease out of her but he doesn’t put in the effort to help it. Their breathing slows to normal as he peppers her face with kisses and she strokes her hands up and down his back.

Kyris pulls all of the way out of her and rolls, bringing her with him, until he’s on his back with her resting on his chest. She strokes her fingertips through his chest hair and slides her head under his chin to rest there. Her eyes close and she’s nearly asleep when he says, “I hope you didn’t mind.”

Daenerys doesn’t open her eyes. “Didn’t mind what?”

His chest rumbles under her head. “I called you Dany.”

“I know.” Daenerys opens her eyes and ponders on the question for a moment. “That’s what Viserys called me. Jon too.”

“I figured there might be bad memories behind it.”

“There are,” Daenerys admits. “But there are also good memories too. I’m fine with you calling me either Dany or Lokalaat.”

Kyris strokes a hand down her spine before he rests it on the small of her back. “I’ll remember that.”

Daenerys hesitates before she asks, “What were you going to say? You called me Dany and then you said I…”

The two of them sit in silence so long that Daenerys thinks he’s either fallen asleep or merely is refusing to answer. In her heart, she knew what he wanted to tell her. “I suppose,” He finally answers. “That I can no longer hide it. I’m sure you already know that I love you.”

“Yes.” Daenerys nods. “Yes, I know that. There’s something in your eyes when you look at me. A gentleness. I’ve seen it before. Viserys used to look at me that way when we were younger, before he sold our mother’s crown. Then there was Drogo. Jorah too. Daario.” She whispers. “Jon.”

Kyris is silent again for a few moments before he eases her head up with his fingers until she’s looking down at him. He assesses her for another moment. “Do you want me to stop looking at you with that gentleness? Do you want us to stop this relationship? Whatever it is. Do you want me to stop loving you?”

Daenerys shakes her head. “No. I never want you to stop. I never want this feeling to end.”

A muscle in Kyris’s cheek bunches and he kisses her before lowing her head back down onto his chest. His hand sinks into her hair. “My mind tells me that I should end this now. My heart is telling my mind to go fuck itself.”

“I know what you said before,” Daenerys lazily strokes her fingertips through his chest hair. “That you and I are only temporary. Why does that have to be? I don’t understand.”

“I know, Dany.” Kyris sighs and kisses the top of her head. “I can’t give you what you need. These are my people and I can’t leave them here without me. It also isn’t fair to ask you to remain in the mountains for the rest of your days and play my bedmate. You would grow bored here, as I am not. You’re a queen. You belong in castles, surrounded by luxury and the sun. We almost never see the sun through the clouds.”

“I don’t mind.”

Kyris exhales loudly. “No, you don’t. You don’t mind right now because you don’t know what’s outside this place. You don’t know the beauty Skyrim holds but you will know soon. When Alduin arrives. You will leave this place and see what you have missed out on by spending all this time with us. Will you be content to return to the mountains once your mission is done? I know you would return if I asked it of you. I do believe you would grow to resent me eventually.”

“No I wouldn’t.” Daenerys pushes herself up so that she can look down upon him again. “You saved me. I would never resent you.”

“Maybe not me,” Kyris cups her face and his thumb strokes along her cheekbone. “But you would resent this place. Your loyalty to me would hurt you in the end. I would never wish to see you hurt.”

Daenerys opens her mouth again but Kyris holds his hand over her lips. “You are not gone yet. Let me hold you until you are.”

Frustrated, Daenerys allows him to pull her back down onto his chest. She wants to shout at him and tell him that he’s wrong, but she doesn’t. There was truth in his words, even though she longed to deny them. Joy, utmost joy, had been found by her in the temple. There was no denying it. But she did miss being able to go outside and not be stung by the wind. It was cold out there too and she could never last long before coming back into the dark temple. She couldn’t fly Drogon because it would frighten the people of Skyrim.

Drogon? Daenerys lifts herself from Kyris’s arms again, her brow furrowed. “What?”

Kyris rises as well, his arms wrapping around her and a question in his eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you well?”

“I—” Daenerys scoffs and shakes her head, completely bewildered. “Something’s wrong. I-I-I can’t feel him!”

Kyris’s eyes widen. “You can’t feel who? Drogon? You can’t feel Drogon?”

The door bursts open and Estanya races into the room with wild eyes. Kyris growls at her and drags a blanket up and around Daenerys. He bares his teeth at Estanya. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t just race in here without knocking on my door.”

“I’m sorry, Kyris!” Estanya looks at Daenerys. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. Drogon’s gone!”

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Kyris rises from the bed naked, though he doesn’t show any bashfulness. Nor does Estanya. He starts to put on his robes. “Did he fly away or…”

Or. Daenerys jerks her head up with tears already forming in her eyes. No. No! She would have felt it if that had happened! Her heart had felt both Viserion and Rhaegal die.

Estanya shakes her head. “He’s not dead. He just flew south, just now! Saetar and I were feeding him and his body just… spasmed, and then he flew away.”

Daenerys’s body starts to shake. He has not left her, not since before she flew him for the first time! Even Drogon has left her! A broken sob escapes her lips and both Estanya and Kyris rush to her. Arms, she doesn’t know who’s, wrap around her and a kiss is pressed tight to her forehead. Daenerys continues to sob as four hands stroke her.

“We’ll find him, Queen!” Estanya moves in front of Daenerys and takes her shoulders in her hand. “Saetar will find him and he will come back to you. Drogon loves you. He hasn’t left the temple since you arrived. Something must have made him fly away.”

Daenerys nods but she can’t control her tears or sobs. Kyris lifts her into his lap and cradles her against his chest. “Go get the others, Estanya. Gather them together and we will discuss our plans.”

The Altmer woman races from the room and Daenerys continues to sob on Kyris’s lap. He tries to calm her but he can’t.

Drogon is gone.

Chapter 13: Goodbye

Daenerys leans against Kyris while the others join them in the library. Just yesterday, Daenerys had enjoyed herself as she sat in here, reading book after book to try to get better at magic. Kyris had come in then, kissing her on the back of the neck and asking her to join him in their room. When it had become theirs, she didn’t know. It had been weeks since she slept in her bed last.

Saetar is the last to join them, a grim look on his face. “It’s not good. Drogon is near the border.”

“Has he crossed over?” Kyris’s arm tightens around Daenerys. “I don’t know what we’ll do if he crossed over the border. We can’t just walk into Cyrodiil with no problems. We could be arrested. People will panic and attack Drogon.”

Daenerys shivers. If someone killed Drogon… she would take her life. He was her last child. If he died, she would. She couldn’t survive in a world that he wasn’t in.

“There’s more.” Saetar exhales loudly. “Alduin has returned.”

The room breaks out in noise but Kyris raises the hand not holding onto Daenerys. “We have known Alduin was coming for a long time. I had hoped that we would have more time but it appears not to be on our side. Do you know where Alduin is, Saetar?”

Saetar glances at Daenerys. “In the south. Near the border.”

“I’m leaving.” Daenerys pulls out of Kyris’s arms. “I have to go south. Drogon will need a rider to help him fight Alduin.”

“I—” Saetar hesitates for a second or two. “Drogon is with Alduin. They aren’t fighting each other either.”

Daenerys stares at him for a few seconds, listening to the noise around her but not hearing what they have to say. Kyris stares at her with a concerned look on his face and his mouth opens but she doesn’t hear what he says either. She looks up at him. “I’m leaving. I need to make sure my son is safe.”

A muscle twitches in Kyris’s jaw but he nods tightly. He looks around the room. “Silence.” Everyone looks at him. “Daenerys will be leaving the temple to go to the border. She will need food, a bow and arrows, daggers, the sword she’s grown accustomed to here, and proper clothing. Someone must also accompany her until she finds Drogon.”

Daenerys frowns as the group quickly disperses. Before she can say anything though, Kyris grabs her hand and pulls her along behind him until they get back to his quarters. She watches as he walks to his bed, crouches down, and pulls a chest out from under it.

“You don’t have to send anyone with me.” Daenerys finally says. “I’ll be fine by myself. I’ve always been fine by myself.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” Kyris pulls out a bag from the chest and he hands it to her. “Saetar told me that your family always said that when one of you is alone, it is a terrible thing. I imagine you don’t like being alone. You thrive when people are around you.”

Daenerys looks down at the bag. “What is this?”

“Open it.”

She does. A pile of gold, rubies, sapphires, and other various jewels stare back at her. Daenerys looks up at him. “Why are you giving me this?”

Kyris sits down on the bed and sighs. “That’s what I brought with me from home when I left. I’ve spent some of it on myself in the time since. Most of what I buy is wine or liquor. My family was wealthy and I brought it all with me when I left. They don’t need it now and neither do I.”

Daenerys sits on the bed next to him. “What happened to them? Your family. You’ve never talked about them the entire time I’ve been here.”

“It’s not a happy tale.” He reaches for her hand. “My parents fought all the time. They were both drunks but my mother never raised her hand to me. My father was a different story. One day, he hit me and my mother got in-between us to protect me from him. He shoved her and she hit her head on the fireplace.”

Daenerys gasps and Kyris nods. “Yeah. He sat down next to her and cradled her in his arms while she bled to death. I stabbed him in the back, through his heart, and pulled him away from my mother. I knew the authorities were going to think I murdered both of them. I was going to either the noose or the headsman’s block. Ran to the mountains instead. Saetar found me huddling, scared, in a mountain cave. He brought me here. For some reason they decided I was their leader.”

“Saetar probably foresaw you doing something amazing.” Daenerys smiles at him. “They saw something in you that was worth following. I’ve seen people like that. I used to be someone that people followed.”

“You will be again.” Kyris smiles back at her. “You are the Dragonborn. Everyone here in Skyrim will love you. Jarls will be bending over backwards to please you. Have you…” He hesitates. “Have you thought of what you’re going to do after you defeat Alduin? Where you will go after you get your revenge upon Westeros?”

Daenerys’s smile dies. “I don’t know. I can’t stay in Westeros. Dragonstone is mine by rights but the Dothraki and Unsullied have likely already begun sailing home. It would be so lonely there. It would be lonely everywhere there. Meereen was never my home. I suppose there’s the Dothraki Sea but I don’t know how they’d feel about me losing to Jon.”

“You didn’t lose to Jon.” Kyris frowns. “He lured you towards him with promises of love and loyalty, and then he stabbed you through the heart. For a man who talks about honor, that was not an honorable death.”

“Saetar knows everything, doesn’t he?”

Kyris chuckles. “Oh, yes. It’s powerful magic. He developed his gift when he was young and people tried to use him for their own gains. He came to the mountains and found this old, empty, abandoned temple. Saetar assumed that this place was an old Falkreath temple. He found our people just like he found me. Maybe he saw me coming as you said.”

“I’m glad.”

“What I’m asking,” Kyris lifts his hand and presses it against her cheek. “Is if you could ever see Skyrim as home? You’d be welcome here, I promise. Unlike the Westerosi, when aid comes to us, we are grateful for it. Jarls will allow you to buy homes in all the holds. Much of our land here in Skyrim is empty. Some Jarls will gift you land or allow you to buy it. You could have a mansion in all the holds of Skyrim if you wanted.”

“That sounds nice.” Daenerys shrugs. “I don’t know yet. I suppose if I survive the fight against Alduin, I will have a lot to think about. What about us?”

Kyris strokes Daenerys’s jaw with his thumb before he sighs and pulls away. “You deserve so much better than me. I wish I didn’t have to say that. You have made me happier than I have ever been in my entire life. I have responsibilities though. The people here have made me their leader and to leave them would hurt them. I can’t do that. And you deserve so much better than to be locked up here for the rest of your life.”

“I understand,” Daenerys says sadly. “I have made sacrifices for my people as well. It’s what a good king or queen does. A good man. You’re a good man.”

“Let us sit here for a few minutes more.”

Daenerys knew their relationship was over.

---

The wind is strangely calm as the entire group stands outside to say goodbye to Daenerys and Armek. As a warrior, he’d been the best choice to send with her to the border. She had hoped Kyris would join her but that would be foolish. They needed him too much.

Daenerys looks down at her armor. Armek had insisted on her wearing light leather armor as he believed the heavy metal was too much for her to carry around. She has her bow, daggers, and a short sword as well. The pack of food is heavy but comforting at the same time. Armek being near her was a huge comfort as well.

Estanya sniffles and Daenerys looks up at her. The Altmer has tears rolling down her face. “Oh Estanya. Don’t cry. I’ll be back to visit very soon. It is a quick trip here on Drogon.”

If Drogon could be saved.

“I know, queen.” Estanya moves forward and hugs Daenerys. The woman is so tall that Daenerys’s head rests against her chest, under her chin. “Now,” She pushes Daenerys’s shoulders back. “There will be bears, some freaky giant spider things, and bandits on the road. Don’t freeze up and kill anything that tries to hurt you. Skyrim is a beautiful place but it is a dangerous one as well.”

Daenerys stares at her, wondering if she’s joking. “Did you just say freaky giant spider things?”

Maenara pushes Estanya out of the way and hugs Daenerys tightly. “Oh, those are just the frostbite spiders! The baby ones are so big and you’re so tiny that they probably come up to your hip!”

“What?” Daenerys pulls away from Maenara. “Did you just say my hip?!”

She grins. “Oh yeah! And those are just the babies. You should see the mothers. They are far bigger than you!”

“Stop scaring her.” Saetar shoos them away like they’re children and they go, not contrite at all. “Armek can take care of a few spiders for you, Daenerys. If you ever face them on your own however, shoot them with your bow or hit them with fire. They are weak to fire, but you might want to keep your distance from them.”

Before she can respond, Saetar pulls her into a tight hug. She lets out a soft sigh. Saetar wasn’t much of a toucher, and this was unusual, but she loved it all the same.

When he pulls away, Kyris approaches them and he puts one of his hands on her cheek as he’d done in their room. “Armek will take care of you. You need to listen to him. If he tells you to run then you need to run. I know you’ve fought before and I know you’ve seen war but listen to him. He’ll keep you safe and help you find Drogon.”

Daenerys’s eyes flutter shut as he fingers caress her skin. Too soon, they pull away and her eyes open. His eyes are bright and it seems like he’s barely holding back tears. She smiles at him. “Goodbye, Lokalaat.”

Kyris grins. “I’ll see you again, Daenerys. You will always be welcome here.”

“Thank you.” She turns to look at Armek. “Lets go find Drogon.”

Chapter 14: Travels to the Border

Daenerys breathes hard as she and Armek make their way on the road leading towards Falkreath. They’d left the temple over a week ago and her body felt like it was being tortured in the deepest depths of the Seven Hells. The first two days hadn’t been so bad, considering the path was paved leaving the temple. It was after that they’d been forced to scrabble up and down the sides of mountains. They even had to crawl when one particular path was so narrow and steep that it wouldn’t have been safe to walk across. It was the only time she had ever been afraid of heights.

The worst part of the journey so far had been the bear. Three days into the walk, they’d been attacked by a giant bear and Daenerys had been little help for Armek. She’d merely stood there and screamed as the bear attacked them. Armek had pulled a dagger and threw it into the beast’s eye. It had died quickly but Daenerys had stared at its lifeless body in horror. Armek hadn’t known what to do for her, and she’d walked fine the next morning, though more silent.

Daenerys had spent her entire life being afraid until she took control in Khal Drogo’s tent. After, she could count on one hand how many times she was afraid. The coliseum. Fighting the Night King when she rescued Jon. The Battle of Winterfell. A bear was nothing compared to those events… and the people of Skyrim expected her to lead them against Alduin?

It was only with great reluctance that Daenerys had refused Armek’s suggestion of stopping in Markarth to sleep for a couple nights. The man didn’t seem to need it at all. He wasn’t breathing nearly as hard as she was and was barely sweating. She had wanted to be selfish and looked at the city longingly before she said no and they continued on the path towards Falkreath. It wouldn’t be right to sleep in a soft and warm bed, drinking fresh ale and eating the best cuts of venison, while Drogon was in the south with Alduin.

Who knew what Alduin had done to Drogon? He was Daenerys’s last child. Her human child had been stolen from her by the witch. Viserion had been stolen from her by the Night King. Rhaegal had been stolen from her by the pirate king. All had died in agony after. Alduin would die in agony if he stole her last child from her. There would be no more. There were no more dragon eggs, not that she’d know how to hatch more if she had them, and her womb was as barren as a dry well. She’d lain with Daario and Jon enough times to know this to be truth.

“Khaleesi,” Armek says from a few yards ahead of her. “Come look at this.”

Daenerys moves until she’s standing next to him. They’ve reached a crossroads. In front of them, there’s a large lake with the sun glittering off of it. She could imagine many families came here to fish, and camp underneath the stars like the Dothraki used to do. She wondered if, she chose to come visit after Alduin was defeated and she went back to Westeros, she could find a tent to sleep under the stars like she had once done with Drogo.

“It’s beautiful. Does it have a name?”

“Lake Ilinalta.” Armek nudges Daenerys forward and they start walking down the path heading south. “When my family came to Skyrim, we settled in Falkreath. My father bought me to the lake every chance he could. He worked at the mill and my mother worked at the apothecary. They were both disappointed that I didn’t take after either of them. I longed to go to war and fight. They said I didn’t know how to behave.”

Daenerys smiles. “You don’t seem the type to do as you’re told. Well, except for with Kyris.”

Armek laughs. “Oh, aye. It was Kyris who changed my misbehaving ways. He gave a chance after everyone else had thrown me away. It was my own fault. I liked to hit the wine and ale hard. What I liked more than wine was gambling. Took off from Solitude with a massive debt and threats of assassination. Thought for sure the Dark Brotherhood was going to come for me.”

“What happened?”

“Wandered into the mountains.” Armek’s face turns somber. “I was thinking about jumping from the peak. The Dark Brotherhood are monsters. They’d find me no matter where I hid. If it wasn’t them, it’d be bandits or something else. A price was on my head and I had no way to get it off without killing myself. I decided to have a bottle of wine and then do the deed in the morning.”

The thought of possibly never getting to meet Armek, and knowing it was because of suicide, fills Daenerys with sadness. He is her friend. “What happened?”

“Kyris.” Armek looks down at her and smiles. “He was for me what he was for you. He saved me. It was dawn when he just waltzed into my cave like he owned it. Threw a cup of water into my face and I thought I was gonna kill him. He told me I could continue wasting my life until my untimely death by a dagger, or I could make a man of myself and join him in his mission to destroy Alduin. He was the first person to look at me and not see a fuck up. I wanted to prove him right.”

“You have.”

The two of them fall silent as they continue to walk towards Falkreath. Birds chirp in the air and Armek hums a tune under his breath. The sky grows darker and darker though he reassures her that they were close enough that they didn’t need to bed down for the night. A nice, soft bed at the inn sounded so much better than trying to find somewhere not completely safe to sleep. The thought of a warm bed makes Daenerys quicken her steps. They’d sleep and then they’d look for Drogon.

Armek seems worried over the idea of Drogon crossing over the border. Daenerys wonders if there were Imperial soldiers at the border that might give them trouble. Would Alduin cross? Invisible border lines did not matter to dragons. With a flap of their wings they could be anywhere they want, and no soldier would be able to stop them, especially not Drogon at the size he is now.

Daenerys frowns. Drogon had grown so much in the time that they’d spent here. There was no shortage of mountain goats for him to eat and he’d gorged plenty on them. He’d not liked having to stay hidden but Daenerys understood Kyris’s desire for Skyrim not to be frightened too early by the return of dragons. The people of Westeros had had similar fears when Daenerys crossed the Narrow Sea with hers.

A shout rises up in the air and Armek moves in front of her. He raises his bow and nocks it. Daenerys watches from under Armek’s arm as a group of men wearing blue armor charge forward from the trees out onto the road. Most of them continue across the road but one of them stops. All Daenerys can tell from this distance is he’s got blonde hair. Shouts come from behind him.

“You!” He shouts, making eye contact with Daenerys. “Nord, girl. Run! The Imperials are hanging people left and right, thinking they’re Stormcloaks.”

“Ulfric!” Armek growls. “We aren’t going to trust a damned king-killer!”

The shouting grows louder. The man, Ulfric, doesn’t look away from Daenerys. “The Redguard is probably safe. But you’re a Nord, wearing a blue cloak, and you’re in the same vicinity I am. They’ll hang you without a trial. Up to you.”

Ulfric disappears and among the shouting she can hear calls for Ulfric’s head. “Will they really think I’m a Nord?” Daenerys whispers. “Will they really hang me without a trial?”

“If they think you’re with Ulfric,” Armek grabs her by the arm and starts to pull her in the same direction as Ulfric. “Yes. You have the Nord look and are in the same area he’s in. Let us cross the border and we will circle back. Run.”

Daenerys’s heart pounds in her throat as the two of them take off through the woods. Soldiers shout from behind them and the noise of chainmail and swords rings through the air. Soon, Daenerys’s brow is covered in sweat and she finds herself slowing down.

“Come on, Khaleesi!” Armek nearly pulls her off her feet. “You must run. We are half a mile to the border.”

They speed up but Daenerys’s boot catches on a root and she goes flying headfirst into a tree. The pain is instantaneous and she feels like she might throw up. She tries to stand but can’t. Bright lights fill her eyes and she can hear Armek shouting as if he’s underwater. She stares up at the white dots in the sky. Her heartbeat slows.

This was not how it felt when she died the first time.

Chapter 15: Hey, You're Awake

Daenerys slowly opens her eyes but closes them as soon as they’re open. She can feel her body rocking in what feels like a cart. A horse neighs and she bumps into, she presumes, Armek. She gathers as much control over her stomach as she can before she opens her eyes again. Armek sits to her right on a cart and a blonde man, the same blonde man from before, Ulfric, she thinks Armek said, sits on Armek’s right. He’s staring at her with what looks to be concern in his eyes. No matter, she would be fine.

Armek leans towards her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She whispers. “Where are we going?”

“You’re awake.” A blonde man sitting across from them says. “It’s a shame you couldn’t make it to the border. We couldn’t either. Now we’re all stuck in the same situation.”

“This is all your fault.” The dark haired man next to the blonde man across from Daenerys says. “You Stormcloaks muck everything up. Ulfric just had to kill the High King. I would have been out of this blasted country if it weren’t for you people.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re all going to the same place.” The blonde man across from Daenerys looks back at her. “I am Ralof. You’ve met Ulfric, the true High King of Skyrim. Who are you, Nord?”

“She’s none of your concern.” Armek looks down the road they’re being taken down. “Leave us be. The man isn’t wrong. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you lot.”

“Are you going to allow your husband to talk to us that way? I didn’t think you were the type of woman to allow a man to speak for her.”

Ralof wasn’t wrong. Daenerys didn’t think any of them were going to survive this trip anyway. They were likely heading for the noose. Armek had told her they’d hang all of them without a trial. “My name is Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen.”

“House Targaryen?” Ralof frowns. “House? That’s a strange thing to call your family.”

“I’m not a Nord,” Daenerys says reluctantly. She knew based on what Kyris had told her that the Stormcloaks were not overly fond of foreigners. The elves, Argonians, and Khajiit especially, but the other faces too. “I was born in a land far away called Westeros. My House was the Targaryen family.”

“Targaryen sounds familiar,” Says the man next to Ralof. “Where have I heard that name?”

“My family rode dragons.” Daenerys notices that they are approaching castle walls. It was almost time. “I’m the daughter of King Aerys of House Targaryen. I briefly held the Targaryen throne myself before I was—” She catches herself before she tells them she was assassinated. They wouldn’t believe it and why should they. “Attacked by one of my own men. I was forced to flee my country. I found myself in this one.”

“It is a shame that you came to Skyrim only to be hung by men that believe you’re a Stormcloak.”

Armek grunts. “This is Helgen.”

At least Daenerys has a name for the place she would die… again. This time, she knew there would be no coming back. She closes her eyes and thinks about Drogon. It had been what she did in the coliseum in Meereen. Perhaps Drogon would save her again, but the disconnect between them this time was far larger than the last.

“General Tullius!” A soldier from the castle walls shouts. “The Headsman is waiting for you now!”

Daenerys doesn’t hear what the man in front of the cart in front of theirs says. They were going to die soon. There would be no trial, as Armek said. The man next to Ralof starts spouting off words, names that sound possibly like gods. Should she do the same? She’d never much believed in the gods, but perhaps now would be a good time to start. She prayed that Drogon was safe.

Ralof grunts. “The Thalmor are here.” Daenerys frowns. She had heard a little of the Thalmor but not much. She sees a woman that looks like Estanya, though considerably less friendly. She must be a Thalmor. “They’re part of this capture. I used to love this town.”

Daenerys notes the sad tone in Ralof’s voice. She can hear a child behind her and what sounds like his parent ordering him into a house. Good. The last thing a child needed was to see a group of people hung. Headsman…. Or lose their heads.

A woman shouts, “Stop the carts and get these beasts out of it. Take them to the block!”

The man next to Ralof moans softly. “What’s about to happen to us?”

“We’re about to die.” The cart comes to a stop and Ralof looks at Daenerys. “Show bravery in your death and we may see you in Sovngarde. Let us greet death.”

Daenerys stands up with Ralof behind her and Armek in front. Ulfric jumps down from the cart and the dark haired man behind him. Armek jumps down and turns around to help Daenerys slide from the cart. Ralof is the last off and he stands next to her and Armek.

A man wearing red and silver armor stands in front of them. He holds a piece of paper with a quill in his other hand. “You’ll come forward when I state your name. I will write down your last words, wishes for your body, and we will ensure you rest wherever you would like. Ulfric Stormcloak.”

Both Ulfric and Ralof move forward and towards the block, where other Stormcloaks await. “Lokir of—”

“No!” The dark haired man in front of Daenerys shouts. “I won’t die for those bastards!”

Daenerys frowns as Lokir races away from the group of Imperials. He doesn’t get far before three arrows hit him in the back, knocking him to the ground. Poor man.

“Girl, come forward.”

Standing at her full height, Daenerys walks towards the man holding the paper. “Who are you?” He looks down at his list. “There are no women on this list. We only captured male Stormcloaks. Who are your people?”

“My name is Daenerys.” She says softly. “My people are across the sea. I am from the isle of Dragonstone in Westeros.”

The man looks at the woman standing next to him. “Captain, she’s not on the list. What should we do about her? She’s not dressed like a Stormcloak either.”

“Send her to the block. The Redguard will go first.”

“Of course,” The man looks sad but he glances at Daenerys. “I will make sure your remains are returned to Dragonstone in Westeros. Do you have any final words? Or you, Redguard?”

“My family burns their dead.” Daenerys thinks about Drogon again but she feels nothing. “Please cremate me and send me to Dragonstone to be laid to rest next to my family.”

Daenerys knew many of the Targaryen family were laid to rest in the Sept of Baelor, but Rhaella had been put to rest on Dragonstone. She wished to be with her mother in death if she could not be with her son in life. Drogon…

A soldier grabs Armek and pulls him towards the block. Daenerys is pulled to stand next to Ulfric and Ralof. Armek gives Daenerys one last look before a soldier kicks him in the back of his knees, forcing him to the ground, and he lowers his head. Daenerys chokes on a sob as the axe is raised and brought down, killing her dear friend instantly. A man wearing red starts to speak but Daenerys doesn’t listen to him. Armek’s head sits in a box and they’re dragging his body away.

Hands brush against hers and Daenerys looks up and into Ulfric’s eyes. He tries to say something through his gag but she can’t understand him. Perhaps he was apologizing for Armek’s death. Ralof had thought him to be her husband. If only they knew that Kyris had felt more like her husband than Armek. Armek… her friend. Daenerys sniffles and wipes at her face with her bound hands. She would not cry in front of these people that had cut his head off without a trial.

A cry fills the air. A familiar cry. A dragon. Daenerys glares at the Imperials. They would burn when Drogon came for her. Armek’s death would be avenged.

One of the Stormcloaks, a red haired man, marches forward and falls to his knees in front of the block. “Fuck off, Imperials. Cut it off and be done with it.”

The Stormcloak is quickly killed and the dragon roars again. The man who had taken Daenerys’s name and last wishes looks to the air. “What was that? Did any of you hear it?”

Oh, Daenerys heard it. Drogon was coming for them. “Grab the Westerosi girl. She’s next.”

Daenerys moves to stand next to the block. She lowers herself but just as her neck touches the warm block, she sees a black dragon flying towards them. A… purely black dragon. There was no red. He lands on the tower behind the headsman. “What the fuck?!” Shouts one of the men. “What is that?!”

A dragon… but not Drogon. Daenerys watches as the dragon rears back his head and she closes her eyes, waiting to be doused in his fire. Instead, the dragon… shouts. She can hear a voice deep within her mind. Was this what it meant to be Dragonborn?

“Everyone run! Get the civilians to safety!”

A hand wraps around Daenerys’s arm and she’s dragged up and away from the block. The dragon takes flight. “Hey! Westerosi!” Daenerys looks up at the man who grabbed her. Ralof. “If you want to live, follow me and Ulfric! We’ll get you to safety.”

Daenerys nods numbly and follows quicky behind Ralof. Wondering if she was making the right choice following people who murdered a king.

Chapter 16: The Broken Tower

Daenerys coughs into her arm as she follows Ralof and Ulfric into a building ahead of them. Smoke quickly fills the air as the dragon, she assumes to be Alduin, rains fire down upon them from above. She suddenly feels small and scared, wondering if this is what the people of King’s Landing had felt as she rained fire down upon them from Drogon’s back. She’d thought to herself then that they had made their choices and deserved the consequences of their choice. Now…

Now, she’s just frightened. Armek was supposed to help her find Drogon and she could fly the three of them back to the mountains. They would have been safe there. Now Drogon is nowhere to be seen, a new dragon is facing them, and Armek is dead. She didn’t think she could ever look Kyris in the face again after this.

If she survived long enough to see Kyris again, that is.

Ralof shuts the door behind Daenerys but she can still hear the dragon attacking from above with the Imperials fighting back from below. The soldiers would be as useless against the dragon as the Westerosi soldiers had been against Drogon.

“Jarl,” Ralof turns to Ulfric. “Is that truly a dragon? I thought dragons had long since passed into legend.”

“Legends,” Ulfric grunts. “Aren’t capable of burning down castles and homes.” The dragon roars. “It’s not safe for us here. Dragons can destroy castles as easily as they can kill men. We must get the fuck out of here.”

Ralof looks down at Daenerys. “Follow me, Westerosi, up the stairs.”

Daenerys doesn’t say anything but just follows quickly behind him up the stairs. Just as they make it to the top however, the tower walls burst forward and someone grabs Daenerys by the arm, dragging her backwards. The dragon forces his head into the opening and flames gush out of his mouth. The man holding Daenerys’s arm drags her further back and she closes her eyes against the brightness of the fire. Heat doesn’t bother her but gods, it was bright.

When the dragon flies away, Daenerys turns to see Ulfric’s the one that’s got a hold of her. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Ulfric releases her arm. “I may yet not get you out safely. We’re going to have to find another way now.”

“Jarl!” Ralof calls from above. “There’s an inn across the way. The Westerosi girl can jump across and we’ll follow with the other men.”

Ulfric runs up the steps with Daenerys right behind. She cringes at the distance. It was not fear keeping her back, but her limits. She knew she was small and might not be able to make the distance. It would be best for her not to try to make the leap.

“Go on, girl,” Ulfric nudges her. “I have to go get my men. We’ll follow behind you but it will take time. You should go first and try to get away. Don’t get yourself killed staying behind with us. It’s just a small leap.”

That was rich coming from a man over a foot taller than her. Daenerys takes a deep breath and makes a running dash towards the edge of the broken tower. She lands heavily on the other side, skinning her knees against the boars and shocked that she’d actually been able to make it. “Hey,” Ulfric calls out. She turns to look up at him. “Make your way to the gates if you don’t see us down below. Run, girl!”

Daenerys nods and stands upright, assessing damage. Her ankle didn’t feel great but she could stand on it. Running would hurt but she’d suffered plenty of pain in her life. She could suffer a little bit more of it, at least until safety was achieved. The most difficult part about running was that her hands were still bound at the wrists. Narrowing her eyes, she walks forward, looking for stairs, until she realizes the stairs have blown in. There’s a hole in the floor and she takes another deep breath before she lowers herself through it, dropping onto the floor below.

This time, pain radiates up her ankle but Daenerys stumbles forward, hearing voices outside. The man that had offered to send her remains to Dragonstone is standing next to another soldier and a little boy. He yells for the boy to run for cover just as the dragon lands in front of them. All four dash to safety behind the ruins of a house as the dragon rains fire at them. They wait until the dragon flies off again before they rise to their feet.

“You’re alive?” The soldier from before looks at her in surprise. “I’m Hadvar. Follow me and I’ll get you to safety. Gunnar, take care of the child.”

Not knowing where to go or how to get to the gates, Daenerys follows Hadvar around the ruined building. They jump down from a high step and Hadvar shouts, “Get to the wall!”

Daenerys throws herself against the wall on her left just as the dragon’s wings come down in front of them. The fire breathes down just above them and she closes her eyes, knowing that if the dragon just looked down on them now… they’d be dead. The dragon takes off again and Hadvar dashes forward. She follows him up into a house that is on fire.

They dash towards the great doors of the keep that are closed. Seven soldiers stand there with bows knocked, waiting for the dragon to fly back towards them again. It instantly reminds Daenerys of the Lannister army archers waiting to fire at her and Dragon at the second Field of Fire.

Hadvar leads Daenerys down another path and under a bridge. He roars at a man ahead of them. “Ralof! You cannot escape justice!”

Ralof glares at Hadvar while the dragon soars above them. “We’re escaping, Hadvar. Either fight me now or get the fuck out of my way. You have more things to worry about than me right now, anyways.”

“Go, then. Maybe the dragon will kill you and send you and your ilk straight to Sovngarde. Come with me, prisoner!”

Hadvar races off to the door of the building in front of them but Ralof nods at another door to the same building. “Come with us into the keep. We’ll keep you safe, girl.”

Ralof rushes to the door and waits there for her. Hadvar waits at the other one. Daenerys looks back and forth helplessly between the two. Hadvar had been kind to her but he’d accepted, without even knowing who she is, that she should be put to death. She wasn’t a Stormcloak but was found to be guilty anyways. Ralof, on the other hand, had come to her aid at the block when he could have run with Ulfric and their people.

Daenerys closes her eyes and tries to listen for Drogon again but, when she doesn’t hear him, she rushes in Ralof’s direction. It may be the worst mistake of her life, considering how notorious the Stormcloaks were after the death of the king, but following a man who had tried to kill her over a man who had tried to save her might get her killed.

Once she gets to the door, Daenerys looks down at her bound wrists and up at Ralof. As ashamed as she was to admit it, she was completely helpless and needed to rely on him to do something so small as to open a fucking door for her. Ralof nods down at her wrists. “I will cut you free from your bonds as soon as we go inside.” He looks behind her. “I… I don’t think anyone else is following us.”

“Where is Ulfric?”

“Just inside,” Ralof takes one last lingering look behind Daenerys before he nods resolutely. “Lets get inside. We’ll get you to safety.”

Daenerys looks behind her at the ruins of Helgen, wondering if this is what people see when they look at the ruins of King’s Landing, before she steps behind him into the keep.

Chapter 17: Escaping Helgen

Notes:

There's violence in this chapter. Plus thoughts of bodily fluids.

Daenerys follows Ralof into a circular room in the keep and Ulfric immediately rises from the floor, where a Stormcloak soldier lays, dead. Ulfric approaches them. “We may be the only ones still living. There are Imperial soldiers in these halls.” His blue eyes land on Daenerys and travels down to her binds. “I will cut you free. What is your name before I release you?”

“I’m Daenerys of House Targaryen,” Daenerys hasn’t had to introduce herself in some time. She always had Missandei to do it for her. “I suppose you’re not interested in my titles at this point, not that they matter this far from Westeros.”

Ulfric pulls a dagger and easily slices through the rope around Daenerys’s wrists. “I actually am interested in your titles, but only once we survive this hell. Dragons… Real dragons. Yet you are not shocked by this news.”

“I’m not sure how much you know about my family history,” Daenerys hesitates. These people were not fond of dragons, though she couldn’t blame them after Alduin attacked them so horrifically. “My family rode dragons in Old Valyria. I was the first dragon rider in over a century after the last dragons died out in Westeros. I had three dragons and now only one is still alive.”

Ralof’s eyes narrow. “You sicced your dragon on the keep?!”

“No!” Daenerys insists but doesn’t look at Ralof. She stares up at Ulfric. “My dragon’s name is Drogon. That dragon is Alduin. He’s—”

“Fuck!” Ulfric curses harshly. “I know who he is. We need to get the fuck out of here. Follow us girl and you’ll be safe.”

Daenerys bristles at him. “Maybe you should follow me and you’ll be safe.”

Ulfric grins slowly and he nods. “You are a dragon, aren’t you? By all means, take the lead. Where should we go?”

Keeping her head held high, Daenerys marches over to one of the gates and tries to open it. It… doesn’t. Never mind. She walks over to the next gate and shakes it. No. Flushing, she looks over at Ulfric. “I can’t open it. Perhaps you’d like to lend a hand.”

Ulfric smirks and opens his mouth before he grabs her by the arm and drags her to his side. He hisses, “Ralof, Imperials!”

The sound of metal clanking comes from the gate Daenerys had just been standing by. “Stormcloaks!” The gate slowly starts to lower and Ulfric pushes Daenerys behind him. “Kill them all!”

Two Imperials race into the room and Ulfric quickly cuts off one of their heads with an axe. Ralof stabs the other one repeatedly with his sword. Both the bodies fall to the ground and Daenerys thinks that she shouldn’t make an enemy of the two of them. They were better warriors than Jorah, Jon, and Daario. Even Drogo.

Blood drips from Ulfric’s axe as he turns back to Daenerys. He points at the Stormcloak’s body on the floor. “Put on his clothes. You can’t go walking around with no protection.”

Daenerys looks down at the corpse, horrified. “No! I’m not putting on a dead man’s clothes. What in the Seven is the matter with you?”

“I don’t know what the Seven is,” Ulfric marches over to the corpse and starts peeling the bloodstained armor off of him. He stands up and hands Daenerys the cuirass. “Put it on. Now.”

Taking the bloody clothes, Daenerys tries to put the cuirass on by herself, but she’s never done it before. Ulfric moves over to help her into it. He picks up a sword that one of the Imperials dropped. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

A flash in Daenerys’s mind sends her back to the Battle of Winterfell, where she’d fought side by side with Jorah. She hadn’t been good, but she had survived. Kyris had taught her more since. “Yes. I’m better with a bow though. If we find one…”

“You can have it,” Ulfric turns towards the door and he holds up a key. “It was on one of the bodies. Let’s see if it opens the other door.”

Daenerys watches as Ulfric turns the key in the lock and it opens. Thank the gods. Ulfric looks over his shoulder at her and Ralof. “Come. Stay close little queen.”

Gripping her sword tight, Daenerys follows Ulfric through the door and to the left. They don’t go far before they come across some stairs. At the bottom, they turn to the right and start down a hallway. They only get a few steps before the dragon roars and Ulfric shouts, “Move!”

Daenerys hits the wall and she cries out as Ulfric covers her body with his own as the ceiling collapses in front of them. Ulfric stays above Daenerys until it seems the dragon has flown away. He moves back and pulls her upright. “That was our way out. Fucking dragon.” He looks down at her. “Are you harmed?”

“No,” Daenerys purses her lips trying to keep her fear out of her voice. “I trust you have another way out of here?”

“Of course. You must always have many plans of escape.”

Ralof shoulders a door open. “his way is clear, Jarl.”

Daenerys and Ulfric follow him into a large room filled with warm firelight. That warm feeling instantly leaves Daenerys when Ralof shouts, “Imperial scum!”

Two Imperials launch themselves at Ulfric and Ralof and she watches as they fight. Ulfric takes down his soldier quickly but Ralof’s proves to be a tougher foe. He knocks Ralof to the ground and Daenerys rushes forward, sinking her sword into the back of his head with a shout.

Ralof rises from the ground and grins. “You’re quite the warrior, aren’t you?”

Daenerys opens her mouth but Ulfric speaks over her. “She’d do well as a Stormcloak. I don’t know who trained you but they did a fine enough job.”

Fine enough? Daenerys huffs and starts into the next room ahead of them. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Ulfric chuckles behind her and he moves her out of the way. “Don’t let your pride be your downfall. I wonder if that was the downfall of House Targaryen.”

Daenerys frowns. He wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t right either. It was a number of things. She follows him and Ralof through a door and down some stairs. Ralof gasps. “No!”

Ralof rushes ahead and Ulfric follows him quickly. The sound of battle fills the air and she follows at a slower pace. In a large room ahead there are cages. Cages and cages, filling with bodies. Blood spatters the walls and floors and there are tables where even more blood lays on them. Shackles. Tears fill her eyes and she looks away as she listens to Ulfric and Ralof roar and hack and slash against their enemies. This was a bloody vengeance that Daenerys didn’t wish to be involved in.

When the shouting is done, Hands touch Daenerys’s shoulders and she looks up to see a concerned look on Ulfric’s face. “We’re almost out. You’ll be fine. I’ll get you to Riverwood.”

Daenerys nods and allows Ulfric to wrap his arm around her bicep. He pulls her through the room and down a hallway. Cages line the way and Daenerys gags at the smell of blood and gore. How could they treat people like this? The next room has cages hanging from the ceiling, where Stormcloaks and other people lay. The smell of shit and piss and blood is overwhelming. Daenerys gags louder and she clamps her hand over her mouth to keep herself from vomiting.

“Close your eyes,” Ulfric urges her. She obeys him, allowing him to turn her and guide her where they need to go. “This isn’t battle. There’s honor in battle but there is no honor in this. Even prisoners deserve proper care. This isn’t that.”

They don’t walk very far before Ulfric pushes her against a wall and shushes her when she makes a soft noise of complaint. “There are enemies up ahead. Stay here and be quiet. I’ll return for you.”

Daenerys watches Ulfric and Ralof leave her side to go fight. The sound of shouts, swords clinking against swords, and gurgling cries as throats are slit hit her. How long had it been since men fought for her while she cowered in fear in a corner? Was the last time in the coliseum? She’d stood and waited to die, holding hands with Missandei as she waited for men to decide her fate. Then… Drogon. A dragon roars above the keep and Daenerys knows it is not Drogon, but she doesn’t care.

She is a dragon. Dragons do not hide.

Holding her sword firmly in her hands, Daenerys eases around the corner and watches Ulfric pivot around a soldier before driving his axe into the man’s back. Ralof and another soldier are attacking each other with swords. Across from Daenerys, there are three soldiers firing arrows at Ulfric and Ralof. Hm. There was something… beneath them. It looks like oil? Flames flicker to Daenerys’s left and she looks over at a brazier. She looks around and spots an unlit torch on the table.

Hurrying towards it, Daenerys lifts the torch, rushes to the brazier, and lights it before she grips it with both hands and holds it over her head, shouting to Ulfric and Ralof, “Move!”

Daenerys launches the lit torch into the air and she watches it spin before it lands in the oil. The oil ignites instantly and the three soldiers scream as they burn. Ulfric hurries towards Daenerys to get away from the fire and Ralof kills the stunned soldier in front of him. Ulfric chuckles. “I should have known better than to leave you back there. Come. We need to hurry.”

They wait until the fire dies down before they edge in that direction. Ulfric stays in front of Daenerys but he doesn’t take her arm to lead her again. They walk up some stairs and across a wooden bridge before going down more stairs. The dragon roars again and the entire cave shakes. Daenerys grabs Ulfric’s arm and he looks behind them as a heavy, wooden creaking noise comes from that direction.

“I believe the bridge has collapsed.” He frowns. “The only way forward is this way. I hope there are no more cave ins. We got lucky twice but our luck may yet draw out. Come.”

Daenerys lets go of Ulfric’s arm but he grabs her arm, pulling her with him. “Don’t be embarrassed, lass. There’s no shame in being frightened.”

A part of Daenerys wants to snap at Ulfric, telling him that dragons aren’t afraid. She’s certainly not afraid. But she is afraid. She was afraid when Armek died. She was afraid when Alduin landed on the castle. She is afraid now. There’s no denying it, so Daenerys just allows him to lead her down some more stairs into what looks like a cave. They walk until they step into ice-cold, rushing water. She slips on a rock and would have fallen if not for Ulfric wrapping his arms around her and lifting her into the air.

“What are you doing?!” She screeches. “Put me down now!”

“No,” Ulfric grunts as he steps over the rock, carrying her in one arm like she was as easy to carry as a sack. “You’ll do no good to us if you’re dead after hitting your head on a rock. I’ll put you down once it’s safe.”

Daenerys stews as he carries her like a child through the rushing water. This was an insult and he knew he was insulting her. She could walk by herself. It doesn’t take long before Ulfric puts her down safely past the water. “Are you cold?”

“My feet are,” Daenerys shivers and she rubs her arms through the cuirass sleeves. “It is cold down here, isn’t it? Even without the water. How far below Helgen are we?”

“No idea,” Ralof answers her and he starts forward before he freezes. “Spiders!”

Daenerys makes a face. Spiders? Seriously? Oh, he doesn’t mean—

Massive spiders ahead of them screech and dart towards them. Daenerys stands frozen, speechless, as Ralof and Ulfric start tearing them to pieces with their sword and axe. It doesn’t take long, but Daenerys will have nightmares over this for the rest of her life. She’d be leaving Skyrim the moment she found Drogon. Skyrim could have the giant spiders.

Ralof looks at Daenerys and laughs. “I take it this is the first Frostbite spider you’ve ever seen.”

“Don’t laugh at her,” Ulfric snaps back at him before he approaches her. “Are you okay, Daenerys?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” He sighs. “I’m going to need to come up with another name for you. Daenerys is just too mouthy. Do you have a nickname?”

“Can we please just go?”

“Aye,” Ulfric takes her hand instead of her arm this time. “Let’s go.”

Daenerys’s shivering grows fiercer as they make their way down another passage and past another waterfall. This time, she doesn’t complain when Ulfric picks her up and carries her down the passage, not releasing her until they’re well past the danger of the water. They pass a small, stone bridge when Ralof freezes.

“Bear.”

Seven fucking Hells. Daenerys peers past Ulfric and Ralof and looks at a humongous hibernating bear. “Well,” She whispers. “You’re the Bear of Markarth, aren’t you? Go take care of it.”

Ulfric scoffs. “I’m not fighting a bear. If you want to then you can go right ahead. My suggestion is that we sneak around it.”

Daenerys grips Ulfric’s hand too tightly as they inch their ways forward, her nails biting into his skin, but he doesn’t make a noise. The bear huffs and Daenerys holds her hand over her mouth to keep a whimper from escaping. They’d be torn to pieces if that bear woke up while they were in the cave. She can hear the sound of wind ahead. She can see light. They were close. So close.

Ulfric’s hand tightens around Daenerys’s as the bear groans and moves in his sleep. His arm comes around her waist and lifts her up again, hurrying towards the exit. Daenerys closes her eyes and prays for the first time since before Viserys died. Behind them, the bear roars, but no stomping comes towards them.

They’re almost out!

Chapter 18: Bears and Wolves

Notes:

Violence against animals in this chapter.

Daenerys barely has time to breathe the fresh air and blink at the sudden brightness of the sun before Ralof hisses, “Get the fuck down!”

A dragon roars and Ulfric yanks Daenerys towards a group of bushes. They kneel as they watch Alduin soar above them and away towards the north. Alduin doesn’t turn back in their direction and Ralof breathes harshly. “Good. He’s leaving. We’re not too far from Riverwood. The girl can go there and we can make our way to Windhelm.”

Normally Daenerys might have bristled at being called the girl, but a wind picks up and she shivers, suddenly realizing just how cold and wet she is. Her hair is plastered to her skin and even her lips. Her clothes feel like they’re twenty pounds heavier than they normally are. The cuirass is nowhere near heavy enough for her. She crosses her arms to try to keep herself warm but it doesn’t do much good.

A heavy, fur coat is draped around Daenerys’s shoulders and she eagerly slides her arms through the sleeves. It’s comically larger than her, the end going down nearly to her knees and the sleeves going past her fingers, but it is so soft and comfortable. She looks up at Ulfric. “Thank you.”

The left side of his lips curl up for just a moment. “I assume that you are not used to a cold climate. You’re not to see much warmer than this if you remain in Skyrim.”

“No,” Daenerys admits to him. She’d spent her childhood traveling around Essos. It was always warm there. She hadn’t much liked the cold of the North either. And it’d been quite frigid outside at the temple here in Skyrim. “I grew up in warm places. I will have to get used to Skyrim before I return to Westeros.”

“I wouldn’t suggest trying to cross the border right now. It’s too heavily guarded.”

Daenerys agrees. “I’m looking for my dragon but can’t feel him. I have no idea where to look and have nowhere to go, save the northwest of Skyrim.”

Ralof frowns at her. “What’s in the northwest of Skyrim that interests you?”

“Regardless,” Ulfric speaks for her. “It doesn’t matter. It’s a dangerous road for a woman alone to get there. Many Forsworn would attack, especially a woman so small and beautiful.”

Daenerys flushes, though she’s not sure why. It wasn’t the first time she’d been called beautiful and it likely wouldn’t be the last. It just felt strange hearing it from him. “I have friends there.”

“You could have friends elsewhere,” Ralof nods down the hill. “My sister Gerdur lives in Riverwood. She has a lumbermill. I can take you there and you’ll be safe. For now, at least. You could have warm food and a hearth to sit at while you warm up.”

It all sounded so lovely. Daenerys knew she had to tell Kyris what happened at Helgen, but she had no way to reach him without help. This was the best course of action and she knew it. She looks up at Ulfric. “What will you do?”

“I am off to Windhelm. It is where I rule for now, until Solitude is taken, of course. I may be attacked at Riverwood so I’ll get home another way. Stay with Ralof, little queen, and he’ll get you to safety.”

Daenerys nods and starts to shrug out of his coat reluctantly. He raises his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Give it back to me the next time we see each other.” He starts to turn away but stops. “I’d be proud to have you as one of the Stormcloaks.”

“Thank you,” She smiles at him. “For the coat, and for helping me escape. If I become the queen of Westeros again, I’ll remember my friends.”

Ulfric nods sharply before he turns and walks into the woods. Daenerys stares after him for a few beats before she turns to follow Ralof down the hill. They walk in silence for half an hour and she breathes in the scents of Skyrim. Flowers litter the side of the road. Pink, blue, red. The child in her wanted to lean down and smell them.

In the distance, Daenerys can hear a waterfall. She smiles as she thinks back to the waterfall that Jon showed her near Winterfell. The smile dies. He was probably sitting on her father’s throne right now. What should have been Rhaegar’s throne, and the real Aegon’s after him. He had no Targaryen spirit within him. Or maybe he did. He had killed her to sit on the throne himself.

“You were smiling one minute and glowering the next. Are you okay?”

Daenerys tries to smile at Ralof. “I was just thinking about someone I left behind in Westeros.”

“Who was he?”

“My everything,” Daenerys sighs and continues walking. She’s not sure how much the Nords of Skyrim knew about the Targaryen history. “During my conquest of Westeros, I met one of Westeros’s kings. His name was Jon and he was the King in the North. We fell in love and discovered soon before my war against Cersei, another queen, that he is my brother’s son.”

Ralof makes a face. “That’s awkward.”

Daenerys shrugs and smiles wider. “It was for him. For centuries, my family practiced incest. We were dragon riders and believed that incest kept our bond with dragons more powerful. My own parents were brother and sister. Had I grown up in Westeros and not in exile, I would have married my brother, Viserys, or my nephew, Aegon. Or Jon. Likely Jon, as our connection was so powerful. Incest does not bother me.”

“But it did bother him.”

“Yes,” She says reluctantly. “It did. I could see it in his eyes. He still desired me but he couldn’t get past it. At least until I thought he had. He stabbed me in the heart while we kissed.”

“Hm.”

Ralof doesn’t say more and Daenerys doesn’t explain further. He probably thought she meant that Jon betrayed her, true, and stabbed her in the back, also true. Jon stabbed her both in the back and in the front. The stab in the front was literal though.

The soles of Daenerys’s feet hurt as they descend further down the hill. The rush of a waterfall gets closer and closer until they turn a corner and she grins when she sees clean, clear water rushing down a stream towards a small fall. In the distance, she can see a town. “Is that Riverwood?”

“Aye.” Ralof swipes his arm across his brow. “We’ll make it before night falls. Stay close to me. There are wolves in these trees.”

Daenerys moves closer to Ralof and rests her hand on the hilt of her sword. Her eyes sweep over the woods as she follows him, trying to spy any animals in the darkening light. They only get another quarter mile before the sound of howling fills the air. One, two, three howls all at the same time. “Three?!”

The sword of steel unsheathing fills the air and Ralof grabs her arm with his other hand, dragging her back behind him and reminding her of Jorah’s last acts at Winterfell. Brow furrowing, Daenerys pulls free her own sword. She stands at the ready as the howls grow closer until three wolves charge down the hill they’d just come from towards them.

Black creatures, with snarling white teeth and pink jaws, they look between the two of them. Two of the wolves dart at Ralof and the third walks to the side, staring at Daenerys. It lunges and Daenerys lifts her sword into the air as high as she can and brings it down, straight into the wolf’s skull. It lets out a high pitched whimper and falls to the ground, spasming for only a few seconds before it stills.

Daenerys stares down in horror at the wolf as she listens to the death cries of the other two wolves. She barely hears Ralof approach her. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” She whispers but can’t take her eyes off the wolf. “I’m okay.”

In another world, thousands of miles away, this could be Ghost. Killing a wolf seemed wrong somehow, even though she knew she had to do it to save her own life. Would Ghost have whimpered so high? Would he have spasmed as blood ran down his broken skull? The thought sickened her. The thought of either Jon or Ghost broken and whimpering made her sick.

One hand wraps around her elbow and the other around her shoulders. Daenerys allows herself to be turned back towards the road and her feet move numbly. In the distance, she sees buildings and walls taking form. In her mind though, all she sees is Jon and Ghost.

Chapter 19: New Friends

Daenerys stares at the walls of Riverwood as she and Ralof walk towards the gates. His hand is at her elbow and she allows him to pull her past the gates. It felt almost like the times Jorah would lead her to safety, only this time the danger is not from a man but from her own mind. It shouldn’t have bothered her so bad to kill a wolf. They were trying to kill her! How many times had she killed something to save her own life?

Someone. Not something. She’d never killed an animal before, save for the times the dragons killed horses when she led them into battle. That felt different from whatever she is feeling now though.

Ralof nods to a wooden bridge to their left. “That’s where we’re going. No one seems to know about the dragon attack yet.”

Daenerys wasn’t sure how that was possible, and yet people and dogs walk around, laughing, gossiping, and, a few of them, staring at her. She was used to it, after a lifetime of people’s eyes bugging out of their skulls when they saw her purple eyes and silver hair. It hadn’t made traveling in exile with Viserys very safe, but at least the majority of the Nords likely don’t know anything about the Targaryens.

“We’re going to see my sister Gerdur.” Ralof walks across the bridge, pulling her along. “She works at the mill. Actually, she owns it. She’ll know how to help you.”

“A woman owns a mill here?”

Ralof frowns at her as they walk. “I suppose you’re from a place where women are lesser than simply because they weren’t born with a cock.”

Daenerys nods.

“How’d you become queen then?” Ralof raises his brow as they approach the mill. “You can’t be queen if you don’t have the respect of the men.”

“I was queen,” Daenerys licks her lips, parched all of a sudden after their flight from Helgen. “Because I wanted to be. I was the rightful heir. And I had dragons.”

“Would you have won the throne without the dragons?”

“Yes,” Daenerys nods. “Not only did I have dragons, but I had a large army as well. Eight thousand Unsullied soldiers and a hundred thousand Dothraki screamers. No Westerosi army could have defeated them.”

“And yet you are here.”

Daenerys frowns. “And yet here I am.”

They walk around the mill and Ralof cries out, “Gerdur!”

Ralof charges towards a tall blonde woman and embraces her. Daenerys smiles and looks around, trying to give them a private moment. She hears the woman say, “Ulfric was captured!”

“He’s free now,” Ralof replies. “We made it out of Helgen alive. He’ll be returning home to safety.”

Gerdur looks down at Daenerys. Daenerys rises to her full height, though it’s nothing compared to the other woman’s. Gerdur glances back at Ralof. “Who is that woman? Is she a comrade of yours?”

“I hope she will be someday soon,” Ralof smiles at her. “Her name is Daenerys Targaryen and escaped Helgen with Ulfric and me. Ulfric was quite fond of her. We need to talk. Privately.”

“Alright,” Gerdur frowns. “Follow me.”

Daenerys and Ralof follow Gerdur until they get to an empty clearing full of flowers, trees, and stumps. It wasn’t exactly what Daenerys would call a private place but they would have to make do with it. Before Gerdur could even open her mouth to speak, a little boy and a dog race up to Ralof. “Uncle Ralof! I want to play with your axe!”

“Not now, Frodnar. Go look out for the Imperials. Your father is joining us.”

Another tall blonde person is approaching them and Daenerys smiles as the boy rushes off with his dog. Daenerys looks at this family. Were all Nords tall and blonde? Ulfric is even taller than Ralof, who towers over Daenerys. Kyris is a Nord though, and he’s got black hair and eyes. Tall though. It felt strange being the smallest person among giants. Even Frodnar was nearly her height and he was just a boy!

“Ralof, good to see you safe,” The man approaches them and crosses his arms. He looks at Daenerys and nods. “I’m Hod, Gerdur’s husband. What happened to the two of you?”

“We were ambushed by the Imperials and taken to Helgen,” Ralof frowns. “Daenerys was just about to be executed when a dragon attacked the keep.”

“No,” Gerdur breathes softly. “Not a dragon. A real dragon? From the legends?”

“I saw it myself. We were only able to get out of there because the dragon attacked. Ulfric and myself are the only Stormcloaks I know of that made it out. Daenerys is the only civilian. Any Imperials?”

“No,” Gerdur says again. “The two of you are the only people that have come from Helgen today. We’ll be alerted if any Imperials approach.”

Ralof nods and looks at Daenerys. “We should rest here for a while. I don’t want to put anyone in danger but I could use some rest before I start on my way to Windhelm. Daenerys should be safe to stay here if she chooses. She’s neither a Stormcloak nor Imperial.”

Gerdur smiles at Daenerys and hands her a key. “You’re free to stay here with us. You’re Ralof’s friend and welcome to anything that is ours.”

Daenerys looks down at the key in her hand and feels like she’s got a lump in her throat all of a sudden. It felt good to be welcomed. A feeling she never had in Westeros, though had plenty of it before in Essos after her dragons were born. She looks back up at Gerdur. “Something to eat and water would be appreciated. Running from the dragon left me thirsty.”

“Of course,” The woman seems to hesitate before she says, “I hate to ask this of you since you’re a guest, but we need aid from the Jarl of Whiterun. If the dragon comes here then we’ll be in danger. Ralof must get to Windhelm and I must stay here with my family. If you… could…”

“Go to Whiterun?” Daenerys finishes for her. “Of course. I’ve seen what dragons can do,” What I’ve done. “I’d hate to see this village attacked. I’ll need a map, some food, and rest, but I’ll go to the Jarl.”

“There won’t be much danger if you stick to the road,” Ralof rises from his seat on a stump. His back pops as he stretches. “Maybe some wolves but I’ve seen you fight them. You’ll be able to take a carriage there and go wherever you want. I’d go with you but I must get to Ulfric.”

“I understand.”

Daenerys feels weary as she follows Hod and Ralof across another wooden bridge, past a street and up another one, until they get to a large, stone house with an ox walking around in the grass in front of it. They walk inside and Hod gestures to a bed in the corner. “You can take that small one, Daenerys, or you can have the large bed and my wife and I can sleep on furs on the floor.”

“Of course not,” Daenerys looks down at the stone floor. She’d slept on worse in her time with the Dothraki. The furs and a pillow next to a roaring fireplace would feel like luxury compared to her days sleeping in Essos with her husband. “I’ll take the floor in front of the fire if that’s fine with you. I wouldn’t dare take from you or your child after you are taking us in.”

Ralof grabs a couple bottles of mead from a bar and hands one of them to Daenerys. He pops his open and takes a few chugs of it. “Gerdur might be right, Hod. You and I are going to finish this mead tonight.”

Daenerys smiles as she opens her own bottle and sits down next to Ralof at the table. She takes a tiny sip of her mead and only a sheer act of will keeps her from making a face. Mead and ale weren’t her favorite drinks in the world, but she didn’t want to be rude in front of Hod. “So where is Whiterun?”

Hod slides a cup of water towards her and she takes it gratefully, setting down her bottle of mead. He says, “It’s to the north of here. It’s about fourteen miles or so and should take you about three and a half to four hours to get there if you keep a good pace. That’s if you take the road. If you don’t take the road and just walk straight through it can take a shorter time. I do not recommend it.”

That wasn’t so bad. Daenerys nods slowly. She wasn’t afraid of walking. Viserys would take her traveling Essos, fleeing from one place to another to keep away from Robert’s assassins. And Ralof said the road would be relatively safe from danger. She yawns, suddenly exhausted after running all day and getting a little bit of mead in her belly.

Hod rises from his seat. “If you really won’t take a bed, I’ll lay down some furs for you to sleep next to the fire. You must tell my wife that you refused a bed though. She might flay me alive over this insult to you.”

“Goodnight, Daenerys,” Ralof lifts his bottle at her. “I may not be here when you wake. Journey safe.”

“You as well.”

Daenerys watches with heavy lids as Hod lays down multiple furs on the floor next to the fire. She gladly eases herself under one of them, burying her face in the softness of it. It reminded her of Ghost and Jon.

Would she ever stop being reminded of them?

Notes:

Skyrim readers! I will be starting a new Skyrim fic hopefully by April first (And no, not a prank 😅). An Altmer Princess anyone?

Chapter 20: The Path Leads

Daenerys shoulders the pack that Hod and Gerdur had kindly given her filled with food, water, and potions. Ralof left before she woke, leaving her a note asking her to travel to Windhelm and join the Stormcloaks. Kyris had called the Stormcloaks dishonorable, and Daenerys was inclined to think he was right considering Ulfric murdered the king, but they also saved her life at Helgen when they could have left her behind. She’s not a Nord. They had no obligation to her.

Joining the Stormcloaks wasn’t something she wanted to do, but she was still grateful that they wanted her. Fighting wasn’t her strong suit, despite having trained with Kyris for so long. She fought better than she did at Winterfell with Jorah but she was no soldier. After she defeats Alduin, if she survives the battle, she’ll be returning to Westeros, not helping either the Stormcloaks or the Empire.

It was not her fight.

Daenerys exhales loudly as she crosses the bridge leaving Riverwood. Markers stand at the end of the bridge, indicating Whiterun is to the right. She breathes in the fresh air as she starts down the road towards the next town. Skyrim felt very much like the North, without the snow. She wished she’d been able to travel through the North without the impending threats of the Night King and Cersei. Jon could have taken her back to those falls… They could have stayed there.

A thousand years…

Howling comes from ahead of her and Daenerys pulls the sword Hod had given her from its scabbard. A wolf races towards her from up the road and she brings the sword back over her head, waits, and grunts as she brings it down just as the wolf leaps at her. The sword slices clean through the top of the wolf’s head, killing it instantly with only a small yelp.

Daenerys pulls on the sword and realizes it’s stuck. She grabs it with both hands and yanks it out of the corpse, nearly falling when the sword goes flying into the air. “Seven Hells.”

She races towards where the sword landed and sheaths it. Her breaths come out in pants as she starts walking back up the trail. How did Jorah do this all the time? And Daario and Jon and Drogo. One fight with one wolf took so much out of her. A bow would be much more suited to her, remembering how well she’d been able to shoot when Kyris was training her. The first thing she’d do once she got to Whiterun was find out how much one would cost her. Swords just didn’t seem to be her strongest suit.

“Oh!” Daenerys smiles when she rounds a corner and sees purple flowers drifting in the breeze. “Mm, how lovely.”

Gently, Daenerys plucks some of the flowers and turns them into a small bouquet. As she walks, she spots orange flowers and pink ones that she adds to her bouquet. Turning another corner, Daenerys stops. Down the hill, a city spreads out before her with farms and mills in front of it. It looked so beautiful and peaceful. Whiterun is small compared to White Harbor and especially King’s Landing, but it was still alive and beautiful.

Daenerys hears footsteps ahead of her and she frowns. A group of Imperials are leading a man down the road ahead of her. Perhaps she should stay behind them, especially if they’d been at Helgen when the dragon attacked. Silver hair and purple eyes made her easier to spot than most people. They are moving slowly though, and her walking slowly behind them might cause them to think she’s being suspicious.

One of them stops and looks behind him at her. He nods. “Go on ahead. Please don’t speak to the prisoner.”

“Thank you,” Daenerys lifts her head and marches down the hill toward them. She keeps a wide berth around the prisoner, who looks at her and says, “You should join the Stormcloaks.”

“Shut up, you!”

Daenerys frowns as she walks ahead of the ground and around the last corner leading to the city. Whiterun grows larger and larger as she walks. She can smell honey in the air and farm animals. It smelled similar to how living with the Dothraki had smelled. Hm.

How long has it been since she’s been alone like this? Sure, she’d felt lonely before, but she was never actually alone. Ser Willem was with her and Viserys for years before he passed, and then Viserys, despite his abuse of her, had always been with her. Then Jorah. Always her Jorah. Missandei and Grey Worm. Daario, Tyrion, even Jon. Kyris and Armek. Ulfric and Ralof. This was the real first time she’s been alone with the only exception being when she’d been alone with the Dothraki before Jorah and Daario arrived to help her kill the Khals.

Daenerys passes a farm and hears the sound of fighting ahead. She drops her bouquet, pulls her sword free again, and rushes forward, only to watch as a giant white monster falls to the ground with two arrows in its face. Three warriors laugh as she deflates, replacing her sword. One of them is a woman with a tattoo on her face. She waves. “A little too late, I’m afraid. You’ll get the next one. I’m Aela. Have you considered joining the Companions?”

“The Companions?”

“We’re mercenaries. Come to Jorrvaskr in Whiterun,” Aela nods at the city. “Kodlak will decide whether you’re fit to join the Companions or not. I hope to see you there.”

“Thank you,” Daenerys smiles at Aela and the others, though she had no intention of joining a mercenary group. “I hope so as well.”

Two of the Companions push each other around as they follow Aela towards the city. Daenerys watches them go. She’s seen mercenary groups before. The Second Sons and the Golden Company. She’d destroyed one and the other was Daario’s group. She wondered if Daario knew she was “dead” yet or not. It was foolish of her not to bring Daario with her to Westeros. He didn’t care about anything but being with her. He would have been jealous of Jon but would have stayed.

Daario might have been able to stop Jon from killing her.

Daenerys walks slowly towards the city and around a horse drawn carriage. Aside from killing Sansa, Jon, and Tyrion, Daenerys didn’t know what she wanted to do once she got to Westeros. There would be no joy there. Perhaps she could return to Meereen. Daario would likely welcome her back with open arms and she could be queen again. It would be different without Grey Worm and Missandei and Jorah and Barristan, but she’d have at least someone she knew and cared for with her.

They could grow old together. It wasn’t exactly what she wanted but it could be a life. The people in Essos loved her when the people of Westeros hated her. Perhaps she could even find out where Grey Worm went after she died and ask him to return to Meereen with her. That would bring her so much joy.

Or perhaps she could come back here after taking care of her enemies in Westeros. Kyris might change his mind if she came back to live with him in the mountains. Daenerys did love him, even if it wasn’t the way she loved Jon. Skyrim was more beautiful than she thought it would be. So far, it was bringing her more joy than Westeros had. Perhaps it really could be her home.

Daenerys looks up at the gates of the city and walks through them. She hoped someone here would know where Drogon went.

No matter where she chose to live after defeating Alduin, she couldn’t live without her son. Her last son.

Chapter 21: Whiterun

Smoke swirls into the sky coming from braziers that Daenerys passes as she walks up the cobbled steps towards the castle gates. Her eyes drift over the walls and wooden platforms leading up to them. The stone buildings reminded her of how the castles were built in Westeros. Not for the first time Daenerys wished that her time in Westeros had been as welcoming as her time so far in Skyrim.

Of course it hadn’t all been great. She’d nearly been beheaded in Helgen for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But… Kyris and Armek wanted her. So had the others in the temple. Ulfric and even Ralof liked her. Ralof’s family hadn’t hesitated to open their home and hearth to her.

At the top of the hill, Daenerys crosses a drawbridge and steps towards two great wooden doors. Two soldiers stand on either side of the doors and one of them moves over to her. “We’re not allowing anyone inside unless it’s urgent business. There’s been sightings of dragons.”

“I need to speak with the Jarl,” Daenerys lifts her chin. “I was in Riverwood during the dragon attack and witnessed it. I was sent here to speak with Jarl Balgruuf.”

The soldiers look at each other before one of them nods. “Don’t make any trouble in there. We’ll be watching you.”

Daenerys frowns but steps past the guards and towards the great brown doors. She admires the ornate designs on the doors before she pushes one of the doors open, allowing it to swing behind her when she walks into the city.

Whiterun is different than Daenerys had initially thought it would look like. There’s a row of houses on each side of the street she stepped through the doors onto. The houses are small and made out of stone and wood. Armored dragon heads adorn some of the buildings. Braziers line the way, burning brightly. Daenerys approaches one and feels the soft heat against her face. If only these people knew what would happen to her if she stepped into those flames. Twice now she has proven to be the blood of the dragon.

Alduin would soon learn how dangerous she could be. With Drogon by her side, she was practically invincible. She feels suddenly lonely. Loneliness was new for her.

Two voices come from ahead and Daenerys looks around until she spots a man and woman talking outside what looks like a blacksmith’s shop. They finish talking and the man walks away while the woman steps inside the shop.

Daenerys looks around again and notices a castle to the north-east. If the Jarl lives anywhere, she assumed it was there. She starts walking down the street until she comes upon a well and a circle of shops around it. People laugh, children dart around the shops, and shop owners call out to their wayward children. Daenerys smiles at the kids playing as she walks around the well and towards a set of stairs leading up.

One of the children runs up to her, a little girl with dirt on her cheeks and hands and dress, holding out a blue flower. “Hi miss! Would you like a flower? Just one gold coin for it.”

“That’s beautiful,” Daenerys’s smile widens and she pulls out the coin purse Gerdur had given her before she left. She quickly counts the gold she has and pulls out a few. “Here, why don’t you go get yourself a sweet roll?”

“Thank you!” The girl takes the coins and hands Daenerys the flower. “Thank you so much!”

Daenerys watches the girl run back over to her friends. The girl reminded her of life in Essos before moving to Pentos with Viserys. They were always scrounging. Viserys sold his crown so that she could eat. It had always excited them to find dirty food on the ground that someone had thrown away. She never thought back then to try selling flowers for gold. They likely would have laughed at her.

Saddened, Daenerys turns back and goes up the stairs leading towards the castle. She stops at the top when she sees a giant tree stretching towards the sky. Benches circle it and she sees a couple cuddling on one of the benches. She steps around the tree and starts up one last, longer flight of stairs towards the castle.

The sun is beginning to set and it makes the water next to the castle shine. She can hear a waterfall and the castle seems to glow in the orange light. There are more dragon statues on the castle that there’d been on some of the buildings below in the city. It made her think of the statues on Dragonstone. Whiterun, at least in its past, had a respect for dragons that the Targaryens and Old Valyrians did.

Daenerys pushes the door open and walks up the stairs. A great burst of heat comes from the middle of the room and she sees two long tables on either side of the large fire. Behind them is another small set of stairs and a man sitting on a throne.

A Dunmer woman wearing armor races down the stairs towards Daenerys, brandishing a sword. “Who the hells are you?!”

“I’m Daenerys Stormborn,” Daenerys grits her teeth. “I came from Riverwood to talk to the Jarl about the dragon attack. I was a witness.”

“Oh,” The woman sheaths her sword. “Come with me then.”

Seething, Daenerys follows her. This exchange warranted at least an apology, but she doubted she was going to get one. She steps up the stairs and looks at Jarl Balgruuf and the man standing next to the throne. She bows her head to both. “Jarl, I’ve been sent here to inform you about the dragon attack.”

“Did you witness it?” He frowns. “Were you at Helgen or Riverwood?”

Daenerys considers lying, but enough people had seen her at Helgen that her lie could be caught. This could result in her death but they needed to know the truth. “I was at Helgen. The Imperials were going to execute me because I wandered into Ulfric fleeing the country. They thought I was a Stormcloak.”

Balgruuf eyes her clothes and Daenerys is grateful that Gerdur gave her clothes that weren’t the Stormcloak outfit she wore before. “I see.” He looks at the man next to him. “How exactly do you mean to fight them, Proventus? Walls and stone are well enough against an army of men but not against a living, fire breathing dragon.” He looks at the Dunmer woman. “Irilith, your thoughts?”

“We should send soldiers to Helgen and Riverwood,” She says. “The dragon could attack them again.”

“Yes,” Balgruuf nods. “Send troops to Riverwood.”

Proventus bows to Balgruuf. “I’ll continue my duties.”

Both Proventus and Irilith walk away and Balgruuf looks at Daenerys. “You’ve done me a service, and I thank you for it. I do, however, have a request to make of you. Would you come join me and my court wizard Farengar? There’s something I’d like you to do for me.”

Daenerys nods even though all she wants is to go in search of Drogon. She has no idea where he is though. He could be a mile from here or a thousand by now. As the Dragonborn, she should help them if what he wants is related to the dragons. Maybe helping them would lead her to Alduin and Drogon. “Alright.”

She follows Balgruuf towards a room off to the right of the great hall and a man wearing robes looks up at them from a desk. “Jarl. How can I help?”

“This woman was a witness to the dragon attack on Helgen,” Balgruuf gestures to her. “She showed great bravery in coming here to warn us that there might be more attacks. I asked her if she’d aid you in finding that object you’ve been trying to get a hold of.”

“Her?” Farengar makes a face and Daenerys frowns at him. He sighs. “Fine. I need you to go to Bleak Falls Barrow and get a stone tablet. Get that? Bleak Falls Barrow. Stone tablet. Simple. Easy, even.”

Daenerys narrows her eyes. “If it was so simple and easy, then why haven’t you gone to get it?”

Farengar chuckles. “Saw through that, did you? Well, there’s no real danger but there are some draugr in there and I just don’t want to deal with them. Enter you.”

Balgruuf sighs loudly. “If you had told me it was just a bunch of draugr then I would have sent someone else. Will you do this for us, Daenerys?”

“Yes,” Daenerys nods. “Where is Bleak Falls Barrow?”

Farengar picks up a map on his desk. “I’ll show you.”

Daenerys watches him circle a spot on the map and she hums under her breath. Ralof had pointed out the barrow on their way to Riverwood. It wasn’t that far from there. Maybe Drogon and Alduin would be near. “I’ll be back with the tablet.”

Chapter 22: The Mountain

Daenerys throws herself behind a tall, wide hunk of stone before the woman ahead of her can spot her. She peeks slowly out the side and breathes softly when the woman doesn’t turn away from the fire she and another woman are standing by. Behind them is a great castle that looks like it’s barely hanging off the ledge.

The journey up this mountain was proving to be much more difficult than Daenerys had initially thought. She’d always been active, ever since she was a babe and she and Viserys were forced to flee from Robert’s assassins. The climb up the mountain had seemed easy for her, considering all the running she’s done. It had been anything but.

There hadn’t been any enemies except a lone wolf that she’d killed with her sword at the bottom of the mountain. The trek was the most difficult part. Daenerys had been huffing and puffing as the ground turned from mud and gravel to snow and ice. The air had long grown thinner and, even though she was a fierce dragon rider, it had been some time since she rode Drogon last. And not over land that was this cold since she’d been north with Jon.

She frowns. This was not the time to think about her past lover. There would be time to think about Jon after she destroys Alduin. Peeking around the side of the stone again, Daenerys knocks her arrow and slowly walks up a little hill until she’s behind three great boulders. She pulls the string of the bow back and peers around one of the boulders. Neither of the two women ahead of her react. They both were dressed like bandits as Farengar had described them.

Daenerys raises her bow, sights, and lets the arrow fly. It whizzes through the air and strikes one of the bandits about a foot off from where she’d been aiming for, but it does strike. The woman screams as she stumbles back towards the castle and slides off the walkway, her screams echoing in the air as she hurtles down.

The other woman lets out a war cry and charges towards Daenerys. She knows that she doesn’t have the time to sight another arrow so she brings up her sword against her opponent’s strike. The typical bone jarring feeling of a sword against hers doesn’t shake through Daenerys’s body and because of that, she’s able to bring her sword down and then back up to slice cleanly through the woman’s neck. She falls to the ground and convulses for a few seconds before Daenerys drives her sword into her chest, making her stop moving instantly.

Daenerys stares down at the woman in front of her. It wasn’t unusual for Daenerys to kill someone. Seven Hells, she’d killed more men than she could count. But women and children… women and children were where she drew the line. At least until Cersei used them as shields. That was on Cersei, not her.

This time felt different. The woman in front of Daenerys is so thin that it was likely that she was already dying. Her blow hadn’t affected Daenerys in the slightest. A scream still fills the air even though Daenerys knows that they aren’t high up enough for the woman who fell to still be falling. No, it was just the mountain bothering her.

She clears her throat and turns right, knowing from what Farengar said that she shouldn’t go into that castle but make her way up to the right. The air becomes even thinner as she walks up the snowy path. Her boots crunch through the snow and she shivers hard despite the furs that are wrapped around her shoulders.

There is another turn leading to the left and Daenerys follows it. She stops when she sees a ruin ahead of her. The stone is shaped in an odd way and reaches towards the heavens, some of the stones meeting each other in the sky and others on their own. At the top of each structure is a stone shape. She can see a horse and dragon easily and what looks to be an eagle, but she can’t make sense of all the shapes.

Her eyes drift to the stairs and towards what looks to be a door but she can’t tell from the distance. There didn’t appear to be anyone up there but appearances were often wrong. Slowly, Daenerys eases her way away from the wall of the mountain and towards a small stone that’s large enough for her to hide behind. She peeks out the side and still doesn’t see anyone but she does realize that some of the stone statues on top of the building are dragon claws.

Taking as deep a breath as she can in the mountain air, Daenerys hurries towards the steps but she doesn’t make it far. A shout comes from above and she throws herself behind another one of the great stones. An arrow skitters as it hits the stone she’s hiding behind. She looks out from the other side of the stone that the arrow hadn’t been aimed at. A man is racing down the stairs towards her, brandishing an axe.

Daenerys knows that this foe will not be as easy to defeat as the starving bandit woman had been. She holds out her right hand and concentrates as hard as she can at it until a small ball of flame appears. The man races around Daenerys’s protective stone and brings back the axe, aimed at her neck.

The little ball of flame turns into a small inferno as Daenerys raises her hand and turns it towards the man. The blast hits his face and his furs and he immediately starts screaming. The axe falls to the ground and he follows it, trying to use the cold snow to blot out the fire. Daenerys takes her sword in her hand and drives it deep into the back of his head.

Another arrow hits the stone and Daenerys yanks the sword free from the man’s body. She looks out from the side again and races for the stairs. The arrow hits the stairs but Daenerys makes it, pressing her back against the side of the wall. She hugs the wall as she walks up the stairs, realizing the archer above would have to get much, much closer to attack if they wanted to kill her.

Daenerys kneels down as the stairs get closer and closer to the top and she waits. Footsteps pace back and forth about ten feet from her and Daenerys slowly turns around. She wouldn’t be able to get her bow up high enough without the archer seeing. Instead, she raises her hand and aims her fire spell blindly in the direction of where she’d heard the movement coming from.

“What in the hells?!”

The exclamation is followed by a scream as the person’s legs or feet go up in flames. Semi-using the wall as cover, Daenerys notches a bow, raises, and shoots at the bandit ahead of her. The arrow misses the target like last time but it does strike the woman ahead of her. Daenerys vaults up the rest of the stairs and races towards the woman who is simultaneously trying to put out the fire and pull the arrow out of her own hip.

Just as with the other three, Daenerys uses her sword to quickly finish the bandit. The wind nearly knocks her down as she looks up at the great stone ahead of her, where she knew the door would be just behind it. Her eyes drift back around the area. There didn’t seem to be any more enemies around here but that didn’t mean anything. There hadn’t seemed to be any enemies here before she ran for the stairs the first time.

Slowly, Daenerys moves over to one of the great stone arches and hides behind it. She holds her sword tightly in one hand and holds up her other hand with a fire in it. The fire however has gotten much smaller since the first time she used it against the axe wielder. She suddenly realizes that she is exhausted and wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep the magic up.

Daenerys walks around the stone arch and moves towards the next one. There are no calls of surprise or anger, so she quickly moves to the next one and stops there. The only obstacle before her is the great stone that’s hiding the door behind it. She lets the fire leave her and she holds her sword with both hands as she walks around the last arch and hurries up the stairs and around the stone.

There’s no one there, and Daenerys looks towards both sides where no one is coming towards her. Really? Two guards here and two guards below? That just seemed so… foolish. Perhaps she has just grown accustomed to the proficiency of the Unsullied, but whoever was leader here was deeply foolish.

She turns towards the door now blocking her way and sighs. There would be no using magic to protect her in there. She can already feel how badly it has drained her.

Moving forward, Daenerys pushes the door open and steps into Bleak Falls Barrow.

Chapter 23: Bleak Falls Barrow

Daenerys shivers once she steps into Bleak Falls Barrow. It feels like she’s stepped into a tomb, albeit with a few slits in the ceiling, which doesn’t make her feel calmer at all. As a Targaryen, she loathed the idea of being trapped under ground. She belonged outside, in the air, soaring through the skies and descending upon her enemies from dragon back. This must have been what the dragons felt like in the Dragonpit in King’s Landing.

Trapped. Daenerys hated to feel trapped. Viserys trapped her. Khal Drogo trapped her. The masters tried to trap her. The Khals tried to trap her. The Westerosi… So far, only the Nords haven’t tried to trap her.

A soft thud comes from up ahead and Daenerys immediately falls into a crouch. She edges closer to a statue and peers around it. There’s two people at a fire, bandits the both of them, but she can’t tell if there’s anyone opposite them. She waits for a few minutes as she watches the two talk. Neither of them look in the direction of the fire, and she can’t hear anyone else, so she assumes that’s it.

Slowly, Daenerys pulls an arrow from her quiver and moves around the statue and towards a second one. She aims at the man and lets the arrow fly. It doesn’t hit him where she wanted it too, right through the back of his head, but it does bury itself in the top of his spine. He chokes as he reaches one hand behind himself, reaching for the arrow, but he falls to the ground. The other bandit grabs an axe but Daenerys throws herself out from the safety of the statue and holds up her hand, inches from the woman’s face, and blasts her with fire.

The fire catches the woman’s hair on fire and she screams as she goes down. Daenerys reaches for her sword and quickly drives it into the woman’s neck. She breathes heavily. The sound of her breath and pounding of her heart are all she can hear in the cavern. This felt like Winterfell, fighting for her life beside Jorah. Except Jorah isn’t with her now. Nor Barristan. Daario. Jon. No one to fight beside her and protect her. To die for her. She’s alone, and that scared her more than the death and fire and everything else that came with Skyrim.

Daenerys crouches down again and starts down a flight of stairs. At the bottom she can see three giant spiders’ webs, stretching from the ceiling all the way down to the floor. She uses her sword to swing at them until she feels like she might be able to walk through without being covered by the things that created them. Spiders didn’t frighten her, but she still thinks about the spider creature the warlocks of Qarth created to attack her in Astapor.

She makes her way down the last bit of stairs, around a corner, and finds herself looking up a flight of stairs. A small flight due to the place having been caved in. There was no escape up there. She starts down another flight of stairs.

Lit braziers meet her at the bottom and Daenerys frowns. Someone must have lit them and she knew the two bandits at the front of the cave couldn’t be the only people here. Just as that thought fills her mind, she sees a man walking ahead of her. Daenerys tries not to breathe, her breaths coming shallowly through her nose, as she watches him move from a chair beside a door and into a room. A thudding noise fills the air and a man screams.

Daenerys hesitates as she listens for noise. Any noise. Footsteps, breathing, anything. Finally, she inches her way towards the door and peers inside. The man she’d just seen walk through the doorway is laying flat on his back next to a lever. Crossbow bolts liter the ground around him. She peers around the room but only sees stone statues on the second level and three to the left. A trap. The man must have triggered a trap.

She steps into the room and studies the three stones to her left and looks up at the two on the ceiling. There’s a third statue by the closed door. The ones to the left seem to protrude from the wall while the others seem to be pressed into it. Snake, snake, fish. Daenerys moves over to the stones to the left and presses her palms against it. It moves! There’s a wrenching noise in the air as the three stones move, first to the snake, the second to a snake, and the third to the fish.

Bravely, she moves over to the lever and pulls it, closing her eyes as she does so. There’s no whiz of arrows coming towards her. There’s only the sound of metal sliding up. She opens her eyes and hurries through the door, not wanting to congratulate herself yet.

Through the gate there’s a spiral, wooden staircase going down. She presses the hand not holding her sword against the wall and spins round and round, making her think about Qarth again. When they stole her dragons from her. They’d paid for their thievery with fire and blood. Except Xaro and Doreah, no. She trusted them, she loved Doreah, may have come to love Xaro if she wed him, but she cared for them and they betrayed her. So they’d paid with more than fire and blood.

As she reaches the end of the spiral staircase, something big, black, and furry jumps up at her face. Daenerys screams and plunges her sword into its hairy body over and over and over again. Blood hits her cheeks and chest. She breathes in and out, her chest heaving. It looked like a rat. The biggest rat she’s ever had the displeasure to witness.

“Hello!” Daenerys freezes and she looks up towards the next room. “I could hear you! Could you get me down? Please?”

Daenerys hesitates. This could be a trap, or someone could actually be trapped. What kind of queen was she if she didn’t try to help? Helping people always ended badly for her though. The Westerosi had spit in her face after she went North to help them. Still, this man hadn’t done anything to hurt her.

Slowly, Daenerys peeks into the next room and cringes when she sees layers upon layers of spider webs all over the room. She eases past them, keeping her sword low in case she had to fend off any more of those giant rat creatures. “Helllloooo!” The man positively screams from down the hallway. “Hurry, please, it’s gonna get me!”

Daenerys leaves caution behind her as she rushes down the hallway and towards a doorway covered, absolutely covered, in spider webs. She hacks at them with her sword until they break free enough for her to enter a room that is even more covered in webs. She shivers. This was horrible. “Look out!”

A great shadow appears over Daenerys and all she can think of is the black shadow a little girl saw years ago before she was consumed by fire and blood and teeth and claws. Zalla. The death that has haunted her for years.

But Zalla is dead, Drogon is gone, and Daenerys turns to see that it is not her son but a giant spider that descends from the ceiling. She remembers that frostbite spiders are slow and weak to fire, so she sheaths her sword, grabs her bow, and holds out her free hand. Flames shoot from her skin and hit three of the spiders’ legs that are bigger than she is. The spider squeals and falls to the floor. Daenerys lifts the bow, pulls an arrow, and shoots towards the beast’s eyes, firing rapidly, barely feeling the bow thrum against her fingers before she shoots another arrow. Her aim is off for most of the arrows but a few of them hit her target, though she doesn’t stop firing until the beast’s legs stop quivering.

Her last arrow barely leaves her bow before the man bellows, “Would you get me down?! I’ll share the treasure with you if you get me down! I’ve got the golden claw and we’ll get the treasure together!”

Daenerys frowns at the man hanging in a giant spider’s web behind the spider she’d just killed. She has no use for treasure right now and wouldn’t even be able to carry it if she did. Still, she carefully steps around the spider, keeping her eyes on it for any sudden movements, and walks towards the man and his web. “Hurry up!”

Pressing her lips together, Daenerys uses her sword to carefully slide it through the web. She bumps him with the hilt a few times for his impatience. “I’m almost done.”

Just as the words leave her lips, the man falls, sneers at her, and races down the hallway. “You shouldn’t have let me go! I’ll find that treasure before you do!”

Daenerys grits her teeth to keep herself from cursing after him. Or at the very least from chasing him down and carving him into pieces. “Help!” Daenerys jerks to a stop when she realizes it’s the man again. “Help me, lady! They’re attacking me.”

There are sounds of fighting mixed with the man shrieking for help. Daenerys just stands there. A part of her wants to help, she’d always helped the helpless, but this was different. She’d helped him and he’d sneered at her, talking about whatever treasure he was after. She wasn’t after treasure but a tablet. They could have helped each other make it through the tunnel.

Now, she listens to him die.

There are still footsteps in the room ahead but they’re sluggish and faint. Draugr, she assumes. Instead of raising her sword, she just raises her hand. She remembers Kyris told her that Draugr are easily killed by fire.

Daenerys can smell them as soon as she clears the room. There’s one on the floor next to the body of the man she’d just freed, and there’s two circling the room slowly, making strange growling noises. They both turn to face her and she fires off a blast against the legs of the one closest to her. Whatever is left of the skin of the legs melts away and the Draugr falls to the floor, reaching, forever reaching towards her but unable to move. She turns her fire to the second draugr and lets loose another bout of flames, this time to the face. The Draugr makes a strange screaming noise before it crumbles to the floor, this one still. She quickly slices through the face of the first Draugr that fell.

Ignoring the smell of old, burnt flesh, Daenerys looks through the man’s clothes before she finds a golden claw, which she hopes opens the door that hides the tablet, and then she marches down another hallway. Ahead she can hear the sound of… swinging? She crosses over another threshold and freezes.

Ahead of her is a thin hall. Ordinary stone, except for the axes that swing through the air through the hall, fast. She looks around wildly for a lever or a chain to stop the trap, but there is none. The tablet, and the treasure that man died for, are through that hall. She knows it.

Daenerys frowns at the speed of the axes. She’s quick but she’s not quick enough to make it through the hall before they swing back. But… she is small. Perhaps she could fit between the two axes as they swung, or…

She falls to her belly right in front of the hall. The axes swing in front of her and she realizes that they’re about a foot above her, so if she kept her head down and moved quickly, they shouldn’t be able to touch her.

Gravel digs into her chin as she crawls quickly beneath the first axe. The swish of the axe reminds her of a headman’s block, but it doesn’t touch her neck. She hurries as fast as she can while keeping her body as pressed against the ground as she can. She doesn’t care about the stone digging into her skin. She doesn’t care about the steady bit of blood coming from her chin. All she cares about is getting free.

Daenerys blinks and realizes she’s across. Shaking, she rises to her feet and spots a chain next to her. She seizes it and pulls, pleased when the swishing of the axes instantly still. At least whatever poor soul that comes through here won’t have to face that.

After passing another corner Daenerys stumbles back for, hanging above her, is a giant ball holding fire, and below her, is oil. Her eyes stop on three draugr, standing in tombs, not moving. She hits the ball with her own fire and it hits the ground, setting off an explosion of noise that wakes the draugr but kills them for the second time before they can attack her.

She waits until she can’t hear anything else before she charges ahead and through a door. Surely she was close now. Her body hurts. She wasn’t sure how much longer her magic could hold up.

Or whether or not someone else was blundering in the dark with her.

Notes:

I meant to get through the whole dungeon in this chapter but it was getting pretty long. I'll be finishing it next time!

Chapter 24: The Barrow

Daenerys is exhausted as she starts down a hallway. Her arms hurt. Her legs hurt. Even worse, she feels absolutely drained of her magic. Kyris had worked with her for quite a while on her magic but it wasn’t a sieve of never ending magic. She has a blue potion that Ralof told her would give her more magic, but she didn’t want to use it yet.

Not to mention she didn’t actually think it would work the way he said it would.

A flight of stairs appear at the end of the hall and Daenerys sighs as she climbs them. If she made it back to Whiterun today, or more likely Riverwood, she’d sleep for a week. It almost felt like she was back in Essos, fleeing Robert’s assassins with Viserys. She’d always felt sore back then. Hungry too.

When Daenerys gets to the top of the stairs, an eerie, wind-like noise fills the air. Dust falls from the ceiling and she looks around. The only way she could describe this room is… a tomb. There are several caskets sitting on the top of steps and, across the room, she can see a tomb in front of a wall. Light filters in from above. That was where the windy noise was coming from. She shivers.

She’d never liked the cold. The North had not just troubled the dragons but her as well.

The caskets don’t move but Daenerys pulls her sword from its sheath anyway. She drinks the potion as well, just in case. The blue liquid fills her and she gasps. Magic courses through her and she lifts her hand, allowing only the tiniest flame to fill her palm. Ralof hadn’t been lying about the effects of the potion. It made her feel powerful again.

Powerful enough to walk confidently towards the first casket. She peers inside with her sword raised and is almost… disappointed when she realizes there’s nothing in there. The second casket is as empty and she walks towards the end of the cave and looks up.

There’s a tomb with two braziers next to it. The wall behind the tomb is iron gray and it pulls to her. She’d thought the white light from the ceiling was shining on the tomb but no, it’s shining on the wall behind it. There’s a symbol in the middle that strangely makes her think of dragons, though it doesn’t look like a dragon.

So entranced by this strange wall is Daenerys that she almost falls into the stream of water below her. Her feet find purchase and she walks across the bridge that she missed. Her heart pounds as she stares at that wall. She needed to feel it. Touch it. See it.

The closer Daenerys gets to the wall, the harder her heart beats in her chest. A drumbeat fills the air and a voice… sings to her as she approaches. Not singing in the way the Westerosi would sing, but a drum like song that the Dothraki enjoyed. The song spoke of war, soldiers marching, and dragons dancing in the air.

Daenerys approaches the wall slowly and realizes there’s writing on the wall, and it’s glowing blue. Instead of being scared, she’s entranced, and walks even closer. The whistling, wind noise becomes even more apparent and an almost visible wind gusts out from the wall and hits her in the chest before she can throw herself away from it.

A voice, not her own, fills Daenerys’s mind, mixing with the drumbeat. Fus, it says. Force. The voice is harsh, but not cold. Almost like a dragon’s voice. How many times had she heard Drogon, Viserion, or Rhaegal call for her?

Another noise, a cracking noise, fills the air and Daenerys whirls around to see the tomb split open. Not giving the draugr the chance to climb from the tomb, she points her hand at the open spots in the lid and releases her fire. The draugr makes an eerie screaming noise as its shield catches on fire.

A fleshless arm reaches up and grabs the side of the tomb to pull itself up, and Daenerys brings her sword down through the arm. The draugr lets out another scream and sits up but she brings back her sword, and swings, cutting the beast’s head off in one stroke. The draugr still moves however, and she throws herself on top of it, flames and all, and screams as she starts stabbing it over and over and over again.

Finally, the draugr stays still and she realizes her screams have turned into sobs. Daenerys looks down at the broken body beneath her and she stands up. She looks at the stone wall. It had done something to her. Made her… stronger. She’d never tried to behead one of her enemies because she never had the strength to do it. Despite being enemies, she didn’t want them to suffer unnecessarily because of her weakness.

And yet… She cut the head off the draugr with one easy swing. Fus. Force. What did that mean? Was she more forceful?

It didn’t disturb her. Daenerys didn’t know why that was, but it didn’t disturb her. The strength didn’t disturb her. Nor did the wall or the visible wind. She looks at the writing. It’s no longer blue but black.

The Dragonstone!

Daenerys looks around the room and notices a chest a few feet away from the tomb. She climbs down from the tomb and moves over to the chest, opens it, and peers inside. A large gray stone sits in the middle of the chest. It’s cracked in the middle but there’s a picture of a dragon and lettering. This has to be what Farengar told her to get.

She lifts it out of the chest and makes an “oomph” noise. It was heavy! She places it carefully in her bag and stares at it warily. Lugging that down the mountain was going to be difficult. Maybe she could get a carriage ride from Riverwood to Whiterun. She looks back in the chest and pulls out a small amethyst and pile of gold. That would help her build her army to return to Westeros. To take it back from Jon.

Jon. She frowns. She hadn’t thought of him much at all today. He’s been constantly on her mind since returning to the world of the living, but not today. Once, but he was lumped in with her other protectors. She couldn’t forget her hatred for him. That burning hatred that would consume him when she returned to take back the throne he stole from her.

Daenerys shoulders the bag and starts up the stairs, hoping there’s a way out that’s quicker than going back through the mountain. Preferably an exit close to Riverwood. She wasn’t sure how long she could carry this stone.

At the top of the stairs, she comes to a stop. There’s… there’s no exit! Stairs that lead to nowhere. A torch hangs over a pedestal and she looks at it. What looks like a snake’s mouth is wrapped around a wooden cylinder. Rope is attached to it. She grabs it and pulls, and the stone around her groans as a boulder slides into the floor. Light appears from the hidden door.

The exhaustion starts to take over again as she walks down the path. There’s a drop and Daenerys groans as she lowers herself to the ground, easing herself down. A cold draft hits her as soon as she hits the ground and she hurries forward despite her exhaustion and the stone holding her down.

It gets colder and colder the closer Daenerys gets to the mouth of the cave. She walks out of the cave and… almost walks off the side of the mountain.

Far, far down below is Riverwood. She can see small lights in the distance. Flickers of warm fires.

Daenerys sighs. It’d take her hours to get down there. She’d better get started.

The stone weighs heavily in her bag.

Notes:

It's been a while but I was asked a few chapters ago if I'd have Daenerys go through certain side quests, the group quests, or would just be doing the main story and the civil war quests. I'm open if people want me to do side quests or the group quests. Aside from the Dark Brotherhood. I can't imagine Daenerys being down for that one.

I'll be definitely going through the main story and civil war quests for the romantic portion of the fic. I'm open to continuing after if anyone has a specific quest they'd like to see Daenerys do.

Chapter 25: The Dragon

Daenerys is panting as she walks through the door of Dragonsreach. She’d offloaded all the extra stuff she looted from the tomb in Riverwood, but that hadn’t gotten rid of the Dragonstone. Oh no, the stone has been on her back since leaving Riverwood. It weighed her down. She has always been small for her age, and the stone was around a quarter of her weight.

She’d been near tears on the way to Whiterun. There were even a few dark moments when she longed to return to Kyris and tell him she couldn’t be the Dragonborn. The only saving grace was the rattling sounds of a carriage and horse hooves on the ground. There’d been a man in the carriage but he didn’t mind if she rode with him, even if they were so close to Whiterun. She didn’t have much gold but it felt amazing to get off her feet.

The cart hadn’t been much help for her when she got to Whiterun. There was only so far the driver would go, and Dragonsreach is farther than any other place in the city. As she walked through the city, she’d thought about Jorah. How many times had he carried something for her? Or Daario. Or Drogo, well, not Drogo. Jon. They’d all taken on her load without complaints. They’d all made her life easier. And now they were all gone, taken from her, or an enemy.

Now she’d have to carry her own loads. The Dragonstone was turning out to be one that she wished she had never agreed to take on, but she is the Dragonborn and she is going to take that seriously. The people of Skyrim would be doomed if she whined about lifting a stone a quarter of her weight. She’d get it to Farengar, huffing and puffing or not.

The heavy doors close behind her and Daenerys gives the last flight of stairs a wary look. She tries to control her breathing and reaches for her water skin. The water feels good on her sore throat and that makes her think of the dry heat of the Dothraki Sea. As much as she loved her Khalasar, she was thankful to be in the much colder Skyrim, but not as cold as the North of Westeros. She and her…

Daenerys presses her lips together. Her children. Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal had all loathed the North. Would Drogon like the cold of Skyrim? It was better than Winterfell, at least.

The thought of her beloved child being a slave to Alduin has Daenerys putting her waterskin back against her hip and start up the stairs with renewed vigor. Her son would not be a slave. Dragons are not slaves. Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor.

At the top of the stairs, Daenerys turns right and heads into Farengar’s study. There’s a woman standing at the desk, peering at a map, with a hood pulled up over her head so Daenerys couldn’t see her face. Daenerys pulls her bag from her back and hefts it up onto the table, the stone makes a loud clunking noise. Farengar grins. “You got it!”

“Yes, it’s right here,” Daenerys pulls it out of the bag and shoulders it again. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I need to study it,” Farengar looks at the woman, who hasn’t even looked up from her map. “I told you she would get it, Delphine. You thought she wouldn’t be able to make it through the barrow.”

The woman shakes her head. “I had no doubts she could make it through the barrow. Only a simpleton couldn’t do it.”

Daenerys grinds her teeth. A simpleton! She was the queen in Westeros and Meereen. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

Farengar doesn’t even take his eyes from the stone. “Well—”

“Farengar!” Irileth runs into the room. “A dragon was seen near the watchtower. Come with me. You too, Daenerys.”

Daenerys frowns as she follows Irileth out the room, with Farengar gleefully chasing after them both. Drogon? Could it be Drogon? If it was Drogon, she’d have to stop them from attacking him. Alduin’s slave or not, she would not allow harm to come to her child.

They rush up the stairs and find Balgruuf standing next to a war table. There’s a soldier there too, panting. “Jarl, there was a dragon circling the tower. I don’t know how I got away. It hasn’t attacked yet but if it does…”

Whiterun wouldn’t be able to repel it. Daenerys took King’s Landing in a day. Less than that. “Do you have scorpion bolts on your city walls?”

Balgruuf, Irileth, Farengar, and the soldier all give her confused looks. She sighs. “Apparently not. They’re the only weapon that can kill a dragon.”

“We can take that thing down,” Irileth sneers at Daenerys. “Swords and spears and bows. We will not watch our city fall. Are you with us or not?”

Daenerys isn’t sure swords and spears and bows will take down the dragon. The smallfolk were lucky during the Dance. They had slaughtered dragons that were tethered. This dragon wasn’t. “I won’t watch your city burn. I’d rather die fighting than cowering.”

“Then go,” Balgruuf nods at her. “Go with Irileth and try to stop that beast. I’ve already called for soldiers to join you two at the gates. We’ll arm the walls as well as we can against it.”

Daenerys’s stomach rolls as she follows Irileth down the stairs. It couldn’t be her son. It couldn’t be Drogon. She’d know it if he was nearby. She’d been able to sense him in Meereen after he killed the child. What would she do if it was Drogon though? She knew she was no match for Irileth.

They race outside and down the stone stairs. Soldiers pass them, heading towards the gates. Irileth leaps down the next flight of stairs and Daenerys takes them two at a time. Her heart is pounding in her ears by the time they get to the gates. There’s a crowd of soldiers muttering to themselves, clearly frightened. “Enough, men,” Irileth stands before them, looking calm. Daenerys envied her. She was sure her pale skin was flushed red and her chest was heaving. “We have to go to the Western Watchtower. We need to stop that damn dragon and defend our people! None of us have ever faced a dragon in battle.”

Not the people in Westeros, Daenerys thought. The Lannisters faced her dragons. One of the soldiers steps forward. “We can’t fight a dragon, Irileth. It’s not possible.”

“Then we will watch everyone in this city die,” Irileth says bluntly. Daenerys respects her for it. “Your families will die. Your friends will die. Everyone will die if we do not stop this dragon. So who will fight at mine and this queen’s side?”

“Yeah!” All of the soldiers raise their swords into the air. “Yeah!”

“With me then,” Irileth faces Daenerys. “Let’s go!”

Daenerys lifts her bow and pulls an arrow from the quiver on her back. She knocks it and then races after Irileth and the soldiers through the doors. This was the first time she’s charged into war like this. Normally she’d be on her dragon. But this felt right.

They run down the hill and to the right once they get past the city walls. Irileth shouts at them, “Look for survivors!”

Smoke rises up from a watchtower to the west. Daenerys can see the fire caused by the dragon. Her eyes scan the sky. There isn’t a dragon there… yet. Irileth leads the charge towards the tower and a man runs out of it as soon as they get there. “No, get back! Get back! The dragon is here. He is here!”

His eyes look demented from fright. Irileth approaches him. “Where is the dragon?”

“He’s… He’s here!”

A dragon roars in the distance and Daenerys’s head jerks up. The dragon is silvery and she breathes a soft sigh. It’s not Drogon, though the silvery color reminded her painfully of Viserion. “Take cover!” Irileth shouts. “Hit it with arrows and bring it down.”

Daenerys knocks an arrow and points it in the direction of the approaching dragon. It pained her to shoot a dragon. They were a symbol of her house. Her children. She was Blood and Fire and so were they. But she couldn’t allow innocent men, women, and children die.

She releases her arrow as the dragon swoops over them. More arrows whiz into the sky and Daenerys throws herself behind a broken bridge to escape the fire. She knew it couldn’t burn her, but she didn’t want the people of Skyrim to know yet.

Mirmulnir, a voice whispers in Daenerys’s head. That was the name of the dragon. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she knew. Another great bout of arrows soar into the sky and she hurries to pull out another arrow.

The dragon, Mirmulnir, turns in the sky. Angōs, Mirmulnir. Daenerys raises her bow again and fires with the rest of the soldiers. Mirmulnir screams in rage and flies to the ground.

“Now!” Irileth screams. “For Whiterun!”

Daenerys rushes forward with them and realizes the silvery dragon is covered in blood from the arrows. Maybe Skyrim dragons do not have as hardy scales as her people’s dragons. Regardless, she lifts her bow, sights, and aims straight for the beast’s eye.

Mirmulnir screams in rage and pain. “Dovahkiin? No!”

Irileth hacks at the dragon with her sword. One of the soldiers with an axe. Another a spear. They stab, hack, shout, cry, and shoot at him with their weapons in a frenzy. It doesn’t take Mirmulnir long to die.

Daenerys can’t help but feel sorry for him and think about the poor souls of the dragons who died in the Dragonpit just like this. Was Mirmulnir a victim like Drogon? She’d never find out now.

The dragon corpse ignites on fire suddenly and they all jump back from it, even Daenerys. The fire glows gold and Daenerys hears the same rushing wind from the barrow. She hears the drums, the dragons dancing, and soldiers marching. This time she’s prepared for it when the fire rushes towards her, filling her.

Fus. Daenerys feels a sudden urge to shout. She turns away from the dragon bones. She opens her mouth. Force! A great surge of blue air escapes her throat as she Shouts. Her body feels light and tingly.

“You’re a Dragonborn!” One of the soldiers shout. Daenerys can’t take her eyes off of the blue air until it disappears. “There hasn’t been one in centuries!”

“Daenerys!” She forces herself to look away and into Irileth’s eyes. The older woman’s eyebrows are furrowed. “You need to go to the castle and tell the Jarl what happened. I have to stay here and help.”

“Okay,” Daenerys says quietly. She felt… good. Nothing compared to this. Not freeing the slaves, not killing all the Khals and becoming Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, not liberating King’s Landing from Cersei… This was what she was born for. This was her destiny. “I’ll go talk to the Jarl.”

She turns towards Whiterun and a great Shout comes from a mountain to the southeast. Daenerys doesn’t know why, but she knows she’s supposed to go there.

Chapter 26: The Stairs

Notes:

Daenerys faces off against a troll in this one!

Daenerys feels like she can’t breathe as she passes another traveler on the stone steps towards High Hrothgar. Finding out the castle is seven thousand steps up hadn’t bothered Daenerys as much as it should have. She’s been running her whole life, and it hadn’t scared her, the idea of running more.

But she hadn’t run at any point on this damned mountain. It had taken her quite a bit of coin to convince the carriage driver to bring her as close to Ivarstead as he could, so that had made this climb easier, but she’d never call it easy.

High Hrothgar must be higher up even than the Wall. She’d felt half frozen on the Wall, but she’d been able to breathe. Not only is she freezing, but she also can’t breathe up here. How do the Greybeards do it? Balgruuf had made it sound like it was an honor to be included amongst the Greybeards, but Daenerys couldn’t imagine who would be willing to make this trek in this suffocating air.

Daenerys stops next to a plant of snowberries and starts picking them. She’d bought an apple pie down in the town, but she’d eaten it during her first break, when she was only about a thousand steps up. She pops the berries in her mouth and keeps on walking. Stopping now isn’t an option. She’d probably die in her sleep if she laid down. It’s so cold.

The berries are sour and hard, but they’re filling, so Daenerys cracks through them and chews. She wishes she’d bought more food down below, and the only thing she has left in her bag is some cheese and bread. And she needs that for her journey back down. All she could think about is how warm that castle is going to be when she gets up there.

What were the Greybeards going to do? Balgruuf hadn’t had much information for her other than the Greybeards live near the top of the mountain in a castle, rarely if ever leave their castle, and they teach people how to Shout. What interested her the most was Balgruuf telling her that it takes most people years to learn even the most basic of the Shouts, and usually only learn one or two before they depart High Hrothgar.

Daenerys already knows one Shout, and she’s excited to learn more of them. How many are there? Is it like commands for a dragon? Would Fus become as easy for her to command as Dracarys is? She already feels like Shouting is as much a part of her as Drogon is. It’s thrilling.

Even more thrilling is knowing her destiny wasn’t to free the world from tyrants at all, or maybe it is, just in a different way. She freed the world from the slavers, tyrants, of Dragon’s Bay. She freed the Dothraki from the Khals. She freed the people of Westeros from Cersei, despite the lack of thank she received, she’s still happy she did it. She will free the people of Skyrim from Alduin, another tyrant.

Maybe Daario had been right. Maybe her place in this world is to save people from tyrants, not rule over them. Rhaego wasn’t the Stallion who Mounts the World. What if she is? The Dragonborn. Daenerys Stormborn. The Mother of Dragons. Mhysa. Mother of Dragons. Mother of Rhaego. Mother of the children she and Jon may have had one day, had he not killed her, because he believed that she may be able to get with child.

Her destiny is to protect. Skyrim. Westeros. Volantis. Old Valyria. What would stop her from flying to wherever she needs on her dragon and saving as many people as she could? She could truly end slavery everywhere in the world, not just Dragon’s Bay.

But all that would happen after she gets justice. Justice for Drogon first, and then justice for herself. Sansa needed to pay for her betrayal, a betrayal only Daenerys had been able to see. Arya for never deigning to speak to her, despite Daenerys naming her the Hero of Winterfell. Bran would see her coming, so he needed to go. Jon for killing her and stealing her throne. And Tyrion… Tyrion would be last. He wasn’t the first to love her…

…And he wouldn’t be the last.

Daenerys hopes that’s true, that someone could still love her after King’s Landing. She knew the way Tyrion looked at her before she killed those people. She hadn’t missed it. Tyrion was in love with her. She loved him too, like Jorah, but And yet he was part of the plot to kill her. She knew it just as much as she knew her own name. Tyrion killed her too.

Popping another couple berries into her mouth, Daenerys turns a corner to the left and instantly freezes when she sees a great white beast walking on the cliff above her to the right. She chokes on the frozen berries and the beast turns towards her. He roars almost as loudly as a dragon’s roar.

Taking a deep breath, as deep as she can in this frigid mountain air, and screams as the beast throws itself to the ground in front of her. It roars again and pounds the ground as it races towards her. Backing up, Daenerys Shouts at him and fumbles for her bow.

The beast, troll, or whatever it is, is knocked back by her Shout but quickly rises to her feet. It ducks her arrow, and she fumbles with another arrow. He’s getting closer! Panic fills Daenerys and she Shouts at him again, louder this time, and he’s knocked back on his side, groaning.

An arrow flies through the air and sticks a foot away from where she was aiming, in the troll’s side. He stands up again, plucking the arrow away as if it was an annoyance and not a deadly weapon. Daenerys looks back the way she came. Everything in her told her to run, to go get help, but she’d only seen two people on the path coming up here. She couldn’t ask them to join her in a fight with a troll. And she’s exhausted. There’s no way she can outrun the troll.

The troll pounds his feet hard against the ground and hits its fists against each other. It’s coming for her. There’s nothing she can do but fight.

Hm…

He’s entirely made up of fur. Fur catches on fire easily… The Shouts don’t make her feel exhausted the way creating fire does. It’s worth a shot.

The troll finally rushes towards her and Daenerys Shouts at him for a third time. He falls back but is ready for it this time, already rising to his feet. What he doesn’t expect is the hot blast of fire that escapes Daenerys’s hands. His hair immediately ignites but the troll doesn’t seem to mind. Daenerys blasts him back with another Shout and then hits him with another round of fire.

It takes three more attacks like this before the troll realizes he’s aflame. He lets out wild screeches and pounds on the ground again, getting closer and closer to the edge of the cliff behind him. Daenerys carefully follows him as the troll rolls on the ground to try to put the flames out. She waits until he’s right at the edge of the mountain before she Shouts again at the same time she blasts him with fire.

The troll’s big brown eyes open wide for just a second before it’s thrown back off of the mountain. Daenerys closes her eyes as she hears a terrible crashing noise below her. She doesn’t wait to see if the troll is still alive and going to try to climb back up. Instead, she hurries around the corner to the right.

It would have been nice if the locals or Balgruuf told her there were trolls up here.

Daenerys walks up a set of stairs around a curve in the mountain and stops when she sees a massive castle ahead of her. It strangely reminds her of Winterfell, except there’s no Godswood and they’re so high up in the mountains that it’s snowing even more than it did when she was in Winterfell. There are fires burning in braziers and she shivers.

Oh, it’ll be so nice to get warm.

She walks up the last set of stairs and spots a chest at the front of the castle. The top of the chest is heavy, and she groans as it creaks open. She reaches into her bag and places the supplies Klimmek had asked her to bring up the mountain. He’s older, and she’s not sure if he would have survived if that troll had attacked him. Gods, she’s not even sure how she survived. Only Shouting had been what saved her, and Balgruuf had made it sound like there were only a small handful of people in Skyrim that could Shout.

Maybe if she stayed in Skyrim for a while before heading back to Westeros, she could bring Klimmek’s supplies up as often as he needs. On the back of Drogon, of course. There was no other option. She had to save her son from Alduin. If Drogon dies…

No, Daenerys couldn’t think of that. She marches up to the great, gray doors and pauses outside of them.

Drogon would live. The two of them would show the Starks and Tyrion the true might of the House of the Dragon.

Chapter 27: The Way of the Dragonborn

The doors swing shut behind Daenerys and she takes a deep breath of the warm, musty air of the castle. There are two burning braziers beside her, and she immediately pulls off her gloves and shoves them into her bag. She’s surprised how warm it is in the castle even with the lit braziers. They’re high in the mountains, and the castle is at least double the height of the Wall in Westeros. She’d nearly frozen solid up there.

Daenerys peers down the short hallway she’s in. The great stone entranceway opens on a chamber that has a platform above it. Braziers line the platform. Open doorways lead down halls to who knows where. It was strangely the warmest, most welcoming place Daenerys has been in, aside from the temple with Kyris. And what had Balgruuf told her?

That few students come to the Greybeards anymore.

That was a shame, a shame that Daenerys hopes to seek rectified if she truly is the Dragonborn. Shouting is something to be revered. It is not something that should be allowed to fade into non-existence, until another Dragonborn shows up. These halls should be full of students learning the old ways of Skyrim, which is something that surprises Daenerys as she thinks it.

It was the old ways of the North and Westeros that Daenerys had wanted to defeat, but the old ways of Skyrim is what she wants to bring back. She doesn’t understand why she feels that way. Maybe it was the lack of disdain for her sex that she loves about Skyrim.

No one looked at her after she revealed that she was the Dragonborn and questioned whether she was strong enough for the role. None of the soldiers lambasted her for being a girl instead of a man. She did not see the fear of the South in their eyes. She did not see the hate of the North in their eyes. All she saw was respect. Awe. Love, even. Kyris, Armek, the rest of the temple. She knew they all love her. Loved her, in the case of Armek.

Daenerys never had love in Westeros, only fear, hatred, and disgust.

Would the Greybeards fear her, hate her, or be disgusted by her? She didn’t think so. It was they who called her here, after all. And she heeded that call. Just as she had heeded the call North in Westeros.

Footsteps approach and Daenerys rises herself to her full height as a robed, hooded figure walks down the stairs leading up to the stone platform. He stops in the center of the chamber, and three other robed men join him. All four of them stare at her and wait for her to approach.

Not one to be shy, not anymore, not since the days Viserys was still alive, Daenerys walks towards the group of men. “I received your summons,” One of them steps out apart from the others. She inclines her head at him respectfully. “I am Queen Daenerys of House Targaryen and Dragonborn of Skyrim. To whom do I speak?”

“I am Arngeir,” He points to the center of the chamber, away from him and the other men. “We believe that you could be the Dragonborn but would like a demonstration. Some train for years to learn only the most basic of Shouts. A Dragonborn should know those Shouts the moment they learn them. Please, demonstrate your ability by striking one of us with your Shout.”

Daenerys frowns at him. “You want me to actually strike you with a Shout? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Arngeir shakes his head. “We have studied the art of Shouts for many years. Unrelenting Force will do no real damage to us. Now, Shout at us!”

“Alright,” She closes her eyes for just a moment before she opens them, stares right at Arngeir, and Shouts. A big just of blue air escapes her mouth and hits Arngeir so hard that he stumbles and hits the man behind him, nearly falling before the other man rights him. “Seven Hells! I’m sorry, I haven’t had much practice at it yet.”

“Don’t be,” Arngeir brushes invisible dust from his sleeves, and Daenerys thinks she can detect a bit of a smile on his face. “We welcome you, Dragonborn. You are the first Dragonborn of this age to come to us.”

Daenerys stares at him. “The first of this age? I thought I was the only Dragonborn alive.”

“You very well may be,” Arngeir inclines his head towards her. “You are certainly the only Dragonborn of this age to come to us to seek guidance. It is possible that there are others, as there were others before you, but they have not come to us to learn as you have.”

“I will need every advantage I can get to destroy Alduin,” And free Drogon, but that is not something Daenerys is ready to tell others. They will think she’s not fully with them if she wants to rescue a dragon instead of killing him. “What do I need to learn?”

Arngeir gestures to the ground, where there was nothing. Daenerys stares at the ground anyway, trying to see whatever it is he’s looking at. She thinks the man might be the slightest bit mad. Not like her father, whose madness turned into cruelty, but the madness of loneliness. It had to be lonely up here with only a few people to keep you company. That was something Daenerys was able to understand perfectly.

“You have learned only the first word of your Shout,” Arngeir gestures from the floor to another one of the robed men. “Master Einarth will now teach you the second word of Unrelenting Force. The third word of Unrelenting Force will come to you in time. We cannot teach you all the Shouts we know right now because it could be detrimental to your health.”

Daenerys nods, even though she wishes that she could learn them all now. This means that she’ll have to traverse those stairs again, often, without a dragon’s mount to guide her. “I’m pleased to learn anything that you have to show me. Together, we will defeat Alduin.”

Einarth steps forward and looks down at the ground Arngeir had been gesturing towards. “Ro.”

The Shout is whispered instead of, well, shouted, and Daenerys stares in shock as the great stone floor cracks. Bright red letters appear before her, and without needing to be gestured towards them, she walks forward until her feet are almost touching the letters. They burn alongside the beat of the drums and soldiers marching. She feels, like she did the first two times, as the soul of dragons surges into her body.

“Now, we want you to hit the targets using both Fus and Ro,” Arngeir rests his hand on Einarth’s shoulder. “Give her a spectral to hit.”

Einarth waves his hand at the place where the ground had cracked, and in its place a blueish form appears. “Remember, Dragonborn, use both Fus and Ro.”

Daenerys knows what she’s supposed to do. She sucks in a big gulp of air and Shouts, “Fus… Ro!”

The spectral disappears the moment the Shout hits it, but not only does it do that, but it also knocks back the other two Greybeards. This time they were thrown farther back than Arngeir had been when she used Fus on him. They even take longer to get up.

“Excellent!” Arngeir smiles at her. “You truly are the Dragonborn. You have only one last trial to face here. Go out with Master Borri into the courtyard.”

Master Borri breaks away from the group and Daenerys reaches into her bag to grab her gloves. She hurries outside with him, and instantly stops when she sees a great big gust of air to the south east. It looks… unnatural, seeing as there is no wind blowing against her.

“Do not worry of it,” Master Borri gestures for her to follow him to a gated area. “That is for you to know after your tests. I will teach you the Shout Whirlwind. You will say Wuld.”

“Wuld,” Daenerys mutters under her breath. “Wuld, I’ve got it.”

Master Borri whispers Shouts the word like Einarth had and it appears in the ground before them, cracking the ground as it had done to the floor in the castle. Daenerys needs no prodding as she steps to the Shout as she did before, enjoying the drum beat as it fills her heart and soul with its music.

Arngeir moves around her and holds his hand up towards the gate, doing another whisper Shout and she watches in awe as the gate opens on its own. There was even a Shout to open a bloody gate! The people of Westeros would never be able to believe what she can do.

“Watch Master Borri, young queen,” Arngeir puts his hand on Daenerys’s shoulder and moves her until she’s beside him. “And then you will do as he does.”

Master Borri walks between two stone statues, looks up at the opened gate, and whisper Shouts, “Wuld!”

He disappears and reappears again right inside the gate. “Seven Hells! How did he do that? He disappeared!”

“No,” Arngeir shakes his head. “He did not disappear. He was merely moving so fast that your eye was not quick enough to see him. You can do it as well. Remember, Wuld.”

Daenerys moves between the two statues and stares at the reopened gate. She closes her eyes again, opens them, and Shouts, “Wuld!”

The air bursts from Daenerys’s lungs as her body surges forward and almost off the side of the mountain. It takes her a few seconds of breathing in big gulps of fresh mountain air before she starts to feel normal again. “Arngeir. What did you see just now?”

“A blur,” Arngeir hurries towards her. “A blue colored blur as you moved effortlessly through the air, though next time we will not practice this Shout anywhere close to where you can fall off the mountain. Now, your final test is to go retrieve something for our leader. Come. You must be freezing.”

Strangely, Daenerys isn’t freezing. She’s exhilarated. She couldn’t wait to show off her Shouts to the peoples of both Skyrim and Westeros.

Chapter 28: Ustengrav

Notes:

Warnings for this chapter include violence.

The air of Ustengrav is thick and musty, and Daenerys lowers herself towards the ground so she can catch a breath. There’s a dead bandit just inside the door, and there had been three other dead bandits outside at their camp. Only one was alive, and he’d been so injured it hadn’t been much of a challenge for her to kill him.

Someone is in here. Possibly many someones. Daenerys is grateful to have another Shout on top of her first one. It would help her get away quickly, and the image of someone shooting through space and time would likely shock enough people that she would be able to kill them easier.

Daenerys doesn’t get too far down the long, descending hallway before she came upon another dead bandit. That brings the total dead up to five that she hadn’t killed, so either the man she killed outside had killed all of them, or there were more men down in this ruin.

Or something else.

She couldn’t rule out something else. A giant spider. A bear. Draugr. There was any number of disgusting, foul creatures here that could have killed a host of men.

To the left Daenerys can see some stairs, but through the gloom ahead of her she can see two people wearing long robes. She sneaks up to a pillar in the middle of the room and steps over the corpse of yet another bandit. There’s a chunk of concrete beside the tower, and a thin spot between the tower and concrete where Daenerys can peek through and see the two mages walking around.

Slowly, Daenerys pulls an arrow from her sheath and sights. The man would be more difficult to kill, so she waits until he walks back in her line of sight before she lets the arrow fly. It is a little lower than she had been aiming, but the arrow buries itself deep into the bottom of his neck, and the man reaches to try to yank out the bow, but he falls to the ground, making a disgusting choking noise as he flounders on the ground.

The woman mage doesn’t give the man a second glance as she charges around the pillar towards Daenerys. Daenerys waits until she sees the swish of black robes before she unleashes fire against the mage. The cloak catches on fire and the woman squeals as she tries to put it out, giving Daenerys enough time to burry her dagger into her throat.

Daenerys checks the flight of steps she’d passed when she walked into the room first, but there’s nothing up there except a couple of potions. She grabs them before she checks the area where the mages were. There are bits of food on the table that she takes, but inside a chest is the real treasure. An amethyst sits nestled in a small pile of gold. She takes all of it. When she returns to Westeros, she will need an army that can rival the Dothraki and Unsullied she lost when she died.

The Unsullied… Grey Worm… Daenerys doesn’t know where he went. Naath, perhaps. She wants to know if he’s okay. Or did Jon kill him? That thought makes her sick, so she forces herself to keep moving. She needs to find the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller and get out of here before her memories consume her.

The way forward is blocked by a cave in, alongside the bodies of two more bandits, so she turns to the left and goes down a narrow path until she finds the body of another mage.

What happened here?

Daenerys does not get far past the body when she hears someone scream, a woman, and Daenerys has to ignore every single instinct in her body screaming at her to go help. The noise is followed by a draugr snarl, and the scream ends. A mage, or a bandit, Daenerys hopes. Someone who would have tried to kill her.

There’s another snarl from a draugr and Daenerys can hear it coming around the corner towards her. She waits until it rounds the corner before she blasts it with fire. The draugr goes down instantly.

When she steps into the next room, she finds two mages face down in pools of blood. She grabs the potions from behind them and shoves them into her bag before continuing down the hallway. Two more sets of corpses meet her.

Halfway down the next path, Daenerys steps as a door leads off to the right, and another going forward. She’s not sure which one would be the safer path, or the correct path. Through the door to the door forward however, she can see a bridge leading across the top of the room, and she can’t see what’s down below. It’s a bad reason to move forward instead of down, but she doesn’t have a map of the building.

As soon as she steps foot into the large room, four coffins burst open, and Daenerys raises her hands before the first draugr can even step foot out of its coffin. It falls quickly, but the other three converge on her.

One tries to blast Daenerys with a wave of ice, but she throws herself behind a stone statue and waits for them to come to her, just as she had done with the two mages at the start of the ruin. As soon as the first of the three draugr steps around the side of the statue, she blasts it in the face with fire. The other two draugr, stupid in death, stepped around the first draugr’s body and both got more blasts of fire due to it.

Daenerys slips over one of the draugr’s bones and stumbles as she tries to walk across the room to a flight of stairs. The other coffins remain closed, so she rushes up the stairs.

There’s a door there, and she quickly steps through, pausing as soon as she’s through the door, however. There’s a breeze blowing a torn up black flag not too far ahead of her. How can there be a breeze so far underground?

She winds around several flights of steps before a single draugr approaches her in a low-ceilinged room. She quickly dispatches it before hurrying down another long hallway and another flight of stairs.

There’s oil on the ground in the next room she enters, and a coffin breaks just ahead of the oil. A draugr steps free from the coffin, and Daenerys waits until it’s sliding in the oil before she ignites her side on fire. The draugr looks up at her just as the fire starts to ignite it and he says, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

It laughs as its bones fall to the ground and Daenerys stares at them, horrified. She’s heard them make noises before, but nothing like this. The thing laughed as it died! Seven fucking hells. She wants to get out of here.

Daenerys leaves this room and down another hallway, turns right, and stops when she sees two very large trees reaching up into the air. Light shines down on them from a hole in the ceiling, and she takes a deep breath of air. It’s amazing. How beauty can still exist in a hole in the ground. Those trees have fought for years and years, longer than she’s been alive, to exist. Against all odds, like her. Those trees are her.

There is a narrow path leading down, and Daenerys hurries down it and across a stone bridge. She takes one last fond look at the trees before she steps into another room. This time there are three small stone statues, and a gate blocks the way forward. A skeleton attacks her and she quickly gets rid of it with her fire.

There are no chains around the gates. Daenerys frowns and steps past one of the stone statues, which doesn’t seem to be able to move like the ones at the barrow had. The stone lights up, red, and one of the gates opens. She steps past the second one and it too lights up, and the second gate opens, but the first closes right after it does.

Hm. Daenerys doesn’t know if she’ll have time to get through those gates. Even if she runs, she might get sawed in half when they slide back through, and that is a fate she’s not willing to suffer.

Wait, the Shout. The Shout the Greybeards taught her, but even then… It might not be quick enough.

What if she runs? It was the only thing she can think of, so she crouches behind the first stone, staring intently at the gates.

And she runs.

And Shouts.

And the gates open.

Her body surges forward, taking the breath out of her lungs, and she finds herself safely on the other side.

The gates slide shut behind her, but Daenerys doesn’t give them a second look as she rushes up the stairs. She comes upon a room that she knows is the resting place of the Horn. And as she starts walking towards the throne, great chunks of stone rise up through the water beside the walkway.

For the first time since being killed by Jon and waking up in Skyrim, Daenerys feels like a queen as she ascends the steps towards the throne. There’s a dead draugr next to the throne, and in front of it is a great stone table full of ancient cups and bowls that would have amazed her when she was a child.

There is a pedestal, but there isn’t a horn on it. Instead, there’s a note.

Daenerys frowns at it and picks it up. The note is for… her. Because of course it is. She sighs and reads it through twice before she sets it on fire.

A “Friend” stole the horn right out from under her. She looks at the draugr. It doesn’t take much to kill them. So the person who took the horn might not be someone she should fear, but then she remembers all the bandits and mages that were dead when she arrived. It took someone with skill to kill all of them. Maybe far more skilled than she is.

The friend wanted Daenerys to meet them at an inn in Riverwood. She remembers it, and would this friend be foolish enough to attempt to murder Daenerys at a public inn? Maybe. Maybe not.

It doesn’t matter. She needs that horn, and she’s going to get it.