Chapter Text
Dany
The queen speaks with a voice steady as Drogon's flight, but as powerful as his fire. "Leave me."
Daenerys towers above her advisors despite her short stature, a magnificent and terrifying queen, fingers splayed out on the table between her and them. Her silvery hair hangs to her waist in thick, complicated braids studded with bells for every victory she has claimed: against the Masters and the Volantenes, against Cersei Lannister, the khals she subdued to create her great khalasar, and even the Long Night. But she could not destroy one magi's curse upon her womb.
The small council stands in unison. They recognize her tone, the same one she uses to raze cities and burn Masters. Grandmaester Marwyn heads first for the door, taking the lead as the one who had born the news that put Queen Daenerys in such a state. Lord Varys and Lady Margaery Tyrell and all the others file out as quiet and slow as they dare.
Missandei squeezes Dany's hand with a gentle smile, consoling to her as a friend and not a counselor. Their eyes meet, and Dany knows that the translator will be waiting for her outside. She nods in affirmation of her thanks before Missandei turns to joining the leaving crowd.
"Not you, Lord Hand."
Tyrion Lannister stops his shuffle and pivots to face the queen. He does not follow the other members of her council, but also does not move from his place in the center of the room, either. He stares at her, awaiting her next careful pronouncement. Any motion might spark her ire and she knows he likes his head where it is.
She closes her eyes with all the other backs turned to her, releasing a slow, quiet breath. She would not kill Tyrion, her closest Westerosi companion, but she might speak out of turn if she does not think over her words and decisions. Tyrion reels her in from her worst impulses and advises her towards justice and fairness. Together, they are reshaping the Seven Kingdoms: laying brick across the kingsroad, gold road, and rose road, building glass gardens in every town to prepare for the next long winter, funding orphanages and poorhouses, and so much more. She needs Tyrion in his understanding, and he needs Dany in her right mind.
Once Missandei has evacuated the chamber, Tyrion speaks. "Yes, my queen?"
"You will speak to the High Septon immediately upon leaving me." She commands, the full plan formulating in her mind. This plan came to her late the night before, after Marwyn confirmed her long-held suspicions. Her mind reeled through the list of those who would are fit to fulfill the role she expected for herself, and only one woman stands in the crowd. The plan's steps are simple, even as the process is not. She will have what she needs by the year's end. "You will explain that your wedding to Sansa Stark was a marriage in name only, wholly unconsummated, and will ask him to annul the union. If he questions this, tell him it is my express desire that he fulfill your request."
"Why, Your Grace?" Tyrion steps back towards the table. "And what if my wife would like to continue our state of matrimony?"
"If she wished that, Lady Stark would sign her correspondence as Lady Lannister, and she would be here or at Casterly Rock, not in the North." Daenerys scoffs, a smirk playing on her lips. Tyrion complains often of his awkward state as a not-quite-married man, and now he questions ending that uncomfortableness. He is shrewd, and she can see the thoughts roiling in his mind as he realizes why this is her first request after the grandmaester's pronouncement. "I will arrange for a suitable bride to be your new Lady Lannister, fear not."
"If I may be so bold, it is quite strange that your first consideration upon this news is to worry over my marital state." Tyrion sighs and steps back to his specially designed chair. Small steps lead up to the top so that the Hand need not make an undignified lift into his place at her table.
Daenerys looks down the long table at him with her darkened purple eyes. "It is not your status that I ponder upon, but that of Lady Stark. She will be free to become a Princess of the Realm without her ties to your House."
Tyrion's eyes widened, but he looks mostly unsurprised. He pauses a moment, as if waiting for her to continue. Finally, he gives in to her stony silence. "You mean to marry her to Jon Snow."
"Jacaerys Targaryen." She emphasizes, using the Valyrian name Lyanna Stark gave to her son. "To continue my line, to end the curse upon this house, I must. Catelyn Tully proved to be quite fertile, and I am told her daughter is identical to her likeness, but perhaps even more beautiful. Lady Sansa has familial ties to the Riverlands, the North, and the Eyrie, and great friendship with the Stormlands and the Reach. She is perhaps the most influential woman in my kingdoms other than myself. If I tie her to the crown, I tie them all to my crown." Daenerys explains, her eyes fixed in the dark, hollow gaze that has captured them often since the Battle beyond the Wall.
She long dreamed of the day Jacaerys, tall and dark and brooding but entirely Targaryen, would finally come to King's Landing to wed her. Her handsome nephew is wise and experienced, a warrior and leader whose people follow and fight for with pure devotion. She offered him the throne when they first met, but he insisted on going North to help rebuild his mother's family's home. Jacaerys would have been a wonderful King to share the burden of the crown.
But she can not give him the heirs necessary for a dynasty.
Several maesters have all confirmed that Daenerys is barren and will be until the end of her days. Miri Maz Duur has left her brand upon Dany. That tragedy has forever seeped into her skin and soul, but it does not mean that House Targaryen must die out, not after all she has fought for.
"They view each other as siblings, my queen." Tyrion's voice holds a certain edge, one she can comprehend but did not care for. "They will not be pleased."
"I do not care whether they will be pleased. It is past time Jaecerys comes home." She breathes heavily, curls her fingers, and braces her fists against the table. "And as for the other matter, it is all the more Targaryen of them. It was the obligation of the eldest son to marry the eldest daughter for generations before the Age of Aegon."
Silence. And then, he speaks. "As you wish."
Tyrion shuffles from the room in that way of his, leaving the queen utterly alone. The chamber is as her heart felt- empty. Finally, she lets the tears fill her purple eyes and spill onto her cheeks and the table.
For so long she has dreamed of marrying her nephew, of having a family again, someone who is hers alone. His kindness and love in the Long Night filled her with such joy and the strength to persevere. They spent many a night together, wrapped in furs and piled besides dimly glowing embers, sharing stories of their childhoods and how they came to be leaders and rulers of different kingdoms. He offered her his kingdom for her support, even though she offered hers to him. She taught him about their family, all the stories she knows, and in exchange he taught her everything he knew about her realm and the lords and ladies she meant to lead.
Aegon had two sisters, as she had two brothers, but they were both now dead and gone. Dany's gut tightens and the tears come faster. Jacaerys is hers by right and birth, because they were both Targaryens, because they are of the same blood, because he is all she had left. Yet he is being stolen from her like Rhaegar was stolen from Elia Martell, by some Northern girl who could bear his children. Though she willingly gives him away, he is still someone she craves and needs, someone who belongs with her like clouds to the sky.
Her visions are gone. There will be no castle full of white-haired, purple-eyed little children named Rhaegar and Aegon and Rhaella and Visenya. Those children belong to Sansa Stark now; they will be hers to name for her Northern ancestors if she so wishes. They will have long faces and red hair, Stark or Tully with perhaps a little of the blood of Old Valyria; grey eyes or blue, it made no difference.
There would be little fire left in their blood.
A mounting anger burns within, great and terrible. Sansa Stark will share a bed with her lord husband, bear her children, mother her heirs.
She likes the girl enough when they met in the War for the Dawn, with her kind smiles and gentle way with managing the mounting tensions between Daenerys' blood riders, kos, and allies and the Northern lords. She managed the household supplies and castle defenses, distributions among the Northern refugees and the hordes of Dothraki that came to the Realm's aid.
But there was something steely about Sansa Stark, a quiet fierceness beneath her courtly coat. Rumor said she manipulated her unlawful husband, Harrold Hardyng, into slaying Petyr Baelish for his treasons against the Vale and the North. She maintains that sway still among the lords who serve her brother, and while Tyrion's arrival in Westeros ended her marriage with Lord Hardyng, she still holds friendships and sway with the Lords of the Vale. If anyone threatens her family or her people, that coldness comes bearing down on her newfound enemies like the headman's sword on Lord Stark's neck.
Daenerys needs Sansa Stark's womb, but she wants no wolves. The Northern wench best know her place, she thinks, wiping the tears from her cheeks, or there she will know the true meaning of fire and blood.