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Three days after death
"What is that you'd ask of me?"
She makes that question to the witch who has resurrected her, three days after death. Dany has not time to figure out what she feels about that, neither does she regarding death.
Kinvara smiled that devious smile. "As a woman of faith, I'd ask that you follow your purpose, Daenerys Stormborn. But as a woman…" Wide green eyes flickered and they turned somber. "... Do revenge."
***
It'll take time for her to complete the task, mainly because Dany does not feel like it. It was not that she was not enraged — every time she captured sight of the horrid scar of betrayal she gained in her chest, fury swirls in the center of her chest, swallowing her whole. It's like she wants to get clean of the memories but no amount of wiping would do. She's been marked — like a defeated Khal whose braid had been cut.
Dany also lost them, each of them. Part of the ritual, she was told.
After a time, she decides she will not grow her hair that long ever again. It is a sign of defeat at first but eventually, it’s the practicality of it that she comes to appreciate.
That word becomes a constant — practical.
So does she.
***
Two years after death
Death is cold and has robbed her of her flame, so some say. Those who had known Daenerys before death. Daario, for once, was the first to say so, eager for vengeance and the reckoning that never came. She had barely returned his passion before; now she had even less reason to. Still, she acknowledged that he had been loyal when it mattered.
Torgo Nudho, when he stood before her once again, thought and said the same, though he too had changed. They both missed the link that used to bind them...
Dany bids him farewell and gives him one last command before she turns and doesn't see him again:
"Be free and happy, friend of mine..."
***
Four years after death
Wars are never-ending, and she beckons them with her power.
Her son.
They look upon their bond as that of a man and his sword, not a mother and her child. But the call of battle is compelling, a summons that comes from within her as much as from without.
Her sins weigh on her. She thinks back on King's Landing often and sees her actions as that of a woman driven by an external force. The possibility of poison crosses her mind but it was a waste of time altogether. The deed was done. By her.
She has to atone for the souls lost to the fire.
Dany was punished for it but she comes to think that retribution was lacking in the form of execution, for her death brought no justice to the world. That was the worst of it — that her death had changed so little, and meant only the rise of a cowardly man and his contemptible kin.
She knows she has a right to reclaim justice for herself... There is an invisible thread still tying her to him, and the more Daenerys ignores it, the stronger it pulls, and the deeper it cuts into her until she bleeds internally from its wound.
If she could, she would sever it.
And she will — but not yet. Not until her duty is served in the East... not until she has amounted enough souls to atone for those she burned.
***
Five years after death
He comes to Pentos, unaware he's sent as an unwilling gift of peace.
Tyrion Lannister had become a liability to the rule of his chosen king — a king broken but not without his wits.
"H-how?" Tyrion stammered, stumbling backward onto the floor, his eyes wide with shock as they beheld Daenerys — alive, or something close to it.
She was warned by the flames.
"An act of divine will, both times," Dany answers, incapable of suppressing a devious smirk of her own.
Tyrion fumbled for words, trying to talk his way out of the doom he felt creeping toward him. But his babbling only worsened his plight, for Daenerys had no desire to hear him speak.
She doesn't even respect the imp enough to hold a grudge.
In the end, she tells him to leave for feels below her to grant Bran Stark his wish.
Tyrion fled the mansion, scurrying into a lonely alley.
There, he meets Daario Naharis again.
Therein lies his true debt.
***
Eight years after death
Peace had come, but she was unworthy of it — or so the gods deemed, for they sent him back into her life to shatter it.
Dany is planting trees, one particularly green sapling outside the stone house she now calls home when she turns around and finds him standing there.
Jon Snow.
Aegon Targaryen.
Her nephew.
Her killer.
He stands still, as if caught off guard not the other way around.
Slowly, he draws his sword.
Her heart leaps.
Jon lays the blade at her feet.
Then he kneels.
***
Ten years after death
Time keeps running. The trees grow, strong and beautiful. But dwellers don't get any younger.
Jon remains.
They do not speak of that day when he knelt before her with his sword at her feet. There were no words, only an understanding — a surrender, not to her but to the bond that had tethered them across life, and now death.
He tends the horses, repairs the walls, and follows her wherever the winds of her duty call her. Not once has Jon tried to explain his choices, his reasons for plunging a knife into her heart all those years ago. And Dany certainly does not ask.
She has seen in his eyes what she needed to know — the regret, the weight of it that bent his spine the same way it keeps haunting her soul.
It is not enough… it never will be.
Now, they are simply two shadows walking in a world that doesn's belong to them anymore. She still fights, not for thrones or kingdoms, but for the souls she has yet to repay.
Jon stays by her side, wielding his sword.
It seems something out of a song.