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When everyone else – even Jorah – is asleep, Daenerys stirs from under her covers and leaves the tent, only to be faced with a sky littered with stars and the wide expanse of the Red Wastes before her encampment. She steadies herself, gazing at the endlessness that was her biggest obstacle keeping the Iron Throne from her reach.
She wonders, briefly, if anyone did care she was alive. Daenerys looks around suddenly, as if worried someone might overhear her quiet, rushed thoughts; she would never allow herself to sink into such self-doubt before her people. Not even Jorah Mormont, the man who would die for her.
Daenerys takes a few steps, and then begins to walk towards –
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- her son’s bedroom, stopping only at his doorstep for fear of waking him. The shadows are Cersei’s cover; the guards mutter to themselves distractedly, fighting fatigue and a fear of being executed by Joffrey’s hand. She watches the door, trying to see through it into the room beyond where her eldest boy is sleeping; she wonders what he dreams of, if he even dreams at all.
A cold gust of wind rushes down the corridor through the nearby open window and Cersei wraps her arms around herself. She suddenly thinks of Jaime and wishes he were here, telling her to stop worrying so much because we’re Lannisters, and we are stronger than anyone else but Jaime is not there, he is nowhere near her. Somewhere in a distant land, Catelyn and Robb Stark are torturing Jaime – Cersei knows this without a touch of doubt in her grimace.
She swears revenge –
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- upon the ones who destroyed her family, driving the Targaryens either out of the land or to their deaths, the ones who left her with nothing but a brother whose life ended with a shameful crowning - and deservedly so, she thinks to herself. Daenerys cradles Drogon in her arms, listening to the little dragon calling out to her. She responds, stroking the dragon tenderly like any mother would her child.
“They have taken everything,” Daenerys whispers, and Drogon falls silent when his mother begins to speak. “But I will take it all back. I don’t know how, but I will. I am a Targaryen. I am…”
She stops abruptly and Drogon watches her, still silent and ever so attentive. Daenerys lets out a sharp sigh, tight with frustration and fear and everything she fights hard to keep shrouded from view in the daylight. She is at least thankful for little dragons in her midst; they remind her of many things – her husband, her destiny, her great power. It makes her feel less small and –
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- it is then she realizes that her children give her strength. Myrcella, Tommen and even Joffrey – Cersei knows that if her heart should stop beating for Jaime it will not stop for her children, blood of her blood, and she rests in the shadows, feeling stronger for some reason. She pulls away from Joffrey’s chambers, as soundlessly as she can, and walks down the winding corridors to nowhere in particular. The Iron Throne is as good as hers, she tells herself, and she has the power to protect her children no matter the cost.
Cersei watches the horizon, eyes following the sun in the east. As its light cloaks King’s Landing in proud gold, so Cersei believes it envelopes her. She closes her eyes, breathes in the air around her and feels the tiny tremble in her hands as a new day begins, as enemies and allies rise from deep slumber.
She is not afraid –
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- at least not where she can see her enemies in plain sight. Daenerys rises from her position, placing Drogon back in his cage. She hears the sound of booted feet behind her, stamping on the dry, cracked ground.
“Khaleesi, you rose early,” Jorah’s voice brings her back to the present reality that is the waste before, behind and around them. “I was wondering where you went.”
“I just had to check on them,” Daenerys says, steeling herself. She turns and meets his eyes boldly. He smiles slightly at her with a touch of admiration and adoration.
“Where to, Khaleesi?”
Daenerys looks at the sun, peeking out at her like a playful child. When she feels its warmth and remembers the heat of the fire that cannot kill her, she returns Jorah a smile of her own.
“Onward. We go on.”
She is not afraid.