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Published:2020-04-25Updated:2026-04-06Words:409,591Chapters:71/?Comments:5,535Kudos:6,019Bookmarks:1,659Hits:466,902
The Stormborn and the Stormbringer
SkilledWarriorKiwi
Chapter 11: Queen
Chapter Text
Daenerys licked at her fingers, still coated in the caramel seasoning of the honeyed nuts she'd just eaten. She was seated up within the terrace garden of the Great Pyramid, in the sun of the balcony overlooking the city. From that height she could see the whole city with its the narrow winding alleys and wide brick streets, the temples and granaries, hovels and palaces, brothels and baths, gardens and fountains, the great red circles of the fighting pits. And beyond the multi-coloured brick walls was the pewter sea, the winding Skahazadhan, the dry brown hills, burnt orchards, and blackened fields until they were lost to the horizon.
Up in the lush garden overlooking everything Daenerys almost felt like a god. Lost in the highest mountain in the lonely garden. Ghidorah had claimed the peak of the Great Pyramid as his perch but now he was soaring over the newly named Dragon's Bay, golden scales sparkling even from such a distance.
Missandei had told her of Naath's god, the Lord of Harmony. Who created the moon and stars and all the creatures that dwelled within the world. Who created the butterflies to guard the people of Naath, their poison making any would-be conqueror sicken and die while the natives walked free. It seemed a lonely story to Daenerys; with Westeros there were seven gods though Viserys had once said to her that some septons believed the seven to simply be seven aspects of a singular being, like the facets of a jewel. Then there was the red priests, who believed in the fire god who was locked on constant combat against the Great Other, the two gods of the faith of Essos. Daenerys disliked that one, as the idea of being in constant war was exhausting.
And thinking of the fiery god made her think of the odd maegi Quaithe and her warning of R'hllor and those who worshipped Him. The idea she may be under a gods gaze, of any god but especially one with less than pleasant intentions, made her uneasy.
Her brooding was interrupted by Missandei's soft footsteps as the handmaiden served her duck eggs and dog sausage, with half a cup of sweetened wine mixed with the juice of a fresh lime. Flies bothered her but a scented candle drove most of them back. There were a lot less so high within the Great Pyramid.
"I must do something about the flies," Daenerys mused, "Are there many flies at Naath?"
"On Naath there are butterflies," the scribe responded in the Common Tongue. "More wine?"
Daenerys thought a moment before shaking her head, the four bells chiming in her hair, "No, I will hold council soon and must be clear headed. Of Naath, do you wish to return Missandei?"
"This one is content to stay with you, Your Grace. Naath will be there, always. You are good to this- to me."
"And you to me." Daenerys said, taking Missandei gently by the hand as she rose, "Come help me dress."
Today she wore a flowing white dress made from a fine fabric that seemed to shimmer when she moved, with a crimson sash across the front to be tied at one side of her hip and then around her waist. For her head was a golden crown, made from a hacked off piece of the golden harpy which had once stood upon the top of the Great Pyramid and forged into the likeness of three dragon heads. Tiny rubies were inlaid as eyes for the crown. However when Missandei showed her a mirror Daenerys was still unsure; to her she still looked like a young woman, barely more than a girl, much less a conqueror or a queen.
Daenerys pushed that aside, straightening her back as she made her way down a level to her audience chamber. It was a large, echoing room that had a throne in the form of a harpy which she'd ordered destroyed for the wood. A simple bench of polish ebony was her current throne and was cold against her backside and legs as she settled down upon it with her council and Queensguard gathered. Occasionally she caught a brief flash of sensation from her child, a distant feeling of wind flowing over wings or fish squirming within a fanged mouth.
Her bloodriders were waiting for her with silver bells tinkled in their oiled braids, and they wore the gold and jewels and exotic pelts of dead men. Meereen had been rich beyond imagining so even her sellswords were sated. At least for now. Across the room Grey Worm wore the plain blackened leather uniform of the Unsullied, his spiked cap tucked beneath one arm. Brown Ben Plumm as well, solid Ben with his grey-white hair and weathered face, then Daario beside him all glittering in gold with his brightly dyed beard and hair. Daario and Ben Plumm, Grey Worm, Jorah and Barristan.
Most of the Unsullied were occupied with enforcing peace or removing the dead which littered the streets. 'Dead men's revenge' Daario had referred to the swarms of flies at their last council meeting once peace began to settle. Meereen had been sacked savagely, as new-fallen cities always were, but Daenerys was determined that should end now that the city was hers which meant the people were as well. She had decreed that murderers were to be hanged, that looters were to lose a hand, and rapists their manhood. Eight killers swung from the walls while the Unsullied had filled a bushel basket with bloody hands and severed cocks, but Meereen was calm again. But it would take time, Daenerys knew.
"How many seek audience this morning?" she asked.
Daario answered her, "Two have presented themselves to bask in your radiance. Upon a trading ship called Indigo Star, which came from Qarth."
She scowled. Trade was typically talk for slavers.
"The Star's master and one who claims to speak for Astapor."
"Send the envoy first."
Said envoy was a scrawny man with a nervous air, pale faced with necklaces of pearls and spun golden silks hanging from his neck. She watched him grovel and praise her from her perch upon the ebony stool even as the man, Ghael, informed her of the Astapor revolt where her original council had been killed by a butcher called Cleon who now ruled the city as its king much to her dissatisfaction despite Ghael's attempts at reassurance.
"Your Worship, those snakes betrayed your trust," Ghael insisted, "It was revealed that they were scheming to restore the Good Masters to power and to return the freed people to chains. Great Cleon exposed their nefarious plots and hacked their heads off with a cleaver and the grateful folk of Astapor have crowned him as king for his valour."
Missandei, standing close to her side, whispered in Daenerys' ear, "He was a butcher in Master Grazdan mo Ullhor's kitchen and was said to be able to slaughter a pig faster than any man in Astapor."
Daenerys shifted uneasily in her silks before reminding herself that just because Cleon came from humble beginnings it did not mean ill for Astapor, especially if her original council did indeed turn upon the freemen who stayed behind. So instead she said, "I will pray that King Cleon rules well and wisely. Has he sent you as a greeting?"
Ghael hesitated, darting a glance at her Queensguard arranged before her throne and then the Unsullied guards standing at the sides of the room, before saying, "Perhaps a more private audience, Your Radiance?"
"I have no secrets from my captains and commanders." Daenerys replied.
"As you wish. Great Cleon bids me declare his devotion to the Mother of Dragons," Ghael pressed a thin hand against his breast, "Your enemies are his enemies, he says, and chief among them are the Wise Masters of Yunkai who are rising up to fight against you. He proposes a pact between Astapor and Meereen, against the Yunkai'i."
"I swore no harm would come to Yunkai if they freed their slaves."
"Those Yunkish dogs cannot be trusted, Your Radiance," Ghael insisted, "Even now they plot against you, as they established their masters and those back in chains naught but days after you left. New levies have been raised and can be seen drilling outside the city walls, warships and siege weaponry are being built, envoys have been sent to New Ghis and Volantis in the west, to make alliances and hire sellswords. They have even dispatched riders to Vaes Dothrak to bring a khalasar and the horse lords down upon you. Great Cleon bid me tell you not to be afraid. Astapor remembers. Astapor will not forsake you, silver queen. To prove his faith Great Cleon offers to seal your alliance with a marriage."
"Marriage? To me?"
Ghael smiled and she fought the urge to grimace as the man said, "Great Cleon will give you many strong sons."
I already have the strongest son anyone could hope to have, Daenerys thought angrily but Missandei came to her aid before she could utter a word.
"Pray tell, honoured guest, did Cleon's first wife give him many sons?" the golden eyed scribe asked.
The envoy flashed her a sour look. "Great Cleon has three daughters by his first wife with two of his newer wives being with child. But he means to put all of them aside if the Mother of Dragons will consent to wed him."
"How very noble of him," Daenerys said bitingly, "I will consider what you said."
With that she dismissed Ghael, sending him to one of the quarters below in the Great Pyramid before she brooded upon the problem. If Yunkai was rising up in rebellion then she could not simply move on from Meereen as no doubt the freemen would want to follow her to avoid being enslaved the moment she left the city with her army. Even if she emptied every granary in Meereen she couldn't feed such a host all the way to Westeros, it was why she had to win Meereen so swiftly.
The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed, and danger. Ser Jorah had warned her of that. While the slavers needed to be punished she'd forgotten she simply couldn't expect everyone to obey her orders. She'd left Yunkai mostly untouched because she'd made the momentous mistake of believing the Masters would keep their word and now look at what had happened.
When she sent for the captain it was with the hope he would bring better news but it was much the same. The sons of the highborns had been seized by Cleon to be the new Unsullied, with each pyramid a training camp and markets bare of food. The captain was also Qartheen, which added the revelation most thought she'd killed the Thirteen herself.
If I could truly throttle thirteen grown men with my bare hands in such a quick manner I would be without any enemies, Daenerys thought to herself. She briefly felt a flash of feelings from her child, the odd sensation of salt water sliding over wings before she was back to sitting upon the cold ebony bench. When she dismissed the captain she was still in a surly mood.
One of the following orders she made was to begin replanting the burnt crops the masters had seared in their retreat and find those among the freemen who could count and write for her to tally the treasury. She'd already ordered a score of dedicated Unsullied to guard the vaults to deter thieves. If the city grew low upon food, especially with her host swelling the numbers, chaos would reign in the streets. Live stock were more easily replenished but people could not just survive on meat without falling ill.
It was nearing the afternoon when she retired for the evening. She had barely strayed from the audience room either way, mostly pouring over the mind numbing logistics of feeding everyone before hunger set in. Daario's recounts of people eating others flesh didn't exactly help even if Daario did just seem to be trying to warn her of what could happen if the food ran out. Same with Jorah's advice. Only once did the idea of her actually entertaining Cleon's marriage pact come about and Daenerys angrily confronted it.
"I was already sold in marriage once," Daenerys snapped, "I will never do so again."
There was a fairly long silence after that and Daenerys dismissed herself by sweeping out of the room in a swirl of fabrics. It was fairly immature for her to stomp off but the idea of being forced into marriage ever again was more than she could stand. She ended back in the garden terrace, surrounded by the lush green and colourful flora with their sweet scents.
The following days were just as exhausting.
It came with the revelation the masters where fighting her from the shadows now, after she was given a report of one of the Unsullied soldiers with his throat slit ear to ear. Found in an alley with a bloodied harpy drawn upon the bricks above his corpse. Daenerys had been less than pleased at finding about the knives in the dark now awaiting her.
'Sons of the Harpy', they called themselves. Until the soldier they had targeted the freedmen, killing them in the streets or murdering them in their beds in the dead of night. Now they'd grown bold enough to target the Unsullied.
I am still at war, Daenerys scowled, only now I am fighting shadows.
She had hoped for a respite from the killing, for some time to build and heal. But as Barristan said this would not be the first of her soldiers to die to the harpy's claws. She gave the order to Grey Worm that none of her soldiers would walk alone now, even off duty. Instead they must remain vigilant, to root out the infestation and to guard their backs. Barristan also helped her in that aspect, pointing out the Unsullied were soldiers. They were built, trained, grown, to fight in wars and to slough through the battlefield. Not to unravel secrets. Same for her Dothraki, even if she was currently without her tiny host after sending her bloodriders and little calvary beyond Meereen's walls to oversee the replanting of the crops and subduing of any potential rebellion in the countryside.
So she turned to Daario and Ben Plumm. They knew men, were mercenaries for years, so she ordered them to the streets with the Stormcrows and Second Sons. To seek out the harpy's followers like one would dig rabbits from a burrow. Daario especially had been pleased with such a request and took to the job with gusto while Ben Plumm was more reserved. And afterwards she granted Barristan's request to start training squires; with the raising threat of assassins she could do with a swell of her Queensguard numbers.
Which left her with Jorah and Strong Belwas by her side, Missandei also keeping apace, as she went to the audience chamber to answer a summons request from two citizens of Meereen.
Skahaz mo Kandaq, who'd shaven his head bare to show his acceptance of Daenerys' rule when most men of Meereen teased their hair into spikes and curls in long tradition of the Slaver Cities. The Shavepate, he became known as, as was his family who followed suit and considered the vilest of traitors to the Sons of the Harpy. And then there was Reznak mo Reznak, small and damp who reeked as if he bathed in a pool of perfume each morning. Both eager to speak, even if it was over one another.
Skahaz wasted no time in informing her of how she should respond to the murder of her soldier, the news having already travelled swiftly through the city. He also was quick to point fingers as to who could have done the deed.
"Zhak, Hazkar, Ghazeen, Merreq, Loraq, all the old slaving families who dwell within the lesser pyramids. Pahl. Pahl most of all when your dragon killed the champion, who was of that blood, before the walls. Three uncles of that house were also strung up upon the standards in the plaza and another son upon the walls of the city and now that house is filled with old spiteful women. Women do not forget. Women do not forgive."
No, we don't, Daenerys agreed. When she reached Westeros those who supported the Usurper would know such a thing to be true.
Shaking those black thoughts off, she asked Skahaz, "How much do we offer for information on the Sons of the Harpy?"
"One hundred honours, Your Radiance."
"Make it one thousand," she ordered.
The light glinted off Skahaz's smooth skull as he bowed, "As you demand. And if I might be so bold...In return for the murder of your soldier, I suggest you take a son from each of the ancient families I named. Execute them for all to see. Next time a soldier of yours dies, take two sons and execute them for all to see. There will not be a third murder, Your Radiance."
Reznak, who up until this point had kept his council to himself, quickly intervened with all but a shriek, "No, gentle queen! Such savage retribution will bring down the wrath of the gods. We shall find these murderers and they will all be baseborn filth, you'll see."
Skahaz scoffed in response which sent the two men squabbling until Daenerys sent them away. The flowery stench of Reznak was more than she could stand.
She'd barely been alone a moment before another messenger came to her, bearing the request from yet another who sought her council.
"Send them in," Daenerys said with a sigh. Her back was already beginning to ache.
"The noble lord Hizdahr zo Loraq begs an audience with the queen."
Daenerys violet stare was flat as she glared at the speaker, "The noble lord Hizdahr zo Loraq can speak to me himself."
Her irritation was well noted, as the speaker quickly bowed and shuffled back to the entry of the audience chambers even as Hizdahr approached her. He was of copper skin and blue silks, with dark curled hair that glistened with oil and a neck which dripped gold. He reached the small rise at the foot of stairs, bending at the waist in a bow to her. Loraq, which meant he belonged to one of the oldest, richest families of Meereen that Skahaz had mentioned previously.
"Queen Daenerys," Hizdahr spoke to her in the Common tongue, "Tales of your beauty were not exaggerated."
She continued to stare without comment; quite frankly she was sick of the endless parade of comments about her appearance.
Hizdahr, noticing his words were not well received, forged forth with his reason for being there, "Mine is one of the oldest and proudest families in Meereen. My father, one of Meereen's most respected and beloved citizens, oversaw the restoration and maintenance of its greatest landmarks. This pyramid included."
"For that he has my gratitude," she finally said without any malice, "The Great Pyramid is beautiful. I would be honoured to meet your father."
His expression hardened, "You have, Your Radiance. When you crucified him. I pray you'll never live to see a member of your family treated so cruelly."
Daenerys straightened up, her hands gripping each other tightly, "So your father is one of the men who crucified innocent children?"
"My father spoke out against crucifying those children. He decried it as a criminal act but was overruled," Hizdahr argued, "Is it justice to answer one crime with another?"
"So is that what your father did?" Daenerys all but snarled at him, violet eyes flashing dangerously, "He simply spoke out? Harshly lectured his fellows and then went home to feast after seeing the children dragged from Meereen to be struck up as markers? You expect me to praise his empty words? And further more my own actions against the Masters was no crime. You will be wise to remember that."
Hizdahr looked as if he'd argue further but then he looked around the audience chamber and, after a moment, inclined his head. When he spoke his words had lost their stern, cold tone, as he said, "What done is done, Your Radiance. You are the queen and I am a servant of Meereen. A servant who does not wish to see its traditions eradicated."
Daenerys continued to watch him coldly, "And what traditions is that?"
"The tradition of burial rites. Proper burial in the Temple of the Graces. My father and noble Meereenese are still nailed to those posts, carrion for vultures, rotting in the sun. Your Grace, I ask that you order these men taken down so that they might receive a proper burial."
"And what of the slave children?" she demanded, "What of their proper burial? If not for my orders they would have been left there as carrion."
She could still see the rotted bodies, the eyeless skulls and torn skin. How small they'd been when her soldiers had pulled them down.
Hizdahr did not attempt to rebuke her, instead saying, "Your Radiance, I cannot defend the actions of the masters. I can only speak to you as a son who loved his father," his voice grew slightly pleading as he continued, "Let me take his body down. Let me have him brought to the temple and buried with dignity so that he may find peace in the next world."
The silence grew longer as she thought it over. She remembered Missandei saying previously that the Meereenese did indeed bury their dead, their bones. The Great Masters she had crucified had already died, Daenerys knew. She had left them there as scarecrows in a field, to warn any slavers who might feel to take back their ways.
Though the Sons of the Harpy showed it wasn't working, not effectively anyway. The plaza was also thick with flies.
"Very well," Daenerys finally said, "Bury your father, Hizdahr zo Loraq. Same for the other Great Masters left upon the stakes."
He bowed, his golden necklaces shimmering in the light as he did so, "Thank you, Your Radiance."
She tried not to sag in the cushions as Hizdahr took his leave. Daenerys spent more hours upon her ebony stool, even if it had been softened with the cushions Barristan had fetched for her, answering the requests of her citizens. Most were from the Great Masters, determined to wring whatever gold they could from her after she refused to compensate them for the slaves she freed.
One of the first to come to her that morn had been from a Great Master, Grazdan, complaining about a score of women slaves. According to him they'd learned the trade of weaving by his most skilled slave, an elderly woman who's spun fabrics were well sought after even in the likes of Westeros. When she grew so aged he'd brought in young women known for their dexterous fingers to learn her craft. When Daenerys took Meereen and freed the slaves, the women had banded together to open a store along the port to sell their fabrics. Grazdan had demanded to take half of their profits, insisting that he deserved it.
"They owe their skill to me," he had said to her. "I plucked them from the auction block and gave them to the loom."
"What was the name of woman who taught them?" she asked and after some fumbling it was obvious the man did not know, citing having owned too many slaves.
So she refused.
"The woman weaver taught them their skills, you did not sit upon the loom and show them how to spin fibres. This is my ruling. From the girls you shall have nothing. It was the woman who taught them weaving, not you. From you the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman."
Another was rich noble woman who, when she fled to her brother's when the siege occurred, returned to her house only to find it had been turned into a brothel with her clothes and jewels bedecking the whores. Daenerys permitted the woman her jewels but told her the house had been forfeit when the woman abandoned it.
Another was a young boy, even younger than Daenerys, wearing a silver tokar and a cracking voice as he spoke of how his household's slaves rose up during the siege. His father and elder brother slain, his mother raped before having her throat cut. The boy now had a ruddy scar upon his face but had fled with his life. One of the killer remained in his father's house while the other had joined Daenerys' army, the Mother's Men, and the boy wished to see them both hanged.
I am queen over a city built on dust and death, Daenerys had thought, exhausted, before she denied the boy his request. Previously she had declared a blanket pardon for all crimes committed during the sack. And neither would she punish slaves for rising up against their masters. So nothing must be done.
The boy had been enraged by her decision and had tried to rush her but Strong Belwas had seized him by the arm and slammed him upon the stone steps with an ugly noise.
"Enough, Belwas," Daenerys said after hulking eunuch shook the boy violently like a dog with a rat. "Release him." To the boy she spoke, "You are only a boy so we will forget what happened here. You should do the same."
But as he left the boy looked back over his bruised shoulder, and when she saw his eyes Daenerys knew the Harpy had gained another son.
However Daenerys had her own son and she had only gotten through three more audiences before they were interrupted by one of the guards. When she hurried down to the plaza the stone had fresh blood splatters sprayed across and from what her Unsullied guarding the plaza told her the boy in the silver tokar and who's request she refused had left the Great Pyramid but had barely crossed the plaza before the golden dragon had been upon him. Taken up into the sky after having his bones broken under Ghidorah's jaws.
She'd dismissed all further audiences for the day and retreated back to her rooms at the top of the Great Pyramid.
Ghidorah showed no remorse when he arrived upon the top, despite her attempts to scold him from the balcony. His perspective was far more black and white than her own; she viewed the boy as a threat so Ghidorah had dealt with it appropriately. Much like he'd done with Mero upon the beach but this time he didn't not wait for the boy to strike. She attempted to reach out to him that she can't kill someone for something they may do unless she knew they would truly do so. Ghidorah did not care. All he knew was that his mother was wary and he reacted appropriately to the threat.
She'd gotten flashes of Ghidorah's day while sitting upon that ebony stool but she hadn't thought to think Ghidorah would also see flashes of her day. Of when that boy had tried to attack her in the audience chamber before Strong Belwas stopped him. She would have been entirely within her right to have the pit fighter strike off the boy's head for trying to harm her. And neither would he nor Barristan nor Missandei would have faulted her. Her child had seen that, the way the boy had lunged for her. And because of that her child regarded the boy's life as forfeit and nothing she would say would convince him otherwise.
Daenerys should know better than try to hold a dragon to standards of humans. He did not reason with a harpy, he would not sit down for a calm, rational discussion. Instead he would rip her feathered wings from her shoulders and glut upon her innards.
Viserys had told her all the tales of the Targaryens when she was little. She knew how Harrenhal had fallen, burning alive all those who had hidden within. She knew about the Field of Fire and the Dance of the Dragons. One of her ancestors, the third Aegon, had seen his own mother devoured by his uncle's dragon and been greatly frightened as a result, with many blaming him for the Last Dragon dying under his rule and being known as the Dragonbane. And there were songs beyond count of villages and kingdoms across the world that lived in dread of dragons till some brave dragonslayer rescued them, of the wild dragons that attacked everyone and everything with Dragonstone itself having a dragon simply known as the 'cannibal' who feasted upon his own. They could never be tamed.
Still, she did not need her child supping so blatantly upon the citizens of Meereen. He typically favoured a variety of meats even if he disliked sheep- she'd spent enough time picking slimy, wet wool from his teeth to know that -but his action had been against a slight, rather than food even if Daenerys knew the boy's remains were in the golden dragon's stomach. That the jaw she stroked had crushed his bones like dry tree branches. There was no remorse through their link, the boy had tried to harm his mother and Ghidorah had punished him accordingly before he could try again.
Had she not sworn the same thing? To kill every one of the Harpy's sons until Meereen was free of their plotting and schemes and daggers in the dark before things got even worse?
She was the blood of the dragon and he was her child. She could kill the Sons of the Harpy, and the sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons. Burn the entire family from existence. Yet a dragon could not feed a hungry child nor help a dying woman's pain. And who would ever dare to love a dragon besides another dragon? Dragons plant no trees.
But she could guard them. That a dragon could do. Could eat the wolves to keep the sheep safe. To burn the bears to protect the trout. To guard the forest from axes until the trees flourished.
Decided, Daenerys dropped her hand from her child's snout even as he straightened back up upon his customary perch of where the great golden harpy had stood. She could not publicly decry his actions without slighting herself and while she mourned the death of the boy, traumatized by the murders of his family, she must not look back. For if she did she would be lost.
She went back into her chambers before summoning Missandei to bring her council forth. She'd made her decision.
"Aegon the Conqueror brought fire and blood to Westeros but afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice. But all I have brought to Slaver's Bay is death and ruin. I have been more khal than queen, smashing and plundering, then moving on. It may work for a horde but not for a city."
Brown Ben Plumm's voice was calm, "There is nothing to stay for, Your Grace. The Iron Throne awaits you. Even digging the rats out of the walls their nests run deep here."
Daario added, "The Masters brought the misery upon themselves, let them wallow within it."
"You have also brought so many their freedom, Your Grace," Missandei also said.
"Freedom to starve?" asked Daenerys sharply, "Freedom to die? Am I a dragon or a harpy?"
"A dragon," Barristan said with complete certainty, "Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace."
"There is also other news," Jorah interrupted, almost haltingly, before forging on with, "Joffrey Baratheron is dead. Poisoned at his own wedding."
Daenerys turned sharply, "Why was I not informed of this immediately?"
"I wished to verify it, Khalessi," Jorah explained, "News travels slow from across the Narrow Sea and rumours are aplenty. This message, I wished to be absolutely sure before bringing it to you and was only verified this morning. He is dead and was done so at his own wedding- the Lannisters have many enemies."
"We have the Meereenese navy," Daenerys said slowly, even if her stomach shifted in excitement, "How many people can they carry?"
This time Barristan answered, "Ninety three hundred, not counting sailors."
"Would that be enough to take Kings Landing?"
"The Lannisters have more," Jorah warned her.
"They've been fighting Joffrey's wars for years," Barristan countered, "They're tired. Dispersed. And now their king is dead. Eight thousand Unsullied. Two thousand Stormcrows and Second Sons. Sailing into Blackwater bay and storming the gates without warning. And you, Your Grace, arriving upon the back of your dragon."
"...It's hard to say," Jorah allowed, "But we are not seeking to conquer the Seven Kingdoms, you cannot hold them all with those numbers."
"The old Houses will flock to our queen."
"They'll flock to whatever side they think will win, as they always have. But...we have also verified Ghael's claims of Yunkai taking up arms against you. Yunkish envoys have been sent to Myr and Volantis to hire more blades from the Company of the Cat, the Long Lances, and the Windblown. It is even said they have purchased the Golden Company for their campaign against you."
With the gold I foolishly left to them, Daenerys thought bitterly. She'd naively believed it would be used to help forge a new path for the freemen left behind but instead it was just awaiting the Masters to slither back into control. She should've executed them all.
She knew of the Golden Company, well known for being a properly trained and armoured host of sellswords who did not break their contracts. She also remembered when Viserys had once invited the captains to feast in hopes they would take up his cause, they'd been founded by a Targaryen seed after all. They ate his food and heard his pleas and laughed at him before leaving. Daenerys had only been a little girl, but she still remembered.
Even now she could hear Viserys' voice whispering in her mind, that Meereen was never her city. That her city, her country and her enemies awaited her across the sea. That she was born to serve them fire and blood.
Jorah, ignorant to her mental thoughts, continued with, "Tolos and Mantarys have agreed to an alliance to the Yunkai'i as well. When they march they will not march alone."
"So take all the gold and food from this wretched city and march west," Daario urged her, "Let the rest squabble over the scraps and starve. Your eunuchs are renowned soldiers but they'll still be completely outmatched if Yunkai marches with such a number."
"I spared Yunkai before but I will not make that mistake again," Daenerys said, "If they should dare attack me, I shall raze their Yellow City to the ground. They learned nothing from my mercy."
Ben Plumm spoke this time, "Your Grace, you are still greatly outnumbered and Meereen would not survive a prolonged siege. The Yunkai'i underestimated you last time and that was something they learned. They will not make that mistake again."
"And I know of the Field of Fire," Daenerys countered, violet eyes burning, "It was said to be the greatest army Westeros had ever seen, at least fifty five thousand men. All trained, all armed, all armoured. The Targaryens had less than half of that but when Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenya took to their dragon's back the mightiest army Westeros had seen died in the flames and those who did not were burned so badly they could no longer fight. It was the only time that Vhagar, Meraxes, and Balerion were all unleashed at once during the conquest of my ancestors. It meant the end of the King of the Rock as Loren Lannister bent the knee after seeing his army burn. I have Ghidorah. I have the last dragon. I have the only dragon who'd ever been born with three heads who breathes storm, not fire. And Yunkai'i shall know our wrath if they are so foolish to march upon me."
"I believe the masters don't fear your dragon as they should, Your Grace," Ben Plumm said carefully, "You have not used him for war, only for executions. They'd grown lax with the Doom of Valyria and the death of dragons centuries past."
Which was true. She had not wanted to risk Ghidorah in open battle for fear of him being injured or killed. She had wanted to wait until he was larger, until there was no pebbly skin whatsoever but instead all golden scales as hard as diamond. She did not want to risk her child which was why she hadn't used him in the siege of Meereen. And it seemed as if the masters had noticed.
"How can I rule the Seven Kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?" Daenerys said instead, lips curled into a snarl.
She turned away, looking out over the city, "My children need time to heal and learn. Ghidorah will need time to test his wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor and I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I've freed all over again. Why should anyone trust me, why should anyone follow me, if I cannot even control Meereen? Why would any look to me as a ruler if I flee from Yunkai's threat? I will not let those I've freed slide back into chains." She turned back to look at their faces, her bells singing in her hair, "It grieves me to say but Westeros must wait. I will not set sail."
"What will you do then, Khaleesi?" asked Jorah.
"Stay," she said. "Rule. And be a queen."
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