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Published:2020-04-25Updated:2026-04-06Words:409,591Chapters:71/?Comments:5,537Kudos:6,020Bookmarks:1,659Hits:467,009
The Stormborn and the Stormbringer
SkilledWarriorKiwi
Chapter 25: Mother's care
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They landed at the southern tip of Qohor's forest border, where the thick dense trees parted to lush grasslands leading out to the Dothraki Sea. The trees were immense, the trunks thicker than Meereen's entry gates and cloaked in great golden leaves. A small creek ran past the treeline, barely more than a trickle but they landed right next to the small rivulet. Daenerys' hands were bloodied, her back aching and blood dried in flaky crusts across her face. The blackened clouds which had chased them since fleeing from Pentos grumbled above as Ghidorah folded his wings and the winds sent the trees creaking and groaning with golden leaves dancing across the branches.
Daenerys could still taste Strickland's flesh in her mouth, not as tough as the stallion's heart but still meaty and bloody. His blood and the stallion's had tasted the same.
She felt no regrets. Regrets perhaps for any complications it would cause in the future, but as she slid off Ghidorah's back onto the grass with Blackfyre still upon her waist she felt no regrets for slaying the man to regain the heirloom. It was hers, by fire and blood it belonged to House Targaryen.
But currently her child was in pain and she need must attend him. She had insisted they retreat a safe distance from Pentos and Ghidorah had kept flying until the pain in his eye grew great enough even he could not ignore it. Even so it took her several times to convince him to land, her child wanting to refuse and insistent he was strong enough to continue but he eventually gave in to his mother's pleas.
At the southern tip of the Forest of Qohor they were far enough from the city itself and the southward one of Selhorys that they should not be interrupted or spied upon. Ghidorah settled down on his belly, leaning on one wing so she could first reach the crossbow bolt embedded in his shoulder. Above, the grumbling clouds began to turn into wisps without her child there to urge it onward.
The bolt in his shoulder had barely pieced the skin, instead mostly being lodged between the pebbly scales and the thick flat ones of his upper chest to reach his leathery skin. Still, it was deep enough it caused him pain with black blood dripping from the injury and took Daenerys several hard tugs with her injured hands before she yanked it from his body. Ghidorah growled, his long spiked tails flicking as she pulled it free. She inspected the wound closely, the blood almost like ink as it stained the surrounding scales before deeming it shallow enough. Her child hadn't been hurt before, so she could understand why he was so irritated and surprised at the Golden Company striking him.
But the more pressing injury was within the left eye of his left head. It took her some coaxing for his left head to swiveled down to her, with the middle biting a horn and dragging down his kin so she could inspect his injury.
As she feared, it was far more grievous than the flesh wound in his shoulder. That one had struck thick dense muscle, the head of the bolt barely going half way before being stopped. The one puncturing his left eye was buried up past the bolt itself, right into the thick jelly-like flesh of his eyeball and rendering him blind in that eye. Blood was oozing from the wound, trickling down his eyelid and cheek like a facsimile of tears.
He hissed and jerked away as she touched it, making her stumble away along with the pulse of pain through their bond as if her own eye was injured. She tried to press through that she had to remove the bolt, for it would fester and rot around the wound if it was left there. That it had to be pulled free before infection set in.
Ghidorah was displeased with the notion, grumbling and growling as his scaled body flexed in agitation before she felt him acquiesce to her request. His middle and right heads snaked down, one gripping the left by the snout and the other at the base of his skull. Keeping himself pinned against the grass. Daenerys could feel Ghidorah's distaste for what she had to do but he was readying himself.
Daenerys tried to be as gentle as possible, intent on yanking the bolt out quickly as one would pry free a splinter. She had to use her uninjured hand, the other still dripping and crusted.
Even so it took her several tries to rip the bolt free of Ghidorah's eye, the bent fletchings digging into the soft skin between her thumb and forefinger, the blood making it slippery. The head was buried deep and she had to brace a foot on Ghidorah's scaled cheek, yanking back with all her weight. Ghidorah's blood burned her hands like hot oil, making Daenerys hiss through her clenched teeth as she struggled to yank the bolt from his eye. When she finally pulled it free with a burst of blood and a pained yowl from Ghidorah she fell over backwards onto the grass with a grunt.
Ghidorah snarled and hissed, releasing his head as the others spat sparks at the pain. The left head whined unhappily, breathing coming in tight pants as he remaining resting on the grass as more blood leaked from his ruined eye. Daenerys pushed herself back up with a groan, exhausted and aching with the bloodied bolt in hand. She threw it aside before looking down at her hand.
Her hands were stained in black, the blood oily and viscous. More of it stained Ghidorah's scales and even as she watched his middle head stretched over to start licking the blood off the left's scaly cheek.
Beware, a voice whispered in the back of her mind that sounded suspiciously like Irri. Black blood is the domain of demons. It is known.
Daenerys angrily pushed those thoughts aside; her child had gotten injured defending her, and she wasn't about to be so ungracious. Dragons had been gone for centuries, their blood must have been as black as their bones and the Essosi simply labeled those as myths of demons after the dragonriders of Valyria and their destruction of Old Ghis.
Blackfyre bumped against her thigh, the chains rattling as she knelt down next to Ghidorah's head. It took some coaxing but eventually he opened up his eye so she could clean it out with the remains of her waterskin. She was quite inured to gore but still, seeing the deep puncture wound through the tissue of his eye made her shudder. He whined unhappily at her ministrations, lip curling but allowed her to wash out the injury but she had no means to bandage or seal it so she washed it clean as best as she was able. Once done, Ghidorah closed his eyes, the pebbled lid shutting away the injury from her sight.
He'd be blind in that eye forever now, Daenerys rubbing at his bony brow as her face creased in worry and sorrow. The bolt had gone right through his pupil, through the jelly of his eyeball, but it hadn't been long enough to puncture through to his brain. If it had been one of the scorpions then it could have killed him, such as how Meraxes was shot down over Dorne. Daenerys didn't know what would have happened then, since her child had three heads and three brains. Would that head had died, and started to rot like a tree branch while the trunk was intact?
Like the blood colour, she pushed those thoughts away. Her child was hurt and blind in one eye now, but he had five remaining and he would recover.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Daenerys said softly as she continued to stroke him. Ghidorah grumbled, just as tired as she was. Her own palm was bleeding, both dragonrider and dragon lying in the grass at the outskirts of a forest of golden trees with a small creek gurgling away and Daenerys had a maesters chain wrapped around her waist and Aegon the Conqueror's sword strapped to her side.
She settled down next to Ghidorah, his golden body relaxing in the sun as he settled. His injury and their flights left him tired and Daenerys felt much the same. In Braavos she had barely slept, more focused on keeping close vigil to Aemon in his last moments and then the message from the Golden Company, the flight to Pentos and her killing Strickland to reclaim her ancestral sword.
Leaning against her child, Daenerys touched at the smooth hilt of Blackfyre, the rubies sparkling in the warm Essosi sunlight. Thought long lost after the Blackfyres carried it across the sea and now it was hers, back with the blood of dragons after being hidden in Essos for generations. Aegon the Conqueror's own blade. Now hers. Her birthright.
That made her think of that other dragon reportedly across the Narrow Sea in Westeros, laying siege to the Stormlands, but Daenerys was too exhausted to dwell upon the matter. Ghidorah was much the same, curling around her as he prepared to sleep. The ruined eye left him exhausted, with the pulling of the bolt and throbbing of the wound but Daenerys did not how to bind it. Ghidorah, while angered from the pain, did not seem overtly concerned about his eye- he seemed to believe he had spares enough to see so he would not run and hide from future battle simply because the enemy had managed to harm him. His pride was more than that and Daenerys could understand. Life was pain, it was a fact, and only cowards ran and hid from any instance it may come from, as painful as it could be.
And dragons were not cowards.
Even so she had to bind her hand before sleep stole her, with the palm still bleeding and torn from where she'd cut it to open that strange little vault. Exhaustion made her sloppy, using the last of the water from her skin to clean her palm until she could see the torn flesh below. Then she used some of the clean cloth from her satchel, binding her hand as best she was able and working on a leather glove to keep the bandage in place. When they returned to Meereen she could get a healer to see to her injury, as long as she kept it clean much like with Ghidorah's eye then they could stave off infection.
With shaky motions Daenerys squeezed the last drops of water into her mouth before stowing away the empty waterskin, chin and face still stained in dried blood but Daenerys was too tired to even crawl to the creek to wash it from her. So instead she leaned back against Ghidorah's scales, bloodied and exhausted and she settled down to rest alongside her child.
Before Daenerys fell asleep she could have sworn that Quaithe was standing right before her, mask made of crimson fog and eyes glittering like stars as the maegi whispered, Remember who you are just as your dragon knows. The Stormborn and the Stormbringer.
And when she dreamed, she dreamed of fire.
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