#ive been wondering if i should post this one here and risk the antis being weird at me for a while now | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

scullydubois · 4 years ago

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memory-bound: a revival one-shot

Set between Rm9sbG93ZXJz & My Struggle IV, Scully moves back into the Unremarkable House after her smart home burns down and returns to an age-old ritual: coloring her hair.

T, 1.8k, fluff/domestic fluff, read on ao3 here.

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Lamp light casts shadows on the wall as Scully unpacks in a place she never thought she’d find herself again: the master bedroom she and Mulder shared for almost a decade. She lays her remaining clothes on the tribal-patterned bedspread and smirks at how little the room has changed. She expected to be put up in the guest room and was perfectly fine with that. They had rarely gotten any use out of it--she figured an inhabitant would do it some good. Imagine her shock, then, when Mulder told her he hadn’t slept in “their” room since she left. That the room was all hers.

It shouldn’t have surprised her that after a decade of a bed, he returned to what he knew upon losing what he had known. He swapped the couch he slept on for seven years for a Barcalounger. An old man needs his amenities, he joked while showing her its heat and massage functions. And she felt a gnawing in the pit of her stomach, the mark of a fool.

She salvaged what she could from the fire, but most of her Bethesda things were ruined. That soulless smart house was never worth its automated thermostat system, let alone any of its other data mines disguised as gizmos. Mulder hated it--hated it, like, wouldn’t step foot in it, and if she’s being honest, that was the only selling point for her: the shelter it offered from his incessant search for truth & his unsatisfiable conscience. This was back when she felt like that was something she needed to get away from, of course. She had wanted to settle somewhere and mean it. Now, she realizes they were settled all along.

She rests a pile of folded clothes in the crook of her arm and pulls open her old dresser. She envisioned cobwebs--maybe even a whole family of spiders--in there, but instead, a ratty New York Knicks t-shirt greets her. And a Spaceship Earth one under that, and a Wile E. Coyote one under that. Her holy trinity of Mulder t-shirts. She refused to take them when she left, though he insisted. And in protest, he hadn’t worn them. She knows this instinctively, though the lack of laundry scent confirms it. They’ve been waiting in this drawer all along, captives to Mulder’s fantasy that one day she would open it again.

Scully squeezes her eyes shut, slips the pile in next to the shirts, slams the drawer, and grabs her toiletries bag off the bed, striding into the bathroom. She can’t dwell...she can’t. She’s learned by now that regret is a state of mind that freezes her up, and there’s no being frozen, not any more.

Unzipping the bag, she lines her various products along the counter. Age-defying this, anti-aging that...sunscreen is really the only thing that’s done her any good. That, and hair dye. She keeps the others around for show.

Speaking of...she pokes at her roots, scouring the mirror for signs that yes, she could theoretically be a grandma--and she can’t say for certain that she isn’t--but to her knowledge, she’s not, and as long as no one calls her Grandma, she won’t accept the title.

She won’t accept the gray hairs, either. One day, sure, but not yet. Mulder’s not even gone gray yet, and he has years on her. She’s told him that he would look great, and that the silver fox nickname would be nothing short of perfection, but he swears that he just hasn’t lost his “natural luster” yet, that he’ll embrace the gray when (if!) it comes.

Scully’s not been so lucky, though it doesn’t show. She’s been coloring her hair every three weeks since she was twenty-eight to keep the ravishing red. She’ll never forget when Mulder realized it wasn’t her natural color...the way his eyes widened as he moved between her legs…

It’s not as if he didn’t know; her mousy auburn had been on full display when they first met, and yet he’d gotten so used to seeing her as she is that it slipped his mind that she hadn’t always been that way. And once they moved in together--in this very bathroom, actually--he loved to help her with the coloring process, was as fascinated by it as the prospect of alien-human hybrids.

She chooses the tube of Rock it Like a Redhead dye from her product line-up, looks at her reflection. It’s been five--no, six--nearing seven--years since she performed this ritual in this room. She glances down, and sure enough, the tile still bears a rust-colored stain from one of her sessions gone wrong. It makes her smile...she has a history here. They have a history here.

She sighs. For old time’s sake, she might as well...she’s found herself thinking that a lot lately.

Her old robe--her usual attire for the occasion--fell victim to the fire, but she’s got a good substitute in mind. She pads back into the bedroom and plucks the Wile E. Coyote shirt from the drawer. It’s black, hopefully that will hide any stains. Her slacks are too damn expensive to risk an accident, so she briefly considers stripping to her panties before settling on a pair of gym shorts.

Her get-up in place, she grabs a few clips from her bag and pins her hair up in four sections. This is one of the reasons she got her chop; her long hair was sexy, but it was a bitch trying to cover all those layers. Plus, Mulder is fond of “the Scully shag” as he calls it, though she corrects him every time (it’s not a shag Mulder, it’s a bob!). It reminds him of their firsts, she imagines. It’s almost as if the longer her hair got, the further apart they drifted. And once they were okay again, it was imperative that she bear her neck to him...show him the place where his lips should land.

She decides to stand in the shower (water off, of course) so any mess can be rinsed away. She wonders, suddenly, if the square mirror they used to keep is still suctioned to the glass interior. It’ll be hard to do this alone if it’s not.

She peeks in, and it’s not there, and that must be the only thing in this house Mulder has moved. Figures. She slips off her shoes and grabs the applicator and dye tube. She’ll do the best she can, then use the bathroom mirror to make any touch-ups.

Scully steps into the shower. Its characteristic lemon scent is gone, and that makes her sad. It used to be a welcome change from the antiseptic hospital smell she dealt with all day. Wielding her tools, she starts at her roots, spreading the dye along her scalp with expert precision. Surely this counts as a workout--it takes a lot of energy to hold your arms over your head for this long. Will her Fitbit calculate how many calories she’s burning, she wonders?

She’s just started a new strand when a gentle rap echoes through the wall.

“Scully?” Mulder’s voice rings from outside the bedroom. She pulled the door slightly shut when she entered.

“Come in!” she calls. “In the bathroom.”

She hears footsteps in the adjacent room, then a hesitant breath as Mulder pauses at the doorway. “Are you decent?”

Scully looks down at herself. What a picture. “I’m in a Wile E. Coyote t-shirt and gym shorts. Does that answer your question?”

Mulder shuffles in, smirking at the sight of her through the open shower door. “What are you doing?”

She points to the crown of her head--which is already well within his field of vision--so she’s not sure why he needed to ask the question.

“Well, I see that,” Mulder concedes, “but I mean, why are you hunched over in here like you’re hoping to grow a third arm?”

Scully shrugs. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“That’s just as lame as ‘boys will be boys,’ and you know it,” he counters, remembering a spirited lecture she once gave him on the misogynist undertones of the phrase. Scully smirks. They had that conversation years ago...post-William, pre-Bahamas. She’s surprised that it stuck with him.

She tilts her chin in a way that makes Mulder certain she’d have her hands on her hips if they weren’t occupied. “What do you suggest?” she challenges.

“Let me help you,” he proposes before she can launch a protest. His sneaker’s rubber sole meets the shower tile as he slips in beside her. The wall is cold against her elbow as she scoots back to make room for him.

“I’m fine. I’ve been doing this on my own for years, and I was long before you.”

“But now you have me,” he professes. “Here. Right now,” he clarifies, not meaning to label their as-yet undefined relationship status.

Their eyes meet, and Scully’s hit with the last time the two of them were in here--her legs around his waist, his hands sliding through her hair, droplets that couldn’t be placed as shower water, sweat, or tears. Her spine straightens against the very wall where she was pinned. Times change, yet they don’t. History repeats itself in a slightly different key.

“When I was younger, I did this because I liked the color,” she tells him, finishing a section and lowering her hands. “Now, I do it out of necessity. It’s sad, Mulder.” She juts her lower lip out in a faux pout. “We’re getting old.”

He would hug her, but he’d mess up her hair and it would be a whole thing. “Hey, I’ll be pushing your wheelchair with my wheelchair, remember?” he says, taking her slip into sentimentality as permission.

Scully nods, the delicate memories of years past bringing a slight frown to her face.

“Can you do me a favor?” she asks, raising to her tiptoes, then lowering again. Her eyes twinkle.

“Of course.”

She offers him the tube of dye, looks up at him with a smile.

“Can you get right here?” She points to a spot right above her temple, one she could definitely reach herself if she wanted to.

Mulder admires her. His woman, back in his old t-shirt and all. He plants his lips on her temple, breathing her in. No matter what she says about aging or being old, he’ll never believe her. She is as she was back then: the only semblance of peace he’s ever known.

He pulls away to meet her gaze, his voice warm and smooth. “Is that about where you want it?”

Scully grins. “Yes, that’s perfect.”

#this might be the only revival fic i ever write & i really enjoyed it #a chance to reflect and take a trip down memory lane <3 #the x-files #txf #txf fic #mine #todayinfic

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aboveallarescuer · 4 years ago

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Dany and Daario’s relationship

This is a list of all the passages from the books featuring key moments in Dany and Daario’s relationship. I included all of Dany's thoughts about Daario because they inform their dynamic and because, perhaps surprisingly, Daario only appears onpage in six chapters (ASOS Dany IV to VI and ADWD Dany IV, VI and VII).

To be clear, this post is not meant to be anti-Jonerys; it simply acknowledges the fact that Dany's relationship with Daario is one of the most important ones of her journey thus far (and that she has the right to be in a relationship with whomever she wants to be, unlike what certain incels who self-insert as Jon might think).

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

She still clung to the hope that someone would come after her. Ser Barristan might come seeking her; he was the first of her Queensguard, sworn to defend her life with his own. And her bloodriders were no strangers to the Dothraki sea, and their lives were bound to her own. Her husband, the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq, might dispatch searchers. And Daario ... Dany pictured him riding toward her through the tall grass, smiling, his golden tooth gleaming with the last light of the setting sun.

Only Daario had been given to the Yunkai’i, a hostage to ensure no harm came to the Yunkish captains. Daario and Hero, Jhogo and Groleo, and three of Hizdahr’s kin. By now, surely, all of her hostages would have been released. But ...

She wondered if her captain’s blades still hung upon the wall beside her bed, waiting for Daario to return and claim them. “I will leave my girls with you,” he had said. “Keep them safe for me, beloved.” And she wondered how much the Yunkai’i knew about what her captain meant to her. She had asked Ser Barristan that question the afternoon the hostages went forth. “They will have heard the talk,” he had replied. “Naharis may even have boasted of Your Grace’s ... of your great ... regard ... for him. If you will forgive my saying so, modesty is not one of the captain’s virtues. He takes great pride in his ... his swordsmanship.”

He boasts of bedding me, you mean. But Daario would not have been so foolish as to make such a boast amongst her enemies. It makes no matter. By now the Yunkai’i will be marching home. That was why she had done all that she had done. For peace.

As the world darkened, Dany settled in and closed her eyes, but sleep refused to come. The night was cold, the ground hard, her belly empty. She found herself thinking of Meereen, of Daario, her love, and Hizdahr, her husband, of Irri and Jhiqui and sweet Missandei, Ser Barristan and Reznak and Skahaz Shavepate. Do they fear me dead? I flew off on a dragon’s back. Will they think he ate me?

“Walk,” Dany commanded herself. “Follow the stream and it will take you to the Skahazadhan. That’s where Daario will find you.”

Bells, Dany thought again. Her bloodriders had found her. “Aggo,” she whispered. “Jhogo. Rakharo.” Might Daario have come with them?

Dany, starved, slid off his back and ate with him, ripping chunks of smoking meat from the dead horse with bare, burned hands. In Meereen I was a queen in silk, nibbling on stuffed dates and honeyed lamb, she remembered. What would my noble husband think if he could see me now? Hizdahr would be horrified, no doubt. But Daario ...

Daario would laugh, carve off a hunk of horsemeat with his arakh, and squat down to eat beside her.

ADWD Daenerys IX

“She needs a spear,” Ser Barristan said, as Barsena vaulted over the beast’s second charge. “That is no way to fight a boar.” He sounded like someone’s fussy old grandsire, just as Daario was always saying.

ADWD Daenerys VIII

No Ghiscari feast was complete without a course of dog. Hizdahr’s cooks prepared dog four different ways. “Ghiscari will eat anything that swims or flies or crawls, but for man and dragon,” Daario had warned her, “and I’d wager they’d eat dragon too if given half a chance.” Meat alone does not make a meal, though, so there were fruits and grains and vegetables as well. The air was redolent with the scents of saffron, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and other costly spices.

The Second Sons were represented too. If Daario were here, this meal would end in blood. No promised peace could ever have persuaded her captain to permit Brown Ben Plumm to stroll back into Meereen and leave alive. Dany had sworn that no harm would come to the seven envoys and commanders, though that had not been enough for the Yunkai’i. They had required hostages of her as well. To balance the three Yunkish nobles and four sellsword captains, Meereen sent seven of its own out to the siege camp: Hizdahr’s sister, two of his cousins, Dany’s bloodrider Jhogo, her admiral Groleo, the Unsullied captain Hero, and Daario Naharis.

“I will leave my girls with you,” her captain had said, handing her his sword belt and its gilded wantons. “Keep them safe for me, beloved. We would not want them making bloody mischief amongst the Yunkai’i.”

The Shavepate was absent as well. The first thing Hizdahr had done upon being crowned was to remove him from command of the Brazen Beasts, replacing him with his own cousin, the plump and pasty Marghaz zo Loraq. It is for the best. The Green Grace says there is blood between Loraq and Kandaq, and the Shavepate never made a secret of his disdain for my lord husband. And Daario …

Daario had only grown wilder since her wedding. Her peace did not please him, her marriage pleased him less, and he had been furious at being deceived by the Dornishmen. When Prince Quentyn told them that the other Westerosi had come over to the Stormcrows at the command of the Tattered Prince, only the intercession of Grey Worm and his Unsullied prevented Daario from killing them all. The false deserters had been imprisoned safely in the bowels of the pyramid … but Daario’s rage continued to fester.

He will be safer as a hostage. My captain was not made for peace. Dany could not risk his cutting down Brown Ben Plumm, making mock of Hizdahr before the court, provoking the Yunkai’i, or otherwise upsetting the agreement that she had given up so much to win. Daario was war and woe. Henceforth, she must keep him out of her bed, out of her heart, and out of her. If he did not betray her, he would master her. She did not know which of those she feared the most.

“Is there some man in the Second Sons who might be persuaded to … remove … Brown Ben?”

“As Daario Naharis once removed the other captains of the Stormcrows?” The old knight looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps. I would not know, Your Grace.”

No, she thought, you are too honest and too honorable.

“You ought to return there. My court is no safe place for you, I fear. You have more enemies than you know. You made Daario look a fool, and he is not a man to forget such a slight.”

“I have my knights. My sworn shields.”

“Two knights. Daario has five hundred Stormcrows. And you would do well to beware of my lord husband too. He seems a mild and pleasant man, I know, but do not be deceived. Hizdahr’s crown derives from mine, and he commands the allegiance of some of the most fearsome fighters in the world. If one of them should think to win his favor by disposing of a rival …”

“I am a prince of Dorne, Your Grace. I will not run from slaves and sell swords.”

Then you truly are a fool, Prince Frog.

She wondered what Daario was doing. Was he restless as well? Was he thinking about her? Did he love her, truly? Did he hate her for marrying Hizdahr? I should never have taken him into my bed. He was only a sellsword, no fit consort for a queen, and yet …

I knew that all along, but I did it anyway.

ADWD Daenerys VII

Dawn always came too soon.

She had not slept, could not sleep, would not sleep. She had not even dared to close her eyes, for fear it would be morning when she opened them again. If only she had the power, she would have made their nights go on forever, but the best that she could do was stay awake to try and savor every last sweet moment before daybreak turned them into no more than fading memories.

Beside her, Daario Naharis was sleeping as peacefully as a newborn babe. He had a gift for sleeping, he’d boasted, smiling in that cocksure way of his. In the field, he would sleep in the saddle oft as not, he claimed, so as to be well rested should he come upon a battle. Sun or storm, it made no matter. “A warrior who cannot sleep soon has no strength to fight,” he said. He was never vexed by nightmares either. When Dany told him how Serwyn of the Mirror Shield was haunted by the ghosts of all the knights he’d killed, Daario only laughed. “If the ones I killed come bother me, I will kill them all again.” He has a sellsword’s conscience, she realized then. That is to say, none at all.

Daario lay upon his stomach, the light linen coverlets tangled about his long legs, his face half-buried in the pillows. Dany ran her hand down his back, tracing the line of his spine. His skin was smooth beneath her touch, almost hairless. His skin is silk and satin. She loved the feel of him beneath her fingers. She loved to run her fingers through his hair, to knead the ache from his calves after a long day in the saddle, to cup his cock and feel it harden against her palm.

If she had been some ordinary woman, she would gladly have spent her whole life touching Daario, tracing his scars and making him tell her how he’d come by every one. I would give up my crown if he asked it of me, Dany thought … but he had not asked it, and never would. Daario might whisper words of love when the two of them were as one, but she knew it was the dragon queen he loved. If I gave up my crown, he would not want me. Besides, kings who lost their crowns oft lost their heads as well, and she could see no reason why it would be any different for a queen.

The candle flickered one last time and died, drowned in its own wax. Darkness swallowed the feather bed and its two occupants, and filled every corner of the chamber. Dany wrapped her arms around her captain and pressed herself against his back. She drank in the scent of him, savoring the warmth of his flesh, the feel of his skin against her own. Remember, she told herself. Remember how he felt. She kissed him on his shoulder.

Daario rolled toward her, his eyes open. “Daenerys.” He smiled a lazy smile. That was another of his talents; he woke all at once, like a cat. “Is it dawn?”

“Not yet. We have a while still.”

“Liar. I can see your eyes. Could I do that if it were the black of night?” Daario kicked loose of the coverlets and sat up. “The half-light. Day will be here soon.”

“I do not want this night to end.”

“No? And why is that, my queen?”

“You know.”

“The wedding?” He laughed. “Marry me instead.”

“You know I cannot do that.”

“You are a queen. You can do what you like.” He slid a hand along her leg. “How many nights remain to us?”

Two. Only two. “You know as well as I. This night and the next, and we must end this.”

“Marry me, and we can have all the nights forever.”

If I could, I would. Khal Drogo had been her sun-and-stars, but he had been dead so long that Daenerys had almost forgotten how it felt to love and be loved. Daario had helped her to remember. I was dead and he brought me back to life. I was asleep and he woke me. My brave captain. Even so, of late he grew too bold. On the day that he returned from his latest sortie, he had tossed the head of a Yunkish lord at her feet and kissed her in the hall for all the world to see, until Barristan Selmy pulled the two of them apart. Ser Grandfather had been so wroth that Dany feared blood might be shed. “We cannot wed, my love. You know why.”

He climbed from her bed. “Marry Hizdahr, then. I will give him a nice set of horns for his wedding gift. Ghiscari men like to prance about in horns. They make them from their own hair, with combs and wax and irons.” Daario found his breeches and pulled them on. He did not trouble himself with smallclothes.

“Once I am wed it will be high treason to desire me.” Dany pulled the coverlet up over her breasts.

“Then I must be a traitor.” He slipped a blue silk tunic over his head and straightened the prongs of his beard with his fingers. He had dyed it afresh for her, taking it from purple back to blue, as it had been when first she met him. “I smell of you,” he said, sniffing at his fingers and grinning.

Dany loved the way his gold tooth gleamed when he grinned. She loved the fine hairs on his chest. She loved the strength in his arms, the sound of his laughter, the way he would always look into her eyes and say her name as he slid his cock inside her. “You are beautiful,” she blurted as she watched him don his riding boots and lace them up. Some days he let her do that for him, but not today, it seemed. That’s done with too.

“Not beautiful enough to marry.” Daario took his sword belt off the peg where he had hung it.

“Where are you going?”

“Out into your city,” he said, “to drink a keg or two and pick a quarrel. It has been too long since I’ve killed a man. Might be I should seek out your betrothed.”

Dany threw a pillow at him. “You will leave Hizdahr be!”

“As my queen commands. Will you hold court today?”

“No. On the morrow I will be a woman wed, and Hizdahr will be king. Let him hold court. These are his people.”

“Some are his, some are yours. The ones you freed.”

“Are you chiding me?”

“The ones you call your children. They want their mother.”

“You are. You are chiding me.”

“Only a little, bright heart. Will you come hold court?”

“After my wedding, perhaps. After the peace.”

“This after that you speak of never comes. You should hold court. My new men do not believe that you are real. The ones who came over from the Windblown. Bred and born in Westeros, most of them, full of tales about Targaryens. They want to see one with their own eyes. The Frog has a gift for you.”

“The Frog?” she said, giggling. “And who is he?”

He shrugged. “Some Dornish boy. He squires for the big knight they call Greenguts. I told him he could give his gift to me and I’d deliver it, but he wouldn’t have it.”

“Oh, a clever frog. ‘Give the gift to me.’” She threw the other pillow at him. “Would I have ever seen it?”

Daario stroked his gilded mustachio. “Would I steal from my sweet queen? If it were a gift worthy of you, I would have put it into your soft hands myself.”

“As a token of your love?”

“As to that I will not say, but I told him that he could give it to you. You would not make a liar of Daario Naharis?”

Dany was helpless to refuse. “As you wish. Bring your frog to court tomorrow. The others too. The Westerosi.” It would be nice to hear the Common Tongue from someone besides Ser Barristan.

“As my queen commands.” Daario bowed deeply, grinned, and took his leave, his cloak swirling behind him.

Dany sat amongst the rumpled bedclothes with her arms about her knees, so forlorn that she did not hear when Missandei came creeping in with bread and milk and figs. “Your Grace? Are you unwell? In the black of night this one heard you scream.”

Dany took a fig. It was black and plump, still moist with dew. Will Hizdahr ever make me scream? “It was the wind that you heard screaming.” She took a bite, but the fruit had lost its savor now that Daario was gone. Sighing, she rose and called to Irri for a robe, then wandered out onto her terrace.

It was close to sunset before Daario Naharis appeared with his new Stormcrows, the Westerosi who had come over to him from the Windblown. Dany found herself glancing at them as yet another petitioner droned on and on. These are my people. I am their rightful queen.

“You may rise,” she said. “Daario tells me you come to us from Dorne. Dornishmen will always have a welcome at my court. Sunspear stayed loyal to my father when the Usurper stole his throne. You must have faced many perils to reach me.”

“Too many,” said Gerrold, the handsome one with the sun-streaked hair. “We were six when we left Dorne, Your Grace.”

“I am sorry for your losses.” The queen turned to his large companion. “Greenguts is a queer sort of name.”

“A jape, Your Grace. From the ships. I was greensick the whole way from Volantis. Heaving and … well, I shouldn’t say.”

Dany giggled. “I think that I can guess, ser. It is ser, is it not? Daario tells me that you are a knight.”

“If it please Your Grace, we are all three knights.”

Dany glanced at Daario and saw anger flash across his face. He did not know.

“If you wish,” Daenerys said, curious, but as Frog started forward Daario Naharis stepped in front of him and held out a gloved hand. “Give this gift to me.”

Stone-faced, the stocky lad bent, unlaced his boot, and drew a yellowed parchment from a hidden flap within.

“This is your gift? A scrap of writing?” Daario snatched the parchment out of the Dornishman’s hands and unrolled it, squinting at the seals and signatures. “Very pretty, all the gold and ribbons, but I do not read your Westerosi scratchings.”

“Bring it to the queen,” Ser Barristan commanded. “Now.”

Dany could feel the anger in the hall. “I am only a young girl, and young girls must have their gifts,” she said lightly. “Daario, please, you must not tease me. Give it here.”

That night Daario had her every way a man can have a woman, and she gave herself to him willingly. The last time, as the sun was coming up, she used her mouth to make him hard again, as Doreah had taught her long ago, then rode him so wildly that his wound began to bleed again, and for one sweet heartbeat she could not tell whether he was inside of her, or her inside of him.

But when the sun rose upon her wedding day so did Daario Naharis, donning his clothes and buckling on his sword belt with its gleaming golden wantons. “Where are you going?” Dany asked him. “I forbid you to make a sortie today.”

“My queen is cruel,” her captain said. “If I cannot slay your foes, how shall I amuse myself whilst you are being wed?”

“By nightfall I shall have no foes.”

“It is only dawn, sweet queen. The day is long. Time enough for one last sortie. I will bring you back the head of Brown Ben Plumm for a wedding gift.”

“No heads,” Dany insisted. “Once you brought me flowers.”

“Let Hizdahr bring you flowers. He is not one to stoop and pluck a dandelion, true, but he has servants who will be pleased to do it for him. Do I have your leave to go?”

“No.” She wanted him to stay and hold her. One day he will go and not return, she thought. One day some archer will put an arrow through his chest, or ten men will fall on him with spears and swords and axes, ten would-be heroes. Five of them would die, but that would not make her grief easier to bear. One day I will lose him, as I lost my sun-and-stars. But please gods, not today.

“...Do I have your leave to go?”

“No.” [...] “Come back to bed and kiss me.” No one had ever kissed her like Daario Naharis. “I am your queen, and I command you to fuck me.”

She had meant it playfully, but Daario’s eyes hardened at her words. “Fucking queens is king’s work. Your noble Hizdahr can attend to that, once you’re wed. And if he proves to be too highborn for such sweaty work, he has servants who will be pleased to do that for him as well. Or perhaps you can call the Dornish boy into your bed, and his pretty friend as well, why not?” He strode from the bedchamber.

He is going to make a sortie, Dany realized, and if he takes Ben Plumm’s head, he’ll walk into the wedding feast and throw it at my feet. Seven save me. Why couldn’t he be better born?

“Your Grace does not love the noble Hizdahr. This one thinks you would sooner have another for your husband.”

I must not think of Daario today. “A queen loves where she must, not where she will.”

“Gracious queen, well met!” Another procession had come up beside her own, and Hizdahr zo Loraq was smiling at her from his own sedan chair. My king. Dany wondered where Daario Naharis was, what he was doing. If this were a story, he would gallop up just as we reached the temple, to challenge Hizdahr for my hand.

Side by side the queen’s procession and Hizdahr zo Loraq’s made their slow way across Meereen, until finally the Temple of the Graces loomed up before them, its golden domes flashing in the sun. How beautiful, the queen tried to tell herself, but inside her was some foolish little girl who could not help but look about for Daario. If he loved you, he would come and carry you off at swordpoint, as Rhaegar carried off his northern girl, the girl in her insisted, but the queen knew that was folly. Even if her captain was mad enough to attempt it, the Brazen Beasts would cut him down before he got within a hundred yards of her.

ADWD Daenerys VI

“If we should wed by Westerosi rites …”

“The gods of Ghis would deem it no true union.” Galazza Galare’s face was hidden behind a veil of green silk. Only her eyes showed, green and wise and sad. “In the eyes of the city you would be the noble Hizdahr’s concubine, not his lawful wedded wife. Your children would be bastards. Your Worship must marry Hizdahr in the Temple of the Graces, with all the nobility of Meereen on hand to bear witness to your union.”

Get the heads of all the noble houses out of their pyramids on some pretext, Daario had said. The dragon’s words are fire and blood. Dany pushed the thought aside. It was not worthy of her.

“I am sorry to disturb you, but I thought that you would want to know at once. The Stormcrows have returned to the city, with word of the foe. The Yunkishmen are on the march, just as we had feared.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed the noble face of Hizdahr zo Loraq. “The queen is at her supper. These sellswords can wait.”

Ser Barristan ignored him. “I asked Lord Daario to make his report to me, as Your Grace had commanded. He laughed and said that he would write it out in his own blood if Your Grace would send your little scribe to show him how to make the letters.”

“Blood?” said Dany, horrified. “Is that a jape? No. No, don’t tell me, I must see him for myself.” She was a young girl, and alone, and young girls can change their minds. “Convene my captains and commanders. Hizdahr, I know you will forgive me.”

“Meereen must come first.” Hizdahr smiled genially. “We will have other nights. A thousand nights.”

“Ser Barristan will show you out.” Dany hurried off, calling for her handmaids. She would not welcome her captain home in a tokar. In the end she tried a dozen gowns before she found one she liked, but she refused the crown that Jhiqui offered her.

As Daario Naharis took a knee before her, Dany’s heart gave a lurch. His hair was matted with dried blood, and on his temple a deep cut glistened red and raw. His right sleeve was bloody almost to the elbow. “You’re hurt,” she gasped.

“This?” Daario touched his temple. “A crossbowman tried to put a quarrel through my eye, but I outrode it. I was hurrying home to my queen, to bask in the warmth of her smile.” He shook his sleeve, spattering red droplets. “This blood is not mine. One of my serjeants said we should go over to the Yunkai’i, so I reached down his throat and pulled his heart out. I meant to bring it to you as a gift for my silver queen, but four of the Cats cut me off and came snarling and spitting after me. One almost caught me, so I threw the heart into his face.”

“Very gallant,” said Ser Barristan, in a tone that suggested it was anything but, “but do you have tidings for Her Grace?”

“Hard tidings, Ser Grandfather. Astapor is gone, and the slavers are coming north in strength.”

“This is old news, and stale,” growled the Shavepate.

“Your mother said the same of your father’s kisses,” Daario replied. “Sweet queen, I would have been here sooner, but the hills are aswarm with Yunkish sellswords. Four free companies. Your Stormcrows had to cut their way through all of them. There is more, and worse. The Yunkai’i are marching their host up the coast road, joined by four legions out of New Ghis. They have elephants, a hundred, armored and towered. Tolosi slingers too, and a corps of Qartheen camelry. Two more Ghiscari legions took ship at Astapor. If our captives told it true, they will be landed beyond the Skahazadhan to cut us off from the Dothraki sea.”

As he told his tale, from time to time a drop of bright red blood would patter against the marble floor, and Dany would wince. “How many men were killed?” she asked when he was done.

“Of ours? I did not stop to count. We gained more than we lost, though.”

“More turncloaks?”

“More brave men drawn to your noble cause. My queen will like them. One is an axeman from the Basilisk Isles, a brute, bigger than Belwas. You should see him. Some Westerosi too, a score or more. Deserters from the Windblown, unhappy with the Yunkai’i. They’ll make good Stormcrows.”

“If you say.” Dany would not quibble. Meereen might soon have need of every sword.

Ser Barristan frowned at Daario. “Captain, you made mention of four free companies. We know of only three. The Windblown, the Long Lances, and the Company of the Cat.”

“Ser Grandfather knows how to count. The Second Sons have gone over to the Yunkai’i.” Daario turned his head and spat. “That’s for Brown Ben Plumm. When next I see his ugly face I will open him from throat to groin and rip out his black heart.”

Dany tried to speak and found no words.

“Leave me. Daario, remain. That cut should be washed, and I have more questions for you.”

The others bowed and went. Dany took Daario Naharis up the steps to her bedchamber, where Irri washed his cut with vinegar and Jhiqui wrapped it in white linen. When that was done she sent her handmaids off as well. “Your clothes are stained with blood,” she told Daario. “Take them off.”

“Only if you do the same.” He kissed her.

His hair smelled of blood and smoke and horse, and his mouth was hard and hot on hers. Dany trembled in his arms. When they broke apart, she said, “I thought you would be the one to betray me. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love, the warlocks said. I thought … I never thought Brown Ben. Even my dragons seemed to trust him.” She clutched her captain by the shoulders. “Promise me that you will never turn against me. I could not bear that. Promise me.”

“Never, my love.”

She believed him. “I swore that I should wed Hizdahr zo Loraq if he gave me ninety days of peace, but now … I wanted you from the first time that I saw you, but you were a sellsword, fickle, treacherous. You boasted that you’d had a hundred women.”

“A hundred?” Daario chuckled through his purple beard. “I lied, sweet queen. It was a thousand. But never once a dragon.”

She raised her lips to his. “What are you waiting for?”

ADWD Daenerys V

And you will have the friendship of Lhazar.”

Daario won that for me, for all that it is worth.

“A mistake. The Great Master Hizdahr plays Your Worship for a fool. Do you want a serpent in your bed?”

I want Daario in my bed, but I sent him away for the sake of you and yours. “You may continue to watch Hizdahr zo Loraq, but no harm is to come to him. Is that understood?”

“And the Stormcrows, Your Grace?”

Daario. “Yes. Yes.” Just three nights ago she had dreamed of Daario lying dead beside the road, staring sightlessly into the sky as crows quarreled above his corpse. Other nights she tossed in her bed, imagining that he’d betrayed her, as he had once betrayed his fellow captains in the Stormcrows. He brought me their heads. What if he had taken his company back to Yunkai, to sell her for a pot of gold? He would not do that. Would he? “The Stormcrows too. Send riders after them at once.”

The Second Sons were the first to return, eight days after the queen sent forth her summons. When Ser Barristan told her that her captain desired words with her, she thought for a moment that it was Daario, and her heart leapt. But the captain that he spoke of was Brown Ben Plumm.

“You warned King Cleon against this war with Yunkai. The man was a fool, and his hands were red with blood.”

And are my hands any cleaner? She remembered what Daario had said—that all kings must be butchers, or meat.

Daenerys looked at the faces of the men around her. The Shavepate, scowling. Ser Barristan, with his lined face and sad blue eyes. Reznak mo Reznak, pale, sweating. Brown Ben, white-haired, grizzled, tough as old leather. Grey Worm, smooth-cheeked, stolid, expressionless. Daario should be here, and my bloodriders, she thought.

“What does Naharis have to say? If we’re going to make a fight o’ this, we need his Stormcrows.”

“Daario is still in the field.” Oh, gods, what have I done? Have I sent him to his death?

ADWD Daenerys IV

“I do not love you.”

Hizdahr shrugged. “That may come, in time. It has been known to happen that way.”

Not with us, she thought. Not whilst Daario is so close. It’s him I want, not you.

“Forgive me. Your Grace has a visitor. Shall I tell him to return upon the morrow?”

“Who is it?”

“Naharis. The Stormcrows have returned to the city.”

Daario. Her heart gave a flutter in her chest. “How long has … when did he …?” She could not seem to get the words out.

Ser Barristan seemed to understand. “Your Grace was with the priestess when he arrived. I knew you would not want to be disturbed. The captain’s news can wait until the morrow.”

“No.” How could I ever hope to sleep, knowing that my captain so close? “Send him up at once. And … I will have no more need of you this evening. I shall be safe with Daario. Oh, and send Irri and Jhiqui, if you would be so good. And Missandei.” I need to change, to make myself beautiful.

She said as much to her handmaids when they came. “What does Your Grace wish to wear?” asked Missandei.

Starlight and seafoam, Dany thought, a wisp of silk that leaves my left breast bare for Daario’s delight. Oh, and flowers for my hair. When first they met, the captain brought her flowers every day, all the way from Yunkai to Meereen. “Bring the grey linen gown with the pearls on the bodice. Oh, and my white lion’s pelt.” She always felt safer wrapped in Drogo’s lionskin.

Daenerys received the captain on her terrace, seated on a carved stone bench beneath a pear tree. A half-moon floated in the sky above the city, attended by a thousand stars. Daario Naharis entered swaggering. He swaggers even when he is standing still. The captain wore striped pantaloons tucked into high boots of purple leather, a white silk shirt, a vest of golden rings. His trident beard was purple, his flamboyant mustachios gold, his long curls equal parts of both. On one hip he wore a stiletto, on the other a Dothraki arakh. “Bright queen,” he said, “you have grown more beautiful in my absence. How is this thing possible?”

The queen was accustomed to such praise, yet somehow the compliment meant more coming from Daario than from the likes of Reznak, Xaro, or Hizdahr. “Captain. They tell us you did us good service in Lhazar.” I have missed you so much.

“Your captain lives to serve his cruel queen.”

“Cruel?”

Moonlight glimmered in his eyes. “He raced ahead of all his men to see her face the sooner, only to be left languishing whilst she ate lamb and figs with some dried-up old woman.”

They never told me you were here, Dany thought, or I might have played the fool and sent for you at once. “I was supping with the Green Grace.” It seemed best not to mention Hizdahr. “I had urgent need of her wise counsel.”

“I have only one urgent need: Daenerys.”

“Shall I send for food? You must be hungry.”

“I have not eaten in two days, but now that I am here, it is enough for me to feast upon your beauty.”

“My beauty will not fill up your belly.” She plucked down a pear and tossed it at him. “Eat this.”

“If my queen commands it.” He took a bite of the pear, his gold tooth gleaming. Juice ran down into his purple beard.

The girl in her wanted to kiss him so much it hurt. His kisses would be hard and cruel, she told herself, and he would not care if I cried out or commanded him to stop. But the queen in her knew that would be folly. “Tell me of your journey.”

He gave a careless shrug. “The Yunkai’i sent some hired swords to close the Khyzai Pass. The Long Lances, they name themselves. We descended on them in the night and sent a few to hell. In Lhazar I slew two of my own serjeants for plotting to steal the gems and gold plate my queen had entrusted to me as gifts for the Lamb Men. Elsewise, all went as I had promised.”

“How many men did you lose in the fighting?”

“Nine,” said Daario, “but a dozen of the Long Lances decided they would sooner be Stormcrows than corpses, so we came out three ahead. I told them they would live longer fighting with your dragons than against them, and they saw the wisdom in my words.”

That made her wary. “They might be spying for Yunkai.”

“They are too stupid to be spies. You do not know them.”

“Neither do you. Do you trust them?”

“I trust all my men. Just as far as I can spit.” He spat out a seed and smiled at her suspicions. “Shall I bring their heads to you? I will, if you command it. One is bald and two have braids and one dyes his beard four different colors. What spy would wear such a beard, I ask you? The slinger can put a stone through a gnat’s eye at forty paces, and the ugly one has a way with horses, but if my queen says that they must die …”

“I did not say that. I only … see that you keep your eye on them, that’s all.” She felt foolish saying it. She always felt a little foolish when she was with Daario. Gawky and girlish and slow-witted. What must he think of me? She changed the subject. “Will the Lamb Men send us food?”

“Grain will come down the Skahazadhan by barge, my queen, and other goods by caravan over the Khyzai.”

“Not the Skahazadhan. The river has been closed to us. The seas as well. You will have seen the ships out in the bay. The Qartheen have driven off a third of our fishing fleet and seized another third. The others are too frightened to leave port. What little trade we still had has been cut off.”

Daario tossed away the pear stem. “Qartheen have milk in their veins. Let them see your dragons, and they’ll run.”

Dany did not want to talk about the dragons. Farmers still came to her court with burned bones, complaining of missing sheep, though Drogon had not returned to the city. Some reported seeing him north of the river, above the grass of the Dothraki sea. Down in the pit, Viserion had snapped one of his chains; he and Rhaegal grew more savage every day. Once the iron doors had glowed red-hot, her Unsullied told her, and no one dared to touch them for a day. “Astapor is under siege as well.”

“This I knew. One of the Long Lances lived long enough to tell us that men were eating one another in the Red City. He said Meereen’s turn would come soon, so I cut his tongue out and fed it to a yellow dog. No dog will eat a liar’s tongue. When the yellow dog ate his, I knew he spoke the truth.”

“I have war inside the city too.” She told him of the Harpy’s Sons and the Brazen Beasts, of blood upon the bricks. “My enemies are all around me, within the city and without.”

“Attack,” he said at once. “A man surrounded by foes cannot defend himself. Try, and the axe will take you in the back whilst you are parrying the sword. No. When faced with many enemies, choose the weakest, kill him, ride over him, and escape.”

“Where should I escape to?”

“Into my bed. Into my arms. Into my heart.” The hilts of Daario’s arakh and stiletto were wrought in the shape of golden women, naked and wanton. He brushed his thumbs across them in a way that was remarkably obscene and smiled a wicked smile.

Dany felt blood rushing to her face. It was almost as if he were caressing her. Would he think me wanton too if I pulled him into bed? He made her want to be his wanton. I should never see him alone. He is too dangerous to have near me. “The Green Grace says that I must take a Ghiscari king,” she said, flustered. “She urges me to wed the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq.”

“That one?” Daario chuckled. “Why not Grey Worm, if you want a eunuch in your bed? Do you want a king?”

I want you. “I want peace. I gave Hizdahr ninety days to end the killings. If he does, I will take him for a husband.”

“Take me for your husband. I will do it in nine.”

You know I cannot do that, she almost said. “You are fighting shadows when you should be fighting the men who cast them,” Daario went on. “Kill them all and take their treasures, I say. Whisper the command, and your Daario will make you a pile of their heads taller than this pyramid.”

“If I knew who they were—”

“Zhak and Pahl and Merreq. Them, and all the rest. The Great Masters. Who else would it be?”

He is as bold as he is bloody. “We have no proof this is their work. Would you have me slaughter my own subjects?”

“Your own subjects would gladly slaughter you.”

He had been so long away, Dany had almost forgotten what he was. Sellswords were treacherous by nature, she reminded herself. Fickle, faithless, brutal. He will never be more than he is. He will never be the stuff of kings. “The pyramids are strong,” she explained to him. “We could take them only at great cost. The moment we attack one the others will rise against us.”

“Then winkle them out of their pyramids on some pretext. A wedding might serve. Why not? Promise your hand to Hizdahr and all the Great Masters will come to see you married. When they gather in the Temple of the Graces, turn us loose upon them.”

Dany was appalled. He is a monster. A gallant monster, but a monster still. “Do you take me for the Butcher King?”

“Better the butcher than the meat. All kings are butchers. Are queens so different?”

“This queen is.”

Daario shrugged. “Most queens have no purpose but to warm some king’s bed and pop out sons for him. If that’s the sort of queen you mean to be, best marry Hizdahr.”

Her anger flashed. “Have you forgotten who I am?”

“No. Have you?”

Viserys would have his head off for that insolence. “I am the blood of the dragon. Do not presume to teach me lessons.” When Dany stood, the lion pelt slipped from her shoulders and tumbled to the ground. “Leave me.”

Daario gave her a sweeping bow. “I live to obey.”

When he was gone, Daenerys called Ser Barristan back. “I want the Stormcrows back in the field.”

“Your Grace? They have only now returned …”

“I want them gone. Let them scout the Yunkish hinterlands and give protection to any caravans coming over the Khyzai Pass. Henceforth Daario shall make his reports to you. Give him every honor that is due him and see that his men are well paid, but on no account admit him to my presence.”

“As you say, Your Grace.”

That night she could not sleep but turned and twisted restlessly in her bed. She even went so far as to summon Irri, hoping her caresses might help ease her way to rest, but after a short while she pushed the Dothraki girl away. Irri was sweet and soft and willing, but she was not Daario.

What have I done? she thought, huddled in her empty bed. I have waited so long for him to come back, and I send him away. “He would make a monster of me,” she whispered, “a butcher queen.” But then she thought of Drogon far away, and the dragons in the pit. There is blood on my hands too, and on my heart. We are not so different, Daario and I. We are both monsters.

ADWD Daenerys III

Her face was warm. The wine, she told herself. Yet somehow she found herself thinking of Daario Naharis. His messenger had come that morning. The Stormcrows were returning from Lhazar. Her captain was riding back to her, bringing her the friendship of the Lamb Men. Food and trade, she reminded herself. He did not fail me, nor will he. Daario will help me save my city. The queen longed to see his face, to stroke his three-pronged beard, to tell him her troubles … but the Stormcrows were still many days away, beyond the Khyzai Pass, and she had a realm to rule.

He touched her bare breast lightly, and whispered, “Let me stay and help persuade you.”

For a moment she was tempted. Perhaps the dancers had stirred her after all. I could close my eyes and pretend that he was Daario. A dream Daario would be safer than the real one. But she pushed the thought aside.

“No, my lord. I thank you, but no.” Dany slipped from his arms. “Some other night, perhaps.” “Some other night.”

The next morning Dany woke as full of hope as she had been since first she came to Slaver’s Bay. Daario would soon be at her side once more, and together they would sail for Westeros. For home.

ADWD Daenerys II

“What is it?” she cried, as Irri shook her gently by the shoulder. It was the black of night outside. Something is wrong, she knew at once. “Is it Daario? What’s happened?” In her dream they had been man and wife, simple folk who lived a simple life in a tall stone house with a red door. In her dream he had been kissing her all over—her mouth, her neck, her breasts.

She found herself thinking of Daario Naharis once again, Daario with his gold tooth and trident beard, his strong hands resting on the hilts of his matched arakh and stiletto, hilts wrought of gold in the shape of naked women. The day he took his leave of her, as she was bidding him farewell, he had brushed the balls of his thumbs lightly across them, back and forth. I am jealous of a sword hilt, she had realized, of women made of gold. Sending him to the Lamb Men had been wise. She was a queen, and Daario Naharis was not the stuff of kings.

“It has been so long,” she had said to Ser Barristan, just yesterday. “What if Daario has betrayed me and gone over to my enemies?” Three treasons will you know. “What if he met another woman, some princess of the Lhazarene?”

The old knight neither liked nor trusted Daario, she knew. Even so, he had answered gallantly. “There is no woman more lovely than Your Grace. Only a blind man could believe otherwise, and Daario Naharis was not blind.”

No, she thought. His eyes are a deep blue, almost purple, and his gold tooth gleams when he smiles for me.

Ser Barristan was sure he would return, though. Dany could only pray that he was right.

On the road to Yunkai, when Daario tossed the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn at her feet, her children made a feast of them. Dragons had no fear of men. And a dragon large enough to gorge on sheep could take a child just as easily.

ADWD Daenerys I

The most crucial task of all she had entrusted to Daario Naharis, glib-tongued Daario with his gold tooth and trident beard, smiling his wicked smile through purple whiskers. Beyond the eastern hills was a range of rounded sandstone mountains, the Khyzai Pass, and Lhazar. If Daario could convince the Lhazarene to reopen the overland trade routes, grains could be brought down the river or over the hills at need … but the Lamb Men had no reason to love Meereen.

There were times when Dany wondered if that razor might not be better saved for Reznak’s throat. He was a useful man, but she liked him little and trusted him less. The Undying of Qarth had told her she would be thrice betrayed. Mirri Maz Duur had been the first, Ser Jorah the second. Would Reznak be the third? The Shavepate? Daario? Or will it be someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei?

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

Across the room, Grey Worm wore the plain uniform of the Unsullied, his spiked bronze cap beneath one arm. These at least she could rely on, or so she hoped ... and Brown Ben Plumm as well, solid Ben with his grey-white hair and weathered face, so beloved of her dragons. And Daario beside him, glittering in gold. Daario and Ben Plumm, Grey Worm, Irri, Jhiqui, Missandei ... as she looked at them Dany found herself wondering which of them would betray her next.

The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.

“There are too many flies in this city.”

Ben Plumm gave a bark of laughter. “There were flies in my ale this morning. I swallowed one of them.”

“Flies are the dead man’s revenge.” Daario smiled, and stroked the center prong of his beard. “Corpses breed maggots, and maggots breed flies.”

“We will rid ourselves of the corpses, then. Starting with those in the plaza below. Grey Worm, will you see to it?”

“The queen commands, these ones obey.”

Dany beckoned to Daario. “How many seek audience this morning?”

“Two have presented themselves to bask in your radiance.”

Daario had plundered himself a whole new wardrobe in Meereen, and to match it he had redyed his trident beard and curly hair a deep rich purple. It made his eyes look almost purple too, as if he were some lost Valyrian.

“We have no slaves for sale,” said Dany.

“My queen?” Daario stepped forward. “The riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the flies.”

Dany was shocked. “They want to be slaves?”

“The ones who come are well spoken and gently born, sweet queen. Such slaves are prized. In the Free Cities they will be tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests. They will sleep in soft beds, eat rich foods, and dwell in manses. Here they have lost all, and live in fear and squalor.”

“I see.” Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. “Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.” She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife.”

“In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each time a slave changed hands,” Missandei told her.

“We’ll do the same,” Dany decided. Wars were won with gold as much as swords. “A tenth part. In gold or silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or zorse hides.”

“It shall be done as you command, glorious queen,” said Daario. “My Stormcrows will collect your tenth.” If the Stormcrows saw to the collections at least half the gold would somehow go astray, Dany knew. But the Second Sons were just as bad, and the Unsullied were as unlettered as they were incorruptible. “Records must be kept,” she said. “Seek among the freedmen for men who can read, write, and do sums.”

“The queen has a good heart,” Daario purred through his deep purple whiskers, “but that one is more dangerous than all the Oznaks and Meros rolled up in one.” His strong hands caressed the hilts of his matched blades, those wanton golden women. “You need not even say the word, my radiance. Only give the tiniest nod, and your Daario shall fetch you back his ugly head.”

“Leave him be. The scales are balanced now. Let him go home.”

When her handmaid brought the book, Dany had no trouble finding the page where she had left off, but it was no good. She found herself reading the same passage half a dozen times. Ser Jorah gave me this book as a bride’s gift, the day I wed Khal Drogo. But Daario is right, I shouldn’t have banished him. I should have kept him, or I should have killed him. She played at being a queen, yet sometimes she still felt like a scared little girl. Viserys always said what a dolt I was. Was he truly mad? She closed the book. She could still recall Ser Jorah, if she wished. Or send Daario to kill him.

Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed with her, for the first time since the ship. But even as she shuddered in release and wound her fingers through her handmaid’s thick black hair, she pretended it was Drogo holding her ... only somehow his face kept turning into Daario’s. If I want Daario I need only say so. She lay with Irri’s legs entangled in her own. His eyes looked almost purple today ...

Dany’s dreams were dark that night, and she woke three times from half-remembered nightmares. After the third time she was too restless to return to sleep. Moonlight streamed through the slanting windows, silvering the marble floors. A cool breeze was blowing through the open terrace doors. Irri slept soundly beside her, her lips slightly parted, one dark brown nipple peeping out above the sleeping silks. For a moment Dany was tempted, but it was Drogo she wanted, or perhaps Daario. Not Irri. The maid was sweet and skillful, but all her kisses tasted of duty.

“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.”

“There is nothing to stay for,” said Brown Ben Plumm.

“Your Grace, the slavers brought their doom on themselves,” said Daario Naharis.

ASOS Daenerys V

“The harpy is a craven thing,” Daario Naharis said when he saw it. “She has a woman’s heart and a chicken’s legs. Small wonder her sons hide behind their walls.”

Worst of all, they had nailed a slave child up on every milepost along the coast road from Yunkai, nailed them up still living with their entrails hanging out and one arm always outstretched to point the way to Meereen. Leading her van, Daario had given orders for the children to be taken down before Dany had to see them, but she had countermanded him as soon as she was told. “I will see them,” she said. “I will see every one, and count them, and look upon their faces. And I will remember.”

He was still pissing when Daario Naharis rode up, arakh in hand. “Shall I cut that off for you and stuff it down his mouth, Your Grace?” His tooth shone gold amidst the blue of his forked beard.

“It’s his city I want, not his meager manhood.” She was growing angry, however. If I ignore this any longer, my own people will think me weak. Yet who could she send? She needed Daario as much as she did her bloodriders. Without the flamboyant Tyroshi, she had no hold on the Stormcrows, many of whom had been followers of Prendahl na Ghezn and Sallor the Bald.

And unlike Ser Jorah, Daario, Brown Ben, and her three bloodriders, the eunuch did not lead troops, plan battles, or give her counsel. He does nothing but eat and boast and bellow at Arstan. Belwas was the man she could most easily spare. And it was time she learned what sort of protector Magister Illyrio had sent her.

“So much for the hero of Meereen,” said Daario, laughing.

“A victory without meaning,” Ser Jorah cautioned. “We will not win Meereen by killing its defenders one at a time.”

“No,” Dany agreed, “but I’m pleased we killed this one.”

“I must have this city,” she told them, sitting crosslegged on a pile of cushions, her dragons all about her. Irri and Jhiqui poured wine. “Her granaries are full to bursting. There are figs and dates and olives growing on the terraces of her pyramids, and casks of salt fish and smoked meat buried in her cellars.”

“And fat chests of gold, silver, and gemstones as well,” Daario reminded them. “Let us not forget the gemstones.”

Daario Naharis gave Grey Worm a smile. “Perhaps the Unsullied should wield the axes. Boiling oil feels like no more than a warm bath to you, I have heard.”

“This is false.” Grey Worm did not return the smile.

Daario Naharis laughed. “As nasty as you, when you came crawling out? If any man were fool enough to try this, every slaver in Meereen would smell them the moment they emerged.”

Brown Ben shrugged. “Her Grace asked if there was a way in, so I told her ... but Ben Plumm isn’t going down in them sewers again, not for all the gold in the Seven Kingdoms. If there’s others want to try it, though, they’re welcome.”

Aggo, Jhogo, and Grey Worm all tried to speak at once, but Dany raised her hand for silence. “These sewers do not sound promising.”

“If you were grown,” she told Drogon, scratching him between the horns, “I’d fly you over the walls and melt that harpy down to slag.” But it would be years before her dragons were large enough to ride. And when they are, who shall ride them? The dragon has three heads, but I have only one. She thought of Daario. If ever there was a man who could rape a woman with his eyes ...

To be sure, she was just as guilty. Dany found herself stealing looks at the Tyroshi when her captains came to council, and sometimes at night she remembered the way his gold tooth glittered when he smiled. That, and his eyes. His bright blue eyes. On the road from Yunkai, Daario had brought her a flower or a sprig of some plant every evening when he made his report ... to help her learn the land, he said. Waspwillow, dusky roses, wild mint, lady’s lace, daggerleaf, broom, prickly ben, harpy’s gold ... He tried to spare me the sight of the dead children too. He should not have done that, but he meant it kindly. And Daario Naharis made her laugh, which Ser Jorah never did.

Dany tried to imagine what it would be like if she allowed Daario to kiss her, the way Jorah had kissed her on the ship. The thought was exciting and disturbing, both at once. It is too great a risk. The Tyroshi sellsword was not a good man, no one needed to tell her that. Under the smiles and the jests he was dangerous, even cruel. Sallor and Prendahl had woken one morning as his partners; that very night he’d given her their heads. Khal Drogo could be cruel as well, and there was never a man more dangerous. She had come to love him all the same. Could I love Daario? What would it mean, if I took him into my bed? Would that make him one of the heads of the dragon? Ser Jorah would be angry, she knew, but he was the one who’d said she had to take two husbands. Perhaps I should marry them both and be done with it.

“We’ll take Arstan. I do not mean to leave the camps.” She had no enemies among her children. And the old squire would not talk too much as Belwas would, or look at her like Daario.

ASOS Daenerys IV

Dany studied them as Irri and Jhiqui poured the wine. Prendahl na Ghezn was a thickset Ghiscari with a broad face and dark hair going grey; Sallor the Bald had a twisting scar across his pale Qartheen cheek; and Daario Naharis was flamboyant even for a Tyroshi. His beard was cut into three prongs and dyed blue, the same color as his eyes and the curly hair that fell to his collar. His pointed mustachios were painted gold. His clothes were all shades of yellow; a foam of Myrish lace the color of butter spilled from his collar and cuffs, his doublet was sewn with brass medallions in the shape of dandelions, and ornamental goldwork crawled up his high leather boots to his thighs. Gloves of soft yellow suede were tucked into a belt of gilded rings, and his fingernails were enameled blue.

The Stormcrow captains rose in unison. “Our answer is no,” said Prendahl na Ghezn. His fellows followed him out of the tent ... but Daario Naharis glanced back as he left, and inclined his head in polite farewell.

Near midnight, she got a scare when Ser Jorah bulled his way past Strong Belwas. “The Unsullied caught one of the sellswords trying to sneak into the camp.”

“A spy?” That frightened her. If they’d caught one, how many others might have gotten away?

“He claims to come bearing gifts. It’s the yellow fool with the blue hair.”

Daario Naharis. “That one. I’ll hear him, then.”

When the exile knight delivered him, she asked herself whether two men had ever been so different. The Tyroshi was fair where Ser Jorah was swarthy; lithe where the knight was brawny; graced with flowing locks where the other was balding, yet smooth-skinned where Mormont was hairy. And her knight dressed plainly while this other made a peacock look drab, though he had thrown a heavy black cloak over his bright yellow finery for this visit. He carried a heavy canvas sack slung over one shoulder.

“Khaleesi,” he cried, “I bring gifts and glad tidings. The Stormcrows are yours.” A golden tooth gleamed in his mouth when he smiled. “And so is Daario Naharis!”

Dany was dubious. If this Tyroshi had come to spy, this declaration might be no more than a desperate plot to save his head. “What do Prendahl na Ghezn and Sallor say of this?”

“Little.” Daario upended the sack, and the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn spilled out upon her carpets. “My gifts to the dragon queen.”

Viserion sniffed the blood leaking from Prendahl’s neck, and let loose a gout of flame that took the dead man full in the face, blackening and blistering his bloodless cheeks. Drogon and Rhaegal stirred at the smell of roasted meat.

“You did this?” Dany asked queasily.

“None other.” If her dragons discomfited Daario Naharis, he hid it well. For all the mind he paid them, they might have been three kittens playing with a mouse.

“Why?”

“Because you are so beautiful.” His hands were large and strong, and there was something in his hard blue eyes and great curving nose that suggested the fierceness of some splendid bird of prey. “Prendahl talked too much and said too little.” His garb, rich as it was, had seen hard wear; salt stains patterned his boots, the enamel of his nails was chipped, his lace was soiled by sweat, and she could see where the end of his cloak was fraying. “And Sallor picked his nose as if his snot was gold.” He stood with his hands crossed at the wrists, his palms resting on the pommels of his blades; a curving Dothraki arakh on his left hip, a Myrish stiletto on his right. Their hilts were a matched pair of golden women, naked and wanton.

“Are you skilled in the use of those handsome blades?” Dany asked him.

“Prendahl and Sallor would tell you so, if dead men could talk. I count no day as lived unless I have loved a woman, slain a foeman, and eaten a fine meal ... and the days that I have lived are as numberless as the stars in the sky. I make of slaughter a thing of beauty, and many a tumbler and fire dancer has wept to the gods that they might be half so quick, a quarter so graceful. I would tell you the names of all the men I have slain, but before I could finish your dragons would grow large as castles, the walls of Yunkai would crumble into yellow dust, and winter would come and go and come again.”

Dany laughed. She liked the swagger she saw in this Daario Naharis. “Draw your sword and swear it to my service.”

In a blink, Daario’s arakh was free of its sheath. His submission was as outrageous as the rest of him, a great swoop that brought his face down to her toes. “My sword is yours. My life is yours. My love is yours. My blood, my body, my songs, you own them all. I live and die at your command, fair queen.”

“Then live,” Dany said, “and fight for me tonight.”

“That would not be wise, my queen.” Ser Jorah gave Daario a cold, hard stare. “Keep this one here under guard until the battle’s fought and won.”

She considered a moment, then shook her head. “If he can give us the Stormcrows, surprise is certain.”

“And if he betrays you, surprise is lost.”

Dany looked down at the sellsword again. He gave her such a smile that she flushed and turned away. “He won’t.”

“How can you know that?”

She pointed to the lumps of blackened flesh the dragons were consuming, bite by bloody bite. “I would call that proof of his sincerity. Daario Naharis, have your Stormcrows ready to strike the Yunkish rear when my attack begins. Can you get back safely?”

“If they stop me, I will say I have been scouting, and saw nothing.” The Tyroshi rose to his feet, bowed, and swept out.

Ser Jorah Mormont lingered. “Your Grace,” he said, too bluntly, “that was a mistake. We know nothing of this man—”

“We know that he is a great fighter.”

“A great talker, you mean.”

“He brings us the Stormcrows.” And he has blue eyes.

“Five hundred sellswords of uncertain loyalty.”

“All loyalties are uncertain in such times as these,” Dany reminded him. And I shall be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love.

“Daenerys, I am thrice your age,” Ser Jorah said. “I have seen how false men are. Very few are worthy of trust, and Daario Naharis is not one of them. Even his beard wears false colors.”

That angered her. “Whilst you have an honest beard, is that what you are telling me? You are the only man I should ever trust?”

#daenerys targaryen #dany passages #dany relationships #daario naharis #a dance with dragons #a storm of swords

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