11

Chapter 11: Memories of a life not lived.Notes:

I don't know why these last three chapters took me longer than I thought, but I did develop all the points I wanted and I am happy with it.

Enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

11.

Memories of a life not lived

304 ac

King's Landing

The mighty wind blew on her face as she glided through the thick clouds. Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal were all agreeable for a flight and a quick hunt, so Dany had taken them to the fields. In passing, she cleared her mind and got an aerial glimpse of the lands that made up the Crowlands. In her past life Dany had neglected this aspect of her duty as Queen, driving her efforts on the pursuit of the throne. How naive she had been back then. Now that the years had elapsed, and brought a new kind of wisdom, Dany would rather spend her time doing this than sitting on the Iron Throne all day and pretend she enjoyed politicking and dealing with enemies from another life.

"Whoa!" Dany exclaimed as she felt the abrupt movement that nearly sent her flying off of Drogon as he and his brothers made a sudden detour.

"Skoros iksis ziry? skoriot issi īlon jāre?" Dany asked them. The way they formed made Dany feel uneasy, with Rhaegal leading the way while Drogon and Viserion followed on his flanks. Before she knew it, they were flying over King's Landing, to the Dragonpit, where Viserion and Rhaegal veered around as Drogon landed inside its structure. 

A cloud of dust rose making it impossible to see what had caught the attention of her children and only when it dissipated could Dany see the reason for it all, standing below them on the ground, watching in confusion and dismay and a hand raised over his face to cover his eyes from the sunlight.

Jon Snow.

***

If Daenerys had to pick one feeling out of all of them, it would be confusion; she didn't know what he was doing right there, right now. She hoped her message would encourage him to change his plans and stay in the North awaiting her summonses, which she would have to send at some point no matter how long she put off. 

Somehow Jon Snow found a way to force their ways together, regardless of Daenerys efforts and anticipation.

That couldn't be a good sign of anything, she thought. 

With a fleeting, jerky movement like that of the dragons themselves, Dany tore her gaze away from Jon Snow and hopped off from Drogon's back. Feeling the restlessness of his mother, he quickly lowered his shoulder, following her desire.

Dany lifted up her chin and squared her shoulders as she approached. 

"Your Grace," Tyrion hurried over, "Allow me to introduce you—"

"Save your breath, Lord Tyrion. I know who he is," Dany cut him off; eyes stilled on Jon Snow's frame. His image burned in her memory has remained the same. "King Jon, of the North," said she, clasping her hands in front of her to hold back the tension.

"You know each other?" Tyrion asked, blinking in confusion. 

Jon looked away for the first time since she arrived and glanced at Tyrion briefly before turning back to her. 

"I had never seen her Grace in person," he answered, inadvertently honest. Daenerys Targaryen was the woman of his dreams, in the literal sense of that expression, and also, she was the image that everyone had of her: a beautiful woman beyond what words could describe, with a firm and unflinching bearing that invited one to believe in the legends and the tales about her. Her dragons did nothing to overshadow the image of that small but imposing presence.

Jon became aware that his gaze stayed on her for too long.

"It is not necessary," Daenerys continued saying, "I could recognize a Northmen when I see one. And I also know of their custom of unwisely showing up at King's Landing, uninvited," she ascertained, her stern eyes never unrelenting even as she made a pause and smiled tautly at him. "Welcome to King's Landing, King in the North."

"Your Grace," Jon replied more firmly after regaining his wits. Drogon growled low in warning when he attempted to step closer, making him receded. "It was not my intention to offend you by showing up uninvited," he said, looking up at the dragon. 

"No, I am sure it is not, coming from the kingdom that declares itself independent, I assume the North is not interested in the affairs of the South," she replied. "Which makes your presence here even more surprising."

"It is not the Great Council that brought me here, Your Grace. The matter I bring to you is far more important than mere political matters."

"Mere political matters?"

Daenerys remembered the words he said previously and would say at any moment: children playing a game, screaming that the rules aren't fair.

The total dismissal of it — and therefore, his ignorance of it.

Daenerys looked over at Tyrion.

"This is the man you have such fond memories of?" she asked him ironically.

"I do," Tyrion said.

She huffed.

"Your Grace," Jon interrupted, "Everyone you know will die before winter is over if we don't defeat the enemy in the North. "

"You are the enemy in the North, " claimed Dany, vehemently, startling Tyrion and Jon Snow. Although she knew what he came to warn was true, and something she would eventually attend to, she still felt seething with long-stowed resentment and anger. Jon Snow wasn't aware of the depth of the truth of the words he spoke — the destruction it was bound to unleash.

"I am not your enemy. The dead are the enemy," he insisted.

Dany did not foresee that Jon would show her the wight at that very moment, ordering that it be discovered and exposed in front of her. She could not urge herself to react to that monstrous being in the same way that she did the first time she saw them in all their horrendous expanse, rather focusing her eyes on Jon Snow.

***

Somewhere in those dark and damp corridors, there was an incessant trickle that was driving her insane. Cersei couldn't believe she found herself missing her seclusion in the dungeons of the now gone Sept, its stifling silence, and its infinite darkness; if she ever had had a hint of sanity, it was in that place and moment that she started losing it.

The guard's shift change made her start and raise her gaze from the hiding place between her bent knees pulled in. She did not know if the eunuchs who watched her knew the common tongue but her attempts had already proven ineffective to stir any reaction on their part.

If her father could see her in that situation again, he would stare at her with glaring eyes telling her 'I told you' before finding a way — she knew he would — to negotiate her freedom, and Jaime's, with the Targaryen whore.

Her chest constricted with the thought of Jaime. What she wanted the most at that moment was to be with him. Even in this dire situation, at least he would know what to say to her, he would try to comfort her, or at least she would have someone to blame and take his rage out with. 

Another sound of steel clattering.

Cersei saw the movement of a shadow in the distance and then nothing.

When she got to her feet and walked as far as her shackled feet would allow, she saw clearly a fallen guard on the ground.

Her heart raced in her chest with a spark of hope.

Maybe Qyburn had left her a last hope.

"I would have liked to meet you again in different circumstances, Cersei."

Cersei jumped in fear, tried to turn around but a force pulled at the chains attached to her heels and pushed her to the ground face down before dragging her across the granite floor, scraping the exposed skin of her legs and arms.

All this while she screamed and called for help.

She was forced to roll onto her back and handled harshly by her captor as this one straddled her belly.

The face that appeared above her looking down with eyes widened with madness, was one that she had never forgotten.

Arya Stark.

Any coherent thought was suddenly interrupted by a stabbing pain in her lower belly.

Cersei moaned in pain and pleaded in a thin voice, "My baby."

***

"I thought I made clear my intention to exclude the North from this Council. So, my Lords, tell me why I have the King in the North in my castle with a walking cadaver accompanying him," Daenerys questioned her two advisers, her still Hand and her Master of Whispers, who had once again grossly failed to carry out the dictates of her will diligently.

The two men looked at each other and then at her.

"One of our messages may have been intercepted," Varys tried to explain. 

"Actually," Tyrion cut in, expression contorted, "Sansa Stark somehow learned about it and alerted the entire North to what is happening here. That's what Jon told me."

Dany took a sharp breath.

Of all the people who had put stones in her way in her past life, the one she really wanted to retaliate on was Sansa Stark. An urge that was hard to suppress when she continued to throw stones in her direction.

"Your former wife is rather prone to share information that doesn't concern her, right?" she claimed, not lost to the irony of it. 

At this time, Brandon was in the North with his siblings and Daenerys had all her bets on that Jon already knew her true identity and therefore that his sisters knew.

It wouldn't be long for everyone to know, Sansa Stark willing. Soon, knives would be pointed in her direction and the spiders' fangs would spill venom — neither she nor her people would be safe and she was more than willing to leave the continent if that was required to keep them safe.

But Dany knew it could never be that simple.

"Oh, there may be another explanation," Lord Varys interjected, "My little birds in the North told me that Lord Baelish is there in Winterfell," he said, looking down at Tyrion with a knowing look.

"Lord Baelish?" Daenerys asked.

"Littlefinger," Tyrion clarified. 

Dany remembered only then and by chance that character in Ser Barristan's accounts of the usurper's late years of ruling. His person had been of little interest to her both in her other life and in this.

"The important thing is to decide whether to believe Jon Snow's story or not," Varys said.

"He brought an undead person!" Dany reminded him.

"Excuse me your Grace but we both know the world is full of cheap tricks and mischief. What if it's a ruse to take you and your allies north to an ambush?"

"You never stop being a skeptic do you, Lord Varys?"

Even Tyrion looked at Varys with unbelief. 

Dany turned to him.

"Do you trust this Jon Snow?" she asked him, making him believe that he had the advantage of her trust still placed in him.

"Yes, of course. I do," Tyrion stated. "Besides, that thing he brought is...compelling."

"Alright. I'll allow Jon Snow to have his shot showing the undead to the Council," she conceded, but not without adding, "Only after the council has deliberated. Meanwhile, he shall wait."

Little did Daenerys know about Jon Snow and perhaps that was the reason that their association ended in a real disaster. But if she was sure of anything for certain, it was that he had no interest in the Iron Throne.

For the welfare of herself and her people, Dany decided that she would not proceed to deal with him without the endorsement of her allies in the south.

The doors to her chambers suddenly flung open, two Unsullied guards entered.

"My queen," one of them called out.

"What now?" she inquired, short of breath and anxious. 

"Is Cersei Lannister," he answered and her heart leaped out of her chest. "She was attacked."

***

When the healer who attends Cersei announced that she was pregnant, Daenerys closed her eyes and cursed inwardly. When Tyrion steps forward asking about the babe's state, she did it a second time. 

His pleading green eyes looked up at her, no words leaving his mouth. 

Dany suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

"Prepare a special guard in this chamber and let no soul enter or leave without my authorization," she addressed Torgo Nudho. "And I want the city sealed. No one goes in, no one goes out. I want the one responsible for the attack on Cersei."

"I know who did it," Tyrion said.

"Who?" Dany asked him.

Tyrion hesitated and cleared his throat.

"Arya Stark," he finally said.

***

"I thought that after facing the dead nothing else would be able to get me like this but now that I saw those beasts," said the Hound, half musing it and half addressing Jon, "Now I think I should have fuck off to Essos years ago."

Jon absently hummed. Neither dragons nor the dead occupied his thoughts. Not even Arya's whereabouts.

The Dothraki guards led them to some chambers inside the Red Keep, while Queen Daenerys, Tyrion, and the spider retired to an urgent meeting, Jon hoped to deliberate on the matter that he had brought upon them. Regardless of that, his mind was still all around the place, with the sharp pain that did not subside and the images that came in glimpses like a half-awake dream. 

"What's the matter, Snow? Did the Dragon Queen make your skin crawl?" the Hound joked.

"Shut up," Jon ordered, stepping to the side and leaning against a column, rubbing his forehead as he felt to be drag away from that place and sent to another much darker, cold, and desolate. With cracked floors, strewn debris, and open roofs. 

Dany, please.

That was his voice.

Don't do this, Jon.

That was her voice.

"Your Grace," a shrill voice called out.

Jon turned to find Tyrion standing a few feet from him, behind him an Unsullied guard. Coldness, darkness, desolation, and cracked floors were no longer.

"Are you okay?" Tyrion asked with a frown.

Jon stood up straight and just nodded.

"Very well. There was an incident," Tyrion said, and his eyes went dark with his next words. "And we believe Arya had something to do with it."

***

An entourage of Unsullied trotted past at an even pace down an alley, while Arya kept herself hidden behind a wall, waiting for them to cross the passage and get lost in the street before finally emerging from the shadows.

When they finally did, she turned away and walked the other way, cursing her luck as she watched the gates of the walls close and more soldiers blooding the streets of Flea Bottom.

It was as if fate didn't want her to finally get her vengeance on Cersei. Arya didn't know what stopped her back in the dungeons when she heard her say those words; after all, the Lannisters had murdered Robb's child while still in his mother's womb. It hadn't been mercy nor apprehension.

She hesitated. 

By the time she intended to drive the dagger into Cersei's flat belly, she heard them, the Unsullied, descending into the dungeons.

She didn't know if she would get another chance now that she had alerted the Dragon Queen, and still seething with anger she hoped that at least Daenerys Targaryen would do it.

Cersei didn't deserve to live, neither did her bloody child. 

The best Arya could expect now was to be there for her execution. Even so, she felt tremendously frustrated and dissatisfied. 

Turning a corner, she came to an abrupt stop as she collided with somebody. Arya didn't raise her head and intended to keep going straight ahead, until this person hold her by the shoulders, making her jump defensively.

"Arya?"

Arya's eyes widened in alertness at the familiar voice.

"Arya, is really you?"

Arya froze, seeing Gendry in front of her.

***

Jon was taken to the Throne Room and on the way there, he observed the inner structure of Red Keep and felt strangely familiar with it. By the time he reached the Iron Throne where Daenerys Targaryen sat, he was too taken by everything that had happened in that short span of time.

To Daenerys's left was a dark-skinned, curly-haired woman, standing in a graceful manner. On the other side, a man well into his aged years with a tough, westerosi and even northern aspect.

"Jon Snow," she addressed him by his name this time, "A major problem has arisen," she said. 

"Your Grace, Lord Tyrion has already filled me in on what happened, and as much as I regret that your guard has been breached, I cannot assure you that the person responsible is my sister Arya," Jon said, clasping his hands behind him to avoid them to clench and unclenched nervously.

"My guard was not just breached, it was attacked," she pointed the difference, with a slightly tense posture, sitting on the edge of her throne. "My soldier is fine, by the way."

"I'm glad for that," he added quickly.

A moment of silence followed it. Jon lowered his eyes to the floor, not because he didn't want to see her but because the marble tiles became too familiar, painted in warm colors he had never seen before.

"I understand and sympathize with Arya's anger, but Cersei—" Tyrion attempted before being cut off by Daenerys.

"Cersei will be judged for her crimes and justice brought to her victims. Your sister Arya has no right to exact revenge on her own. None of you have the right to come to my city to impart your will as you please and to pretend that I will do nothing about it."

Jon looked up.

"You already know and see that was not my intention."

She cocked her head.

"Then why is your sister here with you?"

"She's the closest I have to a royal guard," he replied.

"Well the King is here and there are no royal guard protecting him," she pointed out, rightfully so. "Either you are underestimating me or you are seeking to tempt my patience to its limits, Jon Snow." 

"None of those things, Your Grace," he reassured. 

"Alright, so where is your sister?"

"I cannot give you that answer. I have not left the periphery of the castle since I came into your presence."

"She disembarked with you but was not present at Dragonpit?" inquired the familiar-looking man on the queen's right side.

Jon sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Arya is like that. She is there at one moment and then she is not. But I promise you, Your Grace, that neither she nor my men nor I have ulterior motives towards you or your people," he stated.

They both held glances, neither willing to loosen their stance in front of the other.

Daenerys stirred in her place when she felt an uncomfortable flutter in her heart that she could not identify if it was emotion or something worse and more damaging.

"Alright," she said, swallowing hard, already exhausted. The crackling fires grew more intense, night fell on the city outside. "Nothing else brought you to King's Landing? Nothing but showing the undead the most important people in the Seven Kingdoms?"

Her question sounded more inquiring than reassuring. Jon took a moment to figure out if he should answer something other than the plain truth.

"No, your Grace," he said simply.

"Very good. Then I order word to spread, that Arya Stark is due to appear at the Great Council tomorrow as her brother King Jon Snow of the North is looking for her."

Jon stepped forward, hand instinctively on Longclaw's pommel.

The queen's guards reacted in kind, pointing their spears in his direction, the man to his right doing the same.

"Stop," Daenerys ordered, holding up a hand. She blinked and looked at him with a half-smile. "Did you really mean to draw your sword at me while in my Throne Room, in my castle, surrounded by my guards in my city? That's having some nerve, Jon Snow."

Jon felt a bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck. This time he was faster by moving his hand to his sword, unsheathed it, and throwing it at the foot of the throne.

The clattering of Longclaw falling in front of the queen echoed through the room.

"I am not interested in this game, no more. I have not come to put your life at risk, neither mine nor anyone else's. I have come to tell everyone that in the North, there is an enemy that little cares about who sits on this throne or any other. " He took a sharp breath. "If you had wanted to kill me, you would have done it the moment you see me the first time. But you didn't. That at least tells me you're better than Cersei Lannister. Better than your father." 

At the mention of her father, Daenerys recoiled in her seat and held the armrests.

Jon shook his head, not having intended to bring her father into the conversation.

"I was not destined to be a king," he picked up, "The heir to Winterfell was my brother Robb, my brothers Brandon and Rickon after him."

Somewhere in the back of his head, the knowledge of his true identity pounded and reminded him of its not-so-accurate truth.

"I was chosen by my people and it is the greatest honor in my life but that will matter little if I cannot protect them," he continued, "Do you understand that? You must. That is what Maester Aemon told me about you."}

Daenerys blinked and swallowed hard.

"Maester Aemon?"

"Yes. He was the brother of your father's father. And he served on the night watch, until the last day of his life. He knew about you. He received letters from Essos."

Dany looked in Jorah's way, but he was just as confused as she was.

"Who was sending them to you?"

"I don't know, I just know that he believed in you. He had faith in the woman who brought dragons back to the world and who went through cities freeing slaves." Jon walked two steps forward. "It is to that woman — to that queen — that I am speaking today, asking her please to leave your misgivings aside and help me save Westeros."

By the end of his speech, he was breathless, whether it was the words or the sentiment put into it, Jon didn't know. His gaze never left Daenerys in all that time and something in the way the icy in her eyes was melting and becoming more accessible made the effort worthwhile.

She rose from the throne and descended the steps one by one to the floor. The man on her right came up beside her and lifted Longclaw that was at her feet. He looked at the sword briefly as if recognizing it before handing it to Daenerys. 

Daenerys walked with the sword in hand to be in front of Jon, and held it out to him.

Her soft gaze had turned hard again, her eyes vacant as if she was not there in the room no more, but somewhere else.

The fear that he had ruined the chance to convince her to join them subsided at the pang in his chest of feeling confronted, alluded to by the feeling of hurt in her stare.

"I hope that, if we ever find ourselves again in this same situation, you will remember that I had the chance to do you harm but I chose not to," she said, and handed Longclaw back to him.

Notes:

Bear with me a bit here.

If you want revenge, fluff and love you have any of my other fics. Here I still want to further exploit the dialogue between Jon and Daenerys before putting them back in a romantic setting (which will happen sooner than you imagine).

I'm sorry about the chapter renaming but with this there were already three chapters called the queen's council but there was no council, LOL.

In the next chapter, the Great Council will take place. Proposals will be presented, decisions will be taken and monsters will be unveiled. More conversations between Dany and Jon. Maybe a walk around city and a new incident.