23

Chapter 23: A Lion's PenanceNotes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

23.

A Lion's Penance

Dany and the dragons descended to the rocky outcrop of Aegon's hill, even with the storm raging and blowing, inspecting any external exits that might indicate anything suspicious. Lord Varys's warnings still rang in her mind, something that made her unbearably weary. She only wanted Missandei back. That was all she wanted. If she could put it all behind her and get Missandei to safety, she would be done with that.

But you can't, she reminded herself. Any sudden changes would take her back to the same place where it all began. To the place, she was not certainly eager to go back to. 

A sudden move and squeak from Rhaegal alerted her and led to bad memories. Her whole body shuddered and she turned sharply to the side to watch her child turn away from the trace they were following. Dany squeezed Drogon's horns and turned away, following Rhaegal. Behind them also was Viserion.

"Rhaegal?" she shouted through the gale that threatened to hurl her into the void. 

Her green child hovered on a steep slope, where it was able to land despite its size. There was an entrance right there.

As best she could, Dany slid off Drogon's back and landed on the steep as well, landing roughly on her side. Drogon huffed out as if to scold her. When had she become so reckless? She found herself wondering as she stood up and snarled a curse. Meanwhile, Rhaegal stared quietly and persistently into the dark void that led to the insides of Red Keep. There was no way she could venture in without something to light her way, but the fact that Rhaegal was pointing something out to her was, at the very least, something to take care of. 

A sound burst in and startled her. It sounded like a thump and a groan that followed it. Rhaegal became restless and began to push himself into the cavity, breaking part of the structure and causing Dany to have to cover herself and step away to avoid being crushed or hit by the chunks of rock and heavy soil that fell shattering from above.

In a violent and reckless impulse, Dany followed him inside, despite the protestations of her sense of self-preservation and the squealing of Drogon and Viserion. There, in the darkness, she kept hearing strage, vocal sounds and that of Rhaegal trying to scratch or move something out of the way.

Dany glimpsed a light in the darkness, dim but growing brighter and brighter as Rhaegal scratched his way inside. After the dust cleared, she heard voices. She prepared to meet Cersei's aiders and herself trying to escape.

Instead, out of the shadows once more she found herself in front of Jon Snow.

***

Rhaella stares at her, shocked and moved, eyes glistening with tears and a hand covering her trembling mouth. Her hand is also trembling. In fact, her body is trembling all over. Daenerys experiences at that moment a feeling of deep grief, her own that pierces her since the day she was born and that of her mother right then, seeing the daughter she already lost any hope to ever have. 

"Is it true?" Rhaella asks her in a barely thin of a voice, "I need to hear it from you, are you my Daenerys?" she urges.

There is no chance that Daenerys could lie. Of all the cruel and unforgivable things she had committed in her life, to do this last would be to finish breaking whatever still-beating piece of heart she had left.

Taking a few tentative steps forward, Dany reached for her mother's hand and lifted it to her heart. Looking straight at her with the same intensity and agony that tormented her own, Dany nodded.

Rhaella pulled Dany into a tight embrace that lasted forever, both sobbing at the same time.

***

The world felt very confusing for Missandei. It was as if she had been put into a walking dream, stripped of all her will. She could still make out light as her eyes were not completely closed, and she could also feel herself moving — walking — but it was all an entanglement in her mind of images and places that she could not make sense of or shape. Only one clear thought stilled in her mind: I am going to die and I don't want to.

This persistence astonished her, no doubt because of the fear that was gripping her. She could not, however, not admit that it was something she must allow herself to feel, for she was only a human being, one free to feel that injustice was once again being meted out to her.

Daenerys, where are you? Grey Worm...Have they forgotten me? No, they would never do that. Maybe this fight is lost for me but it won't be because they've given up.

The grip that held her roughly and awkwardly was less secure, less strong than the one that brought her to this hidden place. Her body was once again treated as a mere object. With her last strength, when there was a halt and she heard distant voices communicating with each other, she made one last effort — a great one — to break free and flee, not to die in utter passivity, and it was exactly then that she felt the stab that pierced her through her.

***

Cersei felt her body scream in protest as she moved sharply through the dimly lit corridors of the caves towards the cellar and upwards. Her plan was to reach the utter cellar and escape through the tunnels to the beach. She just needed a bit of luck and to find some fisherman willing to take her out of the reach of the dragon whore's men and then she would get rid of this dead weight — her temporary guarantee of safe passage. 

But that was not enough, the bitter taste in her mouth did not allow her to think clearly. Cersei needed more. She couldn't just run away like a coward, her father would never condone that. She wasn't a half-will like Jaime or a fool like Tyrion.

She had a power they did not and the will to go all the way and beyond, but never to give in.

She paused with heavy breathing and the slave girl strumbled on, finally pondering that she should take another way. The wildfire caches, she thought. The information for which Waters had been coddling her for so long and which bloody Baelish too coveted. Cersei was the only person alive who knew exactly where it was deposited. The exact spot that wouldn't leave a single stone in the city unscathed.

She decided to go there. Yet here in the depths of Red Keep she felt lost. She needed to find a way to the surface. It was the only way. 

A sudden, unknown noise startled her. Cersei was quick to grab the slave girl so as not to lose her.

"Who is there? Show yourself, you bloody coward!" she shouted, her voice echoing through the dark vastness surrounding them. 

A dark, formless figure appeared out of the shadows, clothed in the same armor that Aurane's men wore. But her former lover had sent his men away, that had been the plan until he decided to treat Cersei as a mere means to his ends.

Nor could it be Arya Stark. Aurane had set her up to mislead her. 

You should have killed the little bitch, Cersei thought to herself.

The arms of the strange figure in the darkness rose as it came more sharply into view.

"Fear not, my Queen. I have come on the terms of our mutual friend."

"What friend?" Cersei questioned it, still looking at it with distrust as she held the slave girl tightly against her chest and the knife she stole from Aurane pointing to her neck. 

"Captain Waters," the figure replied, "Had me distract the Stark girl until you could be released from the under chambers. I am here to take you safely to the new destination." And he seemed to stretch his neck in search of Aurane. "But where is he?"

Cersei assessed for a weapon from head to toe.

"I gave him what he needed. He left me to fend for myself to get out of this place," she said.

Cersei waited, her grip tightened on the slave girl. She could even feel her swallowing hard as she tried to breathe. 

"Very well, your Grace. I'll show you the path to the beach and to the vessel that will take you out of the city. You must come with me."

She hesitated, looking at him and to the dark void around them.

"We can handle the girl if she's to become a dead weight," the man said.

Cersei's mouth twitched. 

"Of course," she answered, and with a sudden move, she thrust her knife in the slave girl's middle. 

***

"NO!"

Arya's heart leaped out of her chest.

As soon as she revealed her true self — her true voice, her truest emotions — the enchantment fell, and the magic dissipated. To be no one, you must become no one. That was the rule. And so far, it had not failed her.

But the sight of Cersei was already too provoking an effect. Let alone having her so close, it felt like a hungry wolf stalking its prey. 

Her efforts came to naught when Cersei plunged the knife into Missandei's belly, causing a real scare on her part.

Cersei shoved Missandei in Arya's direction as if she were nothing more than a mere object to be ridden. Arya's first instinct was to catch her and she grabbed them both as they fell to the hard ground. Missandei let out a loud, high-pitched whimper for air, the wound in her belly bleeding out.

"You little bitch!" Cersei cursed, staring in horror and anger at Arya.

Cersei tried to attack them but realized she had to flee, it was her only chance and there would be no more.

***

Jon watched in awe as the beast by the name of Rhaegal squealed low like a dog lowering its head toward its master.

"It's like he knew we were there," he said, after finding their way to freedom from the unknown depths in which they had been trapped after the collapse.

Daenerys and the dragons had found them.

"He knew," Daenerys harshly contested, "That's why he took me there. Your getting lost in the tunnels just cost me time."

While the commander of the Unsullied ducked his head and accepted the scold, Jon refused any guilty.

"There was a diversion. I have to go back and find Arya."

"And I have to find Missandei. But that path isn't going to lead us back there, is it? We have to go back in through Red Keep," Daenerys said.

"We'll lose too much time."

"More time than I've already wasted retrieving you?"

"Forgive me, your Grace," Jon got angry, "We were rescued by Rhaegal, not by your acute penchant for pessimism and bad humor."

"Rhaegal?"

"Yes, him."

"You called him Rhaegal?"

Jon blinked twice, confused. 

"You called my child by his name, who told you his name?" Daenerys confronted him as though that was the most absurd thing. Jon could have learned the name from someone close to her circle or simply by listening to the stories. Yet it shook him the realization that he actually didn't know where he learned the dragon's name.

He didn't have to answer. Not for now.

Her commander interrupted them, speaking in a foreign tongue only them could understand. 

"He says Rhaegal opened up a new passage, they'll continue on the track." She frowned and cut him a look of defiance. "Would you return?"

"I have to," Jon answered simply, almost mesmerized by the abyss in her gaze.

She took in a deep breath and nodded.

"Stay away from trouble, then. I'll keep my guard up there."

***

"My name is Arya, do you remember me?" Arya shook Missandei, trying to keep her awake and breathing. "Missandei? Missandei, I need you to keep breathing, please. I swear I survived worse. You're going to make it. I swear it. Just don't close your eyes."

Arya tried to recall her own experience with stabbing wounds but everything seemed fuzzy and blurred in her memory. How would she get this woman to Red Keep, alive? In the turmoil of emotions, the frustration of letting Cersei flee compounded.

That was her promise, wasn't it? To bring the Dragon Queen's friend back alive even if it meant losing the one chance to take Cersei down.

Mustering strength, Arya lifted Missandei and began a slow ascending.

***

Cersei ran until her lungs burned, running through the tunnels, slipping every so often and scraping her knees and hands, remembering herself as a child running through the rocky woods around Casterly Rock. How had she found herself here? Desperate. Alone. Abandoned.

Father, she begged in her mind, wishing she had her father's protection at this moment. He would have destroyed everyone, even the Dragon Queen. He would have found a way to protect them all.

Her children...

Exhausted, she began to sob, a stabbing pain throughout her body gripping her.

"Jaime…" she called out for him in a thin, broken voice. More than anything she wanted Jaime there. Why didn't she take his proposal to flee when there was time? Her ever-present pride blinded her, she could not abandon what her family had conquered, what belonged to her children.

How she regretted it now.

"Cersei?"

Her head shot up. Her heart skipped a beat.

"Jaime?"

A silhouette moved through the shadows and Cersei thought she'd really lost her mind now. But then she found herself wrapped in two strong arms, her body flushed against his hard chest as his scent flooded her senses.

It was Jaime.

Jaime was really here. 

***

Jon sensed the tension in Grey Worm as he walked beside him and thought he knew the reason.

"She's not angry at you," Jon said, risking being told off by the reserved soldier.

When a minute ran and he didn't answer, he thought it was so.

"I failed," the Unsullied blurted out, steadfastly. 

"You didn't. We are acting out in the blind here. Doing the best we can," Jon countered. 

"This one cannot afford to fail. Not to his Queen. Not to the woman he loves," he answered harshly, speaking in a categorical manner as a child who does not admit contradictions. In fact, Jon thought there was something naïve about him despite the toughness he exuded.

He was about to continue the conversation when he heard sounds of heavy breathing in the distance, barely a murmur but clear enough to stop them and search the shadows.

Arya?

From the darkness, two silhouettes came to the light.

"Arya!" Jon shouted and rushed toward them.

Arya barely whispered his name as she stumbled down, breathing heavily as Missandei's weight finally gave in. Her arms and legs ached out of the exertion. 

Jon knelt down in front of her, inspecting with his hands every part of her. The Unsullied came along, watching for Missandei.

"She's wounded!" Arya shouted urgently, her hand still strongly pressing on the open wound bleeding, where she tied a knot to prevent further bleeding. 

"Arya, Arya, are you okay?" Jon asked her desperately. 

"It's her. We need to get her out. Go! Move!" Arya scolded everyone around, feeling the life of Missandei slipping every second they let go.

Grey Worm raised Missandei in his arms and rushed back the way back. The path was clear now. When the commander glanced his way, Jon nodded and beckoned him to go.

"I let her escape," he heard Arya saying at his back. Jon turned around a looked at her, eyebrows raised in question. "Cersei...she ran away. I let her escape."

Oh, Arya, Jon thought as he wearily approached and embraced her. He kissed the top of her head and pulled her in more tightly. 

"You did the right thing," he reassured her. 

Jon came to fear what Arya was willing to do to have her revenge but at least, putting someone else's life at risk was not one of those things.

"Aurane it's a traitor," said Arya after a moment, pulling away and looking at him with a scowl, "He was with Cersei all the time."

***

Jaime searched for any wound or damage as he took Cersei into his arms. His heart raced with both contentment and haste. He knew that it was just about time for the Dragon Queen's soldier to find them. There was no way out of this. His only comfort was that he found her before them.

"I'm so sorry," Cersei cried, as he cradled her face. 

He has last seen her this broken when their daughter died and even then, she had been mostly angered. 

Somehow it made him feel more tender toward her.

"Okay. Okay. It's fine. You're fine. We are going to be fine," he tried to calm her but it was just him reassuring her, Jaime knew there was no more opportunities for them. This was their final fate.

"Jaime," she whined, "I don't want this child to die."

Jaime's face fell. 

His stomach churned.

"I know there's no child," he told her, dryly.

Cersei's eyes bulged out.

"I lost it," she said rapidly, still lying to him, "When that little scum attacked me—"

"Cersei, stop, please, stop," Jaime begged her, lowering his head defeatedly. Trying to gather the little tenderness he stored within him.

"I know what happened," Jaime stated, bluntly. "I know you've lost it long before."

All the time he kept touching her reassuringly and lovingly, feeling torn apart by the way that he loved her still, after what he'd learned from her, what he knew wholeheartedly was true: she didn't love him the same way. 

It was a moment of realization for Cersei as well. She saw the shift in his emerald eyes that were the same as hers just not as cold and sharp. 

"You are with them," Cersei said, firm as she grew stiff in his arms. "You. Are. With. Them," her tone accusatory.

She writhed in Jaime's arms.

"Let me go! You, coward and traitor!"

Jaime heard heavy steps coming closer, they were about to be seized and taken to the Dragon Queen.

"There's no way out," he gripped her so tight that hurt her skin. "Cersei, stop. It's over. It's over. We...We can still make it. We can...go in peace. With each other. Until the end, remember? We came together into this world and we will leave it together, remember?"

She stilled and looked at him, with bright, confused eyes that welled up with tears. One single teardrop streamed down her flushed cheek.

"I'm not going to die," she whispered, turning her expression cold and resolute. "I'm not going to die."

So Jaime felt the pang of her words reverberate through his body, looking down and realizing that she just stabbed him.

She further thrust the knife and twisted it.

He bent over in pain, his knees crashing to the ground.

"And if I do," she warned, taking several steps back, "I'll take everybody in this city with me."

***

Daenerys touched her upper belly, overwhelmed by a sudden foreboding. The storm ceased but still a thin layer of raindrops bathe the city. She couldn't tell from this distance where Lord Varys' had pointed out the entrances to the wildfire caches. She could only speculate at that point. 

She passed the point near the docks where she last saw her mother, in that journey to the past that have taken her. That absurdity almost ended up for Daenerys. 

***

For the time being, Dany decides to forget the confusion, set aside the turmoil of emotions welling up inside, and let herself be embraced by the woman she had longed to know all her life.

Her mother. 

"But...what is this? Why are you here?" Rhaella asks as she stares between Dany and Bran.

Dany shrugs. 

"I can only assume that I've come to save you." 

"Save me?" Rhaella smiles confusedly. "From whom?"

Daenerys shakes her head, not knowing what to say. The city is surrounded by enemies and her father's reign hanging by a very thin thread.

She turns and meets Brandon's expressionless countenance. 

"What am I doing here?" 

"Rhaella is set to depart the city tonight. She's to sail to Dragonstone," he answers, always matter-of-factly. 

"I am, yes. Me and my son, Viserys..." Rhaella makes a pause, looking lovingly at Daenerys again, oblivious to the way her heart skips a beat as her smile quivers. "Have you known him?"

Daenerys swallows hard.

"I do know him."

Images of Viserys being killed by Khal Drogo flashes across her mind, filling her with a pang of immeasurable guilt.

"And Rhaegar," Rhaella further questions growing excitedly, " you know what happened to Rhaegar?"

So she does not know, Dany thinks inwardly.

"Daenerys, don't," Brandon warns her before she can even consider the possibility of telling her. "The past is written and the ink is dry."

"Then what are we doing this? Why are we doing this if things cannot be changed?" Daenerys questions, growing impatient. 

"Everything happens for a reason. Tonight, you are that reason," he replies.

"What do you mean?"

"Rhaella cannot leave King's Landing. Not tonight."

"Why not?"

A bad feeling settled in her stomach and her chest.

"Because she's not yet carrying you," Brandon stated.

***

Daenerys drew in a sharp breath. Was it all real or just a dream? she asked herself. She couldn't just keep living with the fear that loss was at every turn. 

As she looked at the city from the distance, she noticed a strange movement in one street.

She descended to see what was happening there.

***

Cersei ripped part of her dress and improvised a cover for her face. The streets were slippery from the fine drizzle and mud piled up on the cobblestones. The filthy city had never been the ideal place for a stroll and the memories of that fateful day they made her march naked through it only made her hatred of King's Landing grow. She evaded every nook and cranny where a guard was stationed, even venturing into the dark alleys, having to put up and dodge beggars who tugged at her dress to grope her. Every gate was guarded. She wouldn't even have made it out of Red Keep if she hadn't circled the castle's main entrance, ducking into that dingy passage.

All right, Cersei thought, when she sets the wildfire the guilt of the disaster will hang over that bitch's head, and that will create enough of a commotion for her to make her escape, whether it be on a fishing boat or through the gates leading into the forest, she'll find a way to get away out of the city, even if she had to climb over mountains of charred bodies, she would do it. 

She was not like her brothers, a coward and a traitor. She was Tywin Lannister's daughter and she would live up to it. Throughout the realm, they learned to fear and respect that name and she would make it so again. When they knew she outwitted the Dragon Queen by her own means, songs would be written after her, just as they sang the Rains of Castamere. Jaime and Tyrion might fall from grace and perish into oblivion, but not Cersei. She was Tywin's true heir. His legacy passed on.

When Cersei reached her destination, the first glimpses of light heralded the dawn.

After the Sept de Baelon explosion, Qyburn had let Cersei know that he feared a chain reaction to which he recommended moving the wildfire to a less compromising location.

Cersei, on the contrary, ordered them moved to Fishmonger's Square, a market square inside the River Gate. 

"Why Fishmonger's Square?" Qyburn had asked her.

Cersei smiled and never answered him. 

The reason was just what Qyburn feared.

Cersei continued forward until she entered a narrow, dark, and dank alley. Down a ramshackle flight of stairs, there was a door leading to the deposit. 

As she approached it, the door burst open and Aurane walked out of it.

Cersei stumbled backward, falling onto the steps.

"How?"

"Surprised, my dear?" Aurane greeted her. 

Aurane closed the door behind him, lifting Cersei without much ado, and carried her up the steps. 

***

By the time Arya and Jon reached the skull cellar, the Unsullied had Jaime Lannister surrounded and seized. Arya's eyes traveled quickly to the golden knife stuck in his lower belly.

"That's the knife Cersei stabbed Missandei with," she pointed out to Jon. "They must have crossed paths."

Why would Cersei hurt her own brother and lover, Jon wondered.

"Snow!" Jaime uttered, his poorly state reflected on his labored breathing, "Tell these assholes to let me go. I have orders from the Queen!"

Jon didn't know what to say.

What was he supposed to say?

"I'm not privy to those. Where is Cersei?" he cut to the chase.

Jaime seemed to curse under his breath.

"Look, Cersei is about to do something seriously damaging, that will get us all killed unless we stop her."

"Where's Cersei?"

Arya stepped forward Arya, reaching for his neck to squeeze the information out of him. 

"Snow!" Jaime again shouted, Unsullied stopping Arya, "Let keep this between you and me. Keep her away from this!"

There was urgency in his voice, Jon noticed as if he was pleading for him to believe him and listen. 

At Jon's silent response, Jaime wriggled himself out of the Unsullied's grip and pulled the knife from his belly.

"I'm dead anyway. Give me a horse and I'll take you to Cersei, but she," and he pointed a finger at Arya, "She must stay."

***

Aurane threw Cersei to the hard cobblestones. 

"An excellent aim, my queen," he said, touching the back of his neck where Cersei knocked him out, "Unless you wanted me dead. In that case, you missed your chance."

What sounded like a soft murmur turned to a shrill noise as Cersei turned around and saw some smallfolk starting to move closer to watch the exchange.

"I wonder if some of them still remember your face," Aurane mockingly pointed out. 

Cersei got up in a hurry.

"Aurane, please get me out of here. Down there we can ignite the wildfire and create enough of a distraction to make a run for it."

Her trembling hands closed around his neckline.

Aurane grimaced and pushed Cersei away.

"I had a reason to want to help you before, my queen, but now I see what your fool of a brother cannot see: you love no one but yourself."

Cersei turned again to look at the commotion that was growing only a couple of feet away from her.

"But don't fret, my queen," Aurane whispered behind her, "I'm sure the good people of your city will speak of it."

With that, Aurane was gone, faster than Cersei could run after him, closing the door and making it impossible for her to gain access to the last escape she had planned. 

Swallowing hard, Cersei mustered what little strength she had left and returned up there. 

***

Jon, Jaime, and some of the Queen's soldiers rode to where the Lannister said they would find Cersei. Jon knew he had earned Arya's hatred by doing so, but if what Jaime Lannister claimed was true, then for everyone's safety they had to get there as soon as possible. 

Above them, the morning light dimmed, and the dragons flew overhead in the same direction. 

Jon spurred his horse. Now he had a feeling that something very bad was about to happen. 

***

Daenerys carefully descended over the wooden roofs of the area and spotted Cersei trapped in a narrow corridor, trying to climb the stone walls. Drogon's presence alone broke the melee's concentration, not enough, however, for some of them look skyward in defiance and rush to attack Cersei.

Drogon let out a ferocious roar.

Grimacing in displeasure, Daenerys bent sideways over Drogon's back and maneuvered to extend a hand to Cersei.

You should just burn her alive right there, she told herself, but uncertain of Missandei's whereabouts she could not risk it. 

In Cersei's eyes, Daenerys found despair, almost like an animal about to be caught by its predator. Yet, in an instant, that gleam vanished and turned icy, like those eyes that watched her from afar as she ordered Missandei's execution.

Then, taking her hand, Cersei pushed Daenerys down.

***

Jon arrived at the exact moment he saw Daenerys fall from her dragon's back, into what appeared to be a small corridor. Her dragon writhed and shrieked in discontent, flapping its wings and blowing a mighty wind.

"Dany!" he shouted, hurrying his horse to get to her, not understanding what was going on and why this mob seemed to hunt her.

Jaime Lannister followed him, equally distressed, and then he realized that Cersei was also there.

***

Hurt somewhere by the fall, Daenerys crawled to the wall at the end of the corridor. Above her, Drogon desperately tried to extend his neck to rescue her, growing impatient at the futile effort. 

Higher up in the sky, Viserion and Rhaegal were also shrieking in protest.

"I told you at the end of the day these scumbags were worthless of saving," Cersei said, standing in front of her, wearing a countenance full of bitterness and hatred.

Holding her rib where she hurt, Daenerys asked in a harsh voice, "Missandei?"

Cersei snorted. 

"She put up much more of a fight than you."

Cersei turned and received the first of many attacks to follow. An angry mob that felt threatened neither by Drogon nor by the other dragons flying nearby.

Their target was Cersei.

And in horror, Daenerys watched as she was slaughtered by the people of King's Landing.

***

Daenerys' Unsullied formed a shield that dispersed the angry mob just when Jon believed he'd die trapped in it. As her other two dragons landed on the roofs of the buildings, they each finished scaring people off enough to clean and free the square.

Jon breathed in relief but felt the aftershocks of adrenaline run through his trembling body. Gradually his senses came back to him and he could pay enough attention to the shouts of help coming from behind them.

"Somebody get some help! Please!"

Jaime Lannister's cries died unheard, throat breaking with the effort.

He was holding Cersei's body.

"She's dead," Daenerys said, held in Jon's arms, covered in filth, blood and ashes. 

Memories of the night of the battle on the Wall haunted his mind as he saw Ygritte lying dead in his arms. Another similar image crossed his mind, of Daenerys's body stretched across his arms, her face pale with the kiss of death. 

Jon couldn't remember how he ended up there, only that a blind rage took him as he pushed his way past whoever he had to.

"She's dead!" Dany shouted, hysterical, trembling, and angry as if emotions were overflowing her.

"Shut up! Shut up!" the Lannister shouted back. 

Jon carried Daenerys and led her away from the scene. She began to stir as if to push him away.

"Daenerys!" Jon cried out, trying to find light in those bloodshot eyes. But it was as if they had attacked her too, those monsters. Jon had never witnessed anything like this, people capable of such an atrocity as murdering a person — a defenseless woman — with their bare hands. It wasn't just the men, the women...children also took part in it. How could he, after seeing this, still believe that Westeros deserved to be saved from the Dead?

Overcome by the weight of what had happened, Dany collapsed to the ground and began to sob.

Notes:

(Sighs) I was hoping they'd wait at least ten years to start kicking that corpse.