Hollow Crown ↬ Daenerys Targaryen

22

Percy's even breathing is the only sound to disrupt the deafening silence of the room. The muffled sounds of the castle can be heard faintly through the door, like the whooshing of water when it enters your ears. Not unpleasant but also not preferred, now more than ever the latter. But everything sounds like that at the moment.

Her tears had long since stopped, the wetness drying on her porcelain skin and leaving tracks that she doesn't bother wiping away. The Unsullied are the only guards to have seen her after all, and they can't judge what they do not understand. She scolds herself for thinking it, but the Dothraki would have seen her tears as a weakness, and the Dothraki don't tolerate weakness.

No unintended thought enters her mind - she doesn't allow it. For every time she thinks about the events of the hours before, an unfamiliar and sharp pain clutches her chest with a vice like grip that makes her want to rip it open and fight it off.

It's worse when she thinks about the man in front of her. Lying in a bed which doesn't belong to him, holding the appearance of a person in deep sleep that they'll never wake from. Having been treated by maesters and nurses whom couldn't hold an ounce of sympathy for the Lannister.

It's unbearable when she thinks of the dragon which she had birthed. Whom holds the minds of two of the most important people in her life. The two whom had looked at her with such hopelessness just hours before, whom had soared through the sky with a speed unmatched by even their brothers, leaving her kneeled in the frigid snow to watch - heartbroken.

Despite all of the emotions raging inside of her, the icy mask of indifference has only left her face a hand full of times. That being for every neutral maester and scowling nurse who would dare lay eyes upon Percy with something even close to hate, there would be a deadly glare with an even deadlier threat to burn any ounce of hesitation from their minds.

In truth, Daenerys had never hated the north more than she does now. Yes, the people have been less than welcoming and more than ungrateful thus far, but she always figured she would win them over after the war. She's always held hope that she could, anyways.

But with every passing day, every sneer from a northern lord and every glare from a commoner, she can feel that hope dimming. Being replaced by a fiery vengeance which she hides less and less. A vengeance that serves as a reminder that she is a dragon in all but appearance.

What truly makes her blood heat with rage and despair all the same, is the thought that - should they lose the battle ahead - not only will she not get the opportunity to say all the things still unsaid, but she won't even get a goodbye. They'll both die surrounded by people who hate them for no absolute reason expect for their names. In a country which would sooner see them burn than rule - a country which they're trying their hardest to save. And they'll die apart.

It makes her - for perhaps the first time in her life - question whether or not the country she stands in now is worth it. Whether Westeros or the Iron Throne are things that are truly worth losing all that she holds dear, all that she's worked so tirelessly to achieve. She questions, but then she reminds herself that all Westeros is what she's worked tirelessly for, and the Iron Throne has always been the goal. No matter what.

But when did she start questioning that?

Her mind runs rampant with thoughts fueled by anger. Fire floods every inch of her body until her skin turns a light shade of red. All the while her eyes stare hollowly ahead, face still frozen in neutrality.

Flashes and visions unwillingly overcome her vision. She pictures her enemies - Cersei, the Golden Company - pleads of mercy escaping their lips as she stands above them. Pleads which are soon drowned out by screams of pain and death as they burn. She imagines herself stepping over their bodies to reach the Iron Throne, finally claiming her rightful place as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. A victorious smile stretches across her face as the crown of three dragons is placed upon her head, though it's a Hollow Crown.