Feb 5
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Happy Birthday to Jacob Anderson aka the musician Raleigh Ritchie! Amazing actor, talented singer, and song writer—truly an artist of a generation!
DANY FAMILY PORTRAIT bloodriders left to right: aggo, rakharo, jhogo. irri in yellow & jhiqui in blue. missandei, barristan and grey worm to the right!! (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡
Art by @urwlw on twitter. (x)
From Aerys II to Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles, and Mother of Dragons
The end of the Targaryen line
-> the return of the Valyrian traditional face markings and Daenerys obviously wears both marks, as the Mother of Dragons would
-> Rhaegar wears the earrings of Duncan Targaryen found in the ashes of Summerhall
-> Young Griff wears an inverted interpretation of his father's earrings, in order to accentuate his Aegon Targaryen's story
-> Daenerys's earrings wears earrings that reminded her of her mother's crown
-> I decided to include a real baby Rhaego, as Daenerys dreamed him and not as Mirri Maz Duur described him, also he has a big scaly birthmark (similar to Rhaenyra's daughter) the shape of a dragon
-> Missandei is baby
Drowning Jacob Anderson in dirt and then expecting me to be normal about it is like telling a fish not to swim.
And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like, “You die.”
Synopsis: In which you find yourself in the Game of Thrones universe and you decide to try and change the fate of your favorite character, Daenerys Targaryen.
-ongoing-
Fem modern! Reader
Set towards the end of season six. Set in seasons 6-8.
Chapter one: The Winds of Winter
Chapter two: dragonstone
Chapter three: Stormborn
Chapter four: The Queens Justice
Chapter five: The Spoils of War
Chapter six: Eastwatch
Chapter seven: Beyond the Wall
Chapter eight: The Dragon and The Wolf
Chapter nine: Winterfell
Chapter ten: A knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Chapter eleven: The Long Night
Chapter twelve: The Last of The Starks
Chapter thirteen: The bells
Chapter fourteen: The Iron Throne.
Some chapters may be removed if they’re not aligned with what I planned or the now altered story. there will be usage of vulgar language, depiction of violence, talk of grief and loss and mention of sex. I will not rush myself to release these chapters as I only write for fun so please be patient. I also write one shots so take a look if you want(I only have one lol💀) but the second chapter will be out soon but the ones following the story line will take longer.
You can find the chapters here or separately on my page. I will start working on the first chapter and I will release it as soon as I’m done. I will try to be finished with the first one as soon as possible, but I will not rush and I hope you have a good day and or night!!
Is this anything?
A Man Made Free
- Summary: A Targaryen princess and Grey Worm fall for each other in the quiet moments between war and dragonfire.
- Pairing: targ!reader/Grey Worm
- Note: The canon plot and the timeline are all over the place.
- Rating: Mature 16+
- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @oxymakestheworldgoround @idenyimimdenial @albekstime @human169
Daenerys noticed it first when the heat broke.
The day had been another endless smear of pale sky and red dust, the kind that coated teeth and tongue and settled in the joints like ground glass. By the time they called a halt, the air had cooled just enough that the men’s breath came out in pale ghosts as evening crawled over the camp. Fires began to bloom in small circles, bowls were passed, armor creaked. Her dragons had eaten already and were now restless shapes in the shadows, snapping young teeth at each other when they thought she was not looking. Drogon’s wings disturbed half the camp as he circled high above, a drifting black scythe against the embers of sunset.
Viserion, though, stayed with you.
You sat on a flat stone near one of the lesser fires, sleeves rolled up, a shallow scratch on your forearm where Viserion’s claws had caught you earlier. He sprawled across your lap now, pale and bone-bright, long neck curved as he blinked slow reptilian eyes. Every time your fingers stroked the smooth scales across his head, his eyes slid shut, the thin membranes flickering. He made a sound that wasn’t quite a purr and wasn’t quite a growl, something that vibrated into your bones. Strands of your silver hair fell forward and brushed his snout; he tolerated it in a way he did for no one but you.
Grey Worm stood a short distance away, at first just another armored silhouette among the Unsullied posted on the camp’s perimeter. Daenerys had been walking with Jorah, listening with half an ear as he spoke about routes and water skins and what the slaves in Yunkai might be told about her when word finally reached them. She listened, nodded, let the words flow around her. Something in the corner of her eye tugged at her attention, something small and precise in motion.
Grey Worm shifted his spear from one hand to the other and stepped closer to you.
He did not address you, not at first. His face was still, the Unsullied stillness that unnerved so many and had long since become familiar to Daenerys. But his attention kept flicking to where Viserion’s tail dangled close to the fire pit. The flames licked higher as more kindling was thrown on, and twice the dragon’s tail twitched perilously near the embers. On the third twitch, Grey Worm moved.
He said something in the harsh syllables of his own tongue to the man tending the fire. The man blinked, clearly surprised any of the Unsullied would speak to him for anything but orders, then hurriedly nudged the fire pit a bit further away with his boot, then again with the end of a scrap of plank. Grey Worm, for his part, shifted his stance another pace sideways, angling his body so that his shadow fell over your legs and Viserion’s tail both.
You did not seem to notice at first; you were humming something under your breath, some tune Daenerys recognized from your childhood in Braavos, fingers tracing lazy patterns across Viserion’s spine. But when the dragon’s tail flicked once more and hit only dust, your eyes flicked up, tracking the new position of the fire, the repositioned stone, the tall Unsullied standing just slightly closer than he had to.
Your gaze lingered on him for a moment. His stayed fixed ahead, as if nothing had shifted at all.
Daenerys slowed her pace. Jorah kept walking for a few steps more before realizing she was no longer at his side. When he turned back, brow furrowed, she raised a hand, an absent little gesture.
“Go on,” she said. “Speak with Barristan about the scouts. I will be along shortly.”
He hesitated, searching her face, then nodded and left her to her own thoughts. She moved instead toward the fire where you sat, light from the flames painting your hair in warm moonlight. Grey Worm’s eyes did not follow her approach, but she felt the faint tightening in his shoulders, the way his grip adjusted on his spear as the Queen came near.
“You spoil him,” Daenerys said, coming to stand at your side. Viserion tilted his head, one golden eye slitting open to regard her, then promptly nudged his snout further into your lap.
You smiled faintly. “And you do not?”
“He should hunt, not sleep on your knees like a cat.”
“He hunts,” you said, stroking along his jaw. “He brought you that burned goat this morning, did he not?”
“That was Rhaegal.”
You made a dismissive sound. “Then Viserion will bring you two tomorrow.”
Daenerys huffed something that was not quite a laugh. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Grey Worm’s jaw shift like he was suppressing the urge to look directly at you, the faintest quiver of attention, then stillness again.
“You are cold,” Grey Worm said then, unexpectedly. His Low Valyrian was careful, the words measured but clear. Daenerys realized, with a small shock, that his gaze was indeed on you after all. Not lingering where most men’s might have lingered, but fixed just above your hands where gooseflesh had risen along your forearms.
You blinked and looked down, as if you’d not noticed the way the air had sharpened when the sun fell. “It’s nothing,” you said. “I have known worse winds on the Narrow Sea.”
He hesitated, then turned his head fractionally. “Hero,” he called, using a name like he might in the training yard.
One of the other Unsullied, a man with a faint scar across his nose, approached and stood at exact attention. Grey Worm said a few words in Astapori Valyrian, soft but clipped, and the other man nodded once and left. In a moment he returned with one of the thicker cloaks, plain and dark. Grey Worm took it and, without looking you directly in the face, extended it.
Daenerys watched your eyes flick from the cloak to his hand. The campfire light made strange shadows of the two of you: you in your layered silks, ink-dark leather corset, silver hair tumbling loose around your shoulders; him in beaten armor and simple leather, shaved head catching the firelight like polished bronze, the little red tassel on his spear stirring in the wind.
“You need it more than I do,” you said softly. “You are not… used to this cold, I think.”
“The Unsullied do not feel cold,” Grey Worm said, and there was no pride in it, only statement. Then, after the briefest of pauses: “But you do. Khaleesi’s sister must be warm.”
The way he said it, like it was an order given to himself, made something twist in Daenerys’s chest. You held still for another heartbeat, then reached and accepted the cloak. As you pulled it around your shoulders, Viserion huffed, disturbed by the shifting fabric, but settled again when your hand returned to the curve of his neck.
“Thank you,” you said, voice gentler now. “Grey Worm.”
His eyes flicked to your face and away again, almost too quick to catch. “It is nothing,” he said. But Daenerys didn’t think he meant it.
She moved on then, unwilling to break whatever fragile thread was weaving between you. Still, as the night deepened and the camp quieted, she kept noticing.
You rose to carry Viserion back toward the cluster of tents near hers, the dragon’s tail dragging a faint line in the dust. You were not looking at your feet; your attention was on Viserion’s sleepy head, murmuring low words in High Valyrian that made the dragon’s eyelids droop further. It was Grey Worm’s spear that nudged aside a loose stone in your path a moment before your boot might have caught it. His body never moved enough to be obvious, but the spear-tip flicked, kicked the rock out of the way. You stepped without stumbling, never knowing you had been about to.
Later, when the camp had gone to shadows and the only sounds were crackling embers and the distant clank of armor, Daenerys left her own tent, restless. She walked toward yours, half-intending to crawl beneath your furs and steal some of Viserion’s warmth, like you had done for her so many times when they were children in strange cold inns.
Grey Worm was at his post near the outer line, but as she approached your tent, her steps slowed. There, just at the edge of the lamplight, she saw him again, not as a silent statue but a man engaged in something deliberate.
There was a strip of rough ground near your tent where the earth had been chewed up by wagon wheels and boots, dried into ridges that were hell for bare feet. You had a habit of slipping out of your tent in the morning without putting your boots on first, something that had driven their handmaidens half-mad in Pentos and seemed determined to continue driving men mad across all of Essos.
Grey Worm stood with his spear set against his shoulder, and in his other hand he held a waterskin. He poured slowly along the ground, dampening the dust, then used the butt of his spear to nudge and smooth the worst of the ridges away. His face did not change. If anyone had looked from the wrong angle, it might have appeared he was simply testing the weight of the weapon.
He did it in three patient passes, working from your tent flap outward until there was a narrow, relatively smooth path where your bare soles might land. Then he moved back to his original position, spine straight, gaze vacant in that purposeful Unsullied way.
Daenerys stood there another moment, invisible behind the tent’s curve, feeling something warm and complicated unfurl inside her ribcage.
“Sister?” she whispered under her breath, almost as if you could hear her through the canvas. “What have you done here?”
The next morning proved her observation was no accident. You emerged yawning, hair braided loosely down your back, feet bare and pale against the dust. You stepped out, blinked at the dawn, and padded along the path Grey Worm had made as if you’d always known it would be there. Viserion slept in your arms still, limp as a sack of gold. You made it all the way to the nearest fire without so much as a wince.
Daenerys saw the way Grey Worm’s eyes flicked down, just once, to your feet. Quick, almost hungry in its focus, and then back to their neutral stare. Some part of him had clearly braced for the moment when you might hiss in pain and jerk back from a jagged stone. When it did not come, his chin lifted a fraction in some internal, silent approval.
She kept watching after that. It became a quiet game she played with herself in the long hours between decisions, when her mind needed something softer to latch onto than maps and chains and the weight of cities not yet conquered. Where will it be today, she’d wonder. A gesture, a word, a misstep that is not a misstep.
Missandei noticed something too, of course. Missandei noticed everything.
They sat together in the shade of her tent one afternoon while the heat crouched over the camp like a living thing. Your laughter carried from outside where you were working with some of the freed women, showing them how to mend a ripped hem in a way that would not tear again the first time it snagged on armor. Viserion flitted overhead and then returned to your shoulder, claws gentle on your leathers.
“You see it as well?” Missandei asked quietly, pouring cooled water into Daenerys’s cup.
Daenerys arched a brow. “See what?”
“The way the chosen commander of the Unsullied walks three paces behind your sister.” Missandei’s lips curved, the faintest hint of a smile. “Even when he has been ordered to stand elsewhere.”
Daenerys sipped and followed Missandei’s gaze. Grey Worm stood, as always, with other Unsullied when she looked for him directly. Yet his attention pulled toward you, the line of his back angled, not to her, not to the nearest threat, but to where you moved through the camp.
“He is sworn to me,” Daenerys said slowly. “To my service. To the freeing of the slaves.”
“He is,” Missandei agreed. “But he is also a man.”
Daenerys shot her a look. “The slavers cut that away from them.”
“They cut away flesh,” Missandei said. “Not heart. Not eyes.” Her gaze softened. “Not the way a man can choose where to stand.”
As if to prove her point, Grey Worm shifted again, subtly. One of the newly freed boys, reenacting Viserion’s swoop with a burning stick as a pretend dragon, careened too close to where you stood bent over your work. Grey Worm took two steps, too quick to be anything but instinct, and the butt of his spear knocked the stick from the child’s hand before the ember could brush your hair. The boy yelped, startled, then laughed when you ruffled his curls and told him in rough Dothraki that if he wanted to be a dragon, he should learn not to set his Queen’s sister on fire.
Daenerys heard your laughter, heard the chorus of it echo from those around you. She also saw the faint, almost imperceptible release of tension in Grey Worm’s shoulders as he resumed his place.
“She does not notice,” Daenerys murmured.
“Your sister?” Missandei tilted her head. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. She is… kind to him. She speaks to him more gently than to many others.”
“She speaks gently to everyone,” Daenerys said.
Missandei’s eyes flicked sideways, amused. “Not to Ser Jorah when he disapproves of your choices. Not to Kraznys.”
Daenerys smiled despite herself. “No. Not to them.”
Later that day, as preparations for march began again, Daenerys watched another small thing. You were at the picket line beside one of the leaner bay mares, frowning down at the saddle cloth you’d just thrown over her back. The horse tossed her head, stamping as the wind snapped at your cloak. Viserion wheeled above you in loose circles, a pale streak against the hard blue sky, crying every time you stepped away from the horse’s side as if offended you would dare touch another creature.
“Hold still, you jealous little wraith,” you muttered, glancing up at him with narrowed eyes. “You cannot carry me yet, so this one must.” You patted the mare’s neck, smoothing a hand down her sweaty hide, then tugged the saddle blanket straight. The leather slid crooked anyway, and the mare sidestepped, irritated. Above, Viserion snapped his wings once, casting a fleeting shadow over all three of you.
“You should not go out alone beyond the first dunes,” Jorah said behind you. “The riders we sent ahead have not returned. We do not yet know what awaits us beyond Astapor’s scent.”
You huffed, turning the girth strap in your hands. “I never go alone. I have Viserion.”
“Viserion is as stubborn as you are.” His tone warmed, but worry sat heavy in his eyes. “Let one of the Unsullied accompany you at least.”
“The Queen’s sister does not need—”
“I will go,” Grey Worm’s voice cut in, calm and immediate. He stepped forward from the cluster of Unsullied as if pulled by some invisible thread. “If Khaleesi’s sister rides, commander will guard.”
You turned, brows up, surprised. “Will you? With all your important duties?”
“The Unsullied follow orders,” Grey Worm said. “My duty is where the Queen commands.”
Daenerys caught the way your eyes slid past him to where she stood. You did that sometimes, when you did not want to argue directly with someone, when you wanted to see which way the wind in your sister’s mind was blowing.
“He speaks truth,” Daenerys said, stepping closer. “I would have you safe, sister. You will take no more than a short ride, and you will take Grey Worm with you.”
You sighed, rolling your eyes skyward like you had when you were children and Viserys had forbidden you some foolishness. “I am surrounded by overprotective souls,” you muttered. “If you begin braiding my hair for me in the morning, I shall revolt.”
“Do not tempt me,” she said dryly.
Grey Worm’s lips twitched, a fleeting almost-smile that vanished as soon as you looked his way. Viserion dipped lower in one slow spiral, hissing as his shadow swept over Grey Worm, and craned his neck to peer at the Unsullied commander’s chestplate, steam curling faintly from his nostrils. Grey Worm did not flinch.
“He likes you,” you observed, tightening the girth again.
Grey Worm’s eyes cut to the dragon, then briefly, shyly, to yours. “Dragons are wise,” he said simply.
You snorted a laugh before you could stop yourself, and something about that sound did something strange to the air between you. You turned away quickly, fussing with the saddle strap again, but your fingers were not as steady as before. Grey Worm stepped forward and, after a heartbeat of hesitation, lifted a hand.
“May I?” he asked.
You blinked at him, startled by the question. Most men would have simply grabbed, or hovered, or assumed your attention their due. There was a carefulness in his tone that did not suit an Unsullied but suited him.
“Yes,” you said, quieter now. “If you like.”
His fingers brushed yours as you passed him the leather strap. Daenerys saw the fine tremor that went through him at the contact. It was controlled, caged immediately, but it was there. He tightened the buckle with efficient, practiced motions, the same way he would secure armor before battle, and in moments the saddle cloth lay perfectly flat beneath the saddle, the girth snugged without biting.
“Thank you,” you said. Your voice had dropped, grown almost rough around the edges. “That is better.”
Grey Worm stepped back, hands clasping around his spear again. “It is good,” he said. And because Daenerys was watching for it now, she heard the unspoken for you in the spaces between the words.
When you finally swung up into the saddle and nudged the mare into a trot toward the dunes, Viserion rose with you in a bright flare of wings, circling low overhead. The other Unsullied scanned the horizon, the dunes, the potential threats. Grey Worm’s gaze never left the slight figure on the horse and the pale dragon weaving above, following every hoofbeat and every pass of Viserion’s shadow until you were no more than a dust-smudge and a spark of white against the unfriendly blue.
“He will twist his neck off if he keeps looking after her like that,” Ser Jorah muttered, folding his arms.
“Careful,” Daenerys said mildly. “If you keep scowling like that, your face will stay that way.”
He gave her a look, but the barb had less sting in it than usual. Perhaps he saw it too and did not like what it might mean. She did not blame him. The idea of anyone with claim to her heart, to her kin, touched by another’s hand in this harsh world, stirred all her instincts at once: protect, guard, keep. And yet when it came to you and Grey Worm, something in her eased instead.
They were small things, these gestures. A cloak offered, a path smoothed, a stone removed, a strap tightened. But they stitched into a pattern day by day, thread through thread.
When you returned from that short ride, cheeks wind-flushed, hair tangled by the air and dust, Grey Worm stepped forward again without being called. He held out a waterskin. You took it, drank deeply, and when a line of water spilled from the corner of your mouth, he lifted a cloth, offering it silently.
You stared at the cloth, then at him. “You think me a messy child?” you teased, though the words came softer than they might have with anyone else.
“I think the Queen’s sister should not drip,” he said. The faintest hint of something like humor ghosted across his face. “The men stare enough already.”
You rolled your eyes but took the cloth, dabbing at your lips. “Let them stare. It gives them something to do besides complain about the dust.”
“Better they stare at dragons,” he said.
Daenerys’s lips quirked. “Some dragons are more dangerous than others,” she said under her breath.
You glanced at her, eyes narrowed in mock threat. “Sister.”
“Yes?”
“Stop watching me like that.”
“Like what?” she asked, perfectly innocent.
“Like you are placing wagers in your head.”
“I would never,” Daenerys said. Then, unable to help herself: “If I did, I would win.”
You made a strangled sort of noise and shoved past her, heading toward your tent with Viserion trotting behind you like an overgrown cat. The dragon’s tail thumped against Grey Worm’s leg as he passed. Grey Worm did not move, did not complain, just watched you go.
Missandei drifted closer, eyes bright with quiet mischief. “I think,” she said in High Valyrian, “that your sister knows.”
“Of course she knows,” Daenerys replied in the same tongue. “She is a Targaryen, not blind.”
Grey Worm’s head tilted a fraction at the cadence of the High Valyrian, but he did not understand.
The very last thing that settled it in Daenerys’s mind came days later, when the march dragged and tempers frayed and the sky had turned the color of old iron. A sudden windstorm blew up from the distant sea, hard enough to tear at the tents and whip sand into eyes and mouths. Men cursed and spat, struggling to secure lines and hold canvas. Viserion shrieked, furious at the wind, wings flailing as he clawed his way back toward the ground.
You stumbled, half-blind, your veil dragged sideways across your face, hair thrown loose. Sand stung your eyes. You reached out, groping for the tent rope you thought was there and found nothing but empty air and the hurtling, wild push of the gale.
A hand closed around your wrist. Strong, calloused, steady.
“This way,” Grey Worm’s voice came, raised just enough to cut through the wind. “Khaleesi’s sister, come. The tent will fall.”
You coughed, spitting grit from your mouth, and let him guide you. His grip was firm but not cruel, the way a man held a blade: something valuable, something he must not drop. The wind ripped at your skirts and clawed at his cloak, but he moved with the implacable steadiness of a man who had walked through storms far worse and never faltered.
He did not lead you to your own tent. He pulled you toward Daenerys’s, whose stakes he had already checked, whose lines were secure. Once inside, the sudden relative quiet rang in your ears. You blinked, tearing, as the sand finally began to clear from your vision.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. Not, are you all right, not in that soft, useless way so many men used. Are you hurt. The only question that mattered.
You shook your head, breathless. “No. Only… the wind is very bold here.”
He studied your face for a heartbeat, as if searching for hidden injury. Then he nodded once, satisfied. “I will check the stakes,” he said. “Do not go out until Khaleesi returns.”
You might have bristled at being given orders by anyone else. Daenerys had seen you slice visiting merchants to polite ribbons with your tongue when they presumed. This time, though, you simply swallowed and said, “I will stay.”
His shoulders eased a fraction. “Good.” He turned to go, then paused. “Your dragon…?”
“Viserion is with Drogon and Rhaegal,” you said. “He will follow them. He always do.”
He nodded again, then ducked out into the wind.
When Daenerys returned some time later, sand in her hair and temper worn thin from yelling at men who could not seem to remember how to tie knots, she found you sitting cross-legged on her furs, cloak wrapped around you, Viserion curled in a tight coil against your side. You were picking grit out of your hair with a grimace.
“Grey Worm dragged you in here by the scruff of your neck, did he?” she asked, tossing her own cloak aside.
You lifted your chin. “He escorted me with all due respect.”
Daenerys laughed outright, dropping heavily down beside you. Viserion snorted, offended, then settled again when both your hands rested on him. “He is very dutiful,” she said, voice softening.
“Yes,” you murmured, expression faraway. “He is.”
She watched you for a moment, the way your fingers moved through your hair and then, unconsciously, mimicked the gesture on Viserion’s spine. The way your thoughts had drifted somewhere beyond the tent walls and sandstorm, out to where a certain Unsullied commander stood like a dark, resolute stake in the whipped-up world.
“You could do worse,” Daenerys said quietly, almost to herself.
You looked at her sidelong. “For what?”
“For someone who notices when your feet hurt,” she said. “For someone who makes sure the fire does not burn your dragon’s tail. For someone who thinks of cloaks and paths and windstorms before you do. For someone who has nothing, yet offers what he has anyway.”
You swallowed, throat working. The faintest flush rose in your cheeks. “You see too much,” you muttered.
“I am your sister,” she replied. “It is my curse.”
You were silent for a long moment, then said, softer still, “He is… kind. In his way. He does not look at me like the men in Pentos did. Or the slavers in Astapor. He looks like he is… surprised I exist.”
Daenerys’s chest hurt a little at that. “You do exist,” she said. “Loudly, annoyingly, beautifully.”
You huffed a laugh. “You are biased.”
“I am right,” she said, and reached to smooth a strand of hair from your face. Viserion shifted and rested his head on your thigh, as if agreeing.
Outside, the wind howled and snapped at the world. Somewhere beyond the tent walls, Grey Worm stood his post in the storm, cloak whipping, eyes turned always toward the spaces where you might step.
Daenerys closed her eyes for a moment, leaned her head briefly against yours, and let herself imagine a future where dragons grew large and thrones were toppled and chains lay broken in the dust… and where, among all that blood and fire, her sister might still have this: small gestures, smoothed paths, a steady hand in the storm.
The night they broke camp for the last time outside Meereen, the sky felt too wide.
The city’s distant torches were a faint smear against the black, stars scattered sharp above them like shards of a broken crown. The air had lost the harsh oven-breath of the red wastes and now carried a damp, heavy warmth from the river, tinged with the rot of old reeds and the sour breath of walls that had seen too much blood. Men moved like shadows through the camp, checking straps, inventorying spears, murmuring in a dozen tongues. Dothraki laughed somewhere to the east, sharp and wild. Freedmen huddled nearer the Queen’s banners, clutching whatever weapons they had been given, some still unused to the weight.
Daenerys’s tent glowed faintly from within, a warm heart at the center of the encampment. Inside, plans lay scattered across her table, ink smudged by hands that had traced routes and risk too many times. Beyond the canvas, dragons shifted restlessly, the occasional flare of pale fire lighting their scaled throats.
You were outside, of course. You were never good at staying where you were told once the air thickened with the taste of choice.
You sat on an upturned crate near a smaller fire, neither with the commanders nor with the freedmen, but somewhere in that thin, liminal space between. Your cloak hung open around your shoulders, the white silk of your dress catching the flame light in soft shimmers. Boots this time, because even you had bowed to the reality of rocky ground and the coming assault. Still, your ankles were bare, a small rebellion against the world.
Viserion sprawled half across your lap and half onto the dusty ground, his body now long enough that you could not gather all of him anymore. His wings extended toward the fire whenever you got too close, soaking in the heat, then twitched as the sparks annoyed him. You murmured under your breath in High Valyrian, fingers tracing patterns along the ridges of his back. Each touch eased his twitching, soothed him, dragged his focus away from the scent of fear and steel around you.
Grey Worm watched you.
He stood precisely where he had been assigned, near the edge of the command circle, spear planted beside him, helmet off. The night wind brushed against his shaved head and the ridged leather of his armor. The red tassel at his spear’s base stirred and fell in slow rhythm. His face was as expressionless as the others’, but Daenerys had taught herself to see through that now, and you had learned the same. His eyes kept coming back to you: to your hands in Viserion’s scales, to the way your shoulders shifted with each quiet breath, to the faint furrow between your brows whenever a distant shout clipped too loud through the night.
He had stood there for years now, in one form or another: a statue of loyalty, a spear with a heartbeat. Tonight, something inside him seemed more tightly wound than usual, as if some internal knot had been pulled taut to the edge of breaking.
Daenerys approached him first, because that was something she could still control.
“Commander,” she said, stepping into his line of sight.
Grey Worm straightened, though his spine was already a rod. “Your Grace.”
“Are the men ready?”
“Yes.” His voice was steady, the word like iron. “Unsullied are in formation. Freedmen assigned. The Second Sons hold their position.” He hesitated. “We will take the city.”
“We will,” she agreed. The certainty in her own voice still surprised her sometimes. She watched him a moment, then let her gaze drift deliberately past him to where you sat. “And some of us will be close to the fighting who are not Unsullied. Some of us who were not trained for this from childhood.”
Grey Worm’s jaw tightened, just fractionally. “Your sister should remain with you, in the rear,” he said. “It is not safe.”
“She is riding with me at first light,” Daenerys replied. “She is dragonborn, same as I. The city must see that.”
He said nothing, but something flickered behind his eyes. He was too disciplined to argue with his Queen. Daenerys softened her tone.
“I did not come to discuss my sister’s place in my army,” she said. “I came because I would speak to you… as a woman, not as a Queen.”
That startled him more than any talk of marches. His eyes flicked to her face, searching. “Your Grace?”
She inclined her head toward the fire where you sat. Viserion shifted, his head rising just enough that his long neck arched, nostrils flaring as if he sensed her eyes on him.
“There is something you have not said,” she told Grey Worm. “And there is something she has not said. And by dawn, men will be dead. Some of them will be ours. You are not allowed to die with your mouth closed around words that belong to you.”
“I obey the Queen,” he said. His voice was rougher now, sand dragged across stone. “Not… feelings.”
Daenerys almost smiled. “You obeyed a master once, too,” she said. “He is dead. I burned him. I will not have you serve a new master inside your own chest.”
He stared at her, bewildered and wary, like a man shown a map that led somewhere he’d never believed existed.
“I am Unsullied,” he said again, as if reminding her. As if reminding himself.
“You are Grey Worm,” she corrected. “A man. A commander. And you care for my sister.”
There it was. She put it in the air, blunt and clean, the way only siblings and dragons were allowed to do.
His throat worked. He did not look away, to his credit. “She is… important,” he said carefully. “She is your blood. She speaks kindly to the freedmen. She… speaks kindly to me. It is good to protect her.”
“It is more than that,” Daenerys said, no mercy in her eyes now. “When she laughs, you forget to breathe for a moment. When she trips, something inside you dies. When she is angry, you stand straighter. When she is pleased, you feel taller. When she walks into the sun, you step between her and anything that might hurt her, even if no one has told you to. Do not lie to me, Grey Worm. You are not good at it.”
His jaw flexed. For a long moment he said nothing. Then, very quietly: “I do not know the words.”
She felt something loosen in her chest at that. “Then speak badly,” she said. “There may not be another chance to speak at all.”
His gaze dropped for the first time, not in shame but in thought. His thumb rubbed once against the wooden shaft of his spear, a small, nervous motion. “If she… if Y/N is hurt tomorrow,” he said, and the way he said your name, folding the syllables like treasure in his mouth, made Daenerys’s heart twist, “I will never have spoken. And if I die, she will never know.”
“Exactly,” Daenerys said. “And that would be a waste. I am very tired of waste.”
He swallowed. “I have nothing to offer her,” he said. “No… manhood. No children. No lands. No great name. Only a spear and obedience.”
“You offer her the only thing any of us can truly offer,” Daenerys said. “Yourself. As you are. Whole. If she wanted babies and lands and a great name, do you think she would have wandered the red wastes with me? She is not some soft noble girl in silk. She is a dragon, same as I. She will choose what she wants, not what others think she should want.”
Grey Worm looked past Daenerys then, to where you sat by the fire, Viserion’s head now resting against your shoulder. Your eyes, as if they felt it, lifted. Even at that distance, Daenerys saw the tiny catch in your breath when your gaze snared his.
“I am afraid,” he admitted, so low she almost didn’t hear it.
“Good,” she said. “So am I, every day. Only fools and dead men are never afraid. Go to her.”
He hesitated. “And if she laughs?”
“Then you will know,” Daenerys said. “And you will live with it. But she will not laugh. Not in cruelty. I know my sister. Go.”
For a heartbeat he stood there, still as he had stood through whips and war and the breaking of chains. Then the decision moved through him like a long, silent exhale. He nodded once to her, deeply.
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
She stepped aside, granting him a clear path. “Do not thank me yet,” she said. “I make terrible trouble for those I love.”
He almost smiled at that, a flicker, and then he went.
You were watching his approach by the time he reached the circle of light from your fire. The sounds of the camp faded around you, blurring into a low background roar. Viserion stirred, nostrils flaring as Grey Worm came nearer, then settled when you laid a hand on his snout in silent command.
“Commander,” you greeted, dipping your chin. “Come to inspect the fire for treason?”
Grey Worm stopped a few paces away, as if some invisible line stood there in the dust that he was not sure he was allowed to cross. The firelight painted his face in bronze and shadow, made the scars at his throat and cheek look like old, faint calligraphy.
“I come to speak with you,” he said. Unsullied steady. Man-fractured beneath.
Your brows rose, curiosity pricking through your own nerves. “Should I be worried?” you asked lightly. “Are you going to scold me for my riding? For how I hold my spear wrong?” You lifted a broken-off stick and mimed an exaggerated, ridiculous stabbing motion. “Did I offend Unsullied honor with my terrible technique?”
His lips twitched, and this time the urge to smile almost made it through. “Your riding is… brave,” he said. “Your spear is… very bad.” He glanced at the stick, then back at you. “But that is not why I come.”
You sobered, sensing it. You shifted a little to the side on the crate and patted the space on the other, lower crate beside you. “Then sit,” you said. “If we are to have serious words, I would rather not crane my neck like a courtesan eyeing a balcony.”
He hesitated again, looking at the offered place like it was some sacred thing, then moved forward and lowered himself with a care that had nothing to do with his armor. He kept his spear in his hands out of habit, but the butt rested against the ground, his fingers on it almost loose.
For a moment, the two of you sat in silence, the fire crackling between you, Viserion’s breath a slow, soft gust against your side. Somewhere farther off, a man laughed too loudly and was shushed. The wind tugged at the edges of the tents.
“How are the men?” you asked finally, when the silence stretched close to breaking.
“They are ready,” Grey Worm said. “They are always ready. They do not fear death.”
“And you?” you asked. “Do you fear?”
He considered that, eyes fixed on the fire. “I fear failure,” he said. “I fear… chains.” His jaw clenched. “I fear you hurt. I fear that most.”
Your breath caught. You stared at him, words snared in your throat.
He turned his head then, finally, and met your gaze fully. No flinching, no darting away. Just two dark eyes, steady and unguarded in a way you had never seen.
“You are… important,” he said. The word felt too small in his mouth; he frowned slightly, searching for more. “Since Astapor, you are… like the sun in the camp. The men look where you walk. You speak to them. You speak to me. Not like they used to speak. Not like a master. Not like I am… a thing.” His nostrils flared, as if the memory still stung. “You ask if I am hungry. If my shoulder is hurt. You joke with me. You laugh.” He swallowed. “When you laugh, I feel… I feel…”
He broke off, at a loss. His hand tightened around the spear.
You leaned a little closer, the fire throwing heat against your cheek. “You feel what?” you asked softly.
He exhaled, slow. “Alive,” he said finally. The word came out almost surprised. “Less… like a weapon that can only be pointed where told. More like a man. Like… Torgo Nudho.” His mouth curved in the ghost of a self-mocking smile. “Grey Worm.”
Something inside you squeezed hard at that. Your fingers dug unconsciously into Viserion’s scales; he snorted and shifted, but did not protest.
“You are a man,” you said. “You have always been a man. They tried to take that, but they failed.”
He shook his head slightly. “They took many things,” he said. “Things a man should give if he wants… if he loves…” He stumbled over the word, the edges unfamiliar. “If there is a woman he cares for.” His ears flushed darkly, and he stared back at the fire again. “I have no… man parts,” he said bluntly. “No seed. No children. No house. No songs. Only scars and discipline. This is not a good… gift. It is not enough for—”
“For me?” you finished quietly, saving him from choking on the phrase.
He went rigid, caught. The tips of his fingers went white on the spear shaft. “You know,” he said, low. “You always know.”
You let out a breath that was almost a laugh and almost a sob. “I am not blind either,” you said. “Nor deaf. Nor stupid. I see you, Grey Worm. I see every stupid, small thing you do. I see you move the fire when Viserion is too close. I see you smooth the ground so I do not cut my feet. I see you flinch when I fly too far. I see you watching my hands when I am cold, waiting to give me your cloak even if it leaves you with nothing. I see you slip food to the smallest of the freed boys when you think no one is watching. I see you stand between me and anything sharp like you have been fashioned for that one task alone.”
His throat worked. You could see his pulse beating hard beneath the skin.
“And yes,” you went on, your voice shaking now, “I know you care. I have known for a long time. And I have been… a coward.”
He blinked, stunned. “You are never a coward.”
“I have been about this,” you said. “Because if I say it back, if I put it into the air, then it becomes real. And real things can break.” You looked at him directly, raw. “I look at you, Grey Worm, and I see someone who deserves a gentle life after all he has endured. Warm food, soft bed, a home that doesn’t move every fortnight. A woman who can braid flowers in his hair and teach him stupid songs. Not a dragon’s sister who drags you from war to war and leaves you standing in the storm with sand in your teeth.”
He stared at you, the concept of flowers and songs making him faintly bewildered, but he grasped the core. “You think I deserve more than you?” he asked, incredulous.
“I think you deserve better than this,” you said. “Better than me.”
He almost laughed at that, a short startled bark. It came out hoarse. “There is nothing better,” he said, and the absolute certainty in his tone made your heart slam hard against your ribs. “There is no better woman. For any man. For me.” His gaze burned, suddenly. “I do not want soft bad. I do not want flowers. I do not want songs. I want…” He stopped, searching, then leaned a little closer, as if the words could not travel so far. “I want to stand where you are,” he said. “Always. To put my spear between you and danger. To hear you say my name like it matters. To see your dragon sleep on your lap and know he trusts me when I come near. I want to be alive and free and near you. This is all I know to want. This is all.”
Tears pricked hot at the corners of your eyes before you realized they’d come. You blinked hard, furious at yourself. “You speak better than you think,” you muttered, voice tight.
His brow furrowed. “Is it… good?” he asked, genuinely uncertain.
You let out a breath that shook. “It is everything,” you said. “It is more than any so-called lord ever offered me, all satin tongues and empty promises.”
Silence fell again, but it was different now. Charged. The fire seemed to lean in to listen. Viserion lifted his head, golden eyes slitting open, flicking between you and Grey Worm. Then, incredibly, the dragon exhaled a short, almost impatient puff of smoke and flopped his head back down, as if to say: finally. Humans are slow.
You laughed wetly and wiped at your face with the back of your hand. “Traitor,” you told the dragon. “Always taking his side.”
Grey Worm watched the tear your knuckle smeared away. Slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal, he lifted his hand from his spear and reached across the narrow space between you.
“May I?” he asked.
You looked at his hand: scarred, strong, tremoring slightly. Then you nodded and stepped that last fragile measure closer. His fingers touched your cheek, calloused pads rough against your skin. He wiped away the leftover damp with a gentleness that made your chest ache. His palm lingered a moment, warm and steady.
“I do not know how to do this,” he admitted. “They did not teach us… love. They taught us how to kill. How to die. Not how to hold.”
“You are doing fine,” you whispered. You turned your face slightly into his hand and pressed your lips to his palm. For a heartbeat, he forgot to breathe. You felt it in the way his fingers froze, then curled reflexively against your skin. “They cannot teach you this,” you said. “This belongs to us.”
He exhaled then, a soft, shuddering thing. His thumb brushed across your cheekbone once more, a tentative exploration, and then he drew his hand back, as if afraid of overstepping. You did not let him get far. You caught his fingers and held them, like you’d hold the reins of a skittish horse.
“Grey Worm,” you said, voice steady now. “Torgo Nudho.”
He looked at you as though you had spoken a spell.
“I care for you too,” you said. You did not drape it in pretty words. You gave it plain, as he had. “I have for a long time, and I was too frightened to look at it because everything I love dies or burns or is taken from me. But you are here and alive and stubborn. You walk where I walk. You stand where I stand. And when you smooth the ground for my feet, some foolish part of me thinks: I want that. I want him. I want to stand beside that kind of loyalty until we are both dust.”
His mouth opened, closed. His eyes shone, not with tears, but with some brightness that came from a well deeper than any training yard. “You… want me?” he asked, as if testing each part of the sentence.
“I do,” you said. “Without man parts. Without children. Without songs. With scars, with discipline, with that ridiculous spear and that ridiculous sense of duty that makes you stand in storms. I want all of it. I want you.”
The tremor in his hand spread up his arm. He set his spear aside with a care that was almost reverent, as if laying down a shield. Then he shifted, turning to face you completely. The camp sounds blurred further, thinned, as if the world had stepped politely back to give you both space.
“I do not know how to be… a husband,” he said slowly. “Or a lover. I only know how to be a soldier. But if you will let me, I will learn. I will be what you need. I will stand where you need. I will never touch you if you do not want. I will never force. I will never—”
You cut him off by leaning forward and pressing your forehead to his.
The contact was simple. No lips, no frantic grasping. Just skin against skin, breath mingling, the solid flick of your skull against his. He froze, then inhaled sharply, the sound almost a prayer.
“This,” you said softly, eyes closed. “This is what I need. This head. These hands. This heart. The rest we can figure out. Slowly. Or not at all. I do not care.”
He made a low sound in his throat, something torn between a laugh and a sob. His hands lifted, hovered, then settled very gently at your waist, fingers splayed as if he were afraid you might vanish if he held too tightly.
“I am yours,” he said, the words almost inaudible. “If you want.”
Your answer was immediate, no hesitation. “Then I am yours.”
Something inside both of you locked then, like a wheel finally finding the right groove on an old track. It was not magic in the way old Valyrians spoke of magic, but it was something close: a choice, freely made, in a world that had taken so many choices away.
You leaned back the slightest bit, enough to see his face again. He looked dazed, like a man waking from a long fever. You saw there the boy he had once been, the one torn from a mother’s arms, and the weapon he had been fashioned into, and the man he was now choosing to be. For you. For himself.
“May I…” He swallowed. “May I kiss you?”
You felt another hot prickle behind your eyes. Of all the men who had ever tried to put their hands on you, how few had ever asked. You nodded, slow, feeling the weight of the moment.
“Please,” you said.
He moved with the same caution he used approaching a skittish horse or a frightened child: no sudden jerks, no harshness. His hand came up again, fingers sliding along your jaw, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth. He lowered his head, paused a breath away, breath warming your lips. You could feel the shiver that ran through him.
Then he kissed you.
It was not skilled in the way Pentoshi courtiers prided themselves on. It was not pressing you into the crate, not devouring, not greedy. It was hesitant at first, lips just barely brushing, testing, tasting. He held himself back with an iron control that you could feel in every taut line of his body. His mouth was warm and a little dry, his breath unsteady. You sighed softly into him, hand sliding up to the back of his neck, fingers curling into the small hairs there. The tension eased. He tilted his head a fraction, finding the angle, and the kiss deepened just enough to make your stomach flip.
There was no rush. The world could end tomorrow. For tonight, there was this: the soft catch of his breath when you parted his lips with yours, the quiet huff that might have been a surprised laugh when Viserion snorted and thumped his tail as if demanding acknowledgement. You broke the kiss with a breathless chuckle, your forehead dropping back to rest against his.
“Everything you do,” you murmured, “you do like it might break. Even this.”
“I do not want to hurt you,” he said, still close enough that his words brushed your mouth.
“You won’t,” you said. “Not with this. If I want more, I will tell you. If I want less, I will tell you. That is how this will work. We speak. We choose.”
He nodded, a small, serious jerk. The agreement seemed to carve itself into him as another commandment, one he’d actually chosen.
He drew back slightly then, though his hands stayed on you, as if he couldn’t quite bear to let go entirely. “Tomorrow,” he said. “In the battle. I will be near the front. You will be with the Queen. You must stay behind.”
You snorted. “Have you met my sister? She will be at the front. I will not be allowed to sit quietly and sew banners.”
He frowned. “You must be careful,” he said. “For me.”
The way he said it, as if that gave you another reason to live, made your throat tighten again. “Then you must be careful for me,” you countered. “Do not make me a lover only to die on me the next morning. That would be very inconsiderate.”
He actually smiled then. A real one, small and crooked and shy. It changed his whole face, revealing a softness you’d only glimpsed at the edges.
“I will try,” he said. “To not die.”
“Good plan,” you said. “I approve.”
A shadow fell across you both then, and a familiar, amused voice floated over your heads.
“If you two are done planning to not die,” Daenerys said, “I would like to sleep knowing my sister will not walk into the city tomorrow with sand in her hair and love-bites on her neck.”
You jerked back, eyes wide, hand flying to your throat on instinct. “Dany!”
Grey Worm went ramrod straight, hands flying off you, shoulders snapping into formal lines. His embarrassment rolled off him in almost tangible waves. “Your Grace,” he stammered. “Forgive—”
She lifted a hand, chuckling. “Calm yourself, Commander,” she said. “If I objected, I would have sent Drogon to eat you hours ago.”
Viserion chuffed indignantly at that, as if insulted she would dare suggest any dragon but him would be involved in your romantic affairs. Daenerys reached down and scratched between his horns, soothing him. Then she looked between you and Grey Worm, and her expression softened, all amusement turning to something warmer, almost proud.
“Well?” she said. “Is it decided?”
You met Grey Worm’s eyes. He looked at you, not her, when he answered.
“Yes,” he said. “If she wants.”
You lifted your chin. For once, you did not deflect, did not hide. “I want,” you said. “Very much.”
Daenerys’s face lit in a way you rarely saw, a smile that went clear to her eyes. “Good,” she said simply. “Then tomorrow we will take a city. And when the bodies are buried and the chains are broken, we will drink to the fact that in all this mess, something good managed to happen anyway.”
“That is a very sentimental thing for you to say,” you muttered.
“It is the ale,” she said, entirely unconvincing. “Come. Both of you. I will sleep better if I can see you breathing.”
Grey Worm hesitated, glancing back toward the line of Unsullied. Daenerys saw it and rolled her eyes.
“You will resume your post in an hour,” she said. “Consider this a direct order from your Queen: come sit inside my tent like a human being for a while.”
He blinked. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said at once.
You stood, Viserion tumbling gracelessly off your lap with a squawk before scrambling upright, wings flapping. He bumped your hip with his head, then Grey Worm’s, giving the Unsullied commander a thorough inhaling sniff as if re-evaluating him. After a moment, he huffed, decided he approved, and trotted after you both toward Daenerys’s tent.
Inside, the lamplight was soft, the air thick with the scent of parchment, leather, and dragon. Drogon and Rhaegal were curled near opposite walls, eyes slitted open as you entered. Drogon’s gaze flicked between you and Grey Worm with a flat, reptilian assessment. Rhaegal yawned, teeth flashing, then tucked his head back under his wing.
“Sit,” Daenerys ordered, gesturing to a pile of cushions. “Eat something. I do not trust either of you to remember basic bodily needs when left unsupervised.”
You dropped gracelessly onto the cushions, cloak pooling around you. Grey Worm sat more carefully at the edge, as if reluctant to dirty anything. Daenerys tossed him a piece of flatbread and a chunk of dried meat. He caught them with reflexes honed in blood and training yards, then looked faintly startled that he was holding food in your Queen’s tent like he had every right.
You ate too, more out of obedience than hunger, tearing pieces of bread to share with Viserion when he nudged at your hand. At one point, your fingers brushed Grey Worm’s as you both reached for the same bowl. He flinched only a little, then relaxed, letting his hand linger half a heartbeat longer than necessary.
Daenerys watched it all with the serene, smug air of a cat that had arranged two mice into a convenient corner.
When the hour was nearly up, Grey Worm rose reluctantly. “I must go,” he said. “The men—”
“Will stand in formation without you for ten minutes,” Daenerys said. “But yes. Go. Lead them.”
He turned to you last. You stood too, heart beating a little too fast.
“Tomorrow,” you said.
“Tomorrow,” he echoed. He hesitated, then lifted a hand, not quite daring to touch your face again in front of the Queen. You solved that by catching his wrist and pressing your lips, quick and soft, to the inside of it. The skin there was thin, the pulse strong.
“Do not die,” you said. It was not a plea. It was a command.
His eyes darkened. “I obey the Queen,” he said. Then, softer, eyes locked on yours: “And you.”
He left then, ducking out into the night, the flap of the tent falling behind him. You stood there another moment, hand still tingling from the feel of his pulse under your mouth.
Daenerys laid a hand on your shoulder. “Sleep,” she said. “Or try. You will need it.”
You did sleep, eventually, curled beside her on the piled furs, Viserion half on both of you, his scaled body hot and heavy. In the dream, you saw Grey Worm standing in the streets of Meereen, spear lifted, the sun gleaming on his armor not as on a slave, but as on a free man.
By late afternoon the next day, it was no longer a dream.
The city fell.
It did not fall cleanly; nothing ever did. Men screamed and died, blood slicked the stones, and the air stank of smoke and fear and the copper tang of spilled lives. Meereen’s great harpy toppled, chains clanged, and the gates banged against their hinges. Daenerys rode at the front, pale hair a banner, dragon-fire a living thing around her.
You fought where you could, mostly from the back of a horse with Viserion harrying from above. You did not see Grey Worm for long stretches, the battle swallowing him in its chaos, and each minute he was out of sight scraped your nerves raw. You did catch glimpses: a flash of his helmet, the arc of his spear, the moment he stepped between one of the freedmen and a mounted slaver, dragging the man from his saddle in a single vicious movement. Each glimpse was a breath dragged into your starved lungs.
And then, suddenly, it was over in the way these things always were: not with some clean final chord, but with a gradual, bewildered lessening of noise. Swords dropped. Men knelt. Cries turned from rage to shock to sobbing. Above it all, dragons cried their wild songs, circling the broken harpy.
You found Grey Worm in the aftermath. He stood at the edge of a square that had become a makeshift gathering point, armor streaked with blood, some of it his, most of it not. His spear-tip was still red. He had removed his helmet, and sweat tracked paths through the dust on his face. His chest rose and fell in heavy breaths.
You pushed through the tangle of bodies, ignoring the way slaves reached for you, the way freedmen shouted thanks. You would answer them later. For now, there was only one person you needed to see standing.
“Grey Worm!” you called.
He turned instantly at the sound of your voice, as if he’d been listening for it even through the din. His eyes flicked over you in a single sweep, cataloguing: blood on your sleeve, a tear in your cloak, no limp, no obvious wound. Relief washed through his expression so strongly it almost stripped it bare.
“You are not hurt,” he said, striding toward you.
“Only in my ears,” you said breathlessly. “The dragons are very loud when they are pleased.”
He took your arms in his hands, not roughly, but with a firm urgency, turning you slightly this way and that, searching for injuries you might not have noticed. “No cut?” he pressed. “No arrow?”
“No,” you said. “I am whole.” You reached up and brushed a streak of blood from his cheek with your thumb. “You?”
He huffed a short breath. “A scratch,” he said. “A fool with a knife. He is dead.”
“Good,” you said.
The square around you was chaos: freed slaves crying, laughing, clinging to one another; Unsullied standing in formation, spears bright even in exhaustion; Meereenese nobles being dragged forward in chains to face their Queen’s judgment. Somewhere across it all, Daenerys stood on the steps of a great building, her voice carrying over the crowd as she spoke in words meant to change a city.
For a moment, though, the noise seemed to fall away between you and Grey Worm. He lifted a hand, pushed a loose strand of hair back from your face. His fingers shook. He did not care that half the square could see.
“You did not die,” he said, as if confirming it for himself.
“Nor did you,” you said. “I am shocked. We disobeyed the entire spirit of war.”
He actually smiled, small and fierce. “We have a promise,” he said simply. “I keep promises.”
You leaned up on your toes, ignoring the dirt, the blood, the dozens of eyes. You kissed him. Not long, not deep, but firm and clear. A declaration written not in ink or carved in stone, but in the soft press of lips in the middle of a broken city.
Gasps rose from the crowd nearest you. Whispers raced like wildfire. Grey Worm, the Unsullied commander, kissing the Khaleesi’s sister, in public, in the square where the harpy had ruled. It would be talked about in sweating kitchens and cramped barracks for years. You did not care.
Grey Worm froze for only a heartbeat, then leaned into it, his hands tightening on your arms. When you pulled back, his eyes were brighter than any torch.
“Everyone is staring,” he said, almost bemused.
“Let them,” you replied, breathless. “You said you have no songs. They will write some now, I promise.”
His gaze softened. “I do not need songs,” he said. “I have you.”
“A very loud, opinionated, unreasonable song,” you said. “But yes.”
Daenerys’s voice carried over them then, a roar of “Dracarys” that sent a shiver through the square. Men screamed as one of the masters’ bodies swung from a crossbeam, dragonfire licking high. The city shook. Chains fell.
You looked up toward your sister, saw her gaze cut through the crowd until it found you. For a moment, Queen and dragonmother and breaker of chains vanished, and you saw only the girl you’d shared a bed with in a cold Braavosi inn, who had promised you on a night of tears that one day, you would both be free.
Her eyes flicked to Grey Worm at your side, his hand still on your arm. She smiled, small and private amidst the spectacle, and dipped her head almost imperceptibly, as if in blessing.
Later, when the worst of the blood was washed from the streets and the first of the freedmen’s tents were raised inside Meereen’s walls, you stood with Grey Worm on a narrow balcony overlooking the city. It was quiet now, the kind of quiet that always comes after screaming: shell-shocked, raw. Torches dotted the streets. Somewhere, someone was singing in a cracked, uncertain voice, a melody without words, only relief.
Viserion perched on the balcony’s edge, tail wrapped around the stone, peering down with bright curiosity at the tiny flickers of flame below. Every so often he puffed smoke, just to remind the city who truly ruled its sky.
“It smells different,” you said, leaning your forearms on the low wall. “Less of fear. More of… oil and spices and unwashed men.”
“Better than slave pens,” Grey Worm said.
“Marginally,” you conceded.
He looked out at the city with you, shoulder just barely brushing yours. The closeness felt natural now. Earned. “The men are… excited,” he said. “They have never held a city as free men. They do not know what it means.”
“We will learn,” you said. “All of us. Together.”
He nodded. “Many of the freedmen ask to join the Unsullied,” he added. “They want to fight.”
“Will you take them?” you asked.
“Some,” he said. “Not as we were taken. They will choose. They will be trained, not broken. They will keep their names. Their… parts.” His mouth twisted. “It will be different.”
You watched him, pride swelling in your chest. “You will build something new,” you said. “A different kind of army.”
He shrugged a little, uncomfortable with the praise. “The Queen commands,” he said. “I obey.”
“And when the Queen is gone?” you pushed gently. “When someday she sits in Westeros, and you stand in a city she has freed, making decisions for men who look to you as they once looked to their masters?”
He considered that, long and hard. “Then I will obey the man I have become,” he said finally. “And the woman he loves.”
You were not sure your heart could take many more moments like this without bursting. “You are getting frighteningly good at this,” you told him. “Soon you will be spouting poetry.”
He frowned slightly. “Is that… bad?”
“It is dangerous,” you said. “For me.”
His lips curved. “Good,” he said.
You bumped your shoulder into his. He bumped back, gentler. You both watched the city breathe.
After a long, quiet stretch, he spoke again. “When the war is over,” he said slowly, like tasting each word, “when your sister sits on her throne, if we live to see that… where will you go?”
You blinked, taken aback. “I had not thought beyond making sure we reached the next city alive,” you admitted. “I suppose… Westeros. To see the place we were supposed to belong to. To see the sea again, the way it looks when it hits cliffs instead of sandy banks. To see snow. To touch the stones of the old dragon houses and decide if they are worth all this blood.”
He absorbed that in silence. “If the Queen sends me with you,” he said eventually, “I will go. If she leaves me here, to hold this city, I will stay. But…”
You turned toward him. “But?”
He met your eyes. “Wherever you go,” he said simply, “that is where I want to be. In your shadow. At your side. In your way.” The last added with a flicker of humor he’d never had before all this. “I do not need to see snow if you say it is cold and hurts your nose. I do not need to see cliffs if you tell me they are high and dangerous. I only need to see you, not falling off them.”
Your chest hurt again in that now-familiar, stupidly tender way. “Then we will ask her,” you said. “When the time comes. For now, we are here. In this city. For once, for a few days, the worst is behind us instead of ahead.”
He nodded. “For once,” he echoed.
You turned back to the view, then reached sideways and took his hand. His fingers laced with yours, a little clumsy but firm. Viserion swung his head around at the movement, golden eyes narrowing, then relaxing when he decided the situation met his approval. He slunk closer along the balcony, curling his tail around your ankles and his neck around Grey Worm’s forearm as if binding you in place.
“You see?” you told Grey Worm. “Viserion has decided. You are trapped now. There is no escape. Dragon’s judgment.”
He glanced down at the white-scaled coil around his arm, then up at you. The smile that touched his mouth was small and fierce and certain.
“I do not want escape,” he said. “Not from this.”
You squeezed his hand. Below, Meereen exhaled its first breath as a free city. Above, stars burned indifferent and bright. On the balcony, a dragon, a Queen’s sister, and a former slave stood shoulder to shoulder, watching a future that for once contained more than chains and fire.
It wasn’t a ballad. It wasn’t the neat, shining ending of a minstrels’ tale.
But it was enough.
For now, and for whatever came next, you had this: his hand in yours, your dragon at your feet, your sister’s laughter drifting faintly from somewhere behind you in the palace, and a city that, for all its scars, belonged no longer to those who bought flesh, but to those who had survived being sold.
You breathed in, slow and deep. The air still tasted of smoke and blood, but beneath it, new scents waited: spice, river, possibility.
“Grey Worm?” you said.
“Yes?” he answered.
“We’re free,” you said.
He looked at you, at your fingers tangled with his, at the dragon treating his arm like a perch, at the broken harpy in the distance. Then he nodded once, as if sealing a promise.
“Yes,” he said. “We are.”