⋞⁘♔⁘⋟    Considering the fact that the woman had made it no secret that she held little interest in anything that did not focus on her well-being and her people, Ravus knew that Daenerys had to be growing weary of their time in Qarth. Their journey have proven successful enough, fortunately. An extra mare had been bargained for, ready to be loaded with the sacks of goods that they had traded, purchased, and bartered. Several burlap packs of rice, wheels of cheese, and various other supplies could be divided out once they reached back to the village they had progressed from. 

Until then, however, Ravus was content enough to play out whatever formalities were expected of them. If these cityfolk had been generous enough with the two visitors, it would only be offensive if they did not accept the invitation to sup with the wealthier houses. 

Once Ravus had enjoyed the first real bath he’d had in longer than he could remember, he redressed in fine garments that had been gifted to them, his hair tied in a half-tailed regal manner. Carrying the dress in his arms, he approached the door to the room where Daenerys and him had been offered quarters, knocking politely on the edge of the frame to announce his arrival. 

The rumors of hatchlings upon the Dothraki Sea had reached as far into the Shadow as one could imagine. Then there had come word from Volantis that the Triarchs had found themselves threatened by a young woman who had taken Meereen. This same young woman had taken Astapor and Yunkai prior.

So many tales had come into the Shadow that it had piqued the young man’s interest. Despite the strict rules of his House, rules going back some seven hundred years or so, he would defy them and risk leaving the Shadowlands. The prospect of there being someone outside of the Shadow with dragons, with blood of Dragons coursing through their veins once more was to great to ignore.

He traveled mostly by night to hide the one thing his people had wanted to protect. The great beast lazed in the sand or grasses during the day and at night the once again resumed their journey. The closer to Meereen they ventured though the more cautious he was. Leaving his mount in the outskirts he made the rest of the journey on horseback.

Having finally arrived he found himself at the Great Pyramid with others seeking audience with this Queen. He’d hid his pale hair under that of a hood and kept his amethyst eyes downcast avoiding any onlookers. For a moment he’d thought himself mad for venturing into these unknown lands to him, unknown customs and cultures that he’d only heard about through whatever traders had come to his family’s lands or from old dusty tomes in the family library, many outdated.

Having found it his turn now he entered the throne room to see a young maid seated upon a simple stone bench. Amethyst hues gazed upon her radiance and what seemed to be exhaustion beneath. How tiring it must be to shoulder such burdens? Still it was there before him, the blood of dragons, the sign that Old Valyria coursed purely through her veins.

He waited for the young woman beside to state her titles and in doing so Lysander bowed his head in reverence. While he did not speak Meereenese or Yunkai’i he spoke High Valyrian and some Ghiscari.

“Greetings great Mother of Dragons, I am Lysander Moonshadow of Family Balaur, I have traveled great lengths so that I may kneel before you”, his Valyrian soft but not with out power.

 ˖ ༻ ❀ ༺ ˖      The days had passed at a capacity that eventually resulted in Margaery losing track. So many days and nights progressed, their time only noted through the faint glimmers of light through the barred window at the top of her cell. For a time, she had used a shard of stone to scrape lines along the rocky walls, making each sunset. Eventually, it had felt a pointless effort, however, and she had ceased. Would she die in there? Would they die in there? How many times had she fallen asleep to the sound of her brother’s struggled weeps, echoing from two cells over. 

The day Daenerys Stormborn arrived, she’d been laying on the filthy floor, the greasy strands of her hair trailing through the dirt while she hummed a song to herself. At first it was obvious that something was happening, the shouts being heard from outside. Strange; she rarely heard noise of the city folk from where they were. Then there had been the rush of Sparrows, running from the imprisonment sanction. 

“Loras?” she called out, sitting up. “Loras! Something is happening!” She listened, hoping to hear her brother respond, but the sound that followed was not his voice-- the vibrating roar filled the air, enough to stir an instinctual fear in the pit of her gut! 

What was happening?! People shrieked and yelled outside, the whole building shaking enough that dust fell from the ceiling from the tremors! 

Shireen moved through the halls as though she were a ghost, quiet and watchful... It was strange to think that dragons- real, alive dragons- were here, sharing the space, really, that she was occupying. It had been something else her father had been wrong about, when he had insisted they were only lies and tales told for the purpose of propaganda.

When she was small, Stannis had seemed so wise and good... Perhaps, he had truly been until the red woman had blazed into their lives with her cruelty and madness.

And now, he was gone- a page in her storybook, when he had intended for her to be one in his- and the mother of dragons was here. It was said, and Shireen well-believed it given the identities of her children, that Daenerys Targaryen was an ‘Unburnt’ amongst so many other things... Shireen knew that the Breaker of Chains might loathe her for whom her father was, had been, but a part of her, that she thought likely foolish, hoped that she might find some understanding in the older woman...

Clutching her stag to her chest with both hands for comfort, the princess looked around the entranceway to the room Daenerys was in... Taking a deep breath for courage, she took a step inside, and curtseyed. 

“Hello, Your Grace,” she greeted softly.    

The Lannisters of Winterfell arrived in King’s Landing a little less than a moon after the Queen had arrived back from her trip to Essos. Tyrion’s letter to his brother had brought strange tidings, ones Jaime wasn’t sure he could trust, but ones he knew that he needed to see for himself.

So he and Brienne, their son Brandon, their handmaids and their wet nurse had all crammed into a carriage for a torturous moon-long journey to the capital. As if travelling with a fractious, teething seven-month-old cooped up in a tiny carriage was not horrible enough, the misery was compounded by Brienne discovering that she was once again with child not two days before they departed the North. A cause for celebration to be sure, but not when she spent most of the journey with her head in a bucket throwing up streams of strangely yellow puke.

Jaime had never been so grateful to smell the shit-covered streets of the capital in all his life.

Now they had been housed with all comforts in a guest suite of the Red Keep. Dinner with Tyrion most nights, a maester to see to Brienne and give her herbs for her sickness, and space for Brandon to exercise his newfound crawling skills.

“You were confronted by the worst monster you’ve faced yet: ignorant human beings."  -- @theunburntprotector​

“I’ve been facing that monster for decades, Your Grace,” she said, voice soft. Well before she’d been a witch, back when she’d just been ... a girl. A girl with a twisted spine. Her fellow villagers ... her own family hadn’t cared for her. She had been worth nothing when she was just a girl. 

When she’d been sold for less than the price of a pig. 

People had always been the cruelest to her, until she’d gotten power of her own. The power of her magic didn’t mean she didn’t have to face ignorance. It just meant that she had the power to make sure that ignorance paid. She could protect herself, and others now. Though there was power in her beauty, it protected her, it was the magic that truly gave her power. The power to protect or harm as she saw fit. 

Rhaella had been working on this for years. She didn't have a husband to argue with about it, and she refused to let her daughter be forced into a marriage like she had. Dany wouldn't be able to marry for love, of course. She was a princess. But she wouldn't be forced. Rhaella frowned at her list as she waited for her summoned daughter, shifting through letters she had accumuniated over months and years of research. She slid the letters from Dorne into her drawer. They had two sons, one of marriage age and one near there, but they did things differently there, the eldest was a daughter and she would rule Dorne. Dany could wed an heir, she didn't have to settle. Rhaegar had installed Lucerys Velaryon as lord of the Vale after Jon Arryn's betrayal, and he only had a daughter, who he had wed to a man named Petyr Baelish, and they had no children yet. Rhaella thumbed through the other papers in the drawer- Willas Tyrell seemed so old to wed her daughter, he was a man of thirty years, but... she shuffled his paper out onto her desk. He was an option, and she wouldn't tell Dany who she could and could not marry if the match was good. Theon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands had recently been announced to wed the warden of the North's daughter, Sansa. He was out.

She was left with five men, and she spread their information out on the desk before her. Her first choice would be Robb Stark. The Targaryens could use influence in the North, and he'd been fostered by Tywin Lannister since he was old enough to leave his mother's breast. He'd been returned to the North every other year, to get to know the people he would be ruling, but spent the rest of the time being educated by the Lannisters, so he would not follow in his father's footsteps and rebel against the crown, and now that he was 17, a man grown, he was home in the North to stay, and he would need a wife. Her second choice was Tyrion. He was twenty seven, but he was a smart and clever man. He wouldn't be faithful to his wife, he had that reputation, but the imp would be kind to her. Their union would cleave the Lannisters to the Targaryens like Tywin had intended for Cersei and Rhaegar.

@theunburntprotector​ liked for a starter with Rheagar

It was like staring at his mother, albeit a much younger, and less sad version of the mother he had known. There was no denying that Daenerys was his sister, and there was also no denying that it must have been a shock to find him alive after all this time.