Main Content
Archive of Our OwnArchive of Our OwnHi, TheBrimmedHat!PostLog Out
FandomsBrowseSearchAboutWork Search
tip: lex m/m (mature OR explicit)
Actions
Entire Work ← Previous Chapter Next Chapter → Chapter Index Edit Bookmark Mark for Later Comments Hide Creator's Style Share Download
Work Header
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceMajor Character Death
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
Game of Thrones (TV)Godzilla - All Media TypesA Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. MartinA Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Characters:
Daenerys TargaryenKing GhidorahJorah MormontMissandei (ASoIaF)Grey WormBarristan SelmyTyrion LannisterJon SnowQuaithe (ASoIaF)The Others (ASoIaF)Samwell TarlyMaester AemonKinvara (Game of Thrones)Aegon Targaryen (Son of Elia)Jon ConningtonShireen Baratheon
Additional Tags:
Not Canon CompliantCanon-Typical ViolenceGhidorah is still Dany's babbyintelligent GhidorahTelepathyTelepathic BondParent-Child RelationshipGame of Thrones Fix-ItThunder and LightningBAMF Daenerys TargaryenDaenerys Targaryen Deserves BetterDaenerys did nothing wrongMissandei Deserves Better (ASoIaF)Literally all the women in GoT deserve betterNot Beta ReadBAMF WomenWomen Being AwesomeA mix of the show and the booksDragon RidersSymbiotic RelationshipDaenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queennot stark friendlyHope vs. DespairTargaryen RestorationDaenerys Targaryen-centricDragonsMinor Original Character(s)Character Death@D&D ruthless doesn't mean Mad™And doesn't mean you'll just randomly burn the shit out of civiliansNo RomanceImplied/Referenced Child AbuseImplied/Referenced Rape/Non-conImplied/Referenced IncestDaenerys Targaryen is Azor AhaiWhite Walkers (A Song of Ice and Fire)
Language:
English
Collections:
✨An Assortment of DAMN Good Fics✨, Earth Shakers - World Makers, Shady GoT Faves (Including Crossovers), JNW1'S favourite ASOIAF/GoT fics
Stats:
Published:2020-04-25Updated:2026-04-06Words:409,591Chapters:71/?Comments:5,538Kudos:6,020Bookmarks:1,659Hits:467,056
The Stormborn and the Stormbringer
SkilledWarriorKiwi
Chapter 33: Motherhood
Chapter Text
A queen I am but my throne is made of burned bones and it rests on blood filled quicksand.
Dragons. For as long as the House has existed, dragons had been tied to the Targaryens. Before the Doom swallowed Valyria and drowned an entire peninsula, when the Targaryens were a lesser family within the land of dragonlords. Through their escape from Essos to Dragonstone where they made a new home, through Aegon's conquest and unification of the Seven Kingdoms. Then when the dragons perished in the Dance, House Targaryen died along with them. It was a long death, piece by piece, generation by generation, but a death all the same. Like the dragons, the Last being a stunted thing that died soon after. Her House met its end to the likes of toothless stags and backstabbing lions when their scaly kin were extinct.
Dragons were extraordinary, they filled people with wonder and awe and terror. With naught even a handful Aegon brought fire and blood to the warring kingdoms yet once done the petty wars between the Seven faded the peace began. It worked due to the dragons, their wings swift to cover leagues with each beat and their fire more deadly than any man-forged weapon.
Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros?
Daenerys had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts and soil filled with silent bones. She had no desire to rule over a broken ash field. With Essos, she demanded freedom for the slaves when she took the city. She gave them the option of mercy, so those who'd lived in chains could taste freedom and stand beneath the sky belonging on to themselves. Truthfully, she had thought of how her campaign may advance westard. Scattered thoughts for the slaver cities waiting for her between Meereen and Westeros. What they may have heard of her and her campaign through Slaver's Bay? How many had heard of the Breaker of Chains, waiting for Daenerys and her army of freedmen to come to them?
Instead Ghidorah had killed them all without hesitation, the instant he thought his mother had fallen. They would never had a chance for freedom, as her child had robbed them of any chance.
Did they think it was her, when Ghidorah first appeared over the cities? Did they see a great golden dragon with three heads and rejoice, that the dragon queen had come for the masters and to strike off their gilded collars and cold chains? Instead they died alongside their captors, an indiscriminate storm which swallowed them all until the cities were ruins and the ground fertilized in corpses.
The blood of dragon does not weep.
But Daenerys wanted to do nothing more in that moment.
Instead she composed herself enough to calmly ask Barristan and Missandei to leave her as her thoughts swirled into a maelstrom.
The moment she heard the door shut, Daenerys burrowed back into her bed and tugging the sheets over her head. The silk enveloped her like a caterpillars womb and suddenly she thought of that great moth in her strange dream. With its shimmering orange and blue wings and immense body yet it was gentle and kind to her. And its instinctive, immediate fear of her child.
A queen must know the sufferings of her people but what is Daenerys to do, when she caused the suffering? She may not of unleashed Ghidorah upon those cities yet he was her son and he was her responsibility. She wanted to free the slaves, not kill them within bondage. Her weakness had resulted in her child going mad with grief and rage and now so many were dead.
Did not Quaithe warn her? Back when she was still marching through Essos, through the sun scorched lands. When she had her first dragon dream, of the metal building and the great Ghidorah fighting the black scaled beast. When she saw the Other for the first time. The woman had approached her, in the mimic of the House of the Undying. Her words had been blunt.
'Your child shall be a king among all dragons and magic. Sons learn from their mothers, you must teach him much. Teach him restraint and fury least we are devoured by a worst storm, a worst Night than even the one which will come forward from a god of ice, one of night, with a shadow of light.'
Was Quaithe trying to warn her? Did the shadowbinder know of Ghidorah's vengeance? It was as if the maegi was warning Daenerys, that an unchecked Ghidorah could possibly be even more destructive then these Others. Then again, one thing she had learned with war was that the established camp or fortress could spell victory alone. If Ghidorah tore apart the cities then who was left to fight the white shadows?
'Bow down and worship the Golden Demise.'
It had been one of the whispers, in her strange otherworldly dream and slithered through her mind now. As Aegon had the Black Dread, Daenerys had the Golden Demise.
She had to wonder if Westeros would even exist, if someone had managed to shoot Aegon from Balerion's back. If the Black Dread would have turned the Seven Kingdoms into a great barren plain of ash as retribution for slaying his rider. If every castle would have suffered Harrenhall's fate, each House died just like Hoar did. To all be burned alive within dragon fire.
Did not Mirri Maz Duur flout such a thing, when Daenerys confronted her for killing Rhaego? The woman was unyielding in her conviction, that killing an unborn babe was justified for what he would become.
'You cheated me. You murdered my child within me.'
'The Stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust.'
Her son had no need for a khalasar, he killed those cities with naught but his own might and fury.
Daenerys could perhaps admire the irony, that she never would have hatched Ghidorah if not for Mirri Maz Duur killing Rhaego. But now swathed in silk and head radiating pain throughout her limbs Daenerys could only think of those dead cities.
Death for vengeance sake, Daenerys could understand. But to destroy an entire city, without offering a chance for the slaves...Daenerys knew not how to comprehend it. The sack of Astapor had been brutal yet the walls had been crumbling long before she came to those shores. When she attacked Yunkai and Meereen, it was to free the slaves. When she attacked the siege it was so protect her people and kill the masters. She'd given them mercy and they'd thrown it back in her face time and again. Truthfully, she could understand. A gnarled, knotted part of herself wanted nothing more than to raze those cities to the ground.
She remembered Jorah's comments on the Walk of Punishment back at Astapor, how there was a beast inside every man. The memory pained her, his treason still fresh in her heart to mingle with her grief of Aemon and the lost lives. But his words held truth, as to the atrocities so easily committed with the more vicious nature of man. There was one in every women as well, as Daenerys had learned. It was simply that they were given less opportunities to release it. Masters came as both men and women and within her silken cocoon Daenerys cursed herself for being so blind.
The Sons of the Harpy were exactly that, after all. Sons.
And Daenerys now truly realized how dangerous her own son was. How oblivious she'd been.
I am the daughter of death, mother of destruction, she thought, cradled in darkness.
And worst of all, Daenerys knew she could do nothing.
Because what else could she do?
Scold Ghidorah when he returned to her? Tell him that he'd committed a terrible, irreversible thing? That he'd butchered so many who should have been set free? Given a chance to do so?
He wouldn't care. She already knew that.
She couldn't send him away, both in part because she loved him and also because if she fully loosened him on Essos she doubted anyone would remain alive for the Others to enslave when they crossed the Narrow Sea. She couldn't lock him up anywhere like her ancestors had done at the Dragon Pit. Ghidorah would not allow it and as a mother Daenerys couldn't bear to chain her own child in darkness. Even now she felt so cold and alone, so used to his presence in her mind that the loneliness was growing crippling.
Daenerys couldn't do anything in retaliation for her child destroying those cities.
It was much like when her child had eaten that boy with the silver tokar, when the boy had tried to attack her. Ghidorah had been vehement in his lack of guilt for devouring the boy. He had deduced the boy a threat to his mother and he'd responded appropriately. He had felt her rage when they'd been resting just beyond Qohor's forest and her resolution in attacking the masters. And before that she'd torn a man's throat out with her teeth. Perhaps in the merciless mindset of a dragon, Ghidorah had chosen to emulate his mother through her escalating her anger and replied in kind. To destroy the source, rather than simply participants. Eradicate the nest like one would a pack of vermin.
Astapor, Yunkai, Elyria, Tolos and Mantarys. And perhaps New Ghis, that was far south past the ruins of Old Ghis and down southward in the Gulf of Grief.
How many dead? How many slaves slain? They always out numbered the masters. How many died thinking she was coming to free them only to die beneath dragonbreath?
Daenerys fell asleep wrapped in the dark silken cocoon, waiting for tears that never came.
Her waking was sporadic while the pain in her skull and eyes lingered like weeping sores.
When she woke Missandei or Barristan would be there. They made more mention of the ruined cities and Daenerys did not ask. Instead she focused on Meereen and eating anything laid before her to try and regain her strength. Her appetite was ravenous.
The light still hurt so she remained blindfolded and her limbs still shook. Whatever damage the horn had done to her Daenerys feared it would not be over soon.
They told her of the resources gathered from the broken camp of the slaver alliance, mostly weapons but also ample livestock and recovered war animals. There was also a significant amount of glass taken from the shores of the Bay of Dragons, the result of both Ghidorah's breath and the lightning strikes. Glass was a very rare commodity, only the richest cities or ports like Braavos could afford it so they scavenged as much as they could.
The mass flooding from the thunderstorm had largely abated and they'd used that to rid the fields of corpses. The bay was filled with hungry fish and sharks, while any fishing vessels were ordered to do so far beyond Meereen. Those quarantined with the pale mare were low in number and mostly waiting to die. Once done the intent was to simply burn the tents with the bodies inside.
Daenerys wasn't sure how much time passed, since her sleep was shallow and short while the pain remained her constant companion. She had to remain blindfolded during the day as the sunlight was still too harsh but she insisted on bathing herself or taking short walks around her chambers to try and regain her strength. The stairs of the Great Pyramid were beyond her, at the moment. Movements slow and shuffling as if she were bowed with age.
She would have liked to have attended audiences for her citizens, at the very least to reassure her people that she was alive, but for now she had to make do with brief meetings in her chambers. She could barely tolerate her meeting with her council, as Reznak's rancid perfume made her nearly vomit. She also wasn't blindfolded, and Missandei did her best by pinning up thick drapes to blot out the evening sun and even gave Daenerys a tiny thimble of milk of poppy but she still found it unbearable. However she stiffened her spine and forced herself to endure.
At the very least Reznak seemed afraid enough of her he tried to stay back as far as he could so his stench wasn't assailing her as strongly. Skahaz meanwhile seemed quite pleased with Daenerys' effort in breaking Meereen free of the siege, though she denied his request to publicly execute the iron born prisoners. There were still Harpy killings, that annoyed and exhausted Daenerys in equal measures and she knew she'd had to address that directly and without mercy soon enough.
Though she denied the notion as to address the destruction of the various slave cities. It would steadily become common knowledge as Missandei explained, but Daenerys dismissed a public address of that incident. She didn't really know what to do anyway, though she did not voice that. She did however request Daario take the Stormcrows and her little Dothraki horde to search the surrounding hills and fields for any lingering master spies and to also secure the Khyzai Pass, both to avoid any potential warring in the future but also to offer friendship towards the Lhazar. Many of the wheat and bean fields had been ravaged by the slaver army and then the storm and lightning and having more sources of food would always be welcomed.
That was the last order given before she had to dismiss the council to crawl back into bed to nap, before eventually dragging herself forth to allow Ishabi to inspect her injured arm. The woman came with the rest of Daenerys' khalasar, those not belonging to the cavalry and a mixture of the oldest warriors, women and children. She didn't mind them being within her chambers and she let Strong Belwas fed her bits of onion and liver as Ishabi unwrapped her limb.
"The wound is healing well, Khalessi," the old woman said, sharp eyes roving over the splint keeping her forearm in place. "The bone has set perfectly. Though you should keep the bind and splint on, until it has fully recovered. I have seen many deformities from impatient warriors who fought too soon on broken limbs."
Daenerys accepted that without complain, letting the woman clean the fang mark on her forearm; already the puncture wound was puckered and pink, healing well and the ache lost to the stronger one within her head. Ishabi had to recourse for Daenerys headache, however, beyond some herbs to chew and wine to drink. She was wary of too much milk of poppy, as even with the tiny amount she swallowed for the council meeting. Daenerys knew there was quite a few warnings of people who'd been lost in the haze of poppy, dulling their senses and keeping them lax and dizzy as if within a dream. She had no intention of turning such a way.
So despite her groggy pain she patiently went through the exercises Ishabi coaxed her through, carefully stretching out her injured arm and flexing the muscles and fingers. As she did so, she listened distantly to the conversations of her khalasar.
"But a khal who cannot ride is no khal," she heard one of the children say in hushed tones. "So will the Khalessi have to cut her hair and bells?"
"No, because she did not fall off her steed," Lessa explained. "She was struck from her dragon by foul magic. And then her dragon killed that horrible thing. It is different, to fall or to be knocked down."
"Maegi on the poisoned water was like the one who Khalessi burned at the pyre," one of the old warriors said.
"Blackest of magic. It is know."
"Aye. And all warriors know when to fix their wounds, least they want their limbs to rot. Khalessi destroyed all those spineless masters and even ripped down their walls so they cannot hide. Instead she needs more bells."
Daenerys did not know if Ghidorah's victories were her own, considering she'd been unconscious when it had happened. But there was something oddly soothing at how the Dothraki took pride in Ghidorah's horrific actions even if she knew she shouldn't be thinking as a khal. Yet her child did and as Daenerys watched Ishabi fix the splint back to her limb she found it amusing in a fairly morbid way her child was acting quite Essosi. The Valyrians had not hesitated in burning Old Ghis to the ground with three hundred dragons.
Again, she had to wonder how Aegon would council her if he was there. Would he agree with Ghidorah's actions? Perhaps not, as when he issued his ultimatum to House Hoar he'd given them an offer of mercy first. Then again Hoar had not marched directly to war with Aegon before his refusal. Instead he'd hidden in his castle, smug and secure until he burned alive with the rest of his kin. Rebuked Aegon's offer, just as the masters did for Daenerys.
Daenerys idly traced the scratches in her palm from where she'd sliced it open with a letter opener, the lines pale and white. She was quite surprised with how quickly they'd healed, along with her arm, but then she'd been unconscious for nigh a week so Daenerys guessed her body had nothing else to do but heal.
Ishabi finished binding Daenerys' arm and after some idle chat she had to send them away, as even the quiet chatter was beginning to reverberate through her head like a drum. Her eyes felt sore and gritty and between her brief interactions with her council or Missandei Daenerys just did nothing but sleep and worry.
She wanted her child back, even after what he'd done. Her reeling over his horrific actions were getting overwhelmed by a mother's worry and she found herself thinking as to what she herself would have done if Ghidorah had been struck down. If he had been the one to be cursed into a week long coma by the horn while she worried and fretted over his non-responsive form. Would she have ordered everyone killed without recourse? Would she had them flogged to death in the square for hurting her child? Flayed alive, boiled in pitch? She had burned Mirri Maz Duur in retribution for her crimes upon Rhaego, both in part of vengeance and also to call forth her dragons. Yet there was no certainty there beyond the maegi dying. What would Daenerys have done, if her situation was swapped with her child?
Her dreams were equal parts violent and confusing, tossing and turning in a shallow sleep upon her silken sheets. Most was of that great golden Ghidorah, shimmering and sparkling as if formed from light itself.
She was woken by a crack of thunder.
Groggily she poked her head out from her silken cocoon, hair a silvery mess. Then a great crash sounded above her, rocking her chambers like an earthquake and snapping her upright. Barristan burst into her room an instant later, the view beyond her open balcony showing the dark and torrential rain forked by lightning.
But Daenerys knew who was above her, even before he called to her. Even though there was still that horrible emptiness in her mind so she had no sense him.
She would have fallen on the floor if Barristan hadn't of caught her as Daenerys tried to throw herself from the bed. The old knight easily hefted her up in her arms, his armour cool against her bare limbs.
"Your Grace-"
Daenerys ignored him to instead reach beseechingly towards the balcony. Above, there was a scrape of wings and scales audible even over the thunder and rain before that unmistakable chattering call.
Barristan did not waste any time with questioning, carrying her out onto the balcony where they quickly became soaked to the bone. Barristan had barely stepped over the threshold when three sinuous necks slithered down and Daenerys all but fell onto the snout of Ghidorah's midmost head the moment he was within reach, scales rough on her skin as she crawled and lower half supported by Barristan.
The pain in her head increased, her nails scrabbling over his bony snout as his other heads pressed against her. Then it felt like a blister bursting, and Ghidorah's mind flooded back into Daenerys's own and shoving aside the pain. She felt his own rage and worry over her, merging with her own churning thoughts as their minds linked together again. All her panic and unease was brushed aside as her child returned to her, fingers clinging to his scales and ignoring the rapid chill from the rain and night. She could feel the ache in Ghidorah's limbs, how his wings shook and there were numerous bloody stains across his golden scales but her child was ignoring his own pain and discomfort to snuffle at her body and lick at her hair in concern.
Barristan, who was trapped within the tangle of serpentine necks, remained as immovable as a statue as the rain beat down upon them while Daenerys simply shut her eyes with a contented sigh.
Actions
↑ Top ← Previous Chapter Next Chapter → Edit Bookmark Comments (60)
Kudos
Lillian_Tuphan, 24Idiots, angelwritesalot, 13DeadRats, Soren_uwu, Sukeolin, posionivykissed, Slmn, PrincessCarolina03, Baumtraum, Lost_In_WLW_Thoughts, lastrada444, Little_mushroom99, TomatoPotato09, Fert_567, Ellin_wwj, Roxannaaaaaa, cinnamon_frog, wolfdragon3036, TheArkitech, ahuk00, SaffirtheGreat, Cerberus_paw, SebyWildest, EmpressOwl, AriesIsFloofy, Eliaco_6731, 1995chouchoux_de_la_street, PhantomPeach14, ArchdemonSolomon, Karakurtaryen, Redqueen175, naya1822, X1peT0tec, mysty1346, w098458, WHat_In_carNation, Ididnotdie, Rarba, Read1_12, Nikd15, I_AM_NOOB, Mm1221, Eclipzee, Cheyenna_banana808, Iris_Hope_Flower, Hthehumam, Kuramatcha, LettuceNotLemons, Thedarkknight12, and 2501 more users as well as 3469 guests left kudos on this work!
Comments
Post Comment
Comment as TheBrimmedHat
Plain text with limited HTML ?
Comment
10000 characters left
Footer
Customize
Default
Low Vision Default
Reversi
Snow Blue
About the Archive
Site Map
Diversity Statement
Terms of Service
Content Policy
Privacy Policy
DMCA & TIDA Policies
Site Status
Contact Us
Policy Questions & Abuse Reports
Technical Support & Feedback
Development
otwarchive v1.2.0.0
Known Issues
GPL-2.0-or-later by the OTW