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Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ADWD: Daenerys VII (Chapter 43)

Daario lay upon his stomach, the light linen coverlets tangled about his long legs, his face half-buried in the pillows.

Dany ran her hand down his back, tracing the line of his spine. His skin was smooth beneath her touch, almost hairless. His skin is silk and satin. She loved the feel of him beneath her fingers. She loved to run her fingers through his hair, to knead the ache from his calves after a long day in the saddle, to cup his cock and feel it harden against her palm.

It's time for Daenerys Targaryen's second great romance.

Apparently she'll have many in this series, while the actual romantic heroine will have none.

+.+.+

If she had been some ordinary woman, she would gladly have spent her whole life touching Daario, tracing his scars and making him tell her how he'd come by every one. I would give up my crown if he asked it of me, Dany thought … but he had not asked it, and never would. Daario might whisper words of love when the two of them were as one, but she knew it was the dragon queen he loved. If I gave up my crown, he would not want me. Besides, kings who lost their crowns oft lost their heads as well, and she could see no reason why it would be any different for a queen.

Maybe you shouldn't have a crown then.

I'll give her credit for that honest moment of reflection.

+.+.+

If I could, I would. Khal Drogo had been her sun-and-stars, but he had been dead so long that Daenerys had almost forgotten how it felt to love and be loved. Daario had helped her to remember. I was dead and he brought me back to life. I was asleep and he woke me. My brave captain. Even so, of late he grew too bold. On the day that he returned from his latest sortie, he had tossed the head of a Yunkish lord at her feet and kissed her in the hall for all the world to see, until Barristan Selmy pulled the two of them apart. Ser Grandfather had been so wroth that Dany feared blood might be shed. "We cannot wed, my love. You know why."

Ser Grandfather ... ouch. Daario influence has started.

+.+.+

"You are beautiful," she blurted as she watched him don his riding boots and lace them up. Some days he let her do that for him, but not today, it seemed. That's done with too.

Once again I'm torn.

"Let his mother and his sisters examine one another and share the special cake. I shall not be eating it. Nor shall I wash the noble Hizdahr's noble feet."

"Magnificence, you do not understand," protested Reznak. "The washing of the feet is hallowed by tradition. - Daenerys VI, ADWD

I have no issue with Daenerys refusing this tradition. My problem is she is more than willing to lace Daario's boots for him.

+.+.+

"Where are you going?"

"Out into your city," he said, "to drink a keg or two and pick a quarrel. It has been too long since I've killed a man. Might be I should seek out your betrothed."

Do we believe him?

+.+.+

"As my queen commands. Will you hold court today?"

"No. On the morrow I will be a woman wed, and Hizdahr will be king. Let him hold court. These are his people."

[...]

"Only a little, bright heart. Will you come hold court?"

"After my wedding, perhaps. After the peace."

Uh oh, is Daenerys already bored with her job?

His people. Hizdahr's people.

"Enough." Dany slapped the table. "No one will be left to die. You are all my people." Her dreams of home and love had blinded her. "I will not abandon Meereen to the fate of Astapor. It grieves me to say so, but Westeros must wait." - Daenerys III, ADWD

+.+.+

"This after that you speak of never comes. You should hold court. My new men do not believe that you are real. The ones who came over from the Windblown. Bred and born in Westeros, most of them, full of tales about Targaryens. They want to see one with their own eyes. The Frog has a gift for you."

[...]

"Oh, a clever frog. 'Give the gift to me.' " She threw the other pillow at him. "Would I have ever seen it?"

Daario stroked his gilded mustachio. "Would I steal from my sweet queen? If it were a gift worthy of you, I would have put it into your soft hands myself."

"As a token of your love?"

"As to that I will not say, but I told him that he could give it to you. You would not make a liar of Daario Naharis?"

I'm sorry, am I understanding this exchange correctly? Did he just avoid saying he loves her? Lol

"You have not said you love me."

"I will, if it would please Your Radiance." - Daenerys IV, ADWD

+.+.+

Dany sat amongst the rumpled bedclothes with her arms about her knees, so forlorn that she did not hear when Missandei came creeping in with bread and milk and figs.

Not only does Missandei keep interrupting Daenerys when she's contemplating betrayal, she also has a habit of sneaking up on Daenerys (and Barristan!) undetected.

"My queen?" said a soft voice in the darkness.

Dany flinched. "Who is there?"

"Only Missandei." The Naathi scribe moved closer to the bed. - Daenerys VIII, ADWD

Ser Barristan turned. "Missandei. Child. How long have you been standing there?" - The Queensguard, ADWD

What's going on here?

Arya. Arya Stark is what's going on here.

+.+.+

The prospect of wrestling with Meereen once more left her feeling weary. Sleep came hard, even when Daario came back, so drunk that he could hardly stand. Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice.

I prefer the Tyrion interpretation.

It was Lemore who forced the water from your lungs after Griff had pulled you up. You were as cold as ice, and your lips were blue. Yandry said we ought to throw you back, but the lad forbade it. - Tyrion VI, ADWD

But Euron works too. I'm not greedy.

+.+.+

She sat up with her hair disheveled and the bedclothes atangle. Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone.

Oh my goodness, soulmates not foils.

Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone. He did not want to die alone. - Jon V, ASOS

We can't compete with two people feeling alone.

+.+.+

Reznak mo Reznak bowed and beamed. "Magnificence, every day you grow more beautiful. I think the prospect of your wedding has given you a glow. Oh, my shining queen!"

Dany sighed. "Summon the first petitioner."

It had been so long since she last held court that the crush of cases was almost overwhelming. The back of the hall was a solid press of people, and scuffles broke out over precedence.

And why were you not holding court? Is it because you suck as a queen and the author practically spells that out for the reader?

+.+.+

Her last meeting with the Green Grace had not gone well. "What would you have of me?"

"I would speak to you about the presumption of a certain sellsword captain."

She dares say that in open court? Dany felt a blaze of anger. She has courage, I grant that, but if she thinks I am about to suffer another scolding, she could not be more wrong. "The treachery of Brown Ben Plumm has shocked us all," she said, "but your warning comes too late. And now I know you will want to return to your temple to pray for peace."

The Green Grace bowed. "I shall pray for you as well."

Another slap, thought Dany, color rising to her face.

Boy, that is unlike the Daenerys of the six previous chapters.

Too much Daario in the diet.

+.+.+

The rest was a tedium the queen knew well. She sat upon her cushions, listening, one foot jiggling with impatience. Jhiqui brought a platter of figs and ham at midday. There seemed to be no end to the petitioners. For every two she sent off smiling, one left red-eyed or muttering.

Let's play a game. Which one would make the best monarch?

Daenerys. ↑

Robert.

Laws are a tedious business and counting coppers is worse. And the people … there is no end of them. I sit on that damnable iron chair and listen to them complain until my mind is numb and my ass is raw. - Eddard I, AGOT

Cersei.

"May I have the honor of accompanying Your Grace to court?"

"If you can bear the tedium," said Cersei. - Cersei VIII, AFFC

Bran.

"As you will, my prince," said Ser Rodrik. "You did well." Bran flushed with pleasure. Being a lord was not so tedious as he had feared - Bran II, ACOK

You said Bran, didn't you? Wrong.

It was a trick question, the answer is Sansa.

He caught a glimpse of Septa Mordane in the gallery, with his daughter Sansa beside her. Ned felt a flash of anger; this was no place for a girl. - Eddard XI, AGOT

"I'm sure I don't know why Arya does anything." Sansa hated stables, smelly places full of manure and flies. Even when she went riding, she liked the boy to saddle the horse and bring it to her in the yard. "Do you want to hear about the court or not?" - Sansa III, AGOT

+.+.+

It was close to sunset before Daario Naharis appeared with his new Stormcrows, the Westerosi who had come over to him from the Windblown. Dany found herself glancing at them as yet another petitioner droned on and on. These are my people. I am their rightful queen.

George is relentless when trying to get a point across.

+.+.+

The Westerosi. Her people.

On the morrow I will be a woman wed, and Hizdahr will be king. Let him hold court. These are his people.

You have to be the biggest mark in the world to fall for this girl.

+.+.+

When Daario brought them forward, she saw that one of them was a woman, big and blond and all in mail. "Pretty Meris," her captain named her, though pretty was the last thing Dany would have called her. She was six feet tall and earless, with a slit nose, deep scars in both cheeks, and the coldest eyes the queen had ever seen. As for the rest …

Have we figured out why there's a Brienne?

+.+.+

Gerrold was a lean, tall youth with sun streaks in his hair and laughing blue-green eyes. That smile has won many a maiden's heart, I'll wager. His cloak was made of soft brown wool lined with sandsilk, a goodly garment.

Frog, the squire, was the youngest of the three, and the least impressive, a solemn, stocky lad, brown of hair and eye. His face was squarish, with a high forehead, heavy jaw, and broad nose. The stubble on his cheeks and chin made him look like a boy trying to grow his first beard. Dany had no inkling why anyone would call him Frog. Perhaps he can jump farther than the others.

Off to a great start.

+.+.+

"If it please Your Grace, may I first present my gift?"

"If you wish," Daenerys said, curious, but as Frog started forward Daario Naharis stepped in front of him and held out a gloved hand. "Give this gift to me."

Stone-faced, the stocky lad bent, unlaced his boot, and drew a yellowed parchment from a hidden flap within.

"This is your gift? A scrap of writing?" Daario snatched the parchment out of the Dornishman's hands and unrolled it, squinting at the seals and signatures. "Very pretty, all the gold and ribbons, but I do not read your Westerosi scratchings."

"Bring it to the queen," Ser Barristan commanded. "Now."

Dany could feel the anger in the hall. "I am only a young girl, and young girls must have their gifts," she said lightly. "Daario, please, you must not tease me. Give it here."

This is outrageous, and she let it happen.

+.+.+

"Prince Doran." He sank back onto one knee. "Your Grace, I have the honor to be Quentyn Martell, a prince of Dorne and your most leal subject."

Dany laughed.

The Dornish prince flushed red, whilst her own court and counselors gave her puzzled looks. "Radiance?" said Skahaz Shavepate, in the Ghiscari tongue. "Why do you laugh?"

"They call him frog," she said, "and we have just learned why. In the Seven Kingdoms there are children's tales of frogs who turn into enchanted princes when kissed by their true love." Smiling at the Dornish knights, she switched back to the Common Tongue. "Tell me, Prince Quentyn, are you enchanted?"

Laughing, then speaking in a language he can't understand. How rude.

"I do not speak your tongue," Quentyn answered. Though he could read and write High Valyrian, he had little practice speaking it. - The Merchant's Man, ADWD

+.+.+

"Tell me, Prince Quentyn, are you enchanted?"

"No, Your Grace."

"I feared as much." Neither enchanted nor enchanting, alas. A pity he's the prince, and not the one with the wide shoulders and the sandy hair.

Get those spears ready, Doran. She's coming home.

+.+.+

"My father hoped that you might find me acceptable."

Daario Naharis gave a scornful laugh. "I say you are a pup. The queen needs a man beside her, not a mewling boy. You are no fit husband for a woman such as her. When you lick your lips, do you still taste your mother's milk?"

Ser Gerris Drinkwater darkened at his words. "Mind your tongue, sellsword. You are speaking to a prince of Dorne."

"And to his wet nurse, I am thinking." Daario brushed his thumbs across his sword hilts and smiled dangerously.

I'm supposed to believe this child (derogatory) is a good queen when she lets a sellsword speak to a prince of Dorne like this? A potential ally.

Quentyn may be dead, but the remaining Dornishmen will remember what happened here.

The Tattered Prince turned back to Quentyn. "Could that be true? Surely not. What of your marriage pact?"

"She laughed at him," said Pretty Meris.

Daenerys never laughed. - The Spurned Suitor, ADWD

+.+.+

Skahaz scowled, as only he could scowl. "This boy might serve for Dorne, but Meereen needs a king of Ghiscari blood."

But not Hizdahr zo Loraq, amirite Skahaz?

+.+.+

The queen rose. "Then we are done for now."

Daario and Ser Barristan followed her up the steps to her apartments. "This changes everything," the old knight said.

"This changes nothing," Dany said, as Irri removed her crown. "What good are three men?"

There's Barristan Selmy pushing her to make a bad decision. What else is new?

My unpopular opinion is that she made the right choice choosing Meereen over Quentyn.

Of course she'll abandon Meereen anyway, so I can't give her too much credit.

+.+.+

She found herself remembering her nightmare. Sometimes there is truth in dreams. Could Hizdahr zo Loraq be working for the warlocks, was that what the dream had meant? Could the dream have been a sending? Were the gods telling her to put Hizdahr aside and wed this Dornish prince instead?

I'm laughing.

"Shade-of-the-evening, the wine of the warlocks. I came upon a cask of it when I captured a certain galleas out of Qarth, along with some cloves and nutmeg, forty bolts of green silk, and four warlocks who told a curious tale. One presumed to threaten me, so I killed him and fed him to the other three. - The Reaver, AFFC

If he gives her Pyat Pree I will die.

+.+.+

Something tickled at her memory. "Ser Barristan, what are the arms of House Martell?"

"A sun in splendor, transfixed by a spear."

The sun's son. A shiver went through her. "Shadows and whispers." What else had Quaithe said? The pale mare and the sun's son. There was a lion in it too, and a dragon. Or am I the dragon? "Beware the perfumed seneschal." That she remembered. "Dreams and prophecies. Why must they always be in riddles? I hate this. Oh, leave me, ser. Tomorrow is my wedding day."

The second Daenerys makes this connection you know the sun's son can't be Quentyn Martell. This girl only misses.

+.+.+

That night Daario had her every way a man can have a woman, and she gave herself to him willingly. The last time, as the sun was coming up, she used her mouth to make him hard again, as Doreah had taught her long ago, then rode him so wildly that his wound began to bleed again, and for one sweet heartbeat she could not tell whether he was inside of her, or her inside of him.

+.+.+

But when the sun rose upon her wedding day so did Daario Naharis, donning his clothes and buckling on his sword belt with its gleaming golden wantons. "Where are you going?" Dany asked him. "I forbid you to make a sortie today."

"My queen is cruel," her captain said. "If I cannot slay your foes, how shall I amuse myself whilst you are being wed?"

Do we believe him?

+.+.+

When he was gone, Missandei brought the queen a simple meal of goat cheese and olives, with raisins for a sweet. "Your Grace needs more than wine to break her fast. You are such a tiny thing, and you will surely need your strength today."

That made Daenerys laugh, coming from a girl so small. She relied so much on the little scribe that she oft forgot that Missandei had only turned eleven.

The girl that keeps sneaking up on Daenerys is 11 years old.

+.+.+

Afterward, as Jhiqui was patting Daenerys dry, Irri approached with her tokar. Dany envied the Dothraki maids their loose sandsilk trousers and painted vests. They would be much cooler than her in her tokar, with its heavy fringe of baby pearls. "Help me wind this round myself, please. I cannot manage all these pearls by myself."

[...]

"The day is too hot to be shut up in a palanquin," said Dany. "Have my silver saddled. I would not go to my lord husband upon the backs of bearers."

"Your Grace," said Missandei, "this one is so sorry, but you cannot ride in a tokar."

The little scribe was right, as she so often was. The tokar was not a garment meant for horseback. Dany made a face.

The mother of dragons rejects your baby pearls. She prefers the winged horse.

"All those pearls will make me rattle when I walk."

"The pearls symbolize fertility. The more pearls Your Worship wears, the more healthy children she will bear."

"Why would I want a hundred children?" - Daenerys VI, ADWD

+.+.+

Missandei reemerged from inside the pyramid. "Reznak and Skahaz beg the honor of escorting Your Grace to the Temple of the Graces. Reznak has ordered your palanquin made ready."

Meereenese seldom rode within their city walls. They preferred palanquins, litters, and sedan chairs, borne upon the shoulders of their slaves. "Horses befoul the streets," one man of Zakh had told her, "slaves do not." Dany had freed the slaves, yet palanquins, litters, and sedan chairs still choked the streets as before, and none of them floated magically through the air.

[...]

Dany made a face. "As you say. Not the palanquin, though. I would suffocate behind those drapes. Have them ready a sedan chair." If she must wear her floppy ears, let all the rabbits see her.

It's not terribly important, but remember this.

(Sounds like she still has slaves!)

+.+.+

The seneschal wore a tokar of maroon samite with golden fringes. "Hizdahr zo Loraq is most fortunate in you … and you in him, if I may be so bold as to say. This match will save our city, you will see."

"So we pray. I want to plant my olive trees and see them fruit." Does it matter that Hizdahr's kisses do not please me? Peace will please me. Am I a queen or just a woman?

+.+.+

"The crowds will be thick as flies today." The Shavepate was clad in a pleated black skirt and a muscled breastplate, with a brazen helm shaped like a serpent's head beneath one arm.

"Should I be afraid of flies? Your Brazen Beasts will keep me safe from any harm."

A serpent's head? Subtle!

Once she says that, I'm thinking those Brazen Beasts will not be keeping her safe. See The Meereenese Blot for more details.

+.+.+

The three Dornishmen were with him, talking, but they broke off when the queen appeared. Their prince went to one knee. "Your Grace, I must entreat you. My father's strength is failing, but his devotion to your cause is as strong as ever. If my manner or my person have displeased you, that is my sorrow, but—"

"If you would please me, ser, be happy for me," Daenerys said. "This is my wedding day. They will be dancing in the Yellow City, I do not doubt."

It's amazing how quickly this marriage pact is dismissed. It barely occupies the chapter or her thoughts. It's practically a footnote.

Meanwhile Doran has his whole life and kingdom riding on it.

+.+.+

The old knight inclined his head. "The queen your mother was always mindful of her duty." He was handsome in his gold-and-silver armor, his white cloak streaming from his shoulders, but he sounded like a man in pain, as if every word were a stone he had to pass. "As a girl, though … she was once smitten with a young knight from the stormlands who wore her favor at a tourney and named her queen of love and beauty. A brief thing."

"What happened to this knight?"

"He put away his lance the day your lady mother wed your father. Afterward he became most pious, and was heard to say that only the Maiden could replace Queen Rhaella in his heart. His passion was impossible, of course. A landed knight is no fit consort for a princess of royal blood."

Ser Bonifer Hasty.

Ser Bonifer himself had been a promising knight in his youth, but something had happened to him, a defeat or a disgrace or a near brush with death, and afterward he had decided that jousting was an empty vanity and put away his lance for good and all. - Jaime III, AFFC

Who knows, maybe Daenerys will meet him one day.

+.+.+

"And my father? Was there some woman he loved better than his queen?"

Ser Barristan shifted in the saddle. "Not … not loved. Mayhaps wanted is a better word, but … it was only kitchen gossip, the whispers of washerwomen and stableboys …"

"I want to know. I never knew my father. I want to know everything about him. The good and … the rest."

She won't even say the word bad. Lol

+.+.+

"As you command." The white knight chose his words with care. "Prince Aerys … as a youth, he was taken with a certain lady of Casterly Rock, a cousin of Tywin Lannister. When she and Tywin wed, your father drank too much wine at the wedding feast and was heard to say that it was a great pity that the lord's right to the first night had been abolished. A drunken jape, no more, but Tywin Lannister was not a man to forget such words, or the … the liberties your father took during the bedding." His face reddened. "I have said too much, Your Grace. I—"

Bootlicking Barry is having a difficult time defaming the great Aerys Targaryen.

There's the passage that broke the brains of half the fandom.

It has been reliably reported, however, that King Aerys took unwonted liberties with Lady Joanna's person during her bedding ceremony, to Tywin's displeasure. Not long thereafter, Queen Rhaella dismissed Joanna Lannister from her service. No reason for this was ever given, but Lady Joanna departed at once for Casterly Rock and seldom visited King's Landing thereafter. - The World of Ice and Fire

Kind of hard for Aerys to be Tyrion's father when Joanna Lannister was never in King's Landing, no?

Anyway, did you enjoy this story of a jealous Mad King trying to interfere with a loving marriage between two cousins? We'll have to wait and see if we get another daddy-daughter parallel.

(I could be talking about two different couples! Isn't it fun!?)

+.+.+

Another procession had come up beside her own, and Hizdahr zo Loraq was smiling at her from his own sedan chair.

How did he know to travel on a sedan chair? She was supposed to ride in a palanquin.

+.+.+

My king. Dany wondered where Daario Naharis was, what he was doing. If this were a story, he would gallop up just as we reached the temple, to challenge Hizdahr for my hand.

Side by side the queen's procession and Hizdahr zo Loraq's made their slow way across Meereen, until finally the Temple of the Graces loomed up before them, its golden domes flashing in the sun. How beautiful, the queen tried to tell herself, but inside her was some foolish little girl who could not help but look about for Daario. If he loved you, he would come and carry you off at swordpoint, as Rhaegar carried off his northern girl, the girl in her insisted, but the queen knew that was folly. Even if her captain was mad enough to attempt it, the Brazen Beasts would cut him down before he got within a hundred yards of her.

My eyes couldn't roll further back.

She actually framed Rhaegar carrying off Lyanna at swordpoint and raping her as love. She's been told the same story as everyone else.

+.+.+

Galazza Galare awaited them outside the temple doors, surrounded by her sisters in white and pink and red, blue and gold and purple. There are fewer than there were. Dany looked for Ezzara and did not see her. Has the bloody flux taken even her?

Daenerys is always wrong, so I don't know what to make of this. People seem to believe Ezzara is a Pahl?

"You have no lack of enemies, Your Grace. You can see their pyramids from your terrace. Zhak, Hazkar, Ghazeen, Merreq, Loraq, all the old slaving families. Pahl. Pahl, most of all. A house of women now. Bitter old women with a taste for blood. Women do not forget. Women do not forgive." - Daenerys I, ADWD

Maybe, but I don't know where they're getting that from.

+.+.+

He has gentle hands, she mused, as warm fragrant oils ran between her toes. If he has a gentle heart as well, I may grow fond of him in time.

When her feet were clean, Hizdahr dried them with a soft towel, laced her sandals on again, and helped her stand. Hand in hand, they followed the Green Grace inside the temple, where the air was thick with incense and the gods of Ghis stood cloaked in shadows in their alcoves.

Four hours later, they emerged again as man and wife, bound together wrist and ankle with chains of yellow gold.

Sorry Hizadahr, the breaker of chains (or her dragons) will not be subdued.

Four hour wedding not long after a speedy northern wedding. Is there a message here?

Final thoughts:

It was mentioned on Reddit this chapter had to be rewritten five times. Can anyone verify George said that?

This doesn't feel like a hard chapter to write.

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#daenerys stormborn #meta #the blood drips through #the three queens #daario naharis #i think it makes sense this one took him a while bc he has to have the timing right on quentyn getting there + barri has to say Just Enough #that the reader gets what he’s saying but not enough to give dany any sort of good advice #(if she was more astute she would *notice* what the fuck he’s speaking around and press him on it but she doesn’t bc…she isn’t)#but also that’s a great point i never really thought of that perhaps when dany shows up to westeros #& meets both aegon and jon she will feel like she is owed their love and allegiance #and gets angry when they not only are romantically interested in others (being elia sand/maybe margaery tyrell and sansa)#but also have their own political factions backing them that are not particularly happy to see her #makes sense bc she IS paranoid about the betrayals but also thinks that the other two heads of the dragon are the only men out there she can #truly trust and be herself with. so if she shows up and they’re not willing to be extensions of her suddenly it’s a flip into #‘no he IS the cloth dragon’ bc he is working against her. cue the explosion.

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