Chapter Text
Daenerys Targaryen met Arya Stark in the sands of Astapor, playing games with snakes. The future queen had no knowledge of Arya’s identity—she couldn’t even tell that the girl was, in fact, a girl—all Daenerys saw was a dirty boy with a fringe of dark hair that hung over his eyes, so rich and grey they must have been the same color as valyrian steel. He lay on his stomach in the sand, palms flat, his eyes affixed to those that opposed him; the unblinking eyes of a beautiful cobra. Cream scales wove and blended with green and silver. They shifted, broadening and flattening with the hypnotic movements of the snake’s body as it examined the boy from all angles. Together their heads weaved, always opposing, their eyes forever locked.
Jorah and Ser Barristan stood before each of Daenerys’ shoulders, her defense against the snake. Daenerys passed them with ease, and ignored how they tensed. She stopped to stand at the boy’s hip.
“What are you doing?”
The boy didn’t appear to have heard her, and continued to trade gazes with the snake. ‘Perhaps he is deaf?’ Daenerys thought. Though she could see few white scars against the tan skin of the boy’s back, she knew that scars could be hidden, and a spike to the ear would render a slave deaf without anyone the wiser—a good practice for a Master with many secrets, though it seemed simpler to rid a slave of their tongue. It was disheartening, how much she’d learned about the horrors of the practice. The boy had removed his collar of black leather, and he bore the same paleness around his throat that every other slave did; a reminder set into his flesh.
“I found him interesting.”
‘Not deaf then,’ Daenerys noted. Her lips perked in the smallest of smiles. ‘Only focused.’
“And what secrets have you uncovered in the eyes of your friend?”
“Nothing, really.” The boy spoke with an accent similar to Jorah’s and Ser Barristan’s, only with a higher pitch and breathy vowels. Young. Scrawny and young like nearly every boy who would march with her and her Unsullied. “But it’s not about learning secrets.”
“What is it about, then?”
“Fear.”
Daenerys quirked a brow. “Fear?”
“Fear cuts deeper than swords,” the boy remarked, rising with the power of his thin arms to lift his chest from the sand. The snake rose with him, mirroring his every waver. “If I can master my fear, I could be more dangerous than your Unsullied.”
Daenerys’ smile bloomed and became full. She gazed down at the boy with an infantile sense of fondness. “That’s your plan then? To charm snakes and master your fear?”
The boy didn’t respond, and Daenerys found herself staring into the cloudy eyes of the cobra. It was not focused on her in kind. It slithered forward, head high, going straight for the boy who seemed frozen. The queen advanced instinctively, and so did her loyal guards, but all the cobra did was curl itself many times around the boy’s neck.
“Yes.” The boy rose to stand and faced Daenerys. His grey eyes were dark, beautiful steel, and the snake’s own were no longer cloudy. “I’ll try.”