Chapter Text
Chapter 2
We fight …
We fall …
Duty calls, it calls …..
Say we choose …
But it's no choice at all …..
~ || ~ || ~
Dany hurried into the council chamber and stared at the far door as it closed. “Jon?” Well, that did not go as planned. Not at all.
A cold shiver traveled down her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. She grabbed her small clothes and started re-dressing.
By the time she was buttoning the overcoat she was still turning those few moments it took Jon to realize she’d been fucking with his mind – and emotions, as well as his body in an effort to manipulate him into giving her the north. She really had meant to reward him by making him her consort – but she was now beginning to understand how badly she had wronged him – with her demand he not tell anyone he was Rhaegar’s trueborn son. She had been angrier about his better claim to the Iron Throne than happy to know he was family.
Even now though she smiled, still believing marrying him would be the way to appease him. It would tie him to her in the way she sought to keep him – and the North under her control.
She needed to talk to Tyrion. Bring him on board with her plans. She hoped it would work because she knew he liked Jon for his own reasons.
Dany paused in front of the closed door in an effort to clear her mind and figure out her next step. She was a stranger here but remembered if she stepped out that door the throne would be straight ahead – and from the throne she could simply walk straight out into the square where all her men should now be gathered. Surely Grey Worm and Rhakaro had finished killing all the Lannister soldiers by now.
Since Jon had walked in on her so freely.
That was going to be a problem, she finally acknowledged to herself. She had wanted her coronation before a sweet loving confession about the babe then a quick marriage to Jon. She hadn’t bothered to even think the babe might have Jorah’s straight brown hair … or pale blue eyes rather than Jon’s beautiful raven curls or decidedly Stark gray eyes.
Until now.
Dany took a deep breath and huffed it out. She reached for the door just as it began swinging toward her. She jerked it fully open to a scowling Tyrion.
~ || ~ || ~
“Seven Hells, Daeneyrs! Scare me out of ten years growth – and I’m too gods be dammed short as it is!” The Imp clutched at his tunic over his heart.
“Well, thank you for not regressing all the way back to pissing your pants! Where is Jon? Is he not with you?”
He followed into the room and waddled straight over to the credenza near the wide window where he started opening doors, ignoring her question. “Ahhh! Thank the gods for hidden refreshments.” He filled a goblet with Arbor Gold and returned to the table where she now sat.
He offered the glass to her and she waved it aside as he took the first seat down the long side of the table to her left.
She allowed him half the glass of sparkly wine before asking again. “Jon?”
“Why would the King in the North be with me? I am not his Hand. Besides I surmised the two of you would be somewhere here celebrating – in the first bed you could find.”
“He was here – caught me taking an improvised bath. And completely spoiled the surprise I had planned for him – later. Much later. After my coronation. And our wedding.”
“What?” he practically stuttered. “… what surprise?” He swallowed down the rest of his drink and tilted his head back to look down his nose at her. “Ahh, you are with child.”
She could see from his concentrated stare that he had already suspected something. Nodding, she agreed.
“But for some reason unbeknownst to me – you wanted him drunk and over the wall excited before he saw you naked?”
“Yes, but without giving me time to explain he jumped to his own conclusion. The same one I can tell you have figured out from the frown on your face.”
“Daeneyrs! How could you!! Knowing the way Jon was raised?” He slid off his chair and brought the carafe of Arbor Gold to the table and helped himself to another full glass.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Oh, you just sort of slipped and fell, and found your cunt impaled upon Jorah Mormont’s sword?”
She sat shaking her head, eyes closed, head down. “I was really happy to see him … cured and healthy. I just … intended it for a private dinner in my salon to welcome him back to my council, my protection. I already had the supply of northern Ale for Jon. To celebrate his bending the knee when he finally gave in to my feminine wiles. One drink led to another and when I went to say goodnight, he pulled me into a tight embrace and kissed me, again and again and then he was carrying me to bed.”
She huffed another deep sigh and sat at the head of the long table. “It was nice. I was lonely. It had been a long time since …. And Jon Snow was being stubbornly honorable. So Jorah and I … we spent a few pleasant days ….”
“Fucking.”
She watched Tyrion shake his head and grind his teeth.
“This is where if you were a man I would be reminding you to keep your cock in your pants! He’s good at sums so I suspect it only took him a second or two to figure it out. My coin is on Jon Snow already being gone. If I were him, I would have found the first ship leaving the docks and been on it.”
“He wouldn’t leave without Arya.”
~ || ~ || ~
“Arya is in the Red Keep?”
“Yes. I watched her go behind the throne as I came through the door. I waited to see where she went from there but she never returned.”
“Did anyone find Cersei yet?” he asked, standing, poised to make for the door.
“No. Nor Jaime either. Why?”
“There is a secret trap door behind the throne. The passages lead directly to the catacombs where one can … eventually reach a cove on Blackwater Bay.”
“Are you saying Cersei has escaped?” she reached a hand to grab him by the collar, but he backed another two steps toward the door.
“Unless Arya found them before … I auh … I have to go.”
She stepped toward him. “I will go with you. There is no telling what you may find if there is damage to the passageways.”
“Very well, your grace.”
~ || ~ || ~
The two of them hurried across the galleria, Tyrion heading directly to the back of the Iron Throne. The trapdoor was open, dimly lit by a flickering glow.
“Stairs. But then I suppose my father – with what everyone says about his condition, would need more than a ladder.
“Allow me, your grace.” He started down first, reaching back for her hand as he coaxed her to follow. Halfway down, the stairs switched back sharply. Further below the flickering glow became a brighter sort of radiance with a more orange hue.
Torch rather than sunlight, she thought, though she hardly felt they had traveled far enough to be underground.
Another switchback and the area opened up into a high wide cavern with a paved floor. Another torch lay at the bottom, extinguished – a portion of the cavern filled with rubble all the way to the top, with one narrow space showing light from beyond.
When she reached the bottom Tyrion dropped her hand and went to the torch, lighting it from the one she held. He fell to his knees and started grubbing through the rubble, drawn to a sparkle in the rocks and dust. By the time she reached him he was brushing debris from his brothers face. Nearer to herself, she could see Ser Jaime’s golden fingers.
A howl of pain and grief rose from Tyrion as he brushed the face of his brother clean.
“Tyrion? There … to your left.”
He shuffled back, then saw what she saw. Cersei’s face cradled between Jaime’s good hand and his chest. It was as though he was trying to protect her from what he had seen coming.
When his sobs let up, she put a hand on his shoulder. “Come, come. We will have Gray Worm organize some of his Unsullied to bring them out. We should find a room – for them. Until you feel like making plans.”
“I would like to wait here with them,” the words a gruff whisper.
She nodded and turned back to the stairs barely visible in the distance.