♔SECOND; "dragons are fire made flesh. and fire is power."

[emblazing]

who; daenerys targaryen
where: near the ocean
what: daenerys finds she has been given a rather telling gift.
status: open.
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The sun was warm, as were the waves. She was not unfamiliar with the sea now, nor had she ever been. She was Stormborn, she was the last daughter borne amidst the crashing of the waves against the ship that bore them away from their home. She had sailed on the ship Balerion and conquered from both sea and 'dirts' as her sun and stars would have said. Her lips twitch then, standing on the beach with the sand against her sandals, her gown a pale purple, reminscent to the wedding silks she had worn on her wedding day.

That had felt almost a decade ago, yet at times it was as near to her as a heartbeat. What had become of the girl with the doe-bright eyes, the innocent purple stare? She is gone, and she cannot return. No red doors shall be your home now. Instead a hard iron chair, with swords that will not pierce.

For Daenerys was a dragon, the last true dragon, and dragons were power and that little girl was gone.

Rhaegal, the green dragon she had woken from his egg, fluttered about against the salty breeze like an oversized seagull, flapping lazily and wheeling back to her shoulder. Drogon was content to flutter about by the waves, dipping his clawed feet in and flapping upwards, repeating the gesture as she watched with a fond smile. It was Viserion who remained in her arms, sleepy and scales warmed by the sun.


I am far from where I should be. I have no knights, no khalasar, no army of freed men --no city. And far across the sea my people wait for my coming, whether they believe me to live or not. I have no place here.

And worse still, Daenerys had absolutely no one she could trust. For a moment she felt that she was still very much a young girl, lost and bewildered on the shores of an unknown sea, longing for a place of her own, whether it was a city she'd conquered or the throne that was hers by birthright.

A spout of flame caught her eye. Her fiercest child, Drogon, was spouting out licks of flames freely now, the sight enough to make her lips twitch as she smiled lightly. "How strong you grow, " She called to him, laughter in her voice. The flames encouraged her. The dragons gave her hope, pride-- a reminder to not forget who she was, and what she was was by no means an ordinary woman. She had walked through flame and ash, had conquered the slave cities and freed slaves who cried out to her as 'mother'. She might be lost, but she was certainly not 'nothing'.

Seating herself on one of the rocks, she allowed herself to wet her toes a bit by the water's edge, thinking silently of what to plan. She felt a vague tickle in her throat, the more she thought, the more she felt her frustration rise. It was like a ball of fire in her stomach, coiling and rising to her throat like licks of smoke.

Which was what exactly escaped from Daenerys' lips. Little tendrils of smoke, dark and bitter escaping her parted mouth. Daenerys coughed then, bewildered and confused. It reminded her of what her dragons would have done before they breathed their first shoot of flame. Soon enough Dany was coughing into her hands, as more and more smoke came out. It felt as if her nose was tickling, her throat full of hot air.

Daenerys swallowed, taking a breath and coughing as harshly as she could to clear her throat, though she knew not why the smoke came from her and not her dragons.

Nor did she expect that when she parted her mouth and exhaled that final cough that a long stream of flames would come from them. For a minute Daenerys simply stared, bewildered, eyes wide. She knew fires could not burn her, that her blood was of old Valyria, but what she did was what an actual dragon would do. Her own fierce children lifted their eyes to her, screeching confusion and curiosity at their mother's actions.

Dany stood up on shaky limbs, feeling as if she would quiver from excitement and bewilderment both at once. I am a dragon--and a dragon does not know fear.

So when Dany opened her mouth again and breathed in, summoning whatever heat had been in her belly before with as much concentration as she could, (it took a good fifteen minutes afterwards) did she step back, lean forward with her silver hair sleek over her shoulders, and breathe. The fire came out quicker, longer and bigger than before. She found her teeth not burning, her lips the same temperature as before. It did not hurt her. It was a part of her.

Dany was wordless, blinking at Drogon who had flown to her shoulder to watch, her lips twitching in an incredulous smile. There was raw power flooding in her veins, and it did not frighten her any longer. She had always been a dragon. Perhaps her blood was also made of flame. She laughed then, a quiet, exultant little laugh as she held her black dragon in both her hands, incredulous. She had breathed fire, as if she were a real dragon.

Any doubts of her capability to go home and failed her. She would still make miracles. She would continue to overcome her adversities. There was no longer any reason to doubt. Her mind was less clouded now, as if this strange happening had been an encouragement for her to continue her search for an escape, not just for her but for all.

Comments

[bondsoflove]

It wasn't fair.

Sasuke had ridden down to the beach to think, against the pounding of the waves and the solitude. During one lap, he'd seen plumes of fire; curious, the sharingan flickered to life and he watched from a distance. Khaleesi. Mother of dragons.

He watched the smoke rise from her mouth, saw the surprise on her face when she first blew a long stream of fire. She had never done so before, and if that much hadn't been clear by the initial shock, it was made so by the excitement rolling from her when she did it again.

Why could she do it, she who already had fire in her hands in the form of three little lizards that flapped around on wings and lay in her arms like infants, and he, the prodigy of the Uchiha clan named for the fanning of flame, famous for breathing fire a million different ways, could barely light a fucking candle?

Jealousy and admiration and frustration twisted so hot in his stomach he thought he might be able to breathe fire from that alone, but the air around his lips stayed stubbornly cool.

The sharingan wheeled as he closed the distance between them, calling out.

"How the hell did you do that?"

[emblazing]

Daenerys turned to face him, smoke rising out of the corners of her mouth, face as pale and unsullied as if no fire had ever been breathed from her lungs. There's still a smile on her face, violet eyes bright but it fades a bit when the presence of another draws near. I cannot act like a young girl here. Not here, not there.

"I could not tell you, for it is new to me. There are stories, tales of great Targaryen kings and queens riding dragons into battle--of being of the blood of Old Valyria, but never--" Her voice rises with excitement. "Never has it been said that a Targaryen could breathe fire just as an actual dragon coulld. " Her eyes searched his for a pause, brows furrowing.

"What has happened to your eyes?"

[bondsoflove]

That was even more upsetting. The power of the Uchiha clan, plucked from him and thrown at a woman--a girl, she couldn't be older than he was--who didn't even know what it meant?

Sasuke's hands curled into fists at his side. "All I have left of my bloodline's strength. Perfect recall and really good fucking eyesight."

He dropped to sit in the sand, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring out into the sun glinting on the water. "I used to be able to do that until I came here."

[emblazing]

"I could only think it to be magic, something I hardly trust as it were. Yet perhaps it is my own magic once again, that same that led me through fires. " She stared down at him not immune to the bitterness in his voice.

"How did it be so that you no longer could?"

[bondsoflove]

"That's what pisses me off. I don't know." He slammed his fist into the sand, the anger wrapping around him like tendrils. "I could make a thunderstorm just from heat, and summon a lightning kirin. Now I can set grass on fire if I get angry enough, but only if I don't think about it. And if I do--"

He made the seals, demonstrated the little plume, and stared up at the little dragon in Dany's arms. "He can do better."

[emblazing]

Viserion glanced at Sasuke, opening his mouth with a yawn before snuggling deeper into Dany's arms, where there was heat. She quirked a brow.

"It must be the nature of this place, then. It sapped you of powers you originally possessed."

[bondsoflove]

"And gave them to you."

The look he gave her wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't entirely blaming either. Angry, yes. Jealous, yes. But he believed there wasn't intentional theft on her part.

[emblazing]

"I do not think that was the way of it. If so, I would have been given all of them. Just so, I do have a similiar power that you once had. " She pitied him to a degree, but he was not incapable without them.

"Just because you do not have them here does not make you useless, Sasuke."

[bondsoflove]

"Maybe by your standards." He looked back to the sea, fingers absently pushing into the sand. True, he could probably knock someone out if he had to, and that sword would do some damage, but it wasn't the same.

If she'd done it by accident, she couldn't give him some sort of trick or cheat that he could try and see if it unclogged his power. So he sat, and watched the waves shimmer.

[emblazing]

She watches him. She holds Drogon out on her arm and offers him to the boy, voice quiet. "Take him."
"Do you notice how small he is?"

[bondsoflove]

His eyes narrowed, looking over the dark scales and red wings, the little sharp teeth. He didn't hold out his arm to take hold of the dragon, instead turning his eyes to Dany.

"He might be small, but he still has teeth," he pointed out. "He's not going to bite me, is he?"

[emblazing]

"If he does not like you, I cannot promise it."

She tilts her head, strange eyes on her dragon's scales. "I burned a slaver once. He had given me thousands of slaves I had taken to free or enter my service. He had abused them for his use beyond count. Originally I offered him this. " She lifted her arm, Drogon higher.

"One dragon, the last three in the world for him to grow and use to rule his city. " She looked at him. "I burned him instead. I burned the slavers for their crimes against the people they wronged. They thought me alone a little girl without them and I proved them wrong. "

"I had no fire of my own. Only my mind and one hatched little dragon. Surely you are not so useless."

[bondsoflove]

The concept of slavery wasn't all that different from living as a village-affiliated shinobi, he supposed. Maybe more immediate and obvious--skipping the step of making those under you believe they were suffering and dying of their own free will, to protect the people.

Either way, the thought made him ill.

Carefully, he held out his fingers in the direction of Drogon's nose. The little lizard could decide whether or not he wanted to be held by someone other than his mother.

"The other two hadn't been hatched yet?"

[canistricari]

Coyote slithered out of a bush in the shape of a snake. He hadn't been watching her specifically, merely watching the world. But she had been fun before, and perhaps she would be worth a bit of entertainment again. He slid right up to her feet before speaking.

"Lovely, isn't it?"

[emblazing]

Dany flinched, but did not cry out at the snake. That leering grin was familiar, and she recalled the beast she had called 'creature'.

"It is, though I do not know how it became possible."
Her dragons eyed the larger animal warily, yet did not move to act.

[canistricari]

He slithered between her legs and around in a squiggled circle, enjoying the feel of the sand on his body.

"Didn't you know?" he asked gleefully. He had, of course, been speaking of the ocean and not her ability to breath fire.

"When the world began there was only water! It was I who sent the first duck down to the bottom to bring up the mud from which the very land you're standing on was formed!"

[emblazing]

Dany couldn't say she particularly felt actual fear from the creature, whatever he was. His manner was boastful that much she knew, and she didn't bother hiding how her mouth twitched at his words.

"The Dothraki and many other such peoples believe differently."

[canistricari]

Coyote stuck his forked tongue out at the dragons watching him. If he had not been in snake form, he would have strutted.

In fact, he rather liked the sound of that, and his body expanded and twisted as he took his normal form again so that he could leer at them properly.

"There are a great many stories! As many stories as there are people." And in the end, he knew, that was all they were.

[emblazing]

She watched him shift, thinking of the stories she had read as a child. Of wargs and maegi. She wonders which form is his true one, for each of them has a wide, gaping grin.

"Just so. Stories about the sun or moon or the first life in the world. " She scratches the ridges under Viserion's chin. "I was told a story from one of my handmaidens--of the moon being an egg. That it cracked from too much heat and became the sun, releasing dragons into the world as it cracked."

[canistricari]

He nodded his approval. That was a good story, he thought. Not the same as his, but did it really matter? No story was as good as a story with Coyote in it. He sat down in the sand, crossing his front paws over each other.

"I was the moon once! I was not an egg, though!"

[emblazing]

He was as enigmatic as Quaithe, though she had already been as self-centered as this creature was. Or perhaps he was no creature at all, for what was his true shape? He had many.

"You seem to change many shapes. Is this your true form?" She glances at him, for a moment he seems like some absurdly designed dog, crossing his paws and babbling stories about himself. It makes her lips twitch.

[canistricari]

His grin widened impossibly, to a size that would look just wrong on any animal, much less a dog.

"What is a true form, anyway? Is it how you see yourself? How others see you? What is the real you?" he asked, vaguely menacingly.

[emblazing]

Dany looked at him, raised her brow. "The one you prefer. I see you as some sort of strange dog. Are you otherwise? Are you the moon or a messenger for ducks?"

Sometimes I feel I am a Queen. Other times I am truly a young girl.

[canistricari]

"I am a Coyote," he answered simply. It was truth in the way that she defined it, even if it may not have been the absolute truth. Either way it was the only answer he would give.

[emblazing]

"Just so." She replies, and strokes a sleeping Viserion in her lap. "You are one of the strangest things I have ever met. " Her voice is wry, not unkindly, just amused. That smile is rather ridiculous..