♔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

[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?"

[emblazing]

"In that moment, Drogon was in my arms. Viserion and Rhaegal held by my khalasar. You have seen them for yourself. "

Drogon sniffed his finger, before it held one leg out, as if demanding an arm, a palm to stand upon. He was heavier than he looked.

"For a long time I did not know of my own power. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?"

[bondsoflove]

Drogon was his name...Viserion and Rhaegal the others. He was unfamiliar with the term 'khalasar', but assumed it meant something to do with royalty, like her title. He flipped his hand, offering his palm for the little dragon. The claws tickled, and the weight was more than he'd been expecting; he lifted his other hand to help balance Drogon in his hold.

"That even the most pathetic of sparks can be nursed into an inferno," Sasuke replied to her, a touch dry. "I'm just not used to starting from so little. I've done a lot of work to get to where I was."

[emblazing]

"Regardless you must start and at times start again." Her voice is as equally dry. Conquering the cities was a first, just as learning to maintain one city had proven fruitless. There were things yet to do.

[bondsoflove]

"But even the hottest blaze won't burn underwater," Sasuke pointed out. Very gently, he stroked his thumb over the hard scales on Drogon's side--hard and smooth.

[emblazing]

"But it can tear through castle rocks when enough time has passed." She easily replied, watching Drogon chirp a little response, wings fluttering.

[bondsoflove]

Amaterasu would consume the castle, the rocks, and everything else in no time at all. Fire was weak against water and strong against wind, but if it had a relationship to earth, he hadn't looked into it, nor did he particularly care.

He let his hand move from Drogon's side to the back of his neck and spine, stroking in the direction of the scales. "Is it safe to assume this means he doesn't dislike me?"

[emblazing]

"He has not burned you yet, has he?" Her tone is amused, as she watches the waves with her legs folded under her. The salty air reminds her of the Free Cities, of Slaver's Bay and many such places she has been in the world that was her own.

She has no wish to stay here forever, and yet this is beyond the power of a Queen.

[bondsoflove]

"It's been a long time since someone's burned me," Sasuke murmured. His fingers ran over the bumpy scales in even, rhythmic lines. Himself, if he recalled correctly--the corners of his mouth, when he was first learning the fireball. He'd blistered and cracked and refused to stop until his mother had held him still, spreading cooling balm over his damaged skin.

Daenerys looked nothing like his mother, but there was a certain grace he found familiar.

[emblazing]

"You can use fire but you can be burned by it?" She raised a brow. As for herself, the flames did not burn her. They did not touch her only her clothes and hair.

"When these dragons were born it was during a great fire." She stares ahead quietly. "My husband's funeral pyre. "

[bondsoflove]

"You're can't be burned?" He raised an eyebrow. Fire resistance, he understood, but total immunity...some kind of bloodline limit, maybe. "When I first learned to do the fireball, before I mastered it, I'd practice until the corners of my mouth blistered. Drove my mother crazy."

At the mention of her husband, he tilts to look at her head-on, his hands stilling around Drogon. Life from death. Like him.

"I'm sorry."

[emblazing]

"No. That day I offered my dragon eggs to my husband's pyre, and then I walked into it myself. The fire burned all night." She stares out at the water. Drogon curls his tail around his arm, faint smoke coming from his nostrils.

"I called to them. They woke in the flames and went to my body, as if they were children. I have a dragon's blood." She glanced with a small smile. "I gained two titles that day. The Unburnt and Mother of Dragons and what was left of my husband's people swore themselves to me."

[bondsoflove]

He hoped the smoke wasn't heralding fire, but he didn't want to drop Drogon in case it wasn't and make it a certainty.

Some said the Uchiha had dragon's blood as well, but most said they were the blood of gods, the sage of the six paths. Sasuke believed the latter, which Dany's assertion that she couldn't be burnt supported.

"Do you think he can see you?"

[emblazing]

That gave her pause. She thought she might know what he meant, but would rather have it be given words instead of assuming things like a child would.

"By whom do you mean? " Drogo rides in the Nightlands. He has no time to watch me battle over lands and poison water..
Her lips curved a little in fondness, half in sadness.

[bondsoflove]

"Your husband."

He wasn't sure he wanted to look at her face. Grief was something he knew--he understood how deep it ran, and seeing it on someone else would be like a light shining harshly on his own. Instead, he began to trace kana onto Drogon's side.

[emblazing]

"Perhaps. Though I believe that he is in the Nightlands, where he has many lands to conquer and ride. Wherever the dead go..he is among his ancestors. "

She smiled a little more. "Or perhaps he is."

[bondsoflove]

"He's at peace?"

He had to be, if he wasn't lingering within her notice. Sasuke chanced a look, catching the upturn of her mouth. Melancholy.

[emblazing]

"I think he is. The maegi who took his life is nothing but ashes now." Her voice is quiet. "My sun and stars was avenged."