Chapter Text
“Were there ever any dragon queens that ruled the Seven Kingdoms?” Daenerys had asked her brother when she was very young.
“Once,” he recalled. “The Iron Throne rejected her. She perished during the foolish ‘Dance of the Dragons.’”
Many years later, Daenerys read over the history of the ‘Dance of Dragons’ for herself. The throne didn’t reject Queen Rhaenyra. It was giving her a warning. Daenerys contemplated this as she couldn’t sleep again since her daughter had been sick. She hadn’t slept in what felt like months. Rhaenyra had already lost two of her sons to gain the throne. Slowly, she lost all her family except for one son. Her poor boy was doomed to watch his mother die in front of him. How could she still want that wretched iron chair? Didn’t she notice how much it cost her? Her brother, Aegon, didn’t seemed to notice either or care. He didn’t view Rhaenyra or any of them as family. Aegon’s callousness reminded Daenerys of her own brother Viserys. Aegon called his own half-sister a “whore”. Viserys didn’t care if Daenerys had to sleep with the entire Dothraki khalasar and their horses to get his crown. Was Daenerys as callous and stupid? She lost two dragons, her best friend and soon her daughter to the Iron Thone. Had she deceived herself like Rhaenyra that things would be better once she was on the throne?
Things weren’t better. The people of Westeros mostly bickered and complained. She strived to improve her people’s lives. They stubbornly focused on her mistakes and on a male heir. She felt her strength drained from her as she attempted to please them. She wanted them to view her as family and not some foreign queen. Her daughter, Missandei Targaryen, laid dying in her arms. The maesters and the septons couldn’t save her. The same men had called her son, Jorah, a monster and forced Daenerys to cast him aside. She dreamed of burning them all.
They weren’t the problem. The Iron Throne had caused all of this. Daenerys had turned back to that timid little girl again. A foolish girl that believed Viserys when he told her constantly “Everything will be perfect once I’m on the throne. We’ll be home again.” It was a lie, so Viserys could control her. Daenerys didn’t rule. That ugly chair controlled her like her brother had controlled her. Daenerys had enough of bowing to the rules of the Iron Throne and its’ cruelties. It deserved her brother’s fate. She poured wildfire on it. If it is truly the throne of dragon kings, it could withstand the heat. It melted down like any common chair would except for one odd sword. The sword withstood the flames while all the rest melted to liquid steel. She entered the flames to retrieve the lone sword. The sword would come with her to Essos. The land where her strength first began might be able to rekindle it back in her bones.