Taking Flight
First Day of the Second Month 293 AC
The city looked almost like a toy that might fit into the plam of her hand from this high up, Rhaella Targaryen thought as her steed of shadows and ash moved smoothly beneath her.
Was this how her children saw the world, small and fragile, needing protection lest it shatter? The carefully-drawn lines of the roads, the many-hued greens of the parks and gardens, the heavy ramparts of the yet incomplete walls guarding it all, they looked new and fresh and even from this height not quite like anything the world had ever seen...
"Enjoying yourself, mother?" Daenerys called up. Again she bore an angel's wings as on the day of Rhaella's... return, though even beneath the silvery tones the woman could hear concern in her daughter's voice.
"Yes, it's wonderful. I can see why it was said that so many of our House were so in love with flying," she replied honestly.
"That horse is actually much better than riding anything with wings, especially anything small. Things get turbulent on the upswing, though of course it's much better when you have wings yourself because you know when it is coming," her daughter replied cheerfully.
"Be that as it may I'm not
quite ready to grow wings!" Though the words were spoken lightly they came as close to the core of why she was here as anything she had said since they had been begun this flight. Rhaella still could not quite find the words to ask, words to ask her many questions without revealing her disquiet.
However, it quickly became apparent that she did not need to. "If I did not have magic I never would have had this," Daenerys said. "I like flying, mother. I like healing those in need. And yes, I even enjoy the rush of being in a fight against something that really
deserves to be fought. I like being me." She spoke neither quickly nor slowly, but with the even measured tone of someone who had been considering these words for quite some time. "I know you are sorry that I can't be as other children. Viserys is, too. He thinks I've lost or sacrificed something, but you have to understand it does not
feel that way for me."
"What did it feel like, then?" Rhaella prompted, wishing with all her heart to understand, to hear from her daughter's own lips that she was happy, even if that meant she had not been needed, even if it might mean she
still was not.
"It felt like waking up: seeing farther, being stronger, understanding that which I could not before. It was not a sacrifice, I was not lessened for it. Instead I
grew. The notion that I could have chosen differently, that I might have squeezed my eyes closed instead of looking into the fire... it makes no sense to me."
'You can't miss what you never had,' the old saying went, but it would do little good to say it Rhaella knew. Indeed it would do harm. Daenerys should not know sorrow but joy, and if this was what did it... "I heard something about a... goddess," she began hesitantly. The way the Royce boy had reacted when she tried to probe deeper had sent a shiver of foreboding down Rhaella's spine.
"Oh, mother, I'm not sure you are ready..." her child began.
"Isn't that a little unfair, Daenerys?" the erstwhile queen of the Seven Kingdoms asked, not demanding, but not pleading either. "I want to know the answers, too."
"You are right... I'm sorry." She paused a long moment, thinking. "The first thing you need to know is that I can't speak Her name or She would be able to listen in, and I would much rather she not do so."
"Alright," Rhaella agreed, forcing her voice to stay calm even through skill born of long practice.
"My magic is not now as it was on the day of my awakening, and that is Her doing, the mother of all dragons, their greed, their malice, and their unthinkable wisdom made manifest. She wanted a pawn upon these mortal realms, and when she could not buy me with simple bribes I took her offer to save Viserys. For a time I served her unwillingly, my magic hers to give or withhold as she wished..."
"Was?" She was back to speaking only one word again, some absurd part of the woman's mind noted.
"As all would-be masters must She learned one abiding truth: servitude compelled breeds treachery," Daenerys picked up the thread of her tale. "By fey trickery and I think Her own incredulousness at my boldness, I took from her as she tried to take from me: knowledge, power..." a most un-angelic smile spread upon her lips. "Even Feeder."
"You made an enemy of a
god?" By rights the notion should have been absurd, but how different was it really from the things Viserys had told her before? Gods are limited by those who pay them homage, he had said. How many could still worship this ancient dragon thing?
"She made an enemy of me when She tried to compel me to service," Daenerys corrected. "I merely acted as was fitting under the circumstances."
"How can I help?" The words came out before Rhaella had even properly wrapped her mind around what she had just learned.
Like a child deciding to fight monsters, a small voice almost lost in the tumult of her thoughts noted.
Daenerys looked at her strangely, almost sadly, then she gave a soft smile and reached out to hold her hand. "You already are."
OOC: You will note Dany did not reveal the fact that Viserys died. That was very much intentional, as well as going quite lightly on how scary Tiamat is. Even so it is a testament to good groundwork, Dany's social skills, and Rhaella's own resilience that she took it as well as she did.
