Drogon
Daenerys Targaryen was dreaming.
Dreaming that she was with Drogon.
Lost and abandoned by her own family— dusting away in the dry, serene lands of her first home. Her favorite lemon tree left dead— scarce, bare to the bone.
She feels a hunger pooling inside of her, swaying, starvingdark and powerful along side the scale of her fire-breathing baby.
Though with that power— the light strapped itself to something terrible; something more dark, more morose than she could ever imagine on her own— now twisting and pulling her along for the ride.
Her dreams had always been different... more vivid and more lucid than she knew others could have. But she always woke with a sense of control. Like her body knew what it had told her, and for whatever greater purpose or reason that entailed, it all happened together; whether or not her mind had caught on quick enough to be able to think about it later— that didn't matter.
Because she knew what she knew—
And soon, she’ll know what she’ll know. That made sense.
It always happened that way.
But right now...
Dany, was in that limbo— in that cool, skyline edge of in-between dreams, where up meant down and left meant right.
She was in the cruel, mirror nightlands of her last home... Except something was off this time. Her astral, tectonic plane had knocked with another.
Tilted it slightly askew— and off-course she went, and - now -
Now.
She could feel her chest— moving.
The rise and fall of it.
Or rather lack there of— It was constricted, and wow, it was hurting her.
Her sunken eyelids were heavy, evaporating slow into her skull.
Her throat burned a fire-born cloud of ash, pricking a smoke needle's singe— tunneling back out through her nose.
Her wrists were calloused and bruised by restraints. Metal at one with the bumps of her skin—
And then just as quick as the pain came— it was gone. Only to be replaced by a new pain, less physical and more. . .
Feeling.
She was tired and hungry. Lonely and sorry. Thirsty and helpless.
What was happening to her? There was nothing to see or hear?
Just the sentience of her insides.
So why was this feeling so foreign to her? She was always pushed ebb and swayed a flow.
But she always swayed back. Why couldn't she understand it now. Why was she slipping—
She ached for the gravity and structure of what she knew— where was she?
Her thoughts. They brew to the surface, a wretched swim of relief it was to finally clear into focus.
Why did I run away—
I'm sorry mother!
I was so wrong.
So wrong, and you were so right.
They do hurt the ones who look different.
I'm trapped here until I die and it’s all my fault.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Dany knows now. This is not her.
Nothing before could she compare to this. These were not her feelings. These were not her desires. This was not her soul.
How do I get home now?
It was that swaying feeling again, the one that she knew she couldn't always understand while awake. But in her dreams she always fought her way out.
Like when she was sea sick, but the boat was predictable. Or when she was falling, but then she could fly. She always found her root to climb up. She always found her anchor to rise down.
Not this time.
This time she was sinking and she had no control at all.
Something felt wrong.
She was in a circle. And she was scared.
So why was this feeling so foreign to her? Why couldn't she understand it. Why was she slipping—
She always woke up with a sense of control. She could always fight her way out.
She was thirsty and lonely. Helpless and hungry. Tired and sorry.
Nothing before could ever compare to this. Where was she? How long had she been here?
Could anyone hear her screams. Did anyone care that she screamed?
Her throat chalked with a sharp ache she could not reach— a sharp ache she could never relieve.
She was not allowed to.
Nothing compares to this. These were not her feelings. These were not her desires. This was not her soul.
How could I ever get home now?
It was that swaying feeling again, the one that she knew she couldn't always understand while awake. But in her dreams she always fought her way out.
Like when she was sea sick, but the boat was predictable. Or when she was falling, but then she could fly. She always found her root to climb down. She always found her anchor to rise up.
Dany catches control of her thoughts for a moment.
What was this torturous, maddening cycle? Please... just make it stop.
When will this suffering end?! She just wanted to wake up.
Not this time.
This time she was sinking and she had no control at all.
Something felt wrong.
She was drowning in a never ending circle.
She hated that she was so tired.That she may never be abletoleave. How does one get out of a trapped dream?
So why was this feeling so foreign to her? Why couldn'tshe understand it. Why was she slipping.
She always woke up with a sense of control. She could always fight her way out.
She was so thirsty and so hungry. So lonely and so tired. So sorry and so helpless.
So breathtakingly sad.
Nothing before could ever compare to this purgatory circuit. She was exhausted. Where was she? How long had she been here?
I was so wrong.
You were so right.
They did hurt the ones who looked different.
I'm trapped forever and it’s all my fault.
These were not her feelings
These were not her desires
And this was not her soul— it's his.
Drogon?! Where is he?!
Nothing before could he compare to this.
These were his feelings.
His strangled desires, his innocent soul.
I can never come home again.
This was never her soul to take.
Not anymore.
"Jon!" •
Her pale, stricken eyes flicker open wide, shooting up onto her elbows in a blind panic, panting in unrecognizable distress. She sits up in her bed, recovering from that excruciating nightmare.
She places a quiet hand over her chest, feeling her heart thudding blue against her palm. Wow, that was unbearable...
But what was unbearable? A tantalizing mantra still buzzed around in her mind like smoke— the same words, sung in melancholic repetition. This was not her feelings?This was not her... something—
Yeah— something...
And it’s gone. Down, down into her subconscious. Dormant to stay for awhile.
She couldn't remember what had frightened her. What had lit up her adrenal gland like a swarm of jagged, sentient bees. And it’s strange because she remembers the beginning of her dream with Drogon perfectly clear.
They were alone together in the wastelands of her barren home, which was— Wait, where was she, the desert?
Okay, so not her real home in London— but it felt like home in another way, so much that she could taste the bitter rock salt in the air as if it were real. She could feel the edged shine of Drogon's scales like he were truly right next to her. Like he had grown a full two sizes bigger than she last saw him.
She could feel the capacity, the emptiness in her heart when she realized that there was not a single person, not a single soul around them.
So what had scared her so beyond intensely, that she had felt real tears streaming down her cheeks when she woke? The ones she still feels now—
Had Drogon been calling her,in her...dream? Was that even possible?
She hated that she couldn’t remember.
She touches the wet on her cheek and then the stickiness of her forehead. Her silver hair clung to her neck in strands, while the rest of it still held the loose waves she brushed through last night.
Driven slightly by a sudden urge, she searches, squinting around at the black mist of the room. She pushes up her silvery laced sleeves in determination, and checks over at Arya, Gilly and Meera all sound asleep in their beds.
She leans over her bedside, retrieving her wand from her nightstand, then dramatically pulls down the covers from her chest.
On a mission, she scoots herself out of bed, staring foggily into the darkness. The restless sound of Arya's little snores and the heavy ticking sound of the clock, further drives her decision to go for a walk. She slides on her warm slippers, then crouches down to the floor, carefully crawling under her bed.
"Lumos."
She points her wand around, softly illuminating the space underneath, searching for her old lamp. (Magic detection spells were a whole too much of a risk to use her wand past curfew, she learned that lesson a long time ago.) The lighted tip of her wand dims back down, as she lifts out her dusted lantern, standing back up, taking a few first careful steps, and then quietly, she walks out of the room...
•
Dany was unable to hold out for air any longer. Cautiously, she shudders out a slow, hot breath, and inhales deep.
Jon shivers at the sudden warm air tickling at the back of his neck. He holds the lantern closer to his chest, as the three of them hover anxiously under his invisibility cloak.
Their faces stay frozen still in the darkness, as they watch the scene in front of them unveil in a petrified trance.
They listen carefully as the professors bicker on...
"...I don't see why we have to wait any longer, Davos," Dumbledore whispers gravely.
"Because the rubbish press are blubbering idiots, that's why."
A stoic man, with long blue robes and a shiny bald head, speaks out wisely, "It took a student of mine tonight, sir... How much longer are we going to keep people in the dark?"
What was the Spider doing in the Gryffindor wing?
Dumbledore sighs with careful sadness, "Now, we don't know that it took the boy for certain, Varys. He's missing, it's not a death sentence."
Professor Seaworth grunts darkly. "Pardon me, sir, but the boy was serving detention in the Dark Forest! And Peter saw him— trapped in there with the creature. He saw it with his own bloody two eyes!"
The door eerily creaks open again, and Peter Baelish slinks inswiftly, in his shadowy green robes.
Baelish also leads in a white-haired man behind him, Barristan Selmy— striding in strongly, in his dark maroon red nightgown.
"Anything, professors?" Dumbledore asks them, while in the background, a cursing Caretaker Frey, straggles in behind, quickly squeezing through the closing door.
"No such luck." Professor Baelish shakes his head solemnly.
Professor Selmy side-eyes him carefully. "Yes... We couldn't find the boy, Albus.” He whispers more sincerely, “He's gone, I'm afraid."
Dumbledore tilts his head down gravely. "Alright, thank you professors."
"For now, we will inform his parents," he says, thoughtfully threading his long fingers through his newly graying beard.
"I'll send an owl to Ned immediately. I'm sure he'll come down here as soon as he can."
Professor Seaworth squints his wrinkly eyes in confusion. "An owl, to Durmstrang? Why?"
Varys rolls his eyes, swaying to him darkly, "Well it was his poor son for god sakes," he bows his head in sorrow, "Such a bright student, little Brandon Stark..."
Dany's breath catches.
Her small fingers clutch into Jon's warm sweater, a small gasp slipping her lips in silent denial. She doesn't even mean to press her nose into the fabric of his back, but she does, whispering to herself, "...Bran."
Jon freezes at her touch, then tilts his head at her halfway, his hooded-dark eyes promising. He nods to stay quiet.
"Well what about him? ...The other boy?"
Baelish points up towards the Gryffindor Boys Dormitories. However to Dany, it seemed like he was pointing directly at Jon's door.
Dumbledore lifts his lantern, peering up there wistfully unsure. "Ah, well... I think... there may be another, possible option for him now."
He pushes up his spectacles in measurable thought and lowers his lantern back down, judging the professors awaiting expressions.
"If Ned Stark decides to come to his family and son's aid here at Hogwart's..." he proposes, "Then of course, we will welcome him back with open arms... if he so desires to stay— for their protection."
Seaworth nods surely, "The noble man he is, he will most certainly try, sir. Those children are his life."
Dumbledore nods in agreement. "Right. However there may be a solution we could assemble for him..." he glances at Professor Seaworth, “This could work out quite perfectly actually.”
”How sir?”
“With Professor Arryn's sudden ill take of absence... Ned could take over his Defense Against the Dark Arts position..."
"— But... Headmaster? I thought I—" Baelish huffs out pathetically.
Then attempting to hide his now obvious jealousy, he switches his expression, repeating more politely, "I mean, Albus, sir... Do you really think Ned Stark to be capable?"
"You know, he may be distraught, over the loss of his son, and... I, have been waiting to teach that class for quite some time now... I think I could do well."
"Alas, yes of course, Littlefinger. But we do need you for Potions," Dumbledore rejects quietly.
The Headmaster brings his attention again up to Jon's room, relating the conversation back, "If Ned Stark accepts, then we might not have to send the boy away again... Ned will want him to be with him this time."
"And now... with his son, Brandon..." he trails off grimly, "Well. I believe we must keep the other boy safe here, for now."
"Hmm, very well then. It’s settled." Varys agrees. “The boy stays here.”
Suddenly, Walder Frey sniffs his oily nose out in the air, "Wait sir. What's... that?" he snorts, following the smell across the room.
”What’s what?” Professor Baelish scoffs.
”That smell...” he sniffs again, stumbling over towards the three shocked, Gryffindors hiding under the cloak by the girls chambers.
"Do ya smell that candle?" he hisses.
Jon braces his arm around Dany and Sam, slowly backing himself and them away from the nearing caretaker. His adrenaline rushes hot, as he grips a careful, white knuckle hold onto his lantern against his chest.
Dumbledore sighs in pitied exhaustion, whispering gently,"What's happening now, Walder?"
Frey swims over daringly past Jon, Dany and Sam, then peers up the staircase. "Smells like a tiny fire," he raises his eyebrows at Dumbledore, appealing his greedy need for approval.
"That means there's a student outta bed..."
Dany, cups a slow hand up to her mouth in realization, "Oh no... my lantern," she breathes silently, glancing up in panic at the top of the Girls' staircase.
She bites back her tongue in frustration, squinting hopelessly through the fabric, trying to catch a glimpse to where she left it.
She pauses, upon not spotting it in its original placement, and then relaxes in relief.
Though it's now more odd because ... now— Now it's simply, just gone.
Uh oh.
She frowns, now a bit more concerned who moved it for her...
"Come, take a closer look, sir."
The three students hold their breaths, as the professors shuffle over skeptically, staring lengthily across the room.
Their eyes stop briefly at about where the invisible Gryffindors were standing—
But their vision drifts onward, luckily with no apparent sign of recognizing a cloaked Dany and Sam, gripping onto Jon for dear life.
"I don't smell or see anything," Seaworth mumbles shortly, scratching his balding head.
"Time to go, Walder," Dumbledore issues flatly.
"But sir? That's a hot lantern that is! A student is awake, sir!"
Raising his brows high above his half-moon spectacles, he protests calmly, "Ah, well if a student is up at this hour of the night, getting ahead on his or her reading, then it's only fair they should be rewarded for their actions... Certainly not punished..."
The squirrelly squib coughs out, begging in defense, "No, no sir, that's not what I meant—" Dumbledore gestures for him lowly. "Now Walder, come along now, we have a more serious matter to attain to," he echoes to the others, gliding away gracefully.
A pathetic, muttering Frey follows them out reluctantly. And then with a thud, the door finally shuts behind them, leaving the cloaked three students alone in the dark.
•
"Do you think, that it's safe now?" Sam quivers, finally letting go of his death grip on Jon's shoulder.
"Aye, I dunno." Jon whispers gruffly, pulling the cloak off of them, "I hope so."
Sam gulps at his vagueness, "Uhm. We're not still going... are we?"
Jon rubs a hand over his eye, tired and now bitter, "No Sam, I think this was enough for tonight..." he says, bunching the cloak up in his arms. "I'm sorry though, I shouldn't have made you come out with me... We won't do this again."
Sam groans in relief, sliding a sweaty hand across his forehead. “Thank Merlin.”
Dany, still in a shaken daze, holds her elbows against her stomach. "I have to tell Arya..."