Dragon's Fire

Prologue

She was warm. Very warm. And laying on something very uncomfortable. She felt wet too, her clothes, her hair, which was a tangled, matted mess were drenched and providing a cool feeling to her skin when a stray wind would blow by. As her eyes slowly fluttered open, adjusting to the light, she vaguely registered a slight pain in her head. The second thing she noticed was that she could see the night sky above her, scattered with twinkling stars.

Before she could try to lift herself up and get a bearing on her surroundings, a blinding pain tore through her head, ripping at her mind like the talons of some feral beast. She clutched her head, crying out in agony when suddenly the pain stopped, and something emerged from it, fiery and familiar. A name. Her name. She didn't know how she knew that it was her name, but it felt as though it belonged to her.

She was Daenerys Targaryen.

Daenerys searched her mind for any memories that might lend an explanation as to why she was laying outside with nothing but a name, and was met with nothing. She furrowed her brows, thinking back to where she had come from, if she had any family members, people that would be looking for her, still coming up empty.

Her breathing and heart rate sped up as she thought of how old she was, when was her name day, anything that would give her some clue about what was going on.

Nothing.

There was a darkness, a great gaping hole where a plethora of memories should have been. Something bad had happened to her, she could feel it in her soul. The darkness that was in her mind seemed to feel her panic and slowly crept in through the edges of her vision, whispering and cooing at her to sleep and let it take over. The last thing Daenerys heard was a low, comforting rumble coming from beneath her, as if to let her know that she would be protected.

The next time Daenerys opened her eyes she was much more lucid, so maybe that's why she froze, locking her body up to make herself absolutely statuesque. There was a dragon staring down at her. In the back of her mind, she wondered how she knew that it was a dragon when she didn't seem to know anything else, but there it was, not moving, not making any sounds other than its breathing. A great black beast with blood red accents all through its giant head. Its amber eyes were somehow intelligent, like it was calculating what she was going to do next.

She took a deep breath and held it while slowly, ever so slowly moving to sit up, so she didn't startle this beautiful, deadly creature. She put her hand down and felt warm hard scales beneath her hand. The dragon huffed but didn't make any other noises or movements, as if it was trying to not startle her . She'd laugh if she didn't think it would scare the both of them . Daenerys took a chance and broke eye contact to look down and see that she was indeed laying in the curl of the massive dragon's tail. Again, she searched her mind for any possible reason why she was nestled in the tail of this magical being like some nesting doll, and why it hadn't just swallowed her up. She found the darkness waiting again, but when it came up to devour her again, she beat it back until it was deep in the recesses of her mind.

She looked up at the dragon again, like she could discern the answer from it. She couldn't. So instead, she pushed against those ink black scales and stood up fully, all the while looking the dragon dead in the eye. It blinked at her.

Daenerys noticed absently that she didn't feel an inkling of fear toward this creature. Wariness, yes, but not fear. She was fairly sure that was not common, but instead of dwelling on it she looked into the dragon's eyes and saw something like recognition. She pushed aside the wariness and took a step toward the head of the great, black beast. It didn't move. So she took another, and another, until she was within arms reach of it. For a while she just stood there, wondering if she was crazy, apart from her missing memory, but since this was the only thing that had greeted her when she woke up and hadn't fled, she decided to try something.