𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 || 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒖𝒕

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑿𝑽𝑰

CHAPTER XVI
300 AFTER CONQUEST

DAENERYS

The Great Games, as they were called, would be in just a few weeks, perhaps another month. With all her efforts, Daenerys aimed to drag it out to the last possible day she could, for she had no intention and would not be in any mood to watch the blood sport that were the games. Her advisors had felt different, seeing it as a necessary evil to live with in order to rule over Meereen.

Daenerys sat in traditional Meereenese robes, pale white with slashes of grey laced throughout, a silver chain with the three heads of the dragon, the three heads of her sons, placed over her shoulder. Sitting in a chair on her balcony overlooking the city of Meereen, the Dragon Queen teetered on the outskirts of sleep. Sleep that came rarely to her in these times.

"Pardon my intrusion, Your Grace."

Dany smiled absentmindedly, not bothering to open her eyes as the sun remained, bathing her skin in warmth as she waved a hand for her friend to approach.

"Ser Barristan, it is fine of you to join me anytime."

"Thank you, Your Grace."

"But please do away with the titles and formalities. They grow exhausting when they are all I hear anymore. I can't remember the last person to actually speak my name without adding 'Queen' or something along the lines of such."

She remarked with a smile, opening her eyes now to the Old Knight, her Lord Commander. He moved to lean on the railing overlooking the beautiful city, her city as he too smiled as well.

"Of course, Daenerys. You are lot like him in that way."

"Rhaegar?"

She asked, already knowing the answer as she leaned up only slightly. She loved when Ser Barristan would tell tale of him. Dany knew the way Viserys spoke of him was wrong, misinterpreted entirely. But the Old Knight was strong and true to his words, and they were the only ones Daenerys cared to really hear anymore.

"Yes. The Silver Prince hated his titles, the Prince of Dragonstone, of the City and of the Seven Kingdoms. Dayne and I, we spoke once about it before. We agreed that if Rhaegar was born a lowborn son of a peasant with no name at all, he'd be the happiest man in the world."

Laughing at the memory, Ser Barristan smiled. His older eyes always seemed to be in the past, Daenerys thought. Every moment the man lived was based on times he experienced in the past. Where men were made from finer steel, as he had fashioned once.

"Give him harp and his books and he could have become a Maester. I believe your family had such scholars before."

"Do you know of their names?"

Daenerys asked, smiling as she moved up in her seat to listen.

"I met the man once, actually. When I served Jaehaerys II, the first king I ever served, I met his uncle once, Maester Aemon Targaryen. He was a Maester of the Citadel placed to serve at Castle Black with the Night's Watch."

"Is he still there?"

Dany asked, intrigued as Ser Barristan sighed with a smile and an honest shrug.