first. }{ video.

[iwillnotlookback]

 [ The girl on the screen looks younger than her years, and she is still rather young. Only sixteen, the burnt-away stubble of silvery-blonde hair highlights her sharp cheekbones and draws attention to her large violet eyes in a way that makes her look like a doll. A very feral sort of doll. Her expression can be best described as a mixture of irritation, weariness, and childlike curiosity. And over it all a mask of regality. Nearly bald and ragged-looking she may be, she still looks every inch a queen. ]

Tell me, are all our dear hosts so exceptionally skilled in making obeisance and providing obfuscation for their master? I ask the reason for my presence and they tell me that knowledge is the Emperor's. I demand to know where my dragon is and they simper and apologize. Not one will deign to give me a clear answer, only riddles. More riddles. I am weary of riddles.

[ Dany sighs, a certain something in the way her eyes slip briefly closed betraying just how very tired she is. It never ends, does it? At least she is clean now. The first thing she did when the kedan led her to her quarters was bathe, soaking away her aches and pains and scrubbing off the accumulated weeks' worth of filth and blood in water heated near to boiling. Merely world-weary is marginally better than being both world-weary and filthy. ]

Very well. If we are to be companions in entrapment, we might at least know one another. I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, a khaleesi of the Dothraki, Queen of Meereen and rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. I would know you, and whatever you can tell me. [ Pause. ] And if you have seen a dragon, say, the size of an aurochs, colored black and red, I would know that too. You will be well rewarded, I swear. Though I beg you not to approach him, as his temperament is…quite volatile.

Comments

[video]

[relentlesstide]

Quite the title. [More royalty, huh? If the Emperor has any choice over who shows up, she's certainly getting bold.] I doubt your dragon is the same one I've noticed around here, he seemed quite pleasant.

[He doesn't go out of his way to use a title or an honorific, and the straight set of his shoulders and lift of his chin speak of a man who doesn't bow to anyone.]

[iwillnotlookback]

My full titles are longer, and more cumbersome. I would hardly fault you for forgetting any of them, so for simplicity's sake you may address me as Khaleesi or Your Grace.

[ She likes that straight-forwardness; it's something she can respect. ]

No, not the same at all. You would recognize Drogon by description were he here.

[relentlesstide]

[That gets the corners of his mouth to turn up in a small, amused smile.] Then I suppose you may address me as- let's see, which one is still applicable? Orin, High Consort of Atlantis? King of the Seven Seas. "Annex" is probably easier to remember. [If she wants to use titles...] Unless you'd rather we forget formality.

Should I run into any other dragons, I'll be sure to let you know, then.

[iwillnotlookback]

Queens do not have that privilege. What is the meaning of your title, Annex?

[relentlesstide]

Queens have whatever privileges they desire, or so I think my wife would say. Annex is Atlantean for King, but titles have little meaning without the might of armies to back them up.

[iwillnotlookback]

Perhaps in your land it is so, but in mine it is not.

I disagree. A king without an army is still a king, if he has the will to power. A mother does not cease to be a mother if her children are not at her side.

[relentlesstide]

Is it? What is it like, then?

[A pause. That analogy... It definitely gets a reaction out of him, albeit a subtle, almost sad one. Nothing really brings out the melancholy like thinking of his sons, dead and buried.] ...Maybe so. But being a parent is nothing like being a king, in my experience.

[iwillnotlookback]

Harsh. Unforgiving. Of women particularly, moreso than men. And women who hold power...

[ Her voice trails off, not out of some hesitancy or disquiet, but to leave the rest unspoken. The world is cruel to women. ]

And in mine, it is much the same. What is a queen but mother to her people, and a king but father to his?

[relentlesstide]

I see. Not as progressive as my home, then. My people respect me, but they love my wife. [Atlantis always considered Mera its queen, even when it didn't consider Arthur its king.]

That's one way to approach it, I suppose.

[iwillnotlookback]

As my own love me, but that love was hard earned.

You disagree.