44. Across the Narrow Sea [Daenerys]

                                    

                                          
I glanced at the setting sun out the balcony of the Pyramid of Meereen which I had made my home, proud of how far I'd come. From a scared little girl abused by her brother and sold off like a horse to Khal Drogo to being the Breaker of Chains, the Mother of Dragons, and the Queen of Meereen. 
But I did not belong here. None of this would have happened if my home had not been stolen from me. None of the abuse, the humiliation, the rape, starvation, and other miseries that had befallen my life. I yearned to know more of the life I could've lived - the glorious past where my family still lived in our home, in Westeros.
Thankfully, I had someone who was alive to tell me stories of that time. I had Barristan Selmy. Whenever I was free, or whenever I could find time to get anyway from my duties, I would listen to his stories of the past.
This particular evening, he spoke to me of Rhaegar. "Your brother had always been a romantic," he smiled fondly, his eyes looking as if he was living in a distant dream every time he brought my brother alive again with his words, "He played the harp for his children, and for his father who loved him so. Even as he slipped into madness he still loved hearing his son play the harp. It soothed him."
I smiled to myself, wishing Viserys had been more like him. "I wish I had met him," I confessed. Met him before he was murdered by that usurper, that Robert Baratheon. That man who wanted to assassinate me all of my life. 
I don't know why I asked it, but the curiosity - nay, the hatred - pushed me to. "What was the usurper like?"
Barristan was taken aback. "Your grace?" he asked, confused. I'd never asked him about anyone except my family before. 
Hesitating at first, I asked again. "What was it like serving him?"
Barristan thought to himself for a moment, looking down at his lap. Then, he laughed softly before looking up at me once more, "Miserable. I was bound to his service by oath, and because he had spared my life and had his own healers stitch me up and make me healthy again after the Battle of the Trident. Though I knew he was a usurper I must confess that, at first, I had hoped he would actually be a good king." 
"Yet he was not," I muttered. 
He confirmed. "He was not. He was a good warrior once, before he became fat. But he was never a good King. He was a drunken, swollen idiot who spent his days reliving the glory of his youth, drowing in wine and whores to hide his shame - and drowning the royal treasury in debt along with him."
"And every day by his side you were miserable, wishing for the day the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms would come to save you all?" I joked, raising my eyebrow at him playfully. I wanted a real answer, not just the one he thought I wanted to hear. 
Barristan chuckled at this once again, admitting, "Very well, he made me laugh from time to time. And if I enjoyed anything I quite enjoyed the time I spent training the Princess in swordfighting."
This surprised me greatly. "The usurper's only true-born daughter? The one named as Joffrey's heir, who fled King's Landing rather than be crowned Queen?"
"Yes, the so-called Princess Selene," he recalled, "She was a joy. I cannot understand why she would flee. I simply cannot. She loves her siblings more than anything in this world. And she is a hilarious smart-mouth, perhaps too smart for her own good." 
Though I knew I shouldn't care to know about this child of the man who murdered my brother, I was genuinely taken aback. He, clearly, held some affection towards her - and if Barristan Selmy respected her so, perhaps she was worth knowing about. 
"Tell me more of this Princess," I insisted. 
"She is rather boyish, that one," he complied without much hesitation, "Like King Robert in his youth - proud and stubborn, and quite skilled with a sword despite her youth. She was Robert's favorite, possibly the only child of his he truly loved - at least certainly more than he did Joffrey. But she was also not like him. She was kind, and honest. Nothing like her mother except perhaps in her love for her family."
He smiled at the memory of her, the same smile he smiled when thinking of Rhaegar. "But she was a menace through and through, constantly being disciplined by her parents, by me, by her uncle Jaime and my Sirio Forell," he made himself laugh remembering a certain memory and resolved to tell me instantly, "Gods I was so angry at her once when we were training - she must've been about ten. She'd eaten almost a whole chicken and her fingers were so greasy and she grabbed my white cloak with those dirtied fingers!"
I laughed. Barristan was a great story teller, I could almost picture this wild girl in my mind as he described her. 
"And don't get me started on her tendencies," he leaned in, whispering "Twice i caught her in a brothel and had to drag her back to the Red Keep. The nerve of this girl!" 
A brothel? I asked myself, what business does a woman have in a brothel? But the answer came to me quickly with a memory of my own, of Doreah and I sharing a bed in Vaes Dothrak... and in Qarth... and how much it broke my heart to see her laying with the man who betrayed me in that city. I still saw her in my nightmares, calling my name from the vault I locked her inside. How must her corpse look now?
"She sounds ridiculous," I forced a smile. 
"A ridiculous charmer, she was," Barristan admitted, "But a good child despite everything, despite her unfortunate parentage. In another world, the two of you would have made good friends."
I pondered at that thought as Viserion flew over the skies of Meereen above us.