DAENERYS
The morning after Dany's first night with Lucas, after they broke fast, she was taken by him down into the city proper, where he found a
'septon,'
a priest who followed the Faith of the Seven. Then, after a pouch of coin exchanged hands, the septon took them to a small chamber with an altar. Dany wore a long cloak that Lucas had instructed her to wear, sewn by Clare. It was Dany's
'maiden's cloak,'
Lucas had explained. It was pitch black and emblazoned with the blood-red likeness of a dragon thrice-headed, the Targaryen sigil. After the septon had them say vows to each other, Lucas slipped the Targaryen cloak from Dany's shoulders and replaced it with a Velaryon one, her
'bride's cloak,'
blueish green and emblazoned with that same likeness of a silver seahorse that adorned so many coats of arms in the manse. Dany wore her bride's cloak during the trip home.
And that was that. They were then husband and wife. Lucas's words from their first night,
'It'll only be a formality,'
rang true to Dany that morning. That first time they lay together had seemed far more passionate and meaningful than those strange vows and that awkward exchanging of cloaks.
When Dany slept that second night in the manse, lying on her side in bed with Lucas behind her, she clutched the dragon eggs against her belly. Lucas did not object. He knew what she felt for them.
Dany had grown swiftly and intensely attached to the eggs. It was her touch that had awoken them from their stone slumber. She had given them life, and that meant she was their mother. Dany did not know how she awoke the eggs, and Lucas did not know either, but both knew that they were bound to her in a way they were not bound to him. It felt to Dany like her soul was linked to theirs.
Dany dreamt of the dragons every night. Lucas said he did too, but that he dreamt of them in shadows, under only moonlight. Dany dreamt of them in clear day, under the sunlight, where she could marvel at their glory. One had scales like rubies, red and vibrant, and had wing flesh the color of gold. He was the biggest and most dominant of the brood, with the fiercest snarl that bared the longest teeth. The second had scales as bright blue as the Summer Sea and wings as green as growing grass. He was capricious and playful. He loved to soar just above the ocean, skimming his wings against the water and snatching up any creature of the sea that dared to swim too close to the surface. The third had scales like diamonds, milky white and brilliant, and wings of pale purple. It was a she-dragon, and she was the calmest and quietest of the brood. To Dany, the diamond dragon was the most dazzling sight of the three. Dany often dreamt of herself astride her, with Lucas astride the ruby dragon beside them.
Whenever Dany spoke of her dreams to Lucas, he always listened raptly. He had said that her dreams were more than fantasies, that she was seeing the future in them. And he had told her to start thinking of names for the dragons, because it would be her right to give them.
The day after they were wedded, Lucas commanded the maidservants to bathe Dany in their bedchamber while he and Tobas ran errands down in the city. Dany was nervous at first, but after the maids smoothly disrobed her and gently eased her into a wooden tub lined with thick linens and filled with hot water, her nerves were soon soothed.
Magister Illyrio's servants had bathed her as well, and Dany hadn't enjoyed it very much, but Elayna and Clare were nothing like them. Illyrio's servants had been rough and crude with her, grooming her like she was a horse, and they never said a word to her. Elayna and Clare groomed her elegantly and tenderly, and they spoke sweetly and softly.
"Tend to the lady's hair," Clare said. Elayna did as her elder bid. She lathered something sudsy into Dany's silver-blonde hair before soaking it in a small bucket of warm water and working it with her hands.
Elsewhere, Clare took a bathbrush with soft bristles and scrubbed Dany with gentle but firm strokes. When the bathbrush pressed into her left breast, Dany winced. Her bosom had become unusually tender that day, and she did not know why.
Clare noticed her wince. The maid's hand fell still. "When did you last bleed, my lady?" she asked.
Dany looked to Clare, confused. "What?"
"Your moon blood, my lady. When did you last bleed it?"
"Oh." Dany had to think on it for a moment. "A fortnight ago," Dany finally said.
Clare nodded. "We'll know soon then." She resumed her scrubbing, now markedly gentler.
Dany was confused again. "Know what?"
"If you're with child, my lady. If you don't bleed, then we'll know. Lord Lucas's mother birthed him the same year she wedded his father. You'll likely do the same. The seed is swift."
Dany nodded slowly, chewing on that. She knew it was natural for a lord and lady to produce progeny, that it was expected of them even, but she had not thought of it much. Lucas and his servants all seemed so eager for it. Perhaps Dany ought to have been too. But she did not know pregnancy, nor childbirth, nor motherhood, and she was not eager for things she did not know. The unknown was frightening, and Dany was easily frightened. She wished she wasn't. But she knew the day the dragons hatched would be the end of her fear.
'When they've grown and matured,'
Lucas had said as they'd gazed upon the eggs together,
'when they can swallow the Usurper whole, when they can melt Casterly Rock with their fire ... we'll fear no one.'
Those fantasies gave Dany strength like she'd never known.
Clare's bathbrush travelled lower and lower, first to Dany's taut stomach, then to her upper groin, and then to that place between her legs, to the silver and the pink. The maid was gentlest there. "My lady, if you suffer any ...