ASOIAF : Creed

The change was not a sudden storm, but a slow, creeping tide. It began with the wine. It was still sweet, but it was thinner now, as if watered down. Then, the silks. They were still fine, but they were the same ones from last week, and the week before that. The exotic perfumes vanished from her bathwater, replaced by simple, unscented soap. 

Daenerys noticed these small things, these quiet erosions of their host's generosity. She had always been observant, her survival for years having depended on her ability to read the subtle shifts in her brother's moods. Now, she applied that same quiet skill to their environment—and what she saw frightened her.

The servants who used to bow too deeply now gave curt nods and kept their eyes averted. The guards outside their door, once lazy and inattentive, now stood straight and alert, one hand always resting on the hilts of their curved Lyseni blades. She overheard two young girls whispering near the stairwell, their voices hurried and hushed. One of them had said, "They've overstayed." The other replied, "The magister wants them gone. It's only a matter of time."

Viserys felt the shift too, but his response was not quiet.

He descended into a fever of suspicion, his mind twisting itself into darker shapes with each passing day. "He's watching us," he muttered in the candlelit dark, sitting at the edge of his bed with wild eyes. "Him and his fat, poxy friends. They whisper behind doors. They think they can keep dragons in cages, Dany. But they'll see. They'll see when I—" He would stop himself mid-sentence, but the gleam in his eyes was more telling than any word.

He began polishing his sword again, obsessively. The rasp of steel on leather was a constant, restless rhythm that filled the quiet moments between meals. He watched her eat every bite of food before touching his own. At first, he had asked her to taste it. Then, he demanded. And then he simply stared, waiting, as if daring the food to betray them.

He no longer trusted the magister. He no longer trusted the servants. And slowly, he began to turn that same cracked gaze toward her.

"You're too quiet," he said one evening, his voice brittle. "You walk with them. You speak their bastard tongue. You think I don't see it?" He grabbed her shoulders, his fingers too tight, his breath hot and wine-sour. "Are you plotting with them? Are you scheming with them against your king?"

"No, Viserys," she whispered, her mouth dry with fear. "Never."

His grip didn't loosen for a long moment. Then, without a word, he pushed her away and turned his back. She stood there in silence, her heart pounding like a drum.

The magister, once so affable and showy, had become a ghost in his own estate. Viserys returned from each attempt to speak with him more furious than before. "He sends his steward to me. His steward," he spat, as though the word were a curse. "I ask for an audience, and he sends a glorified manservant. He forgets who I am."

But Daenerys knew the truth. The magister did not forget. He simply no longer cared.

They were no longer investments. They were liabilities—useless, dangerous ones.

She began to plan, not out of rebellion, but from necessity. She tucked away leftover bread, folded scraps of fruit into linen, hid a small knife beneath the loose floorboard near her bed. She wasn't sure what she was preparing for. Only that something was coming. Something inevitable.

The final sign came not in a confrontation, but in a letter.

It was given to her quietly by one of the younger servant girls, a slip of parchment wrapped in oilskin. The girl's eyes darted around the hall as she pressed it into Daenerys's palm and whispered, "It came from across the sea. For the magister. A lord of Westeros—Greyjoy."

The seal was strange to her: a black kraken on a golden field. She did not open the letter, but the weight of it felt like a stone in her hands. That evening, as the sun sank in the west and the cicadas began their evening chorus, the magister summoned them.

He stood in the doorway of his study, flanked by two guards, no longer smiling.

"Your time in my home has come to an end," he said. His voice was not cruel, but it was flat. Final. "A ship has been arranged. It departs tomorrow. You will sail to Pentos. Magister Illyrio Mopatis awaits you there."

Viserys tried to argue. Of course he did. His voice rose, ragged and wild, as he cursed the magister, the usurper, the whole damn continent. But the magister did not flinch. He raised one hand, and the guards stepped forward. No swords were drawn, but none were needed. The decision had already been made.

That night, their room was a storm. Viserys hurled books, smashed a decanter of wine, paced like a madman while muttering names Daenerys had never heard. He raged until his voice cracked and he slumped against the window, drained and bitter.

But Daenerys did not cry.

She folded their clothes in silence. She counted the food she had hidden and tucked the pouch into her satchel. And as Viserys railed and cursed, she found herself staring at the ships in the harbor—long, pale vessels swaying gently under the moonlight, their sails silver and soft.

Pentos. Another cage, perhaps. But perhaps… a better one. A bigger one. Or a crack in the wall through which she might, someday, slip free.

And in that quiet moment, with the salt wind brushing her cheek and the weight of the coming journey settling on her shoulders.

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They left at dawn.

The sky over Lys was the color of bruised lilac, the sea still wrapped in a silver mist. The air was damp and quiet, the kind of stillness that came before a storm or a farewell. Servants carried their modest bags to the dock—no send-off, no ceremony, just quiet footsteps and the soft clink of coin as a steward paid the ship's quartermaster.

The ship itself was not large. A merchant vessel, trim and worn, with patched sails and a crew that kept their eyes lowered. They did not bow. They did not call her "princess." They called her nothing at all.

Viserys sulked near the railing, his arms crossed, eyes flicking over the ship with thinly veiled contempt. "This is how they treat royalty," he muttered. "Stuff us on a fish-hauler like common cargo."

Daenerys said nothing. She stood at the gangplank for a moment, her hand resting on the worn, salt-slick rail. She looked back once—at the sprawling city of Lys, the white domes and delicate towers fading behind a rising morning haze—and then she stepped aboard.

The deck groaned beneath her bare feet. She could smell tar and fish oil, old rope and seaweed. She found a quiet corner near the aft deck and settled there as the ship creaked to life, sails catching the morning wind. Lys shrank behind them, becoming a soft blur against the sea.

Viserys ranted somewhere behind her—about Illyrio, about the Iron Throne, about dragons—but she tuned it out. The sea was wide. The sky, pale and open.

And for the first time in weeks, perhaps months, no one was watching her.

No guards by the door. No servants whispering. No magister smiling with lies behind his teeth. Even Viserys, in his fury, had forgotten her for the moment.

She exhaled.

And in that exhale, something uncoiled inside her. Something deep and old. A knot of tension she hadn't known she carried until it loosened. It wasn't peace, not exactly—but it was space. A breath of it. Enough to think.

I don't want to be afraid anymore.

The thought came unbidden, sharp and simple.

She had spent her life shadowed by other people's tempers—her brother's, her caretakers', the shifting whims of hosts and patrons. She had learned to survive by shrinking, by watching, by yielding.

But what if she didn't?

What if she didn't flinch when Viserys shouted, or bow when a magister demanded it? What if she didn't have to ask before she spoke, or wait to be told when to run?

What if the world could belong to her, too?

The ship rocked gently beneath her. Gulls called overhead. A breeze lifted her hair. Somewhere below deck, a sailor sang softly in a tongue she didn't know. It wasn't beautiful, this voyage. But it was hers.

I will not be afraid, she thought again, firmer now. Not forever. Not always. Not when I have wings to grow.

She touched the satchel on her lap—the bits of food, the small blade, the tiny stolen comforts. No one else had packed for her. No one else had planned.

That small defiance had been hers alone.

And maybe that was how it started.