Game of Thrones Iron Stark

In Sheep Village everyone who had eaten the Qiq i flowers was finally sleeping. The snoring was loud enough to shake the walls. It was the first real rest any of them had gotten in days.

Daenerys carried her daughter Rhaenys to the village schoolhouse. Slow Sheep was teaching today. Happy Sheep had mentioned something about "starting education while they're still young," and Daenerys decided it was time to start shaping her little girl.

Poor Rhaenys couldn't even talk yet and she was already in class.

Slow Sheep stood at the front and cleared his throat. The students — mostly sheep folk, plus Daenerys and Ser Jorah — looked up.

"Today we're talking about plants."

Everyone sat up straighter. The memory of the demon flowers was still fresh. Half the village was still passed out from eating them.

"Plants came before animals. They're nature's greatest treasure — thousands of kinds, all shapes and sizes. We classify them in a few ways.

First, by how they reproduce: spore plants like ferns and mosses, or seed plants like pines and flowering trees.

Second, by their stems: woody plants with hard trunks, or soft-stemmed herbs.

Third, by their leaves: broadleaf trees or needle-leaf trees like pines."

Daenerys listened like someone who had just discovered fire. She had never heard any of this before. She drank it in like a woman dying of thirst.

Halfway through the lesson Happy Sheep burst through the door.

"Village Chief! Warm Sheep's been burned bad! You have to come right now!"

"What? Wildfire?" Slow Sheep's grass sprig nearly flew off his head. "Take me there!"

He moved at his usual glacial pace until Happy Sheep grabbed him and dragged him outside like a leaf in a hurricane.

Outside, Warm Sheep lay on a stretcher, unconscious. The other sheep surrounded her, crying. The three baby dragons whined and pressed against her.

"Move! Let me see her!" Slow Sheep shoved through the crowd, grass still stuck in his wool.

He checked her burns quickly.

"Lucky girl. She's got ram blood in her veins. She must've been giant-sized when the fire hit, then shrank back just in time. The rain helped too. She's going to live."

Nurses carried her to the infirmary. The baby dragons followed, still whimpering.

Daenerys arrived just in time to see them. The three tiny dragons spotted their mother and flew straight to her, circling her head and chirping.

"You're flying already?" she laughed. "Maybe one day you'll carry me into the sky!"

---

That night Daenerys sat up late reviewing everything she had learned. She wrote in her little notebook:

"Plants — nature's green spirits. They have a miracle called photosynthesis. Sunlight is the invitation. Light hits the leaves, the pigments dance, and they turn carbon dioxide and water into food and oxygen. It's the most elegant chemical feast in the world…"

She stopped. A lot of the words still didn't make sense to her. The thought hit like a slap.

"I… I can't be the village idiot, can I?"

She slapped her own chest.

"No. I am Daenerys Targaryen. Stormborn. Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. Moon of Khal Drogo. The only woman the Dothraki have ever called queen. Mother of Dragons. Last of the true dragons. Heir to the Iron Throne."

She stepped outside and looked up at the moon. For a moment she swore she saw Drogo's face in it.

"Daenerys… Daenerys…"

She made her decision right there.

It was time to leave. Drogo was waiting. He had almost finished uniting every khalasar. She and her dragons were strong enough now. She would not keep her sun waiting any longer.

Tomorrow she would tell the sheep folk she was going.

---

In the Guatemala region the Masai and Drogo's riders faced each other across open ground.

They had been eating together only an hour earlier. Then one of Drogo's bloodriders had said the wrong thing.

"Submit to Khal Drogo."

The Masai refused.

"We wait for the king who comes with fire," their leader Marcos said. "Not Khal Drogo. Bring your woman next time. If she is the one the prophecy speaks of, we will kneel. We will fight for her. We will die for her."

Drogo studied the tall warrior for a long moment, then nodded.

"We have an agreement."

He turned to his bloodriders.

"We ride."

They left the way they had come — through what had once been a sea of flowers. Next time they would return with fire and thunder at their backs.