Blue Skies Prompt #23: The Waste Land (ASOIAF)
Title: The Waste Land
Author: mrstater
Prompt: #23, image of cracked ground
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Characters & Pairings: Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont
Rating & Warnings: rated PG-13 for death by water deprivation, breastfeeding dragons (Ew! But hey, it's canon.)
Word Count: 214
Summary: ACOK: In the Red Waste, Dany thirsts for more than water.
The waterskins dry up in the Red Waste, and so do Dany's breasts. The numbers of her khalasar dwindle as they die of thirst on the hard, cracked ground, and she fears her dragons will follow.
She would weep, if she had tears. But her eyes are as dry as her breasts and the waterskins.
When Ser Jorah asks her why she looks so sad, she does not tell him that the open, empty places in the ground make her think of her womb, where Rhaego grew and then died, and the maegi's hollow words: When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Dany knows her dragons are the only young that will ever suckle at her breasts as surely as she knows the sun will never rise in the west and set in the east, the mountains will never blow in the wind like leaves, the seas will never go dry--though here, in this dry land, she easily imagines the latter. If she does conquer Westeros, to what end? The Targaryen line will die again, with her.
"Why do you look so sad, Khaleesi?" Jorah asks, and Dany replies, "Because I am thirsty, ser."
He puts his waterskin to her lips, and his last precious drops of water roll down her parched throat and taste like hope.
Author: mrstater
Prompt: #23, image of cracked ground
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Characters & Pairings: Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont
Rating & Warnings: rated PG-13 for death by water deprivation, breastfeeding dragons (Ew! But hey, it's canon.)
Word Count: 214
Summary: ACOK: In the Red Waste, Dany thirsts for more than water.
The waterskins dry up in the Red Waste, and so do Dany's breasts. The numbers of her khalasar dwindle as they die of thirst on the hard, cracked ground, and she fears her dragons will follow.
She would weep, if she had tears. But her eyes are as dry as her breasts and the waterskins.
When Ser Jorah asks her why she looks so sad, she does not tell him that the open, empty places in the ground make her think of her womb, where Rhaego grew and then died, and the maegi's hollow words: When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Dany knows her dragons are the only young that will ever suckle at her breasts as surely as she knows the sun will never rise in the west and set in the east, the mountains will never blow in the wind like leaves, the seas will never go dry--though here, in this dry land, she easily imagines the latter. If she does conquer Westeros, to what end? The Targaryen line will die again, with her.
"Why do you look so sad, Khaleesi?" Jorah asks, and Dany replies, "Because I am thirsty, ser."
He puts his waterskin to her lips, and his last precious drops of water roll down her parched throat and taste like hope.