Danielle Drake ♨ Daenerys Targaryen (bendtheknee) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-03-21 22:26:00 |
|
|||
She heard it over and over again. People always said that she was so strong that they could never envision her any other way. They could never begin to imagine the small, broken girl that she had once been on the outskirts of San Diego. They saw her with bright eyes and dimpled cheeks instead of unkempt, dull hair and jutting ribs. They saw her with fire in her soul instead of bruises on her skin. It had been a long, grueling path to transform herself from one girl to the other. She had suffered at the hands of her father and then her brother. She had silently endured emotional and physical abuse out of paralyzing fear that she would endure far worse for speaking out or that her brother would turn his vindictive streak on someone who was less capable of handling the abuse than she was. Even years later, she could acutely recall the relief that had flooded through her when Vincent had aged out of the foster care system and they had been separated. He had threatened to fight for custody of her, but it had all been empty words. Within a short few months, they fell out of contact altogether. For the first time in her young life, she actually had some semblance of peace. She didn’t have someone constantly poking and prodding at old wounds and creating new ones for their own amusement. The things that she had been through had forged steel in her bones even though it had taken time for her strength to show on the surface. It hadn’t been until she met the Malones that she had begun to come out of her shell, and their friendship had ignited her on a path of a personal renaissance. She couldn’t truthfully say that her past didn’t still sometimes haunt her. Even after the abuse had stopped, she had still suffered loss. Being happy wasn’t a protection from bad things. She would sometimes see something on the television or hear something on the news or see a child’s file come across her desk and be right back in the darkest points of her life. They usually were never so bad that she couldn’t drag herself back to the surface, but some triggers were more impactful than others. She could rise above those horrible things because she had learned love and strength in place of it all. Everything that she had been through had just bred a fierce, unquenchable hunger for justice and the desire to shelter others from the same kind of suffering. Though other people couldn’t imagine the girl that she had been, Danielle knew that she still existed. She was still there, lingering under the surface of her skin. She knew because sometimes, on nights like this one, she would wake up in a cold sweat. She would dream of things that had never happened, and yet seemed so real, they must have...in some life, if not this one. Her subconscious had pulled Vincent’s face and while she had been cowering under his hand, the scene had shifted. His face had altered, just slightly, with white-blonde hair down to his shoulders. He had thrown a servant girl - a handmaiden under her care - at her feet, ranting and raving about how she dared to command him. He threw a fit like a petulant child, though he wasn’t Vincent anymore...he was Viserys. Daenerys had tried, against her better judgment, to win his love. She had thought, perhaps, there could still be some good in him and he was her only family so they must stick together, right? Despite all of the horrible things that he had done to her over her entire life, she still tried to extend her hand in a gesture of good will. “I just wanted to invite you for supper.” “What’s this?” He held up Dothraki trousers - leather - that she had commissioned. “A gift. I had it made for you.” “Dothraki rags? Are you going to dress me now?” He threw the gift at her face, even as she held her hands up to shield herself. “Please.” “This stinks of manure. All of it!” He threw a golden belt at her then, and it stung as it hit her hands and she tossed it to the ground. “Stop. Stop it!” He had stepped forward, getting close to her face, “You would turn me into one of them, wouldn’t you? Next you’ll want to braid my hair.” “You’ve no right to a braid. You’ve won no victories yet,” she retorted, her patience slipping away as she began to lose her composure. Her own hair was braided back expertly. “Do not talk back to me!” He slapped her hard, a yelp leaving her throat as she fell to the ground and he followed her, near sitting on her torso as she tried to fight him off and he attempted to hit her once more, “You are a horse-lord slut and now you’ve woken the Dragon.” She picked up the golden belt that he had thrown at her and lashed out, striking him in the face with it. In surprise, Viserys had fallen to the ground, crumpling up beside her as he looked up in abject horror. He stood slowly, the expression on his face shock...he had never expected her to retaliate. “I am a Khaleesi of the Dothraki. I am the wife of the great Khal, and I carry his son inside me. The next time you raise a hand to me will be the last time you have hands.” Every word was wrapped in conviction, though shaken with emotion. She was not the tender, gentle girl that would silently endure his constant jabs. She had grown strong...she was becoming who she was always meant to be. She would suffer no more. Danielle blinked and sighed, the memory of the dream still clinging there to the edges of her mind. I carry his son inside me. That was a new one. She didn’t recall Daenerys ever having a child in any of her previous dreams, but she supposed it wouldn’t be too far outside of the realm of possibilities. Still, she knew well enough that it was separate from her own life. She was certainly not with child. Though her relationship with Max was better than ever, her body continued to tick like clockwork. It seemed that her own life was mirrored in her dreams of this white-haired princess - queen - though she hadn’t yet figured out how deeply the similarities ran. Perhaps she was destined in any life to never have a family who loved her...though the people she had chosen to surround herself with made up for that tenfold. Chosen family was still family, and they, at least, did not take her love for granted. |