A Brothel Owner's Game (Game of Thrones)

The Red Mountains on either side of the Prince's Pass served as a welcome shield, hiding the armies of Daenerys Targaryen from the Dornish Sun.

At my advice, she had started her campaign here, in the lands of Doran Martell. His sister, Elia, had once been married to her brother, Rhaegar. When the Targaryen's had been overthrown during the War of Usurper, Elia had been brutally **** and murdered by Gregor Clegane under the command of Tywin Lannister. If anyone would be sympathetic to a Targaryen restoration, then it ought to have been Doran Martell.

And yet Doran didn't raise his banners and rush to her aid, contrary to Daenery's expectations. She had raged about it for days when it became clear that she would have to press on without the might of Dorne to aid her. She had called Doran all sorts of names, lambasting her desire for peace and equating it with cowardice.

Still, there was nothing to be done. Daenerys had waited for too long already. The armies of the usurper-king, Tommen Baratheon, had started to assemble. She could either win her throne by heading north, or she could turn around and show Doran just how displeased she was with his cowardice.

She did as I expected. She turned her armies north to march on the capital. Doran could wait until after the war.

There were three options open to her. She could take a ship, where her Dothraki screamers and Unsullied would be useless, or she could go by land. If she went by land, she could take the expected route- the Bone Way- or she could take a road less traveled by.

At my advice, she did the latter, hoping that the enemy wouldn't anticipate her movements. The Prince's Pass was narrow and treacherous. At certain points, it narrowed to the point where only a single man could travel at a time. At others, the footing was unstable, and at others, a misstep would mean a fifty-foot fall.

Outside of Daenery's ancestor, The Young Dragon himself, no army had seriously tried to use it. The wider Bone Way was the preferred choice- and so I had convinced her that was where the bulk of the defenses would be. Perhaps there would be some scouts stationed to watch the Prince's Pass, but nothing that could hamper an army of the size that Daenerys had with her.

Moreover, the Prince's Pass would lead us to the Reach, the seat of House Tyrell. Of the regions of Westeros, it was the Reach that was the most fertile- and the one least damaged by the earlier War of Five Kings. Subjugating the Reach would bring the granaries of the Andals under their sway and present their opposition with the choices of burning, starving, or surrendering.

In contrast, the Bone Way led to the Stormlands, one of the poorer regions of Westeros with little in the way of raw resources or strategic value. I told her it was doubtful that taking it would hurt King Tommen all that much, for all that it was purportedly his ancestral homeland.

The argument worked, and soon the Targaryen armies were marching through the narrow chasms. For this I was glad- after I had gone through so much trouble planning the ambush, I would hate to have to adjust.

It had been a good play, but as the first scorpions fired, I knew it was time for the curtain to fall.

The scorpions had been a suggestion of mine. These had been built after experimenting with the durability of the skull of Balerion the Black Dread. A group of engineers had worked on them day and night until the bolts fired from them were strong enough to pierce the skull of the storied dragon, mobile enough to move hundreds of miles, and small enough to hide in the rocky outcrops of the pass.

Daenerys hadn't imagined that her dragons were anything but invincible- and the dragons hadn't considered it either from the looks of it. They had been flying low and close together- playing a game from the looks of it. Intelligent beasts. I was almost sad to see them go.

While the scorpions weren't accurate, if one fired enough missiles, something was bound to hit. With hundreds of javelins soaring through the air and the dragons so close together, nearly a dozen of them found purchase.

Not all were immediately fatal- only one was, in fact. A bolt got lucky and landed in Drogon's eye, killing him immediately. The rest landed in less deadly spots- one in Rhaegal's leg and another through his wing. Two in Viserion's stomach and three in his back, near where I imagined his spine would be.

And that was just the first volley.

The Targaryen army watched it happen in near-silent shock. Even if they had reacted, there would be little they could do from their position on the ground. All the scorpions were atop cliffs. They only snapped out of it when arrows started raining down on them as well.

Ahead, the canyon turned into a ****-point. The first soldier to try to race ahead, a Dothraki screamer, found that pressing ahead wasn't an option as a shield wall seemingly materialized out of thin air, skewering him. Soldiers ahead.

The first to try to retreat met a similar fate. The structure of the Pass ensured that there were many spots to hide, and this particular point had caves to either side. Most didn't lead anywhere besides dead-ends. They couldn't be used to travel.

They could be used to store soldiers ahead of time, however, as had happened here.

The Targaryen commanders knew it was a possibility, but couldn't do anything about it. Their strategy had depended on speed. They had intended to move quickly and in an unanticipated manner. It had been there hope that they would be out of the Prince's Pass before the Lannister-Tyrell forces could muster a response and cut them off.

Slowing down to check every one of the thousands of caves hadn't been practical, and trying would have slowed them to an unpalatable speed. The commanders must have regretted their decision as their worst nightmare came to pass.

Blocked off on both sides, the Targaryen forces dissolved into barely coordinated chaos. Horses charged in random directions as the light cavalry tried to break through the thick lines of enemy infantry blocking their escape. Unsullied milled about as no orders came; unsure of which way their phalanx ought to point. And the levies did neither, opting to run around like headless chickens.

As her army dissolved into anarchy, Daenerys didn't step up to lead. Her eyes- and attention- were focused on the dead forms of her dragons. When she did come to attention and realized she was losing the battle- and with it her war- she understandably panicked and gave me the opportunity I was waiting for.

"Your grace," I shouted, voice barely audible over the screams of dying men, "Follow me."

Daenerys obeyed, probably hoping that I had a plan. She trusted me enough for that. She galloped after me on horseback as I led her into the caves. Most of the caves didn't lead anywhere- that didn't mean all of them didn't.

The enemy soldiers had been stored in the caves behind and ahead of us, meaning that these were empty.

As we moved forward, the sounds started to dissipate behind us, the screams dying down. I couldn't say if it was because her soldiers were already dead or because we were getting further from the source of the noise. Either way, things quieted enough for us to talk.

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know your grace. I've never been here before." The lie slipped from my lips easily. And it was a lie- I had chosen this spot for the ambush for a reason. If it were only for military purposes, then I could have chosen a hundred different locations, some even better than this one.

"Then why did you ask me to follow you?" She sounded frustrated, but she didn't stop following me.

I let the question hang in the air for a second before bluntly asking, "Your grace, are you willing to acknowledge that you have lost this war?" Dead silence. Somewhat unsurely, I turned my head. "Your grace?"

To my surprise, Daenerys looked like she was about to cry. "Drogon," the whisper escaped her lips. Her gorgeous violet eyes were glassy. I marveled at the fact that it was her dragon that she wept for and not her crown. Of course, the battle had just occurred and for the most part, her eyes had been focused on her dragon's dead form.

I imagined that going forward, the ramifications of this battle would hit her in waves. The **** of her dragons, the loss of her friends, the loss of her army, the loss of her crown- it was a lot to grapple with and would take time to process. Hopefully, I could speed it up a bit.

"Your grace, we can't stay here. Just follow me until we find somewhere to hide. The enemy could come for us at any moment- and we can't let them capture you." She didn't move, and so I activated my power. My second plea of, "Your grace, please," had her spurring her horse on sending it on to a loose trot towards me.

She looked lost, but she was mechanically obeying. I continued to lead her, higher and higher through the spiraling cavern. The sounds of fighting down below gradually grew softer before picking up again, telling me that we were close to our destination, before starting to fade once more, making me suspect the battle was nearly done.

This was confirmed when we arrived, nearly at the summit. It was difficult to measure how much time passed, but when we emerged, the sun had started to set. There was an opening near the top from which the land below could be surveyed.

A gasp sounded from behind me. Turning, I could see the Queen surveying the chasm in horror. "No," she breathed. Below were the butchered remains of her army. Corpses dressed in Dothraki leathers and Unsullied armors, broken by the occasional body in red or green. There were far more of the former than the latter.

Just looking at it, it was clear that not many, if any, of her soldiers had escaped. The battle was over, and the Lannister-Tyrell army was already starting to clear off.

The two of us watched in silence as a soldier stopped to loot a Dothraki corpse only to be halted by a man in fancier armor- either a lord or a knight. Either way, someone of a higher rank. Words were exchanged, too low for us to hear, but I could guess as to what was said.

The Prince's Pass wasn't safe and the Royal Army had no shortage of enemies within Dorne. They had ambushed the Targaryen Army, but lingering opened them up to the possibility of being ambushed themselves. Only a fool would move slowly here.

The man in charge of the Royal Army- Tybolt Waters- was one I knew well, and he was no fool. It didn't surprise me that he chose to turn and march his exhausted army through the narrow pass. He would have to stop to give them a chance to rest, but that could wait until the sunset. There were a few hours of daylight remaining yet.

And so the Lannister-Tyrell forces didn't linger. They had been in the process of forming up and moving out when we had arrived, and as the minutes ticked by they started to vacate. All the while, Daenerys remained in shocked silence.

I sought to snap her out of it. "Are you willing to acknowledge that you have lost this war?" The words were a repeat. I hoped for a solid answer once she saw for certain that her army had lost.

I got a solid answer, though not the one that I hoped for. "I can't lose," she said, her voice containing both hysteria and resolve. It hinted at the madness that House Targaryen had been known for, and I wondered if this defeat hadn't snapped her hold on sanity. "My family built the Iron Throne. It is mine by right."

And then she launched into the usual spiel- how she revived her dragons from stone, how she didn't burn from fire, how she unified the Dothraki. It made sense, from a certain perspective, that there was a higher power at play in her life.

All of Daenery's accomplishments were an unbroken chain of lucky coincidences. Even one of them beggared belief. All of them together was nothing short of a miracle- and the presence of a miracle had convinced Daenerys that she was destined for greater things. That she was destined to rule; to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

"But what if," I cut in, voice soft and gentle. "You weren't meant for higher things but lower?"

**** eyes fixed themselves onto me. **** both for reassurance, but also for sense. Her beliefs had never been challenged like this. From the 'Sack of Astapor' to the 'Conquest of Mereen,' there had always been a way for her to win. Now with her dragons dead and armies slaughtered, there was no obvious route to victory and it looked like she would never see the Iron Throne.

Her world view had been proven wrong, and she was looking for something that would help the world make sense again. I would be happy to provide. "Have you ever heard the Ballad of Danny Flint?"

Daenerys glanced back at the carnage below before refocusing on me. I noted that she didn't let her eyes stray again. It seemed like she was willing herself to be distracted. "I assume it's a song."

I started singing- that was as good a confirmation as any. "Hear ye now, the sad lament of brave young Danny Flint, whose parents died of sickness when she was not but ten. So off young Danny went to live with her wicked uncle, who one night stole her maidenhead so into the night she went.

"Oh Danny Flint, you'll never escape the fate the gods have written, and life must seem the cruelest jape, oh brave young Danny Flint."

The Flint's were a house of nobles originating from a region of the North known as 'The Fingers.' Danny Flint had been a girl born into one of the branch families of that house. Once her parents died, she had been adopted by her Lord-Uncle who had been taken by her beauty. She rebuffed him, so he **** her.

Rather than endure his treatment, she did the only thing she could. She ran away from home and continued to run until she reached the end of the North where she could run no further. There, she found herself at The Wall.

The Wall was an enormous structure, standing over six-hundred feet. It was built to protect the civilized realms from the savages further north. The wall, an inanimate object, could be climbed or circumvented, and so an order was raised to man it.

The Night's Watch. A brotherhood sworn to celibacy. They would spend their lives freezing in the far north and in exchange, they would get food and board.

It was a fate that was arguably better than starving.

To Danny, it was a lifeline. The best option she had. And so she hid that she was a woman and joined a militant brotherhood.

The ruse even worked for a time, until three of her sworn-brothers came upon her bathing nude and discovered she was a woman. "They took her honor and then her life, but Danny made not a sound."

Danny had run a thousand miles away from home, but in the end, she couldn't outrun her fate. "Oh Danny Flint, you'll never escape, the fate the gods have written. And life must seem the cruelest jape, oh brave young Danny Flint."

"W-why?" My eyes had drifted closed while I sang my song. Snapping them open, I realized with a start that somewhere along my performance, Daenerys had started to cry. Tear tracts were visible on her face, made all the prominent by the fact that the rest of her face had smidgens of dirt on it. The tear tracts seemed bright in contrast. "Why would you tell me this?"

"Did you know, my queen, that the Faith of the Seven- the faith I was raised in and you were born in- doesn't believe in magic. Or at least, not in the way that the people of Essos seem to. In Westeros, we believe that magic is real but it can't change fate. My Septon told me that it's a bit like tossing a pebble in to a river. It might cause ripples, and the water may flow around it, but eventually, the water will go where it was meant to go."

I paused to think. "In this case, fate is the water and magic the pebble. Magic might cause a ripple and it might cause a few events to happen differently, but eventually, things will play out the way they were meant to and no action of man can change that."

"You'll never escape the fate the Gods have written," Daenerys echoed back. Her voice sounded empty. "So is this the fate the Gods have written for me?" Despite her best efforts, her eyes drifted back to her destroyed army.

"You've interpreted all those unlikely events in your life to mean that you were destined to be Queen, and yet they can be just as easily used to argue the opposite. Before you were born, your families three century-long rule came to an end. You were raised by a brother that didn't love you, and given as a whore to a Dothraki Khal that intended to breed you. That would have been your fate- had it not been for magic. Had it not been for Mirri Maz Duur."

The mention of the name drew a hiss from Daenerys. "I didn't ask her to use magic. I didn't ask for her to turn my child into a stillborn abomination, to render me infertile, or to kill my husband."

"Perhaps not, but it was her intervention that changed your life. Without her, you would still be Drogo's whore. Instead, you burned her in his funeral pyre and awoke three dragons through magic. And another pebble was cast and the river diverted further."

"My accomplishments weren't just magic. I outwitted the Wise Masters and tricked them into selling me the Unsullied. I conquered Astapor and freed every **** within the city."

"You did that," I acknowledged. "And the river corrected the flow. Once you left, Cleon the Butcher rose to power and declared himself king. He then re-enslaved every citizen within the city and went on to cause as much misery as the Wise Masters before him."

"I united the Dothraki and got them to cross the sea. They had never done that before."

"There are no more Dothraki in Westeros." I pointed to corpses littering the ground, "And after a disaster like this I doubt they will ever cross the sea again."

"I took Mereen."

"And did such a good job there that the slaves were begging to be put in chains again. I would be surprised if the slavers haven't taken back control again."

"Alright," the easy acceptance surprised me. "So all my accomplishments amounted to nothing in the end. All my titles- Breaker of Chains, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Mother of Dragons- all of those have come to waste." Her eyes fixated on me and I marveled at how hollow they looked. "What do I do with that information? Where do I go now? What is my destiny if not to be Queen?"

"To be a whore," the words slipped out of my mouth without my thinking, but I didn't take them back. Even if my words angered her, she no longer had her armies or her dragons. There was nothing she could do about it. "You were never meant to be anything else. It was the fate the gods had written for you."

My hand reached out to cup her cheek, gently lifting her head so that she was looking me in the eyes. "Do you remember who you used to be before the magic? Before Mirri Maz Duur? A shy, sweet girl. Subservient and beautiful. The perfect whore. That's the real you- and it's not too late to go back to that."

"Drogo is dead."

"It wasn't just Drogo you slept with. Who was that handmaiden of yours? Dorea?"

"Dorea," she confirmed. "She's dead too."

"You don't need either of them to be a whore. When you work for me, you'll be sleeping with plenty of people; men and women alike. It'll suit you better than ruling ever did."

It would. My magic would ensure that it would.

It had been working on her through our conversation. With the backdrop of her dead army, Daenerys had been as **** as I had hoped she would be. It gave me a chance to twist her into a more agreeable mindset.

She didn't resist when I leaned in to kiss her, nor when my hands started to slip beneath her dress. The only resistance I found was within myself.

Could a kiss be both hesitant and eager? If so, then mine was.

It occurred to me that while her adventures had come to an end, so had mine in a way. Daenerys Targaryen had been the last Queen I intended to claim. The last of three Queen's; along with Margaery and Cersei. She completed the collection- and the moment that I took her would be the end of the greatest journey of my life.

Even if I lived for another millennium and bedded a million women, I would never be able to exceed this accomplishment. Everything after this peak would reek of steady decline. It would be the ashes left behind by a brilliant fire.

One last time, I promised myself as I pulled back from our kiss. I would savor the greatest days of my life one last time. Then I would bring it to its conclusion by claiming the Mother of Dragons.

It had all started with a sad lament.

---

Notes: This story wasn't commissioned by anyone. I've been meaning to rewrite an old thread of mine for 'Magical Manipulations' for a while now, but never got around to it. I'm almost done with everything I owe my patrons for January, so this seemed like a great time to get started on the rewrite. I'm probably going to be updating it inconsistently because the story doesn't have any commissioners which would guarantee it a certain number of chapters per month.

The original version of this story can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/no-45947564. It's public, so you can read it without joining my patreon.

If you want to see this story updated consistently and get access to early drafts, join my patreon at patreon.com/malkuthze.

On another note, all characters in this story is over 18 and I'm crossposting this story to my hentai-foundry account under the same name.