The King felt foolish. He had been trapped in a room days after spending not even a full one talking to the queen of a distant yet large island that was his territory. He misjudged the situation, obviously. Tyrion was right, yet again. How well did he really expect it to go?
The knock on his door brought him out of his borderline self abusing thoughts. "Queen Andromeda requests that you spend dinner with her."
His brows raised. "She's allowing me to eat dinner with her?"
"You're not her prisoner, and she is not a patient woman." This wasn't the first time Jon had heard this being said about her, so he sat up from the particularly soft bed and walked to the door, swinging it open. He looked at the guard expectantly before the man rolled his eyes casually. "What?" The show of disrespect barely affected Jon.
"Aren't you going to ask me to leave my weapon here?" Jon asked curiously. He had wondered why they hadn't told him to do so when they first met, but that was a trivial matter compared to the ones that they were supposed to discuss.
He only laughed at the Westerosi man. "Not at all. She could fry you with the blink of her eye. No swordsman is that quick." Jon swallowed, and said nothing more.
He was the last of his friends to show up, and surprisingly, they didn't look miserable. Tyrion actually had a smile on his face as he watched the Queen talk, Gendry looked not nearly as afraid of her as before, and Davos was grinning from ear to ear. Once he got closer, he realized she was talking about Dorne.
"Dorne was tough, but I learned a great deal from my kin. My cousins, the Sand Sisters, taught me how to fight. As well as my uncle, Oberon Martell." Tyrion looked around the table, his eyes slightly wide as he waited for her to piece it together. "I know he died in a trial by combat for you. I was supposed to be coming with him, we were supposed to be getting our revenge together." She smiled bitterly. "That's in the past now. You didn't force him to sign up."
"Thank you, for being kind about things." Tyrion said, trying not to sigh from relief.
"Your Grace?" Gendry asked, cringing when he referred to her as such. Jon was his king, so it would always be hard to call someone else as such. "I would like to thank you for not killing me when I came here. We were hoping to mend things by coming here between our families, and I was hoping that your intelligence would show you that we aren't our ancestors, and that at the time, I was just as much a Baratheon as you are a Greyjoy."
"Yes, I understand. I had to take a moment to myself, and then I understood." She smiled. "You are not your uncle or your father. Tyrion is not the Lannister men that occupied my homeland. And Jon Targaryen is not the Targaryen that conquered my land the first time."
"That's very kind of you to consider that, Lady Andromeda." Tyrion said, eyeing Gendry for calling her a queen.
"I suppose we were going to have to talk about that sooner or later." She sighed. She stood up and walked to Ramona, who was doing god knows what in the corner. They spoke about something for a second, with Ramona furiously shaking her head and Andromeda's hand movements wide and exaggerated. Finally, their secret chatter stopped and the Night Queen turned around. "I have decided that you all will stay here for two weeks, and then you are to decide if I am fit to be my own nation. I am, but clearly not officially to Westeros."
"Two weeks?" Jon spoke up, before he even took a seat. "Lady Andromeda, two weeks is a very long time."
"If you'd only call me by my correct title, you could be gone in a lot less time." She retorted, getting a smirk out of Tyrion, who was certainly liking this queen. She was smart, and he admired that. "That's all I ask of you. Now sit, and eat." Jon felt obligated to sit and eat. Something about her just told him something special, and he felt like he almost couldn't go against what she said. Whether it be from fear, he knew it was there.
Jon looked at the food on the table. There was all types of colors, colors that he had never seen in the North. But at the foot of the table, in the last empty chair, sat a bowl full of porridge. It was comfort food, food of the North. He looked at her from across the table as she watched him sit, sitting at the head of the table in a chair that was slightly higher than the rest. "Food from the North," He said, slowly picking up his spoon.
"You grew up as a Stark of Winterfell, I supposed you would like comfort food. That is the least I can do for you here, King Jon." She responded, while eating her own food. It was a Dornish fruit that she was gracefully picking at, her own version of comfort food. "I can assume it's rather cold now." She mumbled.
His brows raised. "I thank you for your hospitality, My Lady."
The rest of the meal went smoothly, mostly with Jon watching as the rest of them talked across the table, watching the dark haired woman who declared herself Queen eat and drink. He thought she was gorgeous. The power radiated off of her, as did her strength. Her eyes were cruel and kind, the sort of eyes that could tell you which version of her you would get in that instant. Her brows were thick and black, her lashes long. Her lips looked soft and sweet, not unlike her voice. If only she sang, Jon thought to himself, it may be the sweetest song in the world.
He barely noticed everyone else standing and excusing themselves after they finished their meals, and he had barely touched his own. Soon, it was only Ramona and Tyrion left, Tyrion lingering to walk his King back to his guest chamber or discuss politics, and Ramona was always on standby for her Queen.
"Ramona, Lord Tyrion." The young star said, her eyes bouncing to them before they landed on Jon. "I would like to speak to the King of Westeros in private."
Ramona nodded her head, and Jon noticed that the two certainly did not act like queen and hand. Tyrion, on the other hand, looked to Jon skeptically, worried for him. He was more scared of Jon offending the young woman rather than her randomly lashing out. Jon raised his brows slightly and tilted his head to the door, his hand twitching for his blade.
"Jon Snow is what you were called first?" Were her first private words to him. "I have had a chance to speak privately to all but you. You haven't been walking around the castle or coming to dinner." I didn't know I was allowed out, he thought to himself.
"Yes, it is." He confirmed, trying not to look at her, for he would make a fool of himself.
"Forgive me, I am not very well immersed in Westeros's politics or history." She cracked a sweet smile. "But you are a Stark and Targaryen, son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen?"
"I am," he answered simply. "I go by Targaryen, seeing that I am the last one. But I am a Stark, and I have always been. And Ned Stark was my father."
"Ned Stark." She parroted. "Eddard Stark was an honorable man, so honorable that his purity and honesty spreads even to the islands."
"Thank you, Lady Andromeda." He missed the tick in her jaw.
"And if he is your father, I can trust that you are as honorable as him."
"We are not our fathers." He automatically said, the saying deep inside of him, coming back to him after what had happened back in Kings Landing. The saying had been said to him from a number of people, all trying to plead their case about one woman.
"Some aren't." She said. "Some are their mothers." Jon smiled at her, a real smile. "But I am my father's daughter. I look like him, I speak like him, I hold myself like him. The only thing I think I inherited from my mother is the throne of Ilta and the powers that come with being Queen."
"Thats not the worst thing to inherit." He said rather insensitively, but she paid no mind to it. She was told that Jon Targaryen could be insensitive, as well as all of the people in the North. They were said to be as honest and harsh and the bitingly cold winds of Winterfell and even north of that.
"Yes, but if I am my father's daughter, and Daenerys Targaryen ultimately turned out to be her father's daughter," she ignored the tension that suddenly wrapped around every muscle in his body. "Then there is a large chance that you are your father's son. And even if we speak of Rhaegar, he wasn't a bad man, just impulsive."
"And you aren't impulsive?"
She shook her head elegantly. "Not at all."
"You heard that the Lannisters had your island and you married to go fight for it." He snapped lightly, trying to rub off some of the sting he received onto her. Daenerys was still an extremely touchy subject, and hardly anyone really spoke about it unless they wanted a near fit from him.
"I hardly call hiding for my life in Dorne is impulsive." She said, her tone testy. "I was destined to rule Ilta, and no matter how long it took me to get back here, I would return home. For my family."
Jon nodded, understanding her. They sat in silence for a few minutes, just looking at each other. Their eyes watched each other, from their movements to the way their irises were colored. He was entranced by her, and she would never show that she thought he was attractive, not in the slightest if she could help it. "I truly am sorry for what happened to your family. Lord Gendry is sorry as well. None of us can imagine the trauma you went through."
"The trauma I go through," she corrected lightly, as if she had no care in the world about the traumas. "And I wouldn't wish upon anyone to understand it, and if you imagine it willingly, you are a masochist."
He looked at her and looked away once her intense brown eyes were back. "Yes, of course." He responded awkwardly.
"I've heard a lot about the Starks. You don't seem bad at all for a Westerosi man, though I am still skeptical. You are the King, yet I know you the least."
"I'm sorry for that," He said honestly. "I wasn't aware that I could leave my room." She simply hummed at him, not looking away for even an instant. Jon cleared his throat, his sight leaving her momentarily. "Your beauty has reached even the Northernmost part of Westeros." It was something similar that Daenerys had said to Sansa, and it seemed to make her a little less weary of the Targaryen woman.
"Oh, has it?" She drank some of her drink, raising her brows. She honestly doubted that, with her whole heart. She was certainly not ugly and she knew that, but she also knew that she had never been past Dorne, and that there was no way anyone was looking for a suitor in her just yet. They probably all thought she was still married to Camorra, the little monster. "How interesting."
"Yes," he responded lamely, in an attempt that Sansa would certainly be upset with.
"I'm not shocked, though." Jon's brow raised. He didn't take her to be a conceited woman, but with her achievements and the way she looked, she deserved to be. "I'm half siren."
His eyes bulged. If Tyrion didn't tell him that she was a siren, that meant he didn't know. And if Tyrion didn't know, that meant that it probably was never documented. "Siren?" That would explain a lot. The way he was drawn to her, the way she seemed to be so attractive, the way she seemed to be so delicate and perfect. He hadn't known sirens were real, but he was sure that it was her if there were any.
"Vela's are all half siren." Her tone was somewhat condescending, but her facial expression had her tone beat in that category. He stared blatantly for a few more seconds before she cracked a smile. "I'm only playing," She laughed. "I'm not half siren. But my father used to call me one." She said, and looked at her hands, something her mother had always told her was unladylike to do. But her hands reminded her of her father.
He exhaled. "W-why did he call you that?"
She abruptly pushed her chair out, as if she realized that she herself had brought on a subject that she wasn't too keen on talking about. Her chair made a loud noise and she began muttering. "Because I used to sing all the time, that's why."
He didn't take the hint. "You don't sing anymore?"
Her eyes were sad again, sad brown eyes accompanied with a beautiful and stony face, a look carved with the help of the old gods and the new. She couldn't sing anymore, not when it reminded her of the life she had, of the life she had been dreaming of since she lost it. "No, I don't sing anymore."
*****
sorry if there are typos, this is extremely unedited oops!!