Pain! Burning pain!
A scorching agony like a sharp blade scraping against bone!
Beads of sweat the size of beans burst out on Daenerys's forehead. She almost couldn't help but scream and yank her hand back.
But she forcibly suppressed that instinctive impulse. Her palm kept clenching and unclenching around the elusive flames. Her motor nerves and muscles weren't burned through, and her slender, fair fingers didn't turn into charred chicken claws, blackened and dripping grease.
She had succeeded.
She had successfully inherited the former body's talent—the Unburnt.
"Fire is power." Daenerys endured the scorching pain and spoke softly.
She could continue with her plan now.
The former Daenerys had always known she had an extremely high resistance to heat, but she had never tried burning herself with fire—except that one time hatching the dragons, when she had been forced into a corner with no other choice. Her constitution resisted fire, yes, but she still felt pain equal to that of an ordinary person being burned.
"I'm not afraid of pain," Dany told herself now.
She buried her hand directly into the glowing red charcoal, as if roasting sweet potatoes, muttering "I'm not afraid of pain" over and over, hoping to hypnotize herself the way people count sheep.
Sweat soaked her hair, then dripped along the strands onto the pillow and woolen blanket.
Half-asleep, she roasted herself for most of the night. She licked her parched lips, withdrew her "charcoal-grilled jade hand," and pushed at Irri, who had rolled halfway off the bed like a dead pig—her blanket was spread on the floor near the campfire, but it was too hot, so Irri had unconsciously rolled away from the flames.
"Khaleesi?" Irri slept deeply but woke quickly—good material for a handmaid.
"Help me get some water," Daenerys said hoarsely.
"Do you want me to fetch it from the river?" Irri hesitated.
Daenerys froze for a moment before understanding. The Dothraki rarely stored water and had no habit of drinking plain water; tea was even more unheard of. "Forget it. Bring me two bags of mare's milk instead."
The Dothraki rarely drank water. As nomads who roamed constantly, they had no fixed, safe water sources. Every time they drank raw water, it was a gamble with death. If conditions allowed, they preferred milk or fermented mare's milk to quench their thirst.
In Earth's medieval times, European nobles who had never seen tea often used low-alcohol wine to slake their thirst as well, because raw water contained bacteria.
And to the Dothraki, mare's milk was no more precious than safe drinking water.
(ps: For example, in Europe and America, supermarket milk is sometimes cheaper than bottled mineral water.)
"Glug, glug." After downing nearly a liter of mare's milk with its strong horsey smell, Daenerys felt reborn—comforted to the extreme.
"Irri, add a few more bundles of firewood," she said, lying back on the pillow and pointing at the pile of logs in the corner.
"Khaleesi, your hair is soaked with sweat. Isn't it too hot?" Irri asked hesitantly.
"It's fine. Sweating it out makes the whole body feel good," Daenerys waved it off.
Watching the flames begin to lick at the tower-shaped pile of firewood, Dany felt happy. In a burst of kindness, she gave Irri an extra blanket and let her find a more comfortable spot to make her bed.
Once Irri had fallen asleep, she simply lay sideways on the woolen blanket herself, resting her two slender, fair little feet directly on the firewood pile.
When she first put them there, the flames scorched her so badly she kept hissing through her teeth. Before long, though, she drifted off into a hazy sleep.
In her dream, Daenerys arrived at a strange place. Four pillars of fire stood around her, and between heaven and earth stretched an ocean of flames. She wandered within it, in pain yet in joy. After an unknown amount of time, a black shadow covered the sky above her head.
She looked up—and was stunned.
A colossal black-scaled dragon stared down at her with eyes like molten lava pools. Its body was unimaginably vast: a mountain-like head, eyes the size of swimming pools, wings spread wide enough to blot out the sky.
Unlike the former Daenerys, who passively received dragon dreams and always felt uneasy around dragon eggs, this Daenerys was more mature in thought and far more purposeful in action.
She kept the dragon eggs pressed against her skin and constantly roasted herself with fire. Besides training her adaptability to flames, she had an even more important goal—
—to achieve soul resonance with the dragons.
She wanted to be. She had to be the Mother of Dragons!
After transmigrating into this damn world, surviving without dragons was nearly impossible!
So after only a brief moment of shock, she spread her arms wide in an embrace and shamelessly shouted with delight, "Are you the black dragon? I'm your mother! You must remember me, stay in contact with me every day, and hurry up and give me all the benefits I don't know about yet. Oh right—where are your brothers? The white dragon and the green dragon, where are they?"
"Boom—!"
The black dragon opened its mouth wide enough for a horse-drawn carriage to pass through. Blood-red flames mixed with thick black smoke shot forth, completely engulfing Daenerys below.
She felt her skin char and blacken, necrotic flesh peeling off in chunks, the blood in her veins boiling and evaporating. Yet it was completely different from the pain of burning herself with firewood—there was no pain at all. Instead, it felt like being cleansed, being tempered.
She felt her body grow strong and solid, as if newly reborn.
At the same time, strange information appeared in her sea of consciousness—information about the Mother of Dragons talent. There were roughly three parts:
1. Unburnt: Ordinary flames may cause varying degrees of burning pain, but fire is the companion of the Mother of Dragons. It will not harm her body. 2. Hatching Dragons: By infusing dragon eggs with fierce flames and spiritual essence, even fossilized dragon eggs that retain their soul origin, dead dragon eggs, or healthy dragon eggs can hatch into young dragons. 3. Dragon Dream: The Mother of Dragons and her dragons are two parts of a single whole. Their souls can merge seamlessly. In an unconscious state (during sleep), she can resonate with dragons on a soul level. (ps)
"Only at this moment have I become a complete Daenerys Targaryen."
After that thought, Dany drifted into sleep.
The next morning, she was awakened by Irri's cry of alarm.
"Khaleesi, Khaleesi! Are you alright? It's all my fault for sleeping so deeply last night—I didn't hear your cries for help at all. Wuwuwu…"
Seeing Daenerys's legs buried in ashes, the Dothraki girl was so frightened she burst into tears.
"Uh…" After a moment of confusion, Dany fully woke up. She quickly lifted her legs toward the girl.
Fair, delicate skin—aside from being coated in soot-black stains, it was still soft and springy, plump and tender.
"What's going on?" Irri exclaimed in shock.
"I am Targaryen of Stormborn, of true dragon blood," Dany said with a straight face, utterly serious.
"But your brother…" Irri pouted, mentioning the 'true dragon' Viserys who had been burned to death by molten gold.
"You'll understand in the future. Help me change my clothes."
(ps: I can't fit this into the author's notes section anymore. This is a public chapter and free, so I won't open a separate author's note chapter. If we enter paid chapters later, I won't put ps content into the main text. Thanks for your understanding.
As for Daenerys's Mother of Dragons talents, they aren't exaggerated—most are derived from summaries and conjectures based on A Song of Ice and Fire. The hatching skill includes some personal speculation.
There's no need to mention "Unburnt." Dany lay buried in a fire pile all night without a single problem, and during the Meereen turmoil, when Drogon's dragonflame washed over her face, she only got a tiny blister.
Dragonfire is far stronger than wildfire!
According to Martin's setting—spoken by fire priests: earth fire, dragonfire, and heavenly fire (the sun) are all stronger than wildfire.
"Hatching Dragons" will be discussed again later when Daenerys hatches the dragons in the book. The last is "Dragon Dream."
Like the Stark family's wolf dreams, Daenerys's "dragon dreams" appeared many times. She was just muddle-headed and passively received them. Though dragon dreams helped her countless times, she never actively developed this ability.
Based on Bran's awakening process as a greenseer, skinchangers, wolf spirits, and wolf dreams can all be actively developed, gradually strengthened, and eventually fully mastered.
Yes—both Bran and Jon can use wolf dreams to investigate the situation of siblings thousands of miles away. Jon's wolf-spirit talent even made the "sixskins" Varamyr wary. Unfortunately, Jon neither developed nor valued it, even deliberately avoiding his instincts.
How strong was Varamyr Sixskins?
He could possess a human body while on the brink of death.
That's right—true possession. Absurdly overpowered.
Jon's talent was even stronger than Varamyr's.
Aside from Bran, awakened Jon and Arya were the same as Daenerys—they never actively developed their abilities. Of course, that was also because no one taught them. Bran was lucky enough to consecutively meet Jojen and the greenseer as teachers.
Oh, and Rickon Stark—because he was young, fearless at heart, or simply more pure in mind—seemed to constantly try merging with his direwolf. His wolf-spirit and wolf-dream abilities were actually more mature and powerful than those of his older siblings.
In short, even though this flop author gave Daenerys a cheat, and she'll definitely be stronger than the original Daenerys in the future, all her powers are traceable within the original canon. They won't be excessively inflated, nor will they surpass the limits of the world's power system.)
(End of Chapter)