Arthur woke before dawn. He lay still for a moment, listening to the quiet of the room. His back felt stiff, particularly around his shoulders, where the unfamiliar weight of his wings had made sleeping uncomfortable. He tried turning onto his side, then stopped when something pulled beneath his shoulder blades. Carefully, he shifted until the discomfort eased. His wings remained folded against his back. He could feel them, like a numb hand, present but strangely distant. Still, they were something that belonged to him. There were muscles beneath the surface, muscles he could feel tightening and relaxing whenever he moved. He concentrated on them and tried contracting them deliberately. They responded to him. He tried again, a little harder, and felt the muscles move beneath the skin. It was an extraordinary sensation. He had never possessed these muscles before, yet somehow he knew how to use them.
He pushed himself upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His body felt strange, too. Lanky. Long. His arms and legs seemed to have gained a little more reach, and his proportions were different from what he remembered. He placed his feet on the floor and stood.
Arthur raised his hands, holding them out slightly as he found his balance. His wings remained folded. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, testing the unfamiliar feeling of standing in this body. He took a step, then another. His movements felt surprisingly natural. The wings moved with him, following the small adjustments of his body as though they had always been there.
A smile spread across his face.
He took another step, then another, his hands still raised. A laugh began to build in his chest. He tried to contain it, but couldn't. It escaped him, and soon he was smiling so broadly that his cheeks hurt.
He was walking. It was such a simple thing, and yet it felt wonderful.
He pushed open the door and stepped into the passage. A Dothraki guard lay sleeping against the wall. Arthur glanced at him, then continued, careful not to disturb him. The passage led towards the compound, and beyond it lay the dark streets of Vaes Tolorro.
He stepped outside. The night air touched his face. He paused, looking about the empty compound, and then the laughter came again. He bent forward, hands resting on his thighs, laughing harder than he had any reason to. It was almost hysterical. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this way.
When he finally straightened, he looked down at his bare feet. They pressed into the soil beneath him. He wiggled his toes, feeling the earth between them.
He wasn't accustomed to this body. He didn't know its limits or its proportions. He didn't even know how much strength he could put behind an ordinary movement. Every sensible instinct told him to take things slowly.
He ignored them.
He took a massive stride, then another. His pace quickened. At first, his attempt at running was awkward. His long limbs carried him forward with the uncertain rhythm of a battered old Toyota struggling to keep running. He stumbled, caught himself and kept going. His next few steps came more naturally. His body seemed to find a rhythm before he had time to think about it.
He ran faster.
The broken streets passed around him. Scattered stones and fallen walls emerged from the darkness, remnants of houses that had once stood where he now ran. He spotted a pile of rubble ahead and leapt over it. His feet cleared the stones, though he landed harder than he expected. He stumbled forward, rolled across the ground and came back up on his feet.
He laughed again. It was ridiculous. He knew that. A grown man running through the ruins before sunrise, laughing like a child who had just discovered the world. But he couldn't bring himself to care.
He continued until he reached the garden. He recognised it from the previous day, the place where he had spoken with Daenerys. Beyond the low fence stood several small trees, their leaves stirring faintly in the night air. There were cultivated patches of green between them. He looked at the garden more carefully. This must have been where much of their food came from. He remembered seeing women tending the plants earlier.
Against the faded brown of the surrounding ruins, the garden seemed almost unreal. The green stood out against the dust and broken stone, a little island of life in the middle of all that ruin. It was like an oasis.
Arthur wandered closer. He looked at the trees, then down at the soil, and pressed his bare toes into it. The soil felt chilling beneath his feet, colder than before.
"Hello, Aegon."
Arthur turned. Daenerys stood a short distance away, dressed in a sleeveless top and loose Dothraki shorts. She held a wooden cup in one hand. The pale liquid inside looked like milk. Horse milk, perhaps. He wasn't sure.
"Daenerys?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Who else did you expect? Jorah?"
She tossed a piece of fruit towards his head. "Here. Have this."
Arthur caught it one-handed, his arm rising almost before he had registered the movement.
"Oh. You did catch it. I was worried I'd thrown it too quickly."
He looked at the fruit in his hand, then back at her. "I'm surprised too."
He turned it over, examining it. "My motor control seems to be improving. It must have been all that running."
He said it partly to her and partly to himself. The words had escaped before he could think better of them.
He took a large, messy bite. Juice ran down his chin, and he barely noticed. His attention had already wandered back towards the trees and the ruined buildings beyond the garden.
Daenerys watched him. "It is very early, yet here you are running about."
Arthur glanced at her. "I didn't know you had such habits, too."
"I do not make a habit of wandering about before the sun rises."
"No, I just had a moment." He hurried to explain himself. "I woke up, started walking, and then it happened."
He took another bite of the fruit. "Why are you out here?"
"Is that not something a ruler must do? Wake before everyone else?" Daenerys asked, looking at him.
Arthur gave her a questioning look. "I wasn't expecting to find you out here either."
"I was inspecting the crops."
"Before the new day?" he asked.
"Yes."
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "All right. All right."
He let the subject rest. There was something in her answer that suggested she did not wish to talk about it further.
"Have you thought about what you plan to do?"
Daenerys looked at him.
"Your campaign," he continued. "How will you do it? Save us, restore your family's legacy and such?"
She lowered her eyes to the cup in her hands. "I do not know," she said. "I have thought about it, but how does one even begin? I suppose I must take it one step at a time."
Arthur nodded. "I apologise, I should not have been so direct. You shouldn't have everything figured out."
She looked up at him again. "You think I will find a way?"
"You have dragons."
Daenerys glanced at him, but said nothing.
"I'm going to try and learn the ways people fight here," he continued. "Not just the Dothraki, but your knights and others. I need to understand how things work here and figure out how to be useful."
"You do not know how to fight?"
"I do. It's just a different kind of fighting. We don't use swords and things."
"What do you use?"
"Something else. It's complicated." He gave her a small smile. "Don't worry about it."
For a little while, neither spoke. The garden was quiet around them, and the darkness beyond the walls was beginning to soften.
"You should go back to sleep," Arthur said.
Daenerys looked at him suspiciously. "And what will you do?"
"I will sleep as well."
She held his gaze for a moment, apparently unconvinced, but did not challenge him.
"Then it was nice talking to you, Aegon."
"Yes, you too, Daenerys."
She turned and walked away, carrying her wooden cup. Arthur watched her go. When she had disappeared from sight, he looked back towards the garden, his hand moving to take another bite of the fruit.