"Follow me closely. And don't stare at anything too long."
I started walking, and they fell in behind me like shadows—one wary, one wandering.
Monday morning in Manhattan. You'd think people would be too buried in their phones and coffee cups to notice two impossibly beautiful women in ill-fitting borrowed clothes trailing a scruffy teenager through the crowd. You'd be wrong.
I caught the stares. The double-takes. The guy on his morning commute who literally walked into a lamppost because he was too busy gawking at Rhaenys. She didn't notice, of course. She was too busy gawking right back at everything else.
The buildings. The billboards. The endless river of taxis and buses. The sheer, overwhelming noise of the city.
Rhaenys walked with her face tilted up, lips slightly parted, like she was trying to drink the sky through her eyes. Every few seconds she'd stop to stare at something new—a glass skyscraper catching the morning light, a street vendor's cart, a guy on a Citibike weaving through traffic.
"These structures," she breathed. "They're so tall. And shiny. Like glass mountains."
"They're just buildings," I said.
"They're magnificent."
Visenya, meanwhile, walked like she was expecting an ambush. Her gaze flicked constantly—scanning faces, tracking movements, cataloguing threats. Her hand kept drifting to her hip, finding nothing, dropping back to her side. She hated it. I could see it in the set of her shoulders.
"Where are you taking us?" She asked
"Clothes shopping. Unless you want to keep wearing my hoodie forever?"
The look she gave me could have curdled milk. "Bring us there quickly."
"That's what I'm doing." I glanced back at Rhaenys, who was now transfixed by a Macy's window display. "Hey. Can you maybe rein in your sister? She's attracting a lot of attention."
Visenya grabbed Rhaenys's arm and pulled her close. "Enough. We are in enemy territory."
"But sister—" Rhaenys gestured helplessly at the city around them. "Look at all of this. These people, they walk without ever looking at each other. They carry tiny glowing windows in their hands. How can you not be amazed?"
"These are the products of ancient magic," Visenya said. "Dangerous magic. We must remain vigilant."
I actually laughed out loud. "How long are you going to keep that up? The 'ancient magic' thing?"
Her eyes slid to me. "As long as you have a head on your shoulders."
"That's the twentieth time you've threatened me today. I'm keeping count."
"Good. You should."
I shook my head, still smiling, and led them into the discount clothing store.
It wasn't much—fluorescent lights, linoleum floors, racks of budget-friendly fast fashion that probably fell apart after three washes. But it was cheap, and I knew the layout, and right now that was all that mattered.
"Girls' section is this way. Follow me."
I herded them past the accessories wall and the clearance rack, stopping in front of a display of dresses and blouses. Rhaenys's eyes went wide.
"What strange garments," she mumbled, reaching out to touch a floral-print sundress like it was made of dragon scales. "The fabric is so... light. And the colors."
"They're ridiculous," Visenya said. "Unworthy of Targaryens."
"Great. Well, there's no Targaryen clothing section here, and I don't think here they do custom orders for displaced dragon princesses, so you're just going to have to bear with it. Pick something."
She gave me that sharp gaze again. I took a pointed step backward.
Right. Shopping it was.
The next twenty minutes were... educational.
Visenya approached clothes shopping like she approached warfare: strategically, efficiently, with zero patience for frivolity. She grabbed pants that looked like they could handle combat. Jackets with plenty of pockets. Practical boots. Every item she selected got tossed onto the nearest rack—not placed, tossed, like she was marking territory.
Rhaenys, meanwhile, was having the time of her life.
She drifted through the aisles like a kid in a candy store, pulling out blouses and skirts and dresses, holding them up against herself, checking her reflection in every available mirror. Her smile got wider with each new discovery. At one point she found a rack of pastel cardigans and literally gasped.
I watched her pile garment after garment over her arm and felt my wallet quietly sob.
I should have said something. Should have told her to chill, to pick one or two things, to remember that I was a broke teenager with maybe three hundred dollars to my name.
But she looked so happy. So genuinely, innocently delighted by these cheap, mass-produced clothes.
So I said nothing.
What a simp I was…
"Do you need any help, ladies?"
The sales clerk materialized beside Visenya with the timing of a trained predator. Middle-aged woman, kind face, nametag reading 'LINDA.' Her smile was professional but her eyes were doing that thing—the double-take, the quick assessment, the dawning realization that these two customers were something else entirely.
Visenya turned on her like she was facing down a Dothraki bloodrider. "Who are you?"
Linda's smile froze.
"She works here," I said quickly. "She's just trying to help."
"I do not need help choosing garments."
"Right. Okay. That's fine." I turned to Rhaenys, who was examining a lace-trimmed camisole with an expression of pure wonder. "What about you?"
"I am fine as well." She smiled at Linda, warm and genuine.
Linda's professional composure flickered. "Are you... are you two celebrities? Models, maybe?"
"We are Princess—"
"No!" I lunged forward, inserting myself between Rhaenys and Linda with a smile so forced my face hurt. "No, they're not celebrities. They're just... visiting. From the countryside. Very isolated countryside. They're not used to, uh, stores. Or cities. Or modern society in general."
Linda looked at me. Looked at the two women in my too-big clothes with their too-bright eyes and too-perfect faces.
"I see," she said slowly.
She didn't see. But she walked away, which was good enough.
Twenty minutes. That's how long it took them to finish.
Twenty minutes of Visenya piling practical wear onto the counter and Rhaenys piling everything else. Twenty minutes of me watching the total climb higher and higher, doing frantic mental math, trying to calculate how many grocery shifts I'd need to cover this.
When they were finally done, I approached the register like a man approaching the gallows.
Linda rang everything up. Her expression shifted from curious to mildly sympathetic as the numbers accumulated.
"Will that be all?" She asked.
I looked at the mountain of clothes. At Visenya's impatient expression. At Rhaenys's hopeful smile.
"Yes," I said. "That's all."
"Your total comes to two hundred and twenty-three dollars."
My soul left my body.
Two hundred and twenty-three. More than a week's pay. More than my emergency fund. More than I'd spent on myself in the last three months combined.
I pulled out my cash, counted the bills twice, and handed them over like I was paying a ransom.
Visenya watched the transaction with detached interest. "I will give you gold when we return to Dragonstone."
"Sure," I said weakly. "Gold."
"For our conquest, you will be compensated fairly."
"Probably never, but okay."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing, Your Highness." I smiled at her, all teeth. "Just appreciating your generosity."
She narrowed her eyes but didn't press.
Linda handed me the bags—four of them, stuffed full—and gave me a look that clearly said I hope you know what you're doing.
I didn't. But I took the bags anyway.
We stepped back out into the city. The morning crowd had thinned slightly, but Manhattan was still Manhattan, loud and rushing and indifferent. I stood on the sidewalk with two dragon queens and two hundred and twenty-three dollars worth of haul and tried to figure out what came next.
Rhaenys was already reaching into one of the bags, pulling out a soft pink sweater and holding it up to the light.
"These colors are so gentle," she said. "In Westeros, we have reds and blacks and golds. Everything is meant to be seen from a distance, from dragonback. But these..." She ran her thumb over the fabric. "These are meant to be close."
I didn't know what to say to that.
Visenya was scanning the street again, her gaze tracking a police cruiser as it crawled past. "There are too many people here. Too many unknown variables. We need information about this world."
"Yeah," I said. "I know."
"Then where do we go next?"
I thought about it. My empty apartment. My dead laptop. My rapidly dwindling cash reserves.
"We need a plan," I said. "Somewhere to talk that isn't standing on a street corner." I looked around, spotted the familiar green mermaid sign half a block away. "You ever had coffee?"
"Coffee," Visenya repeated strangely.
"It's a drink. You'll either love it or hate it." I started walking. "Come on. My treat."
"Another expense you will be compensated for," Visenya said.
Likely never…
"I'm writing it all down. You're getting an itemized bill."
She frowned in response while Rhaenys laughed.