Being a handmaiden to Daenerys Targayen is not an honor, not when her other handmaidens are slaves gifted to her by her Dothraki husband. But Margaery is lucky Daenerys chose to grant her pleas for mercy and so she performs her new duties without showing her resentment. It is a great humiliation to go from being a queen herself to waiting hand and foot on the new queen.

Yet her life quickly shapes itself into a matter of routine. Her day starts early. She and the two Dothraki girls rise with the sun and tend to themselves quickly. Then one of them wakes the queen, another lays out her clothing for the day, and Margaery fetches her breakfast and serves it to her. At least two of them are always by her side throughout the day, caring for her needs.

Margaery is able to witness the queen presiding over her court and attending meetings of the Small Council, and she understands more than the Dothraki girls, who speak very little of the Common Tongue. But she is lonely despite this. The ex-slavegirls have been with Daenerys for the hatching of her dragons and her conquests, and she converses with them easily in the Dothraki language. Margaery does not know what they say to each other, although she can tell by the way they look at her sometimes that they laugh at her expense.

One evening, after a day filled with ravens bearing bad tidings and arguments with her councillors, Daenerys decrees that Margaery will share her bed that night. Margaery has not shared a bed with the new queen before and she has no reason to suspect that Daenerys wants anything but the comfort of a warm body beside her. Not until Daenerys kisses her.

It is not the usual sort of first kiss, which are usually hesitant. Daenerys kisses her hard, because Daenerys does not have to question whether her kiss will be welcome and whether it will be deemed pleasing. Daenerys kisses her with the surety that Margaery belongs to her. Margaery has never been kissed with such possession before, but before she was a queen kissing women of lesser rank. Now she is the woman of low rank being claimed by a queen.

The queen always sleep nude so tonight Margaery had not worn a bed gown. There is no clothing to get in the way of Daenerys pressing their bodies together tightly. Her skin feels afire. Daenerys guides her head to her chest and Margaery obeys the unspoken command. She takes one nipple into her mouth and takes the other between her fingertips. She suckles and pinches until Daenerys is moaning.

She does not wait to be ordered to do what she knows Daenerys wants her to do next. She puts her face between the queen’s legs and sets to pleasing her. Daenerys moans louder. “You’ve done this before,” she says.

“I have, Your Grace,” Margaery replies, before returning her tongue to better use.

The queen’s thighs clamp around her head, holding her trapped in place. If she were any other woman, Margaery would grab her thighs and hold them down on the bed while she feasted on her. But she is a servant of Daenerys so she accepts the claustrophobic embrace of her thighs.

Daenerys releases her only after she has had release of her own. She breathes hard and tugs Margaery up until Margaery is lying atop her. Daenerys wraps her arms around her tight, still breathing hard. “That was wonderful,” the queen says. “You will pleasure me again, with your fingers this time.”

There is nothing for Margaery to do but slide her fingers into Daenerys and begin frigging her. The queen cries out for more and all Margaery has to give her is another finger and then another. Daenerys takes half her hand and bucks her hips wildly. Margaery cannot remember bedding a woman so passionate.

Daenerys does not stop after orgasm. She urges Margaery to keep going. Margaery’s muscles are tiring and she needs a drink of water, but she is mindful of the place she occupies in the world now. The queen’s needs must be met before anything else. She frigs Daenerys until Daenerys screams words in a language she doesn’t understand and shudders violently.

Daenerys seems satisfied for the time-being, so Margaery lies beside her. She knows better than to expect the queen to see to her desires, but she’s wondering if she will mind if Margaery masturbates when Daenerys breaks the silence. “This will be one of your duties from now,” she decrees.

Sure enough, it becomes a matter of routine using her mouth and fingers to pleasure the queen. She is no better than the bedwarmers kept by some lords. Margaery knows she ought to be humiliated, but she doesn’t mind her intimate duties in the least. Daenerys is a very beautiful woman. The most beautiful woman in the world, it is said. Pleasuring her is no hardship.

It is, however, rather frustrating. Margaery has to wait until the queen is sated and asleep before discreetly bringing herself off. But sometimes she is too tired and unable to stay awake until the queen falls asleep, and she has to sleep the restless sleep of the frustrated.

One night she can take it no more. She needs relief badly. “Your Grace, would it offend you if I pleasured myself? Your taste has roused me so.”

Daenerys looks at her and smiles, and Margaery realizes that leaving her unsatisfied these past weeks was an intentional cruelty. “I will permit you to pleasure yourself in a manner of my choosing,” the queen replies. “Pass me that candle.”

Margaery grabs the unlit candle and hands it to Daenerys. Daenerys presses her legs together and sticks the candle between the very top of her thighs. The candle stands out in an imitation of a cock. “Pleasure yourself upon this,” Daenerys commands.

Margaery straddles the queen and slowly lowers herself onto the candle. It penetrates her deeper than any woman’s fingers have ever reached, and she gasps. She figures out how to ease herself up and down, how to ride this thing the way the queen wants her to.

Daenerys looks up at her with such desire and pleasure, it almost seems like the candle is a part of the queen’s body, like she can feel the rise and fall of Margaery’s hips and the tight clench of her womanhood. Time passes slowly and tortuously for Margaery. She needs more stimulation, but when she attempts to touch herself-

“No,” Daenerys commands.

Her need for more is so strong, she’s almost ready to cry. “Please, Your Grace. Mercy, please.”

Her begging makes Daenerys smile. But the queen is not in a mood to grant mercy, not this time. “My mind is made.”

Margaery can’t help the frustrated whimper that escapes her. It is going to be a very long night.