Author's Note: An idea I got from a throwaway comment I read comparing Daenerys to Robespierre - a poor comparison in many ways, but it gave me an idea. What if she actually did come across the ideas/ideals of the French Revolution somehow - how would she apply those as she moved forward? Though this'll go to a closer understanding of the actual ideas of the revolution instead of just the bloodthirsty guillotine/tyranny that is the superficial/flawed view of their ideas.

Though the guillotine will have a role.

OOO-OOO

Qarth, the ancient. Qarth, the beautiful. Qarth, the center of the world.

Daenerys had come to this ancient city expecting those tales to be exaggerated, for it to be just another grand city – but just one among peers. She'd grown up in the great free cities of Essos, after all – what more could any city have to offer that Pentos, Myr, Volantis, and especially Braavos couldn't?

Qarth.

The Republic was widely known to be prosperous, insular, and arrogant – but that paled in comparison to what Daenerys discovered. The first thought she had, far before her small khalasar and guides had approached the massive city walls, was of strange abundance. For leagues previously, there had been nothing but desert and arid grasslands – until, as was noted by the Republic's guides, they'd entered the territory of Qarth.

There the desert bloomed. Fields upon fields of lush, incredibly productive irrigated fields stretched to the horizons as far as she could see. Exotic trees and plants were everywhere, and even the path they rode on had become a wide, perfectly paved road.

As the hours passed into days, days passed into weeks, and weeks turned into months, spent within the mother of all cities – Daenerys learned that, truly, Qarth was deserving of its easy sense of superiority. Every city she'd ever seen before shared some factors – beauty, yes, but also death, exploitation, hunger, poverty, garbage. She'd spot them briefly, able to catch glimpses of their existence, of the thousands of slaves or underclass toiling in the dirt for a hope to survive – the rotting underclass upon which the Illiryo Mopatis' of the world rested their wondrous mansions upon.

Qarth did not have those. Her hosts had shown her the bread lines, where citizens waited every day for the bread dole – regardless of their work or age, none went hungry in the republic. She witnessed the campaigning for the council's election, a strange concept of popular decision making – and peaceful change of power, at that! In every respect, she found Qarth outshone every city she'd seen before, every society. It was more wondrous even than the tales her brother had spun of their return to Westeros, of the just rule that the Targaryens had held.

And so Daenerys spent the weeks, months, learning why, how Quarth had achieved this. She'd head to the great library of the city, a dragon on her shoulder – and let fascinated scholars and researchers examine her child, while the works of the ancient founders of the republic were brought out to her. Tome after tome of compiled political thought, theories, speeches, all from some of the brightest minds of the entire history of Qarth – focusing on answering her burning curiosity.

She knew that she would be happy, living in Qarth. But she absorbed the theories of Ras Soul and his general will, of Egorg Xanton, the charismatic ogre whose calls to action had galvanized the early days of the founding of Qarth, and of Xobess Xhire, the incorruptible, untiring defender of the people. And as she read, and learned, and read some more - one thing became clear to her.

Daenerys Stormborn could not stand by idly in Qarth, enjoying paradise, while she knew that thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions were wallowing in squalor, poverty, powerlessness outside these walls. That was not just. That was not virtuous. That was not right. She could not stand by.

And now armed with the ways of thinking and speaking to articulate it, she would help the world save itself.

OOO-OOO

It was a hot, late summer day when Daenerys' small group of followers stood on the bow of a small galley, or below its decks – packed into a single one, their numbers so few. She was watching the city of Qarth recede into the distance – doubt at what she was about to do running through her mind. How could a single young woman of 20, no matter her determination, upend the entire order of an entire continent?

Her thoughts were answered with a distant roar, and she smiled at the sight of her dragons playing happily in the air above the ship. They were growing so fast, so free – and so powerful, soon enough. How could she not trust in herself, when proof of the infinite possibilities of the world flew around her?

"Where will we go, khaleesi?" Jorah Mormont's voice at her side broke her reverie, and she turned towards him with a smile.

"Not khaleesi, Jorah. Daenerys – just Daenerys." She'd already told him that in Qarth, yet there was still a hint of surprise in his eyes.

"Was that not just for the Qartheen then, kha… Daenerys?" He asked after a moment, and she nodded in response – then she deliberately turned, looking towards where the ship is sailing. "What about your throne?" Again, Jorah interjected, and she shook her head softly.

"It'd be tyranny, Jorah, I've learned that now. Twenty years of Baratheon rule, three centuries of Targaryen rule, centuries more of Stark, Greyjoy, Gardener, and innumerable other lords throughout the seven kingdoms, and for what?" Her voice grew more distant, as she stared out over the horizon – as though she could fly like her dragons, see past into the lands she had been born.

"Has any of that done anything for the people, Jorah, except for pain? Except for suffering? Except for exploitation? There may not be any slaves in Westeros, are those subjugated beneath a king, queen, lord any more free for that? How can I justify becoming a queen, when there has not been a single good, just ruler in our entire history?"

Jorah paused for a moment, contemplating his answer at her side, and Daenerys let him. He was a product of his life, of course – these realizations would be hard to accept, especially for those who'd been born into that position of instinctive power.

"There have been good kings, Daenerys." He started cautiously. "Jaehaerys ruled, for 50 long, good years, and the people prospered."

She smiled. "And then he died, and the system remained. A system which would see wars of succession, that would let a poor, crazed, or incapable king on the throne. Tell me, Jorah, who is then to blame more for the failure of a weak king – that unfortunate individual, or the great, mighty ruler two generations back, who created and continued the system that bound the weak ruler?"

She looked back at him, gaze meeting his. "If I took the throne, I would rule. Perhaps well, perhaps poorly. Perhaps it would go well for ten, twenty, fifty years. But eventually a bad ruler would return, and the blood of the common folk will flow once again for the sake of … tyranny. No, Jorah – I will not rule."

"But you will need an army." She nodded in answer.

"Yes. And that is why we go first to Astapor."

OOO-OOO

Dany turned the whip in her hand. Such a light thing, a handle of black dragonbone, intricately carved and inlaid with gold, a harpy forming the pommel. Yet for all the value its materials and craftsmanship held, it was nothing compared to the disgusting symbol of ownership it represented.

"It is done, then?" She asked coldly, watching Kraznys struggle with the chain attached to Drogon as he answered affirmatively. The dragon did not wish to follow him – and she smiled.

Daenerys spurred her grey mare forward, advancing to the front of the ranks of Unsullied – and her heart tightened reflexively at what had been done to them. The most cruel of creatures were certainly men – for what others could have dreamed of such a thing? To train an army of slaves, to deaden their senses and pleasures, to have them kill innocent babes, to tear away their humanity? No beast would be so cruel.

It would end, now.

She stood in the stirrups, raising the ceremonial whip above her head for all the Unsullied, all the masters and slaves baking away in the great Plaza of Suffering of Astapor to see.

"IT IS DONE!" She cried at the top of her lungs, and then she turned towards the struggling slaver. He glanced over at her, growling.

"He will not come." Said Kraznys, and Daenerys smiled thinly.

"There is a reason. A dragon is no slave." Her hand came up, pointing the whip towards the pair, and motioned to Drogon.

"Dracarys."

The dragon spread his wings, roared, and shot a jet of flames – directly towards Daenerys, the stream of fire barely ending a foot away from her face.

In her hand, the whip cracked and burned, the harpy's visage melted, and the plaza grew silent – but for the beating of Drogon's wings, the crackling of the fire, and the sound of destroyed symbol of ownership clanking across the hot, bloodred bricks.

"Unsullied." She called out in a firm, confident voice. "You are free now. You are human. Go, and strike the shackles off every last slave in this city."

They watched for a single moment, and then the ranks of warriors moved – a single shout coming up. "Freedom."

The cries of freedom rose up from the red bricks of Astapor through the entire day and night – mingling with cheers, shouts of pain, and the sounds of statues, objects, buildings breaking.

Daenerys was in the midst of it all, her small group of followers around her. The freed slaves looked to her with reverence, the three dragons swirling protectively around her – and then in incredulity, as she approached and talked to them.

Their wills had been broken, she could tell – as thoroughly as the bodies of broken, disobedient slaves had been put up as warning. But they could recover – and the flash of joy, of freedom, of hope that bloomed in their eyes as they looked upon her reminded her of that, and her heart roared along with Drogon.

It was time to start the great work.