章 2396: 31
Chapter 31: Dusk and Dark
Summary:
A trial. More interactions between Dany & Sansa. Bran discovers something
31.
Dusk and Dark
The Neck
Jorah knelt down and scooped up a handful of fresh, damp earth, inhaling the smell of the northern soil he had last set foot on once many years ago. His aged and unaccustomed body protested painfully as he stood up, the cold embracing him with its unforgiving touch. At the edge of the causeway that raised the King's Road to beyond the Neck, the first men sent and commanded by the Great Lords of the Realm were beginning to set up a meager camp. It was impossible to cross beyond their current position.
That morning they had sent a raven to Winterfell to let Khaleesi know that preparations had begun and her orders were being carried out as she had requested. Still, Jorah could not shake off the feeling that was more to it than she'd let him know.
No sooner had he stood up than a guard shouted at him and Jorah turned, seeing with him a man whose face he thought he would never see in his life again.
The Lord of Greywater Watch, Howland Reed. An entourage accompanied him, among them a young woman with a stern northern face, who looked at the deployed army in awe and distrust.
"I thought I'd see dragons flying across the sky before I'd see Jorah Mormont in the North again," the small man commented in almost the same mind that Jorah.
"Ser Jorah Mormont, Hand of the Queen," the guard who brought him here introduced him.
"My Lord," said Jorah, stretching out a hand.
"I understand you serve the Targaryen Queen, mother of dragons across the sea," Howland said after returning the gesture.
"She's staying at Winterfell currently, treating with the Lords and its King," agreed Jorah.
"I don't think it's the matter that brings you and all these men these close to the swamps. Tell me, Ser, have you an estimation as to how much time we have to prepare?"
Jorah frowned.
"Do you?"
Howland looked behind at his companions and cocked his head.
"My daughter Meera, she's known them," he pointed out.
Jorah shifted his eyes back to his young daughter, meeting her unperturbed gaze with the seriousness of the subject they were discussing.
"Any information she could provide—"
"You can address her, Mormont. She is my daughter and my heir, and one of the few people who has faced those monsters and survived." A shadow of pain settled across his features. "Moreover, we are on the same side. Soon the interludes of kings and queens will end and only one king will matter, the one who comes from the North."
Jorah understood that he was talking about the same Night King that Jon Snow spoke of. He nodded for Meera Reed to be escorted to the tent of the War Council.
"Queen Daenerys has met Jon Snow, I take," Howland commented once more before Jorah could turn away. Howland looked uneasy, overcome with the urge to say something that perhaps wasn't for anyone to hear.
"For a long time they've been treating each other, yes," Jorah conceded, stifling the wave of dissatisfaction that the memory of it brought back.
"And that's all it's been?"
"I do not presume to know firsthand what the nature of their relationship is, other than that of two young monarchs in search of the best solution to bring peace to the realm."
"Hm-mm."
Was there more to it than that? Jorah couldn't help wondering. The crannongmen were known to keep themselves largely secluded from the affairs of the rest of the kingdom. There was, however, open concern on Lord Reed's countenance. This was the face of a man who knew more than he let on.
***
Winterfell
The trial that followed was supposed to go relatively simple and easy, yet Daenerys squeezed the armrest of her seat as she watched the wretch be dragged into the Great Hall by the guards of Winterfell.
The man's face was disfigured beyond recognition. His clothes suggested he was a Northman but no one of them stepped forward to defend him.
When questioned about his identity he claimed to be a villager named Benjar whose farm was attacked by the dragons in the last couple of days and whose child was murdered by them in one of those visits.
The painful memory of that peasant from Meereen carrying the charred bones of his young daughter struck Daenerys with the might of its transcendence in the following events. The air in the Great Hall turned suddenly too cold to breathe.
Dany was certain that her tentative alliance with the North was coming to an end.
Sansa Stark cleared her throat.
"Would you be so kind as to tell us where your farm is placed?" she asked him, giving away no sign of affectation but not entirely distant either. After all, these were her people.
Jon's people.
The man looked around with barely open eyes.
"By the mountainside of the clans," replied the badly battered man.
"On the lands bordering Theo Wull's lands?" Sansa questioned.
He simply nodded.
Sansa sighed heavily.
"Theo Wull owns no lands or farms on the slopes. Those lands were constantly under attack by the Ironborn a few years ago and thus abandoned. This man is lying," Sansa declared.
Jon, Daenerys, Arya, and all those who were taken aback by her terse but precise participation looked on in astonishment. Until then she had done little more than observe without uttering a word.
Bran finally was consulted to bring closure to what they all deemed a fairer trial than the man deserved.
"This is a small-time bounty hunter; hired by a mysterious figure at a nearby inn, with instructions to attack Queen Daenerys in order to hinder dealings with the North. His name is Kustav."
There were no wounded children then. No thanks to the gods, old and new.
Daenerys let out a held breath. The tension in her shoulders eased.
It was all said and done and although Kustav insisted and then on his knees, he pleaded, his sentence was already written. Who was to pass the sentence was another matter.
For the Northerners, it was expected that Daenerys would want to claim justice in her own name and through her dragons, a logical notion that nonetheless raised objections. The always bad-tempered Lord Glover argued that she possessed no such claim, for she was not in her domain and it was either the King's peace or himself who should pass the sentence.
Not only Jon glared at the increasingly irksome man. The four Stark children sitting across the Long Table sent him a crossed look.
Jon stood up.
"Do you, Lord Glover, cast doubt on our capability to discern punishment for the wrongdoings in the North?" Jon asked him with a sharp edge to his voice. "This is not a matter of order enforcement only. This is aggravation. House Stark and the North won't tolerate any breach of the guest's right. And," he pinned him with a dangerous look, "Don't forget that I am the King. I decide how and who delivers my peace."
The matter was settled.
Daenerys crossed no more words with the gathered Lords after the sentence was passed. She expected to pay visit to her attacker before his life was ended but Jon convinced her otherwise. They all knew it was Littlefinger's doing. There was no case in pursuing the wretch's testimony.
"Then I wish to speak with Sansa," she replied.
Mere hours away from the execution she was granted her wish and encountered the Lady of Winterfell in the same place she had found her previously in another life when she intended to lend a hand in peace. A futile endeavor in hindsight.
Daenerys did not feel more comfortable than before face to face with the woman that sought her destruction before. Yet it was not quite the same person. In that opportunity, she wasn't presented with these circumstances.
"You seemed definite to defend my right to justice in this respect," Dany pointed out, steel-hard for a stance and yet not strong enough in her conviction to deem her the threat she'd previously posed. Not then. "I cannot help but wonder, if I were to go against Lord Baelish, would you still be so determined?"
Anger tarnished her features.
"I am not, in any extension, bound to Littlefinger. He struck from his use of me."
"Yet you allied to him," accused Dany.
Sansa gave her a bitter smile.
"An alliance which Jon's objection surely he shared to you..."
"This isn't about Jon, Lady Sansa."
"It isn't? Then I'll assume he did not tell you of my withholding information from him when we took Winterfell back from Ramsey."
Daenerys did not deny it.
"I guessed so. Then I'll make a higher bet. He tells you I am not trustworthy because of this. He tells you that my lack of consideration may be driven by sentiments to belated jealousy or scorn."
"He does not think that."
"Oh, but he does think that deeply. When we were younger, I was a mean child. My mother did not like him and quickly I take from her to better avert my eyes from the sight of him. It was not right but no one, not even my father, ever told me it was a bad thing. You'll see, Your Grace, that we are not taught to question the teachings of our forefathers but instead embrace them. And for a time, I exceeded in the labor that was imposed on me. When I was thrown away from that world — I had none. Barely those who would pity me. When I was caged in the Red Keep, survival depended on my playing the game right and good."
Sansa took a step forward.
"And guess what your Grace? I succeed in that too. However, as survival was guaranteed, harder challenges were also on the way. And I have to play the game, over and over again. It was not nice. I am not entirely proud. I will never know the true peace that came with a clear mind. So judge me, you, and everybody who hears of my wrongdoings. Mean words and unkind thoughts are weapons I handle the most well."
Daenerys listened to her intently, breathing steadily as she observed her unpretentious features. She did not miss the harshness almost too bold intent in her assertion however, Dany found it a respectable attribute. She respected that instead of being scornful and overtly hostile, Sansa chose to speak in clear terms now.
If it was only to last, she thought. But that was the problem. She couldn't hold the certainty that different circumstances would protect her from their ultimate choice to betray her.
The execution was carried out pretty much cleanly. She bathed her attacker in the combined fire breathed by her children, the three of them reducing his battered form to ashes. She stood in front of him a looked at him in his eyes, finding fear mixed with defiance. It took back Dany to the night she executed Varys for treason. The anger was not the same but she looked all composed and cold, showing barely any emotion. She found this to be the most adequate way to rise above the men that tried to kill her and failed. Anger was too high a reward to lend to those she deemed not fit for her emotions. Perhaps she understood Sansa Stark in that regard.
It was only in the safe solitude of her chambers that she broke and let out her all contained, sweltering emotion in her chest.
***
The tips of the dragon's pointed hooves grazed the icy waters of a lake, slipping on its foggy surface as Daenerys sent them sliding down from a great height. She wanted a better appreciation of the sloping, snow-drenched slopes, their edges disappearing into a visible coastline through the crystal-clear water.
She'd been soaring through the skies, wandering off as if she was looking for something that was somewhere waiting to be found. She crossed towns, villages, and fortresses, rousing awe and dread in equal terms. Her wounds were healing nicely and quickly as though they knew her stay was coming to her.
She gave the Northerners three days to make a determination, but the attack forced her to stay in bed longer while she healed. In the meantime, she received a message from Jorah briefing on the movement of her armies. This lack of resolve made Dany grow impatient.
She knew that Jon wanted to stay and protect Winterfell; he was unwilling to leave the North until it fell. Dany wondered if as King of the Seven Kingdoms he would have made the same decision. Things were going smoothly between the two of them but there was still some reluctance on his part. Arya remarked that a few days ago he had been distant and constantly plagued by melancholy.
Two days ago he set off on his own for a place no one knew, and she knew immediately where that would be.
***
Winterfell
It was in the darkest hour that he attacked them with a relentless snowstorm, leaving them in utter blindness as his puppets of human remains rushed at a number of barely prepared warriors. The beginning seemed like the end. The Dothraki's weapons set afire had been extinguished in a black mist, their growing dimmer hope lost in the unknown.
Bran saw two figures looking upon it from a higher ground and recognized Jon and Daenerys.
She turned around decisively. He tried to stop her and warn, "The Night King is coming."
Daenerys looked sternly into his eyes.
"The dead are already here!"
Bran searched for it and he found it. The right memory, already threaded in the infinite loops threading the pass of time. It was not normal, usually, he'd get just a glimpse of that. But it was not as it should be, not in where they stand. The Wall was to fall — yet the ice dragon wasn't there.
Everything seemed disconnected as if a fundamental piece had gotten lost.
Before he could be drawn back an unknown force tugged at him impossible strong. It'd happened oftentimes but Bran always took care that it didn't happen when he was traveling in the collected mind.
The Night King's intrusion, that was it.
Hard as he tried to return the Night King seized him there and retained him until both stood side by side in front of the same images.
No.
No.
No.
They saw them clear as day, the events unfolding the way that it was to be. When they reached the final act it was as if a slight emotion have crossed his blue enlightened eyes.
So he let go of Bran.
Bran came back to himself gasping for a breath. Podrick Payne standing near rushed over and asked what was wrong with him.
"He must know it, he must know it," he said, frantically, "Jon must know. Daenerys must know. He saw the end!"
***
"What do you think of Daenerys Targaryen, Lady Brienne?"
Brienne shifted in her post as Sansa looked over at her. Both were comfortable with the silence and rarely engaged in conversation, so her question confused her.
Brienne drew in a breath and replied, "I have not formed an opinion on her person, my Lady. Not yet; If you wish to share with me the knowledge of her that you have gathered of late, I will hear it."
Lady Sansa leaned back in her chair and started,
"She is a Targaryen. They are by nature dangerous and unbridled violent people. These days she's stayed in Winterfell have only confirmed what I already suspected: she's paranoid and unstable. After Joffrey, Cersei, and Ramsey, I think I've gained more than enough insight to see through the layers to a tyrant."
Sansa's argument lacked not sensibility. Brienne had been taught widely in the history of Westeros so she knew well of the complicated intricacies of the Targaryens and their fierce behavior. It was enough to allow herself some apprehension. Regardless, she considered almost immediately her own experience with holding absolute judgments about certain characters and how they can fall flat in the face of blunt reality.
Brienne stared at the floor and then looked up at her.
"Lady Brienne," Sansa called out softly, "Please, I want your honest opinion."
"Did anyone of them ever prove, by their actions, that they try to be something different?" Brienne asked her.
Sansa considered this.
Joffrey and Cersei captured her devotion through the naive notions of her own life's designs. Ramsey...Sansa so far could not forgive herself for overlooking that. Though it was not inattention or naivety in the latter case; it was paralyzing fear. The moment Baelish brought her to Winterfell she knew there was no escape from it. Not alive.
"Once people may have lived with dragons but that was a century and a half ago; what kind of Stark will I be if I can't give my people the certainty that living under the dragon's rule won't again be detrimental to their sakes, as when Ramsey subjugated the North through his bloody grip?"
Brienne didn't know what to answer to this.
Luckily for Brienne, the doors to Lady Sansa's chamber opened with the arrival of Maester Wolkan, who rushed in to whisper words in Sansa's ear that made the Lady of Winterfell rise to her feet with a wild expression.
***
The Waterfalls
It took Jon a while to tell apart the rest of the forest's sounds from the distant murmur of a nearby stream running downhill. He could perceive with keen precision the muffled paws against the thick snow, from small rodents to a great moose slowly scrolling with the slowness of its heavy, flat and wide antlers above its head.
Jon heard the unmistakable shriek that made every creature turn and look to the skies. He jumped up and removed the blindfold that covered his eyes and did the same, watching a shadow loom over him, growing darker until the dragons landed in front of him, their heavy bodies fluttering the snow that rose from the ground as they let him know with a shrill roar that they had arrived. Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion made the waterfalls seem but a distant landscape beside them.
Daenerys stared at him from Drogon's back. He smiled wide and bright in response and stood up to meet her.
Jon was unfamiliar but fond of this sentiment of lightness. The last few days he had been so burdened by the weight of his truth that he had returned to his old habit of seeking refuge in solitude.
"Next time you could ask for a ride," she said, throwing a leg across the dragon's back and climbing down from him with the agility of a seasoned rider. Jon walked across the field and helped her down Drogon's lowered shoulder.
"I wanted the time to get reacquainted with all of this before it probably disappears," he told her probably unaware of the despondence it summoned. That's why she grew dead serious and assured him,
"It won't."
He found her certainty curious and frowned.
"How are you so sure?"
"Because I am."
He fought her not. Daenerys seemed rather stoically convinced, and he liked her the most when she was like this.
Jon and Dany walked slowly past the now hard-trodden field where the dragons landed, closer to the stream flooding from the waterfalls. He regarded her with keen interest as she observed and made her first appreciation of the landscape. Jon saw the unmistakable awe in her expression.
"We use to hunt for days with Lord Stark and Robb. This place always held such an unmistakably radiance," he told her.
She turned around to look at him.
"It's beautiful, Jon."
Jon swallowed hard as he restrained himself from reaching out to her. The dim lightness of the moment seemed still too fragile. Between what happened and the knowledge they shared about his origins, Jon sensed that something had shifted between them. She was no longer avoidant or harsh, but she did keep the distance between them.
So he respected that.
"You haven't told your sisters, yet," she said suddenly, taking Jon aback.
Now he understood why vestiges of her wariness still lingered. Though her bond with Arya seemed more than that of acquaintances, she and Sansa were still walking on thin ice.
Jon couldn't explain it to himself either. It was a feeling he couldn't quite figure out, like the distant rumors that came to him as he walked blindfolded through the forest.
But he could tell where it started.
"When we fought against Ramsey," he recalled, with the bitter reminiscence of it. "Sansa hid information from me that could have spared the lives of thousands."
Dany creased her brow.
"You asked her why she did it?"
He shook his head. "Perhaps I am afraid of hearing the answer..."
Jon sighed and walked to where he had left his stuff. He fleetingly exchanged a glance with Rhaegal who seemed to cock his head as if curious.
"And Arya? What about her?" Dany continued, behind him.
"I cannot tell Arya and hope she won't resent me for not trusting Sansa enough to offer her the same kindness."
Daenerys walked closer to him.
"Jon, Arya is your favorite sister."
"She's primarily Sansa's blood sister," he argued.
"Blood doesn't matter. Loyalty does."
"And you think she'd be loyal enough not to force my hand out of loyalty to her?" he stated rather harshly, unjustly lashing out against her. "I'm sorry," he quickly mended, "You are being understanding. I appreciate that. I do."
Daenerys resumed her light mood and reached out for his hand, giving him a squeeze.
Jon felt confident enough to tug her gently closer.
"What about Lord Resmond? What about him?" he questioned since they were being true to each other. It was something he's been eager to ask her about since she arrived.
She chuckled dismissively.
"You know his name," she pointed out. "I haven't accepted his proposal, if that's your concern, I haven't accepted anyone's for that matter."
Dany winced and he frowned, concerned.
"There's something you should know, Jon," she started, looking down and swallowing hard. "I can't have children, Jon. Whatever alliance I enter into, will have to be done within those terms."
Jon remembered Tyrion's words when he told him the same thing.
"Did somebody confirm this?"
She nodded.
"A witch. The one that killed my husband and my child."
"And you believe her?"
She drew in a breath and stared at him annoyed.
"Don't try to do that. Don't pretend to know more about my body than I am."
"I'm only suggesting that she's not—"
"A reliable source of information. I know," she finished for him as if she was reading his mind.
She knuckled her forehead.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Yes, Jon, you. You are the last male survivor of two Great Houses. There's a duty underlying the right to it."
"I'm more concerned about the Night King's coming," he gruffed in response.
"And when there's no more Night King? Are you holding the idea of defeat so strongly that it prevents you from seeing what lies beyond?"
He did not answer. For what it mattered, Jon was not certain that he could meet the requirements where she could not. He had been dead and brought back. What kind of being was he? Would she be as fond of him as she is now, knowing what he was now? Jon dreaded the answer. He felt driven to tell her but seeing the special gleam in her eyes he wasn't sure he could lose that now, not yet.
Fortunately, the issue was put aside when her attention diverted to the fur cloth he tied around his arm. The blindfold.
"What is this?" she asked him, touching it.
A shudder ran down his spine and into his core as she leaned even closer.
He untied the blindfold and explained, "It's a form of discipline. You blind your eyes with it and walk through the forest until you recognize every sound that comes along."
"It looks rather a dangerous way to walk in the forest," she opined.
"It's better than being surprised from behind. Come here," he indicated and at first, she looked confused. "Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
Jon then wondered if the dragons would warn her of any danger if she came across one. He had Ghost, but it was best to keep that cautious for himself for as long as he could.
He led Dany deeper into the forest, always at a distance so that she could walk without needing his help. She touched the trees and moved with tentative steps, careful not to let any obstacles trip her up. Once they were away from the sound of the waterfalls, the forest seemed much lonelier and deeper.
Dany was startled at hearing a rustling sound behind them; It was only a hare. Jon didn't take his eyes off her form for a moment, feeling something between pride and amusement at seeing her so determined to make it on her own. He stopped and let her move forward, stretching the distance between them.
An unfamiliar feeling came over him as if the wind was whispering his own name.
Jon turned around.
***
The forest had no beginning and no end, the sky covered by grey clouds gave no way to the light that could help him out, and shadows and voices only pushed him further deep.
Jon came following a voice calling his name. A familiar voice that he thought was hers — it had to be hers!
He ran and ran without allowing himself any caution, ignoring the sounds and the looming dangers. No threat could stop him, no concern for his own sake mattered anymore.
He was running after her.
He was running after Dany.
***
"Dany!"
Jon jerked awake as if waking from a dream where he was falling. His voice felt somewhere between a sound in his head and his voice talking although there was no sound. All around him, the darkness was slowly settling in, the shadows becoming more and more pronounced in the deep recesses of the forest.
And nowhere was Daenerys.
***
Dany smiled when she fell and didn't feel him rushing to help her, assuming he was allowing her to make it on her own. Eventually, she was able to stop herself from focusing on the sound of the waterfalls to start listening to the rest of the forest's talk.
Soon it was just her and the sound of her breathing, her arms stretched out in the air without finding support. She must have been in a clearing or where the trees grew further apart from each other, somewhere where she found all the more exciting to wander around.
Dany recalled being crossing the corridors of her mind, just as Brandon had taught her when they were still searching for her lost memories. It was exactly that, like searching and hoping to find something
She felt the cold forest air fill with another presence, right in front of her.
"Jon?" she wondered aloud, taking one step at a time and hoping to find his hand.
But it wasn't his hand that found hers, which was taken with something unfamiliar that made her jump a little until she came upon the protruding, furry shape of an ear. An animal. But not just any animal.
"Ghost..." Dany warned, grinning.
The direwolf licked her hand in response and she lifted the blindfold.
***
He didn't have to look for them for long. They were only a small distance away, engaged in a conversation that seemed to go only between the two of them. Jon's heart, however, had turned over as if he had lost her in the gathering darkness.
It was a hasty and unwarranted assumption but his pulse quickened with the paranoia of that dream where he chased a voice through the forest, but not just any forest, Jon knew it was the Haunted Forest and not there in the North.
And he was chasing her as well. Chasing her as though he'd lost her.
"Dany..." he called out to her.
She knelt down to pet Ghost, which towered over her with its red eyes fixed on him.
Dany looked around over her shoulder, smiling. She was oblivious to what had happened to him just mere minutes before when Jon hadn't been with her as he promised.
The realization struck him with a sharp end. Just as it rang aloud that night when he almost killed the man that hurt her. It wasn't care just what drove him. It wasn't pride. He loved her. He has probably loved her since the very moment that his eyes met hers.
Dany stood up and turned around, serious, understanding dawning on her features.
Jon traversed the distance between them with the rush of a man in battle, meeting her in a kiss she anticipated, welcoming him with open arms. She yielded to him and held on tight, her hands landing on his shoulders and her soft body melding to his.
He drew back and looked at her, caught in the awe that stirred inside him.
Their kiss had left her softly parted lips bruised and swollen, her eyes dropped to his own mouth. Jon's seen her gaze of longing and desire before but never quite like this, so open and sure.
"Take me back to the waterfalls," she asked him.
***
With his arms around her, pulling her to him, Dany knew what it was about, the feeling that took her back so sharply that it crushed her. She couldn't keep fighting it, not when she's so willingly walked into his embrace again.
The waterfalls have been the last place where she knew true happiness before the truth came between them, and even as the years passed, she kept that memory close to her heart, through the pain and sorrow. She wanted this place to remain theirs even if it was inevitable that the ultimate fate would be the same.
Tears welled up and she wished she could make them disappear. Jon pulled away and looked at her, uncertainty filling his eyes.
"Is there something wrong?" he asked, barely above a low whisper.
"No," Dany answered, crossing her arms around him and bringing him down with her again, his kisses hard and desperate against her willing mouth.
Dany was beneath him now, writhing in the throes of the desire he'd awakened in her.
Jon undressed her with torturous patience as he kissed his way downward, going along a familiar path, acquainting himself again with the places he seemed to remember all too well. Dany shut her eyes tightly and buried her hands in his hair, crying out at the tension that he was building in her and when it all shattered down as the pieces of her mistrust.
He sat down and stared at her bare body with wild amazement.
She recalled the same stare when they first made love on the boat. Dany had thought that was love. To think so now would be a mistake.
There was no need for words. They knew what they wanted and they danced around each other for too long.
Darkness loomed and in the distance, the dragons sang a sweet, melancholy song, the wolves howled at the moon and this poured down its light on them.
Jon settled between Dany's thighs, and thrust slowly into her, breathing in a sharp breath of his forehead pressed against hers. She couldn't hold back the cry that tore from her throat as she reached up to wind her arms around his neck, her toes curling with the feeling that her insides were about to blast.
His mouth lowered and captured her lips on a kiss, setting in a slow but deliberate motion. Dany clung to him as a last hope, knowing that after him there would only be an imminent fall.
Notes:
Next chapter:
Jon and Dany return to Winterfell to discover that Bran has fallen into a comatose state. Jon tells Arya and Sansa the truth. At the Wall, the Night King grows tired of waiting.
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