章 2411: 46
46.
What remains
King's Landing
As dawn broke, the handmaids gave notice to the chamberlain of Red Keep that the Queen of Thorns had passed in her sleep. Fortunately, during the hours of twilight, one of the Queen's closest advisors, the Master of Whispers had arrived at the city. The chamberlain saw no alternative but to turn to him to decide on a course of action.
The castle, as it had been since the time of Aegon the Conqueror, used to be concurred by the nobility of the Crownlands. And in times of war like these, it was Maegor's Holdfast they deemed the safest shelter. Varys ordered all those residents be locked up there pending further orders from the Queen, and wrote in his own handwriting the following missive,
Your Grace, Queen Daenerys Targaryen,
It is with the deepest sorrow that I inform you of the peaceful passing of Lady Olenna Tyrell in her sleep during the night. My travels have taken me to Harrenhal without the expected results so I have deemed it pertinent to return to King's Landing to be of greater service to Her Cause.
I Look Forward to your orders in the meantime.
Lord Varys, Master of Whispers.
The raven flew north without further delay.
With the Unsullied's guard employed on the task of keeping order in the city, much of Red Keep was desolate and empty. And in the shadows that crept in the halls, cockroaches and rats soon emerged from their hiding places.
A pale light dappled in the Throne Room from its strained glass windows, a sunless morning of overcast skies outside. Varys had sent the servants to attend the Holdfast so no one had lit the fire in the braziers or sconces. Mostly he'd done this to prevent them from seeing Lord Baelish, who'd stepped into the hall with a renewed sense of victory.
"Here, see us again, where it all begins and where it all ends. How many men, great some of them and not so great some others, have fallen so that this throne may still stand and they could sit on it?" Littlefinger said, speaking thoughtfully.
Varys still doubted he knew what he was doing. At that moment he was at a juncture, between being subservient to the malice of those two vermin and falling into the commission of acts of blatant treason, for which the Queen would see no choice but to consider him opposed to her and her cause, but to remain at a close distance of their conduct, or to resist and die vainly to prove something he himself saw no value in.
Varys opted for the former as long as he had a choice.
"Only the greatest have understood that it is a mere object and that it is what underlies it that matters. Power," Varys responded.
Littlefinger knew better than to claim victory so early. His climbing the steps to the Throne of Aegon the Conqueror was hesitant as if he himself, who revered the chair so greatly, was incapable of simply sitting on it without it being an act of utmost significance.
His ever-opponent in this game of schemes and cobwebs looked at him unfazed.
"You my old friend, certainly do not lack the judgment to understand it, do you? That is why you don't care about the Iron Throne but you care about who sits on it. That must be someone of an easy sway, always predisposed to listen to your wholesome advice while you weave the threads with which to pull the strings beneath their arms. The ultimate mummer!"
Varys cocked his head, "Men choose where to place their faith," he answered quietly. "If we have come this far, it is because we have certain survival skills. We came from the bottom and climbed to the top. Now, what is the point of all this? To stay on top perhaps?"
"We must celebrate our similarities without overlooking the fact that what distinguishes us is by far the greatest attribute of the other. You, my old friend, will die in the pursuit of an imaginary ideal; serving the Realm. And for that, you have for years served and betrayed flawed monarch after flawed monarch, until one day you'd believed you had found the right one. And you will die in the agonizing realization that the chosen one is someone who will not allow you to continue weaving your threads."
Baelish desist upon sitting on the Iron Throne and instead walked slowly until he was face to face with Varys.
"I, on the other hand, am a man who knows how to thread my path. Chaos is a ladder and I know how to climb it."
***
The Neck
A sharp pang of hunger woke him up and Jon opened his eyes scanning his surroundings. Soon he tasted blood in his mouth, although he wasn't bleeding. When he tried to move, he felt an excruciating weight above his legs impeding him and his heart skipped a beat.
Ghost lying on top of him.
Gods, Jon thought, running a hand over his face. How long had he slept? Why was he allowed to?
Memories of the last few hours came flooding back and his mood dropped with the realization that the war was still going on.
Jon stroked Ghost's neck, grateful that he was alive, and still with both ears. The wolf had settled over him to warm his lower half while chewing on a piece of bone with chunks of meat on it. As he smelled the pungent smell of burning flesh his mouth started to salivate, wondering who would have wasted that meat in such a way.
Ghost had stolen it most likely.
Dressing hurriedly, he did not hear when Ser Davos burst in until his Hand was there in front of him with eyes wide open.
The Old Sailor crossed the distance between them and embraced him most tenderly, which Jon returned with the same affectionate feeling.
He didn't want to think of the lives that had been lost.
"Your family is safe, son. Young Arya is a little behind but she'll be joining us soon..."
"That's a relief," Jon replied, though he had already learned from Dany that Sansa and Bran were in the camp. His voice did not convey the feeling though. Jon would like to be able to tell him everything and hear his advice on how to proceed. "Ser Davos, you have witnessed things that were unimaginable for most of your life. How strained an occurrence must be to test your reticence?"
Davos looked at him with concern and Jon decided to tell him the truth.
***
Barrowton
"All right, that's it. At ease," Brienne indicated to the men and women who had set up camp in the square of Borrowtown, accommodating the survivors and wounded in the empty halls that a reluctant Lady Barbrey had given up for the purpose. Jaime felt a strong, throbbing burning inside his ribcage but did not want to become a burden. In fact, watching Brienne rise above and continue in her role aroused in him the sincerest respect and a hint of jealousy.
They had split off from the other group and marched west to the barrowlands, arriving in a town that looked more like a village with wooden walls and streets. Even Barrow Hall had wooden walls and square towers, the seat of House Dustin, whose head was Lady Barbrey Dustin, the widow of Willam Dustin.
"...It lies in the barrowlands at the confluence of two rivers which flow south to the Saltspear, a long inlet that opens into Blazewater Bay in the north. At its eastern end is the mouth of the Fever River, whose headwaters are in the Neck," explained Brienne who planned to join the other armies for an eventual battle, her mind like an impenetrable blizzard, clouded by duty and the oaths she had sworn.
Jaime found it hard to believe that they were still alive after facing those monstrous creatures. That they had escaped the fire. That they still had to keep fighting...he had never felt so strained and battle-weary. Not even when the War of the Five Kings led him to be taken prisoner by the Northerners and live for years in his own shit, only to be released and handed over to the most hideous and stubborn creature he would ever encounter. Even then his drive had been to return to Cersei and their children. His march with Brienne, was not at all the punishment he had believed it to be in the beginning.
Cersei was no longer there. Their children were gone. And Brienne...Jaime felt contempt for himself for indulging feelings of that nature for her. For Brienne was now an immaculate object, to be perverted only by the touch of one as corrupted as he. Sometimes he could catch the looks she gave him and told himself not to let them grow into affection. It was too late for that and he was too selfish a man.
When she came for him to help him to the survivors' hall, he did not forbid himself to see her all the way in the hope of chasing away his own feelings with ideations that were already futile to his own perception. He loved her. And for the first time, he discovered that Cersei had not taken that part of him with her.
***
The Neck
As her eyes scanned over the words written on the unrolled parchment illuminated only by a wobbly fire from the lantern, Dany's face grew somber.
"It's from Varys," she said, "Lady Olenna Tyrell passed in her sleep."
In the midst of so vast affliction caused by death, learning of somebody's natural passing sounded eerily strange. Dany gathered her little assembly, including Brandon and Sansa Stark, who had come at her request to make up for Lady Reed's absence, as she was allowed what little time could be borrowed to her sorrows.
Dany ran a hand over her face and stayed quiet and continued only when the silence has gone on for a little too long.
"I met Lady Olenna," Sansa said, charging the words with a hint of sorrow, although her eyes were drifting, "She tried to save me from the Lannisters, for her own benefit of course. But she was better than Cersei."
"A woman of unquestionable fortitude; there shall never be another like her. She outlived all the men in her life, including her children and grandchildren. She rests with them now, but House Tyrell..." Daenerys broke off hesitantly, her expression guarded, "I shall have Lord Redwyne noticed at once."
"Allow me to assist you, Your Grace, in fetching and bringing Lord Redwyne," offered a young Lord Aemon Charlton, a keen young man — still a boy — in the more displaced lines of his noble family. His youthful looks flooded her heart with sympathy.
Daenerys nodded and he took off.
"There is a situation standing. I left her at King's Landing as a regent. I'll have to send someone else," Dany sucked in air between her teeth. "Ser Jorah—"
"—It's been the honor of my life to serve as your regent, Your Majesty, but that will not be possible," Jorah adamantly declared before she could try and end the sentence.
"And your Queen now demands you to obey her orders," Daenerys spat back, stately.
A strange, oppressive silence filled the air, and those present observed and listened to the clash taking place.
"Then, Your Grace, you'll have to send me over there in chains because that's the one order I won't obey." Then Jorah folded his hands in front of him and maintained an upright posture.
Dany opened her mouth to reply, but the words stuck in her throat, seeing herself as a child again, being scolded and challenged by him for her unbending will.
In the ensuing strain, Bran's smoothest voice broke in with another suggestion, "Send Sansa."
The heads of all of them whipped around.
"What?" Sansa herself asked in astonishment.
"She is next in line of succession. And she knows Red Keep," her younger brother further insisted, never looking at her but a Daenerys. His voice sent a shard of ice into her heart, and her whole being bristled with apprehension.
"You can't be serious. I'm never going back to King's Landing!" She shook her head frantically as if she couldn't believe what he was suggesting.
Bran blinked and looked up at her. "What frightens you? Cersei? The Lannisters? Their threat has come to nought," he argued.
Sansa wished to protest further but a stolen glance at the Queen told her that any likelihood that she was more fond of the idea was ever meagre.
"I have to check on my dragons," Daenerys said, "We'll return to this matter when the night falls."
***
They reached the camp on foot, after being surprised by swamp beasts who'd stolen and eaten their horses. Arya had forgotten of their existence, of the stories and lessons she had received as a child warning her of them. The Neck was a spectacular defense against invasions from the South, but also a lethal trap for those seeking to escape the North.
She hoped that the beasts would halt the advance of the dead, though with the odds as they were, it was more probable that they would become weapons to their service.
Her low spirits did not seem likely to soar even with the prospect of returning to her family. She lost a part of her where they had left the Hound, after Beric had plunged a precise blow through his side and into his heart, to later wrap his body for cremation.
A part of Arya had died right there.
By the time they reached the camp, night was falling. The wind blowing in her face felt like a punishment. Arya wished she could stop walking and bend her knees, lay her head on the ground, and drift off into a long sleep. Somehow that's what she had done because the next thing she knew, daylight seeped through the seams of the leather that rose above her, and she was lying on a pallet.
At the realization, she rushed to sit upright.
"Can you act normal for once?" Sansa scolded her, reminding her of those times when they were just little girls tantalizing each other.
Sansa was lying next to her!
She scratched her forehead wearily.
"I'm sorry, sister, but you are bandaged. Don't overstress your condition."
Sansa's words sounded strangely comforting as if her saying them to her was a promise of something good. Her gaze, however, was vacant.
Arya felt a prick in one rib and hissed, looking around as she asked, "Where are the others? Where are Jon and Bran?"
"Alive, if that's what you mean," Sansa replied crisply. "Ser Beric finished the journey for both of you. You vanished, Arya. You had an infected gash on your side." Her older sister sounded worried and tired. "It's all over, Arya. Our home lost forever."
"The Hound is dead," Arya blurted out.
Stilled for a moment, she answered, "I guessed as much. Theon is also dead."
Both sisters remained silent, Arya trying to make sense of her distressed state while Sansa distracted her mind in a futile attempt to scrape the dried blood from her hands. It was the result of spending long hours tending to the wounded; washing her hands in the medicinal water had also dried them out.
"You two had history too, Sandor and you," Arya prompted.
Sansa quietly nodded.
"He was gentle with me at a time when no one would have spared me that kindness. I mourn his death," she said.
"And I mourn the fall of Winterfell. But I warned you it was a fair price."
"A fair price? Arya, the dead are not finished yet. As far as I know, we've only bought some time!"
"And it's time we need to recover." The younger Stark reached out for her hand. "You were brave to stay back and stick to the plan."
The other's response was a peal of bitter laughter.
"And what a lot! Jon completed it in less than five minutes with his queen's dragon."
"I'm sure there was a reason that demanded it." Arya took in a deep breath. "Now it's time for you to leave. You must lead the way. That is your duty now, sister," Arya said.
Sansa scrambled to her feet and scrunched up her face.
"What are you talking about? Have you all agreed to deem it so useless and a burden?" she complained, strained with disbelief.
"Who else has told you so?" Arya inquired confused.
"In less ostensible words, I've been told I must sail to King's Landing to serve as the Queen's regent."
The younger Stark cocked her head.
"A very sound proposal."
"One is not my wish," Sansa reiterated with a forceful tone. Clicking her tongue, she added, "The Queen does not trust me. It's something that came from Bran."
Arya managed to move from the pallet to her without forcing an action that might worsen the wound. She saw Sansa's nervous gesture as she scuffed her hands and felt for her for all that she must surely remember from her time as a prisoner at King's Landing.
"You'll frostbite a finger off with this cold," Arya warned her. She grabbed a pair of gloves and held them out to her, "Put them on. Better warm, dirty hands than hands without fingers."
Sansa lowered her eyes in a gesture of placation.
"Bran knows a lot of things, that's undeniable. And Daenerys has fairly good reasons to be at least, suspicious. But, hear me Sansa, no one has ever questioned your ability to survive, do you understand? This is where you exceed us by far." Taking a deep breath, she took her sister's hand and squeezed it. "Someone has to think about survival. Not just fight for it."
***
Although she heard the murmur of voices behind her, Meera Reed's eyes were lost in the fire. Every now and then they would well up, she didn't know how much time it went like this until she heard the one voice that was impossible to miss.
Bran.
Even now, after all the time that had passed, her instincts surged with one command in her mind: protect Bran. And when he was settled inside her tent, she scrambled to her feet and went for the fur quilt to cover his legs.
"Your father died bravely—"
"—Bran."
"—he didn't stop fighting until Winterfell burned. He helped many to flee. If I'd had the chance—"
"—Bran, stop it! Stop!" Meera stood up and looked at him with a cross face. "You are grateful, I understand. I don't need to know about my father's last moments as if that would give me any comfort. I know who he was. I don't...I don't need to know anything more."
Bran conserved his inconsequential disposition.
Meera's face gleamed with the traces of shed tears, her voice coming out in a thin thread as her chest burned. It was not her intention to take it out on him, but a grim feeling prevailed from the last time they saw, and the way he let her know that her help had been needed but no more.
"Do you hold a grudge against me?" Bran gently inquired.
She wished he could just not know things sometimes.
"I thought I was protecting you when I sent you away. You made enough sacrifices. It wasn't fair to have you stay..."
"Everything I have done has been of my own volition," Meera stated, eyes pleadingly trying to convey the emotional charge of it. "This grief is mine to bear. It's the traces of my family persisting within me. Your memories mean nothing to me. I don't need them. I made my own and that's all I need."
Silence.
"Would you tell me, then?" asked Bran.
"What?"
She was taken aback.
"About your memories," he persisted.
There was no demanding edge to his tone, almost a childish curiosity. For the first time since they left the cave, Meera saw a piece of the Bran she knew first. The one she thought dead in that same place.
"Have you forgotten?"
***
If their father could see them from anywhere he would surely still disapprove of them always being engaged in a quarrel, Arya pondered as she escaped Sansa's scolding and ventured into the camp. At least these disagreements stemmed from sincere concern and affection both held for each other, no longer from petty antagonisms. Sansa feared that something inside her was more or equally damaged, not just her skin, but Arya told her that she felt much improved and that she needed to move or she would start hurting herself in truth. This statement bewildered Sansa.
Arya would not admit that she could actually still feel debilitating, nagging pain. Nothing like being repeatedly stabbed in the abdomen and thrown into the waters of a canal, she supposed, but enough to walk in a way that was awkwardly not her own. If people stared at her, it was because of that, not because they knew who she was. That pleased Arya, who sought to blend herself with the different stages life placed her in, not owning it. So why did she feel so particularly observed when it was Gendry looking at her? As if the firelight was aimed especially at her.
He came running to her, dropping what he was doing to stop just in front of her. Arya felt a debilitating contraction in her stomach when his soft, honest expression was fixed on her. Such a gesture was not for me, she'd think. But then Gendry gave up the proper ways, or the stubbornness of both, and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her against his hard body in an embrace. Instead of tensing, Arya breathed out, heavy-eyed, and let him hold her.
***
Jon stood at a solitary hill after a long hike across the terrain and saw as the mist settled over the camp like a woolen blanket. The cold, damp air was a welcome change to soothe his smoke-intoxicated lungs. His mind, however, could not find peace, between tumultuous thoughts and Bran's troubling confession at Winterfell.
"What?"
Jon let out a dry sigh.
"The sleeping dragon beneath Winterfell; he knows it!" Bran replied with unprecedented unease.
The moment spared them no time for explanations but Jon knew it, deep down, that the Night King had gained the knowledge through Bran to obtain a dragon, as none of Dany's three dragons could be enslaved. In a fit of rapture, he mounted Rhaegal and destroyed Winterfell in the hope that whatever was underneath would go up in flames.
Someone else's presence was felt behind him. Jon turned to find Ser Jorah Mormont standing a safe distance away, watching him in an openly hostile manner.
"I heard of the young Tarly's passing," he said. His tone was brusque, almost unfriendly.
Jon turned around with an impassive stance. He answered nothing. Sam's death meant nothing to him, and it was actually this numbness that conflicted him. In another life, he did nothing to save him, and in this one neither. If he had to stop and weigh every loss, he would not be able to continue. He would grieve for Gilly and Little Sam, and for the child he knew in advance was coming.
Ser Jorah looked no more grieved than he did. His unfriendly expression seemed to stem from another cause. Jon supposed it was about the link that binds them.
Jon frowned with realization. Of course, she told him. Just as he had felt the urge to tell Ser Davos, anyway.
"You know now," he said.
Jorah nodded and took two careful steps forward.
"All about it," he added with spite hanging in the air.
It's no different than how I feel about myself, Jon would have liked to tell him, but in the face of such an open display of antagonism, he didn't feel like cringing.
Ser Jorah had a right to be at odds with him for the actions of another life if that ever existed, as would anyone who loved and cared for Daenerys. But in this life, Dany was his; his to care and his to make sure that he did not incur the same mistake.
Jon was dead set on this course; Ser Jorah might be his wife's sworn protector, but he would not tolerate any meddling that might try to drive a deeper wedge between him and his wife.
Seeing that Jon showed no signs of pulling back, Jorah continued, "At Winterfell, I should have died. And with her alone in the world, she would have been unprotected from your deceptions and evil intent. But that will not happen. And when it is all over, I swear in the name of my father who gave you that sword, that I will cut your head off with her if harm comes to befall her again from you or any member of your family."
Jon looked up with a grimace. Then he nodded.
"It seems fair to me. As long as you remember your station, Ser Jorah." Jon walked over to him, and spoke to him to his face, "You'll be her protector and adviser, but never anything more."
***
"Emagon ēdā iā bōsa vīlībāzma? Nyke gīmigon. Nyke gīmigon," Dany said as she placed the palm of her bare hand on Rhaegal's offered maw, responding to her affections with purred noises and nuzzles. Dany could sense a rare feeling radiating forth, even though their bond was not what it used to be. Contentment perhaps? Joy or relief? Whatever it was, she felt the same. Her child is alive and free and not a rotten piece at the bottom of the black water.
After seeing that they were fed, Dany took her leave, walking not far from there to where she encountered a grim-faced Ser Jorah coming down from the high grounds that stretched out beyond. The sight of him brought back the memory of what she revealed to him, and she shuddered with a sinking feeling.
And when she caught a glimpse of Jon, her heart skipped a beat when she put the pieces together.
"Are you all right?" she asked Jorah.
Jon couldn't hear them at that distance, but he turned a little as if aware of her presence. Jorah remained crestfallen, some nagging thought behind his compunction. He merely held both her hands and raised them to his lips, a gesture that came naturally to them.
Without a response, Jorah continued on his way down.
Dany sighed and followed up on the path he's come from until she reached Jon. She guessed a conversation had taken place but would not glean a proper account from any of them.
"Everything is very new. This feeling, I mean. Like I'm someone else," Jon instead began, never taking his eyes off the landscape.
Daenerys watched the same way, squinting at the pale sunlight hitting on.
"You are exactly where you need to be," she said quietly.
Jon surprised her with a hearty scoff.
"Those words," he said, looking over at her, "Bran said to me that when—" he trailed off, sweeping off the bitter smile as his gaze dropped.
"When?" she felt curious at this abrupt change.
He fixed a mournful stare at his feet.
"It doesn't matter." Jon paced about and rounded her. He seemed hesitant and in conflict with his own thoughts. Again that silence and the troublesome ruminations.
I, might well add to it.
"I may appoint Sansa regent at King's Landing."
Jon's face whipped around.
"And what has brought this on?"
As she filled him in on what had happened, his expression was so engraved that Dany thought he would turn to stone. Ultimately, he felt compelled to release a sarcastic laugh.
"She plots, schemes, and betrays you and you bestow upon her the greatest reward."
"It's not a reward, as she let it know, and I haven't made up my mind yet," Dany stated.
Jon scoffed, humorless. She fixed a stare upon him.
"This matters to me, and should matter to you," she said.
"Well, there is something prevailing telling me not to trust Sansa, you know? Ever the damagingly over-assertive brat..."
Daenerys sighed.
She didn't deem herself enough of a graceful person to rebuff the conclusion but she managed an honest attempt, "I fear that judgment might well be too tainted and maimed to exert simple assumptions, in the case of us."
"How's that? I had the impression it was simpler to you," Jon countered.
"It has never been simple. I have had nothing but the best of dispositions toward her and she sought my enmity in every way. She didn't want me." I wanted to earn her love and her respect because they were part of you. Because I loved you. "But I guess I should never have approached the subject in those terms. When I think about it and look back at every moment that she disdained my attempts at charming her, I see myself in that farcical position. Undertaking a futile endeavor." She shook her head. "I don't know what has changed, they say that even the smallest of changes opens up a thousand possibilities and none of us is the same person. Or perhaps distance is a great interloper."
Jon nodded; although he didn't have the conviction of it.
"She worried for you that night. And all her outrage was directed at me. There was immense condemnation there."
The memory was unkind to both. She tried to dispel it quickly.
"That's why she underestimates us, don't you think? Because we are not so good at separating passion from judgment." She smiled, her chest rising slightly like a flutter. Wasn't this also as simple as that? Dany thought. A surge of lightness about her. He hesitated but finally looked into her eyes, no longer with the thoughts of Sansa, Jorah, the Dead, or the Realm.
Something...different.
***
Dany's eyelids were heavy. She really wished to call it a night but every time she seemed to unwind enough to do so, her mind woke up in a daze. Nothing was turning out as she had foreseen it, neither the war against the dead nor her relationship with Jon. Her thoughts drifted as she poured them into him and suddenly she found herself again eager to go and look for him.
Exhaustion must have taken over her because suddenly the candles of her tent wavered and a breath of wind rushed across her face. She was no longer inside her tent, sitting at a desk with war charts lied out and missives from all over the Realm. She was no longer even in the North. Her vision was of the Throne Room, the broken roof exposing the steeled sky of King's Landing after the fire, and the Iron Throne before her.
Dany woke up with a start.
In front of her stood Sansa Stark, hand over her arm shaking her gently.
Daenerys jerked away and looked behind her. They were alone. She clutched her arm like it burned her.
Sansa also turned around.
"Your Guards let me pass," she explained.
"What are you doing here, Lady Sansa? The night it's quite late."
Sansa clasped her hands together, her form protected inside her heavy cloak.
"I have come to tell you that, if it's still in your consideration to send me as your representative to King's Landing, I shall be honored and willing."
"A change of heart, I see," Dany said tentatively. She returned to sit at the desk, gesturing for Sansa to do the same. "And why is that?
"Arya," she paused, "Arya talked me into it."
"Is that all it is?
"Why would it take anything else?"
"I was under the impression that you were rather displeased with the idea."
"Does it matter right now?"
"It matters to me that the person who might act on my behalf, do so in my interests. One that might be one heart with me, and not thwart all my work," Dany forcefully stated.
Sansa frowned and gritted her teeth stealthily.
"I know I have been often upfront with you but at least I have been truthful and sought the fairest route to channel our mutual discontentments. Or will you purposely blind yourself to the fact that I advanced the necessity to unite your otherwise contended claims?"
"A well-employed shrewdness, for which I commend you; placing yourself in line for succession."
Sansa stood up. "I'm not going to explain myself further in front of someone who is clearly ill-disposed to see me in a bad light."
"Don't I have an equivalent claim?" Dany challenged.
Sansa took a deep breath.
"I have to go wherever my people may go, whether it's the Gullet, the Vale, or King's Landing. I can't stay where I'm bound to represent an obstruction and a burden."
Sansa's eyes gleamed with something akin to fury and impotence.
"I didn't mean—" Dany tried but Sansa was not finished.
She swallowed hard and spoke, "When I first heard of the Dragon Queen and about the three dragons she had birthed...I wished that you would just show up at once. So I could stop wistfully gazing out the ships leaving King's Landing whilst yearning I was on one of them. Much of my life has been this, watching in my powerlessness, others gain it and use it to harm me." She nervously wrung her hands, almost like a child, making Dany cringe with guilt. "I vowed...after my affair with Ramsey..." she was struggling to breathe properly now, "...that no one...would ever do that to me again..."
Dany's eyes bulged out and she froze, staring into the candle flame waving on her desk.
She's just a child.
She's just a child.
She's just a child.
What am I doing?
She often forgot how much older she was by comparison when she weighed up and took into account the years she had lived and not just where she's been living in.
"I apologize, Your Grace if this seemed more of an attempt at put-upon you. Thanks for your time."
Sansa curtsied and tried to retire.
"Lady Sansa, wait," Dany stopped her, herself shaken. She tried to muster her composure and stated, very clearly, "I will take this turn to my husband. I will let him know about it and only when he gives his consent, will you be given your leave. You should be prepared."
***
Borrowtown
They were moving in the shadows of the night to avoid the havoc. Jaime caught up with them at a trot. Brienne, stubborn to the end, waited on the quay until the last of her men boarded, her face alight with something akin to awe. Quickly squaring him seriously. Did she perhaps think him more of a burden? Fuck it, Jaime thought. It wasn't contentment he wanted.
"Maimed and a misfit. Not exactly what a battalion requires, Ser," she threw out with all the animosity she could muster. Her breath came out in rings of mist. Neither of them belonged to the North, Jaime thought.
"Not more a knight than you are," he responded, managing a decent jump into the boat.
***
Daenerys crept inside her tent to find Jon there, going about the space as if looking for something. His confused gaze lifted to look at her, a faint shade of crimson tinged his bone cheeks.
"I lost something," he blurted the words for some reason. Aware of this, he closed his eyes painfully and cocked his head, "I'm looking for what I lost, that's what I'm talking about."
Daenerys beamed broadly. A closer look at her eyes told him how exhausted she looked.
"I am sorry. I should let you rest. I have already abused your kindness..."
"And where will you go?"
"I'm going to stand on my own two feet. You don't have to worry."
"I've spoken to Sansa," she quickly said.
"Oh," he answered, uninterested, "And what does she say?"
"Something much more sound than you might think."
And they were both smiling at each other, with simplicity. She moved her eyes around and back at him, "Have you found it?"
He shook his head. "What?"
"The thing you lost and came looking for. Have you found it? Or should we team up to look for it together?" she teased him now. Her body almost waltzing to him.
"A pointless endeavor, that would be," Jon declared, eyelids drooping as their faces close the space between. He raised his hands to cradle her face up. "I don't think I remember what I came looking for..."
***
Ser Davos paced the camp, hands clasped behind him, eyes on the muddy soil. In his mind, he was still wrestling with Jon's accounts. Was it possible? Or was he also succumbing to the madness for which the Targaryens were known? He had pondered the same fear with Stannis, his diluted Targaryen blood and all. The old sailor suspected there was something special about him when he claimed one of the queen's dragons as his own, but being in truth the son of a Prince long dead was a magnanimous matter.
Having seen him come back from the dead, I had more reason to believe him than not, but it did not make the task of accepting it any easier.
Daenerys Targaryen and Brandon Stark, those two. Davos feared that the magic they were trifling with would turn against them. What went so terribly wrong for both of them? Jon was succinct about it. Everything that was happening had already taken place.
Davos sighed heavily, rubbing his brow. Near him, some good man showed concern and asked him if he was well. Davos looked up. In front of him was not yet a man but a young lad.
"What's your name, son?"
"Aemon Charlton, Ser," he answered and Davos almost crackled. Not quite the same but close.
A soft shriek and a blow of wind.
Their heads jerked upward.
The old man and the boy turned to see that among the clouds in the night sky, two dragons soaring. A glowing sight. Balerion the black dread come again, and Jon's jaded beauty.
The Queen's dragon fluttered about, his wings more spread than ever, as he hovered over Jon's green dragon idly, to which she arched her long neck with unmistakable playful spirits. They were at a safe distance but nevertheless visible, emitting harmonious, almost merry rumble.
It sounded too close to a song. A song of dragons.
Young Aemon Charlton shuddered a bit and asked, "Are they fighting?"
Davos would have thought the same, but there was a lightness in their flight that resembled friction and swaying. His stomach contracted with a ticklish gasp. The world has once been inhabited by dragons and other magical creatures. Now they were rare, but enduring.
Had that been the wrong to undo?
"No," Davos replied, "They are dancing."
***
They were stumbling backward and fumbling through their heavy layers of clothes, climbing quickly to the warmth of the fur quilts on the pallet. Jon made a quick job to unfasten the laces that hold the pieces together, all of it falling into a pool at their feet, taking careful notice of the bandage still on her arm.
She halted him, mid-kiss, to whisper against his lips, "Just for the sake of clarity, I'm glad that you returned safe and sound. That you are alive."
Words wouldn't make justice to explain how much of a deeper meaning the statement did hold for him.
He didn't wish to hurt her and seeing her in the state of weariness in which she first walked in, he thought that lying with her would suffice. But Daenerys didn't let him brood to an opposition. Her dainty hand searched for his manhood and she started a slow but confident motion, making Jon part his lips, groan, and sigh as her lips kissed and sucked on his offered neck.
He latched onto her waist where he felt the skin soft and familiar. Daenerys parted her legs and sat astride him, descending her slippery warmth onto him slowly, tenderly as she sought support upon his chest. Then she started riding him, her gaze fixed upon him as their foreheads rested together.
His own heart might have well exploded with all of the feelings he was experiencing, mostly love and respect. How could you take me, let alone love me, after my villainous acts against you? he'd like to ask her, at another time. Jon knew it and still was too selfish to act accordingly.
As her pace became excruciating and solicitous, Jon grunted and searched for her sweet swelling bundle, rubbing it until her panting breath became whimpers of release. Jon's mouth caught her lips in a kiss and swallowed her cries as he hold her up to fuck her to his own climax.
Both having drained each other's last energies, they settled down to rest. Bone-weary with fatigue, she still dared to order him, "Don't leave me," in barely a whisper.
"Never," he promised.
When he thought she had finally drifted off, she asked him, "Have you remembered?"
His chest rumbled with a hearty laugh.
"Yes, it was a handkerchief."
***
Winterfell
Billows of smoke and mist still surged from the charred wreckage and debris in the gloom of the newly fallen night. Some bodies started writhing in their soulless awakening, a lone Walker lifting them up, more carcasses than whole bodies. Some of the over-scorched bodies shrieked in agony with their eyes alight in blue, hopefully, to make a decent march for the first light of day.
The entrance to the crypts was blocked by melted stones and shattered timbers, inside the vaults collapsed in on themselves. Even so, a crouching form persisted amongst the disaster. It was the Night King. Restricted and still, he seemed forever trapped. Nevertheless, a movement of his hand allowed him to continue waking up with magic those that should be left alone in their eternal resting place. Even the beast that for more than ten thousand years lay there, undisturbed.
An ice dragon.
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