Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Their flight became a rhythm, a silent symphony composed of hoofbeats, wind, and shared breaths. They rode until the moons climbed high and their stolen horses’s energy flagged, their lathered coats gleaming in the pale light. Their stops were timed not by a sundial, but by exhaustion and the need for shadows. They would find a crevice in the rocks, a stand of skeletal trees—any scar in the land that offered a hiding place.

There, Jake would build a small, efficient fire. The flames were a pale, earthly echo of the dragonfire that had once flowed in their veins, now tamed to the simple, vital purposes of boiling water, roasting a scrawny hare, and holding the creeping cold of the desert night at bay. In its flickering light, Beth’s face was a map of everything he had ever fought for.

On the third night, nestled in the lee of a wind-scoured cliff that blocked the relentless wind, she broke the comfortable silence. The fire painted soft, dancing shadows on her face, and for a moment, she was both the girl from the docks and his princess from the cliffside, a perfect amalgamation of all she had ever been.

"Where are we going now?" she asked, her voice quiet but unburdened, the words carried away by the vast, empty sky.

Jake smiled and mumbled a humm first, a sound so light and free it seemed to startle the very stars. It was a sound that made them both forget, for a precious second, the slavers and the stolen gold and the vast unknown ahead. "East, maybe. More east than we already are, perhaps." he said, leaning back on his elbows, his gaze fixed on the infinite tapestry of stars above. He let out a wry scoff. "I basically stole from every lord, merchant, and cutpurse from King's Landing to Pentos. I'm beginning to think they'll team up and form a grand alliance just to hang me if I ever set foot west again."

Beth's laughter now was a melody he would gladly traverse a thousand Dothraki Seas to hear again. "You?" she teased, her eyes sparkling with mirth and something deeper, something akin to awe. "The once righteous prince who wouldn't even let his mother, the Queen, eat the lemons from her own lemon cakes, insisting they be given to the smallfolk who needed the sustenance more than she who only eat the lemons?"

Jake only shook his head as a respond. His laughter that followed was a softening bit into a warm, private chuckle. The memory was both fond and foreign, a relic from a different world, a life lived by a different boy.

"You've changed a lot, then," Beth remarked, her gaze thoughtful as she poked the fire with a stick, sending a cascade of sparks swirling into the night.

"Well," he said, his voice dropping into a more intimate timbre. He reached out, his hand finding hers in the space between them, his calloused fingers lacing with hers. Her skin was warm against his. "This is my second life." He looked directly at her, the fire reflecting in his earnest eyes. "And unlike the previous one, where I was bound to the Realm, to Duty, to my Mother's will, and to the weight of a family name... in this one, I am bound only to you. So if stealing could mean saving your life, I'd gladly steal again from every king and lord from here to the Sunset Sea."

He felt Beth's thumb begin to stroke the back of his hand, a slow, soothing rhythm that echoed the beat of his own heart. Her smile was a thing of profound tenderness, a look that held centuries of understanding. "And if fighting and killing those slavers would mean meeting you and being with you," she whispered, her voice fierce with a love that had survived the grave, "I'd be glad to do it all over again, a thousand times, in a thousand different lives."

Jake squeezed her hand, his smile a silent answer to hers. "East, then?"

"The farthest we could," Beth confirmed, her voice a vow woven into the very fabric of the night.

Days later, their journey led them to a dusty, bustling trader's town on the edge of the known world, a precarious collection of mud-brick buildings clinging to a trickle of a river. They stayed for a week, earning a few honest coins mending fences and letting their horses grow fat on proper grain. For the first time, they slept under a roof, even if it was a leaky one in a rented hovel, their bodies curled together on a single pallet, finding a home not in a place, but in the warmth and safety of each other's arms.

Sitting at a rough-hewn table in a corner of a raucous tavern one evening, shielded by the noise and the smoke, they spoke of the future. The air was thick with the smell of spiced stew and cheap ale.

"I heard whispers in the market today," Jake began, his voice low, his hand resting over hers on the sticky table. "Traders speaking of a city of shadow and magic, far to the east. A place called Asshai."

Beth took a sip of her bitter local ale, her eyes never leaving his. "And when were you ear-dropping on these esteemed traders?" she asked, a familiar, teasing smile playing on her lips—a smile Jake would willingly die for, a smile that held the power to eclipse all the darkness they had endured.

"When I was... procuring provisions," Jake said, a roguish grin spreading across his face, the expression still feeling new and wondrous on his once-serious features.

"Stealing," Beth corrected, her eyes dancing with mirth, her foot brushing against his under the table.

"Stealing," Jake admitted with an unrepentant shrug, and they both laughed, a shared, private joy that drew a few curious glances from the surrounding patrons. "Stop laughing, it's a necessary skill! And I only steal food," he insisted, though the heavy pouch of slavers's gold at his belt told a different, more necessary story.

"Sure, sure," Beth said, waving a dismissive hand, her laughter subsiding into a warm, affectionate smile that made his chest feel tight. "I too did not consider stealing from a slaver is bad thing."

"What I meant is," Jake continued, leaning in closer, the world narrowing to just her face. "They say it's a place of ancient power. A city built with strange stone that drinks the light. It may be the closest thing we can find to the island of our memories... a place where two ghosts might finally build a home, far from any memory of Robert's reign or Cersei's cruelty."

Beth's smile softened, losing its edge of teasing and becoming something full of wonder and hope. "So, to Asshai, then?"

"Well," he said, his heart in his throat, his thumb stroking the inside of her wrist. "What do you think?"

Beth's smile grew wider and impossibly softer, a sunrise after a long, frozen night. "If you go to Asshai," she said, as if it were the simplest, most undeniable truth in the world, "then I go too." She turned her hand under his, lacing their fingers together firmly. "In case you haven't noticed, we are a package now."

Jake laughed first, a sound of pure, unadulterated happiness that seemed to rise from the very depths of his healed soul, and Beth joined him, their laughter weaving together into a promise more binding than any spoken vow.

At long last, Jake thought, watching her—his anchor, his fire, his love—those fragile dreams from a stinking alley in King's Landing could be made true. A solid house without leaks, built with his own hands. The finest dresses for Beth, not as a badge of royalty she once wore on their last lives, but enough as a tribute to her beauty, paid for with coin they had taken back from the world that had tried to break them.

A simple life. A long life. A shared life, built not on duty, but on choice.

Together, Jake thought. Always.

Crossing the Dothraki Sea had been a trial of dust and exposure, a test of their endurance against the sun’s hammer and the wind’s knife. Traversing the sprawling, ancient empire of Yi Ti had been a lesson in navigating human cunning, a labyrinth of bureaucratic suspicion and gilded treachery. Both were hard, deadly paths that had carved away the last of their softness, leaving them lean and sharp as Valyrian steel.

But neither held the chilling, metaphysical dread of the tales of Asshai. It was a name spoken in hushed tones, a city of shadow-binders and demons, a place where light itself was said to die and the very air was a poison to ordinary folk. It was the end of the map, the final refuge for those with nowhere else to run. The thought of it was a cold stone in Beth’s belly, a price she was willing to pay for freedom, but a price nonetheless.

Before that final voyage, they found a reprieve on the island of Leng. Its jungles were a steaming, emerald cathedral, a world away from the harsh glares of men. For a few months, they lived as the only two people in creation, building a shelter from broad leaves and strong vines, learning the rhythms of the rain and the calls of the strange, colorful birds.

It was here, in this verdant isolation, that they found their silent guardians. Two great white tigers, majestic and silent as ghosts, began to share their territory.

The larger of the two was a magnificent male, his coat like fresh golden snow and his eyes the color of pale sea-green jade. He attached himself to Beth with a devoted intensity, following her through the dense foliage as a silent, protective spirit. She named him Moondancer, of course, and he would eventually allow her to ride him, his movements a symphony of power beneath her, a ghost of a sensation she knew in her soul from another life.

The other, slightly smaller but lithe and burning with a fierce energy, had eyes of burning topaz and became Jake's shadow. He was named after Vermax, of course, a loyal guardian on every hunt, his presence a solid, comforting weight at Jake’s side.

For the two lost fire of House Targaryen, they were more than pets; they were kin. Vermax would be clingier to Jake when he was away, protecting him as they search for food and supplies, but would curl up, rumbling with a deep purr, at Beth’s feet when Jake slept, as if she were his second charge. Meanwhile, Moondancer followed Beth everywhere, yet he always returned to sleep in the hull of the sturdy boat Jake was building plank by plank, as if guarding their future as fiercely as he guarded her present.

After a year passed since they fled the slavers, when the eastern winds turned gentle and the seas lay down like a placid blue plain, they knew it was time. They loaded their boat with the provisions they had gathered, their pouch of slavers’s gold, and their two great feline companions. With a final look at the jungle that had sheltered them, they raised their sail and pointed the bow towards the last known place on their map: Asshai.

The journey was long, months of endless grey sea and shifting, unfamiliar stars. On the vast, empty ocean, all they had were each other and the dredged-up memories of a different life. Beth would watch Jake at the tiller, his face set against the spray, and see the ghost of Corlys Velaryon in his stance. He would speak of currents and stars, his voice taking on the cadence of the Sea Snake’s lessons, a knowledge that was not entirely his own, guiding them to a shore he had never seen.

When the jagged, black skyline of Asshai finally pierced the horizon, Beth’s hand tightened on the rail, her heart a drum of war and worry. They sailed into the port, expecting to feel a chill, a dread, a palpable wrongness in the air, a physical manifestation of the shadows that were said to breed there.

Instead, they found… warmth.

It was not the humid heat of Leng, but a gentle, soft warmth, like a transparent blanket woven from sunlight, hugging the strange, towering black stone structures. The famous shadows were gone. The city, that once said built of that same greasy, light-drinking stone, was bathed in the clear, honest light of a sun that felt… new. The air was clean, scented with salt and, impossibly, the faint, sweet smell of blooming plants.

And there were people. Lots and lots. Not hooded sorcerers, but fishermen mending nets on the quay, children chasing a dog through the streets, merchants selling fruit from brightly painted carts. It was a port, a new port of a proper future. A strange one, but a living, breathing one.

An old man with a kind, wrinkled face and eyes that held no trace of malice approached them as they disembarked, his gaze curious upon them and their incredible tigers.

"What is different here?" Jake asked, his voice full of the same awe and confusion Beth felt as she looked around, observing the mundane, peaceful life around them.

"The magic is gone," the man said simply, as if stating the weather. "All magic is gone from the world. It is known."

"All magic?" Beth asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"The shadows, the cold gods, the curses… all gone," the man confirmed with a nod. "Daenerys Targaryen made sure of it. The tales say it all."

Beth felt the world tilt at once. "Daenerys… Targaryen?" The name was a key turning in a lock deep inside her, a name that tied their ancient, tragic bloodline to this unimaginable present.

"Yes," the man said, his eyes growing distant with awe. "The Azor Ahai, the Prince That Was Promised, the Mother of Dragons… call her what you will. They say she walked into the heart of the world’s magic and unraveled it all, to save the souls of the dead who fought for her cause. And now, all magic that left was her dragons." He paused, handing each of them a loaf of warm, crusty bread. "My treat. To celebrate. There is more land for us to inhabit now, without fear. Even a land as cursed as Valyria is now cleared of its twisted spells."

"How long has it been this way?" Jake asked, his voice thick with an emotion Beth could scarcely name.

"A few weeks only," the man said, before turning back to his cart.

Beth slowly turned to look at Jake, her mind reeling. The implications washed over her like a wave. The very reason this place had been a sanctuary of last resort was gone. It was no longer a cursed refuge, but simply… a place. A clean, new place. "A Targaryen… saved the world."

Jake nodded, a profound, weary understanding in his eyes. He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close against the solid, steady strength of him. "Like the tales my mother used to tell me of Aegon's dream," he whispered into her hair, his voice resonating in his chest. "We didn't die for nothing, Beth. Our house… it fell then and later, but from its ashes rose a savior. Our bloodline, which brought so much fire and blood, but also brought this… this peace. And now… now we can just live."

And just like that, the years began to unspool, not in a frantic flight, but in the gentle, measured rhythm of a life being built. The dreams Jake had devotedly planned in the darkest nights—the solid house, the fine dresses not of royalty but of love, the simple life of their own—were achieved one by one, not as a desperate struggle, but as a quiet, joyful collaboration.

Jake and Beth built their house with their own hands, using pale wood from the Lengi jungle they had brought and the dark stone of Asshai itself. It was a small, sturdy home near the sea, where the air was clean and they could watch the sun rise over the jade waters, painting the sky in colors they had only dreamed of in King’s Landing. Jake, with a look in his eye that spoke of a memory of a little boy in a foreign land, insisted their door be painted a deep, vibrant red. It was a tribute, a reminder of the identity they had lost and the love that had survived it. And, Beth had no reason to object. She longed for that symbol as much as he did, as a beacon of their shared soul.

In the mornings, Beth would sit on the porch, a blanket around her shoulders, watching Moondancer stalk through the tall grasses while Vermax lounged in a patch of sun, his tail twitching. She wore not silks from Yunkai, but a simple, well-made dress of cyan blue linen, paid for with their own finally honest labor. It was finer than anything she had ever owned as a servant, and it was hers.

Jake would join her everytime he catches her does that, his hands calloused from woodworking or fishing, and he would sit beside her, his presence the unshakable foundation she had always needed. They spoke little in these moments. They had crossed a continent and two lifetimes to earn this silence.

But alas, at last, it was not a symbol of a crown or a dynasty. It was simply their door.

At last, a life they had earned with their own hands, fought for with their own blood, and chosen with their whole hearts. The ghosts of Jacaerys and Baela could finally rest, their promise kept, their song finished not with a clash of swords, but with the gentle sigh of the sea on the shore.

At last, standing on the porch of their house with the red door, with Jake’s arm around her and the two great tigers sleeping peacefully in the sun, Beth smiled. It was not the fierce, defiant smile of Baela Targaryen, nor the desperate, hopeful smile of Beth the servant. It was a new smile, born of peace, deep and quiet and whole. It was the smile of a woman who was, finally, and forever, home.

Together, Beth thought. Always.