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The first time Drogon smells him, he does not believe his nose. This thought alone is ridiculous to the zaldrizes. His senses have never been wrong before. But they’ve also never detected anything like this, and the realization sends a thrill to the tip of his wings.
The scent of the blood in the stranger’s veins is so recognizable, so tantalizingly nostalgic, that he can’t help but call out a greeting to him as he winds his way up to the great caverns of rock and salt. Drogon isn’t sure what he expects. There are few humans who can communicate to him and his lentor, but perhaps this one, with his perzys anogar, his fire-blood, can understand what he is trying to say. The question he is desperately wants to ask.
The dark-haired stranger shrinks away at his roar, as so many others have. Drogon feels a twinge of disappointment in his belly. But deep down, he is not surprised. Only Mhysa has ever been able to understand his cry, in her own limited way. However, the disappointment quickly turns into twisting, burning curiosity. Flying so near to the vala, there can no longer be any doubt in Drogon’s mind about what is in his blood. The scent of the newcomer’s sanguine essence is at once startlingly alien and intimately familiar. There is a strangeness to him, a dark strain that calls unbidden to Drogon’s mind the sensation of warm fur and raw meat and cold snow. It startles the zaldrizes. He has never experienced any of these. But yet, bound irrevocably with that was the blood that Drogon knew all too well: the fire-blood, the mercurial ebb and flow that started a fire broiling in his gut, the warmth that could either suffuse him in tranquility or consume him with passion.
Drogon does not know what this man’s presence on the island means, but it assures him of one thing, a joyous idea that races through the black dragon as he soars above the salt rock keep to tell his brothers.
Mhysa is not alone.
They have met, exchanged their first words and greetings, and Drogon is worried. He can feel his Mhysa’s emotions through their bond, and the talk is not going well. She is clearly angry, and though he is not experienced with the Issaros, the Stranger, he knows humans well enough to see that something deeply troubles him as well. Drogon also knows that humans are a contentious people, and that they often need a good deal of time to become raqirossa. Indeed, when Mhysa first met the byko kelia vala, the little lion man, Drogon could tell she wanted to hate him. Humans are amusing creatures in that way. So many of them decide how to feel about one another before they’d ever truly seen their mettle... Now, Mhysa trusted the small one above most others. In truth, Drogon himself could often be accused of this prejudice, but the situations were not the same. He had little use for hate. The worst he could feel for an inferior creature was contempt. Drogon was zaldrizes, and the only equals he’d ever known were his brood mates. Of course, Rhaegal and Viserion know that Drogon is darys, but that is what allows them to get along. Next to his brothers, most humans are weak and petty creatures. But Mhysa had managed to find a few who were made of sterner stuff, like the spear-carrier and the lion man, or the whitebeard (though he was gone), the hairy man who protected her, and even her butterfly girl, who seemed so impossibly soft, yet had steel inside.
Yet Drogon has never felt the desperation he feels between them and the Issaros now. The man was bent on telling Mhysa something, and she seemed equally as intent on denying it. Drogon could feel his rider’s blood rising, and while normally his teeth would already be bared in a snarl at this, he was still put off guard by how clearly he could connect to the Issaros. Something about him and Mhysa arguing so vehemently felt wrong to Drogon, like an unease settling into his bones. We should not fight our lentor, not so close to the enemies. The thought leaps unbidden into Drogon’s head, and it unnerves him. He doesn’t know this man, Mhysa didn’t trust him, and yet, and yet…. Drogon felt as though he knew more about the vala then almost any human alive.
It is later in the evening when Drogon feels them speaking again, and as he circles lazily through the sky next to Viserion, he focuses as much as he can upon the emotions he can discern from them. There is still the quiet desperation, the tense wariness, but Drogon feels other things too. He feels begrudging respect, and even a pang of empathy. And then, at the end, there is an acceptance. Drogon can feel Mhysa willing the meeting to end, but as it does, he catches the faint glimpse of something else: curiosity. It is the not curiosity of wondering, though. It is the curiosity one feels when standing on a cliff, when they look down at the ground below and wonder what they would risk if they tried to fly. It is the curiosity of fear. It is the kind Drogon felt when he looked out at the world from Mhysa’s shoulder, before he learned that the whole world felt that fear when it looked at him, and thus he had no need for it himself. Despite this, Drogon is glad to feel it from Mhysa. Perhaps it means that she is beginning to see what Drogon sees in the Stranger. That another of her kind is currently living in her walls, only a few steps away.
The thought gives him hope.
Something has changed between them. Drogon senses it. Ever since Mhysa and the Stranger visited the hole filled with frozen fire (Drogon can smell it on her afterwards), the energy between them is different. The wariness between them had been slowly leaving with every day the Issaros spent on the island, but now it had been replaced entirely. In its place, Drogon feels a confusing whorl of feelings in his Mhysa. There is still frustration, but there is also hope, and a newborn trust….. and the tiniest bit of fear. Drogon doubts this is towards the Issaros himself, but where it is from exactly is a hard question. Perhaps it is connected to the last sensation Drogon detected from Mhysa before it was all submerged in cold resolve and righteous fury. It was but a tiny flicker, but Drogon swears he felt a flash of heat, a warmth he has felt from her only a few times before. It is a rare thing to Mhysa herself, and the scratchy feeling it leaves in Drogon’s throat is odd and somewhat uncomfortable. Drogon felt it most when Mhysa first met the man who kisses his blades, but when she put Viserion and Rhaegal in the metal cords and Drogon fled, he could feel only the faintest glimmer of his Mhysa’s heart. When he finally returned, the feeling was gone.
Drogon shakes his head, letting the whistling wind clear these pensive thoughts from his skull. There is no use for them now. Now, he hears only the hoof beats of the horselords beneath him, sees only the rolling green hills and rich fields that stretch out as far as he can see. Mhysa says this will be their home soon. Drogon hopes so, but first, she needs him to burn her enemies again. Drogon can feel the dracarys building in his belly, and he narrows his eyes. He is starting to make out the smell of the other men, the tang of their iron and the sweat of their horses. He bares his teeth in a snarl. These vala will kneel before the darys, or they will burn.
Most of them will burn.
He can smell the Stranger waiting for them.
The wound in Drogon’s tikun still stings where the iron thorn pierced it, but it is not enough to hamper him. As he flies towards the windswept cliffs of the salt and rock island, he can feel Mhysa willing him to land where the Issaros stands in his flapping cloak and heavy furs. Drogon intended to go there anyway. He is tired of dancing around him, this vala who feels so familiar. He wants to see what he is made off, and he wants to know what he is, to Drogon and to Mhysa. As Drogon lands and begins to stalk towards him, he can smell the fear coming off of him in waves. There is apprehension in Mhysa too. She did not expect Drogon to approach the Issaros so directly, and she is trying to discern what he will do. Drogon is curious as well.
As he nears the vala, he can hardly contain the excitement he feels. His blood is still singing from the thrill of battle, and as he draws ever closer to the stranger that has haunted Mhysa’s thoughts, he feels the same anticipation that she does, deep in his gut. The Issaros is removing the covering from his hand, and he extends it towards Drogon, trembling with equal fear and exhilaration. When the two finally touch, Drogon expects to feel something earthshaking. He expects some epiphany, some great sensation to accompany the magnitude of this union. Instead, as the man’s hand settles on his nose, all Drogon can feel is a deep contentment. The smell of the man, while it appeared foreign at first, is so familiar to the zaldrizes that there can be no doubt in his mind now. It reminds him of better days, before the sadness in Mhysa’s chest curled around her heart and wrapped tight. This man is no issaros. The blood in their veins is the same, the same kind that runs in Viserion and Rhaegal, the same kind that flows through Mhysa. Drogon knows not what to call him now. He can feel the hope in the vala’s chest, and Drogon wonders if he too can feel the connection they share. The connection of lentor. Of family.
He feels Mhysa dismount, and as she approaches the vala, Drogon decides it is best to let them be. He gathers his wings again and takes flight, grousing silently at the twinge in his tikun. Rhaegal can hunt for him tonight. Drogon did all the fighting today anyway. As he turns toward his den, he can feel a thought cross Mhysa’s mind as she begins speaking to him. Drogon is not sure what a Jon is. He has never heard the term before the arrival of the dark-haired man, does not know it in the language Mhysa taught him. But it has been on her mind ever since, and Drogon decides that if it is what she calls him, it is what he should be called. Drogon can see his brothers now, waiting for his arrival so they can pester him. He must tell them about Mhysa and her Jon. They will be happy. Having more lentor is never a bad thing.
Drogon is annoyed with his Mhysa. She is allowing herself to be stupid in that uniquely human way again. Their Jon wants to go somewhere, somewhere very dark and very cold, and Mhysa doesn’t want him to. Her hairy protector is going too, and she is equally afraid of this. He wonders why she is letting them go at all then! Dragons are meant to keep their lentor close, Drogon thinks. Why is Mhysa sending hers away? He cannot decipher it. All he can do is watch as her protector and her Jon climb into their wooden hut and sail away. Mhysa is still standing on the beach, watching them go, and Drogon can’t help but feel like she is making a mistake. It is an uncomfortable feeling, but Rhaegal and Viserion share it.
Mhysa does too, he realizes, when he feels her tossing and turning in her den that night, sleep held off by visions of sad grey eyes staring at her.
When they finally find their Jon on the frozen lake, Drogon is relieved. When he sees the sea of bone around him, the relief is replaced by anger. Mhysa should never have let him come.
This whole place is wrong. The snow and rocks that had seemed so pure as they raced their way to the arrow mountain now reeked of death and decay. The shapes that swarmed the rock where their Jon stood were shambling monstrosities of bone and rags. And up on the cliffs, Drogon could only describe them as iorves. Cold. The cold shapes were watching them as their armies burned, and yet they did nothing.
Mhysa calls out to them as Drogon and his brothers continue to burn away the dead things, but their Jon doesn’t want to listen. He wants to protect everyone, make sure they all clamber up Drogon’s scales -he growls as the burned one pulls himself on none too gracefully- before he joins them. Drogon is growing impatient, until he hears something that chills him to his bones.
Viserion is falling. And as he does, he screams.
The smell of his blood is suddenly everywhere, and the only thing Drogon can do as his brother crashes into the frozen water is call out for him. The only thing he can do as his lentor sinks below the ice is continue to burn the dead, continue to fight as he sees their Jon finally turn towards them and run. It is the first time he has ever felt this helpless.
And then he is forced to watch as the ice takes their Jon as well, forced to turn his back and run as he feels the one who smells of ice and the void take aim at his back, where Mhysa sits. Drogon throws himself into the northern air, and soon they are away from the lake of the dead. It is then when Drogon finally allows himself to feel the anguish of his kin. Rhaegal is distraught, keening cries spilling from him as he wails his sorrow to the world. Mhysa is in shock, her mind refusing to accept what has happened even as Drogon can feel her body shake and her hands clench into his hide, her tears freezing on her cheeks before they can fall. And their Jon is gone. Drogon cannot feel him or his perzys anogar anymore. The cold of death has swallowed it.
As they near the great wall of ice crowned with castles, Drogon knows what he feels. He sees blue eyes, smells the empty nothingness and the blood of his brother, can feel the points of a twisted crown, and he hates.
The first time Drogon smells him, he does not believe his nose. The smell of cold and death almost masks him completely, but when Drogon feels the rush of warmth and fear through Mhysa, he knows their Jon has come back.
Mhysa refuses to leave his side as he sleeps, and for this, Drogon is glad. He and Rhaegal take the time to mourn out of her sight, to try and preserve what heart she has left. Mhysa is trying to hold herself together for the sake of her herd, and her Jon, and while Drogon understands this, he cannot do the same. When he finally allows himself to truly mourn, the fire he lets forth is the hottest he has ever given breath to. He burns and burns and burns, until the icy cliff he and Rhaegal had come to was glowing orange with his heat. After he has finally burned the anger out, the sorrow comes, and he and his brother scream their plight out into the world for all to hear. They are zaldrizes, the greatest creatures on this world, and their brother is dead. When the day grows old, and their hearts and throats have finally gone raw, Drogon and Rhaegal rest. They sleep nearer to each other than they have since they were rinar, children at Mhysa’s shoulder. Perhaps it is to make up for the empty space that Viserion once occupied.
In the morning, Drogon feels Mhysa and Jon talking. There is still a trace of stupid human hesitation in his Mhysa, and that alone makes Drogon want to scream again. But it is the truest they have ever been when together, and Drogon can see clearly the warmth in them as they look at each other. To his surprise, the warmth doesn’t trouble him as it used to. Rhaegal feels the same, and even as they dance around the burning truth in their throats, Drogon and his brother vow to protect them, their Mhysa and their Jon. It will take a long time for them to heal, but lentor heal best when they are together. Drogon suspects he will have an easier time of keeping them near after what has happened.
He will avenge Viserion too, the mighty black zaldrizes promises. He will burn away the dead men and their iorves masters until they are gone from the world. As his thoughts turn to vengeance, he is aware of Mhysa and her Jon making the same promise to each other. That is good.
They will need every dragon there is.