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On a clear day, Dany can see everything from her high seat out on the balcony. It overlooks the little garden where she and Jon planted lemon trees like the one she loved as a girl, the neat, even rows of them taking root and growing quickly in the balmy spring sunshine. They’re just saplings yet, but the first new blossoms breathe a pleasant, citrusy scent into the air that makes her feel young again.
The sun-bleached, driftwood balcony chair is Dany’s very favorite place in the house, and she sits sentinel there at sundown to watch for her lord husband’s return on the road. But this evening she dozes off in her seat, lulled into comfort by the late afternoon heat.
Jon surprises her when he moves her hair aside to drop a well-placed kiss to the back of her neck, coaxing a sleepy grin to her lips at the recognition of his warmth.
“You’re late,” she announces, not unkindly.
“My apologies, My Queen,” he mouths against her skin. “I got held up removing some unruly youths from my sister’s estate.”
“How troublesome,” she tuts, amused. It’s only when Jon’s mood is up that he calls her by those old titles. “Surely these miscreants can’t be my subjects.”
“The very same.” Jon’s expression is mischievous when he steps before her, his hands hiding something behind his back. “And your supplicants have an important matter to bring before you this evening.”
“Is that so?” she asks him, arching a curious brow.
“Aye, and we can’t have you receiving them without your full regalia.”
When his hands emerge before him, they’re holding a clumsily woven crown of dusk roses, each thorn painstakingly sawed down with his hunting knife. Her heart swells at the simple gift—her favorite flower—and she meets his eyes when he places it reverently on her head.
“There,” he nods, satisfied. “The Queen of Love and Beauty.”
“Jon,” she begins, shaking her head happily. “What are you—,”
It’s then that the children come bounding out to meet them, Naerys’s bright, lilac eyes wide with excitement; little Ned’s tight, silver curls looking wild and windblown.
“Mother!” Ned exclaims, evidently flustered about something. “Cousin Cat says there’s no such thing as dragons.”
“That’s right,” Naerys confirms seriously. “I told her they are real, that they just died before she was born. She won’t listen! And when I asked Aunt Sansa to tell her the truth she told me to hush up until Cat’s older. Until she’s big like me, and can understand everything.”
Dany nods sagely, stamping down her amusement at the children’s indignance.
“If you really understand everything, my love, could you not have told little Cat the whole tale yourself?”
“I can never remember all the names like you do,” Naerys complains, her brows knitting with frustration under her black bangs.
“We can’t tell it like grown-ups do,” Ned adds. He has his father’s kind, brown eyes, and when he looks at Dany that way she can’t refuse him anything.
“Do you want to hear the story again?” The children look ready to jump out of their skins for joy at her offer, and over their heads she can see Jon watching her, love and contentment written plainly across his handsome face.
“Very well then,” Dany begins, dropping her voice so that Naerys and Ned have to scramble in closer, the better to hear her. “A long time ago, when I was just a girl, your Father lived far away, across the Narrow Sea …”
Later, when the children have gone off to bed, Jon leans against the balcony railing before her in a thoughtful silence, staring at the moon’s reflection over Purple Harbor.
“Do you ever wish that story had ended differently?” he asks suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
He turns to face her, his eyes distant and unreadable before he explains.
“Sometimes I wonder if this is really the life you deserve. If you’d not rather a chair made of iron instead of wood. If you’d not prefer the Red Keep to a little Braavosi villa. You fought so hard and—,”
Dany rises sharply before he can continue. Grasping him by the forearm, she guides him to her seat and pushes him into it. Jon stares up at her in surprise as she seats herself easily in his lap so that she might look into his eyes when she speaks.
“I never dared hope for a life as perfect as ours,” she whispers fiercely. “There is no greater prize than our family.”
Relief releases the tension in Jon’s face, and in the thick muscles of his arms beneath her palms. In peacetime and prosperity her husband has grown broader, but no less strong. Hard work in the sun has tanned his hide and little grey spots peak out around his ears in the rich black of his hair. But there is still no one in the Seven Kingdoms or beyond that she’d rather lay with, and it’s desire for him that urges the next words from her lips.
“And I’d trade a thousand ugly Iron Thrones for just one night of your love, My King.”
A throaty laugh bubbles from Jon at that. She can remember a time when his laughter was as rare as a flood in the desert, but now he laughs loudly and often. It still makes her giddy.
“Well, Your Grace,” he begins with a smile in his voice. Dany shivers as his hands move up the bare flesh of her back to untie the haltered sash of her dress. It falls about her hips in a whisper of silk against skin, and Jon licks his lips at the sight of her, now naked to the waist. “I think that can be arranged.”