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Chapter Text

Echoing between her ears she hears Viserion’s screams again and again, and she’s trying her best not to lose her composure, not to think of her child’s blood falling from the sky like rubies, or how his body slowly slid beneath the ice, never to rise again. She also tries not to think of the other body that had slid beneath the ice, the one belonging to the man she had come to save. 

The Night King throws another spear, this time at her, at Drogon, and her dragon banks, barely avoiding the deadly weapon. 

A scream, then a curse word. That’s all Daenerys hears and when she turns, she sees Jorah falling off Drogon’s back, his hands searching for purchase and failing to find it. 

No!  

A moment later, a puff of snow is thrown in the air as his body hits the ground below.

No! No! No! Not you too! She thinks, and before any other thought can form in her mind, Drogon banks and turns again. This time, he’s turning back. The dragon has read her mind even before she knew it.  

“He’s dead!” She hears a harsh voice from behind her. It belongs to the man with the burnt face, “He’s dead!” he says again, “You’ll kill us all if you go back for him!”

Dany pays no mind to the man. Instead, she searches the sky until she finds Rhaelgal, Go! She screams inside her head, hoping he will understand. Run!  Rhaelgal screeches, then flies off, and Dany finds a moment to exhale. 

Please be alive, oh, Gods, please let him be alive! She believes in no Gods, yet she prays in her mind as Drogon dives toward her fallen knight.

“Can’t you hear me, you stupid cunt? You’ll kill us all!” The man says, then she hears another man she doesn’t know trying to shut him up. 

Do they not know that she cares nothing for them? Do they not understand that she would trade them all in an instant for her knight? 

“I didn’t sign up for this just to die in this fucking wasteland. Turn your damn dragon around!”

Two bats of Drogon’s wings later they land just feet from to her knight.

Dany snaps her head back to the men. “Go fetch him!” She orders the strongest looking of them all, the one with the foulest of mouths, “If you do not I will have Drogon burn you alive.”  

The man eyes her for a moment, and Dany holds his gaze. “Cunt!” He swears under his breath, but dismounts and runs for her knight. 

“God dammed fucking Mormonts!” The redheaded curses and joins in the rescue.

She wants so badly to look at Jorah, to see if he’s alive or... But she can’t. She must keep herself and everyone safe and alive. 

The wights have spotted them. They’re running for them, but they’re still far enough that Drogon’s fire won’t reach them. Her eyes search for the real threat, for the Night King. She finds him, and he’s just acquired another ice spear. 

“Faster!” she barks as the two men climb aboard Drogon with Jorah’s limp body in their arms. There are streaks of blood oozing out his nose and mouth. Oh Gods, No!

“If you drop him, I’ll shake all of you off Drogon’s back!” She threatens as the dragon takes flight.

The red-headed’s eyes bulge and he drapes his body over Jorah’s, keeping it still. “Fucking Mormonts!” He grumbles.

All her attention is now focused on the Night King and the spear in his hands. Up! Dany thinks and Drogon obeys. 

She’s looking the Night King dead in the eyes, waiting for his move. She will not let her dragon turn left or right, not until the spear has left the creature’s hand, not until she can guess where it will land. The Night King throws it. Yes, there you go. Show me the path . The spear swishes through the air and Drogon banks left. It whizzes past them and now they are high enough that no other spear could reach them.

“Fuck me, the dammed Mormont is alive!” She hears behind her and her heart skips.

T hank the Gods!

“You sure?” The one-eyed man asks.

“I can feel his breath on my fucking face!” The red-headed says. “Never thought I’d be this close to a fucking Mormont and not put a sword through his gut.”

“He’s broken every fucking bone in his body and he’s bleeding through every hole, but sure, the fucker breathes.”

Dany’s heart sinks and her vision tints with red.

“One more word out of any of you, and I swear...” She doesn’t continue, but the look she gives them is enough for the burnt man to avert his gaze and the redhead to press himself tighter to Jorah’s body. 

*

“Get in the fucking boat!” Clegane barks at Tormund and Beric after dropping the Wight like a potato sack and kicking it for good measure. 

Tormund shakes his head. “We’ll stay and guard the wall. This is the furthest south I’m ever going.” The man says with a stupid smile on his face. 

Clegane grunts. He should say nothing more and just leave. Fuck them, they want to die here, they can fucking die here . Yet he finds his mouth opening. “You saw what’s out there. How the fuck you gonna protect the wall and yourselves from an army of dead men?”

“The Lord of the Light—” Beric starts.

“Oh, shut up with your fucking Lord! A damn dead bear and thousands of dead men attacked us. Now that… thing that can raise the dead has a dragon. What the fuck can you do against a dragon?”

The two men blink at him.

“You gotta be shitting me! None of you fuckers thought of that?” 

“Shit!” Beric says. “We can’t stay here.”

Clegane rolls his eyes and groans. “Get in the fucking boat and bring with you however many wildlings you can. Have the rest walk south.”

Tormund grunts.

“You’d rather be dead than go south? You truly are a dumb cunt.”

Tormund appears to be contemplating his options for a moment and Clegane wants to backslap some sense into him. 

“I’ll gather everyone.” The wildling says and makes for the wall. 

The boat is crammed full and still many were left to travel by foot towards Winterfell. It will be a long, hard walk, but better than the alternative. Anything is better than the alternative. Almost anything .

*

Inside her cabin, Daenerys wipes the blood from Jorah’s face. It’s the least she can do, the very least, for she knows of no way in which she can help him. There are no Maesters onboard and she fears he won’t make it to Dragonstone. If she thought he’d make it through the journey inland, she’d take him to Winterfell or anywhere else he might stand a chance. 

Ser Davos came and examined him a few hours ago. He had thought it a miracle that her knight had no bones piercing through his skin but that was all the good news he had given her and she was not sure if it had been good news to begin with. The man had not stayed long, for the red-headed wildling had barged in with news of Jon’s arrival, alive, but frozen stiff. 

Her heart had skipped then, her feet moving towards the door, following in Ser Davos’s footsteps, but she had stopped right before the threshold. It had been strange. Something had pulled at her heart as if… as if there was an invisible tether attached to it. She had stood there, her eyes moving from the open door to her bed, where the other end of the tether seemed to have attached itself. Dany wrapped her hand around the doorknob and closed it, then turned back to her bed, to her knight. The tether went slack. 

“You just returned to me. Don’t leave me again so soon, my bear.” She says now, her voice low as she wipes away the last of the blood. His face is drawn and pale. “Do not leave me.” She commands as she puts her hand on top of his, but her tone is soft and pleading. His hands are cold as death. 

The hours pass and Jorah remains the same. They are still a long way from Dragonstone and Dany’s thoughts are filled with fears. Fear that she will lose her knight, fear of what she saw behind the wall, fear that another one of her children might fall prey to the Night King’s spears. Her heart is torn, shredded to pieces, and yet it still beats.

“Your grace,” she hears Ser Davos say from the threshold of her cabin. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Jon must have told him , she thinks, but says nothing. Viserion’s screams fill her head again, tearing at her heart further.

“I wanted to let you know that Jon Snow is recovering well.” 

“Thank you.” She’s happy for it and she’s been meaning to visit Jon, the man she had traveled behind the wall to save, but every time she urges herself to do so, her legs refuse to move, to hold her weight, to let her step away from her knight. 

“How is he?” The man asks as he moves closer to the bed. 

“Alive...” 

“May I?” He asks, making a head movement towards Jorah.

Dany nods.

The first time around, Ser Davos had undressed her knight to his undertunic and breeches before examining him hastily. He lifts the covers off Jorah’s body and Dany winches. From ankle to knee his left leg is swollen and blue and purple. The marks were not there before and Dany curses herself for not looking under the covers all this time. Davos grabs her knight's leg and moves it. Jorah’s foot dangles as if the ankle bones and tendons had been cut. Further up his leg, the broken tip of a bone threatens to pierce through the bruised skin. Dany swallows. 

The man moves to Jorah’s right leg. It’s bruised and swollen too and there’s a finger-wide gap where the ball of his knee used to be and Dany has to turn her head at the sight. Inside her mouth, bile gathers. Davos continues moving his good hand and stump over Jorah’s body. “His right arm is broken too, from shoulder to wrist,” he says, “I can feel the shattered bones underneath the flesh.” 

Dany bites her lip to keep it from shaking.

“And his back…” he clicks his tongue, “I can’t tell if it’s broken, but if I were a betting man, I’d say it is, and if so, then he will never walk again.” Ser Davos cups his hands behind his back and fidgets for a moment. He looks at her from under his brows as he says, “I’m sorry your grace, I know you do not want to hear what I have to say, but you should.”

You’re right, I don’t! 

“It’s a miracle he’s still alive and he might die before we reach Dragonstone, but if he does not, Well… I hope he goes in his slumber and never wakes, for if he does, ” the man lets out a huff of air, “he’ll be in such agony he’ll wish for nothing more than death.”

“He is strong and stubborn. He’ll make it to Dragonstone and–” 

“And then a Maester is going to sew all his shattered bones back together?” He asks, lifting his eyebrows. 

“Bones heal and mend!” 

“Shattered as his?” Ser Davos asks, his brow moving further up. “Every movement will be torture, the touch of a fly on his flesh will be as painful as the blow of a mace.” The man fidgets some more. “I’m sorry your grace, but there’s nothing anyone can do for him, nothing save put him out of his misery.” 

Dany swallows hard. She wants to slap the man across the mouth for his words, but instead, she says. “Thank you, Ser Davos. You may take your leave.” 

Ser Davos nods and takes it. 

Night has fallen long ago, the grey light of dawn is starting to trickle in and Daenerys is still by her Knight’s side, sitting on a chair next to his bed, next to her bed. There is no change in her knight, save for the increased swelling, and the bruises turning darker. 

She hasn’t slept much since the men left for the Wall and she hasn’t slept at all since she climbed on top Drogon and followed them behind the Wall. She’s not quite sure when she ate last either. 

She is tired, her body aches but her mind more so, and her heart— Oh, her heart. 

Ser Davos words have been swirling inside her mind since he had uttered them, pulling at her heartstrings, driving her to a ledge where nothing but darkness lies beyond . 

I hope he never wakes. 

There is nothing anyone can do for him. 

Save put him out of his misery.

And by all the Gods she does not believe in, this is all too familiar. So damn familiar! Everything feels like a bad dream, unreal and almost trance-like. Her head is spinning, the cabin is spinning, the entire world is spinning and spinning and the sea beneath the boat turns into the Great Grass Sea and her cabin shifts and morphs into a tent, the smell of horses and leather filling her nostrils. She shakes her head, trying her best to focus, to grasp at something real. 

Jorah, he is real.   

She turns her eyes towards her knight and she blinks in surprise, for the bed he had been resting on is now lower and covered with dozens of blankets and pillows, all of them spoils of war or tribute. And Jorah is no longer Jorah. His hair is much longer and darker, his face younger, his sea-colored eyes are now almost as green as the Grass Sea and they’re open, but they’re dead. There is nothing behind those eyes, and oh, how much there used to be. Drogo! 

“No!” She says out loud her eyes closed, her heart pounding, her head shaking, trying to get the image of long ago out of her mind. When she opens them again, her knight is back. 

Yes, this has happened before and her mind is reminding her of what she did then, but she can not do that now. 

She can not!

She can not.

Can she?

She hates Ser Davos for his words, even if she knows them to be true. Her knight will never walk, never hold a sword again, and who will he be if not her knight? And the pain! The pain he’ll feel if he ever awakes. She fears not even milk of the poppy would lessen it. And oh Gods, what if he awakes before Dragonstone? There is no milk of the poppy on the ship. What if he wakes with a start, confused and in agony, screaming and screaming and looking up at her with his blue eyes, begging for help, for release, for death. No! No! No! She shakes her head, trying to get the image out. I can not think of such things. He will make it to Dragonstone and then, and then…  

And then what? 

I can not let him suffer. I can not! But what can I do? What can I do? Her mind is spinning again, and there are talons gripping her heart and tearing at it, slowly, repeatedly. 

Maybe I should have left him behind the Wall. But she couldn’t. She could hurt him a thousand ways and she had before, yet she could never end him, not when there had been hope. 

And Gods, the thought of him with eyes bluer than his mother gave him, his body half rotten, fighting against the living, against her armies, against her . No! That is something her heart could never take. 

The cabin swirls and swirls again and she’s back in the tent and she sees her younger hands gripping a pillow. Her eyes are filled with tears and short, broken sobs leave her mouth. Dany can feel the fabric of the pillow in her hands as she places it over Drogo’s face, pressing down on it with all her might. And she’s pressing and sobbing and pressing and sobbing. Oh Gods! Oh Gods! Drogo’s strong body twitching beneath her much smaller one, but she does not stop, not until he stops. Not until life leaves him. The pillow slips out of her hands. It is done. He is free. 

Tears blur her vision and her stomach turns. It’s been so long since she’s thought of that night, so long she’s almost forgotten it. Almost. 

Dany rubs her eyes, and she’s back in her cabin again, her knight still on her bed, still broken into more pieces than she cares to count, still trapped inside a body that has failed him. She could set him free. Just how she had freed Drogo. He’s riding with his ancestors in the Night Lands because she had freed him. No matter how much it had pained her, she had done it.

Her hand grabs Jorah’s good hand. “What would you have me do, Ser?” She asks, tears dancing in her eyes, knowing she will receive no answer, but it does not matter, for she knows her knight. She knows him and he knows her just as well. They can speak with no words, just looks. Entire conversations, hundreds of words distilled in just mere glances. She knows he would not want to live such a life and she can not, will not , let him suffer. 

It would be a mercy. She tells herself, assures herself. I did it once, no matter what it cost me, I did it once. I can do it again. The talons in her heart are digging deeper, shredding further.

Dany rises from the chair and takes a seat on the bed. “Oh, my bear… how can I let you go? But how can I let you suffer?” 

Oh Gods, it is all too familiar and her mind is spinning again like in a feverish dream. I can do it again. I’ve done it before. I can... She grabs a pillow and places it on her lap. My sun and stars... I feed him, gave him mercy.  

She leans over and cups a hand around Jorah’s face, caressing it. Blood of my blood! Tears swell in her eyes and her voice is shaky as she says, “Not you too! Not you too, not the same way. Please, don’t…I can not…” Dany’s bottom lip shakes as she wipes the tears from her eyes. Jorah does not stir.

“But I know you wouldn’t want what awaits you, I know it, I know you, I—” She’s sobbing in honest now and she keeps wiping away the tears that keep falling and falling from her eyes. I must be strong, she thinks as she swallows around the painful knot in her throat. I must be strong enough for the both of us, but how can I?

“You were my strength, remember, Ser? You were my…. You are my…” Dany closes her eyes and lets out a long breath, trying to pull herself back together. I can do this, I have done it before, I’ve done worse still, I can… 

She opens her eyes and lets her hand slip from his face. “Goodbye, my sweet knight.” She says right before her lips touch his forehead. She lets them linger there for a moment, then another, not wanting to let him go, but she has to; she clenches her jaw and removes her lips from his much too cold skin. 

I can do it again. I can. She wills herself, her grip tightening on the pillow.

I can. It is mercy. I’ve done it before I can do it again.

The pillow touches Jorah’s face and tears run down her cheeks like rain, whimpers escaping through shaky lips. She presses down harder. I’m setting you free, I can not let you suffer. You wouldn’t want the life that awaits you, I know it. I know it, I— She shrieks, loud and pained, like a pig before the slaughter, tossing the pillow from her hands.

“I can’t! I can’t!” Dany cries out, her hands cupped around his face, her own face so close to his, her eyes on his every feature, every lash, every wrinkle. “Why can’t I let you go? Why can’t I let you go?” She asks between sobs, her hands caressing his face. 

Her eyes find his lips and Dany stops. Stops sobbing, stops her hand’s ministrations, even her breathing, and presses her lips to his. And finally, finally, she has her answer. 

She jumps up and away as if burnt, even though fire never touched her. A hand clasped over her mouth, she falls back into the chair, knocked off her feet but the weight of her sudden realisation. Everything is spinning again, even worse than before and there’s something very strange going on inside her belly and her heart. They’re both fluttering, like a swarm of insects had just eclosed there and they’re fighting to break through her flesh and out into the light. 

How long?  

That is all she can think to ask herself as she’s forcing her lungs to draw air again. She already has a thousand answers as to why.  

Was it when you returned to me, when I wrapped my arms around you and did not want to let you go again? Was it when I could not bear the thought of you dead from Greyscale? Was it in the fighting pits of Meereen? Or when you returned with Tyrion? Was it before, when I sent you away instead of ending you, when I could not even look at you? When did it happen? 

Her fingers reach for his and this time it’s different. There is something there that was not before. Her heart swells only to be crushed again because her hand clasped around his melts her insides faster than dragon fire melts ice. 

“When did you crawl inside my heart, Ser?” She asks as she caresses his hand. “When did you built a home there? And how have I not seen it until now?” Tears swell in her eyes again. “Why do I see it now, now that it’s too late, now that you will never know. Now that I will never know...” 

She leans over him, her hand flat on his cheek, thumb caressing his features. If he could only awake, just for a moment, if she could have just one last moment with him.

Just one. 

She knows she’s being selfish; she knows she’s being selfless.

“I need to tell you something,” she whispers as her thumb runs up and down his cheekbone “Just wake my bear, just for a moment, let me give you this. I need to give you this.” Tears are streaming down her face again and her other hand is in his hair, brushing it, caressing it. “I need you to hear it before you leave. You must know it! I can not let you go without knowing!” Her eyes fill with tears and when the tears fall from her face, they land on Jorah’s. “Please!” She begs him, her lips shaking. Her words are shaking too as she continues, “You must know it before you go into the dark beyond. It will give you comfort. I know it will.” She presses her forehead to his. “You must hear it from my lips. Please, just… please wake up!” 

Jorah stirs not. Moves not. But a breath of air leaves his lips. 

Dany lifts her forehead from his. “Jorah?”

He is still, stiller than before and Dany moves her ear to his mouth waiting for his next breath. It never comes.

“Jorah?” She asks again as her eyes grow larger, as a fist clenches around her heart. No, no, no! No! Her hands grab ahold of his shoulders and she’s shaking him and shaking him, trying to rouse him back to life, back to her.

“Jorah! Do not leave me!” She warns and commands.

“Please wake up!” She begs as a hand moves to his face. 

“No! You can’t, you can’t!” She says shaking her head, “You have not been dismissed, Ser!” Dany says between sobs and whimpers,  “You have not been dismissed!” Her head falls to his chest. The heart beneath that had once beat for her has stopped. “You have not been dismissed!” 

“You have not!”

“You have…” 

The sun shines its first rays through the porthole window, illuminating the cabin with its warm, pale light, but Daenerys cares not, for another Sun has just set.

Chapter Text

She should leave him, or have an Unsullied take his body away, she knows she should . Jorah is no longer there, only the shell remains, but she can not, for it is still the shell that had housed him, that had protected her from harm so many times, the proof written for her to see in the many marks on him. From the scar on his neck acquired long ago, to the many other scattered along his body, and down to the greyscale ones on his hand, snaking up to his shoulder, then down his chest. And it’s for that reason, and others still, that she loves this shell, just as she loves the man that used to live in it, the shell she hadn’t gotten the chance to explore with her hands and mouth, to hold and kiss to her heart's content. So she holds his cold hand in hers, her forehead pressed to his chest as tears roll down her cheeks and into the fabric of the blanket. 

It’s like this that Daenerys finally falls asleep, exhausted by sorrow, and for the first time, she dreams of all the possibilities that death had just scythed down.

The dream spills into reality and a little smile blossoms at the edge of her lips. 

*

In the underbelly of the ship, the early morning light barely trickles through the portholes; It’s the tallow candles set in old, broken mugs that give just enough light for the wildling women and children to see the bean stew and rye bread they’re chewing on. 

They’re half a day away from Dragonstone, if the wind holds, a day if it does not. The makeshift mess hall is crammed full and stuffy, and Beric feels like the ship walls are closing in on him. “How can you eat?” He asks.

“Like this!” Tormund says before shoving a spoonful of stew into his mouth, a sauce-covered bean sliding down his ginger beard. 

Dimwit, Beric thinks, annoyed by the wildling. Dimwits, the lot of them. They must be, for none seems too concerned with what they had seen behind the Wall. They had gargled and snorted all night, drool oozing down open mouths while his lashes had not touched from dusk to dawn. His head had felt too heavy, filled with all the horrors behind that icy wall, and for the first time in years, Beric realized he was afraid. For himself and for every living being in the realm. Death was coming, slowly but surely, and he could almost feel its crisp breath on the nape of his neck. 

“We might all die, everyone on this ship, the entire Realm, yet you can still stuff your mouth?” 

“Nobody’s dying today, and even if we are, I’d rather go down with a full belly,” Sandor offers.

Beric grunts. With disgust, he shoves his wooden bowl and piece of rye bread away.

Both Sandor and Tormund reach for it, ‌but Sandor is just a little faster, his hands wrapping around the bowl first and pulling it towards him. Tormund bares his teeth at the Hound, then grabs the bread. 

“Thought you’d have more faith in your lord,” Sandor says, his mouth full with half-chewed beans. “Or did you lose it behind the Wall?”

No, he hasn’t lost it, his Lord is good and powerful, but He works through his priests and priestesses, through people , and people are weak and feebleminded, and there is no room for either, for there is no weakness behind the Wall and the Night King’s eyes shone bright with ancient knowledge. “I have faith in my Lord,” he says with conviction.

“Then, shut the fuck up,” Clegane says dismissively. “You’re ruining my meal.”

Beric grunts again and looks away from the men. He finds that he misses Thoros; he’d had no time to mourn his friend, and now, surrounded by heathens, the possibility of death inching closer, the possibility of resurrection gone from his grasp. He wishes Thoros were here and not dead behind the Wall. 

His one good eye turns to the flame flickering above the candle. The night is dark and full of terrors, Lord, cast your light upon us. He says in his head, a small prayer for his fallen friend, and he can’t help but wonder if Thoros is not better off dead, free and warm in the Lord’s fiery embrace. The thought gives him comfort. “Valar morghulis,” he says under his breath, and something inside the tiny flame catches his eye.

Beric’s heart is beating out of his chest and his eyes, both the good and the useless one, burn inside his skull, for the Lord of Light has graced him with His presence. The Lord is the flame and yet he is not. He is much, much more. He is incorporeal, an ever-changing flame of golden-orange and fiery red, undefinable and indescribable. Words flow inside Beric’s ears like hot wax as the Lord speaks to him, and his eyes burn hotter still, although they remain unharmed. Caught in a trance, all he can do is watch his Lord and listen to His words. He does not move, nor does he breathe as R’hllor’s tells him His wishes. And then, as with the snap of two fingers, it is over. The flame is yet again nothing but a mere flicker above a cheap candle. 

The Lord is gone. For now. 

Beric snaps out of the trance and gulps for air, his eye, bulging, his heart still trying to escape the prison of his chest. Without a word, he grabs the candle from the table and makes for the Dragon Queen’s cabin.

“The fuck you going?” Sandor complains behind him, but he barely registers. 

*

Dany wakes with a start and for a blissful, blessed second, she doesn’t know where she is and what is happening. But knowledge comes rushing in like water out of a beaver’s dam and she’s drowning in sorrow again. She presses her lips together to keep a whimper from escaping them as her eyes lay on her dead knight. Inside her dreams he was not dead, he was alive and well, and strong as a bear as he took her in his arms and kissed her, as he… Dany closes her eyes.

A moment later, her attention is drawn to the cabin door. Behind it she can hear an unsullied arguing with a mildly familiar voice. She squeezes her knight’s ice-cold hand once before letting it go and heading for the door.

“What is the meaning of this?” She asks as she swings the door open to find the one-eyed man she had saved behind the Wall arguing with one of her unsullied. The man she does not know the name of is hunched over a candle, a hand protecting the flame.

“Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, the Lord of Light has a message for you.” The man says, his words hurried.

Dany grunts under her breath. She cares not for make-believe gods nor their crazy worshipers. She is about to tell the man just that when he adds, “A message regarding your dead knight.”

Dany blinks. No one but her knows that her knight had passed during the night, but considering his condition, it’s not a hard guess to make.

“What does your Lord know of my knight?”

“Much … can I come in?”

Dany looks at the man, she wants to say no; she wants to be alone with her sorrow just a little while longer, for soon she’ll have to step back into her queenly shoes and dawn her usual solemn mask. Then, there will be no time, nor room, for her broken heart. 

“What is your name?”

“Beric Dondarrion.”

“And how do you know Ser Jorah?”

“I do not, save for the trip behind the Wall. But my Lord, my Lord knows all… ”

Dany clenches her jaw and moves aside, letting Beric enter her cabin, then closes the door behind her.

“Tell me what is it you want.” She says, making her way towards her bed, where her dead knight still lays. 

“I have no wants. It is the Lord of Light that has a message for you.”

“Very well, speak it.”

Beric moves towards her, offering her the candle. “I do not know it, Dragon Queen. That is for you and the Lord only.” He places the candle in her hands, then steps back. “Look in the flame, look and see.”

Dany clenches her jaw, deciding that if this is a charlatan's trick, she will have the man thrown off her ship, straight into the freezing waters. “Very well,” she acquiesces as her eyes turn to the flame. It is but a mere candle, a cheap one at that, sitting in a broken mug, dried wax clinging to its sides. The small flame above it dances in the same oranges and reds as any flame. There is nothing special there, no make-believe Lord of Light, nor magic, nothing. She is about to give the man a few choice words when she sees something, and she is drawn closer to the flame, like a moth, unable to take her eyes off it. Words spill in her ears like molten rock and picture after picture dance in the flames. 

Horror flashes in Dany’s eyes and a hand clasps over her mouth. The hand still wrapped around the candle shakes and shakes, the flame flickering above it in tone. She drops the mug a moment later and it shatters beyond repair, the candle extinguishing on the wooden planks. 

Only life can pay for life.

Her cabin feels small and dark and cold. There was light and warmth and infinity in the flames, and such horrors. Such horrors, but also hope, hope that her knight would return to her. For a price. 

Dany’s eyes dance with tears as she lifts them to Beric’s. “I can not.” She says, shaking her head. “The price is too high.”

“I do not know the price… only you and the Lord know it. You must decide if you are willing to pay it. If you are, I shall bring Ser Jorah back.”

She needs to sit, her knees are refusing to hold her weight, and her stomach is in knots. Dany crashes on the chair next to Jorah, breathing fast and labored. She looks at her knight, her mind filled with what the flames had shown her, demanded for his return. And she is reminded of Mirri Maz Duur and her treachery, she had been fooled once, she would not be fooled again, but this feels real. Solid. Not an empty promise, but a true one, just... so much more expensive. 

You wouldn’t want me to pay the price. I know you would not. She speaks inside her head with her dead knight. Her warm and alive hand reaches for his cold and dead one, and the coldness travels up her arm and settles in her heart. What should I do, Ser? A tear cuts her right cheek in two , it’s all she will allow herself. If she were alone with him, she might sob over Jorah’s chest once again, might dare to speak her words out loud, but she is not.  

What would you do?  She asks and realizes that there is nothing he wouldn’t have done for her, yet he wouldn’t have wanted her to pay even the most modicum of prices for him. Not if it was at her expense. Always giving, never taking. It’s her time to give and his to receive, and she wishes for nothing more but to bring him back to life, to her… But the price… the price… 

“How long do I have to decide?” She asks without taking her eyes off Jorah, thumb running over his hand.

“ The sooner the better. I’ve been brought back seven times… it’s always better when you haven’t been dead for long.”

“Seven times?” Dany wonders, “What price did you have to pay?”

“Nothing… Though I lose a bit of myself each time I return.”

Dany huffs bitterly, “Your Lord is not fair. He gives freely to others, while he asks the world of me.”

Beric says nothing. She didn’t think he would.

“He’s been with me since the start…” She finds herself saying and regrets it, for what she and her knight have is just theirs and no one else’s. Her fingers caress his knuckles. You’ve given me everything and asked for nothing in return, and my sweet knight, that is what I’ve given you. Nothing. Nothing, when you deserved so much. She swallows around the lump in her throat. There are thousands and thousands of reasons why she should let him go. There are hundreds of why she should pay the price and she is torn between them. Only life pays for life. Must history repeat itself so cruelly? Must fate, or the Gods punish me so? If the price were hers alone to pay, she would have paid it in an instant, but it is not. 

Dany wipes the moisture off her face and straightens her back. She might be able to do what the Lord of Light asks of her. She will find it in herself to do so…. But there is one thing she knows she never could. I can not watch you burn. The image of him on a funeral pyre, the flames licking at his flesh, turning it black… No! That she can not do. 

“He is hurt. Will your Lord heal him too?” She has to know for sure, she has to demand it. She will not make the same mistake she had done with the witch. 

“Yes.” Beric says, but to her ears he doesn’t sound sure. 

“He must not be broken when he wakes, he must be sound of mind and body, and as strong as the day I met him. Your Lord must give me this. I shall have him whole or not at all.”

“If that is your demand, I am sure my Lord will grant it.”

Dany wipes at a tear before it gets the chance to travel across her cheek. “He can never know of this. No one can know that there was a price to be paid.” 

“It is between you and the Lord.”

“Do it. Bring him back to me!” Dany says with determination, even though her lips shake. 

Only life can pay for life.

Beric Dondarrion knows the words. He’s heard them many times. When he found himself inside the darkness, they called to him, beckoning him back to life. He knows them by heart. They ring in his head like a melody, but he has never uttered them, nor has he ever brought someone back to life. That does not matter. What matters is the Lord of the Light and his wishes and the Lord wants this disgraced knight back in the land of the living. That, or whatever the Dragon Queen was asked to trade for his life. He doesn’t know for sure, but by her reaction, he’s inclined towards the latter. Either way, it matters not. All that matters to him is the Lord’s will, so he sets himself by the foot of the dead knight’s bed and chants the words. 

Once, twice, trice. 

All that he can do, he has done. It’s in the Lord’s hands now. 

Dany holds on to Jorah’s hand as the one-eyed man chants his prayer. The price has been cast aside, hidden somewhere in the back of her head. All she thinks of now, all she cares for is her knight. Please come back to me, she begs. There is so much waiting for you, so many things I need to tell you. A small smile blossoms at the corner of her lips. Oh, how you will love to hear them.  

Beric has finished his prayer and starts again. She understands the words, for they are in her mother tongue. There is nothing special about them, and her eyes glance over at Beric, for Jorah is still cold and gone. The man pays no mind to her as he continues his chant. Do not be stubborn my bear, come back, for I still need you, she continues her pleading, but there is no change in her knight, no spark of life. The third prayer starts and Dany’s heart feels like a cloth being wrung. Fear is gripping its claws into her stomach. What if he does not wake? Had the Lord of Light dangled the possibility of her knight’s return in front of her, only to yank it away? I would pay it twice, she finds herself thinking, and her stomach turns at her own admission, I would, just bring him back. 

Beric is silent now. All the words have ended and Jorah is still cold and no longer. 

“Come back. Come back to me,” Dany pleads, her voice soft and broken, her hand still clasped around his. 

Nothing. 

There is nothing, and Dany has to bite on her bottom lip to keep it from shaking. “Please leave."

“I do not know why… I am to blame, I must be, I have never done—”

“Leave!” she says again, her voice loud, trying to hold back a sob.

Beric nods, then does just that. 

Dany chuckles bitterly, then sobs, because hope is the worst of punishments. Hope is torture, it’s vile and unforgiving. It’s the destroyer of hearts and souls. Hope had come to her with the promise of life, of love, and she had believed it, had let her heart believe it too, and now that heart is torn to shreds and her soul feels as cold as her knight’s body. 

“I must go,” she says as tears stream down her face again, the taste of their salt in her mouth. It’s time for her to dawn her queenly mask again. I must be strong, the time for mourning has passed, I must… I must...   Her lips press together and Dany closes her eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply, trying to regain her composure. “I must leave you now, my sweet knight… maybe we shall see each other again, in the great beyond, or in another life. Maybe then we’ll…” Dany chokes on her words and swallows. She squeezes his hand one last time, then rises from his side. 

Jorah jumps awake and alive, scaring Dany half to death, a shriek leaving her lips.

She’s shaking, every part of her being is shaking at the sight of her knight alive again. Before she realizes, her hands wrap around his neck, pulling him to her, pressing him to her, “You came back! You came back to me,” she’s muttering between sobs. Her hands move to each side of his now warm and rosy face, and her heart swells and flies to her throat, fluttering there. Through tears of happiness, she looks into bright, blue, eyes, You’re back!

Her lips find his and she’s kissing him, and he’s kissing her back, and she has grown wings on which she’s soaring through the warm, spring sky. The kiss is everything she hoped it would be, and more. It’s years and years of longing for something that had been there all along. It’s intimacy born on the Great Grass Sea and raised across the continents. It is love in its simplest and purest of forms. Dany moans in his mouth as her fingers wrap around soft, golden hair.

Everything is right in the world again and she can feel her heart mending, her soul warming. 

And then it isn’t. For Jorah stops their kiss and pushes her away. 

He looks at her with furrowed brows and questions in his eyes. “Who are you?” He asks, and Dany’s heart sinks to the pits of her stomach.

Chapter Text

The most beautiful woman Jorah has ever seen is kissing him and for all the Gods in the Realm, he cannot imagine why. He thinks he must have paid for her favors, though he’s never been in the habit of buying a woman’s touch—save for his second wife’s. Nor does he have the coin to waste on such a treat, but nothing else makes sense. 

He kisses her back before realizing, his heart thundering in his throat and between his ears, and it might have been a while since he’s been with a woman, but very few have made him feel this way. I must know her somehow, from somewhere. 

He pushes her off of him to take a better look at her, and it is as if pushing away the weight of the earth. She does not fight it, but something in him does. Something in him does not wish to let her out of his arms. 

“Who are you?”

Her pretty face falls, the light in her purple tinted eyes dims and his guts twist at the sight; he does not know why.

“Ser?”

“Do I know you?”

Her throat bobs, “Jorah, are you alright?”

So she does know me, or knows my name. This does not prove much, even if he had merely paid for her, she might have known his name. 

“Aye, I am. Again, I must ask, who are you?” 

She twitches as if he had lashed her instead of asking the simplest of questions. 

This silliness needs to end. “I know you have a tongue, use it.” His cheeks flush. He had meant it solely as to speak with it, but her tongue had been in his mouth just moments ago, she might have taken the wrong meaning.

The woman before him straightens her posture. “I am Queen Daenerys Targaryen and you, Ser Jorah Mormont, are my Queensguard.”

“If you are Queen Daenerys Targaryen, then I must be your Queensguard,” he mocks. 

Just this morning he had used most of his coin to purchase three books as a wedding gift for the Targaryen princess. In fact the last thing he remembers is making his way to the wedding. The princess is said to be beautiful with hair as white as snow, and purple tinted eyes—like the woman before him, but he had seen women wear white horse hair to hide their own, and none were dragon seedlings. 

The wedding! 

Ice runs down his back. He cannot miss it, he must attend it, he must get himself into the Targaryens' favors in order to spy on them—it is the last hope he has of returning home. 

For the first time, he looks around. “Where are we?” He can tell they’re on a ship. Maybe in the bay of Pentos?

“On our way to Dragonstone, where I will fetch a maester to come take a look at you.” 

“Enough of this nonsense!” He lifts from the bed and makes his way towards the porthole. “I was in Pentos this morning, on my way to Daenerys’ wedding. I do not know who you are or what you want, but I doubt you are her, and I doubt even more that I’ve crossed the Narrow Sea in mere hours.” By the look of the sun’s position and the shadows it's after noon, but the sun is all wrong, it’s not as bright as he remembers. This is not a Summer sun, it’s a Winter sun. Nothing makes sense. He turns to her. “Wherever I am, I must go back to Pentos, I have to—”

She lifts from the bed too. “Pledge yourself to my brother? Gift me three books on the songs and histories of the Seven Kingdoms? Spy on us in order to receive Robert’s pardon?” 

If she would have slapped him across the face, it would have shocked him less.

“You’ve already done all that, and the Baratheon is long dead, all of them are.”

Jorah is a man or reason, always has been. He’s constantly looked for sense in the chaos of the Realm, for explanations. He can’t find any now. “I was in Pentos this morning...”

“You were there five years ago.” She steps towards him. “You have been by my side ever since.” 

He steps back. “No.” Maybe she is a witch, or a priestess to some trickster god playing some cruel joke on him—She’s so beautiful, she could be a goddess. 

With short steady steps, she makes her way to him, “You are my friend, my protector, my—” she reaches for his hand. “You fell off Drogon and hurt yourself... You do not remember now, but you will.” His guts twist again as he feels the warmth of her hand over his, and yet again he doesn't know why. 

“You must remember!”

This is just a nightmare he is trapped in; five years have not passed, he has not lost the only chance he’s had of regaining his honor and returning home. No, it is all a nightmare. 

Her other hand cups his cheek and his body stills; for a moment his mind does too. 

“You must come back to me!”

He can feel the tips of her fingers caressing the lobe of his ear before they travel there, as if he can see into the future, or maybe the past. A memory his body remembers but his mind does not.

Her eyes are so beautiful, like a warm sea he has swam in time and again, can almost feel the water lapping gently at him. He is at ease. He is on fire. I do know her. 

She tilts her head and frowns, her purple studying him, “You look younger, Ser,” something in her changes, “like you did the day I met you.”

Her gaze draws him in, he can feel himself inching closer to her, “What are you to me?” 

She blinks. “As I’ve said, I am your Queen.” 

“What am I to you?”

“My dear friend, my Queensguard…”

“If all you say is true, if you know that I was going to spy on you, why make me your Queensguard? Why not have me killed?” 

“I banished you.”

“Yet here I am, by your side.” Nothing makes sense, she is either stupidly trusting or there is more. “Whose bedchamber are we in?”

Her hand falls from his face. “Mine.” 

“What are we to each other, truly?” They must be more, he can feel it within him, like a secret written on a scroll, can see the letters folded over, illegible, but there. He can see a glimpse of ink in her eyes.

Her other hand leaves his. Of their own accord, his fingers hold on to the length of hers until they slip out. All his life—at least the part that he remembers—Jorah has been in control of his body, it's as if it has a mind of its own now. One with a singular want—her. This woman, that he now thinks is Daenerys, the princess he was to meet this morning.

She does not answer.

He presses on. “Queens do not kiss their guards.”

“You should rest.”

“I am rested, what I need is answers.” 

“I have no more answers for that question.” 

Very well, he has plenty of other questions. “You said I fell off Drogon, is that the name of this ship?”

Her brows kneed as if he had hurt her somehow, “Drogon is my dragon child. You watched me birth him and his brothers out of my husband’s funeral pyre. You swore yourself fully to me then."

"Jorah…” her face softens, she looks as if she is pleading for something.

Dragons born out of her husband’s funeral pyre. He almost asks if she’s as mad as her father was, but something stops him, “Dragons are long gone, you should know this better than anyone if you truly are a Targaryen.” 

Her eyes narrow.“If you were to see one with your own eyes, would you finally believe that I am telling you the truth?”

“Aye.” 

“Follow me, Ser." She clears her throat, "After you've put on some proper clothes, that is." 

He notices that he's in his undertunic and breaches, but can't remember undressing himself. Had she done it? It makes sense, the first thing he remembers is her mouth over his. But if she had, why is she fully dressed? 

His blues narrow on her purple.

Daenerys' cheeks turn just a shade brighter. "You were hurt, Ser Davos undressed you to check on your wounds."

"Wounds?" Jorah pats himself down, he feels fine, just as he did this morning. Yet again he thinks that this is all a trick.

"You were healed."

"From what, a scrape?"  

Her eyebrows twitch ever so slightly, and she swallows hard, as if struggling to dislodge a piece of bread stuck in her throat. "We can talk about this later, when you are yourself." 

This irks him, he is himself, the only self he's known. It will all come to light soon enough, though.

"Where are my clothes?" He asks looking around.

She tilts her head towards a chair.

Aye, there are some clothes there, but not his. Another man's, maybe?  It matters not, for it is no concern of his.

"Where are my clothes?"

"Those are yours, Ser." 

His bare feet fall hard on the wooden planks as he makes his way towards them. He is tired of this game she's playing, but then he sees his sword leaning against the chair, half hidden. There's a winter coat lined with fur on there, and thick woolen pants, and a tunic as well as gloves and boots—this morning he had on a gray cape and the norther clothes he found hard to part with even in the heat of Essos.

Jorah picks up the tunic, if these are the only clothes around, they would have to do. It looks like it would fit him, at least. He take a whiff hoping it's somewhat clean and finds his own smell. A chill runs down his spine. Is she telling the truth?

She must have seen his reaction, for the left corner of her mouth is ever so slightly turned upwards.

Without a word, he dresses. 

The first thing he sees once out the door, is an Unsullied guarding it, which makes as much sense as anything she’s told him so far. The second is Wildlings; his hand falls to his sword, but none have any weapons raised, nor do they look at him as if wanting to kill him, the way they have all his life, back on Bear Island. Instead they move about the boat aimlessly, and he notices few men, mostly women and children. What in the Gods?  

Out on the deck, he feels as if he can properly breathe again, but when he looks up, the sky shatters on top of him. High above, two dragons circle their ship. 

“Do you believe me now, Ser?”

He cannot speak, he might as well have swallowed his tongue. 

Daenerys raises her hand and the dragons start their descent; the air fills with their song.

Now, he knows he must have heard it hundreds of times before, yet he cannot remember. 

“There were three just yesterday.” Her voice cracks halfway through and his guts twist again.

He thinks he was in love with her, once. His heart races in his chest as if to say, 'Yes, yes you were, Yes you are,' but she is just a stranger to him. One he was to spy on for a chance to return to Bear island and maybe, if he can muster up the courage, go to the Wall, beg his father's forgiveness and regain Longclaw. 

Up ahead, Dragonstone castle peaks out like a dragon claw embedded in the rockface.

For all Jorah knows, his life has been turned upside down and sideways in less than a day.