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Ned cursed the Gods the day he learned of Jon’s mark.
It was not long after the boys first nameday when his nursemaid came scurrying up to him, a frantic look on her face and the babe clutched tightly, protectively in her arms.
Mercifully, he was alone when she found him, so he ushered the terrified woman into his solar and watched as she laid the lad down upon his solid wooden desk and, with trembling fingers, unpeeled his swaddling clothes to reveal the damning name that had not been there the day before.
Daenerys Targaryen. Writ small, as all marks were, but plain as day scribed neatly on the pale, infant pink skin of Jon’s chest. Right atop his heart.
His own heart gave a resounding thump of fear and he turned to the woman. “No one, no one must ever see this, or know about it, but you or I, do you understand?” his voice was quiet, calm, but within that calm resided a storm, and he knew she sensed it.
The poor nursemaid was shaking but he couldn’t take the time to feel sympathy for her right now. Hiding this truth, keeping this secret was of paramount importance.
“Yes, M’Lord” she vowed, her voice scared, but solemn. “None but me and you. I swear it.”
“Swearing an oath is sacred” he reminded her.
“Aye, it is, and I swear it all the same. I’ll make sure no one else sees it, and when he’s older I’ll make sure he knows to hide it.”
Ned knew he would have to have that conversation himself with Jon one day. That he would have to make the boy promise to never speak of his mark. And especially to never show it to anyone.
“You have my gratitude, please take him and leave me now.” He could feel a headache spreading its painful tendrils across his skull.
“Of course. M’Lord. Right away, M’Lord.” And with that she covered Jon’s chest back up firmly, bobbed an askew curtsey and left.
Once she was gone Ned sunk down heavily into his chair resting his head in his hands closing his eyes tight. But all he could see beneath his lids were the words Daenerys Targaryen marked on his nephew’s chest. His sister’s babe’s chest.
There was something beautifully terrible about the fact that Lyanna’s son had his mark boldly declared right above his heart - for she had been wild, and open, and passionate, and free with her love also. It was what he had adored about her. It was what had led to her death. And Jon, small though he was, was already as decisive and emphatic with his emotions as his tumultuous mother had been. Unlike Robb who was a quiet, steady babe, Jon had crying fits of rage that were difficult to tame when he was upset, but was the sweetest, most affectionate little boy when he was happy.
Ned sighed. Jon already had a difficult life ahead of him, why, why should he have to deal with this on top of all the rest?
Marks were more a curse than a blessing, Ned knew. Few were ever fortunate enough to meet their soulmate, and even if they were there was no guarantee that their soulmate would likewise have their name etched upon their own body. Marks didn’t always match. Marks meant heartbreak. Marks soured betrothals and festered marriages that might have otherwise bloomed into love, or at the very least, affection and respect because the couple were not marked as a fated pair by whatever God presided over the fating.
In Jon’s case it was undoubtedly a curse. Though not everyone knew it, and he doubted it would be talked about anymore now that they were all but vanquished, Targaryens were always marked for one another. The name Daenerys Targaryen on Jon’s little chest might as well be a target for someone to strike an arrow through. It named him as a Targaryen as sure as if he’d been born with silver hair and violet eyes. It marked him as a Targaryen as sure as it marked him for Daenerys Targaryen.
After all he’d done to hide this fact and keep Jon safe: The shame he had laid upon his wife, the stain he had put upon his honour, it was now in the perilous position of being all for nought.
And it really would be all for nought because he knew that there was no chance that Jon would ever meet the girl. He had heard that the babe and her brother had been spirited away to Essos by a knight loyal to the Targaryens, Ser Willem Darry. But Ser Willem was an old man. How many years could he have left in him? How could he provide for two children in a foreign land? How could he protect them? For Robert - his friend, his King - his pride still wounded, would hunt the Targaryen children of that he was sure. It was, after all, why he was hiding who Jon truly was. Jon’s tiny, innocent, defenceless soulmate didn’t have any grown kinsmen to take her in and hide her away to keep her safe as he had done for Jon. She was certain to perish on the other side of the Narrow Sea alone, friendless, and afraid.
‘Gods forgive me,’ he thought as his headache pounded harder and coils of guilt and shame wound themselves tight around his body. That orphaned babe was his own sister’s good-sister. His own nephew’s aunt. And he had done nothing for her.
Ned sat at his desk and stared at nothing for a long time as the room slowly grew darker around him.
*
Daenerys first learned what her mark truly meant when she was eight. It had been there for as long as she could remember but she hadn’t thought much of it. When she was younger she had called it her squiggly because that is what it looked like, and she thought it was her tattoo. She had seen many people with tattoos around the marketplace and so the fact that she had one as well did not seem at all odd to her.
Then kind, old, Ser Willem died and they were forced to flee the house with the red door and she couldn’t give it much thought at all. She didn’t have time to. Her thoughts were too busy being scared, or hungry, or lonely even though her brother’s hand held hers tightly, sometimes too tightly, as he dragged and pulled her along from one place to the next.
But today they had fallen on good fortune. Their bellies were full of hearty stew and warm bread, and they were sitting together on the single wooden cot that they were going to share to sleep in, in the small room they had purchased at an Inn for the night. Vis was being ‘nice Vis’ telling her stories and patting her hair.
Then, suddenly, he pounced upon her, a lovely, kind, mischievous smile on his face as he began tickling her mercilessly. She giggled, and squirmed and shrieked beneath his sneaky fingers squealing “Vis, stop,” over and over again, loudly and delightedly.
He was tickling her little kicking feet when, abruptly, he did stop.
Confused, she pushed herself up onto her bony elbows to look at him. “Vis, I didn’t really want you to stop. It’s fun. Keep going, please?” she wriggled her toes to emphasise her request.
He didn’t keep going. He was as still as a statue staring down at her left foot, his face morphing before her eyes from ‘nice Vis’ to ‘dragon Vis’ and her heart started beating frantically in her chest wondering what she had done wrong now to be waking the dragon.
“What is this, Dany?” he demanded of her coolly.
“What’s what?” she asked as sweetly as she could hoping she could lull the dragon back to sleep before it woke up fully.
“This,” he hissed at her yanking her leg into a painful, awkward angle so she could see the sole of her own foot.
Tears stung at her eyes and she gasped for breath searching frantically through her mind for what it is he might have seen before she remembered. “It’s, it’s my squiggly.” She heaved out, desperate for some respite from the pain.
“Your squiggly?” he mocked her, digging his nails into the fragile skin of her ankle. “You’re so damn stupid, Dany do you know that? How long has it been there?”
She was choking on her own breath, gasping back tears, her leg fiery with pain as she struggled to answer him.
“How long have you had it?” he shouted at her, his face twisted and cruel.
“Al…al…always,” she managed to stutter out through her sobs.
He adjusted his grip and jerked her leg hard so that she skittered and flailed across the bed towards him. So that she was right in front of the dragon.
“Always?” he scowled.
She bobbed her head in a panicky nod, and he dropped her leg like it scalded him.
He looked angry and annoyed, and she knew she shouldn’t, but she wanted to know why it made him so mad.
“What is it, Vis? What is my squiggly?”
“Your squiggly,” he mocked again. “You really are an idiot, Dany. I don’t know what I did to deserve such a stupid sister. It’s a soulmate mark you fool. It’s the name of the person you are fated to be with.”
Despite her fear, and the lingering pain in her leg his words excited her. A soulmate. How wonderful. Someone made for her and her for him. Someone who would love her. She bent over her leg and took the first proper look at her squiggly, no, her soulmate mark, in years. And there, on the bottom of her foot, in neat tiny writing it read Aegon Targaryen.
Aegon Targaryen. How grand.
Aegon Targaryen. Her love.
Her enthusiasm bolstered her and snuffed out her fear, “Who is he, Vis? Who is Aegon Targaryen?” For all that he could be a mean dragon, Vis knew everything. Surely he must know this.
“Our nephew, I presume.” He replied curtly, and sullenly sounding very put out.
“Our nephew!” she exclaimed happily. “How divine, how perfect. I have to find him so that I can love him. Where is he?”
“Dead.” Vis spat out harshly, and Dany’s heart, full to the brim with potential love only moments before, shattered. “Dead just like our niece. Dead just like Rhaegar. Dead just like father. Dead just like mother.”
His glare cut her like glass and his words hurt more than glass ever could, a reminder of the family she’d never had. Of the family she’d never know.
“Dead?” she whispered so, so quietly. Aegon Targaryen was dead? Her soulmate was dead? More tears prickled at her eyes. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t even got to love him yet.
“Yes Dany. Dead. And it’s all your fault do you know that?” his voice was high pitched and hysterical, spittle flying from his mouth as he shrieked his nasty words right into her face. “If you had been born sooner then you would have been marked for Rhaegar and none of this would have happened. Rhaegar would be alive. Father would be alive. Mother would be alive. And we would all be living in the Red Keep where we rightfully belong instead of me being stuck here in this godsforsaken land having to keep your worthless, useless self alive. They’re all dead because of you.”
Ordinarily his words would have destroyed her. But she was hot with anger and despair. She had only just found out that she had a soulmate to be told in the next breath that he was dead and she could never love him, and he could never love her.
“Maybe it’s your fault,” she cried out. “Maybe if you had been born a girl then you would have been marked for Rhaegar and none of this would have happened.”
He struck her then. Hard. Across her face. She should have been surprised, but sadly, she was not.
It was not the first time he had done so. But it was the first time he didn’t stop after one strike. She curled into herself as his slaps, and hits, and punches rained down on her for what felt like forever.
Finally, mercifully, he stopped. “You’re pathetic,” he spat staring down at her disdainfully.
Coiled in a cowering ball, hurting all over, blood on her lip, tears on her cheeks, snot dribbling from her nose, she couldn’t help but agree with him.
“And your mark, your fucking squiggly, it makes no difference, Dany. You’re mine. You belong to me. I am your King. Is that clear?” his voice was as threatening as she had ever heard it.
“Yes, Vis,” she replied weakly.
“There’s not enough room for both of us on the bed. Go sleep on the chair.” He ordered in a cold, detached voice.
Wincing, she pulled herself up and limped slowly to the hard chair in the corner climbing up on to it and curling back into herself again.
She waited, and waited until she was certain Vis was asleep before she allowed herself to cry again.
Her body ached. But that was not why she cried. Her heart, maybe her soul ached more. Aegon Targaryen. Her Aegon Targaryen was dead. Dead before they got to love each other. Perhaps it was a good thing if Aegon Targaryen would love her the way Vis loves her. But somehow, she knows that he wouldn’t. He would have loved her truly. He would have been tender and kind to her. He would have…
She drifted into sleep and it was there, in her dream, that she saw him. Aegon Targaryen. She doesn’t know how she knows it is him. She just does. He looks nothing like her or Viserys. His hair is dark and curly. She cannot make out the features of his face save for his eyes which are a sweet, soothing grey colour, but she knows, she just knows it is him.
In her dream he takes her hand. His grip gentle, but firm, as though he is worried he will lose her. She holds on just as firmly for her fears are the same. She cannot, will not lose him. And then they are dancing together in a place she has never seen before. A forest maybe? Or some woods? The grass is green and lush, full of the fresh new life of spring as he twirls her around and around, their laughter bubbling and mixing together. She feels love. She knows he feels it too.
She slips from the narrow chair and lands with a thud on the hard floor jarring her awake. Stealing her from her dream.
She cries even more earnestly then. He had felt so real. Aegon Targaryen had felt so real, so alive. And she had felt so much love. How could it have all felt so real when it is not? How could he have felt so real and alive if he was dead?
She cries for what will never be.
She cries for Aegon Targaryen.
*
Jon was eight by the time he fully realized that there was little love to be found for him at Winterfell. Robb was his best friend, father was kind, Sansa, Arya and Bran were sweet, however they were little more than babes so he didn’t have much to do with them. But Lady Catelyn hated him. This was because he was a bastard. And bastards were the most terrible things in the world. Her hatred oozed and bled its cruel essence like rotted fruit squished between fingers and its cold vapour spread and swallowed until it seemed to infect the very air around him.
Indeed, there was very little love to be found for him at Winterfell.
But he didn’t let it bother him much because he had a secret. He had his own true, hopeful, perfect love, inscribed right above his heart where love is supposed to live, waiting for him.
Daenerys Targaryen. She would love him.
Daenerys Targaryen. It was a beautiful name.
Daenerys Targaryen. She would be beautiful.
Daenerys Targaryen. She would be sunshine and warmth.
He knew, vaguely, that the Tarygaryens were all gone now. But perhaps his soulmate was a lost Targaryen princess, and one day he would find her and rescue her and she would love him not matter what because she was his, and he was hers.
He soon became obsessed with the Targaryens. He wanted to learn all about them so that he could impress Daenerys when he found her.
He wanted to be prepared for that day. For it would be a big day. The most important day of his life. And so, late at night when he knew the other inhabitants of Winterfell would be abed and that they would not barge in upon him and find him in such an embarrassing position, he would stand in front of the sheenless looking glass in his little room, puff up his chest and practice.
“Hello princess Daenerys Targaryen,” he would announce in his best imitation of his father’s strong but courteous voice with an accompanying deep, chivalrous bow which would surely show Daenerys Targaryen how precious and important she was to him. “I have searched the world, known and unknown to find you,” he would declare. For he intended to do so, and she would be astounded by his bravery. “My name is Jon Snow,” in his speech he was never ashamed of his bastard name, he said it proudly and loudly and clearly to make certain that Daenerys Targaryen, who would have read his own name on her own skin all of her life, would know that it was truly he who had finally come for her. “I am your soulmate which means I will love you and protect you always.” After this, in his imagination, she would smile widely at him. Then she would run towards him and wrap her arms around him in the warmest of hugs. Then she would give him a kiss on the cheek and exclaim how very happy she was that he had found her. How very awed she was that he had done so. And how very safe she felt now that he was here to protect her. Then she would say she loved him, that she would always love him, and that she would never, ever leave him.
But first, he had to find her. It would be a grand, heroic adventure. He was sure the bards would sing about it for thousands of years. And if he was to be a hero, if he was to be able to protect Daenerys Targaryen when he found her, then he must become good with a sword. And so he trained hard every day with Ser Rodrik until his arms ached and his fingers hardened into callouses. But these things didn’t matter. Being able to protect Daenerys Targaryen mattered.
Whenever he and Robb would play he would always pretend to be Daeron the Young Dragon. This would make him feel closer to Daenerys Targaryen. And also, like Daeron, Jon intended to conquer Dorne for her so that Daenerys Targaryen could be the Queen.
But one day when they were playing Jon, still feeling sullen after something mean that mean, old Lady Catelyn had said to him, instead declared that he was the Lord of Winterfell.
Robb scoffed at him telling him that he can’t be the Lord of Winterfell because he was a bastard and bastards can’t be Lords of anything.
In that moment he wanted to scream and rage and reveal his secret. What did being the stupid Lord of stupid Winterfell matter when one day he was going to find his pretty princess soulmate and rule the whole world beside her as her King and her love?
It was only the solemn promise he had made to father that held his tongue that day.
Some time later Theon came to live with them.
He didn’t like Theon. Theon was mean too.
Theon would always call him a bastard and boast about how many girls he had kissed. All the girls who had fallen madly in love with him.
“No one wants to hear your bragging, Theon,” he berated him. “It’s probably all lies anyway.”
“You’re just jealous, bastard,” Theon sneered, “because no one will ever love you.”
He was sick of Theon’s taunting. Besides, Theon was wrong. “That’s not true,” he yelled, “my soulmate will love me,” he finished with certainty. Because he was certain. Daenerys Targaryen would love him.
Theon fell about himself laughing. “A soulmate? You? Bullshit. Where’s your mark then, bastard? Go on, show us who the unlucky lady is.”
“No,” he replied firmly. He’d lost his temper and mentioned his mark by accident. He was not going to break the rest of his promise to his father and show it to Theon, of all people, just to prove something he already knew in his heart to be true. “I don’t have to show you. But you know as well as I do that she will love me because she is my soulmate.”
That sent Theon off laughing again. “Did your whore of a mother drop you on your head before she abandoned you, or are you just that ignorant? Soulmate marks don’t always match, bastard. You might have some girl’s name on your skin but that doesn’t mean she has yours. And even if she did, one look at the name Snow and you know she’d be running for a knife to cut the thing off of her even if it was printed on her face.”
He stormed off in a miserable huff as Theon guffawed loudly at him.
He’d always just thought…
He’d always assumed that Daenerys Targaryen would have his name, just as he had hers. But apparently not.
And even if she did have his name, what if Theon was right?
Daenerys Targaryen was a highborn, lost princess. What if she had balked at the name Snow and scrubbed her skin raw till his name was peeled away?
He didn’t think Daenerys Targaryen would do that to him.
But what if she had..?
On that day, the little bit of hope burning bright inside his bastard heart, burning bright beneath the skin marked permanently with her pretty name, was snuffed out.
*
Over the years Dany had done her best to make peace with the fact that she had no soulmate, even though he still visited her in her dreams sometimes. Always blurry of face, kind of presence, gentle of touch. Always in the beautiful, unknown warm spring grass. Always dancing with her. Always with laughter and a feeling of loving and being loved permeating the air.
She still longed for him.
She still longed for Aegon Targaryen.
Now, here, as she sat atop her Silver surrounded by people but feeling very much alone, adrift in the Dothraki Sea she longed for him more than ever.
But it was a hopeless thing now. She was wed. And that was that. Even if Aegon Targaryen was alive and real she was bound to another for the rest of her days. Not by their marks. But by law.
Despite the fact that she clings to the idea of Aegon Targaryen, she understands that there is a certain kind of freedom in having a soulmate who is dead. She is free to dance and laugh with him in her dreams, but in her waking life she can choose who to love.
And so, as the agonising weeks pass on, she makes the conscious, difficult, life-preserving choice to try to love her husband.
Regardless of the circumstances under which she became his. Regardless of the pain and degradation, she will try to choose to love him.
She will try to choose to love him to keep herself alive, to keep herself from being hurt.
And she will continue to twirl with Aegon Targaryen amongst a field of green in her dreams.
*
At the Wall Jon discovers that Daenerys Targaryen really is a lost Targaryen princess just like he had always imagined her to be. Not that it matters now. He had forsaken much when he took his vows. He had forsaken family. He had forsaken love. He had forsaken Daenerys Targaryen.
That doesn’t stop him from thinking about her. About how he is sure that she would be the one and only thing that could bring light and warmth to this gloomy, miserable place full of misfits and assholes. He may have forsaken her, but he still misses the idea of Daenerys Targaryen. He misses the idea of being hers. Of her being his.
Ygritte had brashly laughed at him when she saw his mark. She’d pinched it painfully and asked him mockingly if he had a sweetheart.
He’d gruffly tried to deflect her questioning.
She may not be marked for him. Perhaps even if she was she may not want him. But Daenerys Targaryen was still sacred to him. She was a pretty dream. His pretty dream. He didn’t want to discuss her with anyone else. Ever.
Ygritte had laughed even harder at his discomfort. The Free Folk burn off their marks – Ygritte had a scar on her shoulder blade where hers had once been - They would not be told what to do, nor who to love by anyone. Not even the Gods. Another way for them to be free they say.
Later, he discovers what is out there. The formidable, terrifying enemy that is coming for them all.
He finds himself wishing for a dragon or three.
He remembers what Sam had told him of Daenerys Targaryen.
He finds himself wishing for Daenerys Targaryen.
He does what is right. He does what he must. And he is murdered for it.
Then he is dead.
And then he is not.
And when awakens from the bleak, depthless, nothingness that had been his death he looks down and sees an angry, grisly, puckered red scar where he used to see the name Daenerys Targaryen. He feels a loss at this, though he doesn’t know why. He gave up on the dream of Daenerys Targaryen being his a long time ago.
*
He can scarcely believe this is happening. He is aboard a ship from White Harbour sailing towards Dragonstone.
He is sailing to meet Daenerys Targaryen.
He cringes as he recalls the way he imagined that this meeting would occur when he had been a boy. Him going on a heroic quest to find and rescue her, the things he’d planned to say.
What a fool he’d been. What a child.
But no amount of berating himself will quell his nerves.
Very shortly he will actually meet her. He will finally meet his soulmate. He will soon meet Daenerys Targaryen.
*
For the first time since it had happened Jon was grateful for the garish scar carved over his heart. It had to have been fate that his mark was blotted out, because there was no way that this stubborn, impetuous, infuriating woman was his soulmate. The woman he was destined to love. Perhaps in his first life, before his betrayal and murder she might have been. But now he feels nothing but grievance and dark agitation towards her, same as he does for almost everything else. He was not meant for feelings in this second life. Not meant for love. Not meant for soulmates. Not meant for Daenerys Targaryen.
*
Opening his eyes and seeing her anxious, pale, beautiful face, after having been saved from certain death by her – realizing what she sacrificed to save him – hearing her pledge to help him for nothing in return – being privy to her open vulnerability and worries about her own potential for greatness – feeling her soft and delicate, warm hand in his, Jon is overcome with the desperate need, the furious desire to rend and tear at the scar over his heart so that he may show her what that place was supposed to show. Show her her own name. Show her that he was marked for her. Because he knows it now, or perhaps it is only now that he is willing to acknowledge it – he loves her. He loves Daenerys Targaryen. Just as he was always meant to. And he thinks she may love him too.
*
They make love wildly, tenderly, frequently, and with abandon as they sail together towards the North. And Jon feels a sense of wholeness that he would never have believed existed if he had not experienced it himself. He cannot doubt that he feels this way because he is with Dany. He is with his soulmate. He wishes he knew if she felt the same. The connection. The oneness. She certainly seems content. Her eyes positively shining and brimming over with love whenever they land upon him. But he wants to know. He wants to know if she is his as much as he is hers.
In the quiet moments after they have devoured one another he tries, as discreetly as he can, to search her body for a mark. Any mark. Though preferably his. Dany does this too, she is hardly subtle about it at all. But he knows she cannot, will not find his. And for this he is, selfishly, cowardly, a little glad. He doesn’t think he could handle her knowing that he was marked for her if she was not marked for him. Which, she doesn’t seem to be. She doesn’t seem to be marked at all.
Regardless, she is no less willing to shower him in her warmth and love. To adore him anyway even if she isn’t marked for him. This should please him beyond his wildest dreams he knows – that she loves him wholly and truly, solely for himself, bastard to her Queen though he is. But a tiny part of him aches that she does not carry his mark upon herself. He had always hoped, he had always believed that she would.
*
Sam tells him a truth and his world pivots on its axis.
His life, his whole life has been a lie.
Hasn’t it?
Certainly his name had been a lie. But it had been a lie in the name of protection. A lie in the name of love. A lie told by a brother for his sister because he loved her.
Her. Lyanna. Lyanna who had been his mother and had loved him so fervently that she spent her final moments pleading for his safety. And because Eddard Stark had loved his sister he had done all he could to protect her son. Her son with the dangerous name.
His uncle could have done some things differently to be sure. He could have made some better choices. But he, Jon, Aegon, whoever he is, he had been protected.
Unlike Dany.
He knows what Dany went through. He knows what happens when there is no one to lie to you and protect you out of love.
Gods, Dany. Dany who is already feeling so alone and rejected in the North. What will she think of this? What will she say? He would never take away from her what she clawed, and begged, and scrapped for. What she has risen above for again, and again. What she has earned. He won’t be able to abide by it if this tears them apart.
He remembers when he would pretend to be Daeron the Young Dragon because he intended to conquer Dorne to make Daenerys Targaryen Queen. He remembers when he thought he would rule the whole world by her side as her King, as her love.
Perhaps he still could?
He hopes he still can.
He needs to tell her.
*
They are down in the crypts which Jon hopes is not a bad omen.
“My name, my real name, is Aegon Targaryen.” He tries not to let his voice waver. Tries not to let his fear of her reaction show. He is certain he is failing on both accounts.
Her eyes are wide, and her lips are moving soundlessly.
“Dany?” he says reaching for her. But she dodges his hand and his heart sinks. She’s angry. She’s pulling away. She’s… she’s… she’s sitting on the ground and frantically pulling off her left boot.
Not exactly the reaction he was expecting. Is she going to throw it at him?
But then she looks up at him, her violet orbs shining bright with excitement as she beckons him closer.
He crouches down next to her as she looks at him expectantly.
Silence drags while she vibrates with a youthful eagerness. He furrows his brow, still confused as to what exactly is happening.
Finally she huffs out a loving, but frustrated sigh, “Jon,” she implores waving her now bare foot at him – this interaction is growing odder by the second – “look.” She tells him.
So look he does and he cannot believe what he is seeing. There along her dainty arch is his name. His mark. Aegon Targaryen.
He’d never thought to look there. He had been trying to be discreet and looking at the soles of her feet would have been anything but.
She is marked for him. Just as he is marked for her.
“It’s you,” she breathes out on the happiest of sighs, pulling them both to stand. “You’re real, you’ve always been real. You’ve always been mine.”
He is thrilled. Overjoyed. But some foolish part of him, completely counter to what he felt on the boat, wants, needs, to know that she still loves him for him and not because she is marked for him.
“You know,” he coughs gruffly, “marks, they’re not, it’s not a guarantee…”
“Jon,” she interrupts him softly, “I don’t love you because you are my soulmate. You are my soulmate because I love you. I loved you before I knew. I love Jon Snow. No mark could ever change that. I’ve had this mark my whole life and it didn’t stop me from loving you utterly and completely.”
He feels his heart quiver in his chest in the place beneath where her name had once marked him as hers.
“And I know you don’t have a mark,” she rushes on, taking his silence as a something sinister, “I know you don’t have my name. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. I love you. I…”
“But I do.” He whispers quietly.
“Wh, what?” her brows are sweetly furrowed and she looks so perplexed.
“I do have a mark. I do have your name.”
Her eyes alight with the same kind of magic that she herself is made of. “Where? I’ve never seen it.”
“Right here,” he says placing his hand reverently over his heart.
She scoffs out a teasing little laugh. “I thought you were no poet. Jon, it’s very sweet of you to claim such a thing, and I feel you marked on my heart too.” Clearly she thought he was being metaphoric. “But you don’t need to pretend for the sake of matched marks. We love one another. That is enough for me. Is it…” she worries her lip a little, brows furrowing further, “Is it enough for you?” she questions him in a small voice looking up at him shyly, vulnerably, exposed.
He cannot bear to see her so unsure of herself. So unsure of him. So unsure of them.
“I always thought that I would be the one to find you. I thought I would go on a heroic quest to rescue you. That I would protect you. But instead you rescued me. You protected me.” He murmurs with a slight chuckle at his younger self.
“Jon, what..?” she still looks incredibly nervous and he hates it.
He twists and worries at his own lips, warring with himself, feeling foolish and bashful and silly and romantic.
But this is Daenerys Targaryen. If he were to ever be a silly, romantic, bashful, fool it would be for her.
With this in mind he straightens his shoulders, puffs up his chest and looks directly at her, but his eyes are soft belying his vulnerability at what he is about to do: “Hello princess Daenerys Targaryen,” he says with a deep, chivalrous bow, “I have searched the world known, and unknown to find you. My name is Jon Snow. I am your soulmate which means I will love you and protect you always.”
She lets out a confused little giggle, but the look in her eyes suggests that she thinks he may have lost his wits.
“My scar took your mark from me. But every night when I was a boy I would practice that speech in front of a mirror. I wanted to be prepared for the day I found you. I loved the idea of you then. You were my brightest bit of hope. And now, now that I know you, I love you more than I have the words to say. But just as you were then, you are still my brightest bit of hope.” He finishes, his eyes and his heart sincere.
Gentle tears are sliding down her pink cheeks, her lips trembling in their wide smile.
Then she rushes at him, throwing her arms about him in the warmest of hugs.
“I’m so happy you found me. I love you. I will always love you.” She whispers in his ear before she pulls back slightly to press her lips to his in the softest, sweetest kiss.
“Soulmates aren't the ones who make you happiest, no. They're instead the ones who make you feel the most. Burning edges and scars and stars. Old pangs, captivation and beauty. Strain and shadows and worry and yearning. Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender. They hurl you into the abyss. They taste like hope.”
― Victoria Erickson