Chapter Text
The Head Maester stared down at Jorah and the progression of the greyscale across his arm and torso as it started to crawl it's way up his neck and across his belly.
"There is nothing that we can do Ser, the Grayscale has progressed too much even for our medicines and elixirs. We will have to ask you to leave before the madness sets in and you become one of the stone people."
"So, this is the end is it?" Jorah said looking at the note on the table that he had written to his Queen. He would have to figure out how to send it to her… maybe cross into the city and send with a raven before he took himself on one last ride before turning the sword on himself. He thought that he might have had a chance to save his own life, but it seems that he was at the end. Thinking of Daenerys, he wistfully and sadly looked at the writing on the page before turning his attention back to the Head Maester.
"We will allow you to collect your things, but you need to leave now. I am sorry Ser Jorah." At the curt and impartial tone, Jorah hung his head and turned to gather his things as the Maester stood watching. Once he was packed he turned back to the old man and followed him out of the stone room not sparring a glance to where he was sequestered. The cold of the dungeon didn't affect him as the infection progressed besides the pain there was almost no temperature feeling even as they climbed stairs and finally the steps where Jorah was left at the great doors of the Citadel. When the doors closed to him, he raised the hood of his travel cloak and began his trek.
As Jorah crossed small towns to a major city, he stalked his way through the streets to keep his hand and arm unexposed as he looked for a horse master. He came across someone looking to sell a horse. With what little he had left he bought the horse and climbed on forgetting or intentionally not looking to send his letter out, better that his Queen never find out anything more and he would take to his grave the love that he has for her and his shame that he had disobeyed one last time the orders he was given.
On his travels out he had not realized that he was being followed at a distance by something that many in the city had been avoiding, blue-fire eyes tracked the dying Bear Island Knight as he cantered the horse along the road. Making the clicking sound the figure began following on horseback, but the shadows and the light played with the eyes of civilians who swore that there had been blue flames coming off the socks of the horse as it trotted by. Turning and rushing away the people prayed to keep the evil away as it moved like an omen of death. Indeed Death was coming but it wouldn't be from who they thought it would be from.
-Days Later-
Each day that Jorah got closer to Old Valyria the more that pain wracked his body, his arm and chest burned as he took each breath. He refused to bow and kill himself with the sword just yet, but he wasn't sure how much more he could take of this. The skin was hardening, stretching, breaking, bleeding, healing and repeating its cycle repeatedly with each movement. On the fourth day, he made it to the outskirts of the ruined town where the old stone structures met with nature having taken over years and years ago. Taking himself to an old ruined home with a worse-for-wear thatch roof he dropped off his horse and groaned in pain as it radiated through his body. Groaning he gingerly reached up and tied his horse off to a low tree limb and gathered his things for the evening, swinging his bundle over his non-insured shoulder he went into the home and set about making a fire and setting up bedding for the night. In the morning he thought to himself, he would explore the city in whatever days he had left and once he was satisfied he would end his life, he lived a long and storied life, not all of it was good but the last several years with Daenerys were the best after his sorry previous life of selling Slaves and losing his wife to another man.
As he sat in front of the fire what heat he could feel caressed his flesh, closing his eyes he thought of his Queen's hand on his face, one of the rare times that she touched him and this night he remembered the past and allowed the heat of the fire to be her hand and he sorely wished that he hadn't been a coward or spy and that he had told her from the get-go that he loved her.
No. Better that he doesn't go there, even if he told her before she sent him on the quest to find a cure that he loved her. Sighing he opened his eyes and in the shadows of the ruined home he took refuge in for the evening he saw blue flames hovering in the air before a face faded out of the darkness into the light.
"Jorah Mormont… of Bear Island, you have taken the coward's way out." Jorah was on his feet so quickly and his sword was drawn with a shink from its sheath and pointed at the face of the man whose eyes burned with the blue fire.
"And I have heard of the stories, you are the Night King" Laughed rose from the man who stepped further into the light which illuminated black armour with lined fur under the shoulder pauldrons. A skull fashioned on the right, the left shoulder pauldron with spikes running in rows diagonally and at the bottom edge. The Chest Cuirass was made of linked pieces of solid plate covering over the chainmail hauberk underneath, but the eyes of the skull on the chest glowed blue with power a cloak attached to points but out of the way. As Jorah took in more of the armour, it looked heavy but the figure moved with ease as if it weighed nothing. Fur lined the leg armour that was belted to the waist guard, which was also a skull that glowed blue at the centre buckle. The gauntlets and armoured greaves had skulls lined with fur at the edges as a hand hovered over the fire as if it wasn't there or affecting the leather palm.
Jorah took a step back but stood ready to fight before his mouth hung open at the figure's following question.
"What are you willing to give to go back to the Queen of Dragons, the one that is to sit on the Iron Throne?"
Jorah's adam's apple bobbed as the sword tip lowered slowly.
"Anything…" he half whispered in what now seemed to the silent room, even with the fire going in the middle of the room that he had claimed for the night. The figure looked up and looked into Jorah's soul or so it seemed, sadness radiated off the man in the armour as he sighed softly but heavily.
"To be back with the woman you love… It is a difficult thing… are you going to repeat any more mistakes Ser Jorah?"
"No," Jorah said with strength and finality, the tip of his sword down now resting on the stone floor, the blue-flamed eyes never wavered off of Jorah even as the hand above the fire played with the rising heat against the leather palm which started steam or looked like it steamed before watched the hand raise up more with a motion as if to grab for Jorah. Wanting to move Jorah found that he could not and that he was pinned to the ground, looking to the ground Jorah saw that skeletal hands had come from the ground and were holding him in place, trying to step away or kick his way out of the grasp.
"I am not sorry for what it to come… however, it is the only way." Looking up somehow silently the figure had moved and grabbed him by his throat as warmth held him at his throat before a blue frozen hue, followed by a blood-like hue and finally a sickly green hue cycled its way, almost as if it was a trick of the light. Jorah tried to fight but his sword hand stayed and as Jorah's vision started to falter he heard another voice but couldn't make out the words, feminine in nature speak.
The last words that he heard before blacked out were, "Yes… My Queen"
Voices sounded through his head or at least that was what he thought, flashes of colour, images of a world that held more dragons sored the skys and around a tower that he had never seen before. Flashes of war, the dead, creatures of green, giants and more flew through his mind's eyes. A warrior… no a king in steel armour similar to the armour of the man he had just choked him… but different. A great dragon rising from ice yet completely different to the Dragons he had watched grow in his time. What is going on? What is happening?
Turning he heard sword clashes, and magic being used. People turning into creatures and more fighting. A man was stabbed through his chest plate as a woman screamed so loudly that Jorah thought that it would raise the dead. Blood followed what was a silent dead heart to a thump… followed by another thump… then more and louder and louder. It was a heartbeat!
"Ser Jorah the Andel… Ser Jorah Mormont of Bear Island… You need to come back from your mind… and you need to come back to the world of the living… your queen needs you"
The voice was disembodied and hollow sounding but suddenly Jorah's eyes slammed open but a hand and less embodied voice kept him in place.
"Steady… let me continue my work… I'm surprised I managed to stop this at the stage that it is at…" Blinking and looking around Jorah saw the man who was previously in armour now sitting at his side at his chest level.
Jorah turned his head to the other side to realized he wasn't lying on the ground, he was laying on a table with what looked to be his torso flayed but no longer housing the Grayscale Infection, hissing in pain Jorah turned back to the man who was removing a section of Grayscale with a knife and his fingers.
"What are you doing?" He managed to hiss out, he was struggling to pull his arm away but found that he couldn't move from the vice-like grip that took hold of him. Fear of passing on the infection even to this man made him struggle but to no avail.
"Stop moving… I'm cutting away what your body was trying to turn into, but you don't have to worry, you aren't able to pass this on anymore, so removing this will help you heal as well providing you with mobility again."
"But the infection?" Jorah hissed out as more flesh was cut away. The man looked at him and leaned into his face so he could see him better.
"It is not a worry anymore, once I have cut this away. You will be cured, but I have also cured other… problems…" The man said cryptically, unable to keep awake to the pain any more Jorah fell asleep as a dark shadow moved out into the light of the fire as the man worked.
"Are you sure Lord Destler… are you sure that the Dragon Mother will not reject him?"
"My Queen… if she is anything like Jaina… she'll take him back, but we need him and the Daenerys Targaryen to fight what is to come. The Night King is no Arthas… but he is just as dangerous… I will not Westeros fall as Azaroth did centuries ago… I will not let it happen."
The man looked at the woman who bent over Jorah her curved horns from her head almost as long as they were thick almost touching Jorah as she observed him. A red hue was dully coming around Jorah's body.
"I see you gave him the Blood trait… why not the others?"
"Because this will allow him the closest to living, and because neither of the other two traits I believe he would feel comfortable with. He would rather be in the thick of it than using anything else. Once he comes into his second nature… he will not leave the Queen of Dragons here… He is bound now not to me… as one would expect after doing what I did, he is bound to her in all ways." Finishing the cutting of the stone flesh off the man, the figure known as Lord Destler bandaged up the wounds and went to a corner where a brace of dead fat rabbits were being bled over a bucket. Taking a cup and filling it Lord Destler walked back with the bloody cup gently raised the man's head and helped him to drink it, the injuries on his chest, arm and hand that were not covered began to close and knit themselves back leaving just the scar of what had infected him.
"I leave you Lord Destler… may we meet in the future…"
"Yes… Queen Alexstrazsia" The man bowed his head as the tall horned woman left and disappeared into the ether, the man sat in his seat as he watched movement under the wraps, even years and years later he couldn't keep his eyes on the worm-like movements under the bandages and set about cleaning up the mess he had made before sitting back down in his chair waiting for the man to awaken.
"At least you'll get to see the one you love again… I never will. Don't waste this chance Ser Jorah…" Looking to the fire Lord Destler ran a hand through his greying-black hair and over his beard. It was going to be a long night and going to be an even longer journey once they set out.
Closing his eyes all he heard were screams followed by "ERIK! DON'T LEAVE ME! YOU PROMISED ME!"