"Once you reach the epitome of speed, the next thing you want is to bustle around in the sky." Miria paid the words little heed at the time but here, astride Viserion, streaking over the battlefield of another world, she finally understands what they meant. Flight completes her, and even the darkness of the Long Night above and the bloody chaos of the war below cannot taint the wonder of this discovery.

That said, she did not come to this place to dance among the clouds. To her left, she sees a knot of men trapped on a knoll by the enemy. A kick is all it takes to turn her dragon towards them and an instant later she vaults from his back and plunges into the fray, her claymore igniting as she falls. She hits the wights like an avenging god, a whirlwind of flame and steel, sweeping her enemies before her. They were made to fight humans and are nothing to the wrath of a warrior.

Even as the men cheer their rescuer, there comes a roar like a thousand winter gales, and a blast of air so cold that even she shivers. Ice dragon. She raises the horn she carries at her hip to her lips and blows, a baleful call echoing through the air like a challenge. Viserion is there before the note dies away, rising to engage even as she leaps into the saddle. The dragon burns beneath her as they climb, and she can feel his savage joy in the chase coursing through her veins like blood. When he screams his defiance into the night sky, he does so from both their throats.

But power is nothing without control and even as their foe bursts from the clouds, fog streaming from its wings, she is honing their fury to an edge far keener than that of the blade she bears. The beast is huge, half again as large as Viserion, and radiates a chill as bitter as death. It has a rider; their eyes, gold and blue, meet across the narrowing gulf as she rises to a crouch. A heartbeat before they clash she springs into the void and the dragons thunder together below her.

For an instant she hangs there, but then Viserion has turned their quarry to face her, and she's hurtling towards her adversary. The Other sees her coming and raises its crystalline sword to knock her aside. She deflects the blow and lands in the middle of the ice dragon's back. It's scales are so cold they burn, even though her thick leather boots, but the pain is nothing and she lunges forward striking. Ice meets steel and the rider's blade shatters into mist. Her second blow cleaves the Other in two and her third drives her weapon deep into the monster beneath her. It screams like the North wind as she, drawing deep on the fire within, pulls her claymore free and strikes again at the nape of its neck.

That does it. The anti-fire in its eyes dies and its body melts like frost in the morning sun. She jumps back to Viserion, grateful for the warmth of the fire within him, within them, as they return to the battle below.