Author's Note: *a writer-girl is sobbing for her faves*
Long Night & Bitter Mourning
When she fell off Drogon's back, she knew she was lost.
She could barely manage a cry as she lost her grip on his scales and fell helplessly, her body bruised, her heart thudding. Down she fell, to the mercy of the Winterfell fields and the legions of dead men that had claimed it for the Night King.
She tumbled into piles of corpses, some dead, others rising. The horror of those fields overwhelmed her senses as soon as she hit the hard ground—there was blood on the ground, slick but cold beneath her hands. Ash and snow swirled in the air, staining her face and stinging her eyes. Or were those tears? No, not tears yet. She had no time for tears. They were coming.
The dead were coming. The smell of death surrounded her, trying to swallow her whole.
She crawled backwards as soon as she saw it, the sharp flash of movement in the darkness, the rise of a soldier whose face was nothing more than bits of flesh hanging from bone. The fires of the burning dead and those trenches cast strange, eerie shadows and she found herself nearly blind in the night, seeing only the sharp glance that the monster turned on her. He caught her scent like a wolf catches a rabbit in the forest and he turned on her.
The night is dark and full of terrors. The Red Woman had promised often enough.
Daenerys crawled backwards quickly, her palms sinking against frost and blood, bone and splinter. She had no weapon and no shield. Drogon had flown into the rafters of the sky without her, still shaking off the scourge that had crawled over him in the minutes they'd been on the ground. She cast a desperate glance over the dark fields, seeing nothing and no one.
I'm alone, the dire thought froze her blood more than the Northern winds and her bones ached with the fear of dying, here…in a place more foreign to her than Pentos or the Great Grass Sea. She was entirely alone. No armies, no dragons. She was queen of nothing and no one, and she would die alone on the battlefields of Winterfell.
The dead man charged her and, with abject horror, she could do little more than close her eyes to the killing blow.
It never came!
Not for her, anyway. The dead man's head was severed from his body by the sudden slice of a Valyrian blade. And then she felt arms around her, arms that lifted her from the ground, arms that led her away. Safe, strong arms.
She knew who it was from the feel of his arms around her—the way he gathered her up and kept her close as he forced them away from another gathering of dead men. This wasn't the first time he'd led her away from danger.
Her eyes darted to his face to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
The man was blood-stained, bruised, wounded and looked like hell. But yes, it was him. Jorah Mormont, her protector, her guardian, the most steadfast of all her knights, had somehow found her and saved her. Again. Sudden relief flooded over her, replacing the horror of only seconds before. The familiar feel of his arms around her, the very weight of his physical presence beside her, chased away the terror and she felt clothed in layers of a far stronger armor than steel.
The dead kept coming and Jorah kept knocking them down. From the bloody, battle-torn ground, she picked up a sword and helped him fight them off. They stood side by side and made their last stand.
They would die here, Daenerys knew. There was no happy ending to this story. The dead were overwhelming, they wouldn't stop. The Winterfell fields were a pit of hell and there was no escape.
Suddenly, Jorah pushed her out of the way. A wight's sharp blade narrowly missed her, sinking into Jorah's chest instead. She heard the blade find flesh. Her breath caught in her throat, from being thrown off balance, from hearing him take the blow. She recovered as quickly as she could, finishing the damn thing off. But there was no victory in it.
There were more. There were always more. The dead counted their numbers in tens of thousands. Each time they cut through the living, they added more to their numbers. And Jorah and Daenerys were just two against the ravenous hoards of hell, intent on a bloody slaughter.
Jorah got to his feet, slower this time. But he stood, waiting for the next onslaught.
It was only after he was standing that she realized she assumed he would. Of course, he would. He was Jorah Mormont. He would stand by her side until the end. He would never forsake her. That last wight had sunk its blade deep. Any other man would not have rallied from the injury. He'd be on the ground still.
But not you, her gaze drifted away from the monsters that surrounded them to look at her knight. Any pride she might have felt melted away into sudden nothingness.
In the moment of respite that followed, there was a strange, terrible beat, like a single drum sounding out in the darkness of the darkest night.
He faltered. It was so slight, she might have missed it. But she didn't. And seeing him falter—seeing Jorah Mormont falter for the first time in as long as she knew the man—the words in her head were no longer so steady, no longer so sure.
They suddenly and irrevocably took on the cadence of a plea.
Please, Jorah…she didn't say it but reached her hand out, taking his arm. But he didn't fall. He wouldn't fall.
Not yet.
Not until the very last of the dead army fell in a heap of flesh and bone around them.
When Arya Stark plunged the dagger that had once torn up her mother's hands into the frosted skin of the Night King, the army of the dead was cut down like a scythe. They fell, branching out from the Godswood until not a single one remained standing in the ruined, charred fields surrounding Winterfell. Daenerys didn't know how or who had managed it, but the battle was over.
This time, when the dead fell, they didn't get back up again.
And, in the awful moment that followed, so did Jorah.
No, no, no…please, Jorah, her soul cried out where her voice could not.
Eyes wild, Daenerys threw her sword to the ground and went to him. He was hurt. Of course, he was hurt. But she could fix this. She could fix him. Jorah would not leave her. Jorah would never leave her.
I will never abandon you.
She cradled his head, leaning over him. Her hands. Her hands brushed at his face, at the wounds on his body. Oh Gods, why is there so much blood? The thought registered but she wouldn't accept it. Still, her hands started to shake.
She felt his hand curl at her waist, resting at her hip. The weakness in that grip was her undoing. She heard herself whisper something, the tears of utter desolation forming before she had time to hold them back. He was fading away before her and there was nothing that she could do.
She didn't know what to do.
Frantic, she nearly shook him to keep him with her. The flicker of life was draining away like water from a broken bowl. No, no, no. The hand at her waist pressed so faintly. She met his gaze, which was fixed on her. He couldn't speak. But he didn't need to. His eyes said it all. His blue eyes—
Those kind, calm, dear blue eyes. A shade of blue that was his alone. Under how many skies had she seen the color of his eyes?
At the edge of the shimmering sea in Pentos, under the blistering sun in the Red Waste, in the teeming gardens Qarth and the dusty war tents around Slaver's Bay. She only needed to glance to her right side in the Great Pyramid of Meereen to see him standing there. She remembered meeting his gaze as they said farewell on the beach at Dragonstone and how his warm hands curled around hers, running over the knuckles before lifting them to his lips.
She'd seen his eyes above the Wall and now here, in the ruins of the countryside around Winterfell, in the cavernous pits of hell.
I'll never see his eyes again. I'll never hear his voice. I'll never feel his touch. I will grow old and I'll never see him again.
The dark thoughts tumbled over themselves and she was suddenly overcome with waves of dread and at the cold hollowness left behind by the feeling.
She heard herself crying. Soft tears that stained her eyelashes and fell on his breastplate, on his hand, on his cheeks as she stroked the side of his face, wordlessly begging him to hold on. But his blue eyes had gone dark, his hand at her waist slipped.
Her sobs turned heavier, escaping trembling lips. Her silver-blonde head sunk against him hopelessly, muffling her cries. She rested against his chest, rocking his body with hers, willing him to stay with her. Ash and snow swirled in the air around the grieving girl.
Love…love, how can you say that to me? Her own words from long ago echoed across time and space, settling in her ears. But the tone had changed, the words too. Love…love, don't leave me. Please, Jorah!
I will always love you. A shadow of Jorah's soft voice answered her own, promising. Always. Always…
Her tears continued falling, streaming down her face, as all her muddled thoughts merged into one. Just one simple thought. Not of the horrors that she'd faced that night or the hollow victory that would greet the survivors at dawn. Certainly not of that ugly chair built of melted swords that was currently thousands of miles away.
No, she thought only of Jorah. Nothing but Jorah. And his voice and his touch and the way he looked at her…from the day they first met, an age ago, at the edge of a foreign sea. That day he handed her a simple gift of songs and tales from Westeros. A taste of the home denied them both.
For you, Khaleesi…
Oh, how she loved the way he said that name. The way it fell off his lips like a kiss of spring, delicate and full of hope. And oh, how she loved him. She loved Jorah Mormont, the brave, good man she held in her arms…and now she'd never be able to tell him.
She ducked her head against him again, fingers pressing against leather and his still warm skin, as she held on for dear life.
With the dead defeated, Drogon returned to his mother. Gently, the dragon curled around Daenerys and Jorah, quietly keeping watch while she wept herself dry.