AN: This fic was written by mrstater and me for a friend's birthday. She wanted Jorah!angst and a Jorah/Sam meeting; we tried to deliver. But since it's us, we couldn't help but infuse the story with a tiny dose of Dany/Jorah.
The Things We Love
The instant Jorah entered the private audience chamber of the Tower of the Hand, his eyes eyed the fat man seated at the table Tyrion had laid out for them. Boy, he amended, noting the patchy stubble that attempted to grow on the multiple chins, though he wore a maester's chains.
"Ah, my dear Lord Commander Mormont," said Tyrion, sweeping his toward Jorah in greeting as his short strides carried him across the chambers. "Come, meet Samwell, formerly of the Night's Watch, now-"
"Maester to the Bastard King?" Jorah cut him off.
Tyrion rolled his mismatched eyes, while Samwell's looked like to bulge from his skull. For his own part, Jorah hardly knew why he'd uttered the slur against Jon Snow, named King in the North by his own aunt the queen, except that the mention of the Night's Watch evoked an almost visceral reaction from him.
White cloak snapping about his legs, Jorah strode to the table, poured himself a goblet of the Dornish strongwine Tyrion always stocked in plentiful supply in the Hand's chambers, and sat heavily on the creaking chair across the table from Samwell.
"And King Jon has commissioned you with the task of collecting knowledge of the Eastern continent from the Westerosi who have wandered there?" Jorah snorted into his wine. "Better to seek audience with the queen-unless His Grace wants to know about the seediest inns and whores' dens favored by sellswords. Or the slave pens," he added, voice thickening as Samwell's gazed had fixed on Jorah's branded cheek. "Those are more my area of expertise."
"K-king Jon does wish to know about the slave trade as it existed before Queen Daenerys abolished it," stuttered Sam.
Tyrion and Jorah exchanged a smirk as the Hand clambered up onto the chair at the head of the table. "I'm not sure the Queen abolished the slave trade so much as incinerated it."
"And the Pale Mare carried away Drogon's leavings," Jorah added, referring to their lucky escape from their own master.
"But the Lord Commander is too humble." Tyrion's dark eye glimmered wickedly at Jorah as he stretched out a stubby arm across the table to tear a leg from a roast duck. "From almost the moment of our first meeting, he demonstrated a thorough working knowledge of the complex governmental structure of Volantis. And you'll find no one in the Seven Kingdoms better acquainted with the language and customs of the Dothraki than Ser Jorah. Not even the Khaleesi herself."
"Good!" blurted out Samwell, a little too eagerly, procuring a leather bound book and a pot of ink and nib from the pockets of his vast maesters' robes. "We can start with the Dothraki. Th-that is…if you don't mind, Ser Jorah?"
He grunted in reply, but his time with the Dothraki was one part of his sojourn in Essos that did not pain him to discuss. In fact, his own annoyance began to ebb away in the face of the young maester's eagerness. Samwell peppered him with questions about the great Khal Drogo and his khalasar, interspersed with remarks from his own readings about the horselords, his hand scrawling tirelessly as he filled page after page with notes drawn from Jorah's accounts.
"Now you said Khal Drogo owned a manse in Pentos," Samwell interrupted to ask. "But I thought the Dothraki did not believe in ownership of property, or in permanent settlements? Apart from their own city Vaes Dothrak, of course."
"It was a gift to him, from the magisters of Pentos-made in the hope that his khalasar would leave their city in peace." Jorah leaned back in his chair, chewing thoughtfully for a moment. "But Khal Drogo was himself an exceptional man. Adaptable. And under the khaleesi's influence…"
"A khal under the influence of a woman?" Samwell looked up from his notes in disbelief. "Forgive me, Ser Jorah, but are you certain you are not misinterpreting or misremembering? From all you have told me of the Dothraki and everything I have read, the only women of any consequence in Dothraki culture are the dosh khaleen. Queen Daenerys having any sort of influence over her husband seems highly unlikely."
Jorah snorted. "I take it you haven't met Her Grace?"
Samwell seemed confused by the turn the conversation had taken. "No, I have not had that honor. I have seen pictures of Queen Daenerys. She is an exceptionally beautiful woman," he said, flushing crimson as Tyrion's tunic of Lannister red, "but I don't see how ..."
The dark look Jorah shot him silenced him immediately. "Her beauty did not have anything to do with it."
This time it was Tyrion's turn to snort, and he mumbled, "It certainly didn't hurt."
Not acknowledging him, Jorah continued, "The thing you need to understand about Daenerys-Ger Grace-is that while she is undoubtedly a great beauty, that is by far not her most attractive quality. She is tough, stubborn, a very quick learner-she learned Dothraki practically faster than I could teach her-and she is determined. And I believe Khal Dhrogo valued those qualities in her. But most importantly, she cares about people, hates injustice and is willing to stand up for the things she believes in." His voice dropped, as he added, more to himself than for the benefit of the maester, "She has a gentle heart."
Samwell did not reply, but instead darted his eyes to Tyrion, who said, "Our friend Ser Jorah may be a little biased in his defense of the Queen, though I've had his story confirmed by her Dothraki bloodriders and handmaids."
He tore off a chunk from the end of a crusty loaf of bread, scattering crumbs on the tablecloth, and dipped it in a shallow dish of oil before putting it into his mouth. Without bothering to finish chewing, he went on, "I'm sure it didn't hurt that Queen Daenerys quickly conceived a child by her husband the horselord, but it does seem that the great Khal Drogo was tamed by that slip of a Targaryen girl. And, of course, the lesson to take away is that the Dothraki are not mindless savages the people of Westeros believe."
"No more than any Westerosi," Jorah muttered, participating half-heartedly in the conversation though his mind remained fixed on Tyrion's reference to Daenerys' pregnancy.
It was true enough that Khal Drogo's love for his bride seemed to grow as his child did within her womb; Jorah had paid witness to this himself. And he had been happy for the girl…until the day he stood and watched her consume the horse's heart, and be swept up in her husband's arms so he could take her beneath the stars, and felt a stab that could only be envy. Not just a vague longing for the same kind of happiness another man possessed, but a very specific desire for the same woman who made the other man happy. For an heir by her.
And now Daenerys was queen, and Jorah sworn to her service-and to celibacy. He would stand at her right hand and watch again as she took another husband; though if the mage Mirri Maz Duur was correct, he would watch her suffer the sorrow of barrenness, as his own lady wife had done.
"What's your opinion on that, Ser Jorah?" Samwell's voice breaks into his thoughts.
Jorah grunts, and lifts his head. "What's that you say?"
Before the maester could repeat his question, Tyrion interrupted, his sympathetic gaze resting on Jorah. "I think perhaps it may be best to return to our discussion about the Dothraki another day."
Samwell blinked, but flipped to another page in his leather-bound journal and stammered. "All right then. I believe you also spent a fair amount of time in Lys. Can you tell me-"
The legs of Jorah's chair scraped the stone floor as he pushed back from the table to stand. "There'll be no more talk today, Maester. I must return to my duties."
But though no one protested his leave-taking for the reason he gave, Jorah did not return to his post at Daenerys' side. Instead, he retreated to his own quarters at the fourth floor of the White Sword Tower. Though the rooms were undoubtedly the most spacious he has ever inhabited, including the lord's bedchambers in his hall back home, they were spare, and brought him little respite at day's end. So far from Daenerys' royal apartments…even further from home…
With a growl of frustration from between clenched teeth, Jorah grabbed his cloak at his neck and tore it off, the silver bear pin, the only signet he now wore of his House, skittering across the stone floor with a soft metallic scrape. He flung the cloak on the bed which was barely wide enough for one sleeper, let alone two, and glowered at the fine white cloth, the garment's symbolic purity and honor mocking him. Your sins are washed whiter than snow, Daenerys had whispered when she put it about his shoulders.
He stooped to pick up his cloak pin, the leaned against the window ledge, pressing his throbbing forehead to the cool leaded glass and squeezing his eyes shut against the image of the snowy courtyard below. What in seven hells was he doing here? He had thought that returning to Westeros would be enough, that wherever Daenerys was would be home, but reminiscing about his lonely wanderings on foreign shores with a brother in black had only served as a reminder that nothing had changed. Not really.
He was sworn to Daenerys, but she was no more his now than ever she had been.
He looked down at the little silver bear with green jewels for eyes clutched between his fingers.
He was as much an exile as ever.
Jorah managed to avoid Samwell for the rest of the maester's stay in King's Landing. It wasn't that he particularly disliked the young man. If he was honest, anyone who valued knowledge as much – or in this case even more – than he did deserved his respect. But Samwell's questions about Essos and his life in exile had stirred up feelings he wasn't ready to confront, so keeping out of the way seemed like a good tactic.
However, avoiding the emotions proved to be impossible. How could he have been so naïve as to think that all his problems would magically disappear once he was back in Westeros? Had he really thought things would be better? The queen had forgiven his crimes, but they were not forgotten-and not only because the brand on his cheek reminded all who looked upon him of his shame. And being back in the country after all that time only served to show him how much had changed, how much he had changed. Yet, some things had remained the same.
Unfortunately, those were the things he'd give anything to change. Daenerys was still impossibly out of reach. And try as he might, he could not banish her from his heart. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to. But now that she was Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, she'd have to take a husband, forcing him once again into the familiar role of being a passive bystander as she chose someone else.
And Bear Island. His true home. How he longed for the lonely shores, the deep forests, the solitude. Somehow it seemed even farther away from his chambers in King's Landing than from his tent in Dothraki Sea.
He had always scoffed at his father's words, but he was beginning to understand. The things we love destroy us every time. He betrayed his House for Lynesse, Daenerys for home…And even his more noble act of giving up home for Daenerys had left him without either.
Jorah was in the uppermost chamber of the White Sword Tower, paging through the White Book, quill in hand to update the latest exploits of the Queensguard, as was his duty as Lord Commander, when the knock sounded on the door. It was a light rap, tentative, almost feminine, so he straightened up and bid the visitor enter, thinking it might be Daenerys-though truth be told this may have been the first time he didn't wish to see her-only for the door to swing open to reveal the rotund frame of the very person he had been avoiding.
It was the story of his life that he never could run without his past returning to haunt him.
Samwell bobbed his head, the tip of his pink tongue daring out between his lips to moisten them, then his broad chest rose as he drew a deep breath of air and blurted out, "Ser Jorah. I know you don't wish to talk anymore about Essos, and that's not why I've come. I hope I'm not intruding on anything, but I have a great matter I must discuss with you, so if I'm not intruding on anything of great import-"
"Do you know what this book is, Maester?" said Jorah, turning back to the great tome resting on its stand. "It lists names and the deeds-good or ill-performed by each member of the Kingsguard. Or Queensguard, as is now the case. Each White Cloak has his own page."
It was, of course, opened to Jorah's blank one.
He ran his forefinger over the end of the quill and went on, "What do you think mine should say? Ser Jorah Mormont won his spurs in the Greyjoy Rebellion for being one of the first to follow Thoros of Myr through the breech during the Siege of Pyke. Shortly thereafter he dishonored his noble and ancient House for the crime of slaving-"
"Ser Jorah, you don't have to-"
"-and he shamed them further by fleeing the Seven Kingdoms in disgrace, "Jorah spoke over him. "He lived out his exile in the Free Cities and across the Eastern Continent, where he came into the service of Daenerys Targaryen, who banished him when she learned he had been an informer for King Robert the Usurpur. At last justice caught up with him, and was himself enslaved for a time. The once proud lord brought low as Yezzan zo Qaggaz's dancing bear."
"Ser Jorah," Samwell cut in again, his round face flushed, "please, this is not-"
Jorah cut him off with almost a snarl between clenched teeth, and the quill in his hand snapped as his fingers curled into a fist. He watched the white feather flutter to the floor, and thought of Daenerys' small white hand, her light touch upon his branded cheek, drawing his gaze up to hers when he'd found her again and bent the knee.
"But he was reinstated as a member of Daenerys' Queensguard, promoted to Lord Commander after Ser Barristan Selmy fell in battle. She forgave him-" Jorah's voice caught. And for what?
"S-so did your lord father."
Jorah flicked his eyes to the maester. "What did you say?"
"Th-that's what I've come to say to you," said Samwell, taking a lurching step further into the chamber. "I should have told you before...it...was part of why Jon...King Jon, I mean...sent me. To-to tell you."
The things we love destroy us every time. His father's words kept playing over and over in his mind as Jorah made his way from the White Sword Tower to the queen's chambers. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about them ever since learning of his father's forgiveness the night before. At first he thought the young man was just placating him, or worse feeling sorry for him, and had been about to show him the door. But when he learned that Samwell was there when his father died, had been with him till the end, he had invited the other man inside.
He still had a hard time believing his father's last words had been about him. Forgiving him. What did that even mean? How was he supposed to feel about that? Jorah had been up all night, pondering these questions, trying to find answers, but when his candle burnt low and dawn arrived, he still had none. All he knew was that the ever-present longing for Bear Island, for home, had become an all-consuming need. If he ever was to find peace, he needed to go home.
When he entered the queen's apartments, she was waiting for him, seated on the ebony bench she brought with her from Meereen, where she had sat to hold court in the Great Pyramid. She seemed to have been weeping-but that was impossible; Daenerys did not cry.
"Missandei said you wished to see me, Ser Jorah," she said, quietly. "I think I can guess why."
Jorah swallowed. "I would go to Bear Island-if Your Grace will give me leave."
"You are the Lord Commander of my Queensguard. First among my knights. Are you not sworn to serve me for life, ser? To obey me until you draw your dying breath?"
"Aye, my queen, and if you cannot spare me-"
She pressed her slender white finger to his lips, silencing him as she rose from her bench. "You can serve me best by returning to your home." Her lilac eyes shone as they peered up into his. "You are blood of my blood. What destroys my bear destroys me. And…" She worried at her lower lip with her teeth, self-conscious, though her gaze never wavered. "I cannot help but fear some of the fault is my own. For not loving you better."
Jorah lifted his chin, so that his beard prickled her fingertip as it fell away from his lips. "The fault is mine and mine alone. And it's time I stopped running from it. My lord father forgave me before he died, but I would not wait so late to face my kinswomen. Such as they are." He stiffened his jaw against the tremble at the thought of what he'd heard of Dacey, who'd lain down her life for her sworn sovereign.
Daenerys' hand palm cupped his chin, and she scuffed his cheek with her thumb. "Then go, sweet ser, with my blessing. And find your peace."
She kissed him, then-not the passionate swirling of tongues or bodies pressed tight together like the kiss they'd shared aboard Baelerion, but a gentle brush of lips, as no one would call unbefitting a queen and her knight. Much more like the one she'd bestowed upon him when he first swore his sword to her, before she stepped into the flames of Khal Drogo's funeral pyre, when Jorah had been sure he would never see her again in this life.
When she drew back, her hand lingering against his face, his fingers wrapped around her wrist, clinging to her. "I do not know that I will find peace, Daenerys."
"But you will never find what you do not seek."
Jorah bowed to her, then, and when he turned from her to go, he found that it was not the most difficult thing he had ever done, that the burden he'd carried for so long felt a little lighter. When he was at the door, she called his name, and he looked back over his shoulder.
"The gods answered my prayers for home. Now I will ask them to answer yours."