One shot just in case and to make myself feel better.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Years. Decades. Perhaps centuries. He was tired. He couldn't honestly remember how long it had been.
Time was nothing to one as great as he. Time could not truly fade him. Just as it could not fade her.
Muñnykeā. Mother.
He visited her tomb thousands of times since she passed into the next world. More and more often after his brothers drew their final breaths. Now it was home. His refuge from a world he didn't belong to.
Long had the time passed where many remained that spoke his mother tongue. Not that it mattered. The only voice he listened to had long since uttered it's last long ago.
He passed her likeness in stone at the entrance, but ignored it in favor of what lay hidden deep in the caves below. A statue could never truly capture who she'd been.
Dragons were long-lived, but even they must come to an end. Often by their choosing. He often wondered what had driven his brothers to choose the eternal rest, but now he understood. They wanted to be with her again.
He was thankful that the caverns she had been placed in accommodated even his daunting size, as if she had known that even when death came for her, her winged children would need her. To remind them of her comfort long past.
There lay his brothers' bones. Their bodies curled around her; seeking their mother even in death. They'd left room for him. Between the two of them, closest to her. As if they knew this day would come.
He curled his body tightly around the transparent glass and peered inside. Even now, she looked as the day she'd stepped into the flame. Perfectly preserved for all of time by the magic of their blood.
Silver hair cascaded around her shoulders, violet eyes closed as if in sleep. She looked peaceful.
Peace.
He'd not known true peace since her final moments, when she'd caressed their faces lovingly, assuring them that they were her greatest treasure. Fingertips lingering on him for a heartbeat longer than Rhaegal and Viseryon, something he was fond of pointing out to them.
He closed his eyes to prepare to dream. His favorite pastime and peace came for a while when he dreamed, along with memories of playing with his brothers, fighting over a fresh kill, mother stroking his head, her laughter when they rose into the sky amongst the clouds.
She truly was the most beautiful of them. Even if she lacked scales. Or wings. She was a true dragon. Made of fire.
He felt a quietness shudder through his body. He was so very tired. It was time. He could imagine his family, waiting for him to join them. They would be safe here, together for all of time, as the entrance would collapse upon his final moment in this world, the spell of entombment placed upon its stones would seal them in for eternity.
He closed his eyes for the final time and entered the next realm.
At first, it was dark. Cold. He hated the cold. This world was shrouded in mist that even his powerful eyes could not pierce. Had he made a mistake? Were they not waiting on him as he had thought?
But then a small speck of silver light caught his eye. It took everything in him not to lurch towards it desperately, but he proceeded carefully, drawing closer and closer until the light became a view.
Green hills and craggy cliffs surrounded him. Open bright blue skies with wisps of fluffy white clouds. And weaving amongst them were two dragons. One a brilliant cream and gold, the other a striking jade.
He prepared to shoot into the air to be with his dearly longed for brothers when the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard in his long life came from behind him.
He whipped his head around and there she was. Sitting on the same rock all those years ago, her legs crossed wearing the simple skins of a Dothraki Khaleesi. She was laughing at something a man beside her said when she turned and their eyes met. That laughter he'd missed more than anything.
Mother.
He chortled like a hatchling and half flew-half ran to reach her. She was standing by the time he got to her, fingertips already extended with that gentle smile on her beautiful face.
He had not felt this contentment in too long. He was thrown back to his infancy, back to when things were happier. His eyes closed and his chest rumbled with his pleasure at the touch of her hand.
He felt the earth shake and affectionate nudges as his brothers landed beside him to greet him.
It was a long time of affectionate air play with his brothers and loving pampering from his mother before he remembered the man.
Looking at him, he conceded that he sometimes struggled remembering the humans that had walked with his mother in life. They paled next to her strength. They were nothing to him.
He remembered that there was the one who reeked of love, love that his mother never would return as all of her affection had been directed at them, her beloved children. This was not him. That one had had coarse yellow hair and was older than this one.
It wasn't the one who smelled a little like mother either. He'd had similar dark hair, although shorter and he was not quite the imposing figure this man made. He'd always been a little confused by that one. Smelling like a dragon one moment and then a wet dog the next. Mother smelled divine, like fire and home.
It wasn't Missandei, one of the only names he remembered, as she had been a constant for his mother since early in his infancy. Missandei was a female. Nor was it the stern Unsullied man who shadowed the women or the tiny man who had somehow earned the respect of his brothers.
"Drogon. Drogo." She gestured between them.
Ah. His namesake. The human father they'd never known. The one who had died and burned, so that they were born. He'd heard stories of the man. His mother would often gaze out at the scenery, lost in memory. She always looked so sad when she thought of her dead husband. The brothers had made a pact to stop these moments whenever they could.
He cocked his head questioningly at his brothers, wondering if he should trust a man that had left her so sad.
"Good man," they told him in a series of clicks and growls, "Strong man. Father."
He nodded and bent to blow hot breath over him. When the man extended a slow arm and offered a hand while cooing in a rumbling voice, mother looked at them nervously.
He understood that this human was part of their odd little family. And that it was important to his mother that they all get long. Even if they were dragons and this was a pesky human.
So he conceded and allowed the man to brush his fingers across his muzzle, before pulling away and settling down beside the rock.
He lifted his head onto the stone and nudged his reseated mother slightly. She smiled down at him and gently began stroking his snout, just like she had that day on the grasslands.
Mother was with him again. Even if there was a new person to share her attention with, even if he knew that the little human hatchling playing with Rhaegal was another new addition to the family, he was finally at peace.
Sorry, I just had to get this posted because this is what I imagine happens even if the dragons die in the next episode, the finale, or if they live for a long time.