Activity buzzed around Jon and Daenerys on all sides as the massive army they led settled in to camp for the night. As they had done for the last week on the roads from White Harbor to Winterfell, Jon and Daenerys, had decided on a suitable place for the train to rest for the evening. Immediately Daenerys's captains leapt into action, organizing the communication, bedding, and provisions of the thousands of Dothraki and Unsullied that trailed behind them.
After the initial frenzy that separated them temporarily as they each answered questions and barked orders from their mounts, Jon spied Dany pulling away from the crowd to ride off on her own. He tended to the last of his duties and galloped off behind her. He guessed that their absence would be noted and even commented on by the crude and unruly Dothraki, especially, as it had been over the last several days. Jon gave a small knowing smile, thinking to himself that they were unlikely to surmise the reason for their regular evening tryst.
Jon rode off the main road into the woods, and before long arrived at a wide clearing in the trees. Near the edge of the clearing, Dany's great silver horse was secured to a tree, and he led his own borrowed mount to graze nearby. In the middle of the clearing stood Dany under the arch of her dragons, petting them each in turn, and murmuring endearments in Valerian. Jon no longer shook at the sight of them, and had even grown comfortable near them. Still, he stood back to take in the wondrous view of which he would never tire.
The first time that Daenerys snuck out and away from camp, Jon had followed her. He was concerned for her safety and sought to provide protection, but he quickly learned that his instincts were wrong on that account, and she told him so in no uncertain terms. For this reason he was not a little surprised when Daenerys had invited him to ride with her after all. Like this night, they had ridden out in the direction that Daenerys had last seen her dragons alight.
Daenerys had shared with him that first evening a hard truth of traveling with dragons. They would never truly be tame, and as such she had little control over what the dragons would do or what they would eat as they followed the slow moving army. Having the soldiers hunt while on march slowed the army down even further, and was not a reliable way to feed the dragons, and in any case did not seem to satisfy their need for activity. Daenerys lamented that Jon would need to help her make his Northern people see that these were valuable weapons worth the inevitable price that the terrorized villagers would pay.
It was at this revelation that Jon had remembered the dragons gliding and sailing back and forth across the marching soldiers, sometimes disappearing for hours at a time for parts unknown. He thought in horror of the havoc that two bored dragons might inflict on the surrounding region as they passed through it.
This divulgement, then, was the reason that Daenerys had invited him to share this moment. Jon felt betrayed that Daenerys would try to use the growing affection between them to inure him to this harsh reality. Still, as he spent the next several hours watching her with them, he did begin to see them through her eyes, as her children. Her love for them was overwhelming, their intelligence and temperament equally sharp. And Jon could hardly the deny the destruction that the dragons could inflict on behalf of the living in their fight against the dead.
Daenerys wisely continued to invite Jon to spend these quiet evening hours with her and her dragons. As the week past, it became their nightly habit to ride out together.
She would spend time with them, sometimes flying with Drogon, or bringing a deer or goat along for a fiery meal if they were lucky enough to catch one during the day's ride. Jon would watch, at first keeping his distance warily, gradually becoming closer to the surprisingly gentle giants, and to Daenerys as well.
Today as he approached Daenerys, the dragons gave a flutter of recognition that he saw echoed in her, though she had not yet turned to see him. He walked up with a confidence borne not just out of his growing ease with the dragons. Jon had an idea he was eager to share with his queen. It had been collecting, like jumbled fragments tossing about in his brain as they jolted along all day, until it finally snapped together on his lone ride through the woods.
"You ought to take them hunting," Jon declared to Daenerys without preamble. She half turned to look at him, both objection and curiosity playing across her face as he continued.
"Left to their own devices, the dragons feed and hunt for sport on their own, but when you are with them, they listen to you," Jon explained. The dragon she called Drogon huffed and snorted then, and Jon was not altogether sure it wasn't in protest. Jon barely spared him a look as he went on. "When you are riding them, at least, you particularly have them in your command. If you can direct them to more appropriate prey, exercise them daily, perhaps we can avoid the worst possibilities."
Daenerys's interest was now peaked, and she countered, looking for flaws in his argument, as was her tendency when she wanted to agree. "They are not horses. I only ride Drogon. Rhaegal follows of his own accord," she admitted with regret, glancing over at the other dragon.
"Even half as much risk would be worth a try," Jon replied, unable to keep a touch of sadness from his voice.
Daenerys considered Jon's suggestion, wondering that she had not thought of this solution earlier. She had precious little guidance in the care of dragons, though, as hers were the first to walk the earth in more than a hundred years. Nor, as a princess and then a queen, had she any experience in hunting live quarry. She had never considered the possibility of taking an active role in the feeding of her children, since they had grown large enough to hunt on their own, but it seemed well worth the effort on her part to make an attempt.
Having made up her mind, Daenerys did not make any further comment, but signaling silently to Drogon, climbed onto his massive shoulders and leapt into the twilit sky. Jon, nearly bowled over by the flapping of the larger dragon's wings, was left standing next to a dozing Rhaegal, wondering whether Daenerys would take his advice.
Jon placed a hand on Rhaegal's wing, which was half-tucked under the sleeping dragon, and thought to himself, please, let her succeed. Rhaegal's eyes blinked open, and the dragon lazily moved his head to rest closer to where Jon stood. Jon reached up to scratch Rhaegal in the sensitive areas around his eyes, as he had seen Daenerys do many times. Jon looked into Rhaegal's jeweled reptilian eyes, and felt suddenly as if he could loose himself forever in the gaze. He didn't know why he felt that Rhaegal understood his distress, but he felt soothed in his presence.
Rhaegal responded to Jon's attentions with a catlike shudder and a languid stretch as the dragon rose from his nap. The great beast maintained its downward pose and drew his shoulders closer yet to Jon, practically brushing up against him. Jon had to sidestep him to avoid being knocked over.
If Jon was stunned at the dragon's sudden desire to be near, he was shocked to the bones when, in seeming frustration, Rhaegal brought his head around and nudged Jon back towards him. The movement was unmistakable. Jon, as if in thrall, climbed up on to Rhaegal's back and took flight.
In mid-air, Jon came crashing back to reality. He clung for dear life to the spikes on Rhaegal's back as the dragon soared and plunged through the sky. Every time the dragon turned, he was sure he would fall in a tumble toward the earth. He dared not look down. The frigid air rushed past his ears in booming waves as the dragon's wings beat to lift them higher and higher past the clouds, so that Jon mercifully could no longer think.
His mind clear of everything except for the dragon beneath him, Jon suddenly could feel himself becoming one with Rhaegal. Jon was reveling in the speed and weightlessness of the flight as Rhaegal did. He was no longer afraid when the dragon dipped and swerved, for he was the dragon. Together, Rhaegal and Jon climbed up and up, then dove to glide on the icicle wind. Jon felt it cut through him and around the dragon. He felt Rhaegal's pleasure as it cooled the fires in the dragon's belly as if it were his own.
Jon now knew that Daenerys could never have explained the strange commune that existed between dragon and rider. Jon could never tell Rhaegal what to do, but instead they felt each other's wishes, like two halves of the same coin, and moved together in concert through the night.
Jon felt them being pulled like a magnet to an unknown destination. When he saw Daenerys on Drogon come crashing out of the trees, the remains of a bloody goat between Drogon's jaws, Jon began to understand why. The dragons were drawn to each other, and through them Jon and Daenerys were to each other.
He and Rhaegal circled them as Drogon hovered to gulp down the rest of his prey, and Jon discovered he could feel them, not exactly the way he felt Rhaegal, but just as strongly now that they were near. He felt the blood slide down Drogon's throat, and the undulation of Drogon's back push up against Daenerys's thighs as the dragon swallowed. He registered surprise on Daenerys's face and in her mind as he and Rhaegal invaded her thoughts.
Daenerys had known that something was different as she felt the familiar tug of Drogon's brother nearing them. She could not have guessed that she would see Jon riding in on Rhaegal to greet them, or that she would feel Jon's presence even before she saw him. Her thoughts were suddenly crowded with this new addition. Jon's all too human awe and wonder overwhelmed her, and Jon's connection to Rhaegal amplified her own to a degree she had never experienced before with that dragon.
Daenerys had trouble sorting her own thoughts from the cacophony, especially as Jon's sense of adventure began to win over his dismay, and he and Rhaegal ached to test the limits of this new experience. Drogon felt it, too, and with a roar launched past Rhaegal and Jon, who followed on wing. Daenerys gave herself up to pure feeling as they floated upward.
The dragons painted the sky as they chased each other through the dimming light. Daenerys felt Jon's thrill and it became her own, and echoed more loudly between them. They spun and somersaulted around each other in a dance. They rode fast and hard until riders and dragon alike were breathless.
As the sky finally fell dark around them, they headed back to the clearing and crashed to the ground together. Jon and Daenerys dismounted, and the thread connecting their thoughts began to grow thinner. Still pulsing with energy from the shared experience, they fell together in a chaotic kiss, as if they could hold on to that closeness by force. Not even stopping to fully undress, they rode each other under the stars, with dragons roaring above them.