A/N: So I finally sucked it up and gave into the posting bug. Something's gotta give when you've got 25 Jonerys fics started on your Google Drive and nobody to read them :) So, hi, new fandom! -waves-
This chapter was the original story. It was only meant to be this one-shot, but comments convinced me otherwise.
So, brief notes: This chapter is Tyrion's POV and encompasses the entire story. The following chapters rotate between Jon and Dany and overlap as the same storyline.
Enjoy!
TYRION
Inevitability clung to Jon Snow after the truth came out.
Bran Stark's decision to blurt everything out in the Great Hall of Winterfell with every Northern lord and lady present—even while Samwell Tarly tried to dissuade him— had seemed like a tragic idea when it had happened. Nothing could have prepared Tyrion for it. Not the stoic, flat delivery nor the unbelievable story; not the hushed breaths as Jon Snow—Aegon Targaryen—faltered at the youngest Stark's words.
"Eddard Stark is not your father."
Ned Stark ought to have taught his children a bit more tact.
Tyrion still felt like he was seated in that evening, the hearths roaring around the hall as a winter storm raged outside. A hundred people had sat in stunned silence. More than anything, he would never forget the rawness in Jon Snow's eyes; the aching loneliness that had bloomed in his own gut with every revealing word. Jon Snow had only stood there. Alone, in the center among his lords and ladies, as the world had shattered underneath his steady feet.
Almost a fortnight later, Jon was still King in the North despite bending the knee. Daenerys had insisted her lover remained titled on their journey north. The decision had made a convoluted sort of sense, particularly with the agreed upon marriage alliance. A rough marriage alliance, to be sure, but Tyrion had been satisfied enough with the addition by the time they'd met the Dothraki on the Kingsroad. The North's king would wed the rightful Queen. Jon hadn't a name to give then, and so Daenerys would remain a Targaryen. Simple. He was the only real option Daenerys had left for a husband on a somewhat equal landing. And now...
Tyrion continued to catch himself staring at the man—the never suspected rightful heir to the Iron Throne—trying to glimpse something he'd missed. A wisp of silver-gold hair among the tamed dark curls. Perhaps a ring of violet or pale lilac hidden in his stormy gray eyes. A tiny hint of any Targaryen feature that might have given away Ned Stark's greatest lie.
He found nothing. Not even the fiery spark of a dragon like the one that curled itself in Daenerys's gaze. Jon Snow was Stark and wolf and Northern strength.
Don't wake the dragon, he'd once heard Daenerys say. But this secret Targaryen had no dragon to wake.
The northern lords and ladies had surprised Tyrion most in the aftermath. At first, they'd been a cacophony of disbelief and arguing. For two days, Winterfell had been in an uproar. Jon Snow had been yanked in a hundred different directions from dawn to dusk and then well into the night. Tyrion had kept his distance. The entire Targaryen host had, watching the fallout.
By the third evening, however, tempers cooled. Every one of the Northern leaders had insisted on continuing the pledges they'd already sworn—Snow, Stark, Targaryen, it made no difference. He was their King. No matter his birth, he was of the North—the she-wolf's trueborn son raised by their old liege lord. He was one of them.
And that was a troubling reminder. One that Daenerys either didn't see or chose to ignore.
For months now, Tyrion had mulled over all sorts of plots and plans to sway the northerners to his Queen's side. Jon Snow had been a fundamental centerpiece for each. Once he'd accepted Daenerys's claim, Jon could bridge the blood-filled crypt that Robert's Rebellion had created between Targaryen and Stark.
Only now, Jon was a son of both. A Targaryen the northerners had knowingly chosen to lead them. A Stark with a claim the southron lords would accept. A ruler who was not Daenerys, but just as worthy of the claim. Regardless of the name he chose, Jon Snow had all he needed to claim the Iron Throne he didn't want.
And so far, Tyrion hadn't figured out where Daenerys stood with any of it. The first night, her eyes had glimmered with hope and unrelenting joy. To not be the last Targaryen—to have another of her blood to share the weight and burden of the Targaryen legacy—had outshone anything. Tyrion had breathed a little easier then, despite Jon's mute reaction. The last dragons, together and in love. Perhaps that was the easy lullaby to end all the madness.
Two days of that gentle hope passed before something hard settled between his Queen and Jon Snow. Even Tyrion had found himself lulled by false hope when he'd seen the pair on the battlements at dawn the morning after Bran's revelations. His stomach had still twisted with anxiety at the heaviness of their love. Yet seeing his Queen rest her head against Jon Snow's neck, for his arms to hold her as his cheek rested on her braids, had dissipated one worry.
Jon and Daenerys would wed and share the crown. A simple solution.
Together they would balance each other's impulses with his guidance. The realm would finally have peace if they all survived.
But nothing about their current situation was that easy. Like lightning forking the night sky, the pair ceased speaking, outside of necessity, overnight. All the knowing looks Tyrion had become exasperatingly fond of exchanging with Davos stopped. Nobody found the Queen and King standing too close together. Their eyes didn't meet across the war council room, alight with a secret, shared fondness. None of the servants were caught gossiping about finding the pair at the end of a dreary corridor in each other's arms like on the boat north. Neither of their lord Hands had to rattle their chamber doors when they were too busy with each other to break their fasts at a reasonable hour.
Jon Snow was as inscrutable as ever, but his eyes held a harshness, deep and chilling, that filled Tyrion with dread. Daenerys simmered all the while, a dragon smoldering, ready to lunge.
By day four, Tyrion had reasoned out that sharp turnaround, too. Jon Snow had denied her, clearly. His Queen wasn't used to such refusal, especially not in a bedchamber. Tyrion had prepared for some sort of honorable fit of madness from the King in the North—for the knowledge of his blood connection to his lover to stall their blossoming romance. The enormity of the truth had to claw into Jon and shatter back out into the world somehow.
On the fifth day, Missandei blasted that certainty to every one of the seven hells.
He'd invited her, Varys, and Davos to his drafty chambers to discuss their political plans moving forward. More than anything, they needed to address how to make Jon Snow less ridiculous about something so common in Westeros. Davos and Varys had both given mute nods as Tyrion spoke of his observations, but Missandei had shifted, her eyes downcast.
"Forgive me, Lord Tyrion, but…" Missandei glanced up, both embarrassed and concerned. "Her Grace and Lord—King Jon—Aegon? They have shared Her Grace's bed since the discovery."
Not the night of, Tyrion and his fellow councilors learned. But the following night and the one after that. Missandei hadn't offered details the Queen may have shared or what she may have walked in on. Her trusted knowledge was enough. Their romance hadn't faltered. Not initially. Not until this coldness had engulfed them, and Tyrion…
He didn't have an answer for that. Neither did Varys, which boded far worse.
Still, he watched each of them, with Davos's help, in the following week. They were loyal to their individual and joint duties. Daenerys worked with her armies and Jon's lords, familiarizing them with each other and their collective strengths and weaknesses. She spent time with the Starks as well as Lady Mormont, acquainting herself as best she could to their bristling hostility.
Jon spent his days assisting in the construction of dragonglass weapons in Winterfell's forges and training every participant, from Dothraki screamer to northern child, in the yard. He gave Davos and Tyrion a true fright one frosty morning when he armed himself with not but a wooden shield and had the youngest fighters practice shooting arrows at him. Not one had ever shot at anything moving and breathing.
Bronn had nodded in approval at the sight.
"Bold fucker," he'd said, nodding at Jon's arrow-cracked oak shield and the beaming ten-year-old girl who'd hit her target a third time. "Best hope they don't make him a eunuch. I imagine the last available Targaryen seed needs planting."
Jaime gave a grim nod as he watched the next child step forward. "He's right to prepare them, get out the jitters of shooting at someone. They'll probably piss themselves on the field as is, but at least they'll be well-practiced at taking aim. A small comfort." He fell quiet in a way uncharacteristic of the brother Tyrion had grown up with, before adding, "It's what Rhaegar would have done."
Davos shook his head in resignation as Jon continued to drill the young group below. Like Tyrion, he didn't approve of the risk before the true war—wished someone else would take over. Winterfell had no true master-at-arms anymore. The few men responsible for training in the basics lacked the reflexes and brash idiocy to let children new to bow wielding shoot at them.
Or courage. Tyrion hadn't quited decided how to define Jon's fearlessness of death yet.
Targaryen boldness with a dash of luck, Tyrion had reflected. How had he never noticed it before? Surely, Jon's budding relationships with Rhaegal and Drogon should have clued him in on the road north.
As the days past, Winterfell settled into the preparations of war. For anyone unfamiliar with them, the Queen and King were a seamless, cohesive unit. Their visual unity of divided responsibilities made a grand impression. A calm peace settled around the castle despite what was coming.
For Tyrion, they'd never been further apart.
Davos was at a loss as well. Neither of them had dared to breach the subject with their respective ruler yet, nor discuss the marriage alliance they'd agreed upon and announced before Bran's news. Tyrion thought hauntingly of the succession conversation gone wrong back on Dragonstone. Daenerys would yield nothing. Jon Snow was more agreeable, but every genuine aspect of him seemed to have shriveled like rotting flesh with the truth.
Was it regret and shame that drove him away? Had it taken a few days to process before Jon Snow's damned honor had kicked in?
No, Tyrion could see that falsehood with a single glance. Whatever had happened appeared to be mutual in their shared regret and longing.
Perhaps then, Jon had requested time and space to handle the identity crisis that shrouded him. But that too wasn't quite right. In the days following the revelation, Jon had declared his decision in the Great Hall: he would remain Jon Snow in name. Would collect no lands or titles more than he already held. He was still of the North, he'd said, as much a Stark as he'd ever been.
That was the first clue.
It nagged at Tyrion as he and Davos talked in circles while the days passed. Until the Stark sisters joined them one afternoon, a fortnight after the revelation. The sun had already set as the deep chasm of winter blanketed the land. When they'd been brought into the discussion, both women had chuckled in a disdainful way.
Arya spoke first, with all the grace and tact befitting a Stark.
"She's pissed he doesn't want to be a real Targaryen like her."
Sansa sipped her wine, eyes reproachful. "What my sister means, my lords, is that our brother does not wish to discover more of his… paternal heritage. Jon's a Stark, and that's enough for him."
Everything knitted itself together then, like a suffocating wool blanket.
Jon hadn't denied her his love or his body or their intimacy—he'd refused to be a dragon. Had denied her something far worse by insisting she was the world's last and only Targaryen.
That was much more difficult to navigate.
Daenerys, meanwhile, seemed to be viewing the rejection of his heritage as a challenge instead of taking it with patience or grace. She'd never been one to let another lead or deny her. Jon stood steadfast as the days slipped by, and Daenerys burned like an ember, radiating heat as much as she churned it inside herself. It wasn't the name, no. Tyrion had watched her accept the decision of Jon's name with ease as they'd sat side-by-side in the Great Hall.
This was deeper, almost carnal.
It was the stories of Rhaegar that Jon refused to hear from her or Jaime. The lack of him beside her when she visited Drogon and Rhaegal in the snowdrift fields beyond Winterfell's armored walls. The dragons' keening cries at his sudden absence after so many weeks of companionship and bonding on the road north. Even his steadiness when Jon didn't submit to Daenerys's growing impulses for fire and blood during councils—shielded himself from the legacy of Targaryen rage and heat that Daenerys only emboldened.
By the end of their first fortnight at Winterfell, Tyrion relented. One evening over wine while he and his Queen discussed the slow, lumbering pace of the Night King's army marching south he nudged her like a sparking log in the fire. She hadn't said much when he'd inquired after Jon Snow and herself. While he'd talked himself into silence, Daenerys had finished her wine and stood.
"Sometimes you have to wake the dragon."
Her words cracked and split the air, filling Tyrion with dread once more.
"Your Grace, I'm not sure I follow."
But he did, and wished he couldn't.
"Viserys was not a true dragon. Not like me, but Jon is."
And I will prove it to him.
Tyrion heard the ringing declaration without her saying it. He found himself alone after that, sweating in the frigid northern cold. His mind was resolutely stuck on the image of the frothing chaos in Jon Snow's eyes since he'd learned the truth. The man had had no true time to digest any portion of his true identity or what it meant. It seemed impossible he'd kept himself sane amongst any of this madness. And Daenerys intended to prod at that until… gods only knew what.
The following morning, Tyrion wasted no time warning Davos and the Stark sisters of the wolf and dragon about to butt heads. Or dragon and dragon. He wasn't quite sure anymore.
Arya had rolled her eyes and planned one-on-one training sessions to occupy Jon.
Sansa had said nothing, but her thoughtful gaze reflected her contempt.
Davos had shaken his head, sighed, and eyed the ceiling.
"He'll snap like a wolf more than breathe fire. Too many years in the cold."
None of their reactions were answers that would satisfy the Queen. Still Davos's words were a strange comfort as the next few days passed. Jon Snow was more Stark than Targaryen; a fierce wolf without a dragon's flame. Ice to her fire, as Varys had begun to mutter, a poetic union of balance.
Until Daenerys eased one biting talon into Jon, and then another and another. She sunk in with sharp words and brittle reminders while Jon's frown held his silence. Tyrion only learned of her plans after she'd begun to cut Jon down with her words.
When she'd drawn up an order for his name to legally be changed to Targaryen, Tyrion had watched Jon Snow toss it into the fire and walk away, unfazed.
The same had happened to Her Grace's order to name Jon her successor, in the case of her death. Tyrion hadn't cared much for that one either, no matter how much sense it made, particularly if the marriage alliance was no more.
But the rest of her steps grew bolder, harsher. One, that Tyrion had thought briefly himself that first night and then tossed aside, seemed to be the dagger Daenerys had searched for. She'd called for Jon to stay after one meeting, Tyrion as well to advise, and suggested something Tyrion would have never dared to voice on his own.
"Since you have not accepted my other proposals, I have decided your first-born will be my heir," Daenerys had said in the chilled council room. Even her fire couldn't bring warmth to that room when Jon Snow met her eyes. "The Targaryen bloodline can live on. You will wed—"
"I will do no such thing."
Tyrion had swallowed, ashen. Jon Snow had left the room without her dismissal, but the look on his face had been answer enough. A dragon lived inside him, and Daenerys had found her way to drag him out.
And she dug. Deeper with every comment, with every necessary meeting, with every request that he remain after the war council to discuss the future of House Targaryen. Tyrion watched it all. Daenerys twisted her fire into word games that Jon hadn't the patience or time to play.
For a week, Jon masked his face, stayed even-tempered instead of quick-tempered like his Queen.
Steady. Dependable. Calm.
Yet a change flickered in his eyes as the days passed—one Tyrion almost didn't catch whenever it appeared. Quick as the light of flaming ash off a molten sword, as the spark of steel and flint kindling into an inferno.
Tyrion had never dared imagine the dragon Daenerys was determined to pull into the world. One infinitesimal blaze in those thunder gray eyes was enough.
But not for Daenerys Stormborn. Never for the Mother of Dragons.
Don't wake the dragon.
She'd once told him of how her brother had used it as a threat to keep her timid.
"But he was no real dragon," she'd said then, certain with the dry heat of Meereen embracing them. "Any dragon he thought himself was weak and never slept. Sickly. Fire gives a dragon strength, not weakness or death."
He'd seen the partial-truth of that when she let her own fire burn through her veins and into the world. Here in Winterfell, he saw it as she demanded a proof Tyrion feared to see.
Viserys's dragon had been ever-present and feeble.
Daenerys's simmered with heat, always willing to boil.
Jon Snow had only ever allowed himself to be a wolf.
Until the day the refugees from Last Hearth arrived, and Daenerys's temper flooded the council chambers. She'd been nettling Jon for days, cutting with words that nobody dared to combat; edging him, closer and then back a step, like she would a lover in a passionate game for control. And perhaps that was part of it, Tyrion mused. Some elaborate foreplay that Jon Snow hadn't caught on to and wouldn't until they fell into her bed once again.
Tyrion couldn't even recall what they'd been discussing when it happened, but Jon snapped. The usual gnashing fangs of a wolf were gone.
"You do not make decisions for me, Daenerys."
A chill that had nothing to do with the snow and wind swirling outside overtook Tyrion. His lungs seemed to rattle in his chest. He almost didn't want to look at Jon Snow in that moment, feared to see a dragon that had never been quenched or tamed.
"Lord Snow, you will—"
"I will do as I deem right."
Tyrion did look then. From the burning triumph in Daenerys's gaze across the table to Jon Snow. They might have been alone in that room by the way their eyes caught. Flames rose in Jon's eyes, burning dark and cold. He held fire in his words, in the frigidity of his tone, but it was unlike anything Tyrion had expected. Something white-hot and smothering he'd prepared for. Even the volcanic, red flames Daenerys unleashed had made sense. Jon didn't burn so much as crack; harsher than the cold outside that could freeze blood and bone. That gnawed into the marrow and devoured.
Don't wake the dragon.
Tyrion's mind turned the words into a chant. Everyone else in the room seemed to shrink into their chairs or back toward the nearest wall. He wished any warning he gave his Queen would be heeded. Because a dragon had been with Jon all along, chained but never tamed. Controlled only by being caged in something that seared worse than any warming fire. Never woken in all his twenty-two years, only re-caged and molded, growing in strength all the while.
A dragon cannot be tamed and, somehow, he'd found himself advising two.
Don't wake the dragon.
But Daenerys had learned a long time ago the inevitability of doing just that.
"You will do as your rightful Queen commands, Lord Snow." She met his gaze, already burning with him.
"I will do what is right by my people."
Daenerys's chest rose and fell slowly as fire filled her gaze. "Leave us."
Every advisor scattered for the doors. Tyrion was the last out, hobbling on his stunted legs, but he glanced back as he tugged the door closed. Ice and fire, somehow both aflame. Daenerys hadn't moved. Jon's leathers and sleeves bunched with the tensing of his limbs and muscles. Tyrion shut the door.
Davos led Tyrion to his chambers a few doors away, and pulled an ancient bottle of rum out to be shared. They waited and sipped. Not five minutes in, the first echoing shatter twisted down the corridor from the council chamber. Several more followed like an arm had swiped every lovely still half-full wine flagon from the table.
Davos downed his cup and refilled it. "About time they got back to that."
Tyrion nodded. Something clattered against the stone floor down the hall, followed by the dull thump of a body against the shut door. He'd heard that particular sound enough on the ship north to know what it meant. A high, pleased moan reached Tyrion's ears before it was silenced. Davos only chuckled. Like Tyrion, he was relieved this attempted disaster had reached its end.
Together, they drank to the Queen and King's good health.
An hour later, the shouting began. Davos flinched as the Queen's voice echoed out of the room, the door slamming open. Footsteps hurried down the hall. Tyrion opened Davos's door in time to see Jon Snow storming away with Daenerys's furious face following.
Davos finished his rum as the pair thundered off. "Maybe not. I'm really starting to wish these two had more experience with this sort of thing."
Tyrion sighed and followed his Queen's voice along the halls, out into the courtyard. A public display was not ideal. Thankfully, the courtyard was near empty. Jon said nothing as he walked, his pale direwolf joining him at the gates. He marched right through, Daenerys still snarling at his heels. They made it a hundred yards from Winterfell's outer wall before Jon stopped. Tyrion and Davos paused several feet behind the Queen.
"It is not your decision."
Daenerys's shoulders stiffened. "I have as much right as you to say what should happen. This is your birthright. You cannot—"
"When has birthright ever meant a damn thing to me?"
Jon turned to face her, the chilling rage from earlier swirling in his eyes. If anything, he seemed less stable than before, more fractured like the icy shell of a lake cracking open for the spring. Tyrion took a step forward, a hand reaching gently for Daenerys's arm. This had gone on long enough.
"Your Grace, please—"
But Jon had turned away again, made it two paces before Daenerys was after him. Her words whipped out like tongues of flame.
"Do not walk away from me, Jon Snow. I am your Queen. You will not break your vow to me like you did the Night's Watch."
Wind cut through Tyrion's jerkin and cloak. If he'd believed in such powers, he would have assumed the bite was Jon's. The sharp cut of the brittle cold on his skin, the snow kicked up and slapping against him. He'd heard the stories. From the wildlings, the northern lords, the few Night's Watch brothers that had escaped from Castle Black. Even from Jorah and Davos.
Jon Snow was no oathbreaker.
A man couldn't give his life for his word and be called such things.
At some point, Tyrion vowed to teach his Queen and her King how to argue constructively instead of viciously. This wouldn't bode well if it continued.
Ghost turned first this time, no longer docile and patient. A silent snarl peeled back his lips, his hackles raised as he bared his teeth at Daenerys. After the weeks of gentle nuzzling and padding along at her side, it was an alarming difference.
"Your Grace, perhaps we should go inside and—"
"I will do no such thing."
But he heard the slight waiver in his Queen's voice. She'd crossed a line from which she couldn't step back. Jon hadn't turned to face them yet. The snow picked up, twisting in the air around them, freezing and melting against Tyrion's cheeks. Ghost's bleeding red eyes watched them. Yet even over the lonely howl of the wind Jon's voice was crystalline.
"Never say that to me again."
Daenerys didn't back down. "A queen says what she wills, Jon Snow. You still live and breathe, yet you do not hold yourself to your oath. Will you do the same with the vows sworn to me?"
Jon Snow faced her then.
"You want me to give my life to you as well, is that it? You want my corpse at your feet so you don't have to worry about some damn claim I don't want? Or would you rather marry me off and breed me like some Targaryen dog?"
Daenerys flinched as Ghost lunged forward a pace. "Jon, all I want is—"
"What? To keep stabbing me from all sides with whatever words you've got today? I gave my life to the Watch. For every one of those men and every one of the Free Folk, so don't talk to me about oaths. I know what those words mean better than any of you. I lived them. I died for them. My word is my life. It is all I've ever had, so don't belittle it to prove a point."
A screech echoed through the snowy fog, and the ground shook under Tyrion's feet. He swayed with Davos, Daenerys tottering in front of them. One of the dragons rushed at Jon's back, its coloring indistinguishable through the heavy snow. Daenerys reached toward Jon as the dragon roared in fury.
"Jon!"
The dragon came to a halt right behind him. And Jon Snow, breathing heavily and looking for all the world like he'd left his sanity back at Dragonstone two months ago, never even glanced behind himself. As the dragon screamed once again, Ghost gave another gnashing snap of his jaws.
Tyrion watched the scene in wonder, shielding his eyes from the snow. It was Rhaegal. His majestic green scales were just iridescent enough to be distinguished from the gray world. He curled one wing around Jon's right side, his neck around the left. Face to face with Daenerys, Rhaegal let out a screech Tyrion hoped to never hear again.
"Rhaegal? It's me. It's all right."
The dragon snapped at her.
Another roar split the sky as Drogon slammed into the ground beside his brother.
Davos cursed behind Tyrion and didn't bother protecting his pride. He grabbed Tyrion by the collar and flung them both behind the nearest tree.
Drogon's rage echoed around the field, deeper and angrier than Rhaegal's. Tyrion half-expected the two dragons to be tearing at each other when he peered around the tree line. Instead he found himself stunned. Like Rhaegal, Drogon's snout was feet from Daenerys, a protective wing canopied over each Targaryen to shield them from the snow.
For the first time since they'd met so many years ago, Tyrion Lannister looked upon Jon Snow and understood every hidden truth in him.
He was every inch a Targaryen dragonlord then. A King of Winter, too.
His cloak billowed around him, his shoulders rose and fell with the heaving breaths of his fury. Two dragons and his faithful direwolf wrapped their protection around him, armored him against the person closest to his heart.
Daenerys flinched. Drogon didn't snap at her like Ghost or Rhaegal had, but he rumbled like molten thunder all the same.
"Jon, I was only—"
"I won't do it," Jon said and his fury wavered. "I can't. I don't want any of it. Not the name or the titles or him to be my—"
Behind him Rhaegal began to settle, Ghost stepped back and closer to his side, calming. Drogon shifted to nuzzle Daenerys as she took a tentative step forward.
A hundred possibilities chased each other through Tyrion's mind. If he was honest, Tyrion had considered all of Jon's reasons for denial every night since their relationship had fractured. As always, Ned Stark had been central. To be Ned Stark's son was an insurmountable dream Jon had chased all of his life. Only he was Rhaegar's seed. A truth that was seeping its way across the realm; a truth that could not be lost once more to the dark past. His impossible dream had ended.
Jon's legs buckled under him. He sank to his knees in the snow, falling forward but Daenerys caught him. She cradled him in her arms as the dragons and direwolf settled protectively around them, shielding them from the storm.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"No, I'm sorry, you're right. It's your choice. I shouldn't have kept pushing you, but you pushed me away and I just..."
Davos stepped carefully from behind their tree. Tyrion followed.
"Best give them a minute," Davos said. He sighed like he couldn't decide if he was pleased or miserable. "Really wish Bran had waited to dump this on him until after all these damn wars."
Tyrion huffed out a weak chuckle. "Starks have no tact."
"Not sure Targaryens do either."
Tyrion gazed through the snow at Jon and Daenerys curled up in each other's arms. Beside them, Ghost and Rhaegal were snout to snout, sniffing curiously. Drogon lumbered over all of them, watchful.
"Come, that rum won't finish itself."
Together, Tyrion and Davos returned to Winterfell and shut themselves away in Davos's room. This time they pulled their chairs to the whistling wind at the window and away from the boiling fire. They drank and watched Jon and Daenerys, two little dark pinpricks in the snowy field. Rhaegal and Drogon had disappeared. Ghost was impossible to spot against the snow. After almost an hour, Jon and Daenerys made their way back to the castle.
"We'll give them tonight," Davos decided as he closed the shutters on his window. "You want to solo them tomorrow or do a joint council?"
"Joint, I think. They'll be the King and Queen of Westeros soon enough. A unit. Best to treat them as such."
Davos nodded at him and they separated for the night. At first light, Tyrion dressed and headed for the Queen's chambers on the floor below his own. They'd been set up in the Guest House of Winterfell, quite far from the Lord's Chambers, but not so far from Jon Snow's. For humble reasons Tyrion could only guess at, Jon Snow had given Sansa the Lord's Chambers and taken a small, dusty room as his own.
At the bottom of the stairs, Davos and two Unsullied guards were waiting for him.
"His chamber's empty," was all Davos needed to say.
They strolled the curved length of the corridor in companionable silence. Really, Tyrion quite liked the former smuggler, despite their history on opposite sides of so many conflicts. Davos was a smart man and a shrewd mummer. For a king like Jon Snow, he was an excellent match.
"A good sign," Tyrion said as they paused at the door to the Queen's chamber. "Perhaps we'll have an easier time of this than we originally thought."
Davos offered a tight smile. "Never that simple with these two, my lord. Now you've said it…"
Tyrion sighed and knocked. For almost a minute the corridor and the room beyond was silent, then the bolt scraped against the wood and the door opened. Ghost greeted them, bleeding red eyes crusty with sleep.
Davos gave him an affectionate pat on the head, but Tyrion stilled. He hadn't come face-to-face with the direwolf since he was a pup on their journey to the Wall. Ghost tilted his head and blocked Tyrion from the room. His snout was as high as Tyrion's forehead, his paws the size of a child's practice shield.
"Ghost, it's been a long time." Tyrion held out a hand, but Ghost stepped right into him and sniffed his hair from one ear to the other. Seemingly satisfied, the direwolf turned from him and padded over to the fur rug in front of the fire.
Davos chuckled, then nodded to the bed just out of sight behind the door. Tyrion stepped in and shut it, relief seeping into his bones. His Queen and her King were still asleep. Daenerys was propped up in bed with Jon's cheek resting on her chest, one of her hand's tangled into his curls. He rested on his stomach, and from the slight tents in the furs, Tyrion guessed still between her legs.
"Definitely a good sign." Davos stepped a few paces closer to the bed. He prodded Jon's bare shoulder as Tyrion lingered by the door. "Your Grace?"
A grumble, a shift of his dark head, and Jon slept on. Dark rings framed his closed eyes, a few half-dried wet trails lined his cheeks and ran into his beard. Daenerys shifted beneath him to adjust, and Tyrion ducked his gaze when he realized the gray tunic she wore was Jon's and not her own.
Davos seemed to realize the potential for nudity, too. He prodded Daenerys's arm instead.
"Your Grace?"
She blinked slowly, her arm around Jon's back curling tighter. Then she spotted Tyrion by the door and Davos leaning over the bed.
"My lords, forgive me, we've overslept."
"No apologies necessary, Your Grace," Davos said, all smiles. "It's still rather early."
Daenerys yawned into her palm and blinked slowly. Tyrion stepped a few paces closer.
"We were hoping to discuss several matters over breakfast, Your Grace. With you and your betrothed."
She nodded and Tyrion allowed himself a small smile then. No uncertain frowns at the title, no denials. Their marriage alliance still needed discussion, but that, at least, still appeared to be on.
"Any requests?"
Daenerys buried her fingers in Jon's hair, gently stroking his scalp.
"Bacon. And not burnt black for once."
Davos nodded. "We'll bring it up ourselves, Your Grace. Good luck rousing him."
He tapped Jon's head and the man didn't so much as stir. Daenerys only smiled. The beauty that smile, that simple moment, as she watched the man nestled against her filled Tyrion with a mingling tangle of peace and despair.
Love complicated everything. Politics, war, thrones, and claims. Yet, he couldn't deny the security of it with Daenerys and Jon. A solid, bold, untameable truth. They were as faithful to each other as they were to themselves and their strives to better the world.
Together, perhaps they could build that better world from the ashes that lingered after their wars were fought and won.
Together, they all just might survive this.