Heavy snow was whitening Bear Island as a lone rider tried to make his way to a wooden keep he once called home. Wooden hall of House Mormont seemed glorious for some reason. Jorah noticed he was shaking from cold. He wasn't used to such a freezing winter, living in the Free Cities for a decade. He dismounted his horse, kneeling down on the ground. The feel of snow was pleasantly freezing. The feel of home.

I'm never leaving you again, he thought when he looked upon those pine trees he used to hide behind when he was younger. A tear crept in his eyes at the sight of northern light crossing the blue skies above the island. The green reflected in his blue eyes as the snowflakes kept falling onto his face, melting at the warmth of the tears. He kept still and silent as he saw a bear – probably male, Jorah thought – wandering among the pine trees. The animal sniffed in his direction but left him alone, and kept clumping on.

Thunder of horse hooves waked him up. Don't forget: be friendly, you're a stranger to them. Three Bear Island guardsmen were approaching him rapidly. Jorah threw the sword down, lifting his hands in the air as a sign of surrender.

»My lords,« he greeted them, trying to fix a smile on his frozen face. One of them was a woman which was no news on the island. Women were taught to fight and some of them turned out to be better fighters than men.

»Jorah?« Said the only female in the company. »You don't recognized me, do you?«

The voice was somehow familiar to him. »Do I know you, my lady?« Mistake number one: never call a female in an armor »my lady«. She dismounted her horse, with a sword in her hand.

»Don't. Call. Me. »My. Fucking. Lady.«« Her blade shone upon his throat. »You don't know who I am.« She took off her helmet. »I am Alysane Mormont, Lord of Bear Island, and you are Ser Jorah, who should stand in my place if you weren't such a fool.« A fool in love.

To the surprise of everyone present, he smiled. »Aly.« He didn't know what to say. »You've grown.«

For a couple of seconds, they stood in the cold in complete silence. But Aly broke it with a deep laugh. »And you got old, cousin.« She inspected his darkened skin. »The Free Cities did good for you.«

She escorted Jorah to the Mormont hall. He wondered when was the last time he laid eyes on the wooden keep. Yet it all looked the same as it did when he left. When he was the Lord of Bear Island. The yard was full of children and mostly young women in full armor practicing how to wield a sword.

»These are my sisters. They've all grown.« She called Jorelle. »Jory, someone is hear to see you.« A beautiful tall blonde turned around. She was the only fair-haired female in the company, looking like a goddess. Jorah loved her more than other cousins. She was much like him; a dreamer who believed in happy stories of a knight and princess fair. But what he should expect but didn't, was that she wasn't the sweet little cousin, she was a grown woman. And strong enough to give him a hard slap across his cheek. Jorah checked if all the teeth were still in their places.

»Jory.«

»You left us, you bastard.« Another slap. »And you dare to come here, after the crime you've committed against the family?« This time she hit him where it hurts most – his pride, and honor. He kneeled, as he did once before, in the mud, matching his eyes with hers. They were the same colour. Telling the same story, of sadness and sorrow.

»I...I've done many things I'm not proud of.« He paused. »And I shamed the name of House Mormont. I only wish if you could grant me forgiveness.« He swallowed hard when he saw the anger flashing in her eyes.

»Stand up. I will not have my cousin where only the enemies should be,« she told him. Jorah did as he was told. He saw her expression changed and she hugged him tightly. »I missed you Jorah,« she said, with tears in her eyes.

»I missed you too, little Jory.« She slapped him again, this time lighter and with a sad smile on her face.

»I am not little,« she defied and pressed her head to his chest, hearing the increasing tempo of his heartbeat. He was genuinly happy to be home. Her favourite knight was back.

»I will tell you stories of the Free Cities after dinner.« He promised her. She looked at him as happy as a little girl but quickly remembered she's grown now. »And may I say, Jory, you look like a princess. So beautiful...« Her face reddened from the praise. Even if it was Jorah, her cousin, he was still a man, and such a compliment was always welcome.

»Thank you,« she whispered so only Jorah could hear her. She-bears were supposed to be tough, not softened by a man's compliment.

Aly started looking a bit impatient. »Come on, you sweetlings, let's not get all soft. Dinner is ready.«

They were serving a fish. Jorah was so starved he ate two portions of stew and a fish and he couldn't say he was completely full up. His poor diet during the travel was nothing like the strong food on Bear Island.

»So, Jorah...« The moment he dreaded. There will be questions. »If I understood right, you want us to go and join a Targaryen and fight for her?«

»Yes,« answered Jorah, bits and pieces of fish flying out of his mouth. Hunger took over his manners.

»You do know we fight for Stannis?« He stopped chewing. Aly followed the Starks. She doesn't know Daenerys. She only knows the stories, and the fact she is The Mad King's daughter. Nothing else.

»She will make a good Queen.« Aly sighed. She looked at him, her head leaning to one side.

»She already is.« She straightened up. »She's a queen of your heart, Jorah.« He swalloed the rest of the bite and opened his mouth but no sound came out. He wanted to defend her but the fact remained:Mormonts are the bannermen to the Starks, and if Ned Stark proclaimed Stannis Baratheon as the rightful king, so will Bear Island. Ned's death hadn't changed anything.

»And if we've learned anything from your second marriage, is that your heart is more wrong than right.«

He occupied his old room after dinner, forgetting how dark it is in there, with no windows or a crack in the wall to get sunshine in the bedroom. Jorah sat on the bed when he heard a knock on the door.

»May I come in, Jorah?« Jorelle. She opened the door, letting herself in. Her eyes looked at the wreck of her cousin. »You don't look alright...«

»I am not,« he interrupted her roughly, than realizing he's been to harsh to Jory. »I'm sorry, sweetling,« he said with a sad smile. Jorelle held his hand and it made him turn to her, his blue eyes filled with sorrow. »I'm useless.«

»Don't say that. Aly went hard on you. She knows Stannis, she trusts him. Daenerys Targaryen is just a young woman she's never fought beside. As far as she's concerned, Daenerys is dangerous and mad.« Her hand squeezed his gently. »But I trust you more than Stannis. And if you say this woman is worth fighting for, she is.« Jorah's eyes watered a little. It's been a long time since anyone trusted him. Even Daenerys...She sent him to a mission to find her sellswords and knights and so far he found a little group of sellswords and won exactly none of the old houses. The north mattered. Even the blindest leader knew the Unsullied were made to fight in the heat, the khalasar as well, and most of the Second Sons were from the Free Cities. They don't know cold, he thought and shivered.

»If only more people were like you, Jory.« She blushed as she always did when Jorah complimented her. Even now, she cannot say why. It could be because of his knighthood. Jorelle believed in princes and knights and happy endings. She was able to defend herself but unlike most of her kin, she wasn't a warrior. Jorah thought of her as his little sister he never had. A little cub who needs to be protected. She was supposed to be married to some prince and become a queen.

»Tell me of this Daenerys, Jorah.« He sighed. There was nothing better he had done than telling stories with his low rusky voice.

»Well,« he started. »Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen was sold to Khal Drogo when she was a girl of 14 by her brother Viserys. They were married in Pentos, one of the Free Cities. After a year, Khal died from a festered wound, and so the run for her life has begun.« He paused to see if she follows. »You see, the Dothraki follow strength, and after a khal dies, his khaleesi is nothing. She's brought to dosh khaleen and lives among old women to the rest of her life. For a 15-year-old that's far too early. So after Drogo's death, a small part of her khalasar followed her, across The Red Waste, old men, women, babes and four warriors.« He proudly straightened. »I was one of them.« Jory smiled and he continued. »After a year, she had three dragons, an army of Unsullied, a sellsword company named The Second Sons, and 200,000 former slaves along with a couple dozen Dothraki.

»Unfortunatelly, she learned about my trechery I've committed against her during her marriage to Khal Drogo. I sold information on her to Lord Varys, spymaster of King's Landing. She forgave me recently but sent me quickly away, with a mission to find an army in the North. Allies from Westeros is what she needs. She...« he stopped, swallowing hard. »She'll make a good queen.«

»Even if she sent you away?« He wrapped his hands around her shoulders.

»Aye. I deserved it. And she forgave me eventually.« Jorelle looked at him, her head leaning to one side. »A great ruler must know forgiveness.«