Author's Note & Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer language regarding not owning Game of Thrones, its characters, plotlines, etc., this is a work of fanfiction, please GRRM for-the-love-of-all-that's-holy finish the books and please D&D make the last season sparkle - like an anime character ;)
So yeah, this little fic is dedicated to subtilia because she asked for some #Jorleesi love and I'm definitely in the mood for it too. Also all love to Emilia, for sharing that adorable Iain/Emilia pic which is possibly the cutest BTS pic in the history of GoT and definitely the inspiration behind this AU trip.
Anywaaay, so here's an end of S1 canon divergence for all you lovely readers. Imagine Khal Drogo dies of his wounds (hold the Mirri Maz Duur blood magic), and instead of getting all dragon-queen-on-a-quest-for-vengeance, Daenerys chooses a different path, i.e. runs off with Jorah Mormont to Asshai or some other warm Essosi equivalent to the Amalfi coast.
I'm thinking this will be 2-3 chapters and I should probably wait until I'm finished to start posting…nah, let's just start posting :)
Hope everyone enjoys Season 8 (tonight! omgzz!) and I'll be back soon to post more Xo
ETA: Cover art credit (and love!) to Anne - salzrand. Thanks for letting me borrow it for this fic! Mwah!
Chapter 1 - A Scent of Lemons
Daenerys
When we first came here, I remember a faint scent of lemons, blown up from a neighboring grove by the sea breeze.
Jorah had carried me into the villa, as I was too weak to manage those white-washed, alabaster steps myself. My head was tucked against his chest, my hands clutching at the ragged, yellow fabric of his shirt, head buzzing with lingering fever and a host of nightmares that had plagued me since the night Khal Drogo died of his festering wounds.
He carried me upstairs to a clean, spacious room with high ceilings and a soft mattress. He laid me down gently on cool, silk sheets and stayed near my side until I fell asleep. I curled on my side and closed my eyes, a part of me hoping that I would die in the night, a part of me too exhausted to think of anything at all.
"Sleep, Khaleesi. Just sleep now."
Jorah's voice and the scent of lemons—these were the touchstones that I kept close as I journeyed so near the Night Lands.
The road had been unkind. Some of the bloodriders of the khalasar pursued us, intent on carving Khal Drogo's unborn son out of my womb so as to make their claim on the horde secure. They never caught us. Jorah made sure of that. Oh, but they needn't have worried anyway. I gave birth to a stillborn child the night before we made it out of the Red Waste.
I remember only blood and pain and my own cries in the dark. It was too early, it was too small. And I hadn't felt it move in days, not since the hour Khal Drogo fell off his horse.
The baby was such a little thing, with a soft patch of black hair covering his scalp. But it never cried, it never took a breath of air. Not one. Jorah held me afterwards, as I wept long into the night over the dead child cradled in my arms, pressing gentle kisses against my son's black hair.
Shhhh, Khaleesi, shhhh…
The darkness of that night still haunts me. It will always haunt me. Like the storm of my birth, the tragedy of my father and the ruin of my brothers. Or the whisper of a Western country that was once my home.
All through childhood, Viserys had been intent on returning to Westeros, no matter the cost, no matter the danger. He traded me to the horse lords and would have done it a thousand times over, if only for the chance of seizing our birthright and sending the Usurper to the deepest pits of all Seven Hells.
I was caught up in his plans of vengeance. I never had a choice in the matter. But, as the years pass, Westeros becomes more myth to me than anything else. Perhaps it was once a place of beauty to be revered, but now it's all shadows and war.
We've heard that the Usurper is dead, stabbed straight through by a wild boar on a hunting trip in the Kingswood. Such foreign news reaches us here, even at the very edge of the world, on the blue-green spray of the Jade Sea. Jorah heard it first from a Dornish sailor and told me as soon as he returned home from the harbor that evening, his hands callused and cracked from days working at fishing nets and ship rigging.
I didn't know what to think, having known this was the news Viserys had longed for since we were children. But memories of my brother were tainted by his cruelty. His dreams were no longer mine.
"Let me see your hands," I said instead, reaching for a jar of beeswax balm before sitting down at the kitchen table beside Jorah. Taking one of his weather-beaten hands in my own, I rubbed the ointment into the dry cracks, where his skin had been washed too many times by saltwater. I muttered, "You always let these get too far before you put anything on them."
"On Bear Island, we used bear grease," he mentioned, his eyes getting that faraway look they always get when he talks about his home. Although, recently, I'd noticed that his gaze didn't drift so far away when he spoke of that evergreen island of spruce and pine, nestled at the top of the world. There was less regret and longing behind his blue eyes when he talked about Bear Island now. More just memories—some pleasant, some melancholy.
"Well, I expect this smells a little better than bear grease," I answered dryly, a slight tease in my voice. My pale fingers smoothed out the creamy balm, gently moving over those hands I'd come to know so well.
"You heard what I said about Robert Baratheon?" he asked again, more seriously, noting how I hadn't yet acknowledged the death of the man who stole my father's throne. My attention was still fixated on his hands. "The Dornish sailor said there's dispute about Joffrey's claim and whether he's Robert's trueborn son."
"I heard you," I replied. My emotions on the subject were conflicted, and he knew it.
He wondered, perhaps, if this news would awaken a spark within me, doused long ago by the tragic events that drove us to take refuge here, in the East. As soon as I'd recovered from our journey through the Red Waste, he had let me know that it was my decision to make. If I wanted to try for the Iron Throne, he would take me to Westeros. Tomorrow, if I asked.
But I didn't ask. Not then and not now. Instead, I just continued scolding him, leaning over the hand that I massaged carefully, my hair falling into my face as I worked, "For a man who grew up on the seashore among fishermen and sailors…you'd think you'd know better than to wreck your hands like this."
He smiled at my half-hearted chiding, his teeth showing white against the healthy brown of his summer-tanned skin. With the hand that had yet to receive my attentions, he brushed a loose strand of my silver-blonde hair back behind my ear and said, with feeling, "Thank you, Daenerys."
For my family's sake, I should've been glad that Robert Baratheon had met his end. Or that his heir would be another man's son. So ended the Baratheon line, in scandal and in ruin. Good riddance.
It was a fitting end for the man who murdered my family, but, if I was being honest, I didn't care so much. And in the days and weeks that followed, I cared even less.
My mind and hands were occupied, by the calm but steady pace of life on the Jade Sea, by the garden I had planted in the front yard of the villa, and whether or not my hands, so long marked for destruction and death, would be able to bring life into the world instead of fire and blood. I longed for my garden to flourish with green, leafy, growing things and was intent on conjuring them from the warm, dark soil of Southern Essos. If I could manage it…
Jorah said I'd have no trouble. He smiled at my fears and said only, "You are not your brothers, Khaleesi…"
He was right. Of course, he was right. When has Jorah Mormont ever proved himself false to me?
Once, Daenerys…his voice echoes in my head, too filled with remorse to ever let me forget. The voice promises, with steely conviction, But never again.
The very hour Lord Eddard Stark lost his head half a world away, to a mad child's tantrum, Jorah came home with a heavy burden on his heart. The news from the West was all secrets and lies and he wanted nothing to do with them. He said he hated secrets, taking my hand and leading me to the terrace in the front room, framed by decorative arches and a balcony that overlooks the shining, sparkling waters of the Jade Sea.
The sheer white curtains that I'd hung shimmered quietly in the warm, night air. The lemon trees that I'd planted just below the balcony ledge were blooming and the air was scented with their fragrance. We sat together at the window, speaking in hushed tones.
He told me everything that night. He told me about the pardon that he'd received from Varys, the spymaster in King's Landing. He told me about the messages he sent, at the spymaster's bidding. He told me about the wine merchant and why he forced the man to drink out of the cask that might have killed me.
My sweet, steadfast knight couldn't look at me, but kept my hand captive in his own, imploring me to understand.
He said flatly, not as an excuse, not as justification, but just the blunt truth, "I didn't know you then, Daenerys. I just wanted to go home. I hadn't been home in so long."
His blue eyes betrayed such depth of feeling—shame at his own past, horror at how things might have turned out, anger that those conniving, villainous men in King's Landing might have so easily succeeded…and love for me. No matter when I looked into those blue eyes, I saw Jorah's love for me.
He couldn't hide it. He never could, not once, from the day we talked of our prayers and shared desire for home.
But Gods, that's why I loved him back. It had come upon me slowly, surely, growing like the blue and violet flowers that I'd planted around the villa. I forgave him the moment the words fell from his mouth. And to prove my forgiveness, I used my free hand to catch his strong chin. I forced him to look at me. If he couldn't see the reflection of love written in my expression, I'd have to prove it.
And I'd been thinking about proving it for some time anyway. Since coming here, we'd fallen into a domestic routine that bordered on the blissfully ordinary. But he still slept down the hall and his touch remained as chaste as ever. Occasionally, he risked a touch—a lingering kiss against the top of my head after breakfast, before heading down to work long hours at the docks in the harbor. A gentle press of his fingers against the soft part of my palm as he helped me up from my knees in the garden.
But he wouldn't dare risk more than that. I knew he wouldn't, as strong and stubborn as any bear.
And so, on that night that he told me everything—I was the one who did the risking, cautiously but deliberately leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Ser Jorah Mormont's surprised but willing lips. The kiss was sweet, soft and a long time coming. I pulled back slightly to see the astonishment written in his dear, familiar features. With my lips parted and my eyes hungry, I asked for more.
He returned the kiss with another. And another after that. Of course, he did. Jorah Mormont has never denied me anything.
The sweetness of those kisses deepened with each pass of our lips, a passion written in the whispers of breath that we exchanged, blossoming like night-blooming jasmine. We stayed on that balcony for some time, wrapped in each other's arms, with the sounds of the sea in the distance and the pale scent of lemons lingering in the air all around us.