They rode out before dawn, when the world was still sheathed in the black of night and the shadows lay heavy and good for surreptitious activity. They were a small party, filtering out of the camp's eastern gate in single-file mounted horseback and leaving only the sound of hooves clopping quietly against the muddy trail in their wake. They followed the paths into the wooded lands in the East and they road hard to stay ahead of the sun, spurring themselves on for the coastline. Their party spoke little; in truth, there was little to be said. Jon Snow led them at point with Littlefinger beside him, and even Lord Baelish was uncharacteristically reticent during that morning ride beneath the dark sky. The two exchanged glances and nods, but said nothing else as they wound the path eastwards and down a slope of land and back up again and through a narrow stretch of trail much crowded by the pressings of trees and underbrush.
They found the cliffs overlooking the narrow sea when dawn's incipient light had just begun to bleed the skies pale. Jon reared up at the end of a bony stone finger overhanging the shore and crashing waves below and signaled his men to follow suit. He rode at a canter with Littlefinger beside him to the very edge and looked out upon that vast expanse of endless sea below. Winterfell scouts had sent reports of the sight awaiting him, but he hadn't believed it so breathtaking until glimpsing it for himself. There lying upon the water just beyond the thin veil of morning mists stood a countless stand of ships, their massive hulls rocking gently atop the sea, a myriad of masts standing erect and swaying in the breeze like a thousand flower stems shorn of their heads.
If the reports were to be believed, and Jon saw no reason not to now, the dormant army lying there in slumber was the war party of a living, breathing Targaryen girl. Faintly upon some of the sails he could make out their house sigil; a three-headed dragon screaming soundlessly in crimson streaks upon black canvas. The sight of it coiled a knot in his stomach. One more enemy, apparently, in a growing number of them, all while the true threat marched ceaselessly South down upon them.
Littlefinger trotted beside him and sat taking in the view himself. He smiled his mischievous smile and Jon could practically see the gears turning in the man's mind, the endless possibility to play his game of thrones with a fresh new set of pieces.
"There'll never be a better time to take her, Snow," Petyr said. "Look at that sea. The fog lies thicker this morning than I've ever seen it. Mayhaps the Gods desire this as much as we do."
The man was not wrong in that matter. The fog lay like a heavy foam atop the water, hiding several feet in a sheath of nearly opaque white blanket. It crept around the boats' hulls, swallowing them up and laying tethers of smoke against their bellies.
"There, look," Littlefinger instructed with a nod towards the army's far left flank. One ship amidst the endless count of the others bore a thin trail of black smoke leaking into the sky. Petyr's smile broadened. "That is my man. A good man. He'd done just as instructed, and there lies our Eastern Queen waiting to be snatched away." He turned his smile on Jon and raised an eyebrow. "She will make quite the political prisoner, don't you think?"
Jon pried his eyes from Petyr. The man, especially when smiling, never ceased to put an ill feeling upon him. He narrowed his gaze instead back upon the endless army awaiting them. With every passing breath the sky was brightening, dawn creeping closer to the horizon, and he needed to make a decision. He looked back briefly upon the men who'd accompanied them. They were good men, experienced men, and to lose them would be a serious blow to Jon's efforts in both North and South. And if Littlefinger's spy had betrayed him and was leading them into a trap, Jon knew their end would not be kind nor swift. An attempt to steal a Queen would leave them flayed or dismembered or worse. Jon winced. It never got any easier sending men into danger.
"Snow?"
"Alright, Littlefinger," Jon said. "Send them then. You'd better be right about this."
Petyr bowed and got his steed turned around. He trotted back to the men and gave quiet instruction as Jon listened to the waves lapping up against the shore beneath the cliff and envisioned just what a living breathing Targaryen Queen might look like.
And across that long sprawl of fog-crusted waters inside a small modest cabin of her own choosing, Daenerys Targaryen lay restless and turning in her bed, her thoughts filled, coincidentally, with what the western men and women might look like awaiting her conquering of them.
She slept little and less in the days since leaving the familiar world of the East and spearheading her army westward. Her nights lay heavy with thoughts of war and conquest and all she'd lost since her journey began and all she might lose yet. Often her sleep only came in little fits and starts, plagued with nightmares of fallen lovers and slain friends, and she would wake often in a cold sweat, panting into the oppressive silence of her private cabin. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but it was what she chose. She liked to be alone more often than not these days, away from the busy chatter of her war council and their endless schemings.
She tossed and turned for a long time until finally, with a sigh, Daenerys shoved aside her bedsheets to cool her sweating legs and lay still in the soft grip of her night gown and nothing else. She was sick nearly every day of their journey when they first departed. Now it was better, but the slight unease in her stomach never quite went away in full. She drank from a skin of cool water at her bedside table and that seemed to help and then she stretched her arms and decided to go for a walk. She could see soft light creeping beneath the cabin door and was thankful the morning was finally upon them after her long restless night.
She stepped gently upon the planked floor in her bare feet and padded across the room. When she threw the door open the cool sea wind was in her hair and against her skin and it made her feel better right away. She stepped out onto the deck and let the wind rake across her as she narrowed her eyes beyond the morning mists and onto the heaping mass of land rising from the horizon that was Westeros. Their convoy had been laid up there two days now awaiting a gathering of ships from their allies in the far South, but the sight of the new world never ceased to make her anxious. Westeros had been her family's home for so long, and now she'd finally made it back to reclaim her true and proper throne.
Slowly she had stripped away her guard. In the beginning they lay around her so heavily they felt like a collar set upon her throat. Now, at journey's end, Daenerys had whittled it down to just two Unsullied who sat flanking her cabin door. She smiled upon them and nodded her greeting before stepping past. And, of course, she had her children as well. She looked to the sky and was not surprised when she didn't find them there though. Drogon rarely showed himself these days, preferring instead to sail off and vanish on a hunt with his big leathery wings spread black against the sky. Rhaegal and Viserion filled the airs around their ships more often, but in early mornings like these they only made the rare appearance.
She stood like that for a good while, breathing deep of the crisp air and feeling a general peacefulness about her that she hadn't in a long time.
Boots beating against the deck drew her attention behind her and there Daenerys had the briefest glimpse of a man approaching her with a blade drawn. He was bearded and plain-faced and she recalled vaguely seeing him here and there working about the ship since they'd departed but when he lifted the blade Daenerys could only see its sharp edge and think: not like this, not so close to the end. But the man didn't make an attempt on her life, instead he coiled himself around behind her like a serpent and held the sharp edge against the soft skin beneath her chin. He angled her back to her Unsullied guard, but the soldiers had only gotten to their feet and taken a step forward before her attacker called them down lest he spill her blood.
"Stand down," Daenerys commanded them in their language. Even with the blade's cool kiss upon her throat she felt calm. Her Unsullied exchanged uncertain looks and then Dany commanded them to disarm and step back which they did after a long bout of hesitancy. "What is it you want?" She spoke without attempting to look back at her attacker. "I know your face, you've been with me from the beginning. I assure you, I can get you whatever it is you-"
"Shut your mouth," the man's words came hot against her ear and the blade dug just a tad deeper into her flesh. "Order them inside the cabin. Now."
Without choice, Daenerys did and then the man walked her into the cabin behind them and kicked shut the door. He had her order her Unsullied into the large storage cabinet at the room's rear and then shut them inside and cross the handles over with a bar to lock them up. They fought against their imprisonment but when they rattled the locked doors the man had her tell them she'd lose her life if they continued making noise. They went silent. She tried asking him what he wanted again but he was already dragging her back outside under threat of his blade. His guard had lowered, though, since the Unsullied were disposed of and at the door, Dany saw her moment of opportunity.
He reached out for the handle and left himself exposed. Daenerys drove her elbow hard into his gut and heard the wind leave him as he doubled over wincing. She kneed at his face and caught the corner of his brow and he went reeling back to the ground with a cry. He made to stand and she drove the heel of her foot down against his jaw. The man fell back and lost his blade as he cradled his wound. Dany spun and threw open the door and made to run or shout for another guard.
A trio of men, these never seen before among her numbers, stood blocking the way. Their eyes widened on her, held. For a moment, Daenerys felt frozen in place and by the time she'd open her mouth to scream a hand had flattened against it, bottling the shout up inside her throat. The men crowded her and used a length of rope to join her wrists together and bind tight. She fought them the best she could but three armored men against her in her night gown and bare feet was near useless. The fourth came stumbling out of her cabin and the men exchanged words, something about 'Petyr's man' and then a code word was spoken that joined her man to their own ranks and Dany knew then she'd been infiltrated from the beginning. She glared at her betrayer as he moved beside her and tied a thick knot into a long length of cloth. Then the hand was removed from her mouth so that she could be gagged, the knot wedged between her teeth and the cloth's ends wound around her head and knotted tightly behind her.
She was wedged between the three of them and shuffled to the edge of the deck that way, hands bound and mouth gagged. There in wait was a long length of rope anchored to the deck with a heavy headpiece biting into the wood with iron teeth. She was forced to look over the edge and down the dizzying drop to the sea below. Waiting was the faint outline of a rowboat and another man watching up at them half-cloaked in the morning fog. Her kidnappers demanded she climb down, warning that if she slipped and broke her neck they wouldn't care, and then they were hoisting her up and over.
Dany shrieked into her gag when her foot slipped atop the railing and she nearly fell, but the men steadied her and forced her bound hands to grip the rope and then she was climbing down with no other choice. With her hands tied together it was nearly impossible to lower herself with any semblance of grace and so she ended up moving in bursts, sliding the rope between her hands and burning her palms, then using her feet to desperately wrap the rope beneath her to keep her from a free fall.
She released a long breath of relief when finally the man in the rowboat reached up to take her weight against him and lowered her down into the rowboat. She sat across from him on a plank, staring in her forced silence as he watched his four accomplices descend to them and fill the little rowboat to capacity. Dany grunted and barred her teeth at the men as they wedged her between them and bound her more securely with a fresh length of rope lassoed around her torso and chest, pinning her arms against her sides. When two of them took up the oars and began beating at the water and driving them for the western shore, the truth of it sunk in and Dany felt like a girl again, ready to cry and break.
She'd come across half the world only to lower her guard and get herself captured by the enemy right before her victory. It was a cruel irony and a terrible jest and she looked up hopelessly at her ship as it shrunk behind them and knew it was a bleak truth as well: she'd been kidnapped. All around the rowboat, the rest of her army stood in massive structures of wooden war machines, but down here amidst the fog she knew they were barely a spec of dirt washing away in the tide to an onlooker above deck. Her eyes found the sky with a foolish hope that Drogon would be there, swooping down to rescue her in a blaze of searing fire. There was nothing but the clouds, moving listlessly across the world, utterly indifferent to her capture.
The men did not speak to her nor to one another as they cut through the water for the approaching shoreline. There was an urgency among them and a quiet fear, but as they neared and put more and more distance on the thousands of warriors at their backs, Dany saw the tension melt from their posture and they began smiling again and laughing with one another. She sat in her bondage unable to do anything but watch.
Before too long, the bow of the ship collided with the shore and came to a slow halt as the men paddled them as close as possible before sea travel grew impossible. They disembarked, pulling her along with them roughly between their strong hands. Daenerys went stumbling into the knee-high water, soft sand pressing against the soles of her feet and between her toes. She was dragged forth wading through the water with difficulty, bound as she was. When the water ended and dry sand began, she looked up and saw a convoy trotting down to them from a cliffside path on horseback. She struggled once in the hold of the men, but they tightened their grip to steady her and she knew further fighting was pointless.
A thin man headed the procession. He was well dressed in a long emerald cloak that trailed behind him and breeches with fine leather boots. He rode up to them and halted and cast a pleased look down upon Daenerys. He had a neatly groomed goatee and his face was thin and sharp and reminded her of a rat's or perhaps a serpent's. She grimaced around her gag. This was the first Westerosi Lord, apparently, she'd come across on his native land and he seemed utterly repulsive. He unfolded slender fingers and bowed his head to greet her and Dany felt more uneasy than she had during her entire kidnapping. She desperately wanted to avoid being touched by those fingers.
Then another came riding up behind the others and drove his mount aside the first man's and halted to look upon her himself. He looked very different from the first, more a warrior then a Lord or King, with long and wild brown hair and a beard frosted with morning dew and deep brown eyes that seemed caring and kind and nothing like the serpent man's. He wore black leather, black everything in fact, and Dany was drawn to his darkness, finding him oddly compelling.
"Lord Petyr Baelish," the serpent-man greeted with a sweep of his arm and a dramatic gesture. "Daenerys Targaryen… I almost didn't believe the rumors true. Yet here you are… a Targaryen back on Westeros soil after all these years." He held his thin-lipped grin on her, staring and making her uncomfortable, then he said, "Bring her to me. I'll ride her on my saddle back to camp."
Daenerys tried stepping back to flee him but the men kept her held tight.
"No, Littlefinger," the warrior said with a shake of his head. "You've done your part here this morning. It was done well, and you deserve all the credit for pulling it off. But I'll take the prisoner." His brown eyes found hers and held them. "I have… much I'd like to learn from her."
Littlefinger bristled, adjusting his posture atop his mount and looking upon the other man with a flat, measured expression. "If… that is your wish."
"It's my order."
The two stared at each other and Daenerys only found herself confused. Why was the warrior, clearly younger and not of high as status as this 'Littlefinger', able to give the man commands? Why did the others look upon this one with such respect? Was he more than a common warrior in disguise? There were no answers to be found, however, as after their little staredown, Littlefinger bowed, took the reigns of his horse, and fixed her with one last lingering look before trotting off defeated. His men, her kidnappers, followed. The warrior dismounted and walked to her and Daenerys again felt herself nervous under his gaze, but not in a fearful way. It was… a different sort of feeling she had towards the man, a drawing of sorts, a force pulling her focus upon him and refusing to let go.
He stood before her and stared and when the silence grew heavy he finally said, "I'm Jon Snow. I believe you've come an awfully long way to kill me."
Dany raised an eyebrow but couldn't do much more with her mouth still tightly gagged.
Jon nodded. "Well… come on, then."
He took her arms in his hands and steered her to his horse. His grip was firm, strong, but carried a gentleness that reminded her at once of a long-since-dead lover whom she lost in what felt like another life it was so long ago now. He guided her foot into a stirrup and then lifted her up and over the saddle and fell in behind her himself. His weight pressed against her, Dany's behind wedging in between the man's legs and nestling firmly against his crotch. His arms draped her sides to take the horse's reigns and then he spurred them forward and off the beach. Daenerys squirmed a bit to get more comfortable and felt the strong squeeze of his arms around her to still her, control her. She thought again of her dead Khal and how this new Westerosi man, this Jon Snow, almost felt like him behind her.
As they crested the slope of land leaving the shore and entering a wooded trail, Jon's hand left the reigns, took the edge of her gown, and ripped at it. Daenerys gasped into her gag and for a moment thought the man meant to take her there and then mounted atop his horse. She realized how foolish that was just in time to see him tearing just a strip from the very edge and using it as a blindfold, tying it tight around her eyes to keep her in darkness and hide the path back to wherever he was stealing her off to. From then on, she'd have to be content to be taken, completely under control of her captor in every way feasible.
Jon himself also kept his thoughts squarely on this foreign and strange woman pinched between his thighs. The rumors of her beauty were true; understated, in fact, if anything. Even in only her flimsy gown and bare feet she was breathtaking. Her hair billowed against his face as he spurred them on a bit quicker and it smelled flowery and sweet and seemed to change color as it caught the sun in different angles. It was blond here, silver there, pure white in another twist of the wind. The only thing he'd misheard were of her eyes. They were gorgeous things, certainly, but green like a fresh blade of grass instead of violet as the rumors told it.
As he drove them onwards and felt the woman's weight move against him, pressing to his chest and sliding against his crotch, he too was reminded of a dead love. The last time a woman was bound and beside him this way was a long time ago in the North, beyond the wall, with a wildling and her fire-kissed hair and pale skin. He had not taken another lover since.
By the time they'd returned to camp the sun was creeping to its lofty station high in the afternoon sky and the men they'd ridden out with from Winterfell were up and about, feasting and peddling about the muddy grounds in chatter. When Jon rode through the gates behind Littlefinger's party, all eyes fell upon him and his prisoner. She must've been a strange sight to behold in that fresh noon air in her beauty and bondage, and Jon saw more than one man spit upon the ground when glimpsing her. He took her a bit closer against himself protectively. Everyone here knew they were in the business of stealing a Targaryen, and there were deep, deep resentments in some of the families of Westeros towards their kind. There was even men among their numbers old enough to remember the Mad King and the burning of his uncle and grandfather so long ago. The North had little love for those bearing the sigil of the dragons.
Jon rode past Petyr, who looked eager to speak with him but of which he had no mood for at the moment. Instead he rode them right up to the northern corner of camp where his big tent had been erected and stood waiting as a light drizzle began to beat upon its drab covering. There, a boy from Winterfell squiring for him gladly took the reigns and held the horse as Jon dismounted and helped his prisoner down. Instead of making her plant her bare feet in the mud, he cradled an arm beneath her knees and it was that way in which he carried her between the tent flaps and into his quarters. She did not struggle or make any sound.
He laid her upon his bed. It wasn't much, more of a collection of heavy woolen blankets laid flat atop a narrow length of wood with posts at either end in truth, but it would serve. He placed her gently against the blankets and then took her hands and guided them up above her head to fasten to the bed post and tie her in place. She lay still as he worked, her full lips moving soundlessly around the knot of her gag. He tied her feet together at the opposite end, looping rope around her slender, pretty ankles and staking them down in place as well as her hands leaving her stretched out and immobilized. Only then did he remove her blindfold and the woman lay blinking and squinting as her eyes adjusted. Jon was overcome again with just how beautiful she was.
"You're not going to be harmed," he assured her. "I know you've come from far away and probably think all the men here are the same as the monsters that killed your family and left you orphaned and the last of your bloodline, but… we aren't. As long as you're my prisoner, you'll be treated with dignity." She stared at him, twisting her hands a bit ineffectually in their binds. "You'll have to remain in bondage till I can return you to Winterfell and secure you in a proper cell. I'd remove that gag, you look eager enough to be rid of it, but it's for your own benefit that you can't speak right now. There are men with me that wouldn't hesitate in the slightest to kill you if you said the wrong thing. They have no love for Targaryens."
She kept staring and Jon blinked and saw Ygritte there instead laying in her place and was overcome immediately with a passionate urge to kiss the woman. He laid a palm flat against his brow and sighed, shaking the thought free. He moved beside her and fetched a skin of water, then unplugged her mouth of its knotted gag only long enough to give her a drink before quieting her again as she tried to talk.
"I'll return later," he explained, heading for the tent flaps. "I have things to speak of with my men. Until then, you'll be guarded by my most trusted of companions. You'll be safe." He held her eyes, wishing they weren't so pretty, so alluring, and then pried himself from her company with a great deal of effort and set about his business for the day.
Dany lay watching him go. When she was alone, she squirmed in her restraints, testing them but feeling their firm grip keeping her still right away. She tugged at her wrists overhead and wagged her feet about and realized even this Jon Snow's ropework had a certain tenderness to it. She pressed her head back against the mound of blankets behind it and with a long sigh resolved to wait for his return.
As she waited she thought of how to, perhaps, talk her captor out of taking her back to his castle or hold or whatever 'Winterfell' was. She was woefully uneducated in the northern lands of Westeros. Her war was to start further South, on a relatively peaceful stretch of land that could take her and her men down to King's Landing where the usurper currently sat her throne. Being stolen by these northerners was not something she'd ever imagined possible. Perhaps her people would come ashore and find her. Perhaps Drogon was hunting the skies right now, casting a moving shadow darkly over Westeros in search of her. Or, perhaps, it was her destiny to spend the rest of her days rotting away in a dungeon; the last Targaryen meeting a pitiful, worthless, end.
No, she thought, making her hands into fists above her head. That is not how my story will end. It will end as I've always known it will, with fire and blood.
Jon Snow returned to her much later, when the light outside was waning away and the night was stealing across these foreign, northern, lands. He carried with him an oil lamp in a brass cage and set it on a stand beside the bed and lit it up. A small warm fire blazed inside and painted the tent's interior a dull orange, casting the man's shadow against the walls and making it dance and flicker. Daenerys watched him carefully, prey studying its predator's movement. He sat himself upon the edge of the bed and looked down on her with his deep brown eyes.
"If I remove that gag, you're not to scream."
Dany nodded obediently, eager to have the freedom of her mouth returned to her. Jon let her lay quiet a moment before reaching around the back of her head to loosen the gag. His face had to come very close to hers to do so and Daenerys watched him, smelling deep of his earthy, masculine scent. He carefully pulled free the knot wedged between her teeth and tossed it aside. Dany licked her lips and swallowed and flexed her jaw. She didn't speak, she'd let him speak first to show her willingness to behave.
Jon looked at her for a long moment before asking, "Is it true you have dragons?"
"…it's true," she spoke quietly so that he had to listen closely to her if he wanted to her her words.
"I was hoping to see them this morning when my men and I rode out. I watched the sky the whole time they were capturing you in wait. No dragons came."
"They'll come when it matters."
"And when is that?"
"When I conquer Westeros."
A hint of a smile broke on Jon's face and made him even more handsome. Daenerys hated herself for thinking of him as such, especially now when she needed her wits about her to talk her way out of this. She took a breath, resolving to resist his charms and handsomeness. Jon reached for her hands and cupped them with his own, helping her tug at her restraints. His smile broadened.
"You're not off to a good start for a conquerer."
Dany narrowed her eyes upon him. "What is it you want with me, Jon Snow?"
"What do I want? Not much. Its what all the other kings and lords and rulers of Westeros might want. You're a valuable prisoner with an army like that laying out on the sea. And dragons, no less… wherever you might be hiding them."
She considered his words. "I haven't come to slaughter you all, you know. I have no intention to be the next coming of the Mad King… or the Mad Queen. I know what this world thinks of my family, but I intend to be different. I'll offer mercy to whomever bends the knee. That is my vow, Jon. That means you and your north men, as well."
He nodded. "A generous offer. And those who don't?"
She did not hesitate in her answering. "Fire and blood."
Her words seemed to unsettle her captor momentarily. He winced slightly as he looked down on her and tightened the line of his jaw. "The realm can't handle another war, Daenerys. The petty squabbles South of here are bad enough let alone dealing with you and your fire and blood now. I need to unify these lands. There's a bigger war coming out way. A great war. The great war."
"What does that mean? Are you some sort of religious fanatic?"
"No. Though there are plenty around me who'd see me converted to their ways." His head lifted, his eyes focused intently upon the northern wall of the tent, seeing past it perhaps to some far away land. "There is an enemy unlike any other enemy coming for us. An enemy that never sleeps, that will not die. An enemy cloaked in ice and evil."
Daenerys studied Jon's determined face carefully and found only sincerity etched into that handsome visage. Is he mad? She wondered, but held her tongue on the matter.
"Without Westeros united against this threat, all will fall." His eyes moved to her again. "I can't have you starting a war. If that means keeping you locked away, then so be it."
"War is coming one way or another, Jon. My men have come too far to turn back now because I've been taken. Holding me won't stop it, won't even postpone it. You're best choice now is to release me and when I bring my war north, you bend the knee. You've been kind in my kidnapping. I will remember that when I return." She held his eyes and when she didn't see him convinced entirely, decided to humor him as well. "And… your enemy? This enemy that never sleeps you say? I'll deal with that as well when I arrive. My dragons and I."
Jon took a long breath and sat hunched over his knees fidgeting with his hands. In that moment he looked much older than the man he was. "I don't suppose I could convince you to steer that army and those dragons of yours north instead of south first, can I?"
Dany was tempted to lie but could not bring herself to do so. It was the man's eyes. They were big and brown and full of honesty and they demanded honesty in return. She shook her head. "No. You cannot."
Jon sat back. When he put his hand atop the bed it brushed briefly against Daenerys' leg and Dany hated herself for desiring him to squeeze her leg instead. She was his prisoner, not his lover.
"My council would have me marry you off," he told her. "That's how things are done here in my land. We play a game where love and marriage are like pieces on a board to be moved about, strengthen a bond here, weaken one there. They think wedding a Targaryen to a northerner might unite the realm against Cersei."
Dany smiled at that and when Jon looked over and saw her he returned the gesture and nodded. "But I doubt you're people will heed to our traditions. The marriage will mean nothing to them."
"You're correct in that matter, yes."
"They'll war against us all the same, perhaps more ferociously than before."
"True."
"And during that time of war the threat beyond the wall will be upon us." He shook his head. "As is the case more often than not these days, there's no easy way out of this. Damned if I do. Damned if I don't."
"Are you a leader, Jon?"
"I'm… a leader of sorts, I suppose."
"But not a King."
"No."
She mulled that concept over. "You're of age with me and you were forced into a position of leadership before you were likely ready. If you believe nothing else from my lips here tonight, believe that I can understand that. It seems the last few years of my life have been spent trying desperately to figure out how to lead. I still don't think I have the answer. It… it never gets easy, does it?"
"No. It does not." Jon looked at her and laughed and Daenerys found herself smiling at him and again she felt that inevitable drawing towards him, that force pulling her to him and making her want him and trust in him. She rubbed her legs together to still the tension between her thighs. She hadn't felt this sort of girlish desire towards a man since her Khal fell.
From the way Jon looked at her in that moment, she knew he felt it too. His gaze travelled across her body and Dany grew painfully aware that she was garnished only in her thin gown and it lay meekly across her nakedness putting curves and definition around her hips and breasts. In the dull glow of the lamp, Jon's shadowed eyes found her face and stared hungrily down upon her.
"I have work to do, Jon," she told him. "We have work to do. I have a fight South of here just as you have a fight North. Surely you can understand that? If you return me to my people, I will do what I can to aid you if the war you wage turns against you. That is the only promise I can offer."
"…honestly, I'm not sure of anything better to do with you."
Hope stirred in the pit of her stomach, but Dany stayed quiet to let him come to his own conclusion.
Jon stared into the fires of the lamp, shadows dancing over his comely face. "Littlefinger won't like it, but that man hasn't liked anything I've done since we came together. I'd have to smuggle you out and should I succeed, my men will look at me like I've betrayed them, betrayed the realm." He smiled bitterly. "But I suppose that is a feeling I've grown used to as well by now." His head turned her way and the man stared for a long moment. "I'll need your help someday soon, Daenerys Targaryen. Will I have it? Truly?"
"You will."
He sighed. "Then in the morning, before dawn… that is when I'll return you."
She knew he was telling the truth and that made her desire him even more greatly. She shifted her weight uncomfortably and swallowed into a dry throat. She looked at his hands, strong hands, and pictured them cupping around her breasts.
"I suppose…" She took a breath to still her nerves. "That makes me your prisoner for this one night."
"I suppose it does."
They sat quietly in the light of the fire, the winds playing softly against the tent alongside the gentle pattering of rain. Jon looked a man entirely uncomfortable and in deep conflict and Daenerys knew he'd never act first unless she told him to. She respected him for that.
"Look, Jon. You're a man and I'm a woman. And we have a pact now, don't we?" She nodded. "A vow to one another to join forces against your terrible foe. There are… ways to seal a vow properly. To join us together before we are joined in battle."
He glanced at her and swallowed and when she nodded again and lay back still, consenting and offering her submission, he understood. He rose from the bed and set to work unlacing his leather armor and shedding it to the floor. When he whittled down to just his undershirt, his hands took the hem and pulled it up over his head and Dany watched amorously as his bare stomach and chest came exposed, defined with muscle. He removed his boots and loosened the drawstrings of his breeches and then they were down around his ankles and only his small clothes remained hugging his waist. He went to the foot of the bed and knelt and gently took her feet in his hands and untied the knot binding them. Dany was more than eager to spread her legs once they came unbound, feeling the soft bedding against her soles as she curled her toes.
"Your hands…"
She shook her head. "I'm your prisoner. Its understandable if you need to keep me secured." He looked at her gown and Dany flushed. "Oh, yes… well, I suppose you could cut it. It's only a night gown."
He nodded, retrieved a blade from within his armor pooled beside the bed, and carefully cut the shoulder straps from the gown. When his hands took the sides and began sliding it down her frame, Dany shuddered and was helpless but to bite her lip and watch him work her naked. The gown slid down and off of her feet and Jon tossed it aside and looked her over. Daenerys lay completely nude then, aware of her breasts heaving as she took hard breaths, aware of the already slight stiffening of her nipples, of the reddish color coming to her sensitive flesh.
Something on Jon was stiffening as well. She saw him bulging against his small clothes, and when he climbed atop the bed between her legs, his hand moved down and worked himself loose. His manhood leapt free stiff as a board and swaying impatiently beneath his belly. Daenerys swallowed and rubbed her fingers eagerly against each other above her bound hands. Jon crawled closer and she watched the muscled knots in his arms tighten and flex as he did so. Then he was reaching for her chest and when his warm palm fell upon her and cupped her breasts, Dany closed her eyes and licked her lips and her back arched involuntarily.
He felt her a moment, testing the sensitivity of her flesh perhaps, and his fingers worked around her nipple and gave the gentlest of squeezed. Then he was leaning over her, his weight pressing into the bed at either side of her arms and when Dany opened her eyes to look upon him he was leaning down in a wash of dark hair and shadow. Their gazes met briefly before his lips found hers and then time was lost as they kissed, him eager but soft, her accepting and patient. He tasted wonderful and Dany's legs spread on their own accord to wrap his waist and pull him closer to her. He kissed at her lips and her chin and her neck, tickling her there in the most wonderful of ways as his hands slid up her bare belly and took hold of her chest again, feeling, clearly, her warmth beneath his hands and caressing her with great care.
Her hands became tight fists above her head as she threw her head back in submission to his lips, still testing her here and there, dabbing sweetly at the hot flesh around her neck. She rolled her hips further backward to permit him entry and wrapped him up tighter between her knees. He reached down between them and guided his manhood were it need be. Daenerys moaned when he slipped inside of her, filling her up with that which she desperately craved. He slid deeper within, pressing forward till his hips found her bare behind and legs. Then he slowly, agonizingly, withdrew and Dany moaned again, squeezing him between her knees and curling her toes and forcing him back inside, pulling at him with her legs till he entered her deeply a second time.
Together they worked themselves into a fine rhythm, Jon beading sweat down his masculine chest as he thrust into her again and again, Dany laying back with her mouth agape and her eyes closed to slits and her teeth nibbling hungrily at her bottom lip. She stole a look up at her night's lover and, as if in instinct, he looked back. Their eyes met and she felt very much at peace in that moment and knew something special was happening between them, something important. He thrust into her faster and another loud moan escaped her lips as Dany threw herself down against the bed and arched her back and squeezed her eyes shut as tight as they would go. He filled her up again and again and she felt her orgasm coming down upon her like a great storm in which she was helpless but to lay waiting in the rain.
Their rhythm became one, her moaning, his panting, the shaking of the bed posts and the way the fire and shadow painted the tent and shook with it. She had only a moment to consider how strange their joining truly was before her orgasm came for her and took her helplessly in its grasp and somehow she knew his had come and taken him as well, at the same time, together. He, a man from the north, a man from a cold world with cold men that had cold blood which ran deep in their lineage; she, a woman whose past lay in the far, far south, in the hot, steaming, forgotten world of Valyria, where dragonlords once roamed. And now they were joined as one in the sensual hold of the night, the steady rhythm of love-making playing beneath their sounds of orgasm to create a sort of music; a symphony of lust; a chorus of passion; a sweet, soft, and wonderful song of ice and fire.
The End