Notes: Welp! I dun gone done it again! I swear I need to stop getting into this couple so much and get back to finishing the darn books! *shakes fists* Ah well, enjoy and as always feedback is very much appreciated. :D
The lilac gown is a breathless whisper against her naked flesh as she glides across the familiar stone-covered path; her steps slow and deliberate. There is no need to hurry, for time means nothing when your heart blossoms with innocent love for Life.
The summer heat is one she is used to; a light sheen of sweat doting her upper lip, her armpits and other more private areas she cannot avoid no matter how many sweet-smelling oils and perfumes she dabs herself with. The air is thick with a near-oppressive humidity; not unlike previous summers past in Braavos. The rich stink of summer wine, overripe fruits, smoked meats and sea salt assail her senses in a most delightful way. She could easily get drunk on these scents; willing her mind to whirl with the endless possibilities of simply living the rest of her days here.
Despite this, she fails to understand the salient chill that still manages to filter through her bones almost causing her teeth to chatter in protest. Her fingertips brush against bushes of luscious leaves thick as parchment and green as emeralds; they dance over flower petals alive with colors so vivid, they are almost blinding in their luminescence. However, in their midst, she notices a rare blue rose peeking from behind a cluster of thorn-laded red and white ones, and though her heart beat quickens at the sight, she's content to observe and admire it rather than pluck it away from its position.
It is strong, she thinks with strong conviction. It will survive as it always has.
Humming beneath her breath, she turns a corner and beholds her destination. Her lauded ethereal features light up in delight; her heart blooming with songs she could sing in joy. She could skip and dance her way there now, with no one to judge her antics or admonish her for not acting like a 'woman' or as a 'princess' should.
A princess who is a pauper, she muses in faint amusement. How eloquent the pages of history will be when it comes to Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen.
She places her hands behind her back and hops a little; a light giggle escaping rosy lips as a slight breeze causes tendrils of her loose silver-hued hair to dance across her face. She takes another hop and another still, but then stops and pretends to listen to someone coming from behind. She holds her breath in anticipation; her body unconsciously arched in the graceful pose of a gazelle ready to take flight.
Yes, she is being naughty and would be punished for acting so childish, but when she's not met with an admonishing shout or a disapproving stare, she laughs out loud in pleasure; an innocent sound free from the jarring ugliness of adulthood to come. She leaps without effort across the narrow ridge that separates the crude street drains and roads and begins running toward the back of the house.
We could live here forever, she thinks as she twirls and laughs even louder. Her long hair floats around her as if hoping to protect her from Nature's elements, and when she falls to the grass, she ignores the prickle of the blades against her sensitive flesh. A reckless butterfly flitters in her vision and she lifts a finger to welcome it; its red, orange, and silver wings iridescent with the sun's rays. How beautiful.
We could stay here forever, couldn't we, dear brother?
The butterfly trembles at her unspoken question as if mocking her for daring to suggest such a thing. Of course not, it seems to say. You should know better than to ask for the impossible. You know exactly what his answer would be.
She captures her lower lip between her teeth as the butterfly floats away. Unshed tears sting her eyes when she sighs.
Yes, she knew all too well the memorized answer she would receive.
I am a dragon, he would say with his teeth bared as if ready to drag them across her skin until she bled. I cannot spend the rest of my life here. We must take back what's ours. Do you understand? No one steals from the dragons! No one! We must claim what is ours!
Ours? I don't care about that, she would respond just as would stand toe-to-toe with him – or maybe grab a nearby stool just so she could tower over him and hopefully get her point across. I don't care about your stupid plans to become a king of some continent I don't even know. Westoros and the Seven Kingdoms can go the way of the Doom for all I care. I want to live here. I am happy here. So leave me and go conquer the rest of the world on your own!
Her breath hitched with unresolved anguish, for she knew that version of herself would never come to fruition. As long as Viserys was alive, he would always be in control of her destiny. Such was her fate. She would just have to learn to deal with it.
Her teeth chattered a little louder this time, and it wasn't just from the memory of her brother. Something cold and wet fell upon her nose, her cheeks, and forehead. Soon these tiny cold droplets forced her to open lashes that had closed sometime during her troubled thoughts.
How strange, she thought as she sat up and lifted her hand in disbelief. This wasn't rain, but rather a white flurry substance that floated silently to the ground only to melt on contact with her flesh leaving it wet and even colder than before. With every breath, a strange mist escaped her lips.
Snow. This is…snow.
She had heard Ser Willem talk about it and some of the picture books had mentioned something like this, but she had never seen it in person before. How utterly marvelous!
She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue; allowing the flakes to drift onto it. She giggled at the sensation, but had to stop when the cold really began to set in. Somehow, she must have stayed out too long, for a thick layer of white had now covered the once green lawn. She stumbled to her feet; wishing she had worn sandals at least. Nearly slipping and sliding across the mixture of ice and some slush, she rubbed her bare arms and made her way quickly to the red door.
Ser Willem would be waiting for her. Yes, Viserys would be there too, but she hoped he would be in one of his rare good moods where he would bore her to death with more tales of their great ancestors and their conquests.
Yet, as she made the turn, where it would require only a few steps to get to the door, she was alarmed to find it even further away than before. How was that possible?
She walked a little faster, her breath coming out in short bursts of exertion as the snow fell harder still. Her feet were becoming numb, and one particular hard stumble forced her face first into the pile of snow.
I must get home, her mind screamed as she scrambled to her feet again and forced them to move.
She was almost shin deep now; her hair wet and tangled across her pallid features. Her chest felt tighter and tighter; the struggle to breathe and gather enough air into her lungs nearly impossible. She could lift a leg now; the thickness of the snow preventing adequate movement. The flimsy excuse of a gown was now stuck to her body like a second skin and yet the door remained elusive and now seemingly miles away.
I must get home! It was now a fervent mantra in her head, and though she swore she would not burst into tears at how weak that prayer now sounded, she knew she still couldn't give up. It would be so easy to collapse into the snow and remain this way forever; frozen in time with no one to remember who she was, but when she turned her head to the right, there it was again…that stubborn blue rose that now seemed to be pushing its way out of the thorny grove of wilting red and white roses. Its petals still bloomed perfectly; the flakes of snow like crystals that made it shimmer in the gray.
She had never seen anything so beautiful, and the scent – ah…she could close her eyes and revel in it for the rest of her life.
She turned toward it; her hope to pluck and rescue it from its imminent fate. She couldn't dare leave it out here to wilt like the others. She would protect it for as long as she could, and hopefully – when she eventually got to that red door – she would nurture it to its fullest and grow a whole other set of blue roses once the snow stopped falling.
When we get home, she thought as she reached out with unshed tears blurring her vision. I will take care of you…I promise…
"…I promise…"
"Dany…Your Grace…my Queen?"
He could feel the heat crawling up his neck and to the roots of his hair as he stumbled over the right term of endearment to bestow upon her at this moment. He must have settled on 'my Queen' on the third night…or was it the fourth? It was becoming a little difficult to keep track especially when their nights never seemed long enough and the days dragged on for an eternity – at least to him. Though she had mentioned something about 'Dany' being a term that didn't bring good memories, he had slipped up a few times in the throes of passion, and she hadn't minded much…not that he had given her any reason to dwell on it. Goodness knows the very act of 'thinking' wasn't in the equation when they were entangled in –
"…are you all right?" he finally queried roughly; while willing his nether regions to control the sudden rush of blood to them.
Lashes wet with tears lifted to reveal slightly glazed violet eyes that stared at him without recognition for a heartbeat. Her long hair was pulled back from her face in a loose braid; which he was grateful for. Though he hated to admit that having that thick mane of silver upon his flesh as she torturously crawled down his body, or burying his face in it to inhale as much of the wild scents of smoke and sweet oils, aroused him more than he could possibly imagine – it was nice to kiss her fully without the risk of swallowing a handful of it in the process.
And goodness knows how much he wanted to suckle on those plump pink offerings now slightly parted as she expelled a soft breath and moved against him in a way that forced a tortured groan from him.
She wasn't making this any easier.
"Did I wake you?" she whispered against his chest; her words almost muffled as she burrowed deeper perhaps seeking to melt into him. Her arm slipped under his and wrapped tight around his waist; fingernails digging a little into his lower back. He hissed and closed his eyes; a tremor running down his spine at the contact.
"I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to apologize for," he insisted.
His lips pressed against her forehead; the taste of her sweat almost intoxicating; though he had to wonder just what must have caused her to cry out in her dream. Usually he was the one having to explain his night terrors, and he wasn't proud of those moments to be sure. The one saving grace was that compared to before when his nights were spent staring blindly at the ceiling of his bedroom at Winterfell or at Castle Black or at some rugged tent beyond The Wall, the past few nights with this (his) woman had eased them a little. Every passionate encounter left them completely spent and exhausted enough to fall into sleep so deep, dreams of the dead and apocalyptic damnation were irrelevant.
When she remained silent, he tried cajoling her into speaking. "You were crying, Dany."
"…I'm sor-" she caught herself especially when his arms tightened around her in silent admonishment. She sighed and pursed her lips to kiss the outline of the scar beneath his right breast. "I dreamt of my home in Braavos," she finally admitted. "It's been a while, that's all."
"Braavos," he repeated as if weighing the word on his tongue. All of these places sounded so foreign and distant from him; his whole life so wrapped around the North and what was beyond, no real thought of what happened in other continents had once bothered him until he met her. Now words like Essos, Meereen, Qarth, Volantis, and Vaes Dothrak were slowly becoming a part of his daily lingo.
There were so many things he admired about her, and though he could spend the next hour recanting them to anyone who cared to listen; he discovered that he most liked to hear her speak a language other than the Common Tongue. Whether it was giving commands to her bloodriders or engaging in conversation with Missandei, he had lost count of how many times he simply found himself gawking at her lips as she spoke; the foreign words like molten honey upon her tongue. He flushed as he recalled her feverish pleas in High Valyrian when he was buried deep between her thighs tasting and consuming all of her. The words were meaningless to him, yet so damn exotic to his senses. A part of him longed for her to continue muttering those words of wanton passion, with the eventual hope that someday he'd be able to rattle them off to her in return – especially when she did that thing with her lips around his –
Focus, Jon.
"What about Braavos?" he managed to grate out with an effort. "You rarely speak about it."
"I grew up there," Daenerys replied with the hint of a smile in her voice. "When we fled Dragonstone with Ser Willem…we lived there…in a big house with a red door." She stopped and Jon could feel the tickle of her lashes against his chest. She exhaled again sending another surge of pleasure down his spine. By the gods, everything she did seemed to affect him. She could probably be miles away, whisper his name and he'd still respond in some fashion.
This had to be a sickness of some sort. One he hoped never to be cured of anytime soon.
"We did not stay there long," she continued when he urged her on again with a gentle caress of her side; allowing his fingers to linger at the swell of her breast. Her soft intake of breath was enough to bring a slightly smug smile to his lips, and when she moved ever so slightly into him again, his fingertips grew bolder. They danced across a pebbled nipple, and he was rewarded with a gentle bite as her teeth scrapped his skin. He shuddered and fought back another groan; his lashes drifting closed.
What on earth were they doing? The foreplay was killing him ever so –
"But we had to run away when Ser Willem died," she was saying; forcing him back to her story…or would have if her leg didn't nudge between his. He was powerless to stop his thighs from giving it more room. "The servants took everything…left us with nothing."
She trailed her hand down his clenched torso. Those fingertips tracing scars he had once considered ugly and shameful in a way that made them feel more significant and almost admirable. To his amazement, she had actually wept over them the morning after their first night together. Once the high of their first coupling was over, she had forced him to tell the story of his brothers' betrayal at the Nights Watch. It had dredged up painful memories, and he was almost embarrassed to find himself close to tears again. However, seeing her violet eyes blaze with righteous anger and hurt on his behalf had stunned him into silence.
I would have taken the knife for you or killed them myself, she had said; her angry tears washing his scars before her lips christened them with such reverence; his chest had tightened with an emotion he could barely contain.
He had wept then; the pent up feelings he had held within for all these years finally bursting like a dam that left him emotionally spent yet relieved. He almost expected that the scars would have vanished like magic, but they were still there…only they looked…different somehow. No, they weren't healing; neither did they look any less garish and jagged, but each now seemed to tell a tale of his battles lost and won; badges of honor he would take to his second grave with nothing to be ashamed of. She – this woman he would now live for - had made them seem that way, and that was all that mattered.
"…Myr…Tyrosh…Qohor…Volantis," she was saying as she moved again; now lying fully above him and forcing him onto his back. The furs which had once covered their naked bodies now lay askew around their legs; until both looked at each other with knowing expressions before completely kicking them to the floor.
Those things could be quite a hindrance.
"We were always on the run," she continued and with the grace of a feline rose slowly off his body; hands now splayed across his chest to keep him prisoner. She studied the hooded darkened gaze of her lover through the tendrils of silver to escape the braid. "We could never stay in one place for too long or we'd be killed. The Usurper was never going to rest until we were dead. His knives were everywhere."
She raked her fingernails across his chest eliciting a mixture of a growl and a hiss from Jon as he lifted his hips and captured her slender waist between his calloused hands. She shivered at the possessive act; a small smile tugging her lips as he positioned her above him until she could feel his erection throb desperately against her already wet center.
Oh, how I love you, she wanted to say… perhaps in High Valyrian for she loved to watch his features when she spoke in her native tongue. And she would teach him someday…all of it…everything she knew. She would show him. How much I love you.
Just as I love you, he would have replied if the words didn't remain lodged somewhere in his throat as she slid onto him in a motion so smooth and effortless, one would think they had been together for years instead of just a few nights.
She sighed in bliss as her head fell forward and he buried himself to the hilt; almost lifting her higher still until their bodies shuddered in unison.
"It's all he ever wanted," she half-sobbed between breathless gasps when they began to establish a rhythm they could call their own. He knew just how to adjust his hips (and hers) to get the most friction in this most intimate of unions, and as their eyes met; his now so dark with lust and desire; hers a shade akin to the brightest of amethyst, the world tilted on its axis.
Seven hells, he moaned and closed his eyes when she rotated her hips. He could barely hear what she was saying now, though she had leaned in to whisper into his ear.
"All I ever wanted was to go back home, Jon," she confessed. "I didn't care about conquering Westeros or taking care of the Seven Kingdoms. I didn't care about being the dragon. All I wanted…was to come home."
He had no idea why this would send a stab of something hard and undefinable through his chest, but the act of breathing suddenly became difficult. Perhaps it was the raw emotion behind her words, or – as he lifted his lashes – seeing the depth of her sadness and tears in her eyes. He had thought the day he woke up after the hunt for the wight was the most vulnerable he had seen his queen, but in this moment, with all possible barriers shattered between them, he was getting to see even more of the woman he had fallen helplessly in love with. He had come to know that behind the veneer of duty, Daenerys was curious, fearless, passionate (sometimes obstinate), and selfless; a far cry from the few women he had come to know over the years. To think that all she had ever wanted was nothing more than a home she could call her own –
Dear gods…
…Jon could do nothing more that move up to claim her lips in a kiss so hard and full of all the words he could never say out loud or trust himself to convey adequately.
I'll be your home, his pleaded with his kisses as he released her waist to cradle her face with hands that trembled with the depth of his feelings. So please…don't cry anymore, my love. I'll be here with you for as long as you'll have me. I'll be your home as you'll be mine. I promise.
"Yo-you wi-will?"
He dragged himself out of his thoughts when she pulled away a little; and he desperate to continue the kiss as he chased after her, until she pressed a finger against his swollen lips and stilled her hips. Her eyes roamed his features; searching, asking…the hope in them enough to have his heart beating faster for a whole other reason. Had he spoken out loud then? Not that he cared. Every word was true. The world might be coming to an end, but he'll live…no…they'll live for as long as they could manage it. He'd make sure of it.
"I…" he stuttered and swallowed. He ought to say something to poetic and flowery. He was sure Robb would have been good at a moment like this, but he just couldn't find the right words. He could only give a soft sigh of exasperation at his ineloquence, nod in miserable resignation and rest his heated forehead against hers as he finally croaked out a shy, "Aye, Dany. I promise."
She made a sound that was between a sob and a laugh; her arms wrapping around his head and down to his neck as she sealed the distance between them in another kiss that left no doubt as to what mere words would forever fail to convey. He wouldn't need to write songs to express himself. She would always understand.
They moved again; drinking, tasting, and inhaling each other like lovers deprived. Fevered thrusts and whispered encouragements penetrated the air already thick with musk, and when bodies trembled and shuddered with an impending crescendo that would leave them gasping for air; when the final welcoming warmth of his seed had her weeping against his strong neck, a familiar scent – not of their passionate coupling – but that of a lonesome blue rose sprinkled with a smattering of snow, filled her senses.
I am home again, she thought just as her Northern fool mock complained about never being able to walk ever again. She giggled into the mass of his unruly curly hair only to give a yelp of delight as he spun her around so she could lie on her back this time. He smiled down at her; his wonderful scarred features flushed with pleasure and a sight that she knew no one else would be privy to.
"Blood of my blood," she finally whispered against his lips as he swooped in to claim what would always be his.
I am finally home.