The night had been long and full of digging. Even with all the men he'd brought, plus the thirty or so Dothraki tripping over their size within the cave walls, the going was slow and laborious. And because no Stark had ever gotten anything done by standing by watching, Jon labored with them until they'd struck into the mountain so far, a whole cavern opened up, like the womb of a woman ready to be filled. It was yet another amazing sight, black shining obsidian, winking in the torchlight and from what he could see, so much that they could make a whole arsenal from it and still not deplete the source. The sun was rising when Jon left the cave and took to a cliff path, to catch a breath of real air before sleeping at last, and this time with a sense of accomplishment.
It might have been later then he first supposed, or else the rest of the island had early risers, for up on the plains he found a game of sorts going on between two of the dragons and a crowd of the braver Dothraki screamers. He'd stuck to the path but found his pace slowing, watching the youths chase down several calves, directly competing with the beasts above them. The game, as far as he could tell, was to prevent the dragons hunting their prey too soon. Or maybe there was not enough food, and here was the means to feed oneself. Madness, he shook his head. What sort of folly does this little girl queen allow...
A thunderous screech tore through the sky, and the larger dragon filled the air with sound and wind. Jon had to shield his eyes to catch the sharpest glint of silver from on top of the massive creatures back.
She can ride them, he realized dumbly. He'd known all along she could ride them, of course, it had been said in all the most recent ravens that he'd poured through before coming south, but it didn't mean much until he actually saw it. So it's all true. She set free all the slaves from in those strange foreign cities who's names are hard to pronounce. She destroyed an entire fleet alone and still she rules those cities by proxy... She even burned a sacred temple, and yet the Dothraki follow her. He was slightly overwhelmed by the thought of it, and wondered, not for the first time, what the rest of her army looked like. Could he do those things? Rule so many? Not without dragons. he decided.
She didn't stop the young riders, she drew her dragon low over them, as though herself on a horse, galloping with the horde. The other two dragons joined, swooping so close over Jons head he had to duck down, and when they called loudly for her, she may have looked his way. The smallest of all three, and yet easily the quickest darted down and stretched it's legs along the ground, slowing to a rumbled halt, joined raucously by his brother in a half-playful tackle. The impact shook the ground, powerfully. Safely on Drogons back, she circled around above.
"Viserion!"she called, through the wind and the green worm turned to her, and flicked it's riders whooped and parted as she cried out a word Jon didn't understand.
Just then the green dragon belched out a massive flame which scattered a few horses and riders, and set the terrified calf ablaze. He had to shield his face from the heat, which he felt even where he stood. The screamers filled the plains with their cries, as the green dragon tossed the now mangled carcass high enough in the sky that the dark one swooped down to catch it in his jowls. Deftly the little queen clung tight, and turned to face her blood-riders. They roared to her their respect, riding as close as they dared to the dragons, and brandishing curved blades high above their heads. Though it was with a scowl that he watched her laugh, he did note that her face was as carefree as he'd be likely to see it ever. A queen unlike any I've ever met. he admitted to himself, A warrior queen.
She steered the beast straight up into the sky then, leaving the two younger beasts, and the treacherous riders to their sport and Jon to turn back on his way. From then he found himself adrift in thought, following the path doggedly while his mind was somewhere up in the sky above. His thoughts rambled and so did his feet, until thirty minutes led to forty, and still the path had not brought him to the castle gate, like he'd thought it would. Instead he found himself at water level, beneath the highest ramparts of Dragonstone with the stone path stretching on before him, winding here and there. He paused, entirely lost, with only the crashing waves beside him and fatigue gnawing at his eyes.
That was when the sound of a footfall on stone made him look up.
He saw the queen before she did him. Her silver head was down, a crown of braids wrapped around it, and she was busy pulling off a pair of riding gloves. He noted that her cheeks were flushed, and her hair rather wild from the flight, subtle changes from her usual presentation. It suits her well. he decided. When she finally saw him, she contained her wariness and folded the gloves into her hands.
"My lord." she nodding once by way of a curtsy.
Not a bow. "Your grace." he answered as he should, and then nodded as she had.
She squinted at him for several seconds. "You've been one of the rarer sights on Dragonstone, I'd almost forgotten you were here."
Perhaps it was easy for her to do, she was waging wars, defending lands, feeding armies. Why would she spare a corner of her mind for the fool hardy king in the north? On the other hand, he'd not once forgotten she was there. Or what she looked like. Though he tried to control it, he couldn't stop his stare wandering over her, thankfully so far without her noticing. All he said though, was. "I've been busy below ground, your grace."
"Oh yes." she replied, her vibrant gaze jumped over the water of the bay. "The northern cause."
He followed her example, and looked at the waves, with annoyance. When he wasn't in the presence of the little queen, the cause felt real, the need for the dragon-glass urgent. But here now in the Southern air, he felt as though he were telling ghost stories. A child quavering about dead things. Looking like a boy in front of her would be worse than almost anything he could think of. Even though he was certain she was close to him by years, she'd already proved herself to the world many times over. And a boy who knows nothing can't make a dragon listen to him.
"I was on my way back to the castle now. Will you walk with me, my lord?" she asked evenly, and when he glanced her way she looked as though she wasn't entirely thrilled about extending the invitation.
But he was lost, and not about to admit it. He agreed to the walk readily, and followed her back up the path a slight way, despite the friction. He'd missed a small dip where-in Daenerys pushed a hidden stone into the wall. It opened and revealed a secret path whose walls were deep cut into the stone. The blue sky was above and he could still hear birds, but so close in width was the path that he could have touched both sides without stretching.
Jon Snow was taken back by the sudden intimacy of the situation. The sounds of the sea grew quieter behind them, just as wind tunneled, and the smell of some exotic, spicy flower on her hair or her skin suddenly drifted back to him. He filled the tracks she left behind, and found that she walked with the confidence of a leader. And yet she was so tiny... So small a person, he watched her white curls bounce against the back of her dark dress, to have done so much.
He watched the rest of her as well, from her boots up to her braids. It wasn't a fight for the eyes to do so, but then Daenerys so rarely looked his way that he found himself wondering if Igritte had been exaggerating her own attraction to him No. If I were here alone with Igritte, she would have pushed me back, demanding I take her against the wall by now. Jon had to banish those bittersweet thoughts and turn his mind to the present day, and the fact that he was suddenly hidden and alone with a Targaryan. No foreign queens-guard surrounded her now, no Tyrion, no great roiling beasts. He could easily reach out and touch her.
A wiser man might even kill her.
The thought of ending one part of this war did have it's draws. Her ribs... he could have counted them through her dress. Shoving a blade through one of them would be too easy. And he still had many hidden blades. Would Ned Stark kill her? Would Robb? But there were more than a few things to stop him. He'd never escape, such were her defenses all around, he and Ser Davos could never hope to subdue the wrath of her supporters on the island, Tyrion seemed so taken with the queen he would bring the wrath of armies onto Jon's people in the North. And then of course Jon never wanted to hold a dead girl in his arms ever again.
"That game your riders are playing." he broke the silence first, "It's savage isn't it?"
"Do you truly think so?" she answered without turning around.
"And it's dangerous." he added.
"Hmm," she considered, "Jon Snow, are you leading forty thousand men, five allied forces, and three dragons?"
He worked his jaw, "No."
"I've got twenty thousand Dothraki riders thirsty for blood, and three restless children. Every one of them wants something and will take it without a thought. They need distractions. And the best thing I could come up with was what you saw on the cliffs." As she spoke Jon couldn't help but feel foolish, and then she added, "It's not exactly a walk along the Wall keeping armies under command, you know."
Under his breath he answered. "Says a person who's never been to the wall."
"They are anxious." there was an edge to her voice. "I feel the same. Until the lands are conquered, no one on Dragonstone feels settled."
It hadn't occurred to him that she might feel stuck on the island as well. A long of things she said hadn't occurred to him. Just as he felt removed from the army of the dead around her, he also felt drawn into the fight for the throne, even if he didn't want to. He found himself eager for any little bits of her story, and asked all around Dragonstone about her. The tales he heard were never disappointing. They might have been tales about great warrior beauties that he loved to listen to as a child. She was almost like a living breathing heroine if, of course, the tales were true.
"Well, you've not wasted time feeling at home here." he remarked, watching her well-bronzed fingers trail over the stone wall beside her.
"And yet I feel a stranger." she answered wistfully.
"You've more supporters then some who've tried for the iron throne."
She scoffed. "That doesn't say much."
He frowned to himself. No it doesn't.
"You think I don't know what you all are saying about me, and have been saying for years."
"I haven't even-" he began.
"A foreign whore." she spun around to face him, and he stopped with a skid on the rocks, "A child with only a name to support her. A little princess from across the sea. Daughter of the Mad-King, Usurper. The Stormborn who knows nothing. Worst of all, I think, is not a woman of Westeros. "
Jon blinked at her. It's I that knows nothing. With her eyes on his face, even in anger, he was transfixed. He could see the purple in them, of course it was mixed about with blues, yellows and green, but without warning, something deep in his gut began to stir.
"I won't be scared away." when she spoke again she'd eased the fire of her words, but they were still firm. "I will conquer these lands like I have the rest."
Jon nodded and squinted at her, as if that would diminish her beauty somehow. "Maybe you should be focused on saving them."
The dragon queen lifted her chin slightly, studying his hair, his cloak, his breast plait. Jon felt the need to stand to his full height all of sudden, and his heart beat picked up. Kill the boy, Jon Snow... But his stare kept dropping to her lips, betraying him. "Maybe I will." she raised her eyebrow, with the softest hint of amusement. "You're terribly brave, Jon Snow, has anyone told you?"
She turned from him and resumed the path, leaving him standing perfectly still, remembering the first time he heard a girl utter those words to him. Ygritte, what would you tell me now... That I was brave, stupid, but brave...
The path came to an abrupt end at a high castle wall, and a large oak door, carved with the dragons of her house. Before using it however she leaned along a lower part of the wall and pulled from a small nook, a change of footwear. An informal little spot for her, queen of all she saw, to be not so formal. The thought made him smile, that is until she pulled her dress up over her knees to unlace her leather riding boots.
Above her soft stockings he could see the smallest bit of her thighs. He swallowed, and blinked his eyes, but couldn't look away. He immediately recalled what the men at the wall had always said about girls in the South. There's nothing under their skirts, Jon, save their socks. The thought stirred something in his gut and deep in his groin. Maybe the dragon queen had done it to try and seduce him, like the red-priestess had. He knew if Daenerys opened her dress to him he undoubtedly would give in at once. But with this in mind, he cast his gaze down the long path, out across the sea, anywhere to stop himself gaping any longer.
"I believe I might know what you are thinking, my lord." she remarked, laces snapping under her fingers.
"No," Jon allowed a smile. "I don't think you do."
"You've been considering killing me." she said squarely. "Tell me you haven't."
He paused. "You'd know I was lying if I didn't admit the thought had crossed my mind." he answered her, and watched his own foot worry the ground below. "But, I'd be a fool if I tried."
"That helps me trust you, I'll admit." her voice was flat.
When he looked back at her legs, this time he noticed the tip of a knifes sheath, tied around her upper thigh, and peeking just out from her skirt. "You seem to be able to protect yourself."
She held his gaze for just a few seconds, then she flicked the dress and coat back down and rose to her feet again. "I've learned from the past."
Jon could hardly recover. A new image of her baring a weapon, yet all legs and eyes was setting fires inside of him that he thought had long since gone out. Fires he had to stop. Daenerys was more forbidden, it seemed, than even Igritte had been in the days when vows were the only things stopping him. Had I known that someone was out there, someone like this...would I have taken the vows then? He opened the heavy oak door for her, and when the queen passed he could smell her, flowery and sweet. His eyes shut, and it was everything he could do not to reach out and stop her. The seven know that no vow would keep me from her, if she even hinted at it.
But Jon bowed and left her, as soon as it was clear that he was within the castle grounds again. Every moment spent with the queen, made him less and less strong, less and less likely to remain unbowed. Maybe she could have seduced him, and maybe that would have worked. But she didn't, and his grudging respect for her was growing with each passing day.