Notes: Season 8 canon AU in which the alliance between Jon and Daenerys is purely political.
In the blue above the Great Grass Sea, the sun had hung, warm, a dragon's egg Daenerys held close. The glowing coal had ripened with her desert rule, and claws of molten light cracked open the shell of her doubt. Then, she'd sailed across the Narrow Sea, winged fire sweeping through the sky.
In the North, winter's claws have torn apart the sun, and the Great Hall of Winterfell is veiled in frozen light.
Her advisors are enjoying what little sleep is left for them in these shortening days. Dany's rest is lost, drained away into the contemplation of a sleepless enemy breaking her child, shattering the gentle gold of his spirit into cruel flakes of ice.
There is no place for her here, but she has seen the army of the dead, and that will not be her place. Nor will it be the place of anyone in the kingdoms she will rule, so she has allied herself with Jon Snow and all his men. She is their ally, but they are not friends, and so she sits in Winterfell's Great Hall alone, watching candles melt.
Her fire does not warm Northern hearts; they flinch and withdraw. Dragons sweep above all things, burning away uncertainty with pride and light, but they are too hot to touch. She is woman too, the dragon in her vast and wild. Now it has turned everyone around her away, and she is only a girl, small and lonely, reaching out with fingers too hot that do not understand how to touch.
She is alone in an empty hall, a flickering flame.
Within fire and candlelight, another darkness falls. A black cloak sweeps into the hall, and soft footfalls echo on the stone.
Ser Jaime had loosed his anger before her, the spear and sword of his words blunted by her acceptance.
Perhaps the evening's cold has sharpened his regard.
He is unarmed, but his strength is still many times my own.
He pulls out the chair across from her, slipping into it with a quiet ease, silver and gold glinting in his hair and beard, bright in the darkness.
He slides two goblets onto the table, a flagon following them, metal on wood echoing through the empty air. The pour of wine is the only sound in the room, red drops spattering like spots of blood. His golden hand rattles as he pushes the goblet towards her.
Olenna died alone.
Daenerys' spine pulls taut in a clarifying gout of flame, the wood beneath her fingers rough beneath the press of her fingertips. I was wrong to let him stay.
"Your brother's story." His voice is as soft as his gaze.
A flickering spark in his eyes, before hers return to the red in her goblet.
Her hand is tight around the goblet's stem. "What of it?"
He reaches beneath him, pulling a dagger from his boot and sliding it towards her. Bathed in candlelight, the dragonglass blade is a peaceful flame whispering her strength.
When Daenerys sat at the high table, she felt Ser Jaime's eyes as he watched. Now he sits before her, his gaze an autumnal sky, quiet and true.
Her allies cannot bear her look and all the heat it holds.
But her enemy will not turn his eyes from her.
His fingers warm her skin.
He does not pull his hand away.
"Perhaps I would like you to do some of those things to me."