Melisandre: "Afterwards, after they stabbed you, after you died, where did you go? What did you see?"
Jon Snow: "Nothing. There was nothing at all."
The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was nothing at all. She had opened and shut them a dozen times attempting to wrestle just a sliver of light from any crevice, any crack in a wall, something to right herself. But the darkness had swallowed her up completely. She knew no up from down, forward from back. She opened her mouth to call out but no sound would come forth. Her pulse began to thrum from her chest to her temples. Harder and harder her blood raced. Her lungs constricted and her breathing became erratic. Her hands gripped her throat, gasping for air. She couldn't see, she couldn't speak, she couldn't breathe. She fell to the cold, hard ground shivering, writhing uncontrollably.
No. It can't end like this. Not like this.
Alone. She would die in this hollow crypt alone. She drowned in her tears, heaved in desperation.
Was this real? She knew she had fallen but where was she? Her mind wracked for the before. The before she was here. Wherever here was.
A startling azure light, a bone shattering scream, an echo, a fall.
A fall.
Her silent sobs began to slow and her breath flowed calmly into her nose and out of her mouth as she lay on her side cradling her knees to her chest. The damp ground cooling her flushed face.
Her mind reached for his image and he was there.
Jon.
He was there. She'd seen him. She'd felt the gentle touch of his lips on her forehead, the bristle of his whiskers on her ear, a soothing tear glazing her cheek.
But he wasn't here. She was still in the dark. Still alone. She couldn't stay here. She had to find her way back. She had to go forward.
She found her feet and wiped her tears. She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. She wouldn't find her way with them so she waited, waited to be guided home. Exhaling, she felt it, a pull inside her. A heat edging her forward. She took a step forward and then another.
As she felt her way down within the dark cavern, she stopped to discern muffled sounds approaching her from behind. The sounds were unnatural, guttural. As they got closer to her she could just distinguish the muffled sounds as voices. Inhuman murmurs.
Her heart strummed violently in her chest and her breath became ragged as her feet feverishly padded over the rocky ground. Her hands stretched beyond her searching for a wall, a door, anything that would put space between her and the dead but her fingers came away empty. With every stride she took, the voices took two until they rang clearly beside her.
Mhysa.
Their hot breath lancing her skin, pulling at her clothes and threading through her hair.
Mhysa.
Her body became rigid with fear, betraying her need to keep moving. The haunting voices taunted her whispering and shouting and laughing.
Mhysa.
Her will wavered, as they clawed at her but she couldn't give up. She had to try. He had died and he found her, he came back for her.
I tried to save you. I tried to save you all.
The voices called relentlessly.
Mhysa.
The voices overwhelming her, she lifted her head and made to scream but the cry that escaped was not her own. It was that of a dragon.
Daenerys, stay with me.
The dead ceased their maddening wails and her tears sizzled to vapor upon her face and floated in the air to nothing.
Her heart beat doubly as she dared to look behind her searching for her tormentors but only silence remained. Her fear tempered and resolve renewed she continued on.
Walking along she realized that she didn't feel any pain. Pain she should feel after falling from the heights that Drogon reached. She glided her hands over her face, down her neck, over each shoulder, her arms. She flexed her toes and took a small jump into the sky. Ankles, knees, hips, no pain. Nothing made sense, but she didn't have time to ponder this. She had to continue on. She had to make it back to Winterfell, to Jon.
The darkness did not lend itself to time or direction but she continued her walk trusting that her intuition would guide her. After what could have been hours, the cool, solid floor under her feet gave way to the warmth of desert sand.
Out of nowhere the sun pierced the sky and her hands acted as a shield from the searing brightness. Peaking through hooded and glossy eyes she could see. The land ahead of her looked foreign compared to where she had come from but the look all too familiar. Rust colored dunes of sand stretched as far as her eyes could see and their peaks touched the sky like mountains as waves of sand dusted the air. Her eyes traced the horizon to the deep reds and oranges of the day in one direction and to the brilliant stars illuminating the inky midnight sky in the direction from whence she came.
She continued her trek forwards the heat of the sun energizing her, enticing her nearer. Keeping the light ahead of her, she could see no end to this sweeping desert but she marched on.
Towards him.
The sun had almost reached the apex of the sky, the night descending behind her. She thought her predicament could almost be humorous, finding herself trudging aimlessly along, no end in sight. However, a great rumble under her feet interrupted her thoughts. The quake started to grow in intensity and a thunderous sound reverberated with it.
In the glimmering shadow of the sun she saw them, countless stallions galloping in the distance jolting her to stillness. Brown and tan and white coats gave way to red and black and purple and silver as they neared her. Sand dusted up clouding her sight, her hair whipping in the wind. The mares pressed on.
Her face was awash with sand as the herd sailed past her toward the night. She turned to witness the magnificent rush of them leaping from the ground and continuing their migration into the dark sky behind her. As they charged upward, they faded into the distance and the stars shimmered and multiplied. The last of the horses rambled by but the smallest of them, a foal, made no effort to take to the sky. On the contrary it slowed to a trot and meandered towards her.
The sight of him amazed her. He was deep black with brush strokes of crimson adorning his coat. She cooed at it calmly sinking her hand to smooth his muzzle. It stepped closer to her huffing a warm breath on her cheeks. A heat bloomed inside her, a feeling of kinship, of home.
Stay with me, Daenerys.
An indecipherable whisper on the wind guided her eyes back to her path. She noticed that the sun had risen higher and the night sky and the stars were slowly fading away. It was time for her to continue on but she couldn't leave him. She sought his sable eyes and tried to guide him forward, toward the light but he wouldn't move. Instead he turned in the direction of his herd, the direction of the stars. She stared back and knew she couldn't follow where he would lead. He didn't belong in her world. She nuzzled into his small mane and he let out a small whine before backing away and trotting off towards the receding darkness. Wetness stained her cheek as he built his speed and leapt toward the sky, his black and red coat shimmering in the rising sun before he joined his place in the stars, in the land of night.
Her heart heavy but sure, she turned back to her path and continued on.
Her shadow fell languidly ahead of her as she scaled a large dune. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her when the sound of rushing water and the tangy smell of salt teased her senses. Looking up, gulls soared and dipped in the cloudless sky. Home.
She spent the last of her strength scaling the dune, anxious to see the dark crags and cliffside beaches but as she crossed the peak, a swirl of black feathers and white snow surrounded her, blinding her path and caused her to tumble down and down and down.
She landed roughly on the hard ground, grunting at the impact. She realized she hadn't fallen on a sandy beach but an icy expanse. Struggling to stand on the slippery substance, she fell on her back spent. Before she could settle into sleep, every inch of her body began to tremble, she was suddenly so cold.
She expelled a deep breath from her quivering lips watching as it became white mist in front of her. The temperature had dropped from the scorching desert heat to the paralyzing cold she hadn't felt since she was beyond the wall.
She had to get up, she had to find warmth. His warmth. She willed herself to stand. Looking around, she lost her baring and didn't know the way ahead. Snow had begun to fall all around her clouding her vision. She clutched her stomach as it turned wondering how she would find her way but she had done this before. She didn't need her sight to find home. She could keep going forward. She closed her eyes once more and felt the familiar pull from her right and turned to see a flat expanse nearby hidden by the falling snow in the distance. That was it, what she'd been looking for. She was close to home.
Inching closer to her destination, the falling sleet became shearer and the wind gusts became denser. She braced her arms in front of her and took one agonizing step after another edging nearer to the rock formation. The pressure was almost more than she could bare. Her limbs were failing her, it became difficult to breath, and fatigue had set in.
She shielded her eyes looking ahead needing a reason to keep moving. And there he was, atop the rock looking ahead. She called to him, yelling his name like it was the last word she'd ever say. He turned his body to face her and her heart skipped. He'd seen her, she knew because he jumped from the rock and began to run toward her with the wind at his back. The warm sensation radiated from him drawing her nearer. The snowfall drifted slower and the wind weakened. He called out to her but she still couldn't hear him.
He was close enough to touch but just as she reached for him the ice cracked beneath his feet and he fell through to the water below. She screamed at the sight thinking that she had lost him again but she had come too close to fail. Before she could think she dove in after him. The cold bite of the water sinking deep into her bones and the dark depths surrounding them. But she wouldn't lose him again. She swam faster than she knew possible and caught up to him before grabbing him in her arms. She used what little strength she had left to pull him up. She inhaled deeply as she crested the surface.
She opened her eyes and he was looking down at her. "I found you. I saved you," she breathed out weakly.
"Go, get the maester! Now!" He shouted as he bent over her and captured her in his warmth.
She was home.