Author's Note & General Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. Any familiar characters, places, lines, etc. have been borrowed from either GRRM or the boys that make that fabulous TV show that I just can't stop watching (no matter how many of my favorites you kill off).
This scene was inspired by a piece of fan art posted on tumblr recently ( marmalademouse). Seriously, I've completely in love with it. It highlights one of my favorite parts of the Jorah/Dany dynamic, which is how much they say without speaking. As always, thanks for reading! Mwah! :)
The Deep Night
It was after midnight. The sun had abandoned the Northern lands hours and hours ago, too chilled to stay in the pale skies any longer, happy to keep its vigil on the opposite side of the world, with no sympathy to those it left behind in darkness. The winter days were short at King's Landing and in the Riverlands now. In Winterfell, Sansa Stark would watch it slip beneath the horizon at midday and it vanished even sooner here, northward and across the channel, on the frigid shores of Bear Island.
The deep, dark of Winter cast long shadows. Even the bravest found themselves worn down by the bleakness of its blighted season, when the storms raged and the sun refused to shine. It made grown men uneasy and grown women afraid of the dark. The northern winds howled against the stone walls of the Mormont castle, whistling through any cracks in the old mason work, letting in icy drafts that turned the floors frosty, no matter how many fires Lyanna Mormont, the young but unshakeable Lady of Bear Island, commanded to be lit.
This night, the storm raging was furious enough that its only intent could be to snuff out any fires it found and turn flesh to frost. Ice crawled inwards and left white, frozen seams over any stone, wood or glass that wasn't in the presence of firelight. The lords and ladies of Bear Island added more wood to their fires than ever before but still, laying in the dark, listening to the screams of a cold-hearted storm, the scent and sting of ice and snow seeped into their bones and lingered there.
The cold was inescapable. They were locked in an ice house. But in her own bed, under quilts of wool and soft fur, with her light dressing gown still wrapped around her shoulders and her body pressed up tightly against the heat of Ser Jorah, Daenerys felt warmth. Too little for a creature made of fire, but it was enough and the only warmth she'd find in the deep night. Candlelight flickered from the nightstand and firelight pulsed with a constant glow, casting the scene in Lannister gold. The muted but sweet smell of burning beeswax and cedar filled the chamber.
Ser Jorah was propped up against the pillows and headboard, his slate-blue night shirt falling open at his chest, with his strong arm around her slim waist and drawing her close. Daenerys lay against him, turned on her side, with her head resting against his shoulder, her left arm draped over him and their hands clasped loosely at his hip, fingers entwined. Ser Jorah's thumb stroked the back of her knuckles occasionally, absently.
This simple caress and the even rise and fall of his chest under her slight weight—these were the quiet, still movements that gave Daenerys comfort and kept away the darker fears that might steal into her heart at each banshee-moan of the frost gales or the roaring sound of tumultuous black waters churning up the stormy sea and threatening to use hooked claws to drag the island under, to the ice-locked depths of the Drowned God's frozen fortress.
If the Drowned God's gaze was drawn to Bear Island that night, he wouldn't be able to see the blizzard swirling around the towers and burying the coniferous forests in high snow drifts that would last the entire winter. The silver moon and many stars were hidden behind a thick bank of heavy cloud cover. And so the black night allowed nothing but darkness and more darkness, all blind to winter's most fearsome wrath.
But there! In that upper window, even visible from the seawater, a flicker of light that shone beyond the snow squalls. For Daenerys Targaryen would not blow out the candles that night, no matter the hour, fearing that if she did, she'd be lost to the Long Night forever.
Jorah Mormont would never deny her anything, least of all those candles.
She listened to his heartbeat, so close to her ear. The steadiness, the familiar rhythm might almost put her to sleep, despite the storm.
She'd been a Queen once, the Mother of Dragons, strong and unafraid, a hundred battles raging around her filled with fire, blood and death. Her family words brought so much death. After Qarth, she was reborn. The young girl she was, the girl who became a Khaleesi—she could be no longer. She had to be more than that. With one word, she became the conqueror she was meant to be. She still remembers the iron taste of that word on her tongue, even though the last time she spoke it was now years before.
Dracarys.
Where there is fire and blood, death follows. And all the while, winter approached. Still, she never wavered…she would not be the girl she was, full of uncertainty and just wanting to go home. She couldn't, even if she wanted to. There was that one moment, in the fighting pits of Meereen, when all seemed to crumble around her, those gold-horned masks, those whispered threats of a thousand men who wanted her dead, those plunged daggers and buckets of blood spilled on the sands in the arena…
She was marked for death that day. Drogon would have appeared too late to stop the Harpy's dagger in her breast. Daario Naharis would have held her while the life's blood drained from her face, shock written all over his pretty features. But Jorah was there, despite the cruel things she had said to drive him away. He was supposed to be a thousand miles away, perhaps here, at home. But there he stood, in that foreign land, serving her, saving her, his hand always there to take hers and lead her away from the slaughter.
Oh, she wanted to go home then, didn't she? But she was caught in a current that wouldn't let her go—Vaes Dothrak, Dragonstone, Viserion's death above the Wall and finally, the Last Stand at Winterfell. That was meant to be the end of her journey. Marked for death a second time, she might have succumbed, if only out of weariness. But again, he was there, lifting her up from the blackened bones on the battlefield, bloodied and wounded himself, but always finding her first. He took her hand as he had in the fighting pits and dragged her North, to the safety of home.
We will go home, I promise you.
Why had it taken her so long to accept the gift of his love? For it was a gift and she now knew its full extent. Who was she to him in the beginning? Just another exile. He owed her nothing and yet, by choosing her, over all others, he gave her everything. She had wasted so much time in not accepting his love, in doubting it, and worse, in doubting her own muddled feelings. Instead she followed old, empty dreams that soured hideously. She nearly grimaced on the bitter memory of those days. In the present, the dark of night closed in on her from all sides, with only those flickering candles and the glow of firelight to try and force them away.
Jorah held her close. He could guess her thoughts and wished he could pluck them out of her mind and throw them into the sea. He would never let anything happen to her. He had sworn it, to the Old Gods and the New, to the Drowned God, the Red God, the Many-Faced God and any other god that was listening. That vow had been proven again and again, the truth of it as strong and mystical as the soul of a Heartwood tree, with roots that sunk in deeper with every year that passed them by…still. The terrible memory of the final note he sent to the Spider echoed in his thoughts evermore and his lips parted slightly at the recollection of a sin he could never completely wash out.
Now it was Daenerys's fingers pressing their grip, softly confirming their presence, clasped in his. She knew what thoughts dwelt in his mind in silent moments and she knew that he'd never find forgiveness from himself. But from her, he had it a thousand times over. There's nothing to forgive. There was no soul so true to her own, in all the world, than the man who now held her in his arms. She would never let him leave her again.
And with her steely conviction of this one, solid truth, her fears diminished. Her violet eyes, darker under the gold tint of candlelight, opened to sights unseen, of the future and of the past, all mixed in with the very physical present of lying here, in this bed, beside the man who had been with her from the beginning and who would be with her until Death, faithless and foolish, tried to force them apart.
But not tonight, she breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes once more as she felt him stir only so slightly and felt his lips press a soft kiss against her hair.
The wind continued to howl against the stone and glass, rattling and raging in fits and starts. Bear Island stood strong and steady as the winter storm continued through the night. But in that candle-lit bedroom in the upper halls of the Mormont castle, it muffled to a low drone, as Ser Jorah Mormont and Daenerys Targaryen clung to each other, speaking volumes in their gentle silence.