Welcome back. Hope you enjoy the next chapter.
They spoke so little on the journey across the water to Crackclaw Point that they could have passed for a miniature version of the Silence. Jon spent the time alternately rowing and turning his head in every direction to look for signs of other ships. His jaw was set so hard that Dany imagined it must be painful. Every once in a while, a trick of light upon the water or the sound of a sea creature coming up for air sent Jon's hand reaching for his sword on his hip as he noisily dropped an oar.
Each time, he tried to cover it up by scratching his leg or pretending to wipe his hand of sweat and water. Dany pretended not to notice. Although her eyes flashed to him each time she, too, heard a noise, she averted them quickly as if to save them both from embarrassment.
Instead, she whiled away the day at sea trying to stay warm underneath the thicker of the furs from her bed, looking out on the vast expanse of blue-green water. If this is the Narrow Sea, how large are the others? It seemed shocking that she had crossed this sea from Essos, imagining herself to be the Savior of Westeros with nothing but victory in her future. Contemplating the sea's vastness now, she wondered how she could have ever been so blinded.
Several times throughout the long day, Dany ran an arbitrary hand through the cold water. Frigid, the sea numbed her hand and the salty water made the ripped cuticles on her fingers burn. Several of her nail beds had become angry and red. Her left ring finger throbbed where she had gone even further and torn her nail quite low, exposing the sensitive skin underneath. The numbing burn was a welcome pain, keeping her anxiety from taking hold and drowning her in far worse than salty sea water.
"Dany," Jon said in a low voice. She jumped, interrupted from her focus on the water, which had grown much darker than she last remembered. The sky had gone from blue to a dark mix of grey and purple hues. She smelled nighttime rain on the air even though she felt it had only just been mid-afternoon.
"Sorry," Jon said sympathetically, "We're about at the shoreline."
Dany turned to look at the fast approaching land before them, pulling her right hand out of the water though she did not remember placing it in. It was looked odd-colored in the dusk light and felt painful when she tried to flex her fingers experimentally. She cursed herself for leaving her hand in the water for that long and drifting off with thoughts about and land and a time far from now.
Jon hopped out of the boat to pull it ashore before he helped Dany out. She stifled a yelp as he took her injured hand, but her face gave it away even in the dusky light.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Oh," Dany replied, "It's - it's nothing. Just stiff from being still for so long."
Hoping to not give more away, she turned towards the boat and gathered up her two furs. If Jon thought she was lying, he didn't press her on it, but grabbed the satchel from the boat before pushing their transport back into the water.
"What are you doing?" Dany asked, confused.
Jon watched as the boat drifted away before responding, "Figure it's better nobody knows where the boat landed...or where it came from."
He turned his back on the water and came up next to Dany, offering her his hand. "Come on," he said, "We should get under the trees before it rains."
By happenstance, they found shelter in the form of a cave after an hour of walking. A small entrance, but bigger on the inside, they found a larger space not far past the entrance to set up for the night. There was even more cave past the roomy chamber, which Jon briefly looked down and listened for a while before declaring it safe.
It had begun raining a cold mist before they got to the cave. While not soaked, Dany felt as though the mist had seeped into her very bones. Even with the small fire that Jon had skillfully made and was currently tending to, she could not seem get the cold out. The hair on her arms pricked with every new chilling sensation that came along and small shivers kept taking over her body.
Watching Jon stoke the fire again, she started feeling thoroughly useless. Jon had come up with the plan to leave. Jon found the boat. Jon stayed up in the night to row and keep watch. Jon knew the geography well enough to not be completely lost. Jon could make a fire.
All I can do is carry two furs around and get cold, she thought viciously.
All of those titles that were announced after her name. All of the times people bowed to her, acting as though she was their savior incarnate. How were they all so blind? How was she so blind, that girl that crossed the Narrow Sea thinking the world was hers for the taking? So blind that she never even learned to make her own fire. Even amongst her Dothraki, others did it for her. Or she could just shout, "Dracarys!" and feel the pleasing lick of dragonfire across her skin. And yet now here she was, alone in a cave depending on another. The Breaker of Chains. The Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. Defeated by the cold because she couldn't make her own fire.
Dany walked over to one side of the cave room where a natural clear pool of water had formed. Rain helped fill the pool, and even with only a mist, Dany could hear the drip of water in the cave as it filtered from outside. The water, over thousands of years of dripping in, had left patterns and ridges around the pool. Perhaps before the First Men came. Before there was such a thing as a throne, or a Targaryen, or a Stark. Marveling, she reached up her right hand to trace the ridges.
"Ah! Ouch!" she cried, grasping her right wrist and doubling over in pain, her face scrunching up.
In an instant, Jon had sprung over to her. "What happened? Are you all right?"
"No!" Dany said roughly through the pain, "It's my fucking hand. I was so stupid on that boat, daydreaming, and left it in the damn water too long."
"Let me," Jon said, gingerly moving Dany to a rock near the fire to sit while he looked at her hand. In the light, it looked more discolored than before. Jon tried flexing a couple of her fingers and she ground her teeth, wincing at the pain it caused. Even his touch was uncomfortable.
Defeated by the cold and my own stupidity, Dany thought, making an amendment to her earlier declaration of naivete.
"It's not great but I think it'll heal - though I wish you'd said something earlier," Jon murmured, looking up at her. What he was thinking about, Dany did not know, but he cleared his throat and gently rested Dany's hand in her lap.
"I'm sorry," Dany said, watching as he got up and fetched the satchel, "All I've been perfectly useless." All I've been is an idiot.
"It's okay. You haven't been yourself. I'm sorry for being so selfish. If anything, it's my fault," Jon replied. He fished out two pieces of bread from the satchel, offering her one as he sat down on the rock next to her. Dany took it, feeling mildly hungry now that the pain in her hand had ebbed back into the dull pangs she had begun to be used to feeling.
"How?" Dany asked.
"I...got scared by what Varys said. Scared of the future, of how people saw me - saw you - and ran from it. Like a coward. And took you with me. I didn't want to - to leave you behind." He looked down at his piece of bread, frowning.
"I was relieved that you didn't," Dany said after a minute. Jon looked back up at her, bewildered.
"What?"
Dany broke the eye contact this time, staring at the fire. "When everything happened at King's Landing. When - when she didn't get to come back with us," Dany said, voice thickening, "I felt afraid. I thought I had been afraid at Winterfell, you know, with the Dead, but this was real fear...of me. I didn't feel like myself anymore when I walked away from that barrier. I was angry. At...at everything. Cersei. The Mountain. King's Landing. Tyrion. The sea. The clouds. You. Everything. And I just sat there in my room at Dragonstone and let my anger just eat me alive until I had a reason to do something with it."
She paused, remembering when Tyrion had told her of Varys. The memory made acid boil in her stomach in disgust as she thought of her strange eagerness to see Varys dead.
"And then you came in and just dragged me away from it all, as if out of a fog. When I woke up this morning and remembered what had happened...I felt relieved," she lingered on the word, swallowing hard as she faced the truth, "I realized that I've spent my life denying my father and Viserys while trying to get the throne, only to become like them. Then I felt horrified - I feel horrified that a day ago I was willing to watch someone burn outside of a battle. That the last time I saw you, I tried to manipulate you and then turned around and called you a traitor. I'm no better than my father," she finished darkly, furrowing her brow.
"Dany…" Jon started, unconsciously sliding his hand over to hers. She grasped it, seeking out the little warmth his hand gave off for her chill had magnified past the cold in her bones.
"I don't want to be mad, Jon," she whispered, squeezing his hand and still looking into the fire. She did not dare say it louder.
Jon squeezed her hand in return and he began making slow circles with his thumb. "You're not mad," he told her firmly, "You did walk away. The fact that you're here means that you're not your father or your brother."
She looked up at him, searching for a sign that what he said was true. Sincerity. Jon's face never lied. "Thank you," she said quietly. A small smile danced across his face and Dany returned it without thinking. When had she last smiled?
He brushed away the hair that had fallen to hang in her face. His hand lingered, ghosting over her cheek and temple.
Then Jon closed the gap between them, pressing his lips upon hers. It was a brief kiss, but one with a note of hope that Dany had forgotten could exist. It seemed to make the plaguing chill dissipate, and Dany was able to appreciate the fact about caves that Jon told her earlier: even in the winter they stay a constant temperature.
"You're tired," Dany told him, raising her good hand and tracing the circles under his eyes, visible even in the dimming firelight.
"As are you," Jon said, getting up from the rock to grab the furs and spread them near the fire. "I'm afraid that beds for tonight are comfortable bits of cave floor. But perhaps that's better than a boat?"
"This bit does seem comfortable," she told him as they laid down together on the furs. She moved to lay her head on his chest and rest her injured hand gently across him and he accepted, putting his arm around her as they stared at the high cave ceiling together.
Perhaps thinking she was already asleep, Jon placed a chaste kiss upon her hair before his breathing slowed. And Dany, still awake and feeling another note similar to what their last kiss had brought, found herself drifting away too.
Two quick notes:
1. This has been one of the hardest chapters to write. It went through several frantic drafts because I couldn't seem to get a grip on the dialogue, both with Jon and internally, for Dany in particular based on my vision of her in my head. Perhaps that is a good thing given her current mental state? Either way, I just wanted to air that out.
2. I really like caves. Like, as a human just really enjoy caves, so be prepared for some cave admiration.
Until next time.