Chapter Sixty: Today and Tomorrow and Forever
Winterfell
Daenerys Targaryen
The weeks passed slowly within the crumbled walls of Winterfell. With every day that passed, there was more work to be done. Glass gardens to be fixed, fields of snow to be melted, statues to be built. Dany had been hard at work with the rest of them, organizing the masses, supporting the rebuilding process, directing Rhaegal whenever Jon wasn't there to. The dragon may not have responded as quickly to her, but he knew his mother as she knew him, and he would answer each and every time. With time, though. Never on the first command.
Of late, Jon was rarely with him. It had taken two days and ten men to carry Brandon Stark's stone slab down to the crypts, and Jon had been one of them. So too had he watched over the stonesmith – he and his sisters – as the man carved and carved and carved. The smith hadn't known Bran Stark, and so it fell to them to ensure his memory stayed true. Sansa had drawn a fitting enough portrait, but, by her own admission, she had not seen Bran in over a year, and time so often laid waste to memory.
Most days, when she wasn't helping in the yard, or reading one of Queen Yara's many letters – damn the letters – Dany stayed in the godswood with Rhaegal. Rhaegal, who had been born from blood, who had living with children and left behind only boats on the shore. Rhaegal, who was her blood as much as any would ever be, save Jon, and even he was distant from that. A half-dragon, where Rhaegal was more dragon than even she. The thought made each day last longer and made her every breath heavier.
When she was not with Rhaegal, she was in the library. The books there were old. Older than her bloodline; older than Westeros. Most had burned, if Sansa told it true, but those that remained…
There were books on poisons, books on the Children of the Forest, books on the White Walkers. She found one detailing the lineages of the Great Houses from 600 years ago, another from 1,000. She found a tome on the Night King, and the Three-Eyed Raven that Jon so often spoke of. And, after she worked her way to the last shelf in their stores, she found dragons. And dragons were so often on her mind of late.
It was a tome wrapped in rotted leather, and the words on the cover had long since faded into nothingness. But inside, she found answers. Inside she found a single scale, red as copper and large as a leaf. A dragon scale. It was enough to capture her attention, and that was enough to steal her from the rest of Winterfell for too many hours to note.
The book was even more interesting than the scale.
She was halfway through it when Jon found her, a cup of wine in one hand and ale in the other. It was always like that, with him finding her. They had fallen into a routine in the weeks since the funeral, and Dany found she quite liked it. Today, though… not today.
He took one look at the books beside her and shook his head. "Old books."
"Interesting books," she said. Still, she set it down beside her and he accepted the wine she offered. In Winterfell, there was never enough to go around. Not when the roads were still plagued by winter and the seas frozen. They had been exchanging letters with the Westerlands and the Iron Islands, but even Dorne could not make trade in the depths of winter. Winterfell had little chance to.
"I'll have to disagree with you there." He leaned against the wall beside her seat. A gust of wind surged into the room through the shattered glass where once a window had been. The pages of a dozen different books rattled and flew. "Our maester used to force Robb to read as many of these as he could."
"Robb," she said, hesitantly. "That was the-"
"The King," he answered. "My older br- cousin." He drank deep. "He tried to complain to Lord Stark, once, that he had to do all these readings, while I could spend all the day playing at swords in the yard."
"What did Stark say?" Even now, it took everything she had not to bristle at the name.
"Robb was to be Lord of Winterfell, and I was to be his bannerman. I never had to learn as much as he did." He smiled to himself, little and light. The smile broke, as quickly as it came. "I spent every day for the next year reading. [l3] The books are boring."
"Old, not boring." She handed him the dragon book – a tome so old, she could no longer read the name. "How did the Starks study dragons?"
He frowned and claimed it for himself. "Where'd you find this?"
"On one of the shelves you found so boring." Or rather, in the very back of one, where the ashes of fires long extinguished had very nearly spread. The cold of winter had protected these though, or a very careful hand.
His frown only grew deeper. "There were never any dragons in Winterfell. Not this long ago." He thumbed through the pages. "Could have been sent from Dragonstone."
"Read the first chapter," she told him. And, as he did, she thumbed the letter she had stuffed against her waist.
"I don't understand," he said when he was done. "This is older than the Conquest…"
"This is older than Dragonstone," Dany said. "This is from before the Doom." He dropped the book, and Dany scrambled to catch it. "You would take care with it. I doubt there's any like it."
"It's Valyrian," he hissed, as if it were some personal offense.
She took it as one. "As are you. By blood and fire. Kin and dragon. Rhaegal chose you."
Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. "He's still yours," he said, though he hardly seemed convinced.
"He chose you." The letter burned against her skin, as nothing ever had. "I was Drogon's rider." The reminder stung worse than the letter did, which only made the burning worse.
"You're his mother."
"And every son eventually outgrows his nest." And what does a mother do then? She bears another son.
The words came to her on the wind, like some long-forgotten song. Only these words had never been forgotten, and they were far from a song. When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. She had born three since those words, and none from her womb.
Four, a voice whispered, and she was quick to smother it.
"Well considering we share a nest…" Jon said. She had not even noticed that he had yet to answer.
"Do we?"
"We should," he said, grinning. Suddenly, she remembered the ale in his hand and the wine in her own. She drank deep, just as he did. "We share a bed, a castle, blood… why not the dragon?"
Because a dragon cannot be shared. A dragon was a woman. Wed for life, or not at all.
But she smiled anyway and drained her cup. "Do not forget the plate," she reminded him.
He laughed. It wasn't much of a laugh – Jon's laughs were never loud and never long – but it was enough to make her smile just a bit more honest. "All we're missing is a name."
The mirth turned to a distant buzz, humming away in the back of her mind, while the truth rang clear. "Have you told your sisters yet?"
He finished his ale and turned away. Left the horn on the desk. She pushed it away from the books. It would be a cruel crime to let books that survived the Doom of Valyria and the Second Long Night crumble before a fallen king too deep in his cups.
"I haven't had much a chance," he told her.
"Much a-" she started, angrily. "Moons. Moons have come and gone."
"Aye, and they've spent them mourning. Sansa won't leave the crypts, unless she's burying herself in letters, Arya hardly goes at all, and I-"
Suddenly, she understood. "Lost your brother the same."
He ran his hand over his face. The burns on his palm stood out to her, some undying question. Why would he burn when I did not? Did the Stark blood dilute it? Did the bastardy taint him? Or am I the mystery? Viserys died to fire, and he was as trueborn a Targaryen as any. He lacked in the dragon, not the blood. Is the dragon in my blood, or in my fire?
"It gets easier," she told him. When she was a girl, each loss had stung fresh each and every time, like knives digging deep below the surface, but now they barely pierced the skin. She had lost more people than most would ever meet. Friends, lovers, kin. What was another in the face of the death of Ser Darry? What was another after Viserys' skull had melted and Drogo had died by her hand? What was another when her handmaidens were gone, when her own son died in her womb, when her armies had crumbled and fallen, and two of her sons had been killed because of her mistakes? What was the death of Brandon Stark when Jorah was gone, when Missandei had died screaming in the crypts that Dany sent her to, when Grey Worm had died without her? Pain was fleeting. At some point, even when the knives slipped her skin, she was too numb to feel it anyway.
"No," he said. "We like to think it does…"
She pressed a hand against her waist. The letter crinkled. "Would you bring them back… or… replace them? If you could?"
"I don't know," he said. "I never-"
"Yes, you have. We all have."
He leaned his head back and shut his eyes, took a long deep breath. "Aye."
They were quiet for a while – too long – so Dany set about returning the books to their respective places. "Have we any word from the other kingdoms?"
"Aye," Jon said. "Tyrion's sent Sansa a few letters. Dorne's been trying to establish communication, but it's hard on their ravens. The Reach is offering food for the winter, but their price is high. They say their food stores burned, so they haven't much to spare."
She tried not to look at him. Really, she tried not to look anywhere in particular. "Oh?"
"Edmure's doing his best, but they don't have much saved either. Lord Olyvar says they haven't either, but he's promised to send as much as he can. The war took too much of them."
"The war affected all the realms," Dany said.
But Jon shook his head. "The war, not the White Walkers. Robb's war. According to Gendry, the Lannisters had their men burning the Riverlands. They couldn't finish their harvests before winter. They're no more ready than we are."
She frowned. "What does a Crownlands blacksmith know of the Riverlands?"
"Says he and Arya met in the Riverlands." That made much more sense than whatever it was she had imagined. "Haven't gotten the full story from them yet, but, from what I've heard, they'll know best."
"Could we ask for them to lower their price for-"
"This is the lower price. Ten dragons per barrel of food. Twenty if it's meat. The other kingdoms are paying twice that." He grimaced. "They need to protect their people too. If they run out of food, their people starve."
"Then they can stop when they are low on supplies. They do not need to raise prices."
He hummed agreeably. "I'm hoping to send a raven to Braavos. See if we can't get a loan from the Bank. Arya says they're close with the Faceless Men, so might be…"
"Tyrion could help," she offered.
She respected him to reject it out of hand, but Jon seemed oddly thoughtful. "Aye, he could. Would he?"
"I suppose you will need to ask."
He winced. "That's if Sansa lets me send him a letter. 'Soon as their bird gets here, she's already sent it off."
"Why?"
Jon shrugged. "I've learned not to ask."
The rest of the day was mundane. Common routine. A walk from the library to the Great Hall. A meagre feast of meagre rations with whichever people had filled the room that hour. Four bites of meat to each man, and nothing else to be had. Queen Sansa was nowhere to be found, nor was Lord Reed or Lady Arya. The rest were faces that she was coming to know, and names she was learning. None came to her quickly, but they still came.
There, on the wall, was Ser Bryan. Next to him, his wife, Elenei. They had feasted with Jon the day prior and shared news of the developments in winter town. Each day, he feasted with a new partner, a habit he claimed to have learned from his uncle – though he still called him father, if Dany caught him at the wrong time.
Beside them was Gunthor, Qarro, Theo, Violet, and Leona. By the tables, scattered among the unfamiliar faces, were Nyles, Mael, Arwood, and Martyn. She knew little of them, except the second. Mael's wife had fallen into labor the day prior, and he was merely there to carry their rations back to their chambers. Even as Dany stepped into the room, he was already leaving, asking for a thousand pardons as he sprinted past them. Just the day prior, he'd been complaining that his chambers were small for a family of three. Now, he hardly seemed to leave them at all.
In truth, Mael was lucky to have even what he did. Most of the arrivals slept in tents or under crumbled towers. Once, they had found children sleeping in the ashes of the pyre, and Dany had ordered more tents built and offered them rooms. She hadn't the authority, in truth, but the people listened, the tents were built, and two rooms were vacated that night.
Dany and Jon stayed a long while in the Great Hall, listening to stories and complaints. It was Sansa's job, in truth, but she was still busy overseeing the statue's building, and Jon hadn't minded the work. The Dawnbringer took part too, whenever she managed to unwrap herself from the smith long enough to find her way to the Great Hall. At times, even Lord Reed came to feast with them. Whenever he did, he looked to the two of them – Jon and Dany – and smiled. Once he'd even thanked her. For what, she could not say, but she was grateful all the same.
When the "feasting" was done, and the dried meats all eaten for the night, they returned to their rooms. Only then – when the door was shut, the windows covered, and the fire was lit – did she slip the letter from her waist and set it on the desk. And only then did she face him. It was easier without Yara's words weighing her down.
Before she even knew it, his lips were on hers and her hands were on him. Searching, exploring. He tasted of old bread and dried meats, sharp sweat and the dim taste of a dying fire. She ran her hands over his scars, and he ran his hands through her hair. This was routine too. Everything was.
When they were done, they would sleep. In the morning, they would wake and return to work. By lunch, they would find Rhaegal in the godswood and stay with him for another hour. Then, they would return to their work. When Dany was done, she would turn to the library, where Jon would find her, and they would make their way to the Great Hall to "feast". Then they would return to their rooms, sleep together[l4] , and sleep together. That was their routine. Every night and every day. Without fail. They had followed it step-by-step day-by-day since the funeral. Never broken. Never shifted.
Except now. Except today.
Because, as Jon left her to blow out the candles when all was done, Dany stopped him with a hand on his arm. She was tired – the sort of exhaustion that only ever crept in after a hard day's labor and a hard night's fun – but this was about more than that. More than her. She could push her exhaustion aside for this.
"Jon," she said, "if you could find another wolf… a direwolf… would you?"
He blinked. The question had come from nowhere, and she knew that as well as him. It didn't matter. She needed an answer like she needed air. More.
He crawled back under the covers before he spoke, clearly sensing the long talk to come. "Ghost was part of me."
"I know," she said.
"You don't. Ghost was-" He sighed. "Part of him was me, and part of me was Ghost."
"I know," she said, again. "Drogon and I-"
He shook his head. "It's different. A dragon is- it's two people. It's Rhaegal and I. He does what I ask, but he has a mind of his own. He's his own beast. With Ghost… with Ghost, we just knew. It was one person, one thing in two bodies. Our hearts beat for both of us. Our souls lived in us."
"I cannot understand."
He looked askance for a moment, but then he found her eyes, and his gaze hardened with clarity. "Rhaegal and I are a man and a horse. Ghost and I were a centaur."
He cannot answer then, she realized. He cannot know.
He must have seen something in her face, because he put a hand to her face and said, "What's this about?"
"Nothing," she said. "Curiosity," she said. "We should sleep," she said. "We can talk come morning."
"What is it?"
"I miss him. Drogon. That's all," she lied.
They were quiet for another long while, while she counted his breaths and thought of shining black wings soaring over the city of pyramids. She pictured standing on his back, roaring her pleasure with Jon pressed against her, so that all the realms of all the world might hear that the Targaryen name had not fallen so quickly, nor fallen so far. She thought of the broken wheel in her dreams, and the spokes that had been broken, and she thought of repairing the spokes and breaking the rim. Was it enough? She could not say. She could never say. A dragon was not known for the planting of trees, and any stone they laid down was oft known to crumble.
But, as she lay beside him, she felt nothing but content. The weight of the world had washed from her shoulders, as it did each night she found herself in this bed. Come morning, she would pick up her stones again and march off to whatever challenged faced her. But come nightfall, she could drop them once more and rest and dream and live.
He must have sensed her sudden ease, for one glance at her had Jon rising again. This time, it was not to blow out the candles. The fear on his face was as clear as the sweat on his chest, the scars over his heart, the dark hair that might have been silver as her own if anything had gone wrong.
"Drogon was a horse," Jon said. "Ghost and I a centaur. What are we?"
"Human," Dany said.
"No," Jon said. "Closer than that."
She smiled, a faint smile. "We share the same horse."
"Aye. The horse, the bed, the castle, the blood, the bloody dragon." He ran his left hand through his hair. The other clenched and unclenched, flexed and unflexed. She could almost hear the burned skin creaking with every move.
Suddenly, she didn't think they were speaking of dragons anymore. "What are you-"
"I broke my vows to the Night's Watch more times than I can count." He squeezed his eyes shut. In the dim light, shadows crawled over him and hung heavy over his face. "I stole a woman, laid with her, let the free folk past the Wall, and left my post when the Watch needed me most."
"The Black Watch is gone," she told him.
"Aye, and all my vows with it. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children."
Her heart might have stopped in the time it took him to catch her eyes.
"I've much to try," he said. "I'd like to do it with you."
A laugh came from somewhere deep in her throat. So deep, she could not say where it came from. All thoughts of dragons and letters fled her like men from a wolf. And, though she had not cried in ages, her laugh might have been somewhere close.
She was dignified enough to keep herself from toppling him over as she embraced him. Courtly enough not to bite as she kissed. Respectful enough to keep silent that night, or close enough as to make no matter, so that his sisters in the rooms beside them would not hear.
She said yes. A thousand times, she said "Yes", but that was only in her mind. Her lips only moved once, but it was enough. It was all he needed.
And as they laughed and as they cried, across the room on a desk that sat forgotten lay the letter that would change her world, if she only dared to use it. As the thoughts of Targaryens born, of bloodlines rekindled, of a life lived in peace and pleasure overtook her, the letter sat and stewed, as it had for two nights and two days.
Your Grace, it read. We have proof. Left-Hand lied. The horn was no horn. An egg. Yours, in thanks. You need only ask. –Queen Yara of House Greyjoy, the Kraken's Daughter.
She would send an answer come the morn. She would. She had to. She could take the egg, and then she could decide. She could. She could. She could.
An egg.
A mother.
A future.
You need only ask.
She looked to the door, tall and dark and foreboding. Carved of some old wood that had burned in the fires, but still held strong enough that they hadn't bothered replacing it when the lumber stocks were so low. She stared long. She stared unblinking.
Someplace along the way, she couldn't help but think that, just for a moment – a single fleeting moment that passed with the wind – the door was tall and firm and red.
And, for the first time in years, she found that she didn't remind herself not to look back. She didn't need to fear being lost. The way forward was enticing on its own. And that was all that mattered.
A/N: My last Dany POV. That hits hard. This realization comes in synchronicity with the realization that there are only four chapters planned after this one… oh god.
So I've gotten a lot of criticism that Dany doesn't get anything in Prince. To all those who believed that, let this be my humble response. Two words: Dragon. Egg. Dany has the opportunity to bring life to another dragon, if she chooses to take it. "Chooses" being the operative phrase, of course. Had to stick in some emotional turmoil. In addition, we've got a marriage chapter coming up. And speaking of…
Anyway, next chapter will be our last foray into Sansa's mind. I think it's about time we close this rift between her and Dany. They're to be kin, after all. It's about damn time.
Editor's Note: And speaking of my earlier realization, I'd like to add a quick editor's note to this. I refused to promised something in the end notes of the first chapter on AO3. I was very consistent on that lack of a promise. I can now make that promise.
I finished.
