THE GHOST OF WINTERFELL

Daenerys IV

Drogon hit the earth with enough force that his mother was nearly thrown from her perch between his shoulders. Fresh snowfall exploded around them under the force of his wings, blinding them both as he skidded to a halt on the frozen ground. Righting herself shakily, Daenerys ran a hand over her child's scales in an attempt to sooth him. On the other side of the clearing, Rhaegal and Viserion slammed into the snowdrifts with just as little grace as their brother and shrieked their distress for all to hear. The Queen herself was faring little better as she slid from her mount and dropped to her hands and knees in the rapidly melting snow at Drogon's feet.

Her head was screaming. It was better now than it had been two — perhaps three — days past, but that was hardly saying much. Everything was a muddled mass of cold and wet and pulling, pulsing, pain that had plagued her from the time her children dipped below the clouds above Dragonstone.

There had been screaming in her head then, too. Remembered screams of her enemies burning and boiling in their metal suits, alight with her fury. Echoes of death throes and roaring flames which brought warmth and wetness to her thighs along with a longing series of twitches and spasms which no man but Drogo had ever brought forth… Dragonstone had glittered below them, brushed with a light dusting of fresh-fallen snow. She had imagined that the days of Aegon the Conqueror must have looked something like this, with dragons soaring free in the winds above the rocky shores, and had just lost herself in the whispered stories shared between siblings tucked away in a hidden home when the screaming came.

She had felt it before she heard it. A searing pull in the depths of her very bones that had her curling in on herself so suddenly that only the ropes strapping her to Drogon's back saved her from plummeting to her death in the sea below. Her children had felt it too, and their panic threatened to drown her in the ocean's stead as their wings spasmed and shook against the pull. The sound came next. Screaming. Not screams of pain or death or war or bloodlust. Neither women's screams, nor men's. Hardly human at all, and yet so very much so. Sorrow and torment given voice, wailing forth from the sea. The dragons had screamed along with it, fighting the air itself as they winged their way back above the clouds. Even as the screaming had faded into the distance, Daenerys had been unable to do anything but sob into Drogon's scales for hours as her children keened the same unexplainable grief unto the sky.

Now, on all fours in the rapidly expanding slush, Daenerys felt the pull release her at last as she gulped greedily at the frigid air. The dragons' distress seeped out of her mind and they, too, seemed to find solace in the North's chill. Closing her eyes, the young Queen rocked back on her haunches and settled into the crook in her son's massive wing as she revelled in the lightness in her bones.

Time passed. How much, she wasn't sure, but she gave in to the desire to remain close to her children and dozed awhile. Rhaegal and Viserion curled around them, their body heat and the shelter of Drogon's wing keeping her comfortable despite her wet clothes and the melted snow soaking through to chill her ass. She could have stayed like this forever, and may have done just that had she not been interrupted.

"Your Grace!?"

Tyrion Lannister's voice pulled her from her newfound calm and, with a sigh, Daenerys Stormborn stepped back to allow Queen Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, to come forward as she emerged from her children's embrace. "Lord Tyrion," she greeted, pointedly ignoring the worry in his tone, "I trust the march is going well?"

Her Hand was working his way across the clearing, fighting through snow deep enough to swallow him whole. In fact, Daenerys could see nothing of the dwarf save for the hood of his heavy fur cloak as it bobbed above the drifts. The sight only served to make her feel colder. He'd come alone which, considering his struggles, seemed near enough to ominous to put her on edge.

"The march is going slowly, Your Grace. Very slowly." Lord Tyrion all but tumbled out of the piled snow into the melted slush caused by her children's presence (and perhaps she had done more than dozed after all, if the size of the puddle was any indication.) "Fortunately for us, as we'd have left you behind had we been able to maintain any kind of pace. We saw the dragons land this morning!"

Daenerys frowned and glanced around at the shadows cast by the winter sun. The east-falling shadows. Midafternoon, then, perhaps later. "The journey was trying," she offered in lieu of an apology.

"Of course, Your Grace," Lord Tyrion agreed, drawing to a stop at the outskirts of the dragons' reach as he looked to them for permission to approach.

The Mother of Dragons felt fondness soften her posture. "It was not my intention to cause undue worry." She stepped fully out from Drogon's shadow, but didn't bother to inform her Hand of his permission to approach. Rhaegal and Viserion had already made that abundantly clear as they chuffed happily and lowered their heads in greeting. "You know more than most about dragons — "

"No more than your family, Your Grace, I assure you," Tyrion dismissed her statement quickly.

His Queen gave him a shrewd look, but chose not to push the matter and pursued her original line of questioning instead. "Tell me, in your learning, have you come across tales of screaming? A pulling kind of screaming…?"

"Screaming?" Lord Tyrion had reached her now and held out an armful of cloth and furs she hadn't noticed before, "Something dry for you, Your Grace, you must be frozen through and through."

Daenerys took the offered bundle in surprise. "Thank you," she said honestly, ducking back behind Drogon's bulk in her eagerness to shed her wet clothes. Back under the shelter of her son's wing, she wasted no time setting her frozen fingers to work tugging loose the cords binding her dress.

"Tell me more about the screaming?" Lord Tyrion suggested from the opposite side of Drogon.

The bells in her sodden braids jingled as she pulled the once deep red — now more of a sickly grey — folds of fabric over her head and tossed them aside. There would be no saving that dress. The scent of sulphur and burned men had soaked into it, along with the moisture of sleet and cloud alike. "We were in flight over Dragonstone upon our return," she explained as her wet hose landed alongside the discarded dress, followed by her smallclothes, "When we felt the screaming."

"We?"

"My children and I. We all felt it pulling at our bones, tearing at our minds… I've not felt anything like it before." The clothing Lord Tyrion had brought for her were very clearly designed for warmth above all else. The breeches and dress were bulky and lined with thick fur, as were the leather boots, and even the slip and fresh hose were knit of heavy wool. She found herself grateful for her Hand's forethought as she dressed quickly.

The youngest of the Lannisters was quiet for a moment, speaking again only when his Queen stepped out to face him fully dressed once more. "Did you see anything at Dragonstone?" he asked, his mangled face pinched with thought, "Or around it perhaps?"

"A few ships on the Blackwater, but nothing of consequence."

"And do you feel it still, that pull?"

Her children shifted behind her and she walked with Lord Tyrion to the edge of the clearing, giving them room to return to the sky should they so desire. "Not since we came to ground," she replied, watching Drogon spread his wings and take flight with Viserion joining him a moment later.

Lord Tyrion made a thoughtful noise, and Daenerys found she couldn't quite interpret the expression playing on his features. "We should rejoin others, Your Grace," he said at last.

"Yes," the Queen agreed, tearing her gaze away from Rhaegal who was smacking nearby trees with his tail and snapping at the snowdrifts that tumbled from their branches, "Shall we?" Turning toward the expanse of snow and trees beyond the clearing, Daenerys set about following the shuffling trail created by her Hand's approach.

"Wait," Lord Tyrion hadn't moved from where she'd left him, still watching the dragon's antics, and though his back was to her now she was sure the same strange expression was on his face, "What of Jaime?"

Daenerys shifted slightly as her cunt quickened at the reminder of Highgarden. "I don't know." That much was the truth, at least. For Tyrion's sake, and his sake alone, she'd looked for Jaime Lannister on the battlefield. She had intended to report his fate back to his brother with certainty, nothing more, but when she had caught sight of that golden fucker astride that smoke-grey mount… Well… She hadn't seen him burn, the vigour with which Drogon had responded to her fury had blanketed the fields around Highgarden with soot and flame so fierce that vision was rendered impossible for a time and when it finally cleared... She forced a settling breath and smoothed her borrowed clothes purposefully. "A few men may have escaped into the trees, but most… didn't." She watched her Hand's small frame quiver ever so slightly, whether due to the wind or the cold or grief or anger she couldn't know. What she did know, however, was that she had adhered to his wishes more than not. "It was quick."

Lord Tyrion nodded, his fur-lined hood bouncing in the wind. "Thank you." He moved then, ducking his head and brushing past her to lead the way back to the march.

The Queen followed behind him a few paces, wondering all the while if, in another life, she could ever have thanked the Usurper for giving her brother a quick death. Somehow, she didn't think she could have.

It became clear fairly quickly into the trek that Lord Tyrion had backtracked to meet her as her forces marched on northward. She had not landed far from the beaten trail and they soon found themselves trudging along a path cleared by boot and hoofprints alike. Her Hand kept up a steady stream of information in a flat, deadened tone as they walked, as though he dreaded where silence would take his thoughts. He updated her on minor conflicts between her allies, the struggles of the Dothraki horses and how many had already succumbed to the cold, the amount of soldiers (Dothraki, Unsullied and even a few Westerosi) who had fallen along with them, the time added to the march by the need to harvest and transport firewood to keep more men and horses from freezing in their beds, the number of fingers and toes and nose tips and hooves lost to the frost, the rash of lung corruption threatening to take more lives… There was, at best, two weeks of marching still facing them before they reached Winterfell. Tyrion may dread the silence, but Daenerys found herself dreading his news more and more with each word.

When he cut off abruptly midway through a report on the number of horses that had pulled up lame and consequently been butchered to sustain their food stores just the night before, she was relieved.

When she nearly trod on his still form ahead of her, that relief abandoned her as quickly as it had come.

There was a wolf standing calmly before them. At least, Daenerys assumed it was a wolf; she'd never actually seen one outside of the crude drawings in the books Ser Williem had read to them behind the safety of their red door. But this, this was hardly the lifeless scribbles of her childhood…

"Don't move," Lord Tyrion breathed.

The creature was as much of the North as the dragons were of fire. White as the snow it called home, its massive frame towered over her Hand, more similar in size to the lighter Dothraki horses than to any dog she'd ever seen. The only colour about the creature, blood-red eyes, met her own at equal height and glinted with intensity and, perhaps, curiosity. Taking Lord Tyrion's advice to heart, she stood as still as the frozen landscape around her with her arms at her sides, palms turned upward and her unsteady breathing made obvious by the erratic puffs of mist plumbing before her as the creature approached them. While her children revealed in the sound and heat and splendour of their power, the wolf was utterly silent, his movements light and fluid such that if she were not looking directly at him Daenerys wasn't sure she would know he was there.

Even as he gave Lord Tyrion a cursory sniff, his eyes remained fixed on the Queen and it took all of her willpower not to drop his gaze. Stepping around the dwarf, the creature crossed the distance between them in a single, silent, bound and circled her slowly and with purpose. There was not a sound to be heard and were it not for the pounding of her own heart in her ears, Daenerys may well have thought herself deaf. The silence pressed in on her from all sides as the wolf continued its assessment of her, its tail stiff and its steps sure.

Finally, having finished its investigation, the wolf melted back into the gently falling snow as silently as it had appeared.

Exhaling shakily, the Queen exchanged a look of relief with her Hand, who was shaking his head with his eyes still blown wide.

"A direwolf," he explained without prompting, keeping his voice soft even as they started forward again, "And unless I'm very much mistaken, a direwolf with a name. Ghost. He's Jon Snow's beast, I met him years ago when he was still but the size of a dog…"

Ghost... Just what kind of man was this King in the North?

Instinctively, she reached out for the familiar warmth of Drogon's mind, but found only cold.

The first settlements came as a surprise. Their scouts had reported nothing but 'hills of snow as far as the eye could see' and they quickly realized why. The settlement was just that, mounds of snow as far as the eye could see. The buildings were snow. The roadways were packed snow frozen solid and regularly shoveled clear. The paddocks featured walls of packed snow which curved at the top to provide ample shelter for the creatures within. Sheep, buried beneath a mass of wool and fleece and almost unrecognizable compared to the hair-sheep favoured by the Lhazareen or the tightly fleeced varieties found among the Free Cities, bleated balefully as they approached while wolly aurochs and goats searched their icy homes for scraps of feed. The stables, too, were constructed of snow and ice and housed large, thick-bodied horses with coats nearly as full and shaggy as the goats and sheep around them. Daenerys caught the Dothraki eyeing the beasts with distaste and muttering among themselves as they walked.

"Ser Davos was not exaggerating, it seems," Varys observed, "Winterfell does, indeed, seem to be housing the North as a whole."

"Not just the North," Lord Tyrion corrected, his head poking out the carriage window in his attempt to study their surroundings, "The Vale as well. See there, the sigil of House Grafton , and over there is House Royce and House Coldwater and House Tollet, I believe…"

"House Royce is said to have joined Jon Snow and Sansa Stark in the retaking of Winterfell," Varys mused.

"Littlefinger's doing, no doubt," her Hand replied, "It was he who got Lady Sansa out of King's Landing after Joffrey's murder, was it not?"

"Quite so. Hardly an act of mercy, I assure you."

The Queen watched the conversation unfold around her, studying the easy back and forth between her advisors. It was rare that her Hand and the eunuch discussed matters of any kind in her presence and she found their comfort with each other off-putting. She wondered what it would be like to know another person in that way, to trust them implicitly if not always objectively, to give and take with another person without status tempering their words. She wondered if she'd come close to that with Drogo, toward the end, or perhaps Ser Jorah…

"No doubt. Do you think he means to fuck her?"

"Certainly more than you did," Varys sighed, "But make no mistake, he would climb upon her bleeding corpse to ascend the throne, just as he would anyone else."

Daenerys fought the urge to scowl. The two-week long march to Winterfell had yielded its share of revelations about her allies. From the full story of Theon Greyjoy's betrayal and attempted conquest of the North, to the fact that Olenna Tyrell had once intended to marry the King in the North's sister, Lady Sansa Stark, to her own grandson, to the exceedingly unfortunate fact that her Lord Hand had actually married that same girl… The warlocks' prophecy, it seemed, gained likelihood every day.

Three treasons will you know… Once for blood and once for gold and once for love…

Mirri Maz Duur was blood, of that she had long been certain, while her dear bear knight had betrayed her from the off all for the promise of the Usurper's golden words, but love… She eyed the man, and the not-man, sitting across from her and frowned. Love suited neither of them.

They passed through the snow town without incident, and soon the Queen vacated the relative shelter of the carriage in favour of leading the march on horseback. The roadways were free of people and the houses had their doors firmly shut against the chill, the tendrils of smoke rising from every mound of snow and the animals in their paddocks were all that betrayed the fact that they were not alone. It was only once they were within the massive stone walls which separated Winterfell from the frozen expanses around it that Daenerys got her first look at the Northern people.

If they were as cold as her own forces, they did not show it. There was no hunch to their shoulders, no chins tucked as best they could manage beneath the collars of their cloaks, no stumbles brought on by frozen feet or blackened toes… The folks who eyed their procession warily reminded her almost painfully of Ser Jorah. They were rugged, as thick-bodied as their mounts, and boosted solemn faces featuring dark features and hair and light skin flushed from the cold.

Past the inner walls which separated Winterfell's main Keep from the rest of the castle the onlookers lost all subtlety as they crowded the courtyard, murmuring and pointing amongst themselves, but it was the figures in the centre of the courtyard which drew the Queen's attention.

The wolf was there, seated calmly in the snow, but Daenerys ignored it in favour of studying the people on either side. Lady Sansa Stark was beautiful. Dark red hair, half tied back with a simple braid, blue eyes and high cheekbones framed a face many a woman would kill for. She was clothed simply in an inky grey dress adorned with light grey wolves stitched across the chest and modest jewels which did nothing to take away from her appearance. While Daenerys' Valyrian face and thin frame often had her mistaken for younger than her years, the Lady of Winterfell had no such trouble. She was tall and womanly and elegant in a way that the Mother of Dragon's ethereal appearance couldn't manage.

Next to her, the self-proclaimed King in the North was easily overlooked. Perhaps it was the Northern way but, like his sister, Jon Snow looked older than his years. He certainly had the look of a Northerner, with the same dark colouring she had observed in his people during the march in. He wore no crown and only the quality of his clothing and his thick fur-lined cloak hinted at his status. Where he differed from the other Northmen around him was in stature. He was small for a man and leaner, for the most part, than those he commanded. Still, he was handsome enough, Daenerys noted. While not as striking in appearance as his sister, there was a prettiness to his features that was obvious even from a distance.

As she drew her mount to a halt before them, Jon Snow looked up at her calmly.

"Your Grace," he greeted, "Welcome to Winterfell."