Jon
The snow did not stop. Not when he carried the queen down the steps into the streets of King's Landing, nor when they reached the docks to board a ship back to Dragonstone. He heard the lords and ladies of the south make noises at his back but he had no more patience for them than Drogon had, soaring into the western horizon. They'll figure it out. Dense as they are, the path has all but been laid out for them. Go north. Hopefully they'll board their ships as well and not go plodding through the Neck. A rather obliging merchant and his family made his home near the waterfront available for the pair of them while they waited for the queen's fleet to become ordered. Close as they were to the bay the cold winds were if anything sharper and more frenetic, drawing shivers aplenty from Daenerys. Jon promptly raided a trunk and two closets, finding a thick blanket he could wrap her in.
"Thank you…" she murmured from her woolen sanctuary, peering out with those perpetually heartbroken eyes. One of the servants took it upon themselves to provide a small tray of food, mostly salted fish and what Jon suspected was the last bit of cheese. "Won't they go hungry?' Dany muttered, though it was clear she was famished and eyed the simple fare as Tormund had the feast at White Harbor.
"I wouldn't think so. If the catch is in at Dragonstone surely it is in Blackwater Bay as well, besides the good people who live here may well end up accompanying one fleet or another rather than stay behind. Eat, sweetling. It'll do no good for you to topple over faint from hunger."
"I'll topple as I please, Jon Snow." She said, the ghost of her old haughtiness creeping into her voice.
"Then by all means, don't touch a bit. In fact, better you didn't." he smiled.
"Hmph!" she replied. At once she was on it like a starving she-wolf, simply to contradict him with her actions if not her words. Good, he thought, relieved. He had no doubt that once her head hit pillow she would sleep like the dead, so Jon supposed the more she ate before then the better. After she had licked her fingers clean, silence fell again until her voice sounded, high-pitched and grieving.
"Do you think he will do well in the wild?"
"Tyrion? He could bore a deer to death with talking, then cook the meat thus besides." Jon said offhandedly as he built a fire as best he could. These southrons have quite a lesson coming. A fire in a hearth this size won't warm the tip of a nose, even one as sweet as Dany's.
"You know bloody well who I mean." came the queen's reply. Her short words and heated tone only made him smile wider.
"Did he not flourish on the Dothraki Sea?"
"Ser Jorah and I spotted him flitting about some ruins on the outskirts of Valyria. Drogon is the least of our worries thus far." Tyrion Lannister's voice slurred worse than ever Jon had heard it and when he turned to face the dwarf in the stairwell Jon could see his face was red from drink as well as cold. "Varys is dead." He said glumly.
After he finished vomiting off the balcony, Tyrion took the rag Jon offered him.
"We got separated beneath the Red Keep. It fell to us to drain the wildfire out, pus from a boil if you like, but there were tunnels upon tunnels down there. We couldn't accomplish our goal without splitting up. By the time I had made much progress the water was up to my thighs. At least I could piss myself without the Lady Talisa noticing- or maybe she would have right away, I don't know." He shrugged, wavering perilously close to balcony's edge until Jon picked him up and sat him on a barrel stolidly on the other side of the room. "The rains fell harder than Maegor's masons ever accounted for, though. In short order I found myself running from a wall of water as fast as my dwarf's legs could carry me. When I reached the surface, I waited for him to likewise appear but Lady Catelyn alone pooled up from the stones. As Varys to my knowledge quite lacks such showmanship, his fate was easily enough surmised." Tyrion said, swaying on his barrel. Even in grief, wordier than the worst maester. Jon had not known the bald man well but his travelling with the queen showed him what a friend Varys the Spider had been to Tyrion Lannister. He was in Essos with him. Likely I'd want to get just as drunk.
"We are sorry for your loss, my lord." Dany said measuredly, her own troubles quite forgotten. "You may of course wait with us for the ships to arrive. Some days on Dragonstone to make sure everything is aright, and then forward on to White Harbor." The mere mention of the northern port made Jon's heart skip a beat. Not just White Harbor. The North. Home.
"I suppose I'll be expected to keep sober."
"Only when we land. There will be no call to maintain good form on Dragonstone nor aboard a ship full of sailors." Dany replied, while Jon tried his hardest not to snort aloud with laughter. Tyrion blinked.
"I wonder, will there be charred gristle available as well?" he asked, the ghost of a chortle escaping his lips. Evidently gristle wasn't very appetizing because immediately after his jape the dwarf heaved forward, and Dany gracefully pulled his head down to empty into a bucket. She acts a queen and looks a goddess yet has no qualms about getting elbow-deep in muck. Jon had heard stories of eating a stallion's heart, of gnawing on the bones of Drogon's kills. Absurdly, he wondered just how dragon-cooked meat might taste. I'm surprised Tormund hasn't asked already. In time the little man's stomach emptied and he slid off the barrel, muttering to himself. "Alright, let's get along now…" he said, slapping himself before he scooped a handful of snow off a windowsill and held it to his forehead. At once his eyes bulged and he collapsed backward, thrashing about. Jon had just enough time to spot Lady Catelyn arrive next. She took the two of them in, stared at Tyrion while he reeled, and promptly withdrew back down the stairs without a word. Lovely. This is sure to be a long voyage.
In time Tyrion simply began snoring where he lay, and Jon spotted Dany hide a yawn behind her dainty hand.
"That may fool a blind man but not a seasoned ranger, Dany."
"Hmph!" came the prompt rebuke, accompanied by a childish stomping of her foot. Jon's snigger made her cheeks go pink, but he knew when she was being mischievous simply to stoke him.
"Is there nothing we can do to make the queen come along and be good?"
"Perhaps." She said airily. "It's entirely too cold for me to sleep out from under the warm comfort of a dragon's wing."
"That may be, but the dragons have gone who knows where, their wings included."
"I'll settle for a crow's." It was Jon's turn to go pink in the cheeks.
"You've run out of excuses, Jon Snow. I have no reason to appear stately for my lords, they aren't my lords any longer. They never were."
"Only after a bath. You may look glorious, but you smell of smoke, sweat and forge-stink."
"You no less. A bath it is, for each of us." Jon's pink cheeks went red and she blew a wisp of hair out of her face. "To assuage your honor, we'll have a screen between us. A screen, and nothing more." With that she led him down the hall to where a single copper tub stood. Bugger.
"Oh, bother. It appears we'll have no screen after all, Jon Snow." Dany chirped, giggling. Bleed this quivering like a maiden at her bedding. She's a girl, not a snarling shadowcat.
"A screen will do nothing to keep the water warm, anyway. Us, either." Jon said, pulling off his heavy coat much to Daenerys' evident amazement. She thinks she can tease me like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. He called for water to be brought.
"Shouldn't we boil it, so it comes hot?" Daenerys asked, eyes torn between the door and Jon tossing his shirt in the corner. Predictably her breath hitched at the sight of his scars. Dark scarlet as ever. He suspected they would stay thus, never fading.
"As you please. By then I'll be done anyway." Jon said, shrugging as he disrobed. He ignored the maidservants as they arrived with the water, filling the tub and making themselves scarce. Without a word he sank into the tub, bringing the cold water to his face. A little taste of home. Cold may make a Lannister lock up but it is no more than a mother's kiss to a Stark. Even one born on the wrong side of the blanket. When he looked up to tease Daenerys again, he found her wearing only moonlight, her endless silver locks bound up by snowflakes. Let southerners and Essosi both make their noises about perfumes and foolish silks.
"There's precious little room as is with a wolf in my bath." She said, playing cross. "Won't somebody think of me?" Jon held out a hand to her, making her cross her arms in such a way that he quite appreciated, accompanied by a predictable "Hmph!"
"If you stand there much longer, Dany, you'll find yourself having a bath whether you like it or no." Jon said idly. Her eyes went wide.
"You're not half so bold, Jon Snow."
"As I recall, I climbed a wall of razor rock, stole a Targaryen out form under her mount and even managed to steal a kiss or two for my trouble. Bastard I may be but I'm nothing if not bold." He said genially, flicking some water across her thigh, making her gasp.
"Making a knight's daughter shiver in the cold!" she admonished.
"Come in then, and warm as well as you can manage."
"Hmph! I will, despite your base ways!" she declared, slipping in across from him. "Comfortable?"
"You know full well the water is entirely too cold for my tastes. The company as well." She huffed, looking off to the side haughtily.
"Wait until you meet an Other." Jon said, his merry mood cooling at the thought.
Daenerys became quiet, looking at her knees.
"Jon, about the…the Others. There's a cave on Dragonstone, it has all sorts of funny pictures drawn on its walls. When we land there, I must show you." Any thought of further pillow games vanished from Jon's mind.
"Tell me about it."
"I would, but surely the pictures of the First Men will prove more helpful to their living son than a girl's interpretation of them." She does not feel she will be received well in the North.
"The First Men live still, Dany. In the same caves, mountains, moors and forests as they did when that cave was still bare. The giants as well, astride their mammoths as they were since the beginning." Her lip quivered. Ass. That's not what she wants to hear.
"I thought the Ghiscari a hard circle to break into. The same people, the same families, doing the same thing the same way since anyone can remember…but Grazdan the Great's oldest ancestor lived thousands of years after the last survivor of the Long Night died. I can't think a foreign girl unused to cold would make a fit match for the White Wolf in their eyes." He took her into his lap.
"No more of that. You're bringing armies, navies, not to mention all the barrels of wine Cersei Lannister squirreled away. Northmen have no quarrel with anyone seeking to ply them with drink, less still with someone seeking to get an army of spearwives out of their beards." At her puzzled expression Jon smiled. "The Dothraki might need time to acclimate to cold but a wild lass would pick one over a lord's son any day. Wild in their own way, the Free Folk of Essos. Even if the northmen don't take to you, the wildlings will. Name or no, claim or no, throne or no."
"All that may be, but there is one I must please above all others." For the life of him, Jon could not think of someone in whom he set such store. Sansa? It was her idea to pair us in the first place. Evidently his confusion showed because her fist came down against his chest.
"Was there ever so witless a king as you? It's clear to me that Nymeria is more than Princess Arya's pet, more than a prized hunting hound. The wolf is part of the princess as much as the princess is part of the wolf. You yourself told me you are a warg, to such a creature as can throw you bodily out of himself when he so chooses." Her meaning hit home.
"Well, Drogon is none too fond of me-"
"It's not the same, Jon. You of all people know. Drogon and I do not have the same bond, we are not part of one another. Mother and child, not warg and beast…" She's worried about Ghost. That he won't approve. That the wild part of me won't approve. Certainly, the direwolf was none too fond of Ygritte, no more than he'd been of Val in more recent years. She-wolves followed him in packs of their own beyond the Wall, but he would have no more of them than Nymeria would of the timber wolves in the riverlands. Direwolves will lead their lesser cousins without reservation but under no circumstances will they mate with them. Who could look on Daenerys and say she was not his equal, though? Who was mad enough to pooh-pooh the Mother of Dragons?
"Put it this way. If Ghost doesn't approve of you, he won't approve of anyone." Jon said, affecting his best glum brooding face. Dany broke into a fit of giggles so strong and clear he saw tears fall. "We should finish up here and get some sleep. You can't oversee preparations on Dragonstone from your bedchamber."
"Can't I? I'll sleep as oft and long as I wish, Jon Snow, and nobody will tell me no." She lay her head on his shoulder and promptly proved her threat had teeth. Jon gave her a playful jostle, astounded when she seemed to truly have fallen asleep. Well, she's had quite the day. Just how will I get her dry and abed without waking her?
The bed was comfortable, Jon supposed as morning light intruded on the pair of them, but the silk-robed queen in his arms did what not the heaviest blanket nor the softest bedding ever could.
"Dany. It's dawn, we'd best be off." He whispered in her ear.
"Hmph…" came the sleepy murmur.
"Suppose we go, and you find the hot springs beneath Winterfell. Endless hot baths without the need for maidservants to see to you."
"Hmmm?" she mumbled in mild interest.
"Come, you've slept more than enough."
"Hmph!" she hogged the blankets, hugging them to her chest.
"Must I carry you to the docks, you in your nightgown and me in nothing at all?"
"Mmhmm." She answered. Jon could see half her lovely mouth smiling from the sea of blankets.
"Well, I feel uncomfortably warm. I think I'll open a window and let the morning chill in." At once her nose was not an inch from his.
"You'll not let the least bit of heat escape, Jon Snow."
"Will you not get up?"
"I am sleeping. They can wait on my pleasure." She said, her head sinking back into her pillow indolently, insolently. Jon shrugged, standing despite her murmured protests. He stepped to the window, tongue between his teeth as he got hold of her blankets. With a single movement he threw the windows open and yanked the blanket off the beauty in the bed. Daenerys gave a dismayed shriek, thrashing about in a flurry of silk and silver hair while Jon laughed. If not the carrot… Eventually her squirming won her the blankets back and they were pulled up to her nose instantly, a pair of wide purple eyes eyeing him reproachfully. Then they shrunk into suspicious slits. Jon stuck his tongue out at her and began dressing out of the merchant's closet, thankful for once that he wasn't an especially tall man. Downstairs he found the other members of the northern party had quite evicted the southern lords, Tormund snoring in a chair while Ned Umber dozed on a bench. Wyn was likely elsewhere, perhaps with her Dothraki friend, while Sigorn gently rocked Alys Karstark near a hearth of their own. The girl wasn't especially tall, nor robust, yet she had by far the biggest belly Jon had ever seen.
"How does this morning find you, Lady Karstark?" he asked, liking little the sounds of her short difficult breaths.
"Round as a tick full of mammoth blood, with feet swollen enough to leave prints to pass for a mammoth's as well." she replied, cheerful despite her frequent winces and hissing breaths. Her making light of such discomfort did little to assuage Jon's concern.
"There is no need to be hasty-"
"Hang that. The North needs its king, and I don't need my bottom wiped every time the babe gives me a kick. I have this bald nursemaid babying me already." Fearless, even in the face of childbirth.
"It's not your spirit I doubt, my lady. Any fool knows taking a woman nearing her time on a ship is rank madness."
"Madder still to give the Others ever more time to mess about." she said firmly.
"There's no sense arguing with her, Jon Snow. She may be kin of yours but surely the Karstarks were chipped from granite, so stubborn are they." Sigorn added, shrugging helplessly.
"I'm the only Karstark left!" Alys remarked.
"Aye, and you've a harder head than any ram who's ever lived." He gently rapped her on the temple. She bit his hand in reply, making him chuckle. "See, Snow? You'd do better to argue with a wooden post. At least it might come around." Jon left them to their lovers' spat, gently shaking Little Ned Umber awake.
"Guh." he groaned. "Is it time to go, then?"
"Nearly, my lord. I'd shake off sleep sooner rather than later, you don't want to be drowsy on the deck of a ship. Much less in bad weather." He gulped, nodded, and got about getting up. Maybe Ghost will meet me at White Harbor, Jon thought. How I miss him. Dany of anyone would understand, her doubts aside.
A few deftly tossed snowballs later and the queen was on her feet, fuming and red-faced.
"There, now you're up." Jon remarked mildly.
"Hmph!" She began wander the room for her clothes.
"Never mind. Anything worn near a dragon when it breathes fire is ruined, you'll have to pick from the closet." he told her.
"I don't want to leave the poor woman with nothing to wear for the voyage. Help me pick." Dany said, poking about in the closet.
"Oh, gods, can I not manage to get you out of this room?!" Jon cried, making Daenerys giggle. "Not until you help me dress."
"Fine!" he strode over and grabbed the first thing he saw, tossing it over her head and making her squeak.
"Dark green doesn't look good on me…" she muttered doubtfully, muffled by the dress.
"It may bring out the Hasty in your eyes."
"You're just saying that because this was the first dress you could reach!"
"So? I'm going to go make sure the others are up and ready to go. If Alys Karstark can resist the urge to be a slugabed, so can you."
"Hmph!"
"If you're not downstairs in five minutes, I'm coming back up here with more snowballs." At that Dany sulkily began to dress. If slowly, just to tease me. He left to remove that particular obstacle. Downstairs the others were seeing Alys onto a horse, Sigorn leading the animal by the hand and soft utterances in the Old Tongue. The words may be strange to a southern horse, but his meaning is easy enough to glean. At long last Jon managed to get them all aboard, even Dany in her pouty playful sulk. Tormund shot him a knowing grin, but Jon only shook his head. Venturing into the cabin he was surprised by the sight of Wynafryd Manderly idly stretching. Dressed for a voyage and a cold one at that. Malakko swayed nervously in a hammock on the other side of the room, mumbling nervously in Dothraki.
"When a man sleeps, he should not sway like grass in the wind." he murmured.
"Up you get, they're finally here." Wyn turned to Jon. "What kept you, Your Grace? We've been waiting since yesterday evening." She sounded almost apologetic.
"I thought a last night ashore where hearths were plentiful would do us good. Had I known you were here, my lady, I would have of course sent for you. You must be freezing." She blushed.
"It's not so bad if the door stays shut all night." Ah. Jon turned to Malakko, delicately extracting himself from the hammock.
"Like when I got out of the little boat with the red flea and the madman with the yellow braids on his shirt." He dizzily made his way over. Yellow braids? He was with Theon, unless I have them jumbled.
"Those weren't braids, they were arms-" Jon began before he saw Wyn shoot him a warning look, one he doubted the willowy Manderly girl capable of until then.
"Arms? What can have so many arms?" Malakko asked, confused.
"Nothing. Dothraki fear the sea, so it stands to reason you haven't heard that sometimes loops of hair, rope, even chain are sometimes called 'arms' when used in a business or shipping sense. My father's merchant captains talk about them often." None of that made the least bit of sense to Jon, but he didn't feel the need to press the issue. Only when he realized that the horselords would likely react poorly to talk of krakens did he understand.
"You'll tell him the rest about arms when we get to White Harbor, then?" he asked, as if she'd left something trivial unsaid.
"If only to ensure he comes along." Wyn replied, giving Malakko a fond look while he stared at her, mystified.
The snow was joined by wind that bit ever deeper as they made their way east. Tormund was all smiles of course, elated at the feeling of "a sharp slap across the face" as he called it, but Jon could see the mounting concern on the faces of those unfamiliar with cold, from the Essosi sailors to Daenerys herself. He looped an arm around her waist and was surprised when she turned toward him, laying her head on his shoulder for all to see.
"We'll have you a coat proper made when we reach Winterfell. The Free Folk may have brought some moosehide."
"In Essos I wore a hrakkar pelt, a big white lion. Drogo hunted one on the Dothraki Sea and gifted its hide to me. Tyrion opined it might have sent a rather savage message to the lords of Westeros when it came time to woo them."
"Shows what I know." The dwarf said from Jon's elbow.
"How long have you been there?" Jon asked.
"I could have come up banging pots and you'd not have looked away from Her Grace, Jon Snow." Tyrion replied, making those nearby laugh. Trying to stop the color from rising in his cheeks, Jon looked out behind the ship to make sure the ones following were still there.
"There's not enough room for everyone on Dragonstone and the fleet is far too large to much coordinate who leaves when. We've yet to hear form Dorne or the Iron Islands, either."
"Or the westerlands." Dany murmured from her burrow in Jon's shoulder.
"I've sent ravens to every castle I can think of, some two or three times over. The message will have reached somebody, it's just a matter of who ends up landing my countrymen on the Rills." A sudden gust cut across the deck and Tyrion Lannister shrunk into his little fur cape. "Seven bloody fucking hells…"
"We've still got Massey's Hook protecting us from the worst of it. Wait until we're sailing up the Narrow Sea proper." Jon said grimly.
"It wasn't so bad when I was up north last time."
"Last time it was summer, we weren't out on the open water and the Others were that many more years away from whatever it is they're about to do."
"I hate them already." Tyrion grumbled. The cold winds gave no quarter, spurring all manner of swearing from the ship's crew. As it was a hodgepodge of every tongue in the east Jon had not a prayer of understanding it, but he caught Dany giggling or turning pink once or twice. As the light began to fade, Dany took the captain's report.
"We're less than halfway, if only just. Such weather cannot be a just god's work." he said, looking dismayed.
"As long as we get there. No need to crack a mast or split a sail getting to Dragonstone a few hours sooner." she told him, looking content if cold in Jon's arms.
It took Jon looking through a seagull's eyes to get a first glimpse of Dragonstone, little more than a lump of rock looming out of the chilly fog. Of course, no telling how much closer the gull is than we are, Jon thought gloomily. As he feared, it was another day before they made landfall, the fog around the island a chilly overcoat that weighed on every pair of shoulders. He heard the Dothraki muttering ruefully as they were allowed to disembark first, along with the horses that could fit on the lead ship.
"Now we have to go up the stairs again. This time they'll be covered in a lovely dusting of snow. Best not slip, it's a long way down." Ned Umber mumbled, what horselords who understood the Common Tongue groaning in affirmation.
"Not if we don't want to." Dany replied, smirking, her face full of mischief.
"Is there another way up?" Tormund asked.
"Oh, we're not going up to the castle at all. There's plenty of space in the mountain as well as atop it."
"What about the lords following us?" Jon was uncertain as to how they'd take to sleeping in caves.
"They can impose on the port town. The fisherfolk have gotten rich enough off the salvage, they'll not begrudge me quartering the mainlanders there." The dock was well-trod even in bad weather, Jon was pleased to see. If the catch is in there's no stopping these people wetting their lines. They remember well the famine under Stannis. All the better to appreciate the feast under Daenerys. The walk up the beach was anything but pleasant, Jon and Sigorn together working to stave the gusts off the water from discomfiting Alys. "It's very hard to spot…particularly with snow falling and everything gone white…" Dany murmured, a hand on the jutting rock at the mountain's base. By then two Dothraki had brought up the rear of Alys' little shieldwall, making her mumble ruefully about knowing how cold felt.
"Nevermind, my lady. It's best to take this slow anyhow, or we'll surely miss it." Tyrion said, likewise carefully peering into what looked like very solid rock. Ghost would spot whatever it is right away, Jon thought. No snowfall could beguile the white wolf's red eyes. "Ah, here!" he heard Tyrion call up ahead. "For once it's nice to stand ass-high." he told them when they found him half-hidden in the stones. Dany happily vanished after him while the Dothraki, much taller and broader than dwarf or queen by far, filed in awkwardly grumbling about space. Jon brought up the rear, finding to his astonishment a nearly impassible but very much present jagged path weaving into solid stone.
"It's more than coincidence, my lord." Jon said, a suspicion mounting. "This path was made for people who stand only so high."
"Ifequevron." One of the horselords muttered as they worked their way through.
"What the hell does that mean?" Jon asked.
"The Dothraki have some folk memory of a race that dwelt in a great forest to the north of the Great Grass Sea. Ornela's described them at length and they sound remarkably similar to the Children of the Forest in our own Westerosi tales for children."
"The Others are real enough and survive to this day. Mayhaps our little friends from the Dawn Age have proved so hardy." Jon was neither especially tall nor broad and still it took him a good while. They may not have wanted this place found, whoever they were.
From the light of the torch to the darkness of the cave, Jon could only blink the glare out and wait until his eyes adjusted. Ygritte showed me a cave once, he remembered. It was smaller though, much more easily reached. There were traces of animals passing. There's not a hint of anyone having been here before. Then he saw the marks on the walls. His heart skipped a beat on seeing the wolves, common or otherwise, running with red figures holding sticks. The First Men, he thought reverently. Before there were Starks or Umbers or Karstarks…before wildlings and northmen. From the noises ahead he could tell his countrymen were just as taken, regardless of the side of the Wall they'd been born on.
"Mance would have given all he had to see this…" Tormund said, sounding choked up. Jon squeezed his shoulder. "Snow, this is as men as they ought be. No walls, no roads, no crowns, no thrones." He brought a hand up but held it from the stone, seemingly afraid he'd smudge the pigment.
"No cows, no pigs, no chickens either." Little Ned Umber pointed out. Instead it seemed the First Men had hunted moose and boar. Every so often there was even a dire boar, like the one Borroq had, standing higher at the shoulder than a man stood tall. Mammoths were prominent of course but it seemed the giants kept men off them with demonstrated efficiency. Jon remembered well the battle beneath the Wall, the line of mammoths that had trampled the Bolton cavalry. At the sight of mounted giants, the Dothraki were given pause.
"Don't worry. Don't bother them or their mammoths and they're happy to do the same."
"Is not real." One of the younger horselords insisted. He pointed to one of the figures, a giant on a mammoth charging through at least two dozen armed men. "Roggo is seeing these in the Land Across the Water. They are big, but not so big, and not covered in hair. And there is no man big enough to look one in the eye."
"I heard much the same talk from the Night's Watch about the Others. As it stands the Watch likely has less than a hundred members left, not a tenth of them highborn, while the Others and their wights get closer by the hour."
"Are those unicorns?" Alys asked, curious even through her pained panting. Jon squinted in the darkness at the shape to which she pointed.
"No, my lady, those are unicorns." Smaller grey goat-horses ran in a herd off to the left, each possessed of a single horn. The great brown shape that grazed among the mammoths was built more like a bull. A bull with a mammoth's shaggy coat and two horns to a unicorn's one. "I don't know what those are. Lions stalk in these drawings as well, perhaps they're a beast that died out during the Dawn."
"This one has seen beasts of a kind as these." An Unsullied's voice. "Green Maggot remembers from patrol duty in Meereen. It was small and gray, with only a single nub for a horn. It looked very like a common foal, but men bid for it until there were threats made and blades drawn. Green Maggot had to step in to keep the queen's peace."
"Like as not the horn was what they wanted, not the animal. Man sees something he never has before, it must be magic. Oh, this will cure any disease, that will make you hard at ninety as you were at nine-and-ten…no shortage the world over of fools who will line up and pay what they must." Tyrion grumbled.
Jon was walking on air until they moved past the Dawn Races into another part of the cavern, one that circled 'round above them in a dome. The Long Night, he knew at once. Others with their countless dead and what looked like ice spiders besides.
"We saw no spiders even in the Frostfangs." Sigorn called.
"Maybe they're gone, too." Little Ned Umber guessed, face pale in the light of his torch. Jon's eyes were elsewhere, surprised at the depiction of the Others themselves. There are not so many of them, even in the darkest winter. Enough to cause great harm, no doubt, but there were fewer Others than giants or Children or men by themselves. Without their chattel it's an uphill climb. Glittering whorls of diamond dust spun and wove in the skies above the fighting, though. No doubt numbers mean little when they can bring freezing gales with a whistle, with a whisper. Red circles in the stone caught his eye next, held up by little green figures here and there. The dead crumbled on surging against them, but a single warder was quickly overcome.
"Well, Jon Snow, it would seem this is all we're going to get in terms of aid from your ancestors." Tyrion said, stooping to carefully scoop up the glittering stones at his feet. Then Jon realized what he was staring at. Were Daenerys not there to catch him or Tormund to hold him up, he'd have gone off his feet. Dragonglass, he thought ecstatically. The stuff flowered out of the floor, sprung from splits in the walls, hung in perilously beautiful spikes from the ceiling. Stannis told it true. Black, red, green, even purple.
"It's almost a pity to take it from here…" he mumbled. Dany pointed back to the wall, to the Long Night. Jon saw the Dawn Races tip their spears, arrows, clubs with it, the dragonglass chips in the wall glittering like stars. On taking this step they finally began to push the Others back. They can lose all the wights ever raised but they themselves haven't the numbers to countermand dragonglass brought to bear on a large scale. Torchlight reflected off something high overhead. A full moon shone over some far cold plain, the Singers' red circles amplified when held in tandem. Dead were brushed aside wholesale, as surely as with dragonfire. It was the only scene Jon could see where the Others took even middling casualties, yet the white shapes were undoubtedly fleeing off into the glittering whorls of freezing wind where the Dawn Races could not pursue. The Land of Always Winter.
"There's no Wall." Tormund said, pulling Jon out of his wandering.
"No, I suppose it went up after they were sure the Others weren't coming back right away."
"Why part themselves, though?" Dany asked. Jon looked at her. "Why leave the giants, the Children of the Forest, a good deal of the First Men out in the cold?"
"Maybe the Wall wasn't built right away. Maybe halfway through, some of them decided they'd rather live beyond some safe haven if it meant they wouldn't be interfered with." Jon replied. He approached the final drawing.
"They held the full moon dear. It is not so large as that." Tyrion called from behind him.
"Not down here, anyway." Jon said in turn. "I don't know what star that is, though. Certainly, there was nothing like that when I was in the Far North." He pointed to the fist-sized diamond that glittered down from its seat next to the moon.
"This must have happened further north than you went, then." Dany's voice was right behind him.
"Or that star's gone out since the Dawn War. It's been ten thousand years, after all."
"Don't say that." The emotion in her voice surprised him and he turned to her at once. "You went out, Jon Snow. Yet here you shine, as bright as ever." He felt his face go red.
"I'm no star."
"You are what I say you are. If I claim you are my North Star and I your Full Moon, so we are." she said, crossing her arms with finality while Tormund roared with laughter.
Alys gave a gasp, sounding so much like a man dealt a wound Jon's first thought was of Sam and his studies. At once Sigorn picked her up but she gave another gasp, high and sharp and full of pain and the big Thenn's eyes went wide as barrel lids.
"Oh." he said. Jon's mind went from fogged with thoughts of the past to tethered sharply to the present. Quickly spotting space on the cave floor relatively free of glittering glassdust, he pulled off his cloak and laid it down. "Dany, you don't by chance know how to bring a babe, do you?" he asked over Lady Karstark's worsening whimpers and winces. Wide purple eyes told him all he needed to know.
"I'll go find a midwife." Ned Umber said, dashing off. I hope he doesn't get lost in here, Jon thought doubtfully. Tormund seemed rather unaffected by their plight, only cheerfully setting little pitfires in the far bends of the rounded cavern, bringing light without need for torches. Jon figured it would be best not to put too much on Sigorn, Tyrion smartly taking him in hand and sitting him down next to Alys.
"Just keep hold of her. We'll get someone able to take care of things." he said steadily. Jon was ready for her to bring the babe along presently but in the hours that followed she only continued to make little pained noises. At long last Ned Umber returned, a young woman in tow.
"I got lost…" he said sheepishly.
"On the way out or in?" Alys asked, tongue between her teeth.
"Both." The woman went to her knees in front of Alys, face tense but not unsure.
"Lady Poole." Dany said in greeting. The girl ignored her, easing Alys' legs apart and looking under her dress. Poole? It was a name half-remembered, one that made Jon think of Sansa as the girl she was when he left Winterfell for the Wall. The young woman daubed at Lady Karstark's forehead as tenderly as a girl who'd had her hair and eyes once wiped oats flung by Arya off Sansa's cheek. Vayon's daughter, Jon realized. Jeyne, that was her name. Is her name. She didn't give him so much as a glance, though Jon was sure she remembered him in turn. Or rather, remembers Sansa's bastard half-brother. Where had she been all this time? How had Dany met her?
"Alright, I'll need some room here. You can all go ready for the voyage or get a cup of wine or jump in the sea, whatever takes your fancy." Jeyne Poole said, waving the rest of them off without looking up. Ned Umber was gone immediately, likely heading back to the cave mouth to let those in the port town know just where the King in the North and the silver queen had got to. Uneasily Jon let Dany take him in hand.
"We'll see you after, Lady Karstark. May the gods watch over you."
"Look where I'm laid out, Jon Snow. If nothing else, our forefathers are watching. I'd rather the babe come here than anywhere save perhaps Karhold's godswood." She smiled through her labor. Though he wanted to stay, if only to give Alys someone to focus on, he let Dany lead him from the cave.
"I thought you said we weren't going up to the castle?" Jon asked as he found himself led to the landing of Dragonstone's accursed stair.
"We aren't." Dany replied, smiling as she began the long climb. Sighing wearily, Jon followed a few steps behind. More than once he found his gaze drawn to the queen as she ascended, cheeks red again if for a different reason. I'll be too sore or cramped up to do more than talk anyway, once these damnable stairs have had their say. Finally, they made the gates of Dragonstone, Jon breathing hard and rubbing his calves to keep the cramps away. When he looked back to Dany, he saw her eyes were big and full of tears.
"I fought so hard to come here, so hard, and all to find I needn't have bothered."
"A silly southern girl's words. You grew up in the east and came into your own on the Great Grass Sea. Such kneeliness doesn't suit you." His curt words made her giggle and put a hand to her mouth.
"I suppose not. Others may call me Valyrian, may call me Targaryen, but in truth I know the least about how they lived when they were in their prime. In truth, I'm just Daenerys."
"Aye. You're nothing special, hardly worth the trip south, but at least I stole a kiss or two." Jon said, looking out over the water. He felt her fist pound against his chest. "As lethal as you were at the God's Eye."
"More lethal than your stupid lake monster!" she shot back, trying hard not to giggle. Her merry expression died when she looked back to the castle.
"Shall I give you a moment?" he asked her in a soft voice.
"You'll be here when I get back?"
"I'll stand here until I turn to stone if I must. Or maybe I'll run off and hide."
"For me to find, no doubt."
"I'm a seasoned ranger. I could hide right in front of you and you'd never see me."
"Hmph! Perhaps I'll do the hiding then, Jon Snow!" At this Jon laughed aloud.
"Dany, a blind one-legged falcon could track you through one of Lady Catelyn's rains."
"It could not!"
"Could so."
"Hmph! Fine, then! While you make mean of my storied ancestors and mock me to the bone, I'll pay solemn respects to those who came before me. Feel free to caper like a randy wolf who's just found a she-wolf's den." She declared, marching off in a darling huff. A lovely girl, if you can stand the heat.
He turned away from the black walls, idly moving up the path to where Drogon had once lazed, keeping his mother all to himself. I put an end to that, Jon thought. I took her out from underwing and all but plucked her off a throne. It made him feel oddly guilty. Selfish. Would it have been kinder to let Daenerys go, let her rule below the Neck without fear of having to woo the north? No, he could hear Sansa say. The south would have ruined her with its constant scheming. No, he could hear Val say. Kings go with queens, and I am not one of those. No matter how much I wish I were. No, he could hear Ygritte say. You stole her right proper, as a man ought steal a woman. Thinking on Ygritte made his heart ache. He remembered her red hair, her blue eyes, but her face had begun to fade the day he first came to Dragonstone. That so hurt him tears began to fall. No doubt Dany grieves to this day for her khal. She carried his son and gave him up to save his father. Jon walked past blackened bones of goats and sheep, looking out over the Narrow Sea from Drogon's lair in the razor rock. Lair. A pit to brood on Dany in, no true lair for a proper dragon. Maybe he'll find one out in the wild somewhere, someplace men will never reach. The stars had just begun to twinkle when he heard Dany come up the path.
"I thought I might find Drogon here, waiting for me." she said in a small voice.
"No dragon up here." Jon replied, smiling sadly. She made her way to him, never looking away. He slipped his arms around her when she reached him.
"You'll do." she whispered, shrugging off her green coat. There was nothing more to shrug off beneath it. Jon's breath hitched. "There is no harm in it, in us, Jon. My womb's as like to bear a child as the one we're nestled in." she said, red in her cheeks. From cold or nerves or both, Jon could only guess. At once he had her in his arms, hands upon her back.
"We can't well have you freezing to death…" he murmured in her ear.
"A little cold never hurt." she whispered back, the newly fallen flakes sliding through her hair and off her shoulders. His reluctance came again when she made to lose her leggings, but only for a moment. It dwindled still when he found himself tossing his own clothes aside.
"Like on the Isle," he said, "just you and I." It was as if the gods had seen fit to stop with them, as if even in their limitless power could do no better. Thoughts of her children, thoughts of his people, even the Others fell away.In short order the snowflakes on their bodies were melting down their sides, Jon's world the amethyst eyes flecked with emeralds that only he could see.
