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The Silver Seed
298 AC, The Dothraki Sea.
The Dothraki plain was barren, and hot, and it stretched for miles on end. The men, women, and children slogging through it, in a long, messy column, either loud and raucous, or quiet and miserable, such was the way of warriors and bloodriders, of prisoners and slaves, and of a Dothraki Horde.
Daenerys Targaryen, on horseback and a Khaleesi, sore and aching, felt as down as those forced to walk.
She'd come to cherish, as she knew she should always have, the leader of the great Khalasar, her fierce husband Khal Drogo, just like she'd come to love the fire he had brought out within her, and to endure the nigh-constant, strenous marching.
Yet, some days, she still couldn't help falling into a pit of her own making, feel just as she'd done in those first few weeks, scared and lost, aching and sore, amidst people not her own – they were – in a land not hers – it was.
The silver girl, riding a silver steed, tried ripping the thoughts from her mind, before they could take root and stagger her away.
She failed, like she often did, and she turned, to her latest and closest companion.
And in this doleful day, Dany couldn't help lamenting, too, that it wasn't Viserys beside her. It should have been, and he should be, and that he wasn't, and that he'd chosen not to be, only managed saddening more.
However cruel, and however spiteful, her brother was all family she had left, and the sole reminder she'd ever been given of a life she'd never lived.
"Can you share any tales of Westeros, Jorah?"
The exiled northern Lord, on a horse brown as he, blinked at her, for a moment.
They hadn't talked much, today, courtesy of her mood, and she quickly realized she'd likely forced him out of his thoughts. Another thing she'd done wrong.
"I could, Khaleesi, a great many." He replied, anyhow, rough and accented. "Most of them gruesome and bloody, unfit for a Lady's ears."
A small something pulled at Dany's face, at those words. I am the daughter of the Dragon, the girl thought, more fierce than she felt, and before she realized she had. And the woman of a great Khal, not a Lady.
Yet, think was all she did, and Mormont went on, unmindful, a wry smile on his lip. "But a few, maybe, I could tell, that speak of honor and gallantry, courage and grace."
Dany wanted to scoff, but didn't. She wanted be reminded of a home she'd never seen, not lulled into dreams she could dream herself.
"I want to hear real stories." She not quite groused. "Not fables and legends."
"Some legends are born from truth." The northener patted, but more like wacked, his brown steed. "And are they even fables, if I witnessed them with mine one eyes."
Dany couldn't keep it, then, her frown. Was he trying to make a fool of her, like Viserys liked to. "You witnessed a fable?"
Jorah's head shook, and her shoulders untensed. "I witnessed a Knight." At least until he spoke.
"You are a knight, Ser Jorah." She huffed, miffed.
His head shook again. "The title doesn't make a knight, Khaleesi, the man does." He glanced down, something odd coiling his features. "I'd think otherwise, mayhaps, had I not known a real one, in better times and in a better life. But I have. And I fear i'd just shame myself, and he, by comparing."
Jorah was kind enough, thought Dany, and wise enough. Who could put him to shame. "Who is this knight you speak of?"
"A boy, when I first met him, nervous and skittish, yet to wet his swords." Her brows drew high, and Mormont laughed, as loud as a bear and as wistful as a man, before a somber spell took him. "A man, when I last saw him, of the kind this world desperately needs more of."
The girl inched closer, as much as she could on the back of her Silver, something about the exile's tone pulling her in. "What kind, Jorah?"
"We fought together, and we bled together, in many a different battles, and in many a different places." He didn't answer her, but she listened anyway. "Yet, the best tale I could tell you, Khaleesi, is not one of blood, or fight, but of trueness, and companionship. Do you wish–"
"Tell me, Ser Jorah." She harshly cut him off, too impatient for good manners, or second thoughts.
Mormont took no offense, just smiled beneath his beard.
Dany wasn't fully sure how the northener did it, keep his beard and his armor and his furs beneath the scorching sun of the Dothraki Sea, that could scorch even a dragon, but she'd ask him another time. She wanted to hear.
"We were at a great Tourney, called by a great Lord, the both of us," he started, reminiscing. "A decade ago, now, or thereabout. He, a boy of five-and-ten, and I, a bit younger than now, both in the lists and both competing."
"He was a knight at five-and-ten?" Only knights could compete in jousts, she was sure. "So young?"
"Aye," Jorah nodded, smiling. "For mercy, and valor, and valyrian steel, but that's a tale for another time." She'd hear that, too, Dany decided. She wanted to hear about the valyrian steel. And about mercy and valor too, of course. "We both threw one adversary after another in the sand, Freys and Mallisters, Royces and Whents. I even Ser Barristan Selmy the Bold, and he even his– " He coughed, suddenly, waving away at nothing. "Dust and sand, be damned."
Dany frowned. She'd seen no puff of dust, nor flowing sand.
But she also forgot any suspicion, when Mormont went on. "Anyhow, Jaime Lannister, he threw down, the Kingslayer."
It sent a horrid shiver down her back, and a cold crawling through her skin, the name and the title.
Viserys had told her stories of their father's murderer, when she'd been little and after he'd grown bitter, one more ghastly than the last. A honorless monster, a heartless traitor, and a savage Lion.
Her Drogo would protect her if the assassin ever came for her, she tried assuring herself, trying not to cringe. He'd take his heart, she knew, like he did any desert lion's, and his mane too, and he'd gift them both to her.
But how was it, then, that the thought comforted her none.
Why'd she need live in fear, wait to be hunted, to achieve a modicum of justice. What unfair world was it, that she could aspire to no more than that, after all that had been stolen from her before she'd even drawn breath, been born.
An unfair world, not just and not fair.
Not valorous, either, nor honorable, and Dany felt silly for having wanted to listen so to tales that meant nothing, of things that mattered little and would likely just disappoint her.
She felt twice as, when Jorah continued, and she kept listening.
"We defeated every opponent thrown our way, he and I, until all that remained was I and he, and a crown of roses." It was Mormont's time to frown. "I wanted it. I needed it. I'm not even sure why, now. It gained me nothing, just heartache and bitterness, and a lost land. But then I wanted it, and he knew it."
"He let you win?" Dany inquired lightly. It wasn't anything as grand as she'd imagined, but she supposed it fit with her recent conclusions.
When Jorah's answer came rough and jolly, she edged closer. "There's no companionship in that, Khaleesi, just pity. If he'd done that, he'd just be a honorless fool, despised by most."
"So, he didn't let you win?" Her brows furrowed. That wasn't like anything she'd imagined, either.
Again, Jorah chuckled. "We went for eight rounds, I and a boy half my size. I broke seven lances on him. Care guessing what happened on the last bout?"
"He threw you!" Dany hurried to answer, quick and loud.
"Gods, not quite so eager." Mormont blanked, dry and sly, causing her flush. "But aye, indeed, he threw me from my horse, defeated me, and won the crown I so desperately wanted. I had lost." He paused, for too long, forcing her to inch closer still. Any more, and her Silver would knock on his brown steed. "I was on the ground," he finally continued. "Thinking of my failures and eating a meal of dust, when a shadow fell upon me, and the world went silent."
"He gave it to you!?" Dany gasped, wide-eyed.
Mormont's answer, this time, was a roaring laugh, and her cheeks grew hot.
"Gods, no!" He replied, chuckling still. "But I had thought so, too, when he'd approached me. What are you doing, boy, I snapped at him, with a scowl on my face, you've already unhorsed me, haven't you shamed me enough?!"
Was he trying to shame him. He couldn't be. What tale was it, if he was trying to. "What did he answer?"
"He threw me a smile," Mormoth narrated, rough voice gone smooth. She imagined that's how he spoke, the knight. "As sharp as any and as candid as few, unbothered by the quietness all around and the anger of a sore loser. You're my friend, Ser Jorah, he told me, and you saved my life more times than I can count–"
"You saved his life?!"
Jorah laughed once more, so mighty even a few bloodriders turned. "Not more times than he could count, unless he could to one. But yes, that once."
That was one time more than enough, though, wasn't it, Dany thought, just once. "How did that come to be?"
"Well, that'd be one of the gruesome–"
"Wait, my apologies," she swifly interrupted him. "You may tell me later. Finish the story, first, please."
The nothener threw her a shrewd glance. "I may have lost track, now, Khaleesi."
"No, you haven't!" Dany answered it with a glare. When he only hummed, she bit. "The knight was saying you'd just saved his life!"
"Oh, right, now I remember." Mormont palmed his beard. "You saved my life more times than I can count, he said, we're friends, what matters that I win, if you lose. Filled me with shame, he did, for my bitterness and sourness. Well fought, I said, thrusting out my hand like a petulant child."
The bear paused again, then, looked down, his eyes glazed over, studying, his paw slowly clenching and unclenching.
Dany didn't speak, even if she desperately wished to, and even if she wanted more.
He was looking back, Jorah, and he was lost. She understood.
"He took it, my hand." Mormont went on, after a while yet, unmoving but moved. "But didn't. He left me something. Up, Ser Jorah, he told me, on your horse, and make the Lady Lysenne the luckiest of the Seven Kingdoms."
"He gave you the crown," Dany whispered, touched, too. "For your Lady."
She hurriedly spurred closer, and Silver neighed reproachfully, when Mormont shook his head.
"He loved his sister, Cieran," Cieran, the girl thought, the true knight's name. "And he'd won the tournament for her. Trained to win it, for her." He chuckled, mirthless. "I knew, and if it had been me, i'd have left him in the dust. He wasn't me, nor anyone, and I mounted my horse."
His hand disappeared beneath his breastplate, and it came out a fist. When it opened, Dany sucked in a breath. Wilted, and grey, a small crown of flowers.
"He broke it in half, the crown, and made it into two bracelets, so that we might both not lose, and that we might both win." Jorah's chest rumbled again, fuller this time. Dany could only listen, compelled. "The noise, Khaleesi, when I crowned mine, and he crowned his. I never heard anything of the like, not before, and never since."
He gazed at her, something deep and regretful in his eyes.
"The kind willing to rise, and fight, for what he believes in, and for what he knows to be right. The kind just as willing to lend sturdy steel to a high lord, as a hand to a defeated enemy, or a downtrodden ally." Mormont answered her, slow and revering. "The kind with a strong arm and a steady heart, Khaleesi. A good man." He sighed. "The perfect knight."
"Who is he?" Dany breathed. The perfect knight, she could only think. "What's his name?"
"Cieran Sand," spoke Jorah, after a pause. "Men call him the Black Viper."
"Like the Red Viper?" She hurried. Viserys had told her tales, when he'd still liked telling her the good ones. "Oberyn Martell?"
"Quite." Jorah nodded, before he, too, hurried. "They are father and son."
The Martells were loyal, Dany knew, and steady and strong. They'd fought for her family – they'd been her family – and one of them had unhorsed Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer.
It made her giddy, thinking of it. Monsters were real, yes, and Lions were too. Fearsome and bloody.
Yet, sometimes they, too, lost to good men, and to valor, and to honor.
But, the silver girl quickly realized, one tale wasn't enough to make up for one whole unjust world. Not nearly enough.
"Jorah," Dany breathed again, picturing the Son of the Viper in her mind, young and dark, the Perfect Knight. "What happened next?"
Mormont smiled, then, a rueful smile. "Well..."
The Purple Pup
290 AC, Lannisport.
"I challenge you!" Roared the Lion Knight, young and dark, from the midst of the dusty arena, the crimson edge of his valyrian blade pointing straight at their stands. "To single combat!"
Lyarra Snow's purple eyes blew wide, a gasp escaping her lips, just the same as one fleed her brother's, sat beside her.
She was just a child, of six, and she didn't fully understand her stupor, nor her wonder, but that even her father, the quiet Ned Stark, had gone baffled and puzzled, managed to quietly comfort her.
All and every noise, anyhow, was drowned by the booming laugh of King Robert Baratheon, as he stood and stepped.
So, Jorah is a simp. Also, no one calls Cieran the Black Viper. Fuck that.