"You can see the Night Lamp already!" Jon said, pointing from the boat he and Dany had taken passage on to get to Sisterton, where the Night Lamp guided the way for passing vessels. Located on Sweetsister, one of the Three Sisters islands, it had a reputation that permeated far past Westeros.
Though she knew it was a good choice, a fast choice, and definitely the right choice to travel through Sisterton rather than north near the King's Road, Dany was not looking forward to their stopover.
The most notorious den of thieves and pirates in Westeros, Sisterton's inhabitants (the Sistermen of the Three Sisters) served only themselves. While it meant that they had not taken sides in the Great War, it also meant that the Sistermen were much more unpredictable.
Coming ashore once their boat had docked, Jon took Dany's hand and they plunged into the crowded streets of mud and plank towards an inn they had heard of from a traveler near the shores of the Vale.
The whole town reeked of rotting fish, stale drunkard, and animal manure. Ramshackle hovels stood in lines that looked as if they would blow over with a gust of wind. Despite the chill of winter, the entire town felt humid and stuffy. All around Dany, men shouted at each other or at scantily-dressed women, drank straight from barrels, and tipped over into the mud with their lips still around a bottle.
Three times, Dany saw herself sauntering down the street, ass and breasts uncovered for the men to ogle and grope at. She worked with great difficulty to arrange her face into any expression that wasn't disgust and noticed that Jon seemed to have locked his jaw after they passed the third Dany while winding through to the inn.
The Fish Barrel was a slight improvement from the streets of Sisterton in that it wasn't muddy. Drunken men crowded the bottom floor, similar to those outside, and Dany saw another version of herself straddling a man, who seemed to have lost most of his drink in his oily beard, while allowing herself to be groped by others.
The inn stood taller - though it was still as ramshackle - than the surrounding buildings, and Jon paid the haggard-looking innkeeper for a room for one night on the top floor using some of the coin they had traded nutmeg for with the traveling Vale merchants.
"You best be plannin' on sharin' her, lad!" one of the men groping the false Dany shouted at Jon.
"Aye!" agreed one of his companions, "No need to be greedy now!"
Jon started towards the men, hand habitually moving to reach for his sword, but Dany held him back, shaking her head.
"See," the first man insisted, "Even yer wench knows what's good fer -"
He choked on his words as Dany caught his eye with a look she had once used upon the Master of Astapor when she freed the Unsullied. Though not wishing to burn this man, the look did the job all the same. Satisfied, Dany led Jon up the rickety set of stairs to their room on the fourth floor.
"Well, it's not a cave," Jon said as they walked inside. A table in the room's corner lay overturned with one leg missing and, when Jon lay on the bed, they heard the distinct sag of the floor underneath it as if one wrong move would send it plummeting through every story and onto the loud, drunk men. Would they even notice if a bed fell on them? Dany thought, allowing her face to wrinkle with disgust for the first time.
"Let's just rest until first light, buy passage on any ship northward that floats, and forget this ever happened," Dany told him with a thick tone of agitation as she lay down next to him (the floor creaked even more threateningly). Getting called a wench had been the last straw.
She was feeling increasingly claustrophobic in Sisterton and, shockingly, missing the secluded paths of the Vale that they had spent so much time traversing. Thick fogs had hindered their journey so much that they had been there nearly four more weeks, unable to move on for fear of taking a wrong step off a cliffside they couldn't see.
Dany could not honestly complain about it, however. Drawn together after the first night they had spent exploring each others' bodies, every moment not walking had been a moment steeped in pleasure and passion for the two of them to the point that Dany's breasts had stayed swollen and tender from Jon's care. Each time they spent each other so completely that they could not continue, butDany was still left wanting more of Jon. Tonight, though, she could not think of anything she would want to do less.
Try as she did to will herself to sleep, it never came amidst the raucous noise from below that only quieted down right at the end of their stay. She lay unblinkingly fixated on a specific thatch in the ceiling without thought. As soon as the sky near-imperceptibly paled, he shot up out of the bed ready to leave and Dany realized that she had never heard his breathing slow.
Downstairs, the innkeeper greeted them with two bowls of hot Sister's Stew - a trademark white seafood dish across the Three Sisters - that he pressed into their hands, herding them to an empty table in spite of their insistence that they did not need any.
Around them, still-drunk patrons of the inn snored noisily on benches and the floor while others slurped up the stew sitting alone at tables or in pairs, dark-circles under their bloodshot eyes.
Politely, Jon and Dany took a couple spoonfuls of stew, which tasted surprisingly nice for coming from an inn such as The Fish Barrel. But no sooner had they begun to eat did a Sisterman burst into the inn with a shout.
"KING'S LANDING IS BURNING!" he announced.
Choking on her stew, Dany looked up in horror at the man along with Jon and the other patrons.
"It's true!" he continued, "It's gone up in green fire, the Red Keep, the whole city! Just like the Sept!"
Dany locked eyes with Jon, suddenly nauseous. "The siege," she mouthed silently, horror reflecting in her eyes as acid poured into her churning stomach as if Wildfire had been set off there as well. All those people - all those children like the ones Rhaegar escaped from royal duties to make music with in Flea Bottom - were they all gone? And the people they had fought aside? Were they gone as well?
Wordlessly, Jon got up and led Dany out of then inn as the patrons swarmed the still-shouting Sisterman to the point where no word was intelligible. He pulled her along through the mud to the dark docks, quiet in the still hour between drunken frolic and working men, before leaving her on the steps to go speak to the harbormaster.
Unable to keep the acid down any longer, Dany vomited over the edge of the steps into the mud once and then again. Her skin was clammy and her stomach felt as if she was continuously falling from a peak in the Vale.
King's Landing is burning! King's landing is burning! The words clashed in her head in a cacouphanus rhythm. She vomited a third time, nearly dropping to her knees as her stomach sought to turn itself inside out and her throat tried to eject her stomach. Gasping for air, she swayed on the steps, feet slipping dangerously close to the edge. King's Landing is burning! King's Landing is burning! The whole city! Was there anyone left?
"Easy," Jon murmured, suddenly next to her again, catching her from behind, "Easy, Dany."
Though she did not remember moving her feet from the spot on the dock steps, he guided her onto a small fishing boat, where she sat on a box, completely green and head drooping forward, too heavy for her neck to keep upright.
Jon knelt before her, his hand gripping hers so strongly that her fingers began to tingle.
"What are we going to do, Jon?" she barely whispered, audible only because he was so close to her. Men hurried around them, preparing for the vessel to cast off with the beginnings of first light.
"Do you want to go back?" he asked her. Dany glanced up at him. His face was serious. Dark. Distantly, she heard the shout of the captain as the boat began to move from the docks, leaving Sisterton behind.
Face burning in shame, she shook her head. No. She was sure of her answer, though it made her feel sicker. Faces flashed in her mind: Grey Worm, Ser Davos, Tyrion…
Another voice spoke in her head, so clear she felt as though the old woman was next to her. You are not a coward to trust in your choices. Dany touched the piece of purple quartz around her neck, remembering the words of Soraya. Strength beginning to return, she raised her head more fully to face Jon. "No," she told him, "I don't."
Jon nodded once in silent agreement and moved to sit down next to her on the box from which they both turned to look out on the water. Their destination was already visible, the shore of the North being only a short distance from the Three Sisters. They sat together, simply staring at the land slowly growing on the horizon and listening to the smooth waves that lapped at the boat, until Jon spoke.
"When my father…" he paused, tensing as he lingered on what he had said.
He and Dany had not spoken of Jon's parentage since she begged him not to tell the other Starks. With where they were at now, having just cemented their decision not to return, Dany felt it had lost any bearing on their relationship. They were leaving names behind.
"Ned Stark?" Dany asked casually, still looking at the horizon.
Jon's shoulders visibly relaxed. "Aye," he said before continuing, "When he died, I tried to desert the Night's Watch to fight for the North."
"What happened?"
"Sam stopped me. Him and Pyp and Grenn," Jon told her, a note of wist in his voice as he remembered friends past, "They reminded me of my oath. Of what my priorities were."
He turned from the horizon to look at Dany and she returned the gaze, finding him intense. "You're my priority now," he told her firmly, placing his hands on her shoulders, "Whatever happens, whatever's over the next rise, it will always be you."
They sheltered in a copse of thick, interwoven trees that night. Small gaps provided places for starlight to shine through, but it was well protected from the biting wind. Neither was hungry and, after hastily striking the flint to make a fire for warmth, they gravitated towards each other to become one.
Languid, Jon and Dany took the time to map every bit of each other's forms as they lay amongst their furs under the trees and stars. Lost in each other, their hands roamed freely around the bodies that were in a slow, rhythmic motion together. Dany felt her skin prick in the places where Jon's fingers had slipped past, each touch pushing her to hold him closer in her own exploration.
Their mouths explored too, tongues delicately shifting around each other with each kiss before Jon broke his away to blaze a trail to where her pulse beat in her neck. His tongue grazed her jawline before he sucked at that point, pushing himself into her harder as he did.
"Ah!" Dany gasped, back arching with the sudden change in tempo. Her hands moved back up his body to tangle in his hair, holding his head at her neck.
She rolled her hips to push Jon into a faster pace, but he held frustratingly steady.
"Want it to last," he breathed into her neck.
"Mm," Dany replied, unable to find any words as her back arched again in response to a lick of his tongue. She lost herself in him again, giving herself away to her senses.
Only later, as they lay wound around each other staring up at the chinks of starlight between the trees, did Dany find her voice.
"The Dothraki believe everything of importance should be done under the sky," Dany told him, shifting around so that their noses were separated by only a breath.
"Aye?" Jon replied, smiling and placing a playful kiss upon her nose.
Dany nodded slowly, eyes wide. "Yes. Which is why…" she paused and swallowed, second guessing herself.
"Go on," he whispered.
Breathing in deeply, she did. "I love you," she said, "I feel as though I fall in love with you more each day. And I...thought you should know."
She punctuated her words with a soft smile, which Jon returned before kissing her again, this time with more passion.
"I love you as well," he said once they broke apart, "'Til the end of my days. And beyond even that."
"Beyond even that," Dany agreed. They shifted back to looking up, interlacing fingers and watching the sky together.
The title of this chapter is Dothraki for "Starlight" (literally "light of the stars"). Until next time.