Instead of the wind dying down or being less biting, it grew worse and worse as Jon and Dany went on. It picked up the loose snow from drifts and Dany felt as though her face was being ripped to shreds by the tiniest grains of frozen sand. No longer protected by any thick forest, the most shelter they could find for the night were a few thin sentinel trees. They did not sleep, instead soldiering on in hopes that another copse of trees may crop up and give them enough shelter to start a fire. Or maybe we'll just walk into them, Dany thought grimly.

Several times, they were walking completely blind, holding onto each other with fierce grips as they went. Hopelessly, Dany thought of Rose. How could we be so reckless? In this weather, if one of them got lost, both were as good as dead. Their child an orphan before she could even say "mama." Willa had been right.

But they were here now. There was no use doing anything but going forward to their destination...wherever that may be.

When the whiteout cleared, it was so bitterly cold that the very land ahead of them seemed tinged blue with freeze. Low clouds hung in the sky, grey and threatening.

"D-Dany!" Jon hissed, his breath unfurling from beneath his hood in a white waft, "Look!"

He pointed his free hand out to a looming point in the distance that the clouds seemed to rest upon.

"I-i-is th-th-th-th-at -?" she broke off her chatter, unable to think of the rest of the words.

Jon turned toward her and nodded. The Mammoth's Head. It unmistakably rose out of the flatlands only a few miles ahead of them. She could already see the first few trees of each distinct line. Although it did not look different than any other small mountain, she trusted in Jon's keen sense of geography - even in continual squalls - that this was the right one.

Please have shelter, Dany prayed. Frozen streaks were visible by Jon's eyes and Dany could feel her own tears from the wind cracking and pulling at her raw skin. Jon was so covered in snow that his hair and beard looked nearly white.

"W-we j-ju-just nneed to k-k-keep walking," he stammered, pulling on Dany's hand to march forward again. It must be cold if Jon's chattering, Dany thought, feeling her own body shivering so badly now that she could barely walk properly or even breathe well.

After what seemed like an eon, they were at the first trees. The weather had held off, but the temperature continued to plummet, although Dany barely felt a difference anymore. A frozen mist was draped over the land and wreathed around the trees like the little warmth they gave off had just paused and crystallized in the air.

"This is it," Dany breathed as they walked down the center of the two tree lines. It felt like every step she took was leaden with pure exhaustion, but she wanted nothing more than to get to the thicker trees.

Jon paused as they entered the beginning of the central forest before the mountain. "You stopped shivering," he said in a strangely grave tone.

"Yes, why?" she asked. Before he could answer, however, a horrendous screech shook the very earth and even the crystalled air trembled.

Instantly, both Jon and Dany both looked up as the low clouds broke and a huge, terrible form barreled down to them with deadly ferocity. It crashed through the trees and landed between them and the mountain, roaring in rage and showing off its rows of black teeth.

Dany's stomach dropped.

It was Drogon.

Though, not as Dany had left him. She supposed she ought to be terrified of an angry dragon distinctly telling her to back off or relieved that she had found her child, but all she could feel is horrified.

What happenedto you? Drogon was no longer the magnificent rich black dragon that had impressed and struck fear into the hearts of lesser beings. Instead, he looked almost grey and Dany knew it was not the dim light that caused it. His eyes were dull and though his defensiveness was palpable, if anything Drogon just seemed sick.

Drogon roared again, but there was almost a haggard rasp behind it. If he were human, he would have had a terrible cough. Dany took a step towards the defensive dragon, her hands raised in peace. He tried roaring at her again, but it was even more feeble than last time.

"Something's wrong," she whispered, not taking her eyes off Drogon, though she heard Jon move behind her. Drogon's dull eyes flicked to where she believed Jon was standing, but he quickly refocused back on Dany.

She inched closer, taking small steps and never looking away from the dragon's eye. "Ziry iksos sȳz," she said calmly to him, "Ziry iksos aōha muñnykeā." Drogon eyed her cautiously, backed into a pose like a cat prepared to strike at prey, but his legs and wings shook with the effort.

"Ziry iksos mērī aōha muñnykeā. Nyke kesrī naejot dohaeragon ao," she soothed, now within arms' reach of her child. Closer up, Drogon looked even worse: stretched and thin, even ragged if dragon scales could be described that way. Dany wondered briefly if the bear he had stolen had been one of his only meals in months. He looked weaker now than when he was a baby. A lump settled in Dany's throat, realizing how ill her child was, how ill she had left him to become.

"Ziry iksos sepār issa," she told him again, voice cracking with emotion as she reached one heavy hand out towards his nose. Drogon's nostrils flared suspiciously, but he leaned out his nose to sniff her hand. Though his eyes were dull, recognition finally seemed to flare up in them and Drogon's eyes widened. His posture instantly relaxed, just wanting his mother at this moment. So like Rose, Dany thought, remembering the first night she was alone in her new room. Drogon closed the space between them, a rattling dragon-like purr deep in his throat as Dany stroked his scaly nose.

"I'm here," Dany murmured, smiling as he nudged her hand for more petting.

Suddenly, Drogon perked up, eyes open and looking at a point beyond Dany that erupted into yellow light. Recovering from her flinch when the dragon had reacted, Dany whipped around to see a figure stoking what was becoming a large fire in the shelter of the thickest trees just to their left. It was already hot enough that it stung Dany's face and she welcomed it wholeheartedly, peculiarly realizing that she had been unable to feel her nose for the last day until now.

It seemed to reinvigorate Drogon as much as Dany and they both gravitated towards the fire, mesmerized.

Jon, arms still full of wood, walked over to Dany. He regarded Drogon carefully, but the dragon paid him no mind. Fixated on the fire, he lay his enormous body down as if trying to curl around one side of it and soak up all the warmth he could. Dany could have sworn his scales grew richer in color instantly and he let out another deep dragon-purr as Jon added more wood to feed the flames.

"Neither of you looked like you were going to be able to handle much more cold," Jon said as he came up beside her, relaxing as he watched Drogon lounge like a dog, closing his eyes contentedly, "You stopped shivering."

"You said that before," Dany said, forcing her memories to work as they felt muddled in her head.

Jon nodded. "Means you're too cold. Your body gets confused and you can get pretty sick if you don't warm up. It happened to Arya once when we were little," he told her, "I think the same thing is happening to Drogon, too. Did you notice he didn't try to breathe fire at all?"

"But why would he stay here, then?" Dany asked, looking at the now placid dragon soaking up all the warmth, "He could obviously still fly even if he couldn't breathe fire. Why didn't he just go somewhere warmer? Or somewhere with better hunting?"

"What else did you dream about when you had this last dream? When you called out at the end," Jon asked, pulling Dany to sit with him on a large rock close in front of the fire by Drogon's foot. His face was hard in thought and he scrutinized Drogon similarly to Dany, trying to figure out the dragon's motives.

She nestled close to him, feeling a tiny bit of warmth beginning to seep back into her. "Eyes," she said, staring into the fire, "In the frozen cave where Drogon had landed. There were blue eyes in the gloom."

"White Walker eyes?" asked Jon warily, she felt his grip around her tighten.

Dany shook her head against him. "No," she reassured, "That's what I was scared of at first, why I woke up. But it was the wrong blue. It was a pale blue like a summer sky. And it was almost as if Drogon knew what they were. The way he acted before...do you think he's guarding whatever's in there?"

She thought of the strange pull north she had felt in past dreams, and the sense of knowing Drogon seemed to have about coming here. Even as sick as he was, he was willing to fight until he saw who had come. It reminded Dany of the encounter with the ice-river cannibal and how she felt about defending herself, Rose, and Willa. But what could possibly make him think that way? He only ever defended food, and obviously there wasn't much of that. Family?

Briefly, Dany's thoughts flashed to Viserion. Wrong blue, she told herself, feeling stupid for even thinking that. Drogon shifted behind them, pulling his feet underneath himself to stand back up and gently shake off the snow. He was still thin and ragged, but Dany thought he already looked healthier. Rejuvenated by the fire.

Drogon seemed to think so as well. The dragon glanced back at Dany, stretching his wings, and she smacked Jon's arm. "Jon, we need to go, now!" Dany urged, sliding from the rock and pulling Jon with her.

"Where?" he asked bewildered.

Drogon had the answer. He lumbered off, setting a quick pace even without flying, straight toward the Mammoth's Head in the center of the forest. Let's wonder no more, Dany thought recklessly.

"Come on!" Dany said, taking Jon's hand and heading off after Drogon, leaving the warmth behind and plunging once again into a deep freeze.

They all but raced through the forest. The closer they got to Mammoth's Head at the center, the colder it became. Crunching through the snow turned into stamping feet on frozen ground and sliding, as only Drogon was heavy enough to make tracks. Trees bent over with icicles as large as stalactites weighing them down. Frozen mist seemed to creep along the top of the snow, as thick as fog.

Dany and Jon had both begun to shiver again as they edged closer to what Dany knew would be the entrance to the cave. Drogon had slowed as well, his approach becoming cautious and oddly submissive.

The trees parted before them and revealed the vision from Dany's dreams: an ice cave. Had it been in Essos, the cave would have just been a cave in a mountain, but the frozen weather had transformed it into something else entirely. It looked almost too perfect, and entirely too cold for even a Northman or a free folk nomad to want to shelter in.

The cave was dead center on the face of the mountain, which, up close, did not resemble a mammoth head at all. Instead, it reminded Dany of some of her early carving pieces and looked like a quite overlarge potato with a very big hole in the center. Mammoth's Head loomed over them, its top hidden in the low, dark clouds, and cast a shadow over the already dim forest.

It was adorned with enormous icicles, circling around as if it were a round mouth full of incredibly sharp teeth. The teeth seemed to point both inwards and outwards on the bottom, but only straight down from the top. In fact, Dany swore it could have been mistaken for a mouth. Huge wafts of frosty air uncoiled from the cave's dark center as if it were breathing. The air was so cold that when it hit Dany, she felt as though every ounce of warmth she had gained from the fire was gone. C-c-can it g-get any c-c-c-colder? Even her thoughts chattered. Jon's breath hitched beside her and she knew he must have felt the same.

Beside them, Drogon had stopped. The dragon raised his head up and made the most unusual sound Dany had ever heard from deep in his stomach. Not so unlike the purr he had made earlier, it was a low rumble that she would have associated with humming underwater. Had she not been standing right next to him, she wouldn't have been able to hear it.

The cave responded. Jon and Dany both jumped at the sound, Jon grabbing onto Dany's wrist, and she wildly wondered if it actually was a mouth.

Not a mouth, Dany realized, a home. Two large, pale blue eyes glowed in the darkness of the cave behind the icicles and looked from Drogon, to the humans next to him, and then back to Drogon. They blinked curiously before growing larger. Larger. And larger. Until Dany was able to look upon the face that they belonged to as it stretched its neck out beyond the ice.

"B-b-but th-they're a m-m-my-myth!" Jon exclaimed.

It wasn't Viserion, but Dany had been half right about what was in the cave.

It was a dragon. A dragon that looked like solid ice.

Many of you guessed it: an ice dragon!