Book II: Candor
"If I look back I am lost."
The warmth of the southern Haunted Forest had never been more appreciated by anyone, perhaps in twelve thousand years, than in this very moment. Dany turned her face to the weak afternoon sunlight peeking in from between the weirwood leaves and pine needles, enjoying the feeling of her nose, her hands, and her toes being comfortably cool. And the actual feeling of them as opposed to a stinging presence in place of her limbs.
If one ventured above the valley that Dany was currently sitting in, the Fist of the First Men could be seen in the south, a little way off to the right. And, while it was invisible underneath the thick forest trees, the Antler River was only a day or two's walk south as well.
As of now, however, Dany could see neither of those features. She was situated on furs, currently stoking a fire that she had started earlier, mildly lost in her thoughts. There was no wind to speak of, so her fire was burning quite merrily. Beside her lay two satchels, a carving knife, and the wooden toy she had been making. It was distinctively wolf-shaped, and she was currently working on the details in the wolf's face before tackling her worst fear: the paws, which she had struggled with on past animal and potato figurines.
Rustling pine needles signaled Jon's return and Dany looked around to see him come through the trees, a rabbit slung over his shoulder.
"Biggest one I've seen in awhile!" Jon declared, showing off the rabbit and grinning.
"It looks good," Dany replied, "And just in time. I've been getting tired of frozen bread for meals."
It had been a week since she and Jon left the Mammoth's Head, and Drogon with his new family, behind. Though not nearly as bitter as the journey up, the exhaustion of nearly freezing to death had made their pace slower and more arduous than before. Both were tired and hungry, having not been able to catch anything until this rabbit, instead only catching glimpses of slim, brown bodies disappearing down snow-holes each time they tried.
They had been subsisting off of bread and some hard cheese that had been rationed to last them a month's journey. Unfortunately, like everything else that got near an ice dragon, their food had been frozen stiff and stayed that way even as the air gradually warmed. Dany's jaw had still not recovered from chewing her last meal.
Jon settled down next to her, immediately beginning to prepare his catch.
Turning to her left, Dany checked in the lumpier of the two satchels. No change, she thought as she peeked in to where their precious charge lay still. Drogon's silver and gold egg still had none of the brilliance of its two clutchmates. Its only sign of mystic came from the knowledge that inside it was a dragon. Otherwise, it was still as dull as when Dany had first spied it in the nest and, to one who had no clue what they were looking at, it was simply a pretty rock.
So far, bringing it to warmer weather had done nothing to change it from lifelessness, but Dany was afraid to do any more than let it sit near the fire and enjoy the weak rays of the sun. Although it did not seem to feel any enjoyment the way she did about the returning warmth as they traveled further south.
"Nothing?" Jon asked, glancing at the egg that continued to hold Dany's gaze.
She shook her head. "No, I don't think it's changed at all. Maybe...maybe it's just not supposed to hatch," Dany said, adding the second thought on in a fit of hopelessness.
"You don't know that yet, Dany."
"But, Jon," she said, turning to him, "I don't even know how dragon eggs are supposed to hatch. Not all of them could have been walked into a blazing fire - could they?"
"Could they?" he echoed unhelpfully.
Downtrodden, Dany shook her head again, eyes moving to actively avoid the egg by fixing on the skinned rabbit. She picked at a stray cuticle. "I...I don't really know," she admitted, "I mean, I know about the Targaryens and Old Valyria and dragons, but not that much - not about how dragons are hatched. I only know Balerion, Vhagar, and Meraxes' names. And I didn't have a maester to teach me anything else...only Viserys."
Jon frowned as he continued work on the rabbit. "Neither do I. Maester Luwin didn't ever mention anything about dragon breeding but I do know some of the other dragons like Dreamfyre, Silverwing, and Vermithor," he told her, counting each of the dragons on his fingers before waggling a fourth, seemingly trying to think of another.
"Did you know," Jon started, changing the subject from dragon names when he couldn't come up with a fourth, "that Targaryens had a tradition of putting dragon eggs in their babies' cradles? It started with King Jahaerys and Queen Alysanne - he rode Vermithor and she rode Silverwing. I really liked hearing about them, they were good rulers according to Maester Luwin and Old Nan. Anyway, it was a good sign if the eggs in cradles hatched later, but sometimes a bad omen if they didn't."
Dany raised one eyebrow, sneaking a look at the dragon egg. "I didn't know that. I mean, I know Jahaerys and Alysanne from Viserys' stories, but not about the egg. Although, they didn't hatch because they were placed in the cradle, did they?"
Shrugging, Jon replied, "Probably not. Otherwise why would only some hatch? And why did the eggs all stop hatching eventually?"
"Ugh!" Dany groaned, a sudden wave of frustration taking over, "More questions! If you ask me, it seems like dragon hatching is all up to chance and that my children just happened to hatch in a fire and the Scarlet and Violet happened to hatch in a frost blast. Maybe this one will hatch if we chuck it in the river."
"Some eggs just don't hatch, Dany," Jon said reasonably (irritatingly, if you asked Dany).
"But this one could! And what if I do the wrong thing and ruin its chances? How do we know what's good for it?"
Jon held his hands up, tinged with rabbit. "It's only been a week," he told her soothingly, "If you make yourself stressed, you won't be able to think straight and help the egg. You can do it, you just need some time."
He turned back to the rabbit, while Dany broodingly stoked the fire again. One of the branches popped and hissed, cracking down the middle.
What good was it to have worn the title "Mother of Dragons" proudly if she couldn't even figure out how to help Drogon and Saphira's (as she now called the ice dragon) egg? A small voice awoke in the back of her mind to respond to the question. Ah, but you left all that behind, didn't you? Amongst the free folk, you're just Dany. That didn't make sense, though, Dany reasoned.
If leaving her titles behind meant leaving everything else behind, Drogon should have eaten her and Jon as soon as he saw them. Instead, he and Saphira let them leave with the egg and the unspoken promise to help their third hatchling come into the world.
Perhaps the continual exposure to Saphira's icy blasts over all three eggs was making the third egg's recovery from the cold take a long time. After all, Dany was certain that she and Jon would have been dead if they had stayed much longer. Saphira seemed to have radiated cold, but her frosty breath to hatch the eggs was definitely the cause of the horrible, unnatural even for the northern North drop in temperature they had experienced. Dany hoped that the eggs hatching meant that the cold Saphira had caused would abate for Drogon's sake. And if a full-grown dragon had gotten sick from that much cold exposure, what about a defenseless egg that was half fire and half ice and did not seem to like the frost like its siblings?
The egg's not dead, Dany reminded herself firmly. Of that much she was certain, whether or not Jon was. When she held it, in the quiet moments she stole alone to hold it close to her and will life into it shell, there was something more than cold stone there. A faint feeling - so faint that Dany often believed she imagined it to make herself happier - that life was inside.
"You'll be okay," she would whisper to the egg each time she felt its life, "It will all be okay."
"...and then we'll make our way back next to the Antler," Jon was saying. Enough time had passed while Dany was lost in her thoughts that Jon was now slowly fitting the rabbit onto a makeshift spit for roasting over the fire. He had already erected two standing sticks for which to prop the spit on.
"Dany, are you even listening?"
She snapped her eyes up from a random spot they had focused upon to look at Jon. "Hmm, what? Oh, yes, I'm hungry too," she agreed absently.
Jon raised his eyebrows disapprovingly. "I was talking about the rest of the journey home," he told her, "But yes, supper will be started soon enough."
"Oh," she said, blushing, "Sorry. I'm just - "
"Worrying about the egg still?" Jon guessed.
Sheepishly, she nodded and Jon reached out and put a comforting free hand on her knee, drawing his thumb back and forth over it. "Yes," she admitted, taking his hand and looking into his eyes apologetically. Unconsciously, she licked her lips. They had healed from the cracked and bleeding mess that had possibly drawn a shadowcat to camp the last time they were in the southern forest, but Dany had not been able to fully break her licking habit.
Jon's eyes traveled down to her lips, drawn to the action, and his thumb stopped moving over her knee.
"Sorry," she said again quietly.
Swallowing hard, Dany became very aware that they were comfortably alone in the wilderness, no longer so cold that they couldn't think, and Jon suddenly seemed much closer to her than before.
Hey, welcome back! Couple of things: I suggest looking up the various definitions of "candor" to gain a couple hints about this Book. Also, the quote in the beginning is from book Dany and I thought it described the situation she's going through now. Until next time.