Jon and Sansa returned from setting and checking snares not long after carrying, not fowl or rabbits, but a stag. Both looked as stiff and uncomfortable as when they had left, but Dany couldn't decide if it was because they were with each other or because Sansa was actually helping Jon to shoulder the enormous stag. She watched as Jon whispered something to Sansa, whose face seemed to grow more pained at the words.
The snow had started sticking to the ground more thickly, and they kicked it up as they came over to the lean-to.
"How did you catch it?" Dany asked incredulously, "You didn't even have your bow."
"Nearly ran into it while setting the new snares. Good thing, too, this storm feels rough and the snares turned up nothing," he looked to Sansa and Tyrion, "You'd better get back to your camp. It's only going to get worse."
Tyrion nodded affirmatively, though Dany could see that Sansa was looking rather mutinous towards Jon. She opened her mouth briefly, but thought better and closed it again with, not another glare at Jon, but at Tyrion. He did not seem to notice the daggers being shot in his direction, however, and merely looked on at Jon, Dany, and Rose passively.
"It was good speaking with you again," he said.
"Likewise," Dany replied, allowing a small smile at him before she turned to Sansa, "Lady Sansa."
Sansa acknowledged Dany with a short dip of her head and half a smile, before giving Jon a parting grimace. Maybe it was a start. At least we aren't at each other's throats, Dany thought, remembering the last time she had a one-on-one conversation with Sansa. Together, Sansa and Tyrion turned to head down the snow-covered path towards Shadowedge.
"Get Rose inside," Jon told Dany stiffly as the last glimpse of red hair disappeared down the path, "I'll be in after I finish with the stag."
Sensing that now was not the time to press him on anything, Dany only nodded and left him in the lean-to. By the time Jon came inside, it had turned out to be an impressive storm. Although it was only midday, the house looked as if it could be twilight. The temperature had dropped considerably, leading Dany to build up the fire more to keep the inside as warm as possible. She looked up as the door banged open and a hunched and snow-covered Jon came in.
His nose was red and tears were streaming down from his eyes. With the amount of white in his hair and beard, he looked as if he had suddenly aged considerably beyond his face. Dany got up to help as he shuffled stiffly inside and closed the door behind him.
"I thought the weather was supposed to be getting warmer," Dany remarked as she helped Jon shrug out of his outer layers of clothes, crunchy with ice.
"Aye," Jon breathed out raggedly, walking over to the fire and leaving traces of white as a trail, "Though false springs aren't exactly uncommon. And the storm got the deer up and moving. Although I think I scared Sansa when I threw the dagger at her."
"Why did you throw a dagger at her?" Dany exclaimed.
"To get her to stop talking," he grumbled, "No, no. I'm lying. She startled the stag and I figured it would be better to throw the dagger than let it get away entirely. It happened to be right past her."
Dany raised her eyebrows at Jon's description. "Lucky throw," she told him, impressed, "Is that why Sansa seemed so cross?"
"No," he said shortly.
Now warmed up, Jon shook himself out once more to rid the rest of the cold from his body and then crossed over to their bed. He paused for a moment in his cross to peek into Rose's room, where their daughter and Ghost were curled up asleep in her bed for their afternoon nap. Having missed her morning nap, Dany thought putting Rose down a little earlier in the afternoon may be a better option.
Jon sat down on the bed and folded his hands in his lap. Focused on the fire across the room, he only looked up when Dany came to sit down next to him and put a hand on his.
"Do you want to say what happened?" she asked quietly.
Instead of answering her, Jon responded with a question. "What did you and Tyrion talk about?" he asked.
Dany shrugged. "It was rather bland actually. I told him how we ended up here. He told me that the Unsullied and the Dothraki left. He had said that we would discuss what he had talked about yesterday. But...we never got around to it," she said, knitting her eyebrows. Suddenly the enjoyment of talking to someone she had always genuinely expected had evaporated. It was very unlike the Tyrion she remembered to not get to the point of conversations.
Jon did not react to what she had said except to nod briefly, still looking at the fire with much more attention than a fire needed.
"Why do you ask?" she prompted.
"Do you remember what Tyrion said about why they had come?"
"Jon, will you stop answering my questions with questions?"
Jon didn't respond. He turned to look at her, however, as he continued. "Tyrion said they came for you. Don't you remember? They never got to the part of the story, but that's why they came here today," he explained, "To finish it."
"Finish what?" Dany asked. Her mind was racing. In the midst of the story Tyrion had told, she had forgotten their introductions. Forgotten the awkward way that Tyrion had gestured to her and the way Sansa acted as if there was more information she needed.
"I knew he didn't say anything," Jon muttered, glowering at the ceiling.
He looked back at Dany, his eyes searching over her face. It seemed to her that he was trying to choose his words carefully, and it made Dany's stomach drop as she saw the seriousness he regarded her with. Finish what? she thought again ominously. What had been kept from her?
Taking a breath, Jon began. "Dany, nobody in Westeros is more acquainted with slavery than you. When the slavers first started coming to the North, someone on the Sansa's council offhandedly had remarked that they may have welcomed you as the Queen now because you could fend off the slavers the way you had in Slaver's Bay.
"Sansa said everyone laughed, and it was a good quip until later when Brienne and Podrick came back from Wintertown with the story that a wildling tradesman had been running his mouth about the most exotic eyes in Shadowedge."
"Purple eyes?" Dany guessed. Her stomach dropped. From the word "slavery," she knew where this was headed.
Jon nodded, his own voice hollow as he continued. "Then everyone got to wondering: what's the chance that they got it wrong? What if one of us didn't die at King's Landing? Tyrion thought that Cersei might not have taken us. And then the Unsullied and the Dothraki left Dragonstone without a word in the midst of the Great Council. Drogon, too. Nobody really mentioned it, but - "
"They had wanted to believe we had died because it was the easier idea to accept than realizing that we had abandoned them," Dany said, repeating what Tyrion had told her, "But when they heard about Shadowedge...
"They decided that it was worth coming to see if it was really you," Jon finished, "Sansa doesn't think that they'll be able to survive this. That's what she wanted to talk about - the North. There are too many slavers and not enough Northmen left. She's sure that it's the same in the other regions too. They thought that maybe...maybe they could have come to an agreement with you, assuming that you were, for some reason, hiding out here. Obviously that changed when they met us yesterday together and both alive, but they decided to still try and speak to you. Today, Tyrion was supposed to ask for your help."
Always with another motive, Dany thought. Once again, she remembered why she picked Tyrion as her Hand. How unreadable he could be. How cunning, sly, slippery, serpentine, wily, manipulative, scheming...Stop, Dany, stop.
Dany found that she was on her feet, lips pursed tightly together and heart thumping. She could not tell if her head or her stomach was spinning more intensely. Ask for her help? Why, because they thought she had a dragon? Because once again she was just another weapon to defeat their enemies and then be flung aside because she didn't belong with them?
Essosi bitch. Foreign invader. Not one of us. Why turn to someone they seemingly thought so little of? Once again, letting her help because they would be unable to survive on their own.
But what about on my own? Dany thought selfishly. How many people had she sacrificed for them? And how had they repaid her? Bitterly she remembered how alone she felt after the Battle of Winterfell. And how betrayed she felt as everyone seemed to rejoice that it was over and not care about the next step. The Throne. Her initial plans. What she had been promised. Her birthright, her destiny, her -
Jon tugged gently on her hand. She looked up at him, meeting his gaze and trying to swallow around the lump in her throat as she realized that she was trembling. At this realization, she began to tremble harder, though she did not know whether it was from her sudden resurgence of anger or how terrified she felt her own thoughts. It was hard to breathe, she felt like the room was pulsing in and out. Despite the eerie storm weather, it seemed too bright and loud.
"I can't go back," she panted, eyes wide and scared as she looked up at him, "I can't go back, Jon."
Her knees gave out and Dany sunk to the floor, shaking even more horribly than before. Jon came down with her, bringing his arms around her and Dany leaned into the embrace. She suddenly felt weak and clammy, as if she was recovering from an illness that had been with her a week rather than a surge of emotion only minutes old.
"It's okay, Dany," Jon soothed, smoothing her hair, "You don't have to go back."
Anger warred with the terror inside her. Here she was trying to live away from everything these Southerners brought back into her life, and yet she knew that innocent people were dying. She knew, and she was sure Jon thought the same, that a woman as proud as Sansa would have never chosen to come here unless her situation was dire. And yet how could Dany put herself in that position again? How could she open herself up to all the pain again? But how could she sit by and let people die? But how could she even give herself an inch of that power, even a taste of it, again?
"Look to me," said Jon breaking her out of the repeating phrase as he unwrapped himself from the embrace to take Dany's face in his hands, "Dany, look at me. You have the kindest heart. You have done nothing but try and put the past behind you and live peacefully. I know you want to make these amends, I know you're trying. But if you don't want to go back, it's okay to say no."
Dany nodded, trying to take a steadying breath to stop her head from reeling. "I don't want to hear about more people dying. I don't want to know that maybe I could do something," Dany murmured hoarsely to him, "But, Jon, I also don't want people to fear me anymore. Anyone. Slaver, free folk, kneeler, anyone. And if I tried to help - to do what I did last time...I - I don't know if I'd be able to return from that."
"Then you won't have to," Jon promised, pulling her close and kissing her hair.
Thankful, Dany closed her eyes and tried to lose herself in the feeling of Jon's embrace. But a small voice in the back of her mind still tried to make itself heard. Somewhere, right now out there, someone was innocent was being sold because there was nobody to defend them when they needed it the most.
Incredible response to last chapter and I really feel compelled to address a lot of your reviews with how Dany is reacting to Tyrion and Sansa. Just remember the quote at the beginning of this Book: "If I look back, I am lost." Dany is really trying to embody that statement - we see that here.
That being said, there's always an ulterior motive and we see that as well. So it isn't quite all flowery.