The DRAGON And The BEAR

ESSOS - MEEREEN 300 AC

Jorah Mormont lived off smoke and wine, keeping to the confines of his room. The skies faded from dirt to blue, passed under the shadow and bled until morning. On the third day he found himself in front of the mirror, inspecting the progress of his wounds.

He left the bandages around his chest untouched out of fear – not of what lay beneath but from the wrath of his doctor. Witch more like. He'd caught her hissing things to the moon from his window more than once while the feathered shadows of crows passed silently by. On measure, the bruises marring his face were nearly gone and what he thought was a broken wrist was only a sprain. He'd have his sword arm back by the end of the week. In spite of this, he lofted his eyebrow at the mirror.

"You're still an ugly bastard," he muttered to his reflection.

A soft knock disturbed him. He made some sort of affirmative sound before Missandei entered – to his great surprise. He pulled back from the mirror and didn't quite know what to do with himself after that. Thankfully she did.

"I had these made for you," Missandei began, holding out a neatly folded pile of fresh clothes. Her large brown eyes said everything else. They were apologetic though he couldn't place why.

He stepped forward and took them from her carefully then nodded, smiling best he could. It felt foreign on his lips after months in exile.

"Tyrion was right," she continued. Without all his armour and leather, Mormont was a softer man. His eyes were warm, a quizzical look in them. "You are not the man you were when you landed on our shores. As long as I have been with the queen you've spoken of home. The Crown offered it to you twice. Yet here you are – on the other side of the world. I believe 'home' means something different to you now."

Missandei didn't give him the chance to reply and that was probably for the best.

He was left to inspect the clothes. She'd brought him a light, flowing shirt in the style of the Westerosi kings. It was black with two fighting bears embroidered on its back – black as well but visible if you held it to the light. The sleeves had three gold dragons sewn onto the cuffs. They danced, tail to snout. The gesture was obvious. The next time he stood before the queen he would not find himself banished.

Well – unless it was an elegant execution.

Jorah shaved the beard clinging to his cheeks and dressed in the new clothes. He returned to the mirror and noted the slight improvement. He had no more reason to delay. Feeling naked without a sword, he left the room and fussed with the new belt circling his waist. It too had a gold dragon with a pair of diamond eyes. These trinkets felt like a glimmer of his old life filtering through the blur – a hazy dream of when he'd ruled a kingdom of his own, far away among the ice and snow drifts. He closed his eyes, lingering in the hall. The Mormont prince, they'd called him. Mormont king now – if he'd made nobler choices. Jorah was under no illusions. He'd never be a king again.

"The queen waits," the Unsullied guard replied to his question, extending a muscular arm in the direction of Daenerys' room. He may as well have parted the Narrow Sea.

Jorah took the stairs, holding the side of his chest as he reached the top. That still hurt.

Outside the doors of her room he hesitated. His hand hovered over the brass surface. Bloody harpies again. They infected every crevice of this palace with their wrath. Jorah swallowed hard. It was as though the intervening weeks had never passed. He remained in the dust of Meereen's fighting pits, blood dripping from his skin and onto steal armour, smouldering with the heat. A dying man beside. A hissing crowd. Their rage was silent. All he'd seen that day was the queen. Her faintest tremble roared in his ears. He could have sworn that for a moment, she forgave him.

"Come."

Jorah looked up. The word seeped through the door, clear as night. How did she know he was there?

The bear laid his hand gently on its surface and pushed. It swung, silent on its well-oiled hinges revealing the royal quarters. The vines that twisted over every window were in bloom with the sagging heads of blue roses. Between them, curtains of fine netting billowed in the breeze. The queen's attendants set down the various items they were holding, bowed and left the room. The last one closed the door behind Jorah. He turned, watching the great stone thing close. He was alone with the dragon queen.

You'll never be alone with her again.

"Come," she beckoned.

His new leather boots creaked softly on the stone. Jorah reached for the hilt of his sword but found only his hip to rest his nervous hand on. His sleeves were vast, rippling like the curtains behind the queen. When he reached her, Jorah respectfully sank to his knee – head bowed and eyes to the floor. He didn't dare utter her name, remembering clearly how she'd forbidden him from speaking it. Would it anger her to hear it on his lips again?

Daenerys moved from the window. He heard the rustle of her dress and closed his eyes to halt temptation. The wind was cool in his hair. It smelled of smoke, salt – ice. Home, he thought before a length of fine silk brushed over him. The hand on his knee clasped harder as he focused on the cool of the floor where his other palm was flush to the stone. Jorah heard something – snow crashing into the fire? The first melt of winter? A dragon tear on the stone.

"Ser Jorah Mormont of Bear Island," the queen announced, her voice steady, "you will look at your queen."

He did as commanded, lifting his head and gaze to her. She loomed above him like a storm – wild. Her tone gave no mind to the tears running the curve of her cheek. The queen had not given him permission to speak so he remained silent at her feet.

"I have it that you travelled to Essos in the hopes of a royal pardon, that one day you might return home. Pardons have to be earned."

Jorah heard the scratch of parchment. The pardons she spoke of were laid behind her, half uncurled on her table with the vile trimmings of the Lannister and Baratheon kings flicking up in the wind. He'd rather she burned them.

Daenerys walked by, too close. Her skirts ran over him again and he dared to turn his head that the soft silk might linger on his skin a moment more. She stilled by an old sea chest, carted from the Dothraki Sea to the rubble of Meereen. The dragon eggs were long hatched and now it held her official documents – maps, war plans, contracts...

"I trust," she started, retrieving a scroll from the depths of the box. This one was tied in gold and sealed with the red Targaryen dragon of her house. Daenerys returned to stand in front of him. She held the parchment out for him to take, "That you shall take better care of this one."


Daenerys waited, hand outstretched. It was not so different to the hand he'd offered her. Instead of dust, incense swirled through the air between them. She burned pine and cinnamon – salt and lemon. She'd have burned ice if it pleased the bear.

She couldn't be sure how long she looked into his eyes. They were clear – like the Shivering Sea and unguarded. Their secrets were hers. Daenerys found that there was power in owning something so entirely. He was a land-locked ocean and her – the fire at its shores.

Jorah cupped his hand gently under the pardon, sliding it from her hold. As he did this he stood, though she'd not commanded him. His free hand lifted to her face, rough knuckles brushing through tears she didn't remember allowing. Daenerys heard her name – or did he call her silver queen? Khaleesi... Perhaps he called her everything.

They were fire and ice.

A calamity.

A storm brewing beneath the curve of the sea broken apart by the doors flying open. Unsullied spilled into the queen's quarters. Jorah slid his hand from her cheek to her waist, sliding the queen behind him in a single motion as he'd done a thousand times when trouble stirred.


ESSOS – THE RED WASTE

He had promised to behave himself and for that, the Dothraki let him sit on a horse. Mind you – not much of a horse. Beastly thing it was with an ill temper that wanted nothing more in life than to bite anything that came within reach. Daario could appreciate that. He called it Grizzly after a certain bear he was less than fond of.

Grizzly veered unexpectedly, snapping at another rider. The movement tugged on the bindings around Daario's wrists making him hiss and kick the horse for being so disagreeable. They were slowly coming to an understanding.

"This is the longest possible route to the coast..." Daario complained, to anyone that would listen. A slave girl did. She was tied behind a larger horse, walking with the caravan. He'd seen her like in every brothel from Astapor to King's Landing.

"They're afraid of the desert," she replied, eyeing the Red Waste warily. "A dragon wakes there."

Daario almost laughed. "There are dragons in these mountains," he nodded to the great black peaks that rose above, "I promise you that. Three of them – quite partial to horse."

"No..." the slave girl whispered, taking a few steps closer to Daario's horse. "The Dothraki speak of a jade dragon. It is nothing like the creatures that feed off lambs in the Great Grass Sea. This dragon is stone. It makes dead men walk."

That amused Daario even more. "The only danger lurking in that sand," he assured her, "is the desert itself."

"You are wrong," the girl replied. "I have seen men walk with dead hearts and eyes like the moon. The come out when the sun falls and the land cools. They spill from the city gates."

"Which city?" Daario found himself leaning slightly in curiosity.

"Yin..."

Daario frowned, straightening back on Grizzly. Those stories could not be true. Yin was the heart of Essos. The greatest city that ever was since the first songs. Such a thing could hardly vanish and the world not hear it die.


ESSOS - MEEREEN

"What is it?" Daenerys asked of Grey Worm, when he entered her room shortly behind the rest of the Unsullied. His dark skin was covered in sweat. He'd run here.

Grey Worm looked warily at Jorah Mormont. He still had doubts about whether he could trust the Westerosi knight. "Your grace – there is a plague in the streets. Many are sick – several have died. It started on the river but it's spreading fast."

"Plague? What plague?"

"They call it Greyscale, your grace."

Daenerys instinctively turned to her bear for information. His words filled the gaps her advisers could not.

"A pestilence from the southern lands," he replied. "It spreads from ships that have sailed in from tropical ports or – forgive me – those that have strayed to close to the ruins of your ancestral home. It is known to kill many if it gets free in the close confines of a city like this."

She turned and crossed to the window, leaning out of the stone barrier to look into the city below. Even from this height she could see chaos on the streets. Crowds were converging – some spilling out of the great gates themselves.

"What will happen to them?" she asked.

"Those that have the illness will either die presently – or be turned slowly mad by it," he replied. "Better for the desert to have them. There is no easy cure." He could hardly tell her about the dragon so instead he shared the story of Shireen Baratheon, the infant princess. "Though it has only been shown to work on the very young and no one is quite sure what it actually was that worked in the end."

"...and my people?" Daenerys whispered, still suspended over the stone ledge.

"They will die – master and freeman alike. Either you must leave this city or prepare to remain in this pyramid until the plague has run its course." Jorah was worried – not so much for her as he was certain that a dragon could not catch illness but rather for the numbers they would lose from their army. They needed every single one of them if they had any hope of conquering Westeros. It would be a disaster to linger here on the edge of the world.

Daenerys turned to Grey Worm. "Pull the armies back into the vaults beneath the city. No one is to leave the safety of the tunnels."

"There will be chaos..." Grey Worm warned her.

Her eyes were stone. "Meereen will bury their own dead."


The nights were filled with wailing mothers, knelt along the city walls, praying to the moon and stars – the old gods and the new – the darkness and their silver queen. Anything that would listen. Daenerys heard them in her dreams. She imagined the second, gruesome wall of bodies growing. A thousand eyes stared back at her, accusingly. She'd set fire to them all and now they drifted as smoke, pressed down against the sand with the cool evening air.

Jorah sat on the opposite side of her room with a single oil lamp illuminating his desk. He was drawing up plans for the safe extraction of her army from Meereen, the enormous, soft feather on the quill dancing against his hand. She watched from bed, unable to sleep. The air was thick with incense. It burned in every corner on the advice of Meereen's doctors. Allegedly it warned off the plague. Jorah swatted at its drifting tendrils when they came too close. He was remarkably unconcerned with the fear that held the rest of her court.