Author's Note: Jorah should really consider getting that cut looked at. Just sayin'…

As always, thanks for reading! :)

Jorah

Even in summer, when the leaves on the trees were green and vibrant and the roads in the north were clear and passable, not slick with ice, stinking of ash and death and littered with heaps of snow-covered corpses, it would have taken them too much time to reach Winterfell. Drogon had left Daenerys stranded too far north and going south would mean going back through the mass of bones and corpses that Jorah had forced the battle-weary horse through earlier, all buried now in icy drifts as snow continued to accumulate in open fields.

They would never make it. Not with the horse now stumbling on every obstacle in its path. Not with his sword arm weakened almost past use, as hot blood continued to seep out of that scratch that he'd told the Hound was nothing. Not with Daenerys unable to walk and both of them bloodied and tired and ready to fall from exhaustion.

He might have risked it anyway, if those storm clouds that had hovered above the Night King's army all day would dissipate into vapor. But with the creature's death, there was a second screaming howl—the howl of snow and ice and blizzard barreling in from somewhere far above the Frost Fangs and the Fist of the First Men. After all their threats, the clouds finally broke open and only thickened as they collided with each other. The snow flurries began falling faster and harder than before, three inches in just over an hour. The storm had an unnatural look that tasted like last vengeance, whether from the whims of dead men or the earth itself wanting to cover its face with a crisp, white sheet…

And though the dead hadn't been able to kill them, the weather surely would. It was cold. So bitterly, bitterly cold. It burned in their lungs with each labored breath. Jorah's hands held the mare's leather reins numbly. In the shared saddle, Daenerys huddled as close to him as she could, burying her face against his chest, as the frigid breeze whipped over the moors, bringing with it the razored tongue and sharp fangs of the northernmost winds, conjured up in polar regions for the purpose of preserving glaciers for generations.

Jorah turned the horse west through the smoldering ruins of the Wolfswood. Much of the fire in the eastern portion of the forest had burned itself out, so quick to flame alive in the oxygen-rich air. The ancient woods, all the elm, oak, ironwoods and firs that had been standing for hundreds of years, fell to ash and blackened bones. The trees that still stood were shorn of their branches and smoking like chimneys. Residual heat lingered in the cinders but the heavier snows would snuff it out quickly.

There was still fire burning deep in the western forest. Jorah saw its orange glow in the distance like a beacon and headed towards it. He watched the telling movement of clouds in the night sky, warily keeping on the edge of the storm as it moved south.

He knew the path west blindfolded. He shouldn't be so surprised. This was his country. The North was in his blood, with roots inherited from his father and his father's father, all the way back to the First Men. And this was the road home to Bear Island. But all those years in exile, he always wondered if his memories of home would abandon him at last, their edges dulling, the deep colors of green forest, brown bears and black water fading away into nothingness, half a world away.

He remembered sitting beneath a Dothraki tent in Essos, in burning, scathing desert heat, eyes closed, trying to recall the smell of snow on cedars or the sound of cold water crashing against the sea stones and spilling over the waterfall outside the old Mormont Hall.

Had he managed it? He couldn't remember now. So much of his life felt like a dream. He'd been awake for too many hours in a row and the blood loss wasn't helping. His thoughts were muddled. Only the cold was real. Only the night. Only the knowledge that they were in open country with a storm rushing in that would freeze them solid if they didn't outrun it.

Daenerys mumbled something against his chest, so quietly that her words were lost to his ears. She clung to him tightly, drawing as much heat from him as she could. He had thrown his cloak around her shoulders but she was still cold to the touch. Fierce and fearsome as they could be, dragons weren't made for this weather.

Two dragons tangling in the air, men and monsters falling to their deaths.

He bent his head closer to hers, down into the cocoon she'd made for herself, feeling the cold ivory of her forehead brush against his unshaven cheek as he asked, "What did you say?"

"I want to go home," she whispered against his chest, still so softly, that he might have missed the words again. But those words echoed his own. They echoed the thoughts of every person within two hundred miles.

Home.

Winter made children of them all. The games of men were over at last. Kingdoms and thrones and even fighting off an undead insurgency—none of it mattered. It was all over. The sky lords, in all their unholy terror and capricious whims, would rule the world until the end of winter. The only game left for men and women to play was the game of survival. And no matter who you were or where you came from, the game of survival was best fought at home.

"We will go home," he answered, repeating the old promise to breathe new life into its fragile, fair-weather bones. He had said it so long ago that she might not remember. But he remembered. He could still recall the exact shade of her violet eyes, haunted and plaintive, as she asked,

What do you pray for Ser Jorah?

That I will not fail her. He prayed it again and again, a million prayers sent up to whoever might listen, since that very day in the Western Market when a wine merchant tried to serve her his poisoned vintage. That I will finally take you home, my princess.

Oh, but where is home, Ser? To exiles and orphans, what place can we call home?

He pushed aside his darker thoughts with ease, as the cold continued to remind him of the task at hand. He urged the horse forward and said again, in a steely tone that left no room for doubt, "We will go home, Daenerys. I promise you."