Author's Note:
You guys, you guys! This is Chapter 30! Wha-aaaat? How did we get to Chapter 30?
I shouldn't be so surprised, I guess. Hypothetically, I think I could write Jorah/Dany forever, though on this particular story I think we've got about 10-11 chapters left - don't be sad, I have lots more ideas for Jorah/Dany fics :)
This chapter is for ALL my lovely Jorah/Dany shippers but also special shout outs to MormontofRivia and JessicaTooze - let's call this a belated birthday present for both of you :) :) :)
Mwah!
Daenerys
Dreams are like snowflakes dissolving in water…
"Enjoying yourself, little sister?"
Daenerys turned from where she leaned against the alabaster ledge above the massive ballroom, where the sweet fragrance of summer bouquets and Dornish spices filled the air, mixing with laughter and the chatter of those below. She expected Viserys, with his sharp words and disapproving glares. She had hoped he wouldn't notice her absence from the crowd downstairs for a while longer, as she was content to watch the lords and ladies dancing from up here, where she felt safe and hidden from view.
Like a dragon perched up on the cliff side, watching, waiting, not wanting to be on display.
For Viserys loved putting his only sister on display. He loved showing off her silver hair and violet eyes, the telltale signs of her Targaryen blood line. What a price she could fetch with such features. He'd tell her to spin around slowly, showing the interested party all facets.
So many facets. Spin them around until you see yourself…
Daenerys blinked. Oh, but the silver-haired man walking towards her wasn't Viserys at all. It was Rhaegar who approached her hiding spot. Her ready frown loosened and her lips curved into a smile instead. Her oldest brother, in his kingly robes and crown of gold dragons, answered her warm smile with one of his own.
"You should be downstairs dancing," Rhaegar told her, but in an affectionate tone that held none of Viserys's incessant scolding. His voice was smoother than Viserys's too, with a honeyed tone made for singing.
"My dancing partner isn't here," she reminded him, touching a small, silver bear pendant at the wrist of her sleeve absently. Where was Jorah anyway? She'd been waiting here for some time.
You sent him away, don't you remember?
Yes, but he said he'd come back. He always comes back.
"Viserys does not approve of your choice," Rhaegar cautioned with a sly raise of his eyebrow. "A Northerner, Daenerys?"
"You're one to judge," she chided him good-naturedly.
He accepted the teasing with a grin, but continued, almost insisting, "It's a joyful day. The Usurper is dead and our family has taken back what's ours."
"In fire and blood," Daenerys muttered, sobering quickly, reaching out and tracing the blue threads of one of the embroidered roses gracing the shoulder of his cloak. His young, northern queen, Lyanna Stark, had sewn the roses there herself.
"And by the dance of dragons," Rhaegar reminded her, with the pride of their family's heritage claiming the syllable of every word. "So go dance, Daenerys, and celebrate our victory."
He spoke strong, confident words that she knew should bring her only happiness and contentment. Wasn't this what she'd desired for so long? But there was a chill in his glad tidings that she couldn't quite comprehend. The weather was mild in King's Landing but every once in a while, she felt herself shivering. Her mind was fuzzy and spinning on vague memories of events that had never happened. And then some that had. She brought her hand back from the roses at her brother's shoulder.
She turned her attention back to the dancers below. At first, she recognized none of them—just colors and flash of features with silver hair and violet eyes. The spinning facets of dragons reflected in glass…
Oh, but as she watched, she recognized faces—some she knew and some she had never met. She saw lords and ladies that had no business being in each other's company. Ned Stark drank ale with Robert Baratheon. Ashara Dayne accepted a bouquet of white lilies from Barristan Selmy's hands. Missandei and Greyworm whispered to each other softly by vine-decorated pillars. Olenna Tyrell was sitting on a rose-colored cushion, surrounded by her pretty granddaughters. Prince Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand danced with Southern skill and grace, the orange and red fabric of Ellaria's silk and satin dress swirling around them like a burning sunset.
Spinning, spinning, spinning…
"They're all dead," Daenerys straightened up at the sudden realization. Cold dread rippled in her breast as she looked at her brother Rhaegar. She finished up with words she knew she should keep to herself, "And so are you."
"It's a joyful day," Rhaegar repeated, his smile lessening by a degree. "Don't spoil it."
"You spoiled it—a long, long time ago," Daenerys answered in tandem, too bluntly, the memory of Rhaegar's actions spilling back into her head like beads in a jar. She mused softly, "You would have been a good king, I think. You could have calmed the voices in father's head and he would have stepped aside for you. I would have grown up in these halls with your own sweet children. Elia would have taught me how to arrange my hair like a Dornish woman. And perhaps Viserys would have had the recognition he needed. But none of that happened, Rhaegar."
She looked between him and the dance floor below, whispering, "None of this is real."
Rhaegar's smile melted away slowly, his handsome features becoming hard and vulpine. Now the brotherly resemblance to Viserys became unmistakable.
"Be careful, little sister…"
"Your children were murdered," she remembered that part too clearly, too miserably. "So were mine. All because you ran away with the Stark girl."
"A dragon cannot be killed," Rhaegar insisted, though without any confidence. And Daenerys knew better. Viserion had plunged into a frozen lake above the Wall and drowned. He was twice dead, having plummeted with Rhaegal from the skies above Winterfell with howling screams. Both dead, both gone forever.
In the dream, Daenerys covered her ears as the screams of her dying dragons echoed off the strings of the musicians' lyres and harps, down below, where the dead kept dancing.
"You've woken the dragon, haven't you?" Rhaegar's smile twisted into a sneer. As did his face, which sharpened, features traded for Viserys's after all. Now it was Viserys who reached out and seized her arm roughly.
His ghostly touch felt too real, too familiar. She suddenly doubted herself. What was dream and what was reality? She couldn't tell. She was tempted to cower. She felt tears flood her vision, turning the dream landscape hazy and unclear.
"He's no dragon, Khaleesi," Jorah's voice brought everything back into focus. She felt his familiar presence before she saw him. He appeared at her side on the balcony, sword hand ready on the hilt at his belt but waiting for her command. He was wearing the same clothes that he used to wear in Essos, that old yellow shirt peeking out from under his black tunic and Eastern armor. Looking down, she found herself in Dothraki leather.
The balcony faded away, with that same gods-awful spinning. Snow, sand, frost and leaves. The whisper of words that were written on the canvas of a mottled sky, over and over again.
When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East...
When the horrid spinning stopped, she, Jorah and Viserys were in a small clearing of dirt and patches of knotgrass, somewhere deep in the grass jungle on the road to Vaes Dothrak. She knew this place.
From behind a nearby grove of bamboo shoots, Daenerys heard the sultry voice of Mirri Maz Duur. The woman mocked her. "East for West. North for South. Has the world turned upside-down yet?"
Jorah had always ignored the witch—in life, in death, in dreams. He addressed Daenerys only, continuing calmly, "Viserys is a shadow of a snake. Just shake him off."
So she did. Looking into her silver-haired brother's cruel eyes, she shook off his greedy grasp. His hand fell away so easily and his violet eyes went cold, freezing into twin blue orbs, so like Viserion after he rose from the waters of that lake above the Wall.
The dream incarnation of Viserys sank to his knees in a ring of blue fire that began to consume him slowly, in a spin of dust and light, nibbling away at his flesh. From somewhere deep in the forest, the witch started cackling.
"Dany!" Viserys begged as he disintegrated to dust. "We were the last dragons!"
Daenerys shook her head slowly. She couldn't remember the strong words she'd flung back at him when Khal Drogo gave him his golden crown. This time, she stayed silent. She couldn't take her eyes off her brother, even as the ground seemed to shift beneath her.
"Come away, Daenerys," Jorah reached out his hand and she took it immediately.
The feel of his hand enveloping hers was achingly familiar. Despite the dreamscape, it grounded her and she felt safe again. Even as the world around them began turning, the grass forests shimmering sideways, like dancers in a ballroom, like the grave dust swirling around her brother's ruined features.
Or like the hot sun above them, dazzling the sky with acrobatics more like a tabletop spinner than an orb in the heavens, rising, setting, spinning. It spun like Ellaria Sand's orange silks. Up was down and down was up. East and West had no claim on the compass anymore.
When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. The witch's words spun too. In her ears, over and over again. When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East.
Only the clearing remained untouched, grass swirling at her feet like snow drifts. She held tight to Jorah's hand to keep from falling.
Spinning, spinning, spinning…
Daenerys woke up with a start.
In their dark bedroom on Bear Island, she sat up in bed quickly, with a sharp gasp of breath. Her head was cluttered and spinning. Spinning as fast as the unstable world in the dream. When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East…
Beside her, Jorah slept soundly, dead tired from a long day spent falling trees in the pine and spruce woods with the other men. His left hand, calloused and blistered from too many hours with an axe, was clasped in her left, grasped in sleep. She must have taken his hand while still in the dream, reaching out for something steady. Though he was still fast asleep, his fingers curled around hers, stroking the knuckles in a soothing caress.
She nearly woke him, but thought better of it. It wasn't a nightmare, not exactly. She'd known it was a dream. She shouldn't feel afraid. And she didn't—no, it wasn't fear. Still, the spinning…
She grimaced, releasing Jorah's hand gently, swinging her legs out from under the warm quilts and slipping off the bed onto the cold, stone floor. Her head wouldn't stop spinning. She felt ill and suddenly, like she might be sick. She steadied herself at the side of the bed, breathing deeply.
Her eyes were closed. The beginning of the dream lingered in her head. Those dancers in the ballroom below. One dance followed by another. All the lords of the realm taking turns asking for their ladies' hands to spin, spin, spin. Oh, but she had to stop…
Anxious, she rose from the bed and walked the short distance to the tall bedroom window, painted in colors of white frost and black night.
At the window, she lingered, pressing her flushed cheek against the cold, cold stones of the window's frame. The cold calmed her dream-addled mind and the wave of nausea that had overtaken her so swiftly eventually passed.
She opened her eyes to the winter-white night outside the bedroom window.
The moon perched high in the night sky, like a white raven on silver talons. Unlike the sun, the moon didn't keep to the southern horizon. Its pale glow cast the Island in eerie shades of silver-white.
Outside, everything was cold, everything covered in snow. It was a barren wasteland with no hint of life within. Down by the frozen coast and up on the mountains, the chilled wind blew at the snow drifts like dust and frosted leaves.
When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East, when the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves…
It might as well rise in the West and set in the East, Daenerys thought to herself cleverly. What difference does direction make to a sun that doesn't show itself at all?
And it was that thought that finally woke her fully and stopped the spinning enough that she could think with some clarity. She opened her eyes widely, blinking the sleep away. For the echo of the witch's words brought with them another thought, a memory of something she hadn't felt in a very long time.
Something she was convinced she would never feel again.
She'd almost forgotten…
A spark of life that wasn't her own. Or, at least, not hers alone.
With dawning realization, her hands drifted to her abdomen, fingers spreading wide over the fabric of her nightgown and the still flat stomach beneath.
It's not possible, came Mizzi Maz Duur's sinuous voice in her head. Only death pays for life and the death of your womb was my price.
Still, Daenerys's hands lingered as she turned back towards their bed, at Jorah sleeping soundly—lost to less violent dreams, she hoped.
Who's to say what's possible? Daenerys answered the witch, but then ignored any other words the dead woman might have to say. Jorah always ignored her, so why shouldn't she?
But was it possible? She thought back. She hadn't had her moon's blood in years so there was no telling in that way. The witch had been so sure and Daenerys never thought to question it before. She'd never conceived with Daario Naharis though she spent enough time in his vainglorious company.
She rolled her eyes at the fleeting thought of her former paramour and his cocky, grinning self. He'd kissed his favorite knife almost as much as he kissed her.
There it was again. The spark, the fluttering, the innate knowledge that only a mother can describe. It stole her breath away.
Part of her wanted to rush over to Jorah and wake him, with butterfly kisses traced up his jawline until he woke, groggy and wondering why she was wide awake in the middle of the night.
Why indeed…she thought with wonder and…fear.
Her hands fell away from her waist and then found themselves again, her fingers running over each other as she thought on questions that insisted on spinning through her head. What if she was wrong? But what if she was right? Did he want to be a father? Did she know how to be a mother? Was a child born in Winter damned before it was born? Was death to come for this one too?
She shivered, having stood by the cold window for too long. The bitter cold chased away some of the rambling in her head, at least.
She wouldn't wake Jorah. He was exhausted, having fallen asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow. But when she crawled back into bed, she snuggled up against her tired bear. His arm slid around her waist smoothly, even in deep sleep. She couldn't manage a smile, emotions too unraveled by spinning dreams and future unknowns. But she sighed softly as she laid her cheek flush against his broad chest, safe.
Her news would keep. So would the rest.