Author's Note:
The next three chapters are the #babybear chapters. Starting with this one… :)
Daenerys
Winter slipped.
Not for very long and not without a promise to return swiftly, angrily and with as much vengeance against those who foolishly thought they smelled spring on the air as ever. Spring was still a long way off. Years away, Brandon Stark might have divulged if the Three-Eyed Raven had any interest in telling fortunes.
But winter stumbled. And for a week or more, a southern breeze blew up from far south of the frost-kissed shores of Westeros, to breathe over the Seven Kingdoms and loosen winter's grip.
It thawed. In the south, where a dusting of snow had reached all the way to the shores of the Summer Sea, the snows melted. Good riddance, the Dornish said, shrugging off the heavy shawls and outer garments that they'd draped around themselves under protest.
In the north, the snow stayed but settled, with eaves dripping and frosted windows suddenly clear again. In the bays around Bear Island, the sea ice cracked, broke off and drifted away in giant chunks, to bob and float in the dark, cold waters of the channel.
"Damn this winter to hell," Lyanna had muttered, when the weather turned. She told Jorah and Seffius, "You watch. It'll thaw just long enough to let those bastard pirates come ashore…"
Lyanna was right, of course. As they all feared, the Greyjoys came with the thaw. Not Euron himself, who wouldn't risk his life in a raid—no he stayed home, feasting and drinking the winter away in his towers on Pike. But two ships carrying Ironborn fighters landed at Ynes Lyme on the third night after the first warm day. Jorah, Seffius and Lyanna were there to meet the marauders, with two dozen fighting men and women planted up and down the shore, ready to defend their homes and the Island against men without honor.
Daenerys had remained behind, as she was nearing her date to deliver. The child within her was sitting low in her womb and Maester Morlan said she might give birth any day now. False labor pains had plagued her for two days and she was tired of it. Tired of waiting for news. Tired of imagining the worst. Tired of being useless, when Jorah and the others were down at the bloody shore, outnumbered and outflanked.
"I can't just sit here," Daenerys said suddenly, rising from the straight-backed chair she'd been sitting in, restless and unwilling to wait in tense silence for a moment longer. Mary had been sitting with her all morning, passing the hours by mending shirts beside the fire, and she looked up from her needle and thread with concern, watching Daenerys pace across the room, wringing her hands.
"They'll be all right," Mary assured Daenerys. Mary was Bear Island born and raised. She knew the dangers but had that stoic, long-suffering confidence that told her the bears would push the kraken back into the sea, as they had done a hundred times before.
Daenerys had none of the other woman's confidence. And she knew that Bear Islanders accepted the death of a few over the safety of many. When Mary said they'd be all right, she meant the Island as a whole. She could make no promises over the individual men and women fighting on the shore and wouldn't be foolish enough to do so.
Daenerys grimaced, from the persistent vision that plagued her hourly—of Jorah slain by a Greyjoy sword on the shore at Ynes Lyme…and from a dull pain that kept ripping at her abdomen, as the baby wouldn't stop moving that morning, as unsettled and anxious as its mother.
"But you should rest, my lady," Mary continued, setting her mending aside as she watched Daenerys close her eyes briefly, her hand drifting to her swollen belly to try and massage away that persistent, dull pain. "I know Maester Morlan says these pains are false labor but it won't be long, in any case…you'll do the child no good fretting over these things."
As if I have a choice? The hot words that leapt to Daenerys's tongue were swallowed up by the edge of that last pain, a little stronger than the ones before. But it passed quickly and she nodded, just to placate Mary. The woman meant well and she was talking sense, despite the fact that Daenerys currently had no interest in hearing it.
She just wanted Jorah to come back, whole and alive. A few tears, miserable things, tried to betray her fears but she blinked them back, too restless and angry in her restlessness to give into bleak sorrows and dark fears.
She thought she was done with this. The war was over, wasn't it? Hadn't they lost enough? Hadn't they paid in enough blood? If she closed her eyes, she could still see Viserion and Rhaegal plummeting from the ash-and-snow skies above Winterfell and hear the haunted howls that followed.
So why was she forced to stand here now, waiting on news that her husband was unscathed and would return to her?
Gods protect him. She prayed, her hands curling around her heavily pregnant belly again, this time not in pain, but in protectiveness. Her mind was against her, whispering cruel memories of Khal Drogo and Rhaego and how she lost both in the span of a single day. She couldn't do that again, she knew.
She wouldn't survive it.
Mary didn't know her thoughts but from the grave, sympathetic look she was giving Daenerys, the Bear Island girl certainly guessed them.
Daenerys tried to push those thoughts aside. She paced some more, wandering closer to the north-facing windows lining the outer hall. That northern horizon was dark, as always, and the sun would set soon. But there was something sinister in that horizon that hadn't been there before.
It had been a little over a year since Daenerys and Jorah landed on the Island, outrunning that terrible storm that iced over the whole country.
But Daenerys hadn't forgotten the way those violet, storm-brewed clouds cluttered up the sky or the speed of the blizzard and vicious surrender it forced from all in its path. Those storm clouds that she saw gathering outside the windows of the Keep were too similar.
A storm was coming. And if they didn't finish tangling with the Greyjoys soon, Jorah and the others would be caught out in it.
Daenerys ignored the next pain that rippled through her abdomen, part of her knowing that the strength of these last few pains was something different than what she'd felt for two days. She didn't tell Mary. Before he left, Jorah had kissed her forehead and made her swear she would send for the Maester as soon as she thought the baby was coming.
No delays, no excuses.
"Come, Mary," Daenerys said instead, keeping her voice level, breathing through a contraction that threatened to steal her breath away. But she was stubborn and strong, the Mother of Dragons once again. "I need your help."
Drogon slept in the sea cave. He'd been sleeping for months. If dragons dream, she was sure he was happily diving and soaring in warm thermals, with miles of green fields and blue oceans beneath.
Daenerys didn't begrudge him his dreams. She would let him return to them as soon as she could, but she needed Drogon now. She needed him to do what she could not. He would make quick work of the pirates, much quicker than the slogging, bone-weary work of steel against steel.
Although Mary hesitated and, at first, nearly refused, Daenerys convinced the girl to take her down to the sea cave and help her wake Drogon up. Fueled by that restless, anxious energy that would soon help her bring her child into the world, Daenerys continued to ignore the birth pains that came, more and more frequently, as they made their way down through the tunnel that led from the Keep to Drogon's chosen lair.
She was in labor. She knew it well enough. As they entered the sea cave, she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out and couldn't help but halt her steps, gripping the nearest lichen-covered stone for support. Mary noticed this time and gave her a look of glaring disapproval.
Jorah had forced promises from Mary too. Although he never specified that she was not to allow Daenerys to mount a rescue mission when she was a few hours from giving birth, Mary was quite sure he would regard this as a failure on all her promises to keep Daenerys safe and within shouting distance of the Maester when the time came.
"My lady, you should have said something," Mary chided, mad at herself for letting Daenerys talk her into this in the first place.
Daenerys couldn't speak for a long moment, holding fast to that stone and breathing through the pain. Part of her found the idea of giving birth to their child in this cave almost fitting, as she had long suspected that the baby was conceived here, the day Jorah first showed her this place, the same day Theon Greyjoy had stumbled inland from the snow-covered sea ice.
"We have to get you back to the Keep," Mary insisted, taking the woman's arm and letting her lean against her for support as well.
"No, come," Daenerys managed finally, breathing deeply and rousing herself as the pain subsided. She resumed her steps, walking towards the dragon. She promised with a wry half-smile, "Help me wake Drogon and I'll go wherever you ask."
Mary hesitated, still angry at herself for being tricked by Daenerys. But they were here already and the dragon was so formidable, even sleeping, that Mary had to admit the Greyjoys would take one look at him and run back to the Iron Islands, dragging their damn kraken tentacles behind them.
"Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor," Daenerys spoke in Valyrian, her mother tongue falling off her lips so easily. "But wake, Drogon, Wake and help me."
Mary watched as Daenerys stroked the scales of the dragon's face lovingly while she spoke those ancient words. Daenerys used all the same careful tones and touches that Mary had seen horse masters whisper to green broke stallions. Daenerys continued speaking gently, cooing the beast awake, even as her breath shortened and Mary watched her grab at her belly again, tears of pain sliding off her pale cheeks.
Drogon's tail twitched, as he inhaled strongly. Then his front foot moved, claws stretching, and slowly, finally, after blinking those lizard eyes twice, Mary watched the dragon's eyes open. The servant girl had never seen a dragon and found herself frozen to where she stood on the sea cave floor, watching the dragon rise up on his front haunches, his attention on Daenerys.
Pained though they were, Daenerys's features broke into a grin.
"Drogon," she exhaled on his name. The dragon lowered his head to her, accepting another caress. He seemed to sense she couldn't come with him this time, intelligently reading her face and sniffing at her pregnant belly once before stretching out his wings. Mary stepped back as his large wingspan grazed the air above her head.
With no time to waste, Daenerys spoke more High Valyrian but Mary could understand the final command well enough, "Fly, Drogon! Fly!"
And he did. The dragon loved his mother as much as she loved him. Spoiled and selfish as he was, he knew she needed him now. As he flew off, the wind from his flapping wings blasted through the mouth of the cave, mixing with all those cold, bitter winds that had returned. As Daenerys feared, a terrible storm moved down from the north swiftly.
Daenerys sighed in relief, but reached out for Mary's steadying hand, suddenly exhausted. And she was in for far more exhaustion before the night's end. A small flood of water spilled between her legs onto the sea cave floor, splashing on the black rocks that Drogon had been sleeping on until moments ago. No more pretend. Her baby was coming, whether she was ready or not.
Please don't let my baby die…kostilus. She prayed, in the common tongue and High Valyrian, all those dark thoughts of Rhaego suddenly rushing back, unable to be banished from her fear-addled mind.
"Let's get you back to the Keep, my lady," Mary said as she slipped her arm around Daenerys's waist and led the woman back up towards the tunnels, accepting no further argument.
Daenerys nodded, currently unable to manage much else.