Author's Note:
Eeeeeee! Only two chapters left after this one – Jorah (extended chapter) and Sansa. Both are drafted and just waiting on editing. I'm also planning a fluffy little epilogue too though writing/posting that chapter may be delayed (ha! mostly because I don't want to say goodbye to this fic *bittersweet-sad face*)…but oh-my-god-oh-my-god I can't believe we're almost to the end.
Next chapter will have some specific shout outs to my faithful readers. But also a more general note in this one. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mwah! My readers are the best! All your comments/faves make me smile. Every. Single. Time. Xo
Lyanna
The dragon's sudden appearance had been a blessing.
After hours of holding the beach, they were losing ground to the Greyjoys. There were just too many of them—slithering, slimy, bastard krakens all. In the end, Lyanna knew that her fighters would outlast them, whether in the village, in the woods, wherever the Ironborn finally realized that the Mormont house words were no hubris…but the time to beat them back was growing short. A storm was coming.
Lyanna heard the swoosh of dragon wings before she saw him, watching a black shadow sweep across the snow-crusted coastline. When the men and women on the ground looked skyward, a cheer went up from the tired and battle-weary Mormont ranks. Dafydd Longshaw lifted his bow towards the sky in salute and Seffius Claver clamped a strong hand on Jorah's shoulder, drawing his lord's attention to the dragon above.
With Daenerys Targaryen heavy with Jorah Mormont's child, there was no question which side the dragon came to fight for.
Drogon opened his mouth and orange fire poured out, cutting a trail of flames through the Greyjoy line. The pirates hadn't fought at Winterfell, having returned to the Iron Islands just after Euron attended the summit at the Dragon Pit. Now, they were stunned with dread, having never seen a dragon in the flesh…or a dragon in the sky rather, as the black beast swooped down to burn them all alive.
Many of the Greyjoys panicked, throwing down their weapons, giving up their fights and running back towards the smaller boats that had brought them ashore. A few were more brazen, made of pure salt and hard iron, and continued cutting at the Mormonts, the black dragon and his flames be gods-damned.
Lyanna wasn't concerned about the Greyjoys now. The kraken boy she'd been sparring with took one look at the dragon and rushed back to the boats with some of his brethren, splashing through the icy surf to dive into one of the rowboats headfirst, while clutching his side to keep from bleeding out on his way to safety. In their sparring, she'd cut him up good. If he lived through this, she wondered if he'd tell the folks at home that his scars were given to him by a fourteen year old girl.
Unlikely, she the cold air, she brushed a few wayward strands of her dark hair away from her face with the back of her hand. The braid she'd tied it in was coming loose after hours of tussling with the Greyjoys. She'd been tempted to ask Daenerys to teach her how to braid like the Dothraki. She had seen those wild horsemen fighting on the moors of Winterfell—they were skilled warriors and certainly knew how to braid their hair tight enough that no battle could tug it loose.
Next time, she decided firmly, while simultaneously wishing that next time never came. It was a fool's wish. They had dealt with these marauders for centuries, long before Lyanna's mother or her mother's mother had been born.
But perhaps…, Lyanna conceded as she watched the dragon make a second pass.
Bear Island was home to both bears and dragons now. And the combination was formidable.
As Drogon continued picking off the Greyjoys on the shore, the wind picked up noticeably. Lyanna lowered the blood-stained knives in her hands to her side as she turned and faced the storm. No amount of frowning at the heavens would send stormy weather back beyond the horizon but she tried anyway, glaring at those violet clouds with as much rage as the blizzard would no doubt blow down on them any minute.
Damn this winter to hell.
"My lady, we need to return to the Keep," Dafydd reached her side and urged her up the hill from the Ynes Lyme beach. He was looking at the clouds, same as her, but gave a brief nod to the sea as well, where Lyanna watched Drogon skim the churning water, hitting the Greyjoy ships with a blast of fire that sent up an anguished cry from the pirates in the rowboats and the few still skirmishing on the shore.
With their retreat cut off, those remaining salt-and-iron krakens continued the fight, knowing they had no other choice. But their advantage was broken and now it was only stragglers and headstrong fools who tried to press forward. It was vanity but a raging kind. And Jorah, in particular, found himself still tangling with one of Euron's captains, a seasoned warrior who had been drowned and brought back more times than any living man had any right to be.
They were well matched but Lyanna had no doubt that her cousin would triumph. He was Jorah-fucking-Mormont, not one of Euron's damn pirates.
Snow began swirling around Lyanna and Dafydd and all the rest up and down the shore, the first flakes of a howling blizzard. The newly bloodied ground was soon hidden away by a fresh coat of white. They all remembered the storm that chased them back from Winterfell and how it threatened to freeze them where they stood or lose them in a blinding white haze from which they would never find a way out.
Drogon knew it too. After making one last sweep across the burning Greyjoy ships, toppling the charred mainsail on the flag ship and setting the choppy waves on fire with one last, hot breath of flame, he flapped off, back to his cave to hunker down and sleep his way through yet another blizzard.
Having just rid their shores of vermin, Lyanna had no interest in losing her fighting men and women to the weather.
She nodded to Dafydd, "Call them back. Let's go home."
"Don't you dare tell her that Ser Jorah's not back yet," Mary cautioned Lyanna sharply, as soon as she caught sight of her young mistress coming down the corridor from the Great Hall.
Mary spoke, not as a servant speaks to her mistress, but as one woman speaks to another, when there are desperate matters to attend to. Mary's arms were filled with bloody strips of cloth, removed from the bedchamber at the end of the hall, where Daenerys had been laboring for hours.
The dragon girl's moans and cries could be heard throughout these halls, competing with the howls and cries of the blizzard winds outside, which grew stronger by the minute. When Lyanna and the others made it back to the Keep, they were subdued, being met by the dangerous, tense sounds of both a woman giving birth and a blizzard on their doorstep.
And Jorah had not returned with them.
Euron's captain kept him fighting on the beach until the storm was on top of them. A swirling sheet of white enveloped them all and Lyanna lost sight of her cousin from where she and Dafydd crested the top of the ridge above Ynes Lyme. Seffius, who had left the beach much later, found his way back through the squalls after the others but, thus far, Jorah was still unaccounted for.
How Mary knew this—when she'd been assisting Maester Morlan and perched at Daenerys's bedside throughout the long night—Lyanna couldn't be sure. Although if she had to guess, it was likely that Seffius Claver would have found a moment to tell her, however brief. The captain and the servant girl appeared to have few secrets between them.
They certainly kept Jorah and Daenerys's marriage quiet, didn't they?
In the meantime, Mary remembered herself, inclining her head briefly and muttering, with a less forceful tone, "She needs her strength, my lady. The child's giving her a difficult time."
"It's no wonder," Lyanna replied darkly, always wise beyond her years. "She lost her first child and was told she'd never bear another…"
"By a witch who proved false," Mary answered pointedly, not giving in to gloomy contemplations. Not yet.
Surprisingly, Lyanna refused as well, merely nodding along to Mary's comment without argument. Both cringed as they heard the sharp pain in Daenerys's next cry, interspersed with the gentle encouragement of Maester Morlan.
"That's it, Daenerys," the maester's voice was calm against the woman's pained cries. "You're almost there."
"I can't do this…," Daenerys managed after her cries dried up, in a breathless voice that spoke of the long, exhausting hours of labor that were doing their best to break her.
"You can," Maester Morlan countered, firmly, with far more strength of conviction and will than Lyanna had ever heard him use in her presence.
Daenerys didn't speak again, as the pain didn't leave her alone for long and she screamed once more, bearing down hard. The women in the hall outside shared a troubled glance, cringing again.
"Did Daenerys send the dragon to Ynes Lyme?" Lyanna asked Mary quietly, as this was the question that she'd come down this hallway to ask.
"Yes," Mary replied, understatedly. The risk that Daenerys had taken in visiting the sea cave and sending the dragon to battle…
"The dragon saved us," Lyanna murmured. "She saved us."
Mary didn't need convincing. She had loved Daenerys Targaryen like a sister from the moment the dragon girl appeared in the kitchens, asking if she could knead that loaf of bread dough. Lyanna didn't need convincing either and suddenly found herself praying silently that Daenerys's child would be delivered safely and soon, for the sake of the mother as much as for the child that shared her blood.
As the stormy howls of the blizzard gnawed on the battlements and splashed the icy seawater up to its very walls, a piercing cry broke over the Mormont Keep…
A newborn's strong, healthy cry echoed through its ancient halls.