Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Game of Thrones. Just a friendly reminder, death threats are not appropriate to send to an author over how they portray a fictional pairing from a fictional show. Kindly learn appropriate behavior and life priorities. If you don't like the story, don't read it.
This chapter – Daenerys before the Northern Lords – is probably what I'm most excited for this season, after Jon and Arya's reunion. Thank you to all those who have kept an open mind about this story, those who politely stated their objections to characterization or plot, and those who liked the story and let me know that. I appreciate you all. Please accept Chapter Three as thanks, lol.
Summary: "I am the last Targaryen, Jon Snow."
Irony is a wonderful thing. Daenerys Targaryen, the First of Her Name, had never thought that retaking her birthright would go like this. Nothing was as she had expected and Jon Snow, the King in the North, was most unexpected of all.
The Last Targaryen
Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Mereen and Astapor and Yunkai, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, and the Silver Queen, stood before the assembled gathering of lords and ladies from the Vale and the North, the Lord Commander and other high officers of the Night's Watch, as well as the remaining chieftains from among the Wildlings who had come south of the Wall.
And she hated the lot of them.
She was dressed all in white, fur on her collar, her hair twisted into braids resembling the Northern Style – which Missandei began to do sometime after the King in the North first arrived on Dragonstone – and her proposal of alliance with the North, in return for their re-affirmation of allegiance to the Iron Throne had been more than reasonable.
"A Targaryen cannot be trusted!" boomed the voice of Lord Nestor Royce from the Vale, one of the most powerful lords from that region and currently the warden of Lord Robyn Arryn. "And neither can a Lannister!"
Seated at the table next to where Dany stood at the center of the Great Hall, Tyrion Lannister grimaced. He had been strangely quiet since Dany went before the lords and told them that Jon Snow had bent the knee to her, and that she was now rightful queen of all Seven Kingdoms.
That had provoked outrage, a storm of dissension which had almost come to blows but for the raised voice of Lady Sansa Stark, seated behind the High Table next to her brother, Brandon, the lame one. The lords had retaken their seats at her command, but the dissent went on unabated.
And Lady Stark of Winterfell didn't appear to be doing anything to stem the tide.
The Great Hall at Winterfell was small compared with those in the South, or those across the Sea. The unadorned grey stone of its walls was plain and dull, chilly and damp, and outside the snow fell, white and cold and blanketing the earth in silence, as it had ever since Dany arrived. She should have despised this place, found it as dreary as Tyrion warned her it would be.
But she didn't.
She loved the candles lit at all the tables, their warm, golden glow throwing back the gloom of darkness which clung to this land. She was fascinated by the plain colors of the northern lords and ladies, the unadorned aspect of the armor used by the Knights of the Vale, and the plain, brown leathers worn by the northerners. There were hints of elegance within their severity; silver jewelry in their hair and silver broaches on their cloaks, a pair of intricate metal-worked direwolves clasped at Lady Stark's throat, matching those of her brother, the king, the velvet woven into young Lady Mormont's skirt, the braids worn in the northern ladies' hair.
For all the harshness of their lives and land, there was beauty here as well. The great white direwolf – Jon's direwolf, Ghost – stirred from his position lying across the floor at Lady Stark's feet. He watched Dany with red eyes and she was once again struck by their glow. Like fire, she thought, though Tyrion had said that Ghost reminded him of the red leaves and white bark of the Northern weirwood trees.
Dany had never seen weirwood trees before coming to Winterfell.
She shivered. If there was one thing she didn't like about this place, it was those trees, with their haunting, scary faces, mouths open in a silent scream as they watched her. Always watching and judging. She had the strangest feeling that in their eyes, she did not belong here.
Which was nonsense of course.
She was the Queen. And she would show them this.
"Lord Royce raises a good point," came the cool voice of Sansa Stark. "What proof do you offer us that you can be trusted. Your family broke every bond of loyalty with the North, betrayed two generations of my family, and caused centuries of chaos, strife and bloodshed as you fought amongst each other. Kinslayers and Oathbreakers. Why would your reign not just be more of the same?"
Dany was also fairly sure that she didn't like Lady Stark. The cold, assessing gaze that had greeted Dany when she first arrived in Winterfell was unchanged. The tall, red-haired woman was beautiful but as frigid as an iceberg, derisive and stuck up. She was arrogant and foolhardy in her belief that Dany wouldn't just take what she wanted. The Targaryen queen still had two dragons, the Unsullied, the Dothraki and the Ironborn. She could crush Sansa Stark and her petty delusions of grandeur any time she wanted.
Dany stared evenly back at the Northern ruler, wondering why in the name of the Old Gods and the New, Jon had left her in charge of Winterfell in his absence. She was clearly attempting to usurp his throne.
Still she tried to control her temper. "Look at what happened once my father was deposed and my brother, Rhaegar, killed," Dany said. She didn't have time for this squabbling. Varys had informed her this morning that Cersei Lannister's troops hadn't moved from the capital. She needed more information about whether or not that Lannister Usurper was planning to backstab her and move into the South unopposed, all while Dany was up here uselessly arguing with a bunch of petty lords, over a cold and barren wasteland.
I am the blood of the Dragon, she reminded herself. I take what is owed to me. I don't have to plead for it any longer.
All those years, powerless and afraid, had convinced her that she would never put herself in that position again. And why should she? These pathetic men, squabbling and defying her, didn't control the largest army on the continent. They didn't have three –
No. Two dragons.
She had bled for these people. She had lost a child for their king. She was owed this. She had earned it and she would take it if necessary.
She turned to look over towards her left where, leaning against the wall, Jon Snow stood. He had been there since she'd started arguing with the Northern lords. He met her gaze, but she couldn't read the emotions behind in those dark eyes.
He looked handsome and regal, his dark hair pulled back into the knot he habitually wore – some Northern tradition, no doubt – with dark blue hose and doublet, made of rich fabric, and a short cloak pinned at the center with two silver direwolves. The outfit had been a gift from Lady Stark upon his return, and the exquisite needlework had been her doing as well. There was some, strange tension between those two that Dany did not understand, and she knew Tyrion saw it too, from the way his eyes moved between the two Starks whenever they were in the same room together.
Jon hadn't said a word since he'd stood at the center of the Great Hall, announced he'd promised to fight for her cause once the White Walkers were defeated and that he had subsequently surrendered the northern crown. The silence that followed his pronouncement, as lords and ladies and wildlings and knights looked between the northern king and Lady Stark, lasted as long as it took for Jon to leave Dany's side and take up his position along the wall.
If she thought about it then, she would have notice he was about equidistant between her and his sister.
If she thought about it at all, she would have realized that it was never going to be easy to win the allegiance of the North and the Vale. Those who had tasted independence rarely wanted to give it up again.
But she hadn't thought about it because she had assumed that Jon would stand beside her and argue her cause, their cause. But then, she had also assumed that his sister, Sansa, would follow what he decided.
The northern lords started muttering amongst themselves as soon as Jon left Dany's side, quieting a bit when she'd cleared her throat to announce her ascension to the northern throne, and then raising their voices to shouting level soon after.
Throughout it all, Jon Snow never said a word. He watched everything with that keen, dark gaze which she sometimes felt saw straight through her, eyes moving first from Dany to Sansa. Lady Alys Karstark was attempting to voice an opinion, but the other lords were talking over her. Dany tuned them all out. At the edge of her awareness, she could feel Drogon and Rhaegal as they swooped and glided over Winterfell's parapets, glorying in the crisp, fresh air. They could feel her rising anger and she felt them begin to mirror it, their screams echoing above stone and snow.
The Great Hall resounded with the distant echoes of dragons calling.
The dissent petered out and there was a moment of silence as the Hall held its collective breath. A door creaked open behind Dany. From the corner of her eye she saw the younger Stark girl, Arya, slip through it and close the door again. Dany thought that Jon's younger sister was odd for a noblewoman. She dressed in leathers as though she fancied herself a soldier and wore a Valyrian steel dagger on one hip and a thin rapier on the other. The rapier looked ridiculous and Dany had seen enough fights to know that it wouldn't hold up against the broadsword wielded by the knights and sellswords of Westeros. The girl couldn't have ever been in a real fight, despite the ease with which she carried the blades.
Her hair was as dark as Jon's and worn in the same style – something Stark men preferred no doubt – and she had a cat's slinking grace and manner. She also had a cat's watchful, unblinking eyes. Her cold blue gaze fixed on Dany as she moved around the outside of the Hall, eventually circling to Jon's side and leaning against the wall beside him; an exact mirror of his pose.
She turned to respond to something Jon said to her, voice too low for Dany to make out any words, and the dragon queen realized that she hadn't taken her eyes off the Stark girl since she'd entered the Hall. There was something unsettling about her which caused a shiver of unease to crawl up Dany's spine. There were rumors running around among the Northerners about where she had been after House Stark fell…rumors that included the horrific fate of House Frey. Justice, Tyrion said, when he'd told her what had happened. A bloody, harsh justice, but justice all the same. Dany reminded herself to find out the truth of the matter from Varys later, but she wondered at the strange customs of these people, that guest right would matter so much to them.
"My lady." Sansa Stark's steely voice broke through Dany's ruminations. 'My lady,' Dany thought and not 'Your Grace.' She felt her steadily rising anger grow hotter and Drogon screamed again from high above. Several of the lords and ladies flinched, and Dany felt grim satisfaction in their innate fear of her children even as she noticed that neither Lady Stark or her strange, lame brother showed any alarm. They insulted her at every turn.
From his place sprawled at Lady Stark's feet, the white direwolf raised its huge head and stared a Dany.
"Lady Sansa," she returned, and could see Tyrion frantically shaking his head at her from his seat on the bench. His timidity in the face of these petty backwater nobles made her blood run hot. He was a coward when she really needed him, and he had a soft spot for these Starks. But no matter. The North would be hers, and so would the Vale. Seven kingdoms were hers by birthright. Not five. She had not come all this way to settle for five. She was owed this.
Missandei, standing just behind her and slighty off to her right, reached out and discretely touched the inside of her wrist. Dany was tired of begging, but she tried to moderate her tone so that it sounded less furious and more reasonable. She met the self-styled Lady of Winterfell's gaze squarely.
"I am not my father, Lady Stark. I understand that he made mistakes, but he paid for them with his life," she stressed. "And the legacy of the Targaryens was not just war and death and betrayal, it was law and order, infrastructure and learning. It was the unification of constantly warring little principalities into a place where someone could travel along the Kingsoad from Castle Black to King's Landing without being attacked. It was the sharing of knowledge and culture –"
"The North keeps its own culture," a white-bearded, belligerent man shouted over her, shocking her by his interruption. How dare he?
"Lord Glover," Tyrion muttered to her out of the corner of his mouth.
"Lord Glover," Dany said, her voice utterly impassive and masking the burning anger underneath. "How dare you interrupt your queen."
"You're not my queen," the older man spat, still on his feet and with his eyes turning to look at the flame-haired woman seated behind the high table. "If any woman rules the North, it's her. Ned Stark's daughter." There were some nods at this, muttered oaths of agreement, while others looked uneasily towards their king, or stared stonily at Dany without looking at any of the Starks.
Young Lady Mormont was now on her feet as well, and Dany noted that Lord Glover sat back down at her ascent. Quickly. "I have said it before," the girl said in a strident voice, glaring daggers around her and effortlessly commanding the entire attention of the Hall despite her age and small stature in a way that Dany couldn't help but admire, "but we know no king but the king in the north, whose name is Stark," she emphasized.
There were several muted cheers at her pronouncement and Dany watched as Tyrion carefully took note of those who were in agreement. She, instead, watched those whose gazes moved between Jon and his sister equally. She didn't understand the relationship between them, the way Jon was clearly letting her take control, as though he wanted her to be ruler of the North, and the way he was deliberately refusing to speak for Dany's cause. Starks kept their word, she knew that, so why wasn't he keeping it on her behalf.
"Lord Snow," she said, emphasizing his correct title, "will continue as your king once we are wed," she said, raising her voice in a way she feared wasn't entirely dignified, but these northerners were rowdy and didn't know the proper way to behave before a queen.
Someone in the Great Hall stifled a disbelieving snort. Dany's head swung, trying to find the guilty party. A sea of stony faces met her gaze.
"Our last king road south and married a foreigner," Lord Glover said, now on his feet again. "And he lost the north." He swelled with outrage like a bullfrog and his face turned red beneath the white of his beard.
"The king in the north is needed in the north, not in the south at your court," shouted a younger man with a face like a weasel. "Lord Cerwyn,"Tyrion hissed in an undertone.
"Winter is here. We asked for your help, not for you to assume control of our land!" Another woman shouted, her face long, solemn and unattractive in that northern way.
"We will never submit to a foreign ruler!"
"No more southern kings!"
"We are done with Targaryens!"
It was getting out of control.
Dany felt her face flushing with rage, felt Drogon's and Rhaegal's answering fury at the corners of her mind, and opened her mouth to tell these Northerners exactly what she thought of them –
A ruckus rose behind her, the banging of metal, and Dany glanced back to see Ser Jorah Mormont clanging the bare blade of his sword against a small shield bearing the image of a rampant bear, which was the sigil of his House. He kept banging, the sound echoing even over the shouting, until those nearest to him on the benches and at the tables simmered down a bit and turned towards him.
He stood behind Missandei, firmly on Dany's side as always, but the noise of sword on shield began to ring in her ears and cause a humming after several seconds. She saw young Lady Mormont watch Ser Jorah in a narrow-eyed stare before the diminutive girl stood up decisively and bellowed, "QUIET!"
Most of the shouting desisted.
Lady Stark was on her feet, fists on the High Table. "This isn't helping." Her cold, precise voice cut through the mutinous muttering as effectively as a scythe through wheat. Reluctantly, with a clear promise to begin again if the situation warranted, the Northern lords subsided for the moment.
"My cousin wants to speak," Lady Mormont said, and Dany could feel Jorah's sudden stillness behind her. He was surprised. She knew the shame he carried with him, his regret over the dishonor he had brought to his family, and she wondered if it was shame or happiness that filled him now at Lyanna Mormont's acceptance of his presence.
She wanted to look back and see his face, but she could not. A queen couldn't show more concern for one subject over another, and he was too far behind her for a brush of hands.
Nevertheless, her estimation of Lady Mormont rose slightly higher.
Jorah cleared his throat. "I have served the queen for many years," he began. "I have watched her free those in bondage and give justice to those without it. She has earned my loyalty." The Hall was quiet as the northerners let him speak. Jorah may no longer have the accent or the mannerisms, but he had been raised among them and knew their ways. "I know you have suffered," he continued, voice growing stronger, and Dany resisted the urge to look behind her again. She wanted to see his face. She had felt lost without his ever-present steady commitment to her. She had been lost when she'd learned he had betrayed her. She could never go through thinking him lost to her again and by some miracle, by old gods or new, or even the strange gods of Asshai, he had been returned to her.
"But she has not caused your suffering. She has only come to help, and I believe in her. She is worth following."
The words, the sincerity behind them, left Dany feeling strangely lightheaded. She had to look at him then, she just couldn't help herself. His face was older, more lined and wearier than when she had first met him, but the love blazing in those blue eyes burned as brightly as ever. It was a knight's love for his queen – which was all she had seen for many, many years – but it was also more than that. It was undying devotion. She had never believed Jorah truly loved her as more than an abstraction, a reflection of the wife he had lost, until this moment.
She turned away. The intensity of his gaze frightened her. She had loved Drogo. She was in love with Jon Snow. She knew where she stood in relation to them. What Jorah promised her, wat she saw in his eyes…was too much.
"I beg your pardon, Ser Jorah," came a timid, male voice, breaking Dany and Jorah's locked gazes and recalling the queen's attention to these problematic northerners. "She may not have adversely affected the North yet, but she has caused other suffering."
Dany struggled to focus. From his place along the wall, Jon finally straightened up from his watchful non-interference. His attention was all on…
Oh. Dany saw him now.
A rotund man, young, dressed all in black, stood next to Maester Wolkan to one side of the High Table. He was on the other side of the tall, manly-looking and armored woman who seemed to be Lady Stark's bodyguard. Dany narrowed her eyes at him, aware that he seemed familiar. After a moment, she placed him. He was the same man who had greeted Jon upon his arrival to Winterfell. He had greeted the King in the North like an old friend, and he had been pushing the lame Stark boy's chair. Someone important to Jon – and these Starks – then.
She recognized the black ensemble as characteristic of the Night's Watch. "And you are?" she demanded, aware her voice had dropped several degrees and was filled with fury once more. A king had the authority to treat with a queen, not a lowly brother of the Night's Watch.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tyrion wince. She felt an absurd wish for Lord Varys to be at this gathering, who was conspicuous by his absence. He, at least, wouldn't have cowered and sniveled before these upstart traitors.
"My name is Samwell Tarly, a brother of the Night's Watch, Your Grace," the timid man stammered. "But before that I was of Horn Hill and…you killed my father. And my younger brother, Dickon."
Dany knew who he was now. "You father and brother were leaders of an enemy army," Dany said. "We are at war. Their deaths were necessary. You would never question any other leader who made such a call."
"You burned them alive!" The fat didn't seem like he could actually believe it of her. "A defeated old man and a boy, who had no way to oppose you anymore. You could have sent them to the Night's Watch, you could have done anything else!"
Behind her, Dany heard Jorah gasp. She wondered that no one had told him what had happened at the Trident. "Khaleesi," he whispered, his voice rough, but Dany hardened herself and refused to look back at him.
"I gave them a more merciful death than they deserved. I gave them a better death than they would have given me." Dany felt no regret. That had been necessary.
"You murdered the son along with the father," Samwell Tarly continued, "whose only crime had been loyalty. Without trial. Simply to make a statement, you condemned them to one of the worst deaths imaginable; you burned them alive, and you made a bunch of farm boys and merchants and tinkers – who made up my father's army – watch." The timid fat man's voice wavered, and his face turned red, but his eyes were angry and hurt.
Jon Snow was staring at her as though he had never seen her before. She turned away from him. "That was necessary," she insisted, ton indicating that the conversation was closed. She wouldn't turn around to see Ser Jorah's expression.
"Necessary?" Sansa Stark's polite tone was more insulting than any amount of scorn. It masked a disbelief so strong Dany could almost taste it.
"Yes," she snapped. "What would you know of necessity, Lady Stark. You lost your home for a couple of years. Loyalty still held in the North towards your family. Everyone who was loyal to mine is dead."
The silence in the Hall was deafening. Lady Stark laughed once, almost a bark, sharp and bitter. Ghost stirred again. "You're mistaken." Her voice never wavered in its coolness. "My brother and I took back the North through compromise and alliance. Through blood and sweat and tears. You think we lost our youngest brother – Jon watched him cut down in front of him – because the North was loyal to us?" And now her voice rose at last. Her eyes had cooled even further to shards of ice. She rose to her feet and Dany hated the fact that Lady Stark was so much taller than her; statuesque where Dany would only ever be called petite.
Sansa Stark's voice was frigid. "Jon and I had to re-earn their loyalty, and it almost cost us everything. What have you sacrificed to earn the loyalty of the Seven Kingdoms? What right to them do you have, besides your father's name and the fear inspired by your armies and dragons?"
The Lady of Winterfell's voice rang loudly across the Hall, and Dany could feel everyone holding their breath, eyes swinging between the red-haired northern queen and the silver-haired southern one.
"You don't have any right to them, you know, even through your father's name." Samwell Tarly's voice was quiet but the satisfaction in it carried clearly to every lord and lady gathered in Winterfell.
"I am the last Targaryen, Lord Tarly," she spat at him. It was all she could do to keep herself in check before her dragons came down and burned every last person in this decrepit, second-rate hall to a crisp. Just like she had left the Dothraki chieftains. All she was surrounded by was petty, squabbling, small-minded men.
"I am a brother of the Night's Watch," the fat man told her, his eyes darting for a moment to look at Jon still standing along the wall. He grimaced and almost looked apologetic before he turned back to meet Dany's gaze. "I am not Lord Tarly any more than you are the last Targaryen."
Were all these Northerners fools?
"What are you talking about?" Tyrion Lannister asked slowly.
Dany half-turned to see the dwarf's eyes moving slowly between Tarly and Jon Snow.
For the first time, the lame Lord Stark stirred from his place beside his oldest sister. Those far-seeing eyes fixed on Dany and she found herself feeling uncomfortable in that gaze. His voice was curiously detached when he spoke. "Jon is your nephew. He is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and my aunt, Lyanna Stark. Our father took him in after Aunt Lyanna died, raised him as his own to hide him from Robert Baratheon…and to give him a family."
For a moment Dany stared at him, numbly taking in Missandei's sharp intake of air next to her, Jorah's loud protestations, Tyrion's rapid questions, and the triumph lingering in Samwell Tarly's eyes.
The Northern lords were beginning to shout again, and Dany couldn't look away from Brandon Stark. Even Varys couldn't explain to her what the boy did, but everyone agreed that there was something other about him.
"That's impossible," she whispered, not sure whether she was trying to convince herself or those around her. There was a numbness creeping through her, a sense of unreality, as she realized that Jon must have known the whole time, must have walked into her throne room laughing at her, and had slept with her in order to take her birthright away from her.
"A Targaryen!" boomed the astonished, and angry, Lord Royce from behind Dany. "I refuse to bow before anymore Targaryens."
"He is just as much Stark as he is Targaryen," Lady Stark was arguing, finally seeming to lose her composure. Two spots of color hovered high on her cheekbones.
"Only on his mother's side," came the voice of a pompous lord Dany didn't know. "Lord Mazin," Missandei whispered in his ear.
"Excuse me?" demanded Arya Stark, from her place along the wall.
"A Stark is a Stark," another elderly, bearded man called out, glaring at Lord Mazin. Dany felt annoyance at so many bearded men. They all looked and sounded the same to her, with their thick, nigh-impenetrable northern accents and their general belligerence.
"Lord Manderly, ruler of White Harbor," Tyrion hissed, and Dany finally turned to look over in his direction, and towards Jon Snow behind him. The king in the North looked defeated, shoulders slumped, as he stared numbly at the floor while the chaos erupting around him. Tiny Lady Mormont was on her feet now, demanding to know if whether the fact her mother had been Lady Mormont before her and not her father, made her, Lyanna Mormont, any less the rightful ruler of Bear Island.
Lady Karstark, as red of hair as Lady Stark, had formed an unlikely alliance with Ser Harrold Hardying, newly arrived from the Vale, and was vigorously yelling at the corpulent Lord Royce.
The Stark soldiers, Vale knights and Unsullied shifted uneasily and Dany could see various servants and smallfolk congregating in open doorways and down hallways in order to find out what exactly was going on amongst the lords.
Ghost stood up and howled.
Dany clenched her hands into fists, heart hammering in her ears as she stared at Jon Snow's bowed head. He had betrayed her. They had all betrayed her. This had been a trap, a trap to take her rightful throne away from her.
"Your Grace," Missandei said, from very far away, tugging on Dany's arm. "Your Grace."
All Dany could hear was the pounding of blood in her dragons screamed from high above and the Mother of Dragons called them down to her. She would burn the roof right off this paltry hovel and show these pathetic lords exactly who she was. She would leave not one stone of Winterfell standing and she would burn every last bit of snow from the ground in her wake.
The Dragons came.
…and then…
…they stopped.
And there was silence.
Dany reached out to them again. She could feel them, Drogon and Rhaegal, and they answered her as always, but there was an element of confusion to their mental landscape as though there was…someone else there with them. Someone else instead of Dany giving them orders.
Dany's eyes widened, and she remembered the crows and ravens which covered every turret in Winterfell – their caws deafening and eerie – and which served as the eyes and ears of Lord Brandon Stark. Supposedly. Varys had been skeptical, but he hadn't been skeptical enough for Dany's peace of mind.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, but Brandon Stark's eyes had turned white and he didn't answer her.
She took a sharp, furious step forwards. "Release my dragons," she commanded, fury coursing through her strong enough that whatever hold this…this Stark, had on her children wavered and almost broke.
How dare he! How dare any of them!
She would show them. She would burn every last one of them.
Her rage coursed through her like wildfire, heading and powerful, and her children screamed again, circling downwards from the sky.
The giant white direwolf got smoothly to its feet, teeth barred in a growl as it began to prowl towards Dany.
Arya Stark moved from her place along the wall, quick as a shadow, until she stood before the High Table and faced Daenerys. Her hands were blatantly on her weapons, Ghost moved to stand at her side, and Dany felt Jorah and Grey Worm stir uneasily behind her. Her concentration on Drogon and Rhaegal broke, and the dragons fell silent once more, circling back up into the sky.
The girl Stark's eyes were cold, and as intent as a wolf's. For the first time Dany understood the comparison between these Starks to the wolves they took as their sigil. The wolf girl before her was more wild urchin than civilized girl-woman.
"You have made threats against every single remaining member of my family," the Stark girl said. Her voice was as emotionless as Sansa Stark's was cold. She fingered the hilt of her Valyrian steel dagger without once taking her eyes from Dany. "Perhaps no one informed you," the girl said, still in that inflectionless tone, "but I trained in Braavos with the Faceless Men, who learned their craft from the slaves who escaped Valyria."
Leather whispered, and steel clanked as armored men and women shifted in their places. Jorah's and Grey Worm's hands clenched their own weapons, and the Unsullied who stood along the back of the hall made to move their spears into position.
Arya Stark stood protectively before Lady Stark and the lame, white-eyed sorcerer who held Dany's dragons in thrall. Her eyes didn't move towards any of Dany's men, but the dragon queen had no doubt she knew the position of every single one of them. The white direwolf growled once more and Dany knew it would rip out her throat before she could call her dragons to her.
"I was trained to kill Targaryens. If any harm comes to my family, or if you try to conquer the North by force…no matter where you run, nowhere will be safe. I am no one…and everyone."
Dany knew enough about the Faceless Men to realize that this was no idle threat. She had read stories of the slaves in Valyria who learned enough of magic to fight their dragonrider overlords. Not even Valyria at the height of its power, had even been able to conquer Braavos. Thanks to the Faceless Men.
She turned without another word and walked out of the Hall. Jorah followed her, but Missandei remained behind, holding back Grey Worm with a light touch of her slender fingers. Tyrion Lannister didn't move from his position on the bench in the Great Hall.
The Targaryen queen found herself heading for the godswood.
It was hard to imagine herself as ever being Lady of Winterfell when she was here. This place seemed to belong entirely to the Starks. She looked around the godswood, at the trees standing tall like sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, at the towering oaks, the stately hawthorn, the ash and soldier pines, but mostly she stared at the heart tree, pale as her hair with a blood-red face; a giant from a lost time. The place felt old, ancient even, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and it was dark even now at midday. She had never felt so out of place anywhere as she did here. This wood was Winterfell, and it belonged to Jon Snow. And to Lady Stark. But not to her.
Distantly she wondered if her brother, Rhaegar, ever stood here with Lyanna Stark and felt as she did; that she might love a Stark, but she would never be one.
The crunch of footsteps on crisp, new-fallen snow alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone. She turned, knowing she looked ethereal, a pale snow maiden with hair as white as snow itself.
Jon came towards her, snowflakes in his beautiful, dark hair, his dark, elegant clothes which befitted a king, and that cloak he wore clasped at the center with two silver direwolves, facing each other, and proudly proclaiming his allegiance to House Stark.
He was beautiful, she realized, as beautiful as all the stories said Rhaegar was. He might have Lyanna's coloring, but he had Rhaegar's looks. She could see it now, and gods she wished she couldn't. She still had no idea how it could be true, but she knew that it was.
She could see Jorah standing some distance away from them, refusing to leave her alone in this place but trying to give her and Jon some privacy. Jon's giant white direwolf, Ghost, felt no such reserve and took position at the Stark king's side.
"You lied to me."
Jon shook his head. "No."
She laughed. "You're a Targaryen. And you knew it."
"I had no idea before a fortnight ago."
She laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh. "You expect me to believe that."
He stepped forward and took her cold hands in his own, gloved ones. "Dany," he said, soft voice lingering over her nickname in the way that she loved.
She snatched her hands away from him. "You lied to me. You betrayed me!"
Drogon landed beside her, crushing ancient trees beneath his vast girth like they were dry twigs from the last days of summer. He roared his defiance at the northern king and to his credit, Jon Snow did not flinch.
Dany had half a mind to let Drogon eat him. That would solve all her problems at once.
Before she could decide one way or the other, Rhaegal landed behind Jon's back. To Dany's complete shock, the smaller green dragon stood protectively over the Stark king – no, her nephew, the Targaryen heir, the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms – and screamed right back at Drogon.
Dany knew that scream, knew that Rhaegal had – at some point in time that Dany would never know – bonded with Jon. And now, one of her children would fight to the death against the other in order to protect Jon Snow. It was that fact, more than anything else, which convinced Daenerys that Jon Snow was indeed a Targaryen.
She couldn't look at him. She stared at her beloved Rhaegal instead, the little one not that Viserion was gone. No wonder Drogon had been so taken with Jon back at Dragonstone. "What's your real name?" she whispered.
"Jon Snow," he answered after a long moment. "But my birthname, the one my mother gave me, was Aegon Targaryen."
She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all and scream in frustration at this cruel twist of fate. Aegon the Conqueror. The Targaryen line had never been meant to carry on through her…but through him. She had been an afterthought, a throw away, with no real destiny at all.
No, she reminded herself. I am the Mother of Dragons. Not even Aegon Targaryen did that. I have never been nothing.
"I never meant to hurt you," Jon said, and Dany came back from her dark thoughts to watch the play of emotions across his face.
"We are the watchers on the wall," Jon Snow murmured, staring beyond Dany at something only he could see. He came back from his own dark thoughts and met her gaze again. "I thought when I died, the vow I gave before the heart tree was finished, but I was wrong. I gave my life in service to the realm…and that promise still holds." His jaw firmed. "Before all others."
Dany stared at him in disbelief. "What does that have to do with anything?" she demanded.
"I'm sorry I let you believe I was in love with you," Jon said seriously, his dark eyes so sincere that she wanted, desperately, to believe him. "I would have tried to love you." And that hurt worst of all. Jon stared at her firmly and there was no regret in his eyes. "But I am a brother of the Night's Watch and my duty is to the realm, to the people who make up the realm. And I would do whatever was necessary to save as many of them as possible. I knelt to you and promised to marry you and would have kept that oath, not to take your throne but to gain your help in any way I could in order to save the realm."
"The best way to secure an alliance is through marriage. You know that as well as I do."
And who told you that? She wondered, but she already knew. Tyrion had been so concerned for her of late, so disapproving of her actions. And Jon Snow would have been the perfect leash to place around her neck. Tyrion and his Starks. Numbly she wondered if everyone she'd ever cared for would betray her trust in the end.
Jon took her hands in his. "I am the shield that guards the realms of men," he said, and it felt like they were having two different conversations.
She knew his words were words from the Night's Watch Oath. She had just never expected anyone to actually believe them, to live them. Men held to honor when it was convenient, and nothing she had experienced in her life had convinced her otherwise.
"You betrayed my trust," she said quietly, hating that it hurt. She looked around – at Jon Snow, at Ghost, silent guardian at Jon's side, at Ser Jorah watching from under the snow-covered trees, at Lord Tyrion coming towards her through snowdrifts as high as he was on those short legs of his – and remembered. Three treasons will you know, she heard once more the words of the prophecy. Once for blood, and once for gold, and once for love. They had all betrayed her in some way for love. She hated the word. Jon Snow had betrayed her for the army that followed her. Jorah for the home he longed to see. And Tyrion…Tyrion Lannister the Imp. His betrayal had been truly unexpected. He was in league with these Starks because he claimed to be concerned for her. Because he feared she was following in the footsteps of her father, the Mad King.
The nerve of him.
"Is your trust, your pride, more important than the lives of our people?" Jon said, and for the first time Dany thought she saw him as he truly was – a deluded idealist. Like all these Starks.
She pulled her hands back, stung. "I can't stay here," she decided. "I won't stay." His surprise, the sudden concern, in those dark eyes of his would have warmed her a bit if the sudden wariness in them hadn't been stronger than anything else. "Take my army," she spat, "since it's all you cared for." She stepped back, away from all of them. "My dragons and I will take back the Seven Kingdoms on our own. All I need is them."
Jorah made a sudden movement towards her and Tyrion opened his mouth, both no doubt to argue against her. But she was done with men, and with men's decisions. She spun towards them. "I will live and die on my own terms," she snarled at them. "Cersei Lannister will try and destroy what you are building up here anyway. If I remain with you, she will stab us both in the back."
Rhaegal wasn't going with her. He was staying with Jon.
Dany sat on the bench in the godswood and stared at the frozen lake. There was peace and quiet here, a chance to clear her head. She was ready to leave. She would take the Dothraki but the Unsullied would stay here. Grey Worm had decided, and the others had agreed with him. She wouldn't take anyone else. Not Jorah, not Tyrion, not Varys. Not even Missandei, who belonged with Grey Worm and shouldn't have to choose between her love and her queen.
But Cersei Lannister was hers. King's Landing was hers. With, or without, Jon Snow.
She didn't notice when Sansa Stark settled on the bench beside her until the other woman spoke. "You don't have to leave. This is your home. You're Jon's family…and that makes us yours."
Dany shook her head. "I can't stay." How could she explain to Sansa Stark, who had always had a family who loved her, that all Dany had ever known was the quest for the Iron Throne?
"You can choose your own path," Sansa said. "We need you here. With us."
Dany shook her head again. The Dothraki wouldn't be of any use in the cold. The Unsullied would adapt, but not the Dothraki. She would take them with her. "How did you get the Northern lords to not string Jon up alive for being a Targaryen?" she asked after a while, her voice a hoarse croak.
Sansa didn't look at Daenerys as she replied. "I offered them a compromise. Lyanna Stark's son would marry Ned Stark's daughter. None of them could find a way to claim that together we weren't Starks." There was a hint of humor in her tone. Dany looked over and saw a tiny smile hovering at the corner of cold Lady Stark's lips. For a moment she looked as mischievous as a girl.
"Well done," she murmured, surprised to find that she actually meant it. It had been a clever political move. She turned back out towards the frozen lake, mirroring the other woman. "Could you actually marry your brother?" She could have never married Viserys, duty or no.
"I was a little girl when I saw him last," Sansa murmured, "and my lady mother never encouraged me to view him as a brother." She thought for a moment. "Perhaps that was for the best. We will find a way to make it work." Sansa eyed Dany sideways. "As he would have with you."
"I still can't stay," Dany said firmly. "I will take back what is mine."
Sansa turned and stared at her then. "I understand," she said simply. "I offer you another choice, as Jon did – a chance to fight a war that truly matters – but I understand that you can't turn away."
Dany didn't know how that could be true.
"I never had magic," Sansa explained, "or a special destiny. My wolf was killed before she could provide any sort of protection, and I learned the hard way how to survive without allies, without assets, and with everyone wanting to use me to claim my home. But I did survive, and now here I stand, and Winterfell belongs to House Stark once more." The was a hardness to Sansa's face, a fierce resolve in her voice, that Dany wouldn't have guessed at from her lady-like presence and courteous manner. Where the dragon queen's temper burned cities to the ground, Sansa Stark's self-control was strong enough to endure anything in order to wait for the right moment. She supposed, loath though she was to admit it, that Sansa's courage and strengths were different from hers…but no less powerful.
It was a humbling lesson. She turned and looked up to watch the snow fall on Lady Stark's fiery-red hair. "Fire and Ice," she said, wonderingly. "Targaryen and Stark." Is that what my brother saw, she thought, when he looked at Lady Lyanna? The fulfillment of a prophecy? Or had he actually loved her?
He is the Prince that was Promised. His is the song of ice and fire, she heard him whisper from her vision in the Houses of the Undying. She had a feeling she would have loved her oldest, brilliant, enigmatic brother. Just as she loved his son. "You'll take care of him, won't you." And it wasn't a question.
Jon didn't love her, or at least not in the way she wanted. But she remembered the black-armored prince, festooned in rubies, as he fell before a Warhammer by the banks of the Trident. She remembered him sinking into the river and with his last breath he breathed a woman's name.
And she hoped.
End Notes: And Dany decides to strike out on her own.
So, it was a bit tricky getting Daenerys from the point where her arrogance led into rage and dragon fire, and then to back down enough for her to talk civilly to Sansa. And this chapter ended up being even longer than I predicted, as a result. She's a difficult character to get right because of her complexity and I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. Her pride is blinding her, and where Jon sees only the good of the realm and his duty to the realm, not having been raised with Jon's strong sense of duty towards others over self, she sees only her perceived right and the betrayal she feels when others don't agree with her. A bit like Anakin Skywalker. She has had quite a journey, hasn't she? What did you think?
Oh, and in this version, Dany is Nissa Nissa to Jon's Azor Ahai. He betrays her like the prophecy says (in her eyes anyway), but she also bears her breast – metaphorically, by giving her armies to him – and it grants him the power – the sword – to wage war against the Others. In my version anyway.
Ugh, I wanted to include Howland Reed and his verifying Jon as Lyanna and Rhaegar's son, and Edmure Tully offering his allegiance to House Stark over House Targaryen, a cameo from Jaime Lannister at the end, more Daenerys and Missandei interaction, and more interplay between the Northern lords, but this chapter took so long to write as it was, that I just can't bear to try and squeeze any more into it!
I also had a lot of fun writing Dany's and Sansa's interactions. I tried to make it political – two rulers squaring off – instead of having it just be about Jon Snow. He's important to them both, but Game of Thrones has always been a show about relationships in all forms – and mostly not romantic ones – and how those relationships are changed by having/acquiring power. The family aspect, Stark vs. Targaryen, appealed to me more than any sort of love triangle.
Personally, I don't think Dany is really in love with Jon, although I do think she loves the idea of him. And I think Jon would have been willing to work on a relationship with her, if she didn't turn out to be his Aunt, and he wasn't in love with his sister/cousin. Like Anakin and Padmé from Star Wars, they didn't have enough time together to really learn about each other and are, moreover, inherently incompatible. It's like a dream for Dany and a political necessity for Jon. Thoughts, anyone? Please keep them clean and polite, or I'll just delete them. Thanks.
Up next, Jaime Lannister arrives at Winterfell and Jon learns that the Wall has fallen.