A/N: Prompt word: Innocence.

02x01, 'The North Remembers'

When Daenerys had emerged from the fire with her three children, she had felt invincible. She had done something no one had done for centuries. She had brought dragons back into the world.

The achievement had made her feel powerful. Given her the illusion that anything was possible. Even getting through the Red Waste.

Jorah had warned her that it wouldn't be so easy. The desert land had its name for a reason.

But there is nowhere else for them to go. To venture backwards into the Dothraki Sea would be suicide. Jorah and her three bloodriders are the best fighters she has left. Four men couldn't take on a whole Khalasar determined to slit her throat.

So onwards they must press. There will be a way out.

But now she curses her naivety. They are running out of provisions. Her Khalasar of old men and women grows weaker by the day. Some have passed. Four horses remain.

Jorah tries to cheer her. He sits with her on the evenings, when the sand is hard and cold to the touch, and tells her stories. Those stories help her to believe that there might be a way out of this hell.

She worries that that is another fantasy brought on by childish innocence.

"Aye," Jorah says, smiling faintly through cracked lips, "mayhaps it is. But we all need some of that belief sometimes. Sometimes it's the only thing that can drag us through."

Innocence, naivety, Dany doesn't think Jorah has any of that left. He is a seasoned warrior. She is just a silly little girl who has led them into a dire situation.

"You can't think like that," Jorah urges. "These people believe in you. You must believe in yourself."

"And you, Ser Jorah? Do you believe in me?"

"Of course," he vows. "I'm here, aren't I?"

And perhaps it's naïve of her to take comfort from that, words meant to placate and soothe, but she settles down beside him, using him as a shield against the brunt of the sharp desert winds, and takes comfort from them nevertheless.