2.

Winterfell was much larger than Daenerys had expected.

What little she knew of the North she had heard from Ser Jorah, who always emphasized the wild desolation of his homeland. But Winterfell was a proper castle – admittedly not as grand as her Red Keep or as opulent as Sunspear, but quite comfortable. The walls ran with heated water, so that even the cold was not as fierce as she had feared. Upon meeting Lady Sansa, who had adorned herself in a fine gown of ice-blue silk for the Queen's arrival, Dany instantly wished she had thought to pack something a bit more festive alongside her heavy furs.

She supposed her warmer gowns would have to do; as she fretted over her reflection, a heavy hand rapped against her chamber door.

"Irri, let Ser Jorah in."

The girl was doing no good with her hair, anyway; in fact, she seemed to be glancing more at her own reflection in the glass than her Queen's. Dany reached behind her head to pull her long braid over her shoulder and resumed weaving it herself as the mirror revealed the burly form of her Lord Commander stepping through the doorway.

For the feast at Winterfell he had donned his white cloak again. She had not seen it since they left Kings' Landing; her Queensguard preferred to travel as inconspicuously as possible, and the white cloth tended to stain on the roads. She had forgotten how the color drew out his dark features...Dany shook her head as she felt her cheeks warm. What on earth was she thinking lately?

"Your grace, Lady Stark awaits your presence in the great hall."

She knotted the end of her braid and stood to face him. "I will have to apologize for my lateness. One of my handmaids seems to have left a few of her wits along the road…"

Irri turned beet red and began to stammer an apology, but Dany only laughed.

"It's alright, sweetling, you can go."

"Your bloodriders are waiting in the hall as well…" Jorah muttered carefully. Irri's face somehow grew even deeper crimson as she scurried out the door.

"Do I look a mess?" Dany asked him when the girl was out of earshot. "Irri has been nearly useless all day, and I would hate for the North to think their ruler a pauper."

"You look…like a queen."

She smiled at him, though she feared his words were only courtly manners. Not that she truly expected him to notice any changes in her appearance. My queen, and the bravest, sweetest, most beautiful woman in all the world. Dany realized too late how awkward her question had been.

"Shall we, then?"

Her knight stepped aside to allow her to pass through the door and fell into step beside her as she navigated the narrow halls of Winterfell. She had walked from the hall to her chambers the previous evening, but found the simple stone walls still impossible to distinguish from one another.

"You know the way, don't you? You have been here before."

"Many times, your grace. My family are bannermen to the Starks."

As you were, once. She had not meant to remind him of his lost lordship, but they did intend to set out for Bear Island soon…Perhaps it was best to confront it now.

"Do you remember your first visit to Winterfell?"

"Not well," he admitted, "I was very young, I think. Rickard Stark, Lady Sansa's grandfather, was Lord of Winterfell then."

Until my father burned him alive. She tried not to cringe at the reminder of yet another reason the Starks might oppose her reign.

"When Lord Stark was killed, you rode to battle to avenge him."

"Aye. As did all the Northern houses."

"And now you serve House Targaryen." She tried to smile as though it were a jest, though she often wondered at the true cause of the Northman's loyalty. Is it only that you loved me, or am I truly your Queen as well?

"Your grace, you are not your father."

He had told her so again and again, as the truth about Mad King Aerys and his reign had unraveled before her, and yet still she wondered.

"Does Lady Sansa agree?"

"If she did not, would she have agreed to an allegiance with your house?"

"She had little choice," Dany reminded him. By the time they had arrived in Westeros the North was torn between Stannis's forces and the small groups of Northerners still fighting for the memory of their lost king, and there was hardly a Stark to be found in Westeros. Lord Eddard's youngest daughter Arya seemed to have vanished, and her younger brother may as well have done, choosing to live out his days as a tree. The bastard, Jon, had turned out to be not Lord Stark's bastard but Rhaegar's, and Daenerys had sent her dragons to her newfound nephew at the Wall. Only by luck had she found Lady Brienne and Lady Sansa in the Crownlands and promised to return the girl to her seat in Winterfell, as her surviving brother Rickon's regent, in exchange for her fealty. Did the Starks resent her, the daughter of the man who had burned two of their lords? She herself had carried so much hatred for the men Viserys had called "the Usurper and his dogs", how could she blame Lady Sansa for doing the same?

"Did you not say yourself, your grace, that we should 'let the past be'?"

I said you should.

"I suppose I have little choice," she agreed. For now the great hall of Winterfell was opening before them, the old stone scrubbed nearly to gleaming in expectation of Her Grace's presence. Stark banners hung from the ceiling everywhere Daenerys looked, the grey direwolf proud and prominent against snowy white. She took Ser Jorah's arm and allowed him to lead her to the table, suddenly grateful for the presence of her Queensguard.

Have I walked into a den of wolves?

A sharp jab to his ribcage startled Jorah out of his reverie. Blinking, he looked down at the man seated to his left, his elbow right in line with the throbbing spot on Jorah's side, and frowned into the mismatched pair of eyes that glinted mockingly up at him from the scarred and disfigured face.

"Now this isn't like you, old friend." Tyrion nodded at the plate of meat before Jorah at the table, untouched, then to his own, which rivaled it for portion size-or had, before he'd gnawed the impressive pile of bones clean. "I'm accustomed to seeing you attack your food with both hands in very much the fashion I imagine a real bear would, even slop not fit for vermin. My lady wife will be most distressed that nothing on her table tempts her guest. Gods only know how many weeks she's fretted over the menu."

Jorah glanced down the table, past Tyrion and Daenerys, to Lady Sansa seated at the Queen's other side. The Lady of Winterfell's lips curved politely upward at something Daenerys had said, though no laughter filled her eyes as it did the violet pair belonging to her guest of honor; instead they darted anxiously about the hall, checking that the feast was in order. With a grunt, Jorah tore off a hunk of venison with his fingers, cursing beneath his breath as it burned the tips. He ate it anyway, though he found he had no taste for it and had to choke it down, and not because he scarcely chewed before swallowing. As he washed it down with a draught of ale, it settled heavily in his stomach.

"Or mayhap it's that you prefer to dance for your supper first, Ser Bear?" Tyrion's voice once again broke into Jorah's musing, and he realized he'd nursed the ale down to the dark brown dregs at the bottom of his flagon. "Only my lady has hired the best musicians to be found in the north who are only too happy to oblige-"

"No."

He felt Tyrion eying him as the harper and the fiddler and the piper tuned up their instruments, the lad with the drum beating it seemingly for the sake of not being left out, then the dwarf turned back to his food.

"For a man who chose exile over the Wall, Mormont, you certainly do deny yourself the pleasures forsaken by the Brothers in Black."

Jorah snorted. "As if I did not acquire my White Cloak by making the same oaths."

"Have Queensguard sworn off dancing, now?"

"The last time I feasted at Winterfell was a pathetic attempt to cheer my wife," Jorah muttered. "Instead, Lynesse sat where the Queen does now, deep in her cups and weeping to Lady Catelyn about how unhappy she was in my house."

"And now you are bound for Bear Island with Daenerys," Tyrion remarked. "I see. Though might I remind you that by all accounts the Queen is not the same woman as Lynesse Hightower? Or rather, your Lady Lynesse was not the woman Daenerys is."

"A hundred of Lynesse would not equal Daenerys."

Jorah's eyes were drawn down the table, but he made them look past her to Lady Sansa, who gave him a nervous smile. Quickly he raised his cup, as if in toast, and took a drink.

"But that is not the whole of it," he continued, looking out across the great hall of Winterfell, which looked much as he remembered it, only so obviously new. Even the Lady of Winterfell herself, so hauntingly like Catelyn. But not her.

"Your lady wife had scarcely given up suck of her mother's breast then. And everyone I knew is dead." Catelyn and Eddard, Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrick and Jory Cassel… Even Ned's firstborn boy, who'd toddled after him through the halls, a toy sword clutched in his chubby fist, as fine an heir the gods could bless a man with, had perished in the war that ravaged their Northern homeland.

By all rights he ought to be, as well. It ought to have been him cut down while protecting the King in the North, not Dacey. Only that might have restored him to honor in Ned's eyes.

"I cannot imagine Sansa's lord father being best pleased to grant me a pardon," he heard himself say aloud, "much less a place of honor at the Queen's table. Does your lady know my crimes?"

"She knows in what high regard Daenerys holds you, and she has bowed her knee to the Iron Throne."

Jorah arched his eyebrow. "Not precisely an answer to my question."

Lady Sansa had greeted their arriving party at the newly rebuilt castle gates with perfect courtesy, grooms at the ready to take their tired horses to the stables for rub downs and warm straw, and serving girls plying the riders with hot drinks and the promise of hot baths in their guest chambers. Exactly as her lady mother would have done-so much so that Jorah had given a little jolt of surprise to hear her addressed as Lady Sansa. And she had flinched at the fearsome visage burned into his skin.

"And my wife knows better than most what misplaced affection and loyalty can lead a man to do."

"So she pities me, too."

"No one pities you, Jorah. Except you. You're not nice enough to evoke pity. And thank the gods for it," Tyrion added, tearing off a hunk of a loaf of bread shiny in the torchlight with melted butter. "Who wants a pity fuck?"

"If memory serves, didn't we meet in a whorehouse?"

"A valid point. As is mine."

"You have a point?"

Tyrion glanced sideways as he chewed, checking to see that the Queen's attention was elsewhere; when she spoke to Sansa, the dwarf swallowed and answered in a low tone Jorah had to incline his head to hear above the feast, "You will recall her grace did not restore you into her good graces because she pitied you."

That was true. When Jorah had presented himself to her in Meereen, her violet eyes were rich with sorrow, but not pity. If she had pitied him, she would not have said, The slaver, enslaved. If she had pitied him, she might well have carried through with her threat to have his head struck from his shoulders, to spare him the shame of returning to Westeros bearing the unmistakable mark of how low the once proud lord had been brought. Instead, she gave him a white cloak and restored him to a position of honor-even if only after Selmy fell defending their queen.

"And now she's taking you home," Tyrion's voice drew Jorah from his musings.

In spite of all his admonishments to himself not to hope, his heart quickened in his chest. He inhaled long and deep through his nose. "The Queen is merely keeping a promise made long ago. As is fitting."

"It would be fitting if she patted you on the head and sent you on your merry little way. To accompany you herself? To see your homeland with her own eyes, and to be a guest in your humble hall?" Tyrion smirked around another hunk of bread, and licked the remaining butter off his finger. "No, my dear Lord Commander Mormont, it is not for you that the Queen journeys to Bear Island. At least not in the way either of you thinks."

Jorah snorted. "And what do you think? Since you're going to tell me whether I want to know or not."

The hand that was in disproportion to the stubby arm gestured toward the table down below the dais to the one where Daenerys' three bloodriders and two handmaids sat a wary distance down the bench from the members of Lady Sansa's household. Jhiqui slumped on the wooden bench between Aggo and Jhogo, who talked over her; the handmaid was picking at her food and shooting resentful looks across the table at Irri, to whom Rakharo was offering choice cuts from his own plate. Jorah couldn't stop his mouth quirking in a grin at the sight; the young Dothraki had always been intrigued by Westerosi customs, though when he asked how an Andal made a woman his if he did not mount her like a stallion mounts a mare, he did so with an uncharacteristic self-consciousness. Clearly, Rakharo had been paying close attention to knights and ladies at court.

"It would seem that little seeds of romance are blossoming in these snowy Northern climes. Would you not agree?" Tyrion said.

"For some."

"Perhaps others may follow suit if you tend them."

"You can leave off with your dubious metaphors, Imp."

"Fine," said Tyrion, "I'll speak plain. I think it's high time Ser Bear went a-courting. Again."

"I would have had to have courted her before to court her again."

Tyrion rolled his eyes. "You kissed her. And offered your hand in marriage."

Jorah swore under his breath for ever getting drunk enough with the Imp to tell him that part of his sad tale.

"But if you want to split hairs…You have so many to split-"

"She is the Queen, and-"

"She has rejected dozens of marriage proposals since she conquered Westeros-"

"Presumably she's done with political marriages-"

"-and she has taken no paramours."

"Just because she desires no one else does not mean she desires me," Jorah growled-though even to his own ears, his words sounded more wounded than provoked. He picked up his pewter flagon and caught the muted, distorted reflection of his flesh in the metal; in his mind he saw his ruined face as clearly as in any reflective surface.

Tyrion shrugged and, with some difficulty pushed his chair back from the table and clambered down from it and off the dais, looking like a bandy-legged child as he made his way through the hall to where the musicians played.

"Jorah?" Daenerys turned from where she had been speaking with Lady Sansa. "Where is Tyrion going?"

He frowned beneath his heavy knitted brow as he watched Tyrion waddle up to the lute player, who leaned over without ceasing his strumming to hear the little man's words. "To make trouble."

"Is that so?" Daenerys broke into a wide smile as she turned to Sansa. "I must confess, I generally like when your lord husband makes trouble."

Jorah grunted, but the lines of his face relaxed slightly as he watched the young queen interact with the young Lady of Winterfell. At last he understood why Daenerys had taken so readily to Arianne Martell: in all her life, the only women she had known were subjects, servants, or slaves; she had no female friends. While he was wary of the Hand, despite the Martells' historic loyalty to House Targaryen, he felt no such compunction to see her giggle girlishly with Lady Stark-though the light blue eyes of the latter, he noted, were guarded, a little leery of her new Queen. Only a very little, however, as her ladylike laugh mingled with Daenerys', and the sound made his chest tighten with the hope that other women of the north would take to her. The She-Bears wielded their weapons ferociously, but so was their affection to those on whom they bestowed it.

Lynesse had not been so lucky.

An abrupt change in the music to a familiar rollicking tune drew him from that troubled turn of thinking, and he looked up to see Tyrion smirking at him even as he waddled up the aisles and bade those assembled for the feast to push back tables and benches to make room for dancing.

"Your grace will forgive me if I respectfully disagree," Jorah said with a scowl, "but I do not like when Lord Tyrion makes trouble."

"And your grace will forgive me," Tyrion said, peering up at them from below the dais, "if I steal my fair lady wife away for a dance?"

Sansa obliged him, leaving Jorah alone at the table with the Queen.