Authors' Note: This update is shamefully overdue but recent events on GoT motivated us to continue this happier story for Dany and Jorah. So here is not quite journey's end, as there's still an epilogue to come. (And we promise not to take till the end of S5 to update it!)
12. The Journey Home
"Can't you sleep?" Daenerys' half-whisper cut through the silence which had blanketed the chamber, but for the rustling of the bedclothes and creaks of the ancient bedstead as Jorah rolled over in yet another futile attempt to find a comfortable position.
"Did I wake you, love?" he replied, voice hoarse as though he'd slept, though he had not. Not a wink.
The fire, burning low across the room, cast just enough light to halo her outline facing him on the pillow with the pale gold of her hair, which he reached out to stroke back from her cheek, allowing the silken tendrils to curl around his fingers. Though he could not make out her expression in the dark, he heard the gentle laughter in her voice as she admonished him:
"I don't think my sleep could be more disrupted if I shared my bed with a real bear."
"Forgive me. I never can sleep the night before a journey. I'll go bunk in my other quarters, so you can rest-"
He'd flung back the pile of furs that covered him, but when he started to push up on his elbow, Daenerys' small hand on his chest arrested him. He could have persisted, but he allowed her to push him back onto the mattress, his hands settling into the notches at the back of her hips as she leaned over him; her hair tickled as it fell over her shoulders, and the tips of her nipples grazed his bare skin.
"It's been a long time since I shared my bed. How will I get accustomed to it if you leave?"
"Only for a few hours," Jorah argued, though he made no further move to rise. "If that. It must be near dawn."
Near time for their departure.
"Then all the more reason to stay with me," said Daenerys through a yawn, lowering herself to settle into the curve of his arm, her head pillowed on the soft part of his shoulder. "We have weeks in the saddle ahead of us, and nights camped out on the ground or narrow beds at inns. Best to enjoy comfort so long as you can."
"Aye, my queen," Jorah acquiesced, though he knew as well as she did that creature comforts were of no great value to either of them, after years of living rough in exile. He bent his head to brush a kiss over the edge of her forehead, then lay back on his pillow, staring up at the faint shifting shadows of the flames on the wooden beams of the ceiling.
Daenerys lay silent and still so long in his embrace that he thought she'd drifted back to sleep, when her fingers twitched to stroke his chest hair and she spoke again.
"My bear, if you feel you have not been long enough at home-"
"You have been too long from your throne."
She tensed in his arms. "You see? Yet another discomfort for which I will exchange the ease of this bed."
"The queen's bed in the Red Keep must be more luxurious than this."
She was kissing his chest, and her lips curved in a warm smile against his skin before she raised her head to look at him, her lilac eyes dark in the dim light, but gleaming. "You shall determine that for yourself."
"I look forward to it," Jorah murmured, lifting his head to meet her as she leaned in to kiss his mouth.
"But Jorah," she broke away all too soon, "surely it must seem to you that we've only just arrived, especially when you only just secured the forgiveness of all your kinswomen. All you ever wanted was home-"
"And I have it." His arms tightened around her, and she kissed him again, her tongue darting out to trace the edge of his lip, though this time it was he who pulled back. "When I was caged in Meereen, and I had naught to do between beatings but stare at your pyramid…" When he could see out of his bruised and blackened eyes at all... "…I believed I would die there without ever setting eyes on my home or my queen again. Unforgiven, and ashamed."
Ironically, he was grateful for the dark now, which prevented his seeing her clearly now-or her seeing him, and the demon's mask upon his face which would never let her forget, no matter how fully she forgave. Daenerys shifted in his arms, straddling him, and pressed her forehead to his.
"Once you asked me what I prayed for."
"Home," she whispered. "You prayed for home."
"But in Meereen, I prayed that if I was to die, it would not be without seeing you again."
"The gods heard you."
He nodded. "Against all expectation they allowed me to see Bear Island again, too." Jorah cupped her face in his hands, holding her firmly in place as his fingers weaved through her hair at the nape of her neck. "But what I keep trying to make you understand, Daenerys, is that you are home."
Her voice cracked as she uttered his name, and they kissed again, long and slow.
"But why can you not sleep?" she asked when it had ended and she was snuggled once more against him."Are you so fearful of what might befall us on the journey?"
"I'd be a poor sort of queensguard if I were not," Jorah muttered, his beard scratching her shoulder as he pressed soft kisses along her collarbone. He felt the prickle of goosebumps rise up on her skin as his exhalation of breath became a sigh. "No, it's not the journey keeping me awake. It's the leaving."
"Again, as your queen I say that if you are not ready to leave after so long away, we can stay-"
"That won't make it easier. I'd lived my whole life here when I left before, and I had not the heart to say goodbye."
"Oh," said Daenerys. "I see."
Jorah was not entirely certain that she did see, exactly, but neither was he certain that he wanted her to know that he tossed and turned here in the dark because he was all too aware of her slight form beside him, still naked from their lovemaking, in the very bed from which he'd risen with Lynesse so many years ago on a night much like this one, and slipped from the hall under cover of darkness while his kinswomen slept, unaware of his betrayal. That his stomach soured and sickened with the same guilt that had churned within him then, despite the knowledge that he would take his leave of them properly this time, that for all their words of forgiveness, he would look on their faces and see they had not forgotten how it was before.
Daenerys' hand had been curled lightly over his where it rested on her stomach, but she squeezed it and drew it up to her mouth, placing supple kisses on each of his knuckles.
"You need not say goodbye now," said Daenerys. "After all, I have every intention of returning to Bear Island as soon as I may."
"Jory will be glad of that," Jorah told her, "if she is like afflicted by the heat of King's Landing as I am."
"Mmm. I shouldn't wish to introduce roast bear to my court in such a fashion. But I'd like to come back for my own sake, as well. I find I'm growing rather fond of snow."
Jorah snorted at that. "Fond of snow? Or of how I warm you up after?"
Daenerys drew his hand downward from her lips, clasping it in the valley between her breasts as she pressed her arse even more firmly against him. He hardened in response.
"You wouldn't be hinting that you need warming now, would you?"
"Well, since you are awake…"
The day dawned grey, to match Jorah's mood, and snow fell as the queen's cortege-which now numbered one more than when it arrived-made ready to depart the hall of his kin. As his eyes scanned the stormy horizon, Daenerys repeated her offer again to tarry a little longer on Bear Island, to wait out the weather, but again Jorah refused her.
"Unless your grace desires to pass the crossing to Deepwood with six greensick Dothraki," he said, "I suggest we make sail without further delay."
But there were other farewells to be said than the queen's, and for all his concern about the hazards likely to beset a winter's journey across her country, he could not bring himself to interrupt those which took place quietly between his aunt and her daughters. Not that the she-bears were given to prolonged sentiment.
"Don't let the Southron women do anything stupid to your hair," was all Lyanna said to her elder sister-though the gruffness in her voice, Jorah could see from the twitching beneath her rounded cheeks, was due to the effort of choking back emotion.
Jorelle's short puff of a laugh indicated a similar struggle. "And here I was plotting to ask you for a visit so the queen could command you to wear a fancy court dress."
Lyanna pulled a face, no doubt to keep her tears in check, but when Jory released her from the tight embrace, the younger girl turned away and wiped her eyes almost savagely-though not so much as the glare she shot Jorah when she caught him watching.
He could not hear the low muttered exchange between Jory and Aly, though he had a fairly good guess as to the gist of it when the stocky heir to Bear Island glanced over her taller younger sister's shoulder at Ko Jhogo. The other bloodriders harassed him over this in their own tongue; Jorah paid the banter little heed, distracted as he was by the wordless embrace shared by Jory and Lyra.
The two were near enough in age, born within a year of each other, that they may as well have been twins. That was how it had been with Dacey and Aly, he recalled with a pang, and when the latter turned abruptly from the scene to scold her son, who was reaching for the arakh in its sheath at the unsuspecting Aggo's side, Jorah suspected her thoughts had followed a similar path as his. Daenerys' tiny hand slipping suddenly into his own drew his attention down to the young queen, who was not unaffected as she looked on.
"It seems wrong to separate them," she said, her own voice pinched. "Mayhaps I should tell Jorelle she need not leave her home."
Jorah squeezed her hand. "You may be the Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons, my queen, but even you have not that power." He smiled slightly when she looked up at him, eyebrows pulling together in confusion. "Here We Stand. Those are the words of House Mormont. And we do not go back on them."
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, when Maege's voice diverted their eyes from each other.
"You'll do us proud."
She pushed the thick fringe of hair back from Jory's forehead, stood up on her toes to kiss the taller young woman, and then hugged her tightly, and briefly. Releasing her daughter, who trudged through the snow to her chestnut-Jorah felt guilty that his kinswomen were being deprived of a horse as well as one of their own, and had made note to have it replaced when they got back to King's Landing-Maege approached him. He stepped toward her, or Daenerys stepped back from them; in either case, her hand slipped from his grasp and they no longer stood side by side.
With their disparate statures, Maege had to tilt her head back to meet Jorah's eye. She did not say Look out for her, nor did he expect her to, for such a thought would never occur to a she-bear. On the contrary, from the way she regarded his branded cheek, he had the impression she thought that if any of their House needed looking after, it was him.
"I never thought we'd meet again," she said.
"I prayed we would."
In distant lands, where no weirwoods grew; but it seemed the heart tree's weeping eyes had watched him from across the Narrow Sea, and the old gods heard his prayer.
Maege grunted, her breath a pale cloud of steam that shimmered slightly in the frosty air. "Now you've only the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms to petition."
A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth, and Jorah felt the same pull at his own, widening until they grinned at each other, and his aunt's face swam before his eyes and a laugh or a sob choked from his throat as she caught him around the waist and hugged him, burrowing her face in his chest as he hid his in her coarse mop of hair.
They held for a moment, and when they drew apart, Jorah turned to see Daenerys looking on with a troubled expression. At first he thought she was merely uncomfortable witnessing other people's goodbyes, accustomed to much being made of her as queen, when realization dawned. Daenerys was the Mother of Dragons, Mhysa to the freed people of Essos, held every man, woman, and child in the Seven Kingdoms under her rule, yet none of these had ever embraced her farewell.I pray for home, too. Mayhaps it was not only for his sake that she offered to tarry on Bear Island.
Jorah wanted to put his arms around her, to hold her and comfort her, all the more so when he saw the ripple of effort across her face as she drew back her shoulders and addressed his kinswomen in an approximation of her usual studied poise.
"I shall not forget the hospitality you and your household have shown me, Lady Maege. Nor shall history the start of what I hope to be a long friendship between House Mormont and House Targaryen."
It was a proper farewell for a queen, but the undisguised note of strain in her voice told Jorah it was not at all the goodbye the gentle-hearted girl in her wished to make.
"You honor us," said Mage, shuffling in the snow. "But…"
Her dark eyes darted sideways to Jorah, and a glimmer in them made him wonder what she intended to do. Fleetingly, he wondered if she would bow, as she and her daughters had neglected to do upon Daenerys' arrival, but she did not.
"Only friendship, your grace?" she said, and the Lord of Bear Island caught the Dragon Queen in a fierce embrace.
At first she stood motionless, as though stunned, then she clung to Maege, too. And when the elder woman's rough lips pecked Daenerys' smooth cheek, Jorah saw in the pale breaking light that her skin shone with tears.
Winter storms followed them from Bear Island to Winterfell, from Winterfell to Moat Cailin, and all along the Trident, as though the curling snows knew Dany's mind.
Only two years ago, all her dreams had been of the Iron Throne, of a glittering palace and a crowd of people shouting her name, but now she quietly prayed each morning for the snows to overrun the Kingsroad. They had awaited the weather three days and nights in an inn just north of the Neck, three days during which the Queen and Lord Commander rarely left the room the owner had hastily provided, and it was difficult not to wish for another such delay.
"We could roam the kingdoms forever," she had offered on the third day, pulling the furs tighter around her, "from castle to castle, inn to inn."
"And who would rule, your grace?"
"I would."She scooted closer beneath the sheets, seeking his warmth. "Why must a queen sit upon a chair to rule? My people are not only in Kings' Landing. They are here, in the villages, in the North and the South and the West. Surely I cannot rule them better when they cannot see me."
Jorah rolled on his side to face her, the corners of his mouth turned up in amusement. Before he could advise against her plan, Dany continued.
"Drogo said a khal needs only a horse, not a throne. And I am still a khaleesi, am I not? Perhaps a mount is enough for me as well."
"Khaleesi, if you roam forever, how will your people find you? Who will they come to when crops die and walls fail?" His fingers tangled in her hair as he argued; she stretched a leg over his, already growing weary of the debate.
"They have their lords."
"And how will the lords find you?"
Dany kissed him swiftly, silencing his logic, and for the next hour or so she forgot where in the kingdoms she was, and where she was going, and why. The lords would part us, she thought as her knight moved inside her - the lords will demand that I wed - and she clawed at the thick skins beneath her to keep from screaming his name. I wish none of them would ever find me.
They rode on after dawn the next morning, the snows having melted to pools of muddy water shallow enough for the horses to cross, and in a fortnight the familiar Crownlands rolled past the road, beckoning the Queen home. For the first time in weeks, the sky was clear, the sun's brightness almost mocking against the sharp cold. Miles away, Dany could see the spires of the Red Keep rising through the clouds, growing larger each day until the Dragon Gate stood before them, bordered by carved dragons and shadowed by Rhaenys' Hill behind it.
As the gate rose, the gold cloaks nodded to their queen. "Welcome home, Your Grace."
The odors of the streets assaulted her senses. Human and animal sweat, foods of all varieties from mouthwatering to revolting, sharp hot air from smithies and the rancid stench of emptied chamber pots; Dany had grown accustomed to the smells of her city over time, but returning after a long absence – especially in the wilds of the North, where pine trees were far more abundant than people - brought them into sharp relief again.
A glance behind at her retinue suggested that they, too, had grown accustomed to cleaner air. Most, even the Dothraki, quickly hid their disgust, but Jorelle openly blanched.
The Mormont girl was further south now than she had ever been; prior to crossing the Trident, she had solemnly described every battle north of the Neck to her cousin, falling silent only when she caught the Queen's eye. She needn't have done so – Dany cared little about the failed attempts of Robb Stark and Stannis Baratheon anymore, especially given that she'd been across the sea during the majority of their short-lived reigns. The Iron Throne was hers; what was past was past.
The walls of Maegor's Holdfast seemed less impressive from only feet away, the red brick less…red, the towers less intriguing and more looming than they were from the road. But this palace was her home now – not red doors, per se, but red towers, at least – and ruling from it, her duty. My destiny, she reminded herself, looking closer at the city her ancestors had built, my birthright.
The Queen's Hand was waiting in the Great Hall when Dany and her party entered.
"Your Grace." She knelt low, lifting a skirt of pale, thin silk that set her markedly apart from the rest of the room's inhabitants, all still clad in thick furs.
Dany smiled; even on an island of women, she had missed Arianne's company. "My good Hand. I hope I shall find my realm has continued to prosper in my absence."
"I am certain, my queen, that you shall find it as you left it," her Hand swiftly replied. "Yet it seems your party has grown since you left."
Several seconds passed before Dany understood; she ought to have introduced Jorelle immediately. Have I been in the wild North so long I've forgotten all my courtly manners?
"Lady Arianne, this is Jorelle Mormont, daughter of Lady Maege Mormont of Bear Island."
To her great relief, Jory performed as perfect a curtsy as her riding clothes would allow.
"A pleasure," Arianne replied. "I have met so few Northern ladies."
"I have rarely been so far from the North," Jory confessed.
"You will find much to like here, I am sure. I had rarely left Dorne when I first came to Kings' Landing, and yet I have come to consider it my home."
Jory gave her a wary smile, which Arianne returned, her grin bright as morning sun.
"Come, allow me to show you the Red Keep."
The girl looked from the Hand to the queen, and Dany nodded her permission. Jory and Arianne left swiftly, the Dothraki behind them. But as the group filed out of the hall, Dany hesistated.
The Iron Throne impressed her each time she saw it anew; months of sitting on it day in and out lessened the ominousness of the dragon-forged steel blades, but now they were just as striking as they had been the day she had taken Kings' Landing. As Aegon did. Aegon who had forged the throne from the blades of his enemies.
For the first time, Dany saw how monstrous it looked, the light from the wide sept-like windows reflecting from each sharp point. My family were conquerors. There had been good rulers among them, she knew - Jaehaerys and Alysanne, Baelor, Daeron - but for each good king a mad one. For each hundred years of Targaryen rule, a war among them.
It should end with me.
"They say Aegon built it as a reminder that a king should never sit easy."
Of course he hadn't left with the others. Of course he had known what she was thinking.
"Perhaps I should do away with it," she mused. "My bench in Meereen was an uneasy enough seat. Perhaps my people ought to see that the days of bloodshed are past." Did Aegon believe the same?
Even without turning, she knew Jorah was shaking his head.
"You said no more lies, khaleesi.Erasing the bad your ancestors did would erase the good as well. Your people must move on, your grace...but they cannot forget."
The brand on his face was proof enough of that. Dany finally went to him, taking his hands in hers.
"Then we will have to give them something good to remember." She raised her lips to his scarred cheek. We found some good in our tainted past, after all.
"I take it you've decided not to wander then."
"Aye," she sighed. "For now."
Before she could answer further, the Great Hall's doors creaked open. Without thinking, Daenerys took a step back at the sight of another of her queensguard.
"Your grace," the knight began, "I heard you had returned."
"Lady Brienne."
"Forgive me, my queen, for interrupting, but the small council has requested a meeting."
Dany suppressed a sigh. She had yet to even set foot in her chambers, her clothing still bore stains from the ride...but it would not do to displease her council after so long away, no matter how tired she was, and whatever matters had arisen in her absence would only fester if untended.
"Tell them they are summoned to the council room in an hour," she replied, "Commander Mormont and I will meet them."
"Very good, your grace."
Dany followed her into the hall, Jorah at her heels. When Brienne was out of sight, she turned to him.
"Come, then. We only have an hour."
She nearly laughed aloud at his baffled expression. "To do what, your grace?"
"I can hardly go before my council in this state," she explained, glancing down at her road-stained garments. "Someone is going to have to get me out of this dress."
Her knight's eyes glazed a bit when she offered him her arm, but he allowed her to lead him through Maegor's Holdfast, and the queen and lord commander arrived only a few minutes late to the small council.