I wasn't sure if I was going to leave this as a one-shot but I decided that I had to write something from Daenerys' POV. Dany is my favourite character in ASOIAF and GoT, so I hope I've written her character well. I'll probably continue this as a series of drabbles set in the same timeline; post season 6, Dany has sailed to Westeros and struck an alliance with Jon Snow to rally the North behind her and also help defeat the Others.
He cooled her.
Daenerys Targaryen was the blood of the dragon, the bride of fire, the last hope of a dynasty. The weight of the world seemed to rest upon her small shoulders. The last Targaryen, a girl born to be a princess, who had everything ripped away from her on the night of her birth and grew to become a queen with the fate of Westeros dangling over her head.
Dany had a dragon's temper, and at times it frightened her. She wanted to do good in Westeros, like she had done in the newly renamed Bay of Dragons. She had freed the slaves, set the people who called her mother free despite the threat of the masters, the Sons of the Harpy and her own inexperience when it came to ruling. She had united the Dothraki into a single khalasar and crossed the Narrow Sea, the last hope of House Targaryen.
But Dany was still young, despite how much she had learned. And she was lonely. Viserys had been scared and cruel but he had still been her brother. Now she was alone, all of her family dead. Her mother and father, her brothers, her sun and stars and her child, slain in the womb. Daenerys had advisors and allies: Tyrion Lannister, Yara Greyjoy, Missandei and Grey Worm and Ser Jorah Mormont, still lost in the world trying to find a cure so he could return to her. But she did not have family.
Jon had changed that. Jon had cured her of her loneliness, made her feel finally as if she had a home, a family, someone to return to when the battles were fought who loved her. Her, Dany, not Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons, the conqueror many men (Daario Naharis included) lusted for. He cooled her when she grew angry, balanced out her views and helped her see things that weren't as clear. The solemn bastard from Winterfell had given her so much more than just a claim to the North.
He'd given her hope. Clarity. A dream of family and the life she should have had that was finally within arm's reach.
"I dreamt of you," she whispered, her fingertips idly tracing the skin of his chest. Jon was warm. Despite being a Northener through and through, his skin was oddly warm.
"Aye?" he said. She could feel him shift slightly to look down at her, lying in the warmth of his arms with her bare chest pressed against his. She sighed like a contented cat.
"I didn't know it was you then. In truth I thought it nothing more than the silly dreams of a young girl, fantasizing over a strange handsome boy. But it was you. I know it was you."
He was quiet for a moment. She peered up at him, worried she'd upset him.
"You shouldn't trust dreams, Daenerys," he said quietly. "Dreams, prophecies. They're not to be trusted."
"What makes you so sure? If I had never listened to my dreams, my children would never have been born. There would be no dragons in the world and I would still be alone."
Jon went quiet again, his eyes staring off into the fireplace as he though was lost somewhere else. Dany pulled herself up and straddled his waist once more.
(Her favourite position to be in, after having him between her thighs.)
"Jon," she said, brushing her hand against his face. He looked at her, grey eyes that had been cold for so long now warm and swimming with the reflection of the fire. "I know why you distrust prophecy. Ser Davos told me about the Red Woman. How she brought you back, after…"
"Did he tell you that she burnt a little girl?" he said. "Stannis Baratheon's daughter. She believed he was the one to defeat the white walkers. And she killed his daughter. Burnt alive at the stake."
Daenerys wanted to comfort him but was unsure how. It wasn't just the girl's death that haunted him; she saw the pain living behind his eyes everyday, the familiar pain of grief and loss and betrayal.
"Mirri Maz Durr murdered my son whilst he was still in my womb. She took Drogo from me. My sun and stars," she began, hesitantly choosing her words. It felt wrong somehow, to be this honest, but with Jon it also felt insanely right. "For a while I thought I had a family. I thought I was going home. But then the maegi took it all away, because I was foolish enough to trust her and her magic.
But my dragons were born. I rose from Drogo's pyre with my children, and I made my own name and my own way. Here I am now, in Westeros, with you. I don't know if this was fate, or prophecy…but we can't live for the past. We have the future to fight for. If we look back we are lost."
Jon met her gaze, the enormity of the emotions in his eyes too much for her to bear. She kissed him, kissed him like it was the first and last time, and when they eventually pulled apart she found him looking at her like she was the sun and he was a man who had lived in darkness all his life.
"I still can't believe you're real, Dany," he said, a small smile on his beautiful face. She kissed him again, wanted to taste his happiness and let it consume her.
He calmed her and cooled her and counselled her and she needed him so much, but maybe he needed her just as much too.
Like Drogon had taken his time warming up to Jon, Ghost hadn't been initially kind to her.
"He can smell the dragons," Jon Snow said. "They make him on edge."
"As they should," she said coldly.
Perhaps she too had been just as stand-offish, with Ghost and the proclaimed King in the North. Tyrion and Theon Greyjoy had told her of Jon Snow, had said he was a good man with a sense of honour just like his father. But Daenerys had grown up frightened and on the run, fleeing from city to city with her abusive brother because Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon had killed her family and took their throne. Despite knowing what her father had really been, how the Starks had been through more than their fair share of misery and how Ned Stark had once opposed the Usurper and defended her life, it was hard to let go of a life time of fear and resentment. Viserys' words had been rooted in her brain for as long as she could remember. More than once she had 'woken the dragon' questioning the motives of the Starks until eventually she had accepted that they were nothing more than monsters.
It was hard to shake off the damage the years had done to her, but deep down she knew Tyrion was right. The Starks weren't monsters, Jon Snow was an honourable man and she needed the North.
Ghost warmed up to her before Jon did; in fact, if it wasn't for the white direwolf she doubted they would ever have grown to love each other. Daenerys had been discussing a marriage pact between herself and the King in the North. There was no chance she was going to give up half her kingdom before she took the Iron Throne but she still needed the North, needed the Starks of Winterfell and the other great Northern houses if she was going to unite the Seven Kingdoms.
(Not to mention the true war was beyond the Wall, as she would soon learn.)
The wolf had been slowly approaching her for a while. The dragon scent which had scared him had now become something of a curiosity. He had started coming closer and closer to her, his ears pressed back and his head tilted to the side. Grey Worm had mistrusted the wolf's intentions, angrily ordering Jon to keep his direwolf away from the queen.
Ghost hadn't listened. He approached her one night when she was sitting on the walls of Winterfell, watching the snow fall against the ground. She had grown weary of the friction between herself and Jon; even then, arguing with him had made her heart feel strangely heavy. She needed his claim to the North and he needed her dragons, but it seemed like neither of them would ever learn how to truly work together.
Dany had sighed morosely, watching the snow fall with a strange sort of serenity. Her marriage to Jon Snow had not looked like it was going to be a happy one.
Ghost had walked up to her slowly. At first she had been frightened; the wolf didn't like her, and she was alone without her bloodriders or the Unsullied. Even her dragons had left to go hunting. For a brief moment she had considered calling for Jon.
But then the wolf was next to her, sniffing at her skin, and she reminded herself that she was the blood of the dragon. She had looked into the flaming pits of Drogon's mouth in Daznak's Pit, had felt his scorching breath on her face. She had ridden the black beast across the world and felt no fear surrounded by her dangerous children. If she could handle three dragons, she could handle a direwolf.
Filled with a newfound confidence, Dany had slowly placed her hand on Ghost's head, burying his fingers in his thick fur and petting him softly. Ghost had stilled- looked at her with his blood red eyes- then sat on his haunches and pressed his head into her touch. She had been so relieved she had let out a little laugh, tickling behind his ear as the great wolf lay down next to her silently.
"Your Grace!" Jon Snow was rushing towards her, eyeing his wolf with a look of panic. His worry for her well-being touched her, until she remembered that if Ghost were to kill her, her army or her dragons would probably kill him.
"There is no need to panic, Jon Snow," she said, a little more warmly than she intended. "Your wolf is doing no harm."
He studied the two of them cautiously, Ghost lying at her side like a puppy as she absentmindedly stroked a hand through his fur.
"I, er…didn't think he liked you," Jon said.
"Neither did I," she replied, looking at the former Lord Commander carefully. There was no denying he was beautiful. "But perhaps the wolf and the dragon can learn to co-exist yet."
After that Ghost had followed her around consistently, enjoying his behind the ear scratches and head rubs.
(He avoided the dragons though, especially Drogon. The black dragon had met him once and tried to eat him; Jon had sulked her for days).