Chapter Two
A/N: No reviewers.
As the sun rose in the sky, Ser Jorah Mormont rose from his place on the floor, just outside the entrance to the tent that belonged to his khaleesi. His back ached in complaint as he did so, given that he had slept with it against one of the tent poles, so that he could better be alert to fight off any dangers. Unfortunately, at some point late into the night, he had reluctantly allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them once again, morning had been coming.
Once his head had cleared, the man let out a sigh. None of the other Dothraki guards had woken yet, though this had not surprised the Andal as much as anyone else might have thought, as they had been standing guard over the khaleesi all day, in the heat of the burning Red Waste. They had far more right to have slept than he had had, and yet he suspected that he had done so for longer.
As the thoughts of guard duty entered into his head, the knight decided that he should check on the Targaryen princess, to ensure that she was alright. 'I suppose that she is a true queen now,' he reminded himself. 'And not only the khaleesi that I met all that time ago, when she was but a frightened child, being wed to a man that she did not know, in exchange for an army for her power crazed brother. How far she has come since then.'
Drawing himself from his thoughts to concentrate on the task at hand, the man ducked beneath the flap of the tent, not wincing on this occasion at the fiery ache in his back, as he was now completely awake, and had faced far worse than this in the past, having been a soldier for a great many years. 'Longer than she has been living.' he thought before he could stop himself, and though the truth stung, he moved forward nonetheless, trying to clear his mind so that he did not notice how much of a child she still was.
Upon entering the tent, the man's thoughts were interrupted by the sight of the queen, sleeping peacefully in the small futon that she called her bed. In her slumber, her face was not marred by the expression of worry that she so often wore in her waking hours, giving her a look of serenity that Jorah was not sure he had seen in her for a long time, if he ever had done. Without the burden of leadership on her shoulders, she seemed to be more beautiful in sleep than ever before.
However, all was not right. The knight could feel it deep in his bones, akin to the feeling he had always experienced before a battle, a feeling of dread and sorrow and loss. Something was wrong, dreadfully so, and he moved in the direction of the sleeping woman who, now he was lost in a haze of fear, no longer seemed to be peaceful, merely unmoving.
Unable to think of propriety at that moment, the man reached for the hand of the khaleesi, grasping at her wrist for the tell-tale sign of life that beat beneath the skin. His forehead was beginning to bead with sweat, his breathing had become rapid, and his vision was starting to blur a little, though he would never admit so. He had been taught as a child that it was a weakness for a knight to cry, and so he had only done so a couple of times in his life, and never over something as trivial as a woman. 'But she's not a trivia, not to me.' the man thought, as he blinked his eyes clear of water.
Luckily, in his show of grief, the man's mind took over for just enough time for him to notice that there was a faint beat against the two fingers that he had still not removed from her wrist. It was so faded that it was almost too much to be felt, but it was there, and the more Jorah concentrated on it, the more apparent it seemed to become, much to his relief. It took a minute or two for the man to come to his senses enough to call for help, and when he did so, the handmaidens, Irri, Jhiqui and Doreah came running, their hands flying to their mouths as they saw the state of their khaleesi, her face pale as the moon and her body limp as a scrap of cloth. 'She looks all but dead already.' Ser Jorah sighed, though he was loathe to admit that to himself, for fear that that would make it come true. However, his mind was soon taken over with a simple question that he was shocked he had not thought of before. 'How could this have happened?'
The very same moment as the question appeared, an answer followed just as swiftly. 'This was Robert Baratheon's doing.' his mind cried out. There was no other rational explanation for the happenings, and everything would fall into place, had it been the Usurper who had ordered the attack on Daenerys. He had a vendetta against the Targaryen line, after all that had happened with his betrothed, Lyanna, and now that she had her dragons, the woman was a direct threat to his keeping the Iron Throne. Another thought soon entered his mind, though, returning the burden of guilt to his shoulders. 'But this is not only his doing. It is mine.'
It was his informing that had been the undoing of his khaleesi, of that much the man was, unfortunately, certain. How else could the assassin, or whoever had been hired to do the stag's bidding, have known where to find a woman who had been in exile all her life. No, it was clear enough that this was his doing.
He had finally found a woman who had been more than a trivial distraction, and it had been by his hand that she had been murdered.
A/N: I know that this wasn't very action-ish, but it's meant to be about Jorah's feelings towards Daenerys, and how he felt her 'death'. Please, please review!