A/N: As always, thank you for reading and reviewing!

Also a note on chapter length: Some of you have complained about the variance in chapter length. If you haven't noticed, I'm dividing chapters by where (i.e. what location) they take place. So obviously, a place where lots of things happen will be a longer chapter than a place where few things happen. Aside from that, I've never been one to fuss too much about how long an individual chapter is. It's as long or as short as it needs to be.

Off the Shore of the Bay of Seals

Jon moves forward at a steady trudge. One foot after the other. After the other. After the other. He doesn't know where he's going, except away. Away from the hordes of undead, from the place where Eddard Stark died, from Robb's last stand, from the fire that birthed him anew even as it destroyed everything around him.

Something strange happened during the razing of Last Hearth. Jon would call it a hallucination, but he doesn't quite believe that. No, it was real. A vision. Perhaps what the Targaryens referred to as a dragon dream. The fire healed him of all the injuries he took in the battle with the wights, but it did more than that. He feels stronger than he should be, and he is now as immune to cold as he is to fire, a good thing since the fire burned his clothes away and warped his armor into a mound of slag.

And then there was them. The two people who appeared when Jon was surrounded by flames and his dragon egg gave its first crack. They were there and yet not, standing before Jon but unable to touch him. A tall man with white hair and a woeful expression next to a woman with smoky curls and an angular jaw that was thrust continually forward, giving her a defiant air.

You are more than I thought you could be, the man's voice whispered directly into Jon's mind.

You are worthy, little wolf, the woman's voice came.

Then, together, For yours is the song of ice and fire.

And then Jon's dragon hatched.

So he trudges naked through the snow, carrying Ice in one hand and his newborn dragon in the other. He is tempted to let the heavy greatsword drag the ground since it certainly won't hurt the Valyrian steel, but cannot bring himself to disrespect the Stark family's blade. Not after the way his father-uncle and brother-cousin died. He will keep the blade with him and treat it well, and then he will return it to Rickon. The last Stark in the North.

If he still lives, the thought intrudes. Who's to say these creatures haven't attacked Winterfell? With most of the fighting men at Last Hearth, the castle wouldn't last long.

Jon puts it from his mind and keeps trudging. He doesn't know how long it's been since The Last Hearth Stand. He sleeps when the sun is out and walks when it's dark, with the theory that it is better to be a moving target when those creatures are at the height of their powers. (At least, that's what Old Nan's stories say.) Here in the Far North, nights can be as long as several days, so Jon has long since lost any accurate sense of time. (Though he quietly marvels that he is now capable of marching naked through snow for several days straight without feeling too much strain.)

He simply keeps walking, stopping now and then to let his dragon stretch her legs and forage what food they can.

Starkfire, so named in honor of Robb's sacrifice, is about the size of a cat and covered in scales in varying shades of dusky blue. She is the color of the dawn sky, and Jon decides that it is a sign from the Old Gods, or maybe the two people from his vision, that she will help him avenge Robb and Ned and the others. In this new Battle for the Dawn, she will grow big and fierce and Jon will ride her to war.

She'll help him keep his promise to Robb.

Starkfire chirrups at him, a sound that is quite birdlike, and Jon stops, lifting her up so that he can meet her eyes. Just like with Ghost, a connection is made and Jon knows that Starkfire is hungry and bored. Breaking the connection, Jon sets her down in the snow and says, "Voraus." She chirrups again and gambols off to dig in the snow, searching for burrowing rodents and insects to eat.

Jon is doing his best to train Starkfire in the same way that Lady Lannister helped him and his sister-cousins train their direwolves, but it's difficult when he doesn't have easy access to bits of meat to use as rewards. Still, he's doing what he can, and Starkfire seems to be picking it up quickly. Perhaps even faster than Ghost. Whether that's because dragons are inherently more intelligent than direwolves, or a side effect of Jon being a more experienced warg now, he can't say.

Starkfire hisses just as the night grows darker still, and Jon jerks away from his own hunt for food, staring around in alarm, Ice ready in his hands. It wouldn't be the first time she's warned him of danger. Twice now, she's helped him slip away from creatures that glint like glass in the starlight. (Jon wasn't close enough to make out what they were, and didn't feel the need to find out. No need to push his luck.)

There is nothing around that he can see. No threats, nothing worth hunting. He stays poised for battle for a long, tense moment, but begins to think it a false alarm.

And then Jon feels an unnatural gust of wind, and he looks up.

Hovering over him is an enormous dragon. With dark red and black scales, it is so big and close that it's blotted out the light of the moon. A flicker of movement above and behind it draws Jon's attention for just long enough to make out the silhouettes of two more dragons against the backdrop of a cloud bank, the pair too high up for Jon to accurately judge their size. But if they are anywhere near the size of the one landing ponderously in front of him, well… it's not as if he has a chance of fighting one, let alone three.

Perhaps it will sense his Targaryen heritage and decide it likes him? He can only hope. Otherwise, his best plan is to run and hope it doesn't think he's worth chasing.

The big red-black dragon takes a deep breath, and Jon braces himself to withstand a gout of dragonfire, not sure if his immunity will extend to enchanted flames.

But then Starkfire comes running over, sliding on patches of ice and tripping over her own ungainly limbs, hissing and squeak-roaring all the while. Jon readies Ice, prepared to throw himself into the dragon's jaws if it will protect his hatchling even a moment longer.

The big dragon huffs in a way that almost seems amused and moves faster than Jon thought possible, trapping Starkfire under one clawed foot. And just when Jon is about to launch himself into likely the last attack he will ever make, the big dragon meets his eyes. And Jon falls.

It isn't like warging into Ghost, or even into Starkfire. It is more like the big dragon is warging into him, examining his heart, his soul, and his mind for flaws. Jon gets a sense of wicked intelligence and a flash of a silver haired woman dying in a golden street, and then another, and another, until he is watching the woman's life in reverse. Daenerys, she was called.

His aunt.

She is dead, and her dragons escaped Essos and came to find him. The last Targaryen, even if he doesn't use the name.

Though the enormous dragon doesn't speak in words, not exactly, Jon gets a distinct sense of You'll do before she gives a warbling call, summoning the other dragons down.

Then the dragon promptly ignores Jon, turning her attention to grooming and scolding Starkfire. Jon is sure when he looks back on this moment in a few years, he'll laugh.

Maybe.

The other two dragons land and trill at him, their voices much deeper than Starkfire's. One is green and bronze, and the other cream and gold. Each is only about a third of the size of the big dragon, and when Jon meets their eyes he wargs into them, not the other way around. Their minds are tangled balls of instinct and aggression, with none of the fierce intelligence that make the big dragon so terrifying.

Perhaps there are two types of dragon? From the memories the big dragon showed him of his Targaryen aunt, these three all hatched at the same time, but the red-black dragon is bigger and smarter. Perhaps they're like the bees kept in the gardens of Casterly Rock for their honey and every flock of dragons has a queen that rules the others?

So much dragon lore has been lost over the years. It's as good an explanation as any.

"Daenerys," Jon says out loud. The big dragon looks at him, her sharp eyes piercing him. In a strange way, her stare is a lot like his good-mother's. "I'm not sure what my aunt called you," Jon tells the dragon, knowing that she understands every word. "But I'm going to call you Daenerys, in her honor."

The dragon nods her head, and Jon gets a sense of amused acceptance from her.

He calls the green dragon Tasherys, for she is the same color as his wife's green eye. The white he calls Lyanna.

"Can you take me to Winterfell, Daenerys?" he asks, meeting the dragon's eyes to let her take images of the keep and the surrounding lands from his mind. She gives him a look that adequately conveys how stupid he is for doubting her.

"Sorry," Jon says, bowing to her and then moving to gather up Starkfire and Ice. Dany bends down to let him mount her. Looking at his naked nethers and the hard scales of Dany's neck, Jon observes, "This is going to hurt."