Daenerys

Under different circumstances, I might have been nervous to finally meet Jon's countrymen. Just now though, Dany was too tired to much feel self-conscious. Apparently Jon could tell, because he breezed through the throng without a second look. Cheers, shouts, cries of "King in the North!", all were ignored in his haste to get her someplace quiet, comfortable and above all, warm. Even as she fought to keep her feet, she heard him call for a bath to be drawn, with hot water if could be done.

"You need one just as badly, Jon Snow…" she murmured, sitting in a chair by the hearth in the meantime. She was cold, she was tired, she was caked in mud, and the smell of the burning dead had seeped into what remained of the clothes she was wearing. War, she thought grimly. At least we didn't lose so many as we could have. She was too tired even to cry. For moments then whole seconds, both Jon and the room disappeared, as did the cold, to be replaced by lusher jungle than could be believed. And the heat…

"Dany. Dany." Feebly she lifted her head up.

"Mmm…"

"Come here, sweetling. Let's get you out of that…"

"...mess?" she suggested, mouth curling in a smile despite her fatigue. Maybe it will pass. Another flash of deepest green. Or not. Jon got her up and after making the unpleasant discovery that she actually seemed to be caked into her clothes, simply used a knife to cut her out of them. Then he was carrying her, then she could feel the heat of the water and gave an involuntary gasp. In up to her neck in water that steamed, eyes opening wide long enough to see Jon toss a cloth behind her head for her to lean against. She meant to smile at him when her head touched the cloth, she meant to tease him about being clean, after a fashion, as well as warm while he was still trapped in the leathers he'd worn in the Neck. Instead she fell asleep, divinely asleep, out of that cold tired world and into quite another.

"Her Grace will be hungry when she wakes, perhaps a small plate of fruit and cheese. If no fruit is in Lord Wyman's stores, fish instead." Jon said, sounding as though he were further away by the word. No, Dany thought dizzily. I want to stay with him. There was no rousing herself from sleep, though, let alone the copper tub, and when next the jungle came into view, it was to stay.

Drogon yawned, blinking the morning light out of his eyes. Well, what ekes its way through that canopy, anyway. The god-lizard snored a few feet away, her head slowly turning to rest on its side. Close now, as he'd been for days, Drogon could smell the stench of rotten meat that clung to her mouth and perfumed her breath in cloying clouds. The stench of a predator, Dany thought. She was sure it would have sickened her, had she been there to smell it. In contrast, the aroma only seemed to enflame the black dragon. Perhaps its life he smells, not death. A fresh kill means food, to dragons and god-lizards both. Just as he rose, stretching, the god-lizard's snout suddenly snapped shut, nostrils flaring with a snort. Drogon tensed and then another smell seeped into his nostrils, one that was even more pungent. Dany actually felt her own nose wrinkle in disgust as an oily musky reek made Drogon's eyes water. A soft grunting sound joined in, Drogon's confusion replaced by his flaring temper. He shot forward with an angry scream, the god-lizard rousing at the sound- and roaring aloud in turn at the strange smell. Rage. Not surprise, rage. She knows what it is. Dany could only watch through Drogon's eyes, wondering whether her own nerves were agitating him. Too late did he realize the lizard was not following, surprise enough to make him turn at the last second- feeling something huge and hairy brush the back of his head, an arm swung wide by pure luck. For once in his life, he thought before he acted and shot up a tree before whatever was on him could pursue. There was greenery in the way but a black torrent of flame later and it was clear, Drogon turning to peer down as the god-lizard charged. What bellowed in reply, beating its chest and standing tall as one giant on a second's shoulders, was an ape, black from the tip of its head to its feet. An ape if made a god, Dany thought faintly, the two at each other before Drogon could figure out what to do next. The god-lizard did not have momentum with which to bring her full weight to bear and the god-ape seemed ready for her so when its massive hands clapped firm around her head, it hurled her headlong into the nearest tree. The crash that resulted shook the jungle but she righted herself and rose, roaring, without a moment's delay. In open ground, it might have been more of a fair contest, but the ape's arms needed no such room to prove devastating. Throwing rocks, swinging branches, even climbing and jumping off to deliver stunning blows backed by the fall as much as its incredible arms. Finally Drogon overcame his awe and descended, Dany's stomach turning. A line of black flames parted the titanic animals, the god-ape screaming in pained surprise as it rolled away, fur singed. It stood, howling, pounding its hands against its chest in a terrifying display. Drogon drank the sight in, something in his mind locking on the creature before him. The god-lizard seized her chance, fleeing the flames and enemy both. Smoke did what flames could not, a noxious gust sending the god-ape off crashing through the jungle. To Dany's surprise, Drogon followed not his mate but this new wonder, the itch in his mind growing as he moved through the trees.

Following the noise and trampled growth was easy but keeping up was hard. Even airborne, Drogon could not move uninhibited as it seemed the god-ape could. The newly risen sun glinted down from the left. We're moving south. The jungle did not clear, exactly, but the huge trees could not grow where ruins already stood. Vine-choked and crumbling, Dany could nevertheless feel Drogon's excitement. Curious. Where he found Meereen and King's Landing repellent, he does not seem to mind these old stones. Then, squarely in his way, a monolith of some kind cloaked in thick vines and huge yellow flowers loomed in stark difference to the trees around. Drogon moved closer, peering out from behind massive trunks or lone boulders until he reached the thing. The footprints that belied the god-ape's passing lay forgotten in the mud. Incensed as he was, Drogon's brief flash of clarity vanished and he gave the thing his fire. The black flames climbed the vines faster than any man, any ape, and before his red eyes Drogon saw glittering black stone emerge from the curtain of overgrowth. Dragonglass? Dany thought, dumbfounded, as the last of the vines receded. It was a man- no, a head, a massive head chipped and carved, it seemed, purely of dragonglass. Though it had to have been ages since last it stood unshrouded, it had not eroded or degraded in the least. Its heavy brow rested over a pronounced nose, the mouth a grave and somber line beneath. The sight was enough to unnerve any man, or any dragon it seemed as Drogon took flight immediately after, circling uncertainly. Awing, he could see the world he'd found for what it is- a sea of green rolling off in all directions but for the sky-scraping southern mountains at the edge of his vision. Something's wrong, Dany thought. There is something amiss here. Warily he drifted south and as he did the green below him simply vanished. A city wrought from the same stones as the preceding ruins stood in silent defiance of the jungle that surrounded it, heedless of the vines that overran its walls, choked its towers, webbed up the steps of a ziggurat that stood larger than the Great Pyramid of Meereen. The size of the city dizzied mother and child both, even as it popped in and out of view as Drogon circled. Directly below the monolith stood in its inviolate vigil. Past it, Dany realized, the city stood visible but before the head's glass gaze, it appeared to be just more untamed jungle expanse. A means to keep intruders out. Built by who knows what, who knows when… Drogon continued on, fear staining his curiosity even as he got lower, got closer. Nothing in all the city moved. Nothing Drogon can bloody see, anyway. The ziggurat stood in the center of the city, other buildings springing off it here and there. Drogon spotted whole palaces standing on its blocky slopes, long-empty pools and hanging gardens covering every available bit of space. It's a city by itself, Dany thought in wonder. Closer still, Drogon could see more dragonglass heads. They were fewer in number but three times the height of the outer ring, forming a second one tight around the ziggurat. Their gazes face inward, Dany noticed. It was hard to judge the size of things from Drogon's point of view, as she had no idea to what size he'd grown in his time in this beautiful terrifying green land, but even the smaller heads overtopped the god-ape, if by only a few feet. Why the set outside the city should be smaller and stand in a wider ring than the one ringing the ziggurat was lost on Dany until the thought leapt to mind so quickly, she could not be sure if it was hers or Drogon's. Those were for keeping something out. These are for keeping something in.

She started awake, immediately leaning over the side of the tub to vomit. At once she felt a hand brush her hair out of the way, a bucket appearing below her. After it was done, she gave a weary groan. I feel absolutely wretched. Going from such a magnificent view to the tiny room had her dazed and dizzy, the scale of the city Drogon had happened upon hard to reconcile with her waking situation. After a moment the vertigo passed, though she still felt as though she all but had the lizard and ape going at it once again in the confines of her stomach. And yet, I'm hungry enough to eat another stallion heart. Alas, there was no such fare waiting for her, only a small plate of cheese and several perfect fillets on a wooden tray nearby.

"Better?" Jon asked, Dany only groaning in reply. "Less bad, then?" He daubed at her face with a warm cloth.

"Better than I was this time yesterday. At least I'm clean and warm. Was I…asleep long?"

"No longer than a few hours. You missed dusk and that's about it." That makes sense, she thought. I saw the sun come up where Drogon was.

"Why, did it feel like a long time?"

"No, but there was a lot to see. Drogon with his god-lizard…a ferocious ape throwing her about, and a long-forgotten city." She gulped. "There were a lot of dragonglass heads. Statues, like, only they seemed like something more." Whatever Jon was expecting, it wasn't that.

"Heads?" Dany nodded.

"It was even stranger than it sounds. Smaller ones, perhaps thirty feet…and larger ones around the immense ziggurat at the city's heart." He looked utterly dumbfounded, then only shrugged.

"The gods only know what goes on in the furthest corners of the world. There are places men belong, places they might belong, and places they've no business being in the least. Wherever Drogon is, it sounds a place made for dragons, not men." Dany knew Jon meant well, but had he seen the great glass heads for himself, stern and stoic…she shook her head and tried to put them from her mind. They're the gods only know where, further away from me now than I ever was from Westeros during my life in the east. There's no call to be afraid of some stupid carvings in the jungle.

"Have you seen your sister yet?"

"Arya is safe with Gendry and Nymeria. You're my concern these days, dozy kitten."

"Hush." she said, feeling her cheeks flush. "If you've been with me all the while, have you at least figured out what I'm going to wear?"

"After a fashion. A thick fur coat over some Dothraki leathers your people must be working on right now. I say, their leather vests are well suited to having coats worn over them." An army of handmaidens arrived shortly after, combing her hair and helping her dress while Jon kissed her cheek and waited without. They seemed to sense that Dany didn't much want to talk and so chattered amongst themselves.

"I never believed the talk of silver hair, shows what I know…"

"Are you and the king married?"

"Of course they're not, His Grace belongs to the old gods. It will be a godswood, make no mistake." Talk of weddings made Dany's stomach turn yet again. When I wed Drogo, men died. When I wed Hizdahr, men died. Is it too bloody much to ask that a wedding be a thing of joy?

She spent the walk down to the New Castle's hall teasing Jon Snow and being teased in turn.

"You may well fall asleep and miss the part where we decide to move on to Winterfell." he whispered in her ear.

"I'd rather sleep than try and change a northman's mind, at least then I'd accomplish something." Dany replied. They found the place filled with people, as she expected, but the revels of surviving the cold giants' latest raid mixed with the return of the King in the North were yesterday's show. The lords who'd waited for them, the lords who were with them in the mountains and the swamp, all looked on with the same stunned expression. One ragged young man edged to the forefront, accompanied by the man who had served Stannis Baratheon, the smuggler Davos Seaworth.

"Your Grace…" Ser Davos began, softly clapping his hand on the shoulder of the man in front of him. "the Wall is gone." That one word sent a shiver up Dany's spine. Not taken. Not lost. Gone.

"What?" Jon asked.

"I heard talk of the Horn of Winter while part of Stannis' host. How the wildlings never found it even after all their digging in the Frostfangs. Well, the Others found what the wildlings couldn't. I heard it blown, the Horn. Like a tempest crossed with an earthquake. Then cracking, lots of cracking. Lightning on the other side, too. I didn't stand around to watch what would happen next, I just ran." Jon looked like he'd just been told the sky had fallen. Tormund actually had to steady him when he pressed his hands to the table, to make sure he didn't fall down.

"I thought they might have frozen the river by the Shadow Tower…" he gasped. That explains how they could bring giants and mammoths to bear, at least. Not to mention that mess of dead men…

"Never mind. No good squatting where you've shit before, Snow. Best find someplace nice and sweet-smelling." Tormund said firmly before releasing him. He gave a wicked grin. "And the bloody dragon did a fine job of giving them a nasty surprise."

"His name is Viserion." I named him for my brother, weak and cruel though he was. "He disappeared shortly after I landed on Dragonstone, only to turn up when we had to walk through the Neck on the way here." Her first words in front of the lords assembled came out harder than she'd meant them, but Viserion was more than a spitfire to be aimed and fired on the dead at will. Dust fell from the ceiling as he moved about atop the castle, perhaps sleeping.

"Forgive my ignorance, Your Grace, but I'd heard you had three." said Jon Connington, shadowing the man purported to be her nephew (well, half) as always.

"So I did. Rhaegal left Dragonstone as well, I've got not the slightest idea where he's gone. Drogon…" Has flown clear across the world and is as like to be of help as I am to bear a living child.

"He took off after he burned the throne. West, straight as an arrow." Jon said. Beyond the Sunset Sea, to lands where men will never walk.

"Well…things being…as they are-" Samwell Tarly began, but Aegon interrupted him.

"Wait a minute, is this everyone? Where are the Dornish houses? Or the Iron Islanders? Or the westermen?"

"We were half-hoping the Dornish would follow you north, actually. We've heard not the first whisper from Sunspear, I sent a raven telling them Her Grace had landed over a year ago. Nothing. As for the ironmen, hopefully they've followed Theon Greyjoy's lead and plan to land on the Rills or perhaps the Stony Shore with my countrymen on their ships. Even Sea Dragon Point, at least the way to Winterfell would have firewood to spare." Tyrion offered.

"They had an ice-ship. The Others. Who's to say they don't have more?" Ice-ship? At the new arrivals' mystified looks, Samwell explained. "They look to be shaped from icebergs. They throw frigid light instead of boulders or burning pitch, though. The one blockading White Harbor had to be dealt with for the Golden Company to land."

"Dealt with?" Jon asked, looking pale.

"One of Tarly's toys hit it right where it didn't want to be hit, it seems. Thing went up like a funeral pyre." Gendry said. Jon rubbed his forehead with a hand.

"I didn't know White Harbor suffered so in my absence. Had I known, I'd have hurried back-"

"Oh, hang that, Your Grace. We're still here, if a bit beat up." Princess Arya said bracingly. Someone coughed.

"Well, maybe a bit more than a bit beat up. At least the city's still standing."

"That it is, but it won't if the Others attack in force. We all of us would be safer at Winterfell."

"Well, the White Knife's froze solid, we could follow that near all the way-" one of the Manderly worthies said, poking at the map on the table with a dagger.

"Will there be food enough for everyone? Or even room? From what I've heard, Winterfell is an enormous castle, but this many people filling it at once-"

"We'll build snow shelters in the yard if we must, or use the crypts. The dead kings within them won't mind, and even if the Others try to wake them up, they'll find skeletons trying to escape tombs of fused stone slabs make poor recruits." Jon said dryly, eyes on the map. On Winterfell.

"The dr- uh, Viserion's presence would be a welcome sight overhead during the march north, to be sure." a pox-scarred man to Gendry's right said, shooting Dany a sideways glance.

"If you say so, my lord, but I can no more make him do something he doesn't wish to than fly or breathe fire myself."

"I don't know. The flying bit is out but sometimes you look ready to spit flames at me." Jon said, shrugging. The laughter that broke out was accidental, jarring, and it utterly broke the tension in the room. These men saw me burn the throne, Dany thought. They know I am not here to set myself above them. Dany smiled herself out of reflex, giggling a bit and putting her face in her hands which only seemed to further lighten the mood. Curse your wild mischief, Jon Snow! Even here and now, he was teasing her and making her heard flutter!

When she next peeked through her fingers, her eyes found some islands in the Bay of Seals. A dragon's foot, she wondered. The more she looked, the more the islands occupied her thoughts.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing. It seemed everyone else fixated on the point before Jon Snow spoke.

"That's Skagos, home to a fiercely wild people I've completely bleeding forgotten about." he all but shouted, grey eyes going wide. Only the southern half sits below the Wall on this map, Dany noticed. The northern half…and that smaller island, the dragon's claw…

"How wild?" she asked quietly, though she was certain everyone in the room had heard.

"It's a place of singularly ill repute, Your Grace. The Skagosi are more beast than man if the maesters are to be believed, and cannibals besides." one of the Reachmen said. "But still men, and well within the Others' grasp." Jon Snow replied. The conversation regarding the savage people who dwelled on those far forbidden shores met Dany's ears, but her thoughts were with the island itself.

"Skagos, you say. And this?" she pointed to the little island still further north.

"Skane. An unpeopled spit of barren snowy shore host to a bramble of razor rocks, a small mountain if I recall. The maester never much spent time on Skagos and still less on Skane. I suppose it's because men have less than no business there." Little Ned Umber volunteered. Despite his disinterested tone, Dany's heart soared.

"And the bay, full of seals?" she asked.

"That's what gives it its name, Your Grace. Seals, and sometimes creatures from the Shivering Sea proper. Narwhals and walruses and-"

"Black-tailed pale mermaids with a murderous streak, wailing drowned spirits that walk on the waves and shimmering streams of queer lights in the sky. What of it?" Jon Connington cut him off.

"You act like such stories lie outside the realm of possibility, my lord. Pray, you did see the giants and the waves of walking dead readying to storm the city?" Tyrion asked. Before the proud griffin's feathers could get still more ruffled, Dany spoke.

"This Skane sounds even more forbidding than Skagos. Unpeopled, unwanted, with only endless freezing water around it. In short, a place without men, where no man would ever go. Food without end, thanks to the sea. Freedom without end, thanks to the sky." She put a finger on Skane, no more than a little white smudge on the map. She saw men squinting suspiciously or impatiently go wide-eyed at her implication. "I can imagine no more fitting place for Rhaegal than this Skane."

Even with the prospect of a second dragon to keep the dead men at bay, every possible objection was aired. It was far too dangerous, the voyage was too long, another ice-ship may lie in wait, the Skagosi may already all be dead, there was no guarantee Rhaegal was on Skane and so forth. The direwolf's howl proved a better call for silence than the loudest voice.

"The Skagosi aren't dead." Arya Stark said, her hand on the wolf's flank. "At least, not all of them. The ones Rickon hasn't killed yet." The name meant little to Dany but Jon, having just comported himself, was knocked off-balance all over again.

"Arya, Rickon's dead. He was killed before the Battle of the Bastards, don't you remember me telling you?"

"Aye. I remember seeing what I saw in a dark wild forest, too. Shaggydog, Jon, and no mistake. Aside him, leading a whole pack of direwolves…was something that remembered me, if dimly. It remembered you, too." Arya turned and whispered something to her wolf, who whimpered aloud much to the assembly's collective surprise. "Something alive. It's time for Ramsay's lie to join him in the grave." If there was a possibility one of Jon's trueborn siblings was imperiled somewhere, she knew it would linger in his mind always. The specter of his birth haunts him still. It won't allow a trueborn son of Lord Stark's to remain in danger.

"It sounds like we have plenty of reasons to go to Skagos. I'll stick my head down one of Tarly's toys and scatter myself over the Bite before I go wandering into the wilds again, though." Tyrion said grimly from his end of the table.

"What with just about everything else having gone wrong, it would be best to assume there's no dragon nor wolf waiting up there. Even adding in the likelihood that all the Skagosi are dead, there's still reason to go, after a fashion." Every head turned to look at Aegon, whose eyes were on the endless blue of the Shivering Sea. "If they have free reign of the waves, they could fall on Ib with equal ease." He looked up at Jon. "You say yourself they go after places with lots of people. Ib might be a savage backward place but its whalers and their cargo are known to the world at large. Bone, blubber and the like. Surely it would figure more eminently in their estimation of places to destroy." Jon blinked.

"I don't disagree, but that's assuming the Others know Ib is there. The Land of Always Winter falls mostly to the west of the Frostfangs, where Ib sits in the Shivering Sea to the east of Westeros."

"It could be they don't know about it. It's likely, even. Ib won't remain outside their gaze for long, though. Nor will Braavos or Lorath, at that." Samwell opined. "Their ice-ship was something no shipwright could ever dream of, much less construct. It moved without wind, against the wind, and needed no wights at oars to get going either. Whatever moved it can carry it much further, much faster, to say nothing of the weaponry it could bring to bear. Sooner or later, they will find Westeros is not the only land they can rampage across utterly unchecked."

"Not utterly unchecked, Samwell. A few toys here, a few tricks there, that's what's called for." a man with a green apple on his surcoat said, getting a weary smile from Jon's friend.

"Making sure they haven't filled the waters north of the Narrow Sea with a whole fleet purposed for Essos all the more necessary. There are no dragons waiting for the Others over there, no wolves either. As poorly as you may suppose Westeros is faring, Essos would fare still poorer." Aegon's words seemed to reach Jon if no one else, who looked as pleased at the prospect of an Essos locked in winter as Dany felt.

When it became evident that a voyage to Skagos was in the offing no matter the lords' feelings, the issue of what ships to take was next to tackle. As that was not the concern of those headed on to Winterfell, those lords going overland broke to ready their own men for the journey. Aegon remained behind, looking pensive.

"Fortune is equal to such a task, if given over to a crew mad enough to try. You'd need others of course, to carry the Skagosi that agree to come, but how quickly those ships get there isn't so important." Aegon offered. "I think there might be a number of swan ships available as well. Almost as roomy as cogs but with greater strength of sail." He gave a rueful smile. "With these damned winds blowing day and night, becalming won't be an issue."

"The crewmen won't have to go ashore." Jon told him at once.

"Nor will they. The Golden Company's members are men of sound mind and to a one are absent of the urge to ask an island full of cannibals if a dragon's been about lately." Aegon replied wryly.

"As am I. The urge I'm possessed by is to save as many people as I can, and if a dragon waits for us on Skane, so much the better."

"Noble, but I'd suggest against going by yourself." Aegon replied doubtfully.

"Of course he's not going by himself, I'm going too." Dany said crossly. A new wave of objections exploded from around the table until Tormund Giantsbane gave a roar.

"Eh? Someone else is going to coax the fucking dragon out of his lair, then?" he bellowed. Daenerys felt a rush of gratitude for the wildling chief, great bag of air that he was. She spotted Ser Bonifer lingering by the door, looking unsure if it was his place to stand among the storm lords as he had. You are the father of a queen, ser. You have as much right to be here as anyone. She moved over to him, having said all she wanted to regarding her going to Skagos.

"It seems the Seven have strength enough to ward you from harm, Ser Bonifer."

"If only just, Your Grace. Do you truly intend to go to Skagos?" She smiled sadly. She knew well the expression he wore, having seen it on Ser Willem Darry's face in her girlhood and Ser Jorah's and Ser Barristan's later on. I suppose it is his right, she mused. Any father would be nervous about such a prospect.

"I do. I can't help but feel Rhaegal has laired on Skane, and there are people to pluck out of the Others' grasp on Skagos besides." He only nodded.

"It is not my place to question your intuitions on such matters. I would like to go as well, however. As I'm sure you've noticed, the King in the North is devoted to the memory of his lord father. No doubt that's why he's so keen on ascertaining if a trueborn son of Lord Stark's remains alive. Well, there's no doubt as to whether a daughter of Queen Rhaella's yet lives, and I'd sooner be at her side than waiting for news behind the walls of Winterfell." A specter haunts him just as heavily.

"As you will, ser." she replied, taking his hand.

"Indeed, the more the merrier. No need to have the queen's only company be wild thieves and savage barbarians." Jon Snow said, approaching them both. Daenerys rolled her eyes, trying hard not to smile. "It seems the lucky party going ashore will be us, our charming chieftains of the Free Folk and Shagga, son of Dolf so far. No doubt some number of your Dothraki will want to come as well, to keep you out of harm's way."

"Why would a hill tribesman come?" Dany asked, surprised.

"The mountains of Shagga's birth are no place for the clans any longer, Your Grace. It will take years unbothered by war for their numbers to recover." Tyrion said, having waited outside for the hall to clear. "I just broached the topic of relocation to Shagga and to my amazement, he was receptive. I would find that fortunate if I didn't know the people he comes from. The tribes are as flinty and hardheaded as any northmen, any wildling. That Shagga of any of them so readily embraces abandoning their ancestral home tells me just how fraught with danger the clans perceive the Mountains of the Moon to be now."

"I suppose the next time we meet it will be at Winterfell, then, my lord." There is no place for him in the wilds, she thought sadly, loath to part with him. He will be safe at Winterfell. As safe as a Lannister can be surrounded by northmen, anyway.

On leaving the warm hall Dany hissed through her teeth and drew her furs tight around herself, the wind as cruel as ever. Her eyes went wide a moment later, all cold forgotten, when she saw the flames jetting out this way and that along the beach. The hulks the dead had come on collapsed into ash, a multitude of people waiting for room to be cleared (and the flames to die) to try restoring some semblance of order on the outer docks.

"What is that?" she whispered, half wondering if Viserion had gotten bored atop the New Castle. On looking up though, she spotted his long ivory neck extended toward the beach, golden eyes watching the goings-on. The curious little oddball beneath the bull lizard-lion. Dany felt the beginnings of a smile tempt the corners of her mouth. Down on the sand they found the source of the flames, a truly remarkable girl who seemed to suffer a malady akin to Lady Catelyn's. Fire, though, instead of water. Rather than currents running up and down her shimmering form, she seemed molded of liquid brass. The fire that poured and flickered about her head and shoulders was darker and suggested the pretense of hair, while her dress was a happy glowing yellow. The sight quite took Dany's breath away, breath hitching loudly when the girl turned to look at the newcomers. Instead of eyes proper there were two holes in the endless brass that poured down her face, white pinpricks peering out instead of eyes proper.

"Well, that's bloody fucking terrifying." Tyrion said, giving himself a shake.

"The Blackwater was your doing, was it not? Wildfire saved your family from the enemy fleet. Why should fire make you lose your stomach now?" the girl asked, her manner cold as her flames were warm.

"I had no idea what I was doing. I thought Stannis' ships would be trapped between the chain and flames, yes, but I didn't think the whole fleet would go up in one hellstorm."

"Your mother might have told you that playing with fire gets you burned."

"My mother bled out upon my birth. Anything she could have told me, taught me, shown me stained the sheets along with her lifeblood." Tyrion's voice was iron, far from the mutter it had been.

"Would that our places were reversed. Your mother would still be with you and I would never have drawn breath." Upon the cessation of the flames, the liquid forms of the ladies Stark glided over, leaving nothing but wet sand in their wake. Lady Catelyn made a sound, water pouring onto salt-stained stones much like the incessant waves that made up for lost time now the hulks were gone. The girl answered, flames popping 'round a log. "What are you doing here, anyway? Ser Davos told me it's Winterfell everyone is headed for."

"So it is, my lady. I'd rather be nowhere else in all the world myself, a few concessions aside." Jon Snow slipped an arm around Dany's waist, a move both tender and a means to whip her behind him in case the girl turned hostile. "But just now it's Skagos we need to reach." The heat in the girl's voice receded, the haunting visage flickering from menacing to something rather more human, if only for a moment.

"Lord Commander Snow. Only, you're King in the North now, I hear."

"Aye, gods save me, I am."

"They must have done the once, why wouldn't they again?"

"Do you…know each other?" Dany asked, astonished.

"Somewhat, at least before the both of us perished. Dany, this is Shireen Baratheon, lady of-"

"-nowhere." the girl said flatly.

"You're lady of the docks just now at least. Without you the workers would be weeks at it trying to clear all the wreckage." Dany said.

"Lady Shireen, this is Daenerys, the Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains." Shireen looked at her.

"You burned the throne."

"I said a word. Drogon did the burning." Shireen grew withdrawn, as if unsure what to say next.

"My sister Arya is marrying your cousin, my lady. Even were you still flesh and bone, you would more than have a place at Winterfell, to say nothing of Storm's End."

"I'm not, though. I'm flame and ash, smoke and heat. At least before, I could turn a page without it crumbling in my hand." Jon left Dany's side and stepped up to the girl, overtopping her even with middling height. He turned toward the shore, clear of hulks and dead men both.

"Before you couldn't cut down wights by the dozens clean as any dragon. It could be your return means a deal of difference in how many people live to see the spring. If you had to come back, my lady, I for one don't mind like this." Jon said, all grim honesty. The girl was quiet for a long time. Viserys told me of Robert Baratheon a hundred times and more. Dany could not imagine anyone more different from the image in her head, a steel-clad warrior with a booming voice swinging a great warhammer.

"What's on Skagos?" Shireen finally asked.

"The Skagosi, for one. No need to give the Others more wights than they already have. Arya thinks our little brother Rickon may be somewhere on Skagos as well, and…" he turned to Dany.

"What with naught about but fat seals and open sky, I should think Skane the likeliest place in all of Westeros we'll find Rhaegal. Uh, he's a dragon." she added, feeling rather self-conscious.

"I read about Skagos a bit." Shireen sounded like she was thinking about something else. "I suppose there's less I can muck up there than in the middle of a city. All the better if you run into more dead men on the island and need a bit of rescuing."

"Not if the ship they're on burns to the waterline the moment you get on it." Tyrion pointed out. In response Shireen reached out and ran a brazen finger down the scar that split the dwarf's face. There was no hiss of burning flesh.

"I can choose to spare wood as easily as flesh. I think it's best I learn the ways of the wilds anyway, as that's where I'll probably spend a great deal of time should the Others be defeated." The prospect of going someplace she never could have in life has her less incensed than she'd otherwise be.

"You could do better still, my lady. What stops you from going to Valyria, for instance? If only for a peek." Dany told her, the girl's grim face fizzling into something wholly more human.

"According to legend, Valyria is full of demons and worse." She sounded rather overawed.

"And? What can be done to you that has not already been done?" Dany asked in answer. Shireen and the Stark women made their noises at each other for awhile, the pair of river shades walking past Jon (Lady Catelyn without a second look) and heading back up to the castle.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I thanked her for helping me. She wished me luck and said she looked forward to seeing me at Winterfell. When are we leaving?"

"Presently, my lady. The quicker we set off, the quicker we'll return." Jon told her. And, we'd best be off before someone sings up another storm to catch us in.

Since there were far fewer people headed to Skagos than Winterfell, they got underway quicker. When she mused on it to Jon in Fortune's cabin, he only smiled at her.

"We're a bit more used to roughing it than the lords of Westeros or even the Golden Company. My guess is they're loathe to leave the comfort of White Harbor behind for a cold journey up the shores of the White Knife to Winterfell."

"So was I. Am I not rough enough for you, Jon Snow?" She crossed her arms, huffing and turning toward the cabin's small window. The while walls were still in sight, if only just.

"You're the bloody Mother of Dragons. Roughness or lack thereof isn't the problem."

"Then what is?"

"Give you a comfy perch and you're harder to move than a gargoyle. Others might call you 'Your Grace' but I know what you truly are." She turned back to him, sitting next to him on the bed.

"And what, in all your wise, worldly northern estimation am I?"

"A lazy, dozy kitten."

"Hmph!" She moved to shove him but he was quick as a striking panther, wrapping her snug in a heavy blanket and rolling over to land her perfectly on the bed, her head on the pillow. She gave a spirited wriggle, grumbling noisily. "Let me go."

"No. If it's a wild thief I am, then you're mine to steal and steal you I have."

"Hmph!"

"How about a wager? If you're awake in a minute, not only will I let you go, but I'll find you supper."

"Cheese and fruit?" Dany asked, her play-annoyance at his antics blending with delight.

"The Manderly larders did not lack for provender, even fruit to my amazement. The way you've come to ask for it though, it won't last us past Widow's Watch."

"Hmph!" She resolved to stay awake, thoughts of crisp apples and white cheese fresh from the rind so vivid she could taste them. When Fortune's well-furnished cabin became a sky full of more stars than Dany could count, she could not help but feel disappointed in herself even as she gaped at the heavens. A dozy kitten, he called me! Honestly! Drogon seemed to have touched down at the top of the ziggurat, the nameless city stretching out in all directions and beyond its walls, the jungle proper. Despite their earlier misgivings, Drogon didn't seem bothered in his time atop the city. Nothing came out of the ruins to attack him, no dreadful curses manifested upon the city's glamor being breached. Maybe it's just a skeleton, Dany thought. Just the scattered bones of whatever might have once been, no more capable of harm than that. The voyage to Skagos was spent in such a vein, her waking hours spent with Jon Snow and the wild peoples who'd come along or else Ser Bonifer, talking about Queen Rhaella or his family in the stormlands. That he had a mother living and a sister besides with children of her own made Dany's heart leap. No past and no future, she thought, no great name to haunt their every moment.

"They came to White Harbor but I thought it better you meet them away from hundreds of unfamiliar eyes. With the blessings of the Seven they'll reach Winterfell and be waiting for us in turn." he said, Mother's ghost only just having left the man, that dreadful weight's absence allowing him to come back to life a breath at a time. Would that I was rid of ghosts so easily. Rhaego's, among others.

"I'm sure you've heard, but I had a son come along on the Dothraki Sea. He never lived, though." She spared him the specifics.

"I have. You mustn't blame yourself, Daenerys. You were what, four-and-ten? A child yourself, as Rhaella was when she bore Rhaegar at Summerhall." Get rid of one ghost and two more step in where they stood.

Jon Snow tapped the cabin's threshold to announce his presence.

"Pardon me, ser. I didn't mean to intrude, if you prefer I can busy myself keeping our wild friends out of each other's hair." Sigorn has no hair and Malakko cut his braid in the Neck but Tormund and Shagga more than make up for it. The Dothraki, as predicted, refused to allow Daenerys to go back into the wild without a number of bloodriders to protect her, and so Malakko had been one of those sent back onto the poison water. He'd parted company with Wyn Manderly amidst misty eyes from the northern girl, who was due to accompany her mother and sister to Winterfell.

"You may enter, but only if you've brought me food." Dany said, making Ser Bonifer smile uncertainly. Oh save me, I forgot he was there! She blushed furiously, standing stiffly to take the wooden plate of cheese and fish, trying to preserve some modicum of dignity. The men left her to the food, every bite gone sooner than perhaps was particularly fitting of a young queen. Where Ser Bonifer was all courtly grace, pretending not to notice, Jon shot her a wicked grin while the knight wasn't looking. I'll never hear the bloody end of this. It's not fair, he's a wild tease! And I can hardly reply in kind with mine own father in the room!

"We should come within sight of the Skagosi coast in the next day or so. The waters grow truly perilous around the island, with hidden rocks just beneath the water's surface waiting to tear a ship's hull to splinters, so it will be for us to go ashore in longboats while the ships proper anchor in waters safe as they can find." Jon said. A week of sail and aside from filling a few buckets due to seasickness, I've done no more than dream of Drogon and hog the covers at night. The uneventfulness of the voyage took her quite aback, but she reasoned the world couldn't always be so fascinating as poking her nose into a lizard-lion nest after a dragon. "Sleep will do the shore party good. The Skagosi will read weariness as weakness and in such a hard world, weakness equals death." Ser Bonifer swallowed, nodding grimly.

"I'll take my leave then, Your Grace." he told Dany, bowing. A dutiful daughter would do more than bid him goodnight. She hugged him tightly, making the tiniest gasp escape him. It may be wrong of me, what with Mother having haunted him so long, but he needs to know I'm delighted he could give her some small measure of peace. When he left, Jon closed the distance between them and sat.

"I don't know how to act around him. A man's daughter ought not be his queen, Jon."

"You're doing more than fine, Daenerys. Every right-thinking man's daughter is his princess anyway, and how well do you think I'd take it if my mother came through that door, Ashara Dayne or otherwise?" Dany was confused.

"I'm sure you'd be at your northern broodiest."

"Actually, I'd cry like a babe and thoroughly embarrass myself." he replied, making her laugh and lay her head on his shoulder.

Where the voyage from White Harbor had been ease itself, the ride in the longboat was an utter nightmare. What was supposed to be five minutes stretched over an hour, on the roughest waters Dany had never seen. Once she'd actually screamed, certain she was going to go overboard, only for Shagga to wrap a hairy arm about her waist and plant her firmly back in her seat.

"Not keen on visitors, Skagos!" Tormund boomed, cackling madly while Malakko spluttered to the Great Stallion. The constant churning waters shoving and jostling their boat were bad enough but the situation was only made worse whenever a splash found Shireen Baratheon, turning it instantly into a haze of steam. At long last she felt the boat hook the firm flat of shore, the world's senseless shaking and rocking coming to an end when Dany felt rough, rocky beach beneath her feet.

"Splendid." she said, vomiting so violently she'd have lost her feet but for Jon holding her.

"Splendid." Sigorn parroted her words and actions both, save he had no Jon of his own. While he twitched on the ground the rest of them came ashore, even Tormund looking as though he'd quite had his bell rung. When there was no word of complaint from either wildling nor Shagga nor Malakko, Ser Bonifer gaped at them.

"The hasty man was not in the swamp." Shagga said, as if that were all that needed saying. Even Shireen seemed nonplussed.

"The Neck? Was it so bad?"

"Yes." Shagga replied, stretching in her presence to dry off.

"The trip down from Thenn had us coming down through the Frostfangs. Those were hard leagues, fireling. More than a few men didn't make it, disappearing in the night or falling off cliffsides and the like." He followed Shagga's lead in trying to get dry and warm. "I thought Thenns were the hardest men as could be found. When I followed Jon Snow into those bogs, I learned different."

"We'd best get off the beach before a storm rolls in." Jon said, looking around. "All I've heard of Skagos has been its remoteness and the savagery of its people, but I don't need to be Skagosi to know these rocks get hammered often and hard." The prospect of being caught in such a tempest was enough to get the rest of them moving sharpish, especially when a sudden gale cut into them from off the water. It was so vicious, Shireen had embers popping off her and scattering along the rocky sand. The rest of them might have learned how to move over wild ground without too much trouble, but Daenerys and Ser Bonifer were hard pressed to even keep their feet once they left the beach behind for the crags and pines. "Skagos is the Old Tongue's word for 'stone.' According to maesters and maps both, it's part of the North and thus held by Winterfell…" Jon was telling her.

"In flesh and blood, the Skagosi rule themselves." Daenerys surmised, looking around into the depths of the forest all around them. "Not unlike the crannogmen."

"Not not unlike the crannogmen, though, the Skagosi don't live in some endless hellbog. A little honest hike up a mountainside never killed nobody." Tormund chortled.

"No, but the animals who live there might give it their all." Sigorn replied, never looking in one direction for long.

"Once when I was a boy, I heard tell that unicorns yet lived on Skagos." Ser Bonifer said in a low voice, making Daenerys smile. Why, he almost looks excited. Then again, why wouldn't a horned horse with wits beyond a common steed stoke the imagination of a former tourney knight? When she told Malakko and the small group of riders (forced to walk, as no horse would take the terrain well) as much, they looked at her blankly.

"What is a unicorn?" Malakko asked, though she was certain he must have heard Wyn go on about them once or twice. The animal they found proved to be a complete departure from what Daenerys had in mind. It was more goat than horse, from its sure-footedness to its scruffy brown beard, though its scruff and long shaggy hair made it look rather more imposing by comparison. That and the two-foot horn, of course. It caught them by surprise with a snort of alarm, freezing when they came into view. Its nostrils flared and it nickered uneasily to itself, turning the frozen earth easily with a hoof.

"That will be me." Shireen said sadly, referring to the unicorn's agitated state. The wild men and Jon besides were not so sure.

"Fire does not smell, but smoke, and the fireling does not have wooden bones that turn to smoke on burning." Shagga said.

"He tells it true. You don't have a smell, my lady." Jon said. It's a smell that's bothering the beast though, that's for sure. Dany wondered if perhaps it could smell Drogon, ever fond of goat. "We'll only make it worse by lingering. Let's be on and out of his hair." He took Daenerys' hand and kept her close, always making sure to keep her free of brambles and hidden patches of razor rock.

Unicorns were not nearly so rare as they were told to be in the tales, they found. The forest certainly didn't teem with them, but they rarely walked a mile or more without one horned head or other rearing up out of the undergrowth to regard them stonily. Brown and grey and even black here and there, the beasts chewed their thorny shrubs without a second thought. But no Skagosi, Dany mused.

"Could it be like the Neck? Where they're all hiding?" she asked Jon.

"I can't see how. The crannogmen were small and deft, with plenty of ponds to vanish into. The Skagosi are supposed to be big and brawny, something akin to the Ibbenese." The first sign that men were present on the island at all came shortly after this exchange, when they found a spear stuck in the ground beaded neatly with skulls.

"Promising." Dany muttered, unable to help herself. Queer dangling nests of bones that clacked against each other in eerie song came next, Ser Bonifer's muttered prayers to the Seven loud as thunder to her ears. The Father Above nor the rest of them had aught to do with the brown bear that emerged from the brush, blinking at them in surprise. At once Jon swept Dany behind him. The beast was huge, the black bears Dany had seen on the mainland not half its size. Its nose twitched in Jon's direction, great mouth panting wearily. Finally it reared up and sat, taller than a man even off its feet. Dany almost found it humorous until she saw the looks on Jon's face, as well as those of Tormund and Sigorn.

"Go around." Jon said.

"Aye." Tormund replied, leading the rest of them wide of the bear's left side. Its head followed them though its eyes stayed on Jon, groaning irately. Only when they were well clear did Jon rejoin them, looking as excited as Dany had ever seen him. The departure from his normal dour brooding was so stark it seemed to infect his comrades, looking near as elated.

"What is it?" Malakko asked, while Shireen spooked off a pair of badgers.

"Wolves." Jon answered him breathlessly. "Bears have strength but not number. They sit like that in response to a pack encircling them, to make sure they can't cut out its legs or chest."

"Normal bears do. Brute like that could toss a whole pack of wolves beyond the Wall-" Tormund added before Jon cut him off.

"It means his kind clashes with more than common timber wolves. We saw the unicorns with our own eyes, what stops Skagos from having direwolves, too?" Daenerys would not soon forget Nymeria, Arya Stark's own wolf.

"Packs of them?" Ser Bonifer went from wan to white.

"One, at least. My sister was right. Shaggydog is here, and that means Rickon is, too."

A grunt broke the three from their circle, heads turning with the others to behold an altogether different sort of animal. The lion had two curved teeth longer than daggers jutting from the roof of its mouth, fur a rich dried-blood red and back licked all down with black stripes. A deep cruel rent bled from its shoulder, three bold lines that would leave white stripes when they healed. It regarded them for a long while, even sniffing curiously after the fish Dany had in a leather pouch. Then it turned and padded off northeast, turning to look at them.

"We follow." Jon said at once."

"The beast may like the taste of Snow. Shagga, son of Dolf did not come all this way to feed a cat."

"It's bonded to a warg. Somewhere in this forest there's a Skagosi waiting for us. I don't mean to disappoint him. If Shagga would rather take his chances with the bear or wait for night when the Pack hunts, he is welcome to do so." Jon replied over his shoulder, keeping close to the lion as well as he was able without leaving Dany too far behind. Wolves and wargs, she wondered. It was by such like wonders that the Dothraki fell in love with in in the riverlands. Indeed Malakko and the other Dothraki, when they got wind there might be direwolves in the area, were none to keen on being left behind by the man they called the cold khal. It took them all day to leave the forest behind for the rough embrace of the mountain, the sharp stones of the pass floor worn smooth by countless feet over countless ages. More skull totems waited for them, more bones- and pictures on the boulders and sheer stone faces that reminded Dany for all the world of those in the caves below Dragonstone. Unicorns figured most prominently after men, but here and there the packs ran and the lone bears wandered. Others like the great lion were rarer, as were monstrous brutish boars. The First Men, she thought. This place belongs to the old gods, and no mistake. Perhaps that was why Jon and his chieftains were so enamored of the pictures, if no less wary. If the gods are kind, I may see a dragon flying over open sea in one of the stones. They found the Skagosi proper in a flat clearing in the razored maze, packing food away or lashing sharpened stones to the tips of branches or sticks. At the group's appearance the lion let out a yowl, every islander from the children to the greybeards looking up at once. All but one, Dany corrected, as she spotted a lone seated person off near the fire, still as the stone around them.

The lion trotted right through the camp, laying down near the fire with a contented purr. Jon led them down into the midst of the Skagosi but it was Daenerys herself who caught all the stares, her and the fire with a face. They were a hard people who lived hard lives, that much was obvious from their well-muscled, powerful bodies to the scars near every person carried. More than one had a hanging jaw, once broken and ill-healed. The children were less wary, running near only to dash away when Dany's head turned toward them. They made no move to impede Jon's movement, staring silently as he reached the seated individual. Jon whispered to him in the flinty music of the Old Tongue. For the first time the Skagosi let on they were human after all, muttering breaking out. He softly jostled the person, who turned toward him without a word. Daenerys could tell Sigorn and Tormund were bursting to talk to the man as well, but Jon did not seem in the mood to be talked over. He pulled the man to his feet, Dany spotting the dead white eye before the deep brown one, a white stripe running just aside it. Like the other Skagosi, he was barely clad, the cold seeming not to so cut into him as it did his visitors born below the Neck or on the Great Grass Sea. For the first time he spoke, voice a hoarse whisper that made Dany's skin tingle and break out in gooseprickles. He left Jon's side, prodding Malakko and poking Shagga, both muttering darkly until the dagger-fanged lion rumbled back in kind. Not to mention the two dozen brutes that seem very adept at pulping skulls with those stone clubs of theirs. All of which, she did not fail to notice, were streaked with dull red-brown stains. Finally he reached Daenerys, whom he looked at with his one eye for a long time. Not that she much cared whether one man among many quite approved of her. I broke the slavers' chains as well as mine own. I burned the bloody throne, she thought. Freedom means as much to me as anyone. He held up his hands, the better to inspect her own. Somewhat begrudgingly she did so, the man peering onto their depths. Not with his living eye either, she saw. The Skagosi were silent the whole time, keen to hang on every word the man might utter. He'd get along well with the crone. Dany couldn't help her lips curling into a small smile. Finally, he rasped something.

"He asks what your name is." Jon said softly, moving to her side. Daenerys found herself utterly unsure of what to say. My name will mean nothing to him, nor any title ever I've carried.

"Tell him my name is not so important as what others have called me. 'Moon-of-my-life.' 'Queen.' 'Daughter.' 'Mother.' 'My love.' You can leave out 'lazy, dozy kitten', or by all the gods together, Jon Snow, you will wish you had." Dany said, making Tormund laugh until his face was red. Jon dutifully translated, the shaman listening raptly. When he finished, the man smiled, showing a mouth of black teeth.

"Moon." he rasped. His next words startled Jon so, Tormund and Sigorn besides, that Jon's firm reply came before the shaman's piece made it into the Common Tongue. There was no arguing with the man though, that much was plain for Dany to see, He idly scratched the lion behind its ears, muttering as he pressed a hand into the three bleeding lines on its flank.

"What is it, Jon?" she asked.

"He says we must part ways here." Dany was crestfallen. "Well, that won't do. He and his people have to come with-"

"No, Dany. He means us. We two." Dany's insides turned to ice.

"What?"

"He says I have no place where you must go, and to bring you where I'm bound would be too perilous." She frowned, cheeks reddening.

"He can ask Shireen for a bloody hug, then. I'm not about to go anywhere you're not welcome."

"Nor will I go anywhere that's safe for me and not for you." The shaman did not need a translation, rasping almost absently before shouting at the other Skagosi. Dany tensed for an attack, but they just began making for their caves with all haste, shooting anxious glances at the sky. Fear of a dragon? Of fire from the sky? She was disappointed when Jon translated.

"He says it's not fire they fear, but night."

"Night?"

"When the pack comes hunting from the north. I suppose the wolves have pushed the Skagosi all the way up into their mountain caves, when once they had all the island to roam through." Dany liked the sound of that not at all.

"They're only wolves…"

"Only direwolves, Dany. A great pack of them, with two black heads each hungrier than the other." He was quiet for a time. "He says if I want to get the Skagosi down from the caves, I have to go north into the heart of the pack's hunting ground."

"While I sit here and do needlework?"

"While you go into the mountain's hot beating heart." The prospect of getting warm was one Dany relished, despite the circumstances.

"And there's no changing his mind?"

"He says it's not for him to decide." Typical fucking holy man. She huffed for a bit before she burst out.

"Fine. I'll go wherever I'm meant to if it means getting off this stupid island a minute sooner. You had better return to me in one piece, Jon Snow."

"Or what?" he asked, smirking.

"Or I'll kiss you back together." she replied. In half a moment she was in his arms, the pair kissing until Dany saw stars and her lungs whined for air.

The last Daenerys saw of Jon Snow was his solemn northern face, grey eyes glinting at her from the tree line as he started north with Sigorn and Tormund. Meanwhile, Shireen kept the others warm and the Skagosi at bay both. A woman with bright eyes and a wide smile, pleasant but for her sharpened teeth, said something in a soft, encouraging tone. A reassurance, Dany thought. Gently the woman took her hand and led her to the largest of the cave mouths, filled with sleeping spots and still more fire pits. As before, Dany caught no end of stares. It will be my hair, she mused. It's too dark to see the purple of my eyes. To her surprise the air grew steadily warmer as she was led further into the cave, until the last of the cold was a distant memory. More pictures followed her on the walls until they left the last signs of habitation behind, the woman holding a torch to see in the hot darkness. Abruptly she stopped, so much so that Dany bumped into her back. The woman turned, eyes big and full of reverence, muttering abashedly and holding the torch out for Dany to take. She left the way they'd come so suddenly that Daenerys had no time to shout after her. There's no point in going back, she resolved. If I look back, I am lost. But what was the cave under Dragonstone but a picture into the distant past? What was Skagos, if not a living piece of that past? Past or present, I'd best get where I'm meant to go before the torch goes out. She hurried onward, trying not to stub her toe or fall and lose the torch. The further she went, the hotter it got, until Dany realized just what was going on. A second Dragonmont, she thought in wonder, her anger fading most precipitously. Living though, where the one on Dragonstone was long dead. The mountain's hot beating heart. Soon after she spotted lights flickering off the far stones of the caves ahead. On reaching them she found the ground so hot it glowed a dull red in places, the place hot as Drogo's funeral pyre. One of the cooler, darker patches of ground held a thick bear-hide, on which a lone bald woman snored. Dany rather liked her boots and so took them off before venturing any further, feeling the heat of the cavern-floor soak into her bare feet. She knelt beside the woman and shook her gently, getting a confused splutter in reply. When the woman looked to her, Dany's jaw dropped. Her eyes are purple, she thought, enraptured. She has no silver hair, for the fire has burned it away.

"Shh…" her new best friend shushed, pressing her thin hard lips to Dany's clasped hands.

"I don't understand…" she looked around, hell-bent on solving the mystery before her. Too dark to see before but clear as day before the torchlight now, Dany saw what could only have been a two-headed dragon done in blue pigment, facing its viewer instead of seen from the side as with the Targaryen sigil. Dany clapped her hand to her mouth to stop from screaming. A Valyrian rune, no less. Perhaps the mark of the woman's family? But Valyria fell to the Doom three centuries ago. Before Daenerys could grow any more excited, the woman stood and eased her onto a warm flat rock.

"Who are you?" Dany asked, heedless of whether her find understood the Common Tongue or no. Her heart nearly burst when the woman answered. Not the Old Tongue, not purely. I hear the words of the Freehold, too. She is Skagosi and Valyrian both.

"Valra."

"Valyria." The woman smiled wide, nodding.

"Val-eer-ia."

"Yes!" Dany shrieked.

"Valyria. The place of fire."

"How do you know of it?" Daenerys asked, pleadingly. The woman's story was not easy to understand, Dany stopping her halfway through most every breath, but in the end it became clear.

"The place of fire was a hungry one, as fire is. It needed strong backs to feed it as fire needs wood, and so reached across the world for slaves to labor in its bowels. Even so far as Skagos. When it took Skagosi sons and daughters it returned home." She smiled. "The mountains call for their stones, the fathers and mothers gone before for their living children. One of the sons made the long journey back, with a woman purple of eye and silver of hair to be his as he was hers. She was not made for Skagos, hard and cold…but she found a place in it. The mountain's heart pleased her, as did the blood she gave the trees from her own palms. The woman, purple of eye, silver of hair, stout of heart and true of soul, gave the son of stone sons and daughters of his own. They had sons and daughters, and they, but only those who took after the woman could stand to dwell in the heart of the mountain." Fire cannot kill a dragon.

"Valyria fell, though. In the Doom. Its mountains turned against it, and buried them in fire." The woman shook her head.

"There have been many between myself and the first woman. A lifetime came and went between her coming here and the Doom you speak of. Many times has the story come here from the coast, from the beach, by way of those whose ships sink or crack or run aground. The people of the flame, they turned against their mountains. Milked them dry until like the she-goat, all they could give were cries of pain. Pain turned to anger, and anger turned to Doom." Daenerys swallowed nervously, looking into her lap. She found her tears turning to steam before she could properly cry them.

"You still haven't told me your name."

"Bytarys."

"I don't suppose you know which family of dragonlords your ancestor came from? The blue dragon?" Batarys shook her head, as if it was nothing to her. I suppose it isn't, at that.

"I am Daenerys. Like you, the fire in me comes from my mother. She died giving me life, thought by fate I met my father, who is good and honorable and even came here with me, despite the danger. The shaman without, the one with the lion, he would not let anyone but me come to you. I suppose I know why, now. But we can talk more on the ship, we have to get everyone to the mainland."

"Skagos has food enough to feed twice as many people as live on it now, with shelter from the storms and snows."

"Not from this storm, these snows. Cold hateful things come, with ships unflummoxed by the currents and the tides." Bytarys only smiled sadly.

"Cold life. Hot life. Life is life, and death is death. A man is caught in an ice storm, or in the breath of the zadrak, he is dead either way. The manner of his dying does not matter." Another Valyrian word taken for the Old Tongue's own.

"Zaldriz, not zadrak."

"When Valyria lived, and its wonders were bred for war and conquest, zaldriz. Now, free of all chains, I think zadrak." Dany pondered the truth behind Bytarys' words as she moved to the far edge of the cavern, to where the dull red rock was more cherry than rust.

"But even the Doom could not put all the fires out. Not everywhere, not the far places where your ancestors and mine made their homes. Mountains with hot hearts that knew nothing of Valyria and hold no hate for men." she finally said.

"Yes. The fire weakens, splutters, shrinks to an ember too small for men to see, but it does not go out." Bytarys said in answer, grunting with the weight of something. When she came back over, she was cradling something under each arm. "In such an icy womb as Skagos did such a fire wait, never going out." One egg was the blue-black of starless midnight, the other glittered like mirror-polished iron. Bytarys regarded Daenerys so stonily she was sure the Skagosi who'd winkled the Freehold of a daughter who'd rather live free than chained and more would have known her for his own, even four centuries on. "So, too, in a womb of fire can ice wait, never melting." Batarys slid a hand over her visitor's, guiding it down to Dany's belly. They waited there still and silent until Dany gave a gasp, trembling when she felt a heartbeat that was neither the mountain's nor her own.