Daenerys woke shivering, dragged from the depths of her slumber like a sailor following a siren's call in the night. She was a completely unwilling participant in the matter.
When she rose, she did so with more aches than she cared to admit. A pebble had found its way beneath her back, digging into her spine viciously, and her neck felt like it had been attached the complete wrong way. She tried stretching, but it did little to help with the discomfort.
"Drogon?" She felt around blindly for his tail, trying to absorb any warmth freely given, but her fingers found only stone. Cold and unforgiving. Her eyes were crusty and her vision bleary, and the sleeve of her gown only did so much to clean them in its current state. She tried peering around the cave they'd fallen asleep in, but found it as damnably dark as it was the night before. Perhaps even more so. It was like staring into the pitch of night, trying to make sense of senseless nothing. She frowned as she pushed herself to stand, calling out into the tunnel, saying, "Skoriot emagon ao dakogon hen naejot?" Where have you run off to?
She nearly tripped when she took a step forward, unable to see the sudden shift in terrain, but soon negotiated her footwork into something functional, if slightly inelegant. Her arms hovered out in front of her, feeling the damp cool air and—hopefully—anything she might run into. An unfortunate circumstance that led to her stepping onto and through Drogon's leftover scraps. The burnt bones crumbled beneath her foot, falling away like sand, and she whimpered in disgust. She extracted her foot delicately, trying to keep her skin from brushing any of the remains, before putting as many paces between herself and the carcass as she dared.
Her back found a nearby wall, and though it sapped what little warmth she possessed, it was comforting. In its own strange ways. At least in that stone did not weep like entrails beneath one's foot, nor did it make such putrid noises.
She followed that wall to the outside world, tripping and stumbling as she went. By the time she emerged, her shins and knees were bruised and scarred and bleeding. And she'd worked herself into a rather foul mood.
The cave's mouth opened to a valley she could not recall traversing. The fog must be thinner, she wagered, if she was able to make out the elevating terrain so easily. Still, as she walked aimlessly, calling out her child's name into the mists, she could not guess the hour in which she awoke. The light that enveloped the area was diffuse, as if spread thinner by the haze that blanketed the sky. It could be morning, for that would make the most sense. People woke come morning and that was the truth of the matter, but that was only really the case given they fell to sleep at night. And she could not say with any amount of reassuring certainty that she had.
For hours it felt like she called out, saying, 'Drogon. Where did you go, Drogon? Where have you taken me?' and, 'Why have you left me here?' Question after question left unanswered until her throat ran itself hoarse and she could ask no more. With the last of her voice, she bottled up her rage and frustration tight, tight in her chest, and let it out into the void. Screaming. Wordlessly cursing the world she was born into. Belting out as much noise as a girl her size could muster. It paled to Drogon's roars; smaller and quieter and less ferocious by ten folds or more. She felt less a dragon for it.
With naught else to do, her mind followed her body's lead and wandered. Wondered. She thought of her people, of the fate she'd left them to in her wake, forced to clean up the mess her display and absence most likely caused. But, most of all, she thought upon her dream. Of that bear and its fate.
She knew her dreams were not normal. Hers, unlike others, came true. Not for the stars she'd sometimes wish upon in her flights of fancy, nor even for her own tenacity or zeal. Hers was the blood of the Daenys who Dreamed; and so to, could she. Did she. She dreamt the most marvelous things. Columns of flame higher than high, with a dragon stood taller still in their midst. Scales black as pitch, wet and slick with blood. And that blood was her own. She'd let herself be consumed by the fire it produced, let herself burn and blister and blacken, then be born anew. Stronger and fiercer.
Months would pass before the day her dreams harbingered would come to pass—where she would finally get to meet that great black dragon—but the toll was paid in the lives of her darling son and horse lord husband. She loved Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion; she did. Dragons were a fearsome and fantastic thing. But there is little she would not trade to hold her son in her arms. To feel and see him breathe.
These new dreams. She did not know what to expect from them. She knew of whom they spoke, or at least, she thought she knew. Past that, however, little else. The pale bear could be few other than the knight she once called her own: Ser Jorah. A man she thought leal and true, but proved himself to be anything but.
All that remained to parse out was what the dream actually meant. And, perhaps more confoundingly, why she should care. There was nothing to tie her to the man but memories of pain and the pain of memories. And neither she'd experienced in moons. She cared not for the man; not his reasons, not his dreams, and not his fate. So long as it meant he stayed far, far away from her.
Lies, she knew her words to be, but such a thing could never go acknowledged. The notion just a bastard stain upon her mind, never leaving her to her peace.
Daenerys fled from her thoughts like a coward, pushing herself to walk faster upon already exhausted feet. Each step was worse than the one that came before it, the aches of her body only compounding the longer she forced herself on. She ignored them all. She'd suffered far worse than discomfort in this life of hers, and she'd yet to let any of it stop her.
She came upon a building in the mists. A small dwelling made of little more than thatch and wood. It might have once been the modest home to a family of farmers, but it was obvious none had lived there in a great many years. She wondered at it, peeking her head inside to find most of the furniture either shattered or reclaimed. Mosses and lichens covered it all, plush in ways even her bed in Meereen never was. There was what appeared to be a cradle in the corner, half collapsed.
The house was not the last she would see. It lay at the outskirts of a town. Those toward the center grew stronger, sturdier. Made of better materials. Mudstone, hardwoods, the like. There was a mill and a lord's manor and an open skies worship area and more. Each were closer to the village's pond than the rest of the squat dwellings. But all of which remained in various states of disrepair. It felt like a glimpse into the past, a moment frozen in time. She wondered if these fogs were magic, slowing the decay of everything within. She wondered how long these buildings had stood. Unoccupied.
There were fields surrounding the village, and she thought she could make out which were reaped last. The ones closest to the mill, they were the sunny seasons'. For planting when soil was rich and the skies dry. Later, when those were too worn and desicate to grow much, they'd shift further away and pray for rain as they sowed. There were common pastures further out, made obvious by the fences that once lined them, now no more than rotten timber. Even fallows closest to the lord's woodland far out beyond the other fields. It made her almost smile, to think about the lives that once were lived here. Of mothers and brothers and daughters and cousins. It made her feel a little less alone.
When she'd grown tired enough of exploring, she cleaned off one of the feather mattresses in the lord's manor and fallen asleep right then and there. She wouldn't dream that night, nor the next, but she felt the memory of her last wearing on her all the same. She found herself scanning the mists for silhouettes, half expecting Jorah to come running her down, in some vain attempt to rescue and redeem himself to her. As he was want to do.
He never did. She could not say if the lingering sensation in her chest was born of dismay or relief. Perhaps both.
She left the town behind, not glancing back as she walked. There was a stream leading to and from the pond on either side. One cut through the village center, the other carved its way through the fields and fallows before widening and making a home for itself in a nearby marsh. Her shoes were not suited to such things, so she went in the opposite direction, only to find the stream ended not even a league's distance away. She laughed mirthlessly at that, kicking the water's edge as if it could be blamed for the land that formed around it. She dallied only a moment longer before stalking back the way she came and entering the marsh.
Pointlessly, she clutched her skirts by their fabric as she descended into murky waters, holding them up well above her knees, and trying to keep them dry. It was largely fruitless, but it kept her clothes lighter upon her shoulders and her legs warmer whenever she climbed out of the water and onto a new patch of land.
The marshes were a miserable place. In the past, there may have been bountiful grasses upon the patchwork land that would make it slightly more palatable, but most of those species had long since perished without the sun. It left only dark waters broken up by small hills of mud and muck. There was no course to speak of; where the river once provided guidance and a singular path, the marsh gave no such reassurances. It felt like she was doing naught but wandering in circles, endlessly. With each revolution only serving to make her more weary.
Occasionally, she'd see buildings in the fog's horizon, but every time she attempted to go to them she found herself traveling deeper and deeper into the waters until she had no other course but to turn back. Lest she drown. What an amusing fate that would be, she couldn't help but think, a dragon drowning. No doubt the noble masters of Meereen would delight in it.
There were bridges on occasion, too. Beautiful creations of heavy stone held aloft by deliberate arches. They emerged from the gloom like a pike from a shield wall, sudden and abrupt. She thought she might see one she could cross, but each one remained shattered, their keystones long since lost to the turbulent waters below. She saw proof of creatures in the river too, some coming to breach the surface on occasion. They remained cloaked in mist, so it was impossible to know what form they might take, but it was enough to have Daenerys fleeing to dry land whenever possible.
Eventually, the waters solidified into a single, flowing mass. Where once marshland made up all she could see, there were now patches of land broken up by tributaries. If she were not careful, she'd miss the edges hidden by the fog and plunge below. She watched as a piece of driftwood smashed and shattered against the side of a harsh rock, and she did not fancy her chances.
The smatterings of buildings grew more plentiful the longer she walked, though the fates of these were far clearer than the earlier village. Each one bore the scars of war, but only one in particular she found worth noting. Blackened rubble, stone homes with irregular gaps between them where only pitch and soil remained.
Fire.
She moved toward a larger one when she grew too tired. It looked as if it once had a large domed roof, but it had long since collapsed, leaving only a skeleton. She tried pushing the front door in, but it wouldn't budge. There was a window some distance away, and she peered between the shattered pieces of glass in its frame. Inside, dirt and branches and rubble of all kinds piled up higher than her waist, filling the room from wall to wall. What little light permeated the fogs shown down through the roof into the dark enclosure, and it caught the edges of several things. Daenerys recognized them for what they were, the bones of those long departed who did not go upon their own terms.
She stepped away from the window, heart in her throat, and advanced further down the river's edge. The next time she passed a house of blackened stone, it crawled further up until she thought she might choke. She'd resolved herself to find somewhere else to spend the night. While it was not her first experience with death, far from it, she was alone, with none to persuade her of the importance of maintaining a queenly facade. She hated death, hated the idea of it, hated the reality even more. She would find no peace here and thought it better to press on.
At the outskirts of those dwellings, Daenerys stopped, dead on her foot. There was a picture being painted here. Villages deserted, put to the torch. A river that stretched impossibly wide and improbably long. A heavy fog that blanketed the lands.
She found a rock outcrop at the river's edge and sat upon it, her legs dangling slackly over the edge. She stared out over the water for a long while, memorizing the silhouettes in the mist. Her eyes dropped and she slumped over a bit, letting her gaze fall to the water's surface, and in it, she spied the truth.
The black skull of a dragon stared back up at her, partially eroded.
It was large, larger than even Drogon stood now. But from what she knew of the stories, it could not match Balerion, the conqueror's mount. She thought few could ever need to, the Black Dread was a creature unlike any other. His match was time, and nothing else. The closest thing to a god the denizens of this world of theirs had ever seen for true. She knew better now, could see the proof before her, not even fire made flesh were impervious nor immortal. It was obvious to her, for this dragon had been bested. Not even the damnable fog that cloaked this river valley could stop that from being clear. The rest of its bones were either too deep to see or had already been swept away in the current.
That night, she slept right there beneath the stars upon the river's edge, only a short fall and several paces from the remains of an ancient Valyrian's mount, a millennia old.
When she dreams that night, it is of fractured images: a dragon falling. Drowning. Dying. To a symphony of cheers and tears. And when she awakes, she stares at the skull for far longer than she could afford, ignoring the constant pangs of hunger in her belly. She tries not to mourn the creature it once was, for she's long since pieced together its story. This dragon—it was a perpetrator of terrible things, she was certain. But it was just one of many. And it was not the one to blame for the tragedies it wrought upon this world, not truly.
As the stories tell it, the Rhoynish who now dwelled within the kingdom of Dorne were once a river people. And theirs bled into a lake from the northeast of the Essosi continent. It was named for their mother goddess—or perhaps the opposite—Daenerys could not recall, in truth, but it did not matter. The Rhoyne, as it was called, was a great river, flowing all the way to Andalos, from which the Andals of Westeros once hailed, and the flatlands near Pentos. It joined waters with the mother's wild daughter, the river Noyne, which flowed through Norvos and into the hills beyond. Then comes the darkling daughter, Qhoyne; the smiling daughter, Lhorulu; before, at last, the shy daughter, Selhoru. It is said that their mother Rhoyne waxed so large in some spots that a man aboard a boat in the center of her waters cannot see the shore to either side.
Daenerys glanced across to the bank opposite her own, and decided that she was not in its widest part, nor anywhere close.
The stories continue.
Some seven-hundred years before Aegon's conquest upon Westeros, before even the Doom of Valyria, a great war broke out between the river people of the mother Rhoyne and the dragonlords of her motherland, Valyria. Daenerys could not recall the details of why it began, nor of the battles that decided it. Wars were her brother Viserys's interest, not her own. But she remembers this: they say the greatest prince of the Rhoynish, Garin the Great, rallied his people, and even those who wished to run in terror of the dragonlords soon fell in line. Every man who lived along the river, fighting age or otherwise, took up arms and sailed to war against the freehold. And the Valyrians flew upon them with dragons, three-hundred strong.
And now, this—this was all that remained of a once great people. Salted lands and ash. Death and sorrow.
It is said that in the end, they hung a gilded cage from the walls of his city with Garin inside, so that the prince might witness the enslavement of the women and children whose fathers and brothers had died in his gallant, hopeless war. Garin, it is said, called down a curse upon the conquerors, entreating Mother Rhoyne to avenge her children. And so, that very night, the Rhoyne flooded out of season and with greater force than was known in living memory. A thick fog full of evil humors fell, and the Valyrian conquerors began to die of grayscale. Ever since, the lands where Garin's grand festival city of Chroyane once stood have been hidden away from the world, blanketed by a miserable mist and suitable for only the stonemen who dwelled within.
Daenerys followed the flow of the river as it snaked its way toward the city. Roads along the edge were a rare thing. There were no needs for carts nor horses when boats and rafts could facilitate the journey far quicker, and with less labor. Occasionally, a path would branch off into the mists, but she did not dare leave the river. The storm of pain in her belly was one thing, but she knew the hell wrought upon the body when water was scarce. She'd felt it in her journey through the Red Wastes, and it was not something she wished to experience again. So, she stuck close to the river where she might drink, never once venturing further toward the dense, hazy horizon.
And while there, she feasted upon grasses, leaves, and barks whenever possible, but such things were rarer than even roads, it felt.
Eventually, she heard a knocking. A regularly irregular sound that pierced the dense air around her. She chanced a glance over the edge toward the river below and spied a wooden poleboat of sorts beached upon the shore. As the water ebbed and flowed, it would collide lightly with the foundations of what was once surely a dock or fishing nest. There was nothing to see further down the water in either direction, so Daenerys made a decision.
Her slide down to the river's edge was nothing as graceful as one would bear witness to within a regent's ballroom, but it got her down to the watercraft with only a few spare superficial scratches to join the rest. The boat rocked when she nudged it with her foot and she brushed a lock of silver hair behind her ear as she peered into it. To her untrained eye, it appeared in better condition than she could've reasonably hoped for. No obvious holes nor leaks; seat semi-intact. Had she found an oar amongst the rocks, she might have had reason to weep tears of relief.
The muscles of her arms and legs roared in protest as she pushed the craft into the water, beseeching her to stop. Worser still, was that she found it hard not to listen. Every part of her seeped with exhaustion, a tiredness that new no bounds. It was hard to ask more of her body when she had nothing left to give. She wondered how the mystery knight had managed it. When he asked his body for more, it gave it to him. A belly full of meat and mead probably helped, though she knew not if that was truly what children of the forest or men of Ib supped upon.
She collapsed upon her ass and winced at the way some of the pebbles dug into it. Kicking uselessly at the bow of the raft thrice. It did nothing to dislodge the ship from the shore; only continuing to knock it into what it was already lodged against.
It took several more attempts for her to find a position more suited to the work. She ended up with her shoulder pressing into the tip of the poleboat, with her hands holding it just below. Her feet and toes dug into the pebbled shore just behind her, and she heaved into the motion. Her head grew light with the effort, and she shut her eyes to prevent herself from growing nauseous. But it worked. The poleboat budged from its spot, slowly moving before quickly taking on speed as she freed it from its stone prison. It grew so quick, in fact, that she fell forward in surprise. Her response had been delayed, with both legs still scrambling behind her, and sent her tumbling into the main body of the watercraft face first.
She laid there breathlessly for several moments, remaining motionless even as her head ached and throbbed behind her eyes. Eventually, she turned her body around, laughing quietly to herself as she stared up into the sky. She felt a little delirious, and perhaps more than a little crazy for it, but it was her first real victory since she was spirited away to these damnable lands.
Her heart was pounding uncomfortably fast in her chest and when she tilted her head down she could see her stomach pulsating with each beat beneath her dress. Then, as she regained her breath and everything slowed, she allowed herself to slump fully into the wood beneath her, and she slipped into unconsciousness.
When she awoke next, it was with a gasp. The quiet, ever-present burbling and babbling and trickling and splashing of the river had shifted into a dull roar, one that grew louder the longer she listened. It was a like a stampede, a thousand horses with four times as many hooves bearing down upon a lone caravan. It was like the fate of any rich merchant traversing the great grass sea, a prize too tempting for any Dothraki khalasar to resist. It was just as loud, and just as frightening.
Drops of water shot up from either side of her boat as it rocked uncertainly over the water. Her dress and skin were already damp. Impossibly so. She should have been awoken by the splashing long before now, long before she did. An undertow eagerly stole her course away, sending her spinning into the side of the hull. She caught herself with her arm before her head could collide with the wooden frame, and she sat up as soon as she rebalanced.
In every direction, the river had come to life. A white foam now covered each crest of the river as it angrily smarmed about, collapsing upon her poleboat as if possessed. It roared louder still, a relentless force set on devouring her. Panic flickered through her heart, and she could feel it sink, as it dawned on her the mistake she'd made. She thought the river her ally, a friend who might guide her to a port or a settlement or somewhere out from beneath these hazy skies. She thought it her salvation. And it was determined to prove her wrong.
Her raft bucked beneath her, sending her up into the air briefly. She yelped as the sensation of free floating overtook her, and then again as she collided harshly back onto the deck. Her hands grasped desperately at the sides, knuckles whitening as she braced against the tumult. The world blurred into a kaleidoscope of water and foam, each rapid a heart-stopping plunge into uncertainty.
Energy coursed through her, but she knew not what to do with it. She sat frozen, eyes frantically flicking about the river for anything she might use to save herself, but there was nothing. Only the ever-reaching gray expanse and the waves that sought to bury her.
Another current swept beneath her, sending her tumbling backward as the boat collided with a rock. The bow dipped dangerously, water overtaking its tip and sloshing back beneath her as it righted. It was freezing, soaking into the fabric of her dress with relish and chilling her to the bone. She fled from it, pushing even further backward into the boat, but that only served to worsen her plight. The shifting of weight caused the already rocking boat to shift upon its rear, and she would have toppled heel over head into the water if not for her steadfast grip.
Another rock struck the side, and then again. She was slammed from side to side, a bystander and victim in the aggressive game of tug-of-war being played by the river spirits who controlled these waters. There was a crack! that wrent the air as the wood splintered, and her heart joined the river in its thundering. Water rushed in, even more than before. Cold and malicious and evil. It shot up over her knees. She coughed as it hit her face, releasing one hand from the side to wipe it out of her eyes. She tried scooping it out from the area around her toes with a cupped hand, but it was already rising past her ankles.
And then it happened. The rapids intensified—the boat lurched violently, spilling her into the icy depths with neither remorse nor compassion.
Her arms flapped uselessly against the torrent of water and she gasped for air, inhaling none. The attempt was met with only the relentless embrace of water. Panic seized her and she tried fighting it more, flailing around until she was battered against the harsh, rough surface of another boulder. What little air she kept within her body left her in a rush and she curled uselessly around the side struck as she was swept further downstream. Her face hit the rock next, scraping across her forehead and cheek and she tried shoving away from it. The water surged away then back again, and she thinks she might've broken her jaw in the impact that followed. Had she been anywhere else, she might have cried or vomited or both, but there was no time. There was no time.
Gone were the deep fogs that choked out the sun and filled all those trapped with an unending, unerring, unbending dread that they might never escape; and in its place was naught but fear. This primal fear. A fight to survive that you know, you know you will not win, but one you must fight anyway. And Daenerys fought. Hard, and with all she had.
She thrashed her limbs wildly, betraying her frantic struggle and panicked mind. Every kick and stroke seemed futile—was futile—like fighting a relentless undertow determined to claim you. The water pressed upon her from every side like a heavy shroud, an unyielding force that tugged down, down, down.
Her lungs screamed for release, screamed louder and shriller and more fearful than her stomach ever did these days past. Even in her time spent dying of thirst within the red hell her body did not demand it more. That was a quiet death, one of sluggish whispers and lethargic blinks, this was not that—at least, not within her mind. It was all some kind of cruel joke. How laughable she imagines it must be to the gods. How often and loudly she'd pleaded with them to provide her with the water she and her companions needed back then, only for them to answer her tenfold now.
Well, here, the Mother Rhoyne seemed to preen between her roars, here is your water, daughter of Valyria. And then she forced Daenerys to drink her fill.
And she did, until her lungs and stomach and throat and nose filled with the river's bounty. Air was a distant memory, a kind thing she once knew but never once appreciated. With each passing moment, the pressure—that heavy shroud—only increased its burden. Crushing, suffocating, encumbering. It was without mercy, and without just cause. And the world around blurred into a distorted, watery realm that did nothing but burn.
She wonders if this was what that witch had felt when she cast her aflame; when she tied her to her husband and son's funeral pyre and lit the tinder. She wonders if this was what it was like to burn, and how ironic it must be that she finally got to experience it now. Here. Beneath the waters surface, where above a thousand-thousand men once stood, and a thousand-thousand men once fell. To sword; to arrow; to the dragonflame of three-hundred or more. The Rhoynish learned what it was like to burn—to be consumed so completely by fire that sometimes not even bones remained, and now their great mother was ensuring the last of the fourteen flames learned the same. A justice one-thousand years late in its deliverance.
Time lost all meaning as she fought to resurface, but the distance only seemed to grow larger. The struggle became an agonizing dance of despair, her limbs growing heavier with each passing second. What little energy her panic had ignited was fleeing, escaping through the tips of her cut fingers and out into the black water. Abandoning her. Her eyes stayed upon the surface above her, watching as it crept further and further and further from her reach.
Her struggle slowed as she slipped lower, until it abandoned her too, and all was calm.
Above the water, a crow crows. An otherwise silent sentinel over the river's edge, and it watches on as the waters move past the stones and begin to settle. The Lhorulu smiling at last, content with the work it accomplished.
Debris floated every which way, some larger than others. Wood shrapnel drifting listlessly to either side, gathering against the tall stone walls that began to line the river here. Other things filled the rivers: fabrics, torn or bloodied; pottery shards; clumps of mud and muck; valuables; and rocks. But, more than anything else, there were the skeletons of watercrafts that attempted the same perilous journey—and the skeletons of the voyagers who'd once manned them.
The crow jumped from the bridge it rested upon, gliding lazily down to one such pile atop the water's surface. It pecked peckishly at anything its beak could reach, hoarsely cawing at anything of interest. Another landed beside it, and the first hopped sideways several times before bringing its wings to bare and letting out a grating rattle at the newcomer. Their battle for dominance swept from one flotsam to the next, an ever eager dance for scraps of all manner of dead things. Waste and disease, to any higher creature.
The first crow eventually departs, flapping its way into the air above the Lhurulu river.
The fog clung to it, damp and chilly. A sunken temple loomed up out of the grayness. It passed a marble stair that spiraled up from the mud and ended jaggedly in air. Beyond, half-seen, were other shapes: shattered spires, headless statues, overturned trees with roots bigger than any poleboat, yet no leaves. There were buildings with domed roofs, great works of stone that seemed to defy all logic. Towers stretched high into the air, each ending prematurely: either in jagged, mismatched stones, or cloaked in gray.
Many-a voyager has been lost here, poleboats, and pirates, and great river galleys too. They wander forlorn through the mists, searching for a sun they cannot find until madness or hunger claim their lives. There were restless spirits in the air and tormented souls below the water. And each screamed out for mercy and vengeance alike. In a thousand years, not a single call had ever gone answered. All choked out by the evil fog that imprisoned them.
Daenerys opens her eyes to wide open skies and she lets the sight soak away the terror that previously held her prisoner. It must be the heavens, though which one was not something she herself could discern. Neither the Mother nor the Father awaited to greet her, nor the star-formed horse she was to ride upon into tomorrow.
Or mayhaps it was some hell, some strange perdition she'd heard not of save for in the curses of dying men. She thinks she might deserve it; she was not favored among the gods. Cursed from birth. A fate made only worse by the present wars she declared upon their children, by the future wars she planned still.
She glances out over the endless expanse around her. It was similar to her, for though she could see a river snaking below her, rolling foothills in the distance, and even mountains beyond, it was empty.
A terrible shriek rent the heavens in two, and Daenerys nearly shrieks herself when a dragon suddenly surges past her. She followed it with her eyes, narrowing them at the brightness of its body. The dragon was almost completely white of scale and the sun reflected off them far too harshly. The one iota of color comes through its eyes and its eyes alone, a red she'd only ever seen in depictions of weirwoods within stories she'd read. She tried imaging riding such a creature, she thinks she'd spend her days squinting and her nights blind.
The dragon twirls before dipping low, another hot on its tail. This second is gray like smoke with golden eyes. She hears laughter in the wind but can find no source. Their wings skirt the river's waters, dipping beneath and kicking up spray in their wake, and the setting of the distant sun cast the falling water in a glow so red she mistook it for blood. Then, they're climbing.
They're climbing and they're climbing high. Each one beating their great wings and sending powerful gusts of wind in every direction. The water beneath them displaces, caving in and becoming white with froth. She watches on as they gain altitude, circling and dancing and nipping at one another as she'd seen her own children do so many times before. Like brothers. They ascended vertically and she followed their journey; watching as they dove through pillowy clouds, into flocks of birds, until a time came when they eclipsed the sun's light and she could see them no longer.
Then, with neither rhyme nor reason, the entire world flipped upon its head. The sky became the ground, and the ground the heavens. The vertigo was intense and Daenerys's eyes unfocused as she tried to make right the image. Soon, she found the dragons again. The white was heading headstrong in the same direction it was before, nearing the river that made up the sky at a startling speed. It was only the gray that seemed to notice something amiss. Its head spun around, taking in the change in scenery before letting out a panicked shriek and chasing after its counterpart.
The gray gained ground in its fearful pursuit, but the distance that had spread in its momentary pause was too great to recover. The tips of white wings dipped below the water's surface once more before surging back out with twin eddies. The dragon's head followed next, and it started flailing soon after, completely uncertain of how to react.
The gray dragon flipped upside down as its talons closed around the tail, snaring it close to the base. It went limp as soon as contact was made, tilted its body back until its head faced the sky below. With all its might and all its strength, it tore into the air, pulling and tugging and dragging its brother from the waters. It did all it could and more, and yet it was not enough. It would never be enough.
The waters swelled, raising up their steep edges until they seeped over the greater grassy expanse, sucking the white dragon lower as the land around them was swallowed to the base of the first hill leagues away. Yet still the gray dragon fought, doing everything it could to save the other. Daenerys thought it might actually succeed, but then the world shifted once more and the gray dragon was beating its wings to quicken a free fall into the river.
It was there that gray joined white in ruin and with the last of their strength, they chorused twin roars into their liquid graves.
It was soundless like the sky and devoid of all fire, but Daenerys heard it all the same. And it startled her into wakefulness with a crescendo of white scales and river foam.
She awoke in a haze, a fog deeper and fuller than even that of the valley that surrounded her. Her body ached in ways unlike any before. Breathing was a difficult thing, each attempt taxing and lethargic. It felt as if she were still beneath the surface, like she'd never left. The sounds of the world that existed outside her shut eyes were muffled, even the ever-present roar of the rapids, as if somebody had stuffed cotton in her ears. And that heavy blanket that had wrapped around her and sucked her down, it was there too, but now it sat squarely atop her chest. She tried to turn onto her side, to escape it and its burden, but she lacked the strength.
Her fingers twitched first, and she used her recuperating strength to flex one arm at the elbow. Pain lanced up to her shoulder, traveling along the bone within like it was born to it. She nearly gasped at the sensation, but only broke into a series of harsh, productive coughs. River water emerged from her bowels, dripping down her chin and pooling within the hollow at the base of her neck. It was gross and she shied away from a similar episode, but her chest contracted violently again and she had little choice in the matter.
Her heart pounded erratically in her chest, raging against its bone prison, and her lungs were never far behind. Everything hurt. And everything wanted to move. And moving hurt more.
Daenerys tried to lay still, she did. She tried so hard. But even that seemed to bring about some feeling of discomfort or pain or illness.
She slipped in and out of wakefulness, never fully existing in reality, yet never fully falling to sleep, neither. It was a fugue state. Her head was throbbing behind her brows and even the diffuse light breaching her eyes' lids was too bright.
Slowly, though, her senses found the world she'd been missing from. The river still roared, but it was quieter than before. Perhaps calmer, perhaps more distant. The air was cool in a fine way, soothing to the pains of her body. She could smell the iron of blood and the stinging, vile scent of something worse. She fled from it too and her stomach tightened painfully. Like it was trying to expel contents it could not contain. There was this knot at the base of her belly, lower even than her navel, and it would flutter and claw until her entire body heaved.
Tentative and unsure, she used an arm and hand to probe the rest of her body. Her fingers traced the mottled edges of angry bruises and raw sections where the river's stones flayed the skin from her body. Her chest felt heavy, like some of the river she'd inhaled had yet to be expelled. Every breath was a labor, a reminder. A memory.
She saw it in flashes. The fog, the village, the river, the boat. Then: nothing. It frightened her all over again. Her head hurt the more she thought, so she stopped thinking. Her focus shifted to the burning in her nose and mouth, and the smarting of her eyes. She blew forcefully out through her nostrils and wiped away the green mucous that emerged. It was bilious and pyrrhic. She wiped it upon the pebbles atop which she lay.
Standing was a struggle, an up-hill battle against an army composed of naught but rolling boulders. She can't quite remember the process, only laying supine upon the shore and then not. She peeked an eye open, casting a wary glance down over her injured form. She rested against the outcropping that rose up to the grassier ridge she walked upon before. Her dress was torn seven ways to seven gods. It clung to her heavily, draping across her thighs and abdomen like a second skin. The right of it—sleeve, skirt, and all—was plastered in substances she'd rather not speak upon. Green. Lest she forfeit her own dignity from now until forever.
Daenerys took a moment to catch her breath before moving back closer to the water and falling gracelessly to her knees. Coughs racked her body, but she was spared enough time between each episode to begin cleaning herself. She did the dress first, cupping water in her palms before washing what fabric she could reach before the pain grew to be too much. She tied the torn edges together in certain parts, securing it in such a way that she'd not expose herself to the elements. Her wounds went next. The cuts upon her fingers protested it. The water was cold and hot upon her skin and cuts, and it was too confusing for her lethargic brain to handle.
She head back in the direction she thinks her poleboat crashed, hugging the nearby ridge like a crutch. Her breaths came in gasps, but moving grew easier the longer she went. Once she started, the only thing that would stop her was herself.
Her stomach clenched and tightened and her mouth filled with saliva. She laughed in a breathless, broken way and a soft 'fuck' tumbled over her tongue before she keeled over. And then she was vomiting and coughing and sobbing.
She stood corrected. It would appear her body was dead set on contradicting her.
Daenerys sighed and wiped the back of her wrist across her lips and chin, cleaning them as best she could. She looked around before using her hands to scoot back against a fallen and broken balustrade.
A large, multi-leveled, arched bridge stood above her. More broken than all the others she'd seen. But bigger and grander and more beautiful than them, too. It crossed from a similarly ruinous palace on the opposite side of the river to wherever the bridge disappeared to past her head. It appeared out of a dream. Such ornate supporting columns that dove fearlessly into the water, weathering its constant push and pull with far more ease than she had. Though, those too still bear some signs of wear. They were thinner where the water could reach, thinnest where it was currently.
Wood drifted around them, spinning in the rapids the sudden changes in the water's path created. An artificial whirlpool under the right conditions that must have smashed countless enemy galleys, should they have been caught as unaware as she.
One such watercraft was beached somewhere nearby; smashed so far beyond repair that one could not be blamed for not seeing it for true at first glance. It had all the bearings of a larger poleboat, but each existed somewhere strewn across the shore, rather than upon the actual hull. There was a broken oar, the haft of a sail, and even the canvas that it once used to catch winds. Had she more time and energy, she might have fashioned a warmer dress for herself.
She glanced back to the long bridge. Her nose itched and she scratched it savagely. There were lights upon it, like a thousand beckoning stars in the night's sky. Or perhaps not, it had been days since she'd last seen them, after all, but it seemed close. They glimmered faintly from within the thick, evil humors, beckoning her on.
A large shadowed shape darted around in her periphery, and she turned to stare more intensely into the fog, but nothing was there. Daenerys stood watch for a while longer, but nothing else moved. The sound of the tides fought to urge forward many memories, but the chiefest among them were those of similar times. Of Braavos and the docks there, of tides ebbing and flowing with a gentle rhythmicity.
She was slipping to sleep when a crow's harsh crowing tore through the veil. She startled into alertness and turned all about, trying to find the bird, but once more, nothing. She waited to see if sleep would seek to reclaim her, yet as time passed she found herself no closer than before.
With an almighty and despondent sigh, she rose to her feet. It was an arduous journey; full of many-a aches and pains, with just as many groans and moans. She trudged along the riverfront toward the poleboat's skeleton and found a satchel of sorts among the wreckage. She bent over to grab it, using the boat's smashed oar as a cane.
The bag was moth-eaten and damp, and it reeked something foul. She held it away from her nose and undid the latching, opening it. There were few things inside. A half-eaten loaf of damp, moldy bread. She picked the worst away, cleaning it as best she could, before digging in. While she ate, she took to withdrawing the rest of the things from the bag. In the end, it was little more than breeches and a tunic, both of which were still damp from river spray.
She set about laying them on the stones beside her, further from the water's edge. By morning she hoped they might be drier and more comfortable to don. But then a breeze swept through the dead air, chilled by the Lhurulu, and she shivered. So, she took the tunic from the pile and brought it back to herself, draping it over her chest like a blanket. The relief it provided was minimal, but present, so she grabbed the breeches as well and slipped them on over her tender skin.
Daenerys took to playing with fabric as she thought upon her options. She could continue as she was, exploring the ruined city around her, but she feared what might lay within. Tales of the afflicted that roamed here were likely exaggerated, but she did not doubt the presence of some with grayscale sheltered within Choryane. And all it takes is one touch to risk contraction, so they say. Alternatively, she could wait and rest. Perhaps sleep would endeavor to find her once again, but she thought it improbable. Most like, some creature of the mist would find her and catch her unwitting. She laughed lowly at the thought—devolving into further coughs—had only the masters of Meereen and Slaver's Bay thought to use her own dragon against her, they might have been free of their blight far sooner.
She chose complacency, leaning her head back and up. She stared at the strange lights glimmering upon the bridge. The few paces she'd walked had clarified the image, and she could see them for the lanterns they were. She wondered who lit them. Perhaps it was Garin, and for a thousand years hence they've stayed aflame, like the candles used for a wake.
Her attention was pulled away when the pad of her thumb crossed over the rough surface of something on the other side of the sleeve. She flipped it over and her breath caught in her throat. She could feel her heart rise up as it pounded a little more forcefully in her chest, and she traced the familiar image with an injured finger.
She recognized the threads, those lines and these. It was an embroidery, and a rather poor attempt at that. She remembers begging to be allowed to practice—to be allowed some semblance of freedom in her life. Viserys had long since begun denying her, no longer willing to entertain her flights of fancy. But, he was not the only one she could go to.
She'd run to Jorah during the early days of the Dothraki march, asking if he'd allow her to practice upon the sleeves or breasts of some of his tunics. She had so many excuses prepared. Ladies would say it helped learn to sew the warrior's wounds, she wished to practice without ruining her own dresses, then more. Anything to keep from admitting the truth that lay beneath her words: that embroidery was a woman's craft passed down from mother to daughter. It was noble and virtuous and enjoyable, and the high ladies of Westeros spent much of their time gossiping while they worked. And she wanted that. Wanted it so desperately she might die.
But Jorah did not ask for a reason, simply smiled and disappeared behind the flaps of his tent before emerging with the few spares clothes he owned, and promising she could practice on any part of it, if she so wished.
Daenerys had thanked him for his generosity, but never took him up on it. Instead setting about meticulously planning each thread that went into the sigil upon his wrist. The three-headed dragon of House Targaryen. It was the smallest of comforts, during those long days spent in Drogo's khalasar. When everything was so uncertain and all too painful to bear. Looking upon her work now, she thinks it more closely resembles a walrus than a dragon.
Her heart let out a horrible, knowing whump in her chest as she turned from the image to the lantern-clad bridge. It was blurry, and she realized there were tears in her eyes, but it did not muddy the image beginning to form in her mind. Jorah was here. Somewhere.
Daenerys dozed on again, off again for several hours, before throwing the tunic over her shoulders, grabbing the broken oar, and trudging off past the bridge. She tried to shake off the feeling of eyes following her, dismissing it as nothing but her rattled mind, but still slipped through the first doors open to her after she'd found a bridge to cross.
The room she found herself in was empty, so she moved through the next door and then the next. The first was full of rotten, deerskin cots, the second held crates broken and shattered. She found a hall through the third door and began wandering down it.
The sounds of her heels striking the stone echoed down the corridor and then back again, and she found herself hoping none were within to bear witness to it. It lacked all subtlety.
The stone walls that lined the hall were cool to the touch and scarred. There were sconces every so often that a torch might have been held in, but the few that remained lacked cloth and oil for lighting. The barest of light could be gathered only from the occasional holes in the ceiling through which diffuse light would spread through, like that of the sun through breaches in a forest's canopy.
Her eyes adjusted to the dark, however, and she found herself kicking through puddles and pressing into doors with more strength than she could afford. There wasn't much to find in the rooms that remained closed, and once she'd forced her way through a barred door and into a chamber full of nothing more than clothed skeletons of varying sizes she decided to cease her curiosities.
A rat squeaks at the end of the hall and she turns to watch it flee. It was red and plump, and the way it moved suggested it did not do so as often as it should. When it disappears around the corner, she considers following it. A fat rat must mean that there is food somewhere in these lands as much as it means a lack of predators. Both were good, both she liked.
Daenerys thought to do just that, but instead felt a chill run up her spine when a low, echoing creak came from behind her.
Heart in her throat, she whirls around, bringing the oar to bear like a cudgel. But there was nothing there, only a door hanging upon weary hinges. She'd passed it by—having learned her lesson—and was nearly certain that it had been shut when she had. Her improvised weapon remained upright as she approached it, and she used the paddled end to nudge the door wider before jumping through, yelling, and swinging the oar around frantically.
When she opened her eyes at last, she felt a little ridiculous to find the room completely empty save herself. In fact, it was little more than a landing for a series of spiraling stone steps. She turned her cudgel to the nothing that emerged from the stairs before slowly relaxing her posture and lowering it, missing the small, cloaked figure hidden in the furthest corner. She let out a relieved sigh and said, "Tis no ghost, Dany. Simply an old, forgotten door, nothing more."
The stairs were imposing, cloaked and wreathed in shadows, and seemingly darker than the halls without. Daenerys leaned her head round the bend and peered up, but the walls curved too quickly to gather any sense of where they led. There was no staircase leading deeper into the bowels of the city, and she'd grown tired of the endless catacombs she'd been wandering, so ascending was the only answer. At the very least, she would not join the others in their forgotten tombs. She refused to be food for rats. When she died, she wanted to be put to sea and set alight by one of her sons, for she was once but a little girl who dreamt of a life sailing.
Woe, how long its been since. And how much has changed.
The stairs were longer and darker than she'd expected. Daenerys hugged the internal wall and used the oar to find the next step. Still, she would trip, and each time she stumbled she fell into another fit of coughing. Sometimes, more river water would emerge, and she wondered if there would ever come a time where it would not.
Some time later, she emerges through a door into another corridor.
It is breezy, yet warm. She feels some of the color return to her cheek as she enters it more wholly and looks around. There were actual torches upon the walls here, but they were unlit. Her broken oar for one of them was a fair trade. She slotted the haft into the sconce and used the flint-and-steel hanging from the wall to light the pitch-laden head of the torch.
A sigh of relief left her as the fire started, warming her to her bones. It was a breath of life in otherwise dead lands, and she relished it. The tunnel she was in was far nicer than what she imagined the lower corridors resembled. The floors were dry and clean and the walls far nicer than what was necessary. Tapestries hung every so often, depicting images of large turtles and elegant sailing vessels. One or two bore woven portraits, of kings or queens or princes of the past. Great victories and greater mercies were captured on chipped pots and Daenerys passed them by without so much as a second glance.
She hears a cough from further down the hall, and her heart starts to pick up its pace once more. She swallowed—raising the torch into uncertainty—and pressed on, calling out, "Is someone here?"
A voice answered, beckoning her further down the hall, but it was too faint or weak to make out the specifics.
Daenerys found a door some ways away and knocked upon it. "Hello?"
"Who is it?" The voice answered. It was gruff and burred in a familiar way, but also thick enough that she almost could not recognize it. Another series of coughs from within held the answers to the unasked question, and she placed her free hand flat against the wood.
"Dany."
The voice was silent for a moment. "Have you come to free me?"
She paused, glancing down as if only just noticing the wooden bar across the door once mentioned. She swallowed, shoving the questions from her mind, and nodded though she knew he could not see it. "Of course, just– just give me a moment."
The bar was thick and heavy, held on either end by an open shackle. Clearly, whoever held him here was not expecting a break in. They would learn soon enough that Daenerys Targaryen is nothing if not the queen of subverting expectations.
There was nowhere to set her torch, she looked around for a moment to find any sconces, but the light it provided did not stretch far enough to locate one. She set it down upon the stone floor, slowly withdrawing her hand and leaning back up as if checking to see if it would roll.
Daenerys dug her fingers between the bar and the wall, tugging up from the center but it would not budge. The man within seemed to be growing impatient, she could hear him muttering to himself and pacing back and forth. That should have been the first inclination, but she ignored it in favor of trying to calculate what she ought to do to get the door open. She could try burning it with the torch, but she doubted Jorah would very much appreciate it. Not that she cares much of his likes and dislikes, but her efforts to save him would mean little and less if she were to immolate him in the end.
She slid her palms down closer to one end, and tried lifting there. It began to ascend, tilting as it went. The remaining shackle held the other end and if she were to just get it slanted enough she could probably slide it out of the way. Her body protested the weight still, biting angrily at her spine as it bore the brunt of the weight. Her face was almost certainly red with exertion, and she pitied herself for the agony that would follow when she tried to breathe again. Her legs were quaking and uneasy, but held.
She was nearly-nearly there, if only she extended her knees and stood at her full height, she might have it where she needs it. But a breeze swept through the hall, and with it, the flames upon her torch went. Snuffed out. She jumped as soon as the light went out, dropping the bar back into place, and immediately, the world was cast in an otherworldly blackness. It was inky and pitch and her eyes were not adjusting quick enough to make anything of importance out. Not even the door mere breaths from her face.
Daenerys dropped into a crouch, grasping around for the torch's handle as she fought off a wave of coughs. Her hand caught something warm, but it was too high to be the smoldering cotton-and-pitch wrapped head of the firebrand. She grasped it more firmly, trying to sus out its identity, and found herself familiarizing herself with a wool-like texture overlying something hard like stone. She blinked bemusedly at the ground, before turning to see it more clearly.
She yelped when she realized what it was, falling onto her ass and scurrying backward into the door, striking it with her head with a painful thump that left her brain rattled. She still had enough wits about her to demand, "Who are you?"
The figure growled from the shadows. "The master of these lands," he answered, gruff and honest, and Daenerys's heart leapt somewhere frightful. Like a horseman not noticing the cliff they neared and being thrown from its edge. The Grey Lord. He must be, it was the only answer. "Now, who are you?"
"I–I," she choked back her fear and did her best to keep the trembled from her lips. It did nothing to stop her entire body from quaking in place. She wondered if he was armed or if he was cruel. Her torch was somewhere, and she tried subtly for it, but she was gripped by terror. "I've come for my friend. Please let him out, can you not see that he is ill?"
"Then he should not have trespassed here!" The Shrouded Lord kicked away the torch just as her finger graced its edge. Another yelp left her as she cradled her arm to her chest, pressing herself further into the wood. From this angle, he appeared of monstrous proportions. Large and goading. Not unlike the Titan of Braavos appears to a first time sailor crossing between its legs. "This prison is one of his own making."
"He is innocent!"
"He stole food from children! Is that the innocent's trade?"
Daenerys tried to rationalize that with the knight she knew, and couldn't. It may yet be that the lord lied, but she could not say certainly that he wasn't, and that was the worst part. Her sworn sword had hidden his true colors from her once; and if this was his nature, then she was glad to be rid of his company. She'd never accept those who fleeced children into her service. "He must have been hungry, such a horrible crime it is," but she argued nonetheless.
The gaoler growled and leaned in close; so close that she felt his hot breath upon her cheeks. It was horrible and stunk of fish. She cringed, squeezing her eyes shut and tilting her face away. She hid it in the wood, turning her entire body so that her shoulder was too him, as if it could protect her from him.
He might have said something more, sentenced her to a similar fate as the knight, or condemned him further, but her own voice cut him off, surprising them both. "Please," she begged, face still hidden, "please. He could die. He is sick. Please, I'll do anything."
"There is nothing you can do," he turned his back and began to leave, "He is my prisoner."
"There must be some way I can—can! Wait!" She tried to think of something, anything, that might convince the lord. A trade, a deal. But she had naught to offer but the clothes upon her back. She swallowed back her fear and untucked her face, just so, trying to catch a glimpse of the man through the dark and her lashes. "Take me, instead," she said, rather foolishly.
Drogon may have abandoned her to whatever fate awaited her in this valley of evil humors, but he would return. It'd not be forever. If she traded places with the knight, he could escape, he could find help, find her people. Then, all she need do is wait. Wait, and allow him to return to her and she could join him soon. He did not deserve her efforts, this was true, but it was never about protecting him. Her interests were selfish in nature. She was a queen, not a woodsman. She knew not how to hunt, or flay, or cook. She could not chart a course by the stars, nor know which plants were inedible. If she wished to survive, she'd need help, and if that help was to come in the form of the disgraced son of House Mormont, then so be it.
She reiterated herself. "If I traded places with him, would you let him go free?"
His feet stopped striking the ground. There was a breath's pause filled only by the thundering of her heart in her neck and her own doubts.
"Yes," he said, at last, "But you would have to stay here. Forever."
It was a damning word, that forever, and she liked it not. It would matter little in the end, though, for even when she agrees, she had no intention of holding to their agreement. He'd not keep her for long.
She tilts her head up, annoyingly still frightened, but unwilling to express it. She looked to where his face should be, spying the outlines of a cloak that covered him. "Step closer," she commanded and was surprised when he did, moving back toward her. Emboldened, she tells him to remove his hood and show her his true face, for she shan't make a deal with a shadow.
Slowly, his hands rise, gloved fingers snaring the frontmost lip of the cloak, just around the hem, and drawing it back. He straightens his back as he closes the final few paces, returning to his full height and then he is close enough for her to see for the first time.
The gasp that leaves her lips was unbidden, but the fault of it could not lie with her. Not with how a mere glimpse of the lord was enough to freeze her heart seven times over. Not even the Others could match the chill that swept through the hall and her.
In truth, she still fails to see much of the full picture, but what she could see was hardly pleasing to the stomach. A chin marred by stone lesions, a grayscale so advanced that it seemed not an inch would remain untouched. Untainted. It is mottled and harshly lined. Skin that might once have held the warmth of life now bore the weight of the disease. Dead or dying. It was a mosaic of grays, ashen patches marking the battleground where flesh had given way to the encroaching malady. Jagged lines of hardened scales crept along his cheeks, their texture resembling the roughness of weathered bark, stealing the suppleness that once defined them.
She wonders if this was how the Weirwoods of the First Men appeared. Dry, rough exteriors with weeping faces and tears of blood. She had always wished to see one, had planned to upon her return to Westeros. Now, she was not so certain.
His lips pulled back in a sardonic smile that appeared more sneer than not, and it caused the hard lesions scaling where his lips should be to separate, redness pooling in the gaps. "Have we an accord?" A gloved hand approached from the shadows, hovering in the space between them. Daenerys swallowed the heart in her throat, finding it harder to manage than even the horse's she'd eaten so many moons ago, and nodded.
"We do." She gripped his hand and he tugged her from the floor. Fearing his face would be even worse up close, she drops the hand and steps away. Her face tilts away, returning to the surface of the wooden door and the prisoner behind it. He had not said a word to dissuade her, not dissented or rebelled or tried to convince her otherwise. Not as she thought he might. It only reinforced what she already knew. Ser Jorah would never return to her side. He cared for her not. Remember, she told herself, this is the only way, and she turned to face the gaoler once more. "You have my word," she promised, and he stepped past her.
"Then it is done."
And he tore the bar from the door with disquieting ease, tossing the door open and entering.
But the prisoner he emerged with was not Ser Jorah. Not him in the slightest. He did not possess the same blonde hair, nor the same wrinkled visage. He was not balding, and he was not kind. And he never would have allowed a young girl to ruin his best tunics with her poor needlework.
She'd traded her life for a man she knew not, and hardly an honorable one at that.
When the two ducked around the bend with nary a word, she fell to her knees, only one question strong enough to stand against all others.
If he was not here, then …
Dany wiped a confusing tear from her eye and muttered to the empty corridor, "Where are you, Ser Jorah?" She was lost and in great need of help.