39

39.

All Quiet

Winterfell. 

It resulted in the quickest of affairs. A hasty ceremony under the Heart Tree as Ser Davos and Ser Jorah exchanged the words to set it all in motion. Jon never said the words, and just took them across the castle as she trotted along, following him, but Dany had it clear where he was taking them and for what purpose.

Daenerys was wrapped in his dark cloak — not that it was necessary, they both knew, and their hands were bound together as they stared into each other's eyes oblivious of the crowd around them.

Nothing mattered if you stood at the end of the world beside the one you loved.

As they stood under the Heart Tree with their foreheads pressed against each other, the shouting and cheering kickstarted an atmosphere of unforeseen celebration that took them by surprise. They were Queen and King of the Seven Kingdoms, under the gaze of the gods, of the North, and the few family and friends there.

"My wife," Jon said as if savoring the word in his mouth as he looked at her in rapture. 

Dany stroke his cheek and whispered, "Valzȳrys," in return. Husband.

A chaste kiss followed and their lives were forever intertwined despite the events that may or may not come to happen. She was, for the first time in more years than anyone could have imagined, so sure of her own decision that no terror could pierce her resolve. 

She loved him.

And he loved her.

For once, it must be enough. 

***

Sansa had heard about it in stories all her childhood and even dreamed of being the protagonist of something like this someday, but she never got to see it played out in front of her eyes, until now.

Marriage, that is. The way it was supposed to be.

Her septa and her mother had sweetened the reality for her by telling her that she would one day be given by her father to an honorable comely gentleman. But all those false expectations turned blood in her mouth when the time came and she was twice forced into undesirable unions. 

She was altered of it by the movement it caused and taken there in the company of Theon. She watched from afar as her brother — or was her cousin now? —and his Dragon Queen swore an oath under the Heart Tree, performing their sudden marriage in the fashion of the First Men.

Sansa saw it in awe, not because she'd like to be in their place, not because she resented that the stories and tales she was told were in the end, just lies and illusions. But because they had the capacity to still believe in love.

"Thank you, Theon," Sansa said softly and he nodded silently as the ceremony carried on.

***

A kiss was all they were allowed before the grabbing and jostling began. It initially upset her, and therefore Jon, but it was all part of it. Of the celebration, of course. The Northerners were quick to begin the bedding ceremony.

"Let them," Dany urged Jon, amid the little giggles, elicited from the tickling she was subjected to. Jon's face had reddened by the time the women took him another way as she was hurried back to the castle, along the familiar path to his chambers.

Out of the corner of her eye Daenerys saw a familiar face, far away and almost hidden from the sight of the others. Sansa Stark, and beside her, Theon Greyjoy. They must've seen the ceremony from that hiding spot.

She didn't give it much thought. Daenerys guessed it had at last relieved her to some extent to know that now she had a clean chance to be not just heir to the North but to the Seven Kingdoms. 

She shrugged off the matter, too captured in the moment. 

Pushed into Jon's chambers, she chose to ignore the voices of eager men and simply close the doors, in time to hold in place the small clothes still covering her body, as the hubbub continued and grew louder on the outside. As Dany took a few steps into the inner chamber, the door opened again behind her and she turned around in time to see a flustered Jon with his back blocking the door with barely his breeches on.

Dany threw her head back and laughed, while Jon took two strides to her, lifted her up and spun her in the air.

They were drunk in the haze.

He reached out to cradle her face and in silent contemplation Jon rest his forehead onto hers, breathing in widely and lingering in the peace that it all brought him. He closed his eyes and she continued to look up, admiring each curve and carve and scar that made up his comely, fine face. They joined their lips unhurriedly, in need to be as close as possible, and share again the intimacy to which they'd surrendered in the waterfalls. Every aspect of it felt so right that Dany never let an intrusive thought long linger and take root in her mind. She gave in to the dictates of her heart and every part of her body gave, gave and gave until she gave Jon even what she didn't know was left of her resistance. She lay on his bed with Jon between her legs, his head lost beneath her midriff as she craned her neck back with an involuntary moan. All the while, shouts of obscenity outside continued, teasing the newlyweds inside until an impatient Jon lifted his head and hurled a knife from there, into the wood of the door with warrior's precision, inviting to their scandalous guesses to leave.

Dany's eyes were barely half-open. She pulled him down by back of his neck, into an intense kiss, as her legs closed around his narrow waist and her middle settled into him, taking a deep breath as she felt him slide into her in a single thrust. His mouth covered hers as he moved, never stopping to move inside her at the same time he took care to always let her know that he was there, everywhere. 

And she never stopped trembling under him, her eyes boring into his as they joined as one.

***

His fingers ran lazily in the same pattern through her hair, slipping her into a state of drowsiness not quietly into sleep. She was exhausted but content in a way she had missed for so long. 

"Did you ever think you'd be anyone's wife again?" Jon asked in a husky voice.

Dany shuddered.

"Only for practical purposes, I suppose," she replied, her voice dragged off. "What about you? Have you imagined yourself being married to another other than your wildling girl?"

His touch slowed to a halt.

He didn't answer for a long moment.

"I never..." he said but didn't finished, like something was stuck in his mind. "She was the first I loved. But I knew that there was no future for us."

She understood it better than he might know. Just a day before she would have sworn the same in regards to them.

Dany couldn't see his face but Jon stayed pensive.

Harrentown, Riverlands.

Varys placed a silver coin in the hands of a young mother who was nursing her babe outside the Sept in Harrentown. With the onset of winter, Lords demanded more from peasants, in labor, and taxes alike. If not winter, famine would wipe them out by the end of the year, he esteemed. 

If Death didn't wipe us all first, he thought. 

As he climbed up the stairs to the modest shrine lit with candles, he knelt beside a man who was praying with his head down and a hood pulled in. The god he worshipped was the stranger, that faceless entity who represented the same thing to everyone: death.

Varys eyed him stealthily.

"I am afraid it is not possible for men like us to fight against the devices of magic, my dear fellow," he said interrupting its adoration. 

He could see the smirk drawing out beneath the hood.

When Varys was confided with the task to investigate the whereabouts of Lord Baelish Harrenhal emerged as a strong possibility as his asylum in Eyrie was compromised. But that accursed old castle was garrisoned by men loyal to the queen. Any attempt to take over the castle would require the use of resources no longer available to him.

"My Lord Varys," Baelish sang back, "What kind of men you think we are?"

"Intentioned men, of course," Varys answered. "Smart we are. Too much to the likes of this—" and he pointed out around them. To the Sept and everything that represented. "We can make this the easy way. You come with me and I delivered you to the Queen so you have a chance to pledge your case. Or I alert my little birds and you are taken to her...incapacitated to chat your way out. It's your choice."

"You are not wrong. It is always my choice," Baelish agreed.

Varys frowned and knew by his immediate inaction that he didn't plan to suffer the consequences of a capture. No. Baelish was beyond that. And when the cold steel leaf of a sword touched his bulky neck, Varys looked around to find Aurane Waters standing there.

***

He could no longer run away from it.

It had been so long since he last saw her that he didn't recognize her at first when he saw her again. Ygritte.  Those defiant green eyes and that mocking sneer were very different from the murderous, hurt look that she gave him the last time they saw each other. Their farewell; he didn't dare to even think of it again, for it was still too painful. Ygritte scoffed as if it were a bad joke.

"Poor Jon Snow. He still doesn't know anything," she mocked him. And she tightened her bowstring, aiming the arrow at his heart. "Isn't that what you're wondering, why you still don't know anything?"

And she loose.

The shot of her arrow pushed him into the void, from which he fell, fell, fell, while above him instead of the sky he saw only Ygritte laughing wickedly at him. 

You know nothing Jon Snow.

***

Winterfell 

By the break of dawn his eyes were open, his gaze fixed on the ceiling as he absently traced his fingertips along Dany's bare back. He kept his mind on Ygritte, not on memories of their short, tragic romance but on her words and the question that pounded incessantly in his skull. 

How did Daenerys know about Ygritte?

He searched back through the moments that had transpired, but in none of them did he find any talk of Ygritte, his wildling girl, as she'd named her. Jon looked down at her sleeping form and wondered if she was having those dragons dreams right now. 

***

"We need to talk."

Arya stood in his way as he was leaving the war chamber, just as everyone was exiting, including Daenerys. Her intention, and as far as Jon could see, as that of his other siblings, was to catch him alone. 

They gathered then at the same place where he had taken his oath the night before. Under the Heart Tree.

"We understand that you have made a decision," Arya said, face crossed by some daunting feeling. 

"It's much more than a decision," Jon clarified, "But if that's how you choose to put it, then yes. I've made up my mind."

Sansa wore a distant look. 

"Are you..." she hesitantly put forward, "No longer a Stark?"

Jon was genuinely surprised by her words because even though he had heard her apologize, acknowledge her mistreatment of his and even call him her brother (and not her half-brother, or cousin), he had the impression that Sansa had it more than clear that in name he would always be a Snow.

"I was never a Stark," Jon said frankly. Just as he had done so hundreds of times almost inertly. "Nor will I be anything else. I will always be who I have been this far."

You know nothing, Jon Snow, reverberated the sound of Ygritte's reproach in his mind, shaking him. 

Bran noticed Jon's expression contort and frowned.

"Jon," Arya crossed the distance between them with a disgruntled face, "Damn you! you will never stop being our brother!"

She was on the verge of tears.

Jon was struck silence. Feelings of regret and sorrow racked him to his very bones. Suddenly it didn't matter what ha created the rift between them. Before his eyes she turned into the little sister he had so greatly dotted on.

"I can't choose between you and her," he warned in a voice on the verge of breaking. 

"We wouldn't have it in us to put you in a place where you would've to make that decision," she replied. "I'm true, Jon. Truer than I've ever been in ages."

Jon nodded, ducking his head. When he raised it up again, he looked up at the vibrant-colored leaves of the weirdwood and wondered if that choice was even a possibility. A notion that awakened memories Jon didn't know he had in him, of Daenerys' lifeless face lying on a snowy ground, a single line of blood spilling down her cheek as a lonely snowflake fell on the other side like a frozen tear.

He winced as a spasm almost made him crunch.

"Jon?" he heard Sansa's voice. His four siblings were looking at him, worried. 

***

Beric Dondarrion was riding at a steady pace when he felt it, a pang in his resurrected heart. He let it guide him to where he met the priestess who had long ago talked to Thoros and him about the prophecy, and price needed to be paid. With all their heart's regret they had given her what she asked for then, in exchange for a large sum of gold: the boy Gendry, King Robert's bastard.

"My Lady," Beric greeted with a small curtsey. She, too, was mounting a steed. "The flames send me to Winterfell. War is in its arbor."

Her paled face resembled that of an immaculate statue such as the one people revered in the Septs.

"I wish the flames were as communicative with me as they were with you, but unfortunately they have punished me with their silence. Not causeless, I'm afraid. But we all chase purpose, Beric Dondarrion. I'm well assuming you do too?"

Beric found himself compelled by her words so he only bowed his head slightly. She seemed different woman to the one he'd known.

***

Winterfell 

Later than expected Dany found herself in the presence of Sansa Stark again, the other woman looking at her amidst a strangely awkward silence. 

"Are you in need of something, Lady Sansa?" she asked her.

"I felt to commend you for choosing right," she responded.

"You mean my marrying to Jon? That was not an act of commendable ethics. It was an act of love," Dany strictly pointed out.

Sansa drew in a sounded breath and curtseyed. 

*** 

Daenerys knocked softly on the door before stepping unhurriedly into Jon's bedchamber. Inside was he, sitting with his chair pulled up to the fireplace. He turned to greet her, to give her one of those heartfelt smiles she had grown accustomed to. She closed the door behind her and walked toward him with careful steps.

Jon's gaze never lifted, fixed on the crackling, leaping fire.

She leaned by the hearth's mantel, and looked down at him contemplatively. He was leaning back in his carved oak chair. His elbow rested on the armrest, and two of his fingers fiddled with the mustache above his full lips. 

She started to imagine him on the Iron Throne somewhat reluctant, always the introspective, brooding sort.

Jon would make a fine King, she told herself. Hopefully one strong as Aegon the Conqueror, wise as Jahaerys I, kind as Viserys I, intelligent as the second. Kind-hearted as Daeron. Always the Warrior as The Anvil King. Willing to perform the necessary changes as Aegon V.

But above all she hoped he was true to himself, for no matter what the attributes of all those kings he followed — which he already possessed — it was the hope in his heart that she would never want to be taken from him. His unbeatable commitment to serve. 

These words she did not say aloud but it seemed for a moment that Jon was listening to her as his eyes slowly flickered to meet her gaze, with a light of recognition in them.

A warmth came into his expression. 

Daenerys turned away from the mantel, took two steps, and stood in front of him as he rearranged himself in his chair. Jon's face was at the level of her belly, covered by the dark fabrics of her gown. He had to tilt his head back a little to see her as she slid her hands through his hair, untying the bun he wore to prevent it from obstructing his view. At last, A shy smile lit up his features, as he moved his hands up her legs, past her hips to her waist, catching Dany unawares as he placed a tender kiss on her belly. 

As his hands strayed back to her bottom, eliciting a giggle of surprise and amusement, the sudden movement caused her to stagger and fall on top of him like a dead weight.

Jon didn't stop there, and with a leap that sent them both off their feet, he reached for her face and pulled her in for a sweeping kiss.

In a heartbeat, even as she was reveling in his kiss, Jon had backed her against the mantel and only parted their lips to turned her around. With fevered dexterity, he groped his way under her skirts, snaked his hand around and began to rub her until she was breathless, preferring only high-pitched squeals.

Dany heard the sounds of unfastening clothes before being stripped of all the air of her lungs as he pushed inside her, rough and relentlessly. She glanced up quickly and saw the raging storm in the depths of his eyes, as if he was finally losing restraint after being caged so long.

Her lids grew heavier, her heartbeat picking up speed as he skimmed her breast above the fabric. She cried out in release, throwing her head back, her body still flushed against his. 

Jon slid his hand to clasp hard on her hip bone, pulling her to him with a final couple of thrusts, grunting an unintelligible course in her ear as he moved behind her.

*** 

"Seven hells..." Jon muttered, as he collapsed onto her.

He was not unaware that she was being more than agreeable and yet he felt a rush of self-conscious concerning whatever has just happened. She leaned in for a kiss on his cheek and this made him want to squeeze her in his arms even more and never let go. 

Jon gathered the necessary strength to rearrange their clothes and lift her up to lay her small flimsy form on the bed. He watched in awe as she purred with closed eyes while trying to tuck herself into bed, struggling with the laces of her gown. He came to help her out of it, leaving her only in her underneath chemise.

He reached for a damp cloth to wipe them both and the sight made his chest swelled with concern. Whatever her belief was in her inability to bear children, this was not the way or the time to seek such an outcome. Jon wondered how she would react if he ever asked her to prevent it with moon tea. 

The flame of the candles on his bedside table sank into the little glassy lake of wax as darkness fell into the room. Dany fell into a deep sleep and soon he followed, lying behind her with his arms tied around her midriff. In his dreams, Jon again saw the same succession of images. Events he did not recognize but that felt strangely familiar.

*** 

Everything was ready for them to go their separate ways but Jon and Daenerys were trying their best effort to stretch the time and prevent the moment of parting. However temporary it might be, their chests hurt equally with a feeling of desperate dismay. 

At the same time, they kept their affections discreet. The night before they delivered enough of a show for people of their station.

"Promise me you won't put yourself in unnecessarily risk," Jon asked with a very serious face. Almost fearful.

She concealed a smile, holding his hands into hers. Even through the gloves she could feel the heat radiating from them, like a true dragon. 

"A Queen must protect," she said.

"A Quee must live to reign," he countered, closing her fingers around his even tighter. "Promise you will live. That's all I ask," he insisted.

Perhaps it was the reality of war having an effect on him, but Dany sensed that it was real fear and the origin of that feeling made her worry about him. She knew well where his thoughts eventually drifted. 

"I promise," she answered, she vowed. "I promise."

The two stopped holding the pretense of protocol to embrace and draw their faces close, resting their foreheads against each other. 

She was a fool to hold on to any hope again, but she did, that someday it would be just the two of them and nothing in the world standing between them.

Just a fool's dream.

"Don't go too far. I'll be waiting for you. Always," Jon also made a promise without intent. 

She shook with a soft laughter. 

"I'll be waiting for you too," she replied. 

 *** 

Plip. 

Plop. 

Plip. 

Plop. 

The sound of water dripping somewhere. 

Days waste off in front of his quiescent stare on the horizon beyond the Blackwater Bay, where things go on despite the catastrophe, half-sinking ships that are devoured until they become just abandoned carcasses to the current. Jon knows that his fate is set in stone and that he has only to wait — a wait that seems endless but promises the sweet release of death. 

Jon does not fear death. He does not despair at the thought of returning to the place of infinite silence that awaits them all at the end. He knows at least that much. 

After Drogon flew off with Dany's lifeless body to a uncertain destination, no further explanation was needed as to what had happened. 

Grey Worm would have put him to the sword but as always, his retinue of followers stepped up to defend him, willing to march to war for him, even when Jon true desire had been to pay for the treachery he had committed. 

For even if he was told that it was the right thing to do, it certainly didn't feel so. Not for him. It was an act of the most cowardly and base treason. They all played a part in that eventual end. They all had the chance to do more to save King's Landing, but it was only Daenerys who paid the price. 

A price he had collected himself. 

Jon looked down at his hands, dirty, muddy, and still with dried bloodstains. Her blood. His sorrow only compounded and turned to a knot in his chest every time he was told he had done justice. How was it justice when it wasn't King's Landing he was thinking of when he plunged his dagger in? How was it honor when it was the love for his family that prevailed over the oaths he had sworn? 

Once again he leaned back to hide his head between his legs and weep. Only now, without the haze of horror clouding his mind and Tyrion's words hammering in his head, could he ponder alternatives, and weigh in on the paths he did not take. He could have told Dany that he would sacrifice himself so as not to pose a danger to her claim. He could have put her between a rock and a hard place if she truly loved him as she claimed to. 

He could have warned her...given her a chance to fight as equals. To raise an army and reclaim his birthright to end her reign of terror. 

But who was he fooling? Daenerys was superior to them all atop her dragon. Singlehandedly she had taken on all the defenses of King's Landing. She didn't even need her decimated army. 

And all this for what? She must have wondered the same thing, he thinks. Stretching out her conquest loss after loss when she could have done it all herself. And keep her allies alive perhaps...and her children. As deadly and bestial as the dragons looked, Jon saw the more loyal and sublime side of them. He came to feel the warmth and spark of their connection in him. But as a man of the North, he also let his fears turn him against them. Deep down he wished that Drogon, too, would perish with his mother, somewhere far away from here, instead of wandering in solitary mourning for the rest of his long life. 

The dragons had caused so much damage to Westeros during the Dance of Dragons, even if he were to restore House Targaryen. What guaranteed them that from his line would not rise another King Maegor, or another Prince Daemon, another Rhaenyra and Aegon? 

Men of flesh and blood were destructive and ruinous enough to place the reins of the majestic creatures that were the dragons in their hands. So Jon, at least he knew that — he, too, must die. 

Jon was awake.