Westeros - Tumbleton - 130 AC:
The remains of battle smoldered. Warm and wet, the ground smothered the blood and flame alike. It would be said, in ages to come, that never was there a settlement of more sorrow or curse than Tumbleton, burned by the breath of dragons. One soared overhead, circling down from its perch among the clouds.
Dawn crept into the world.
Littered side by side, a thousand blacks, one hundred greens, and the innocents of Tumbleton floated in the river, blackened. The screaming had not stopped but moved into the receding mists.
Silverwing touched the ground. Her enormous form, normally white as snow, shone pink in the unnatural light. She circled the dragon corpse, mewling and puffing smoke onto the bronze scales. Many lay scattered in the dirt. Vermithor.
The female dragon settled down into the mud beside her mate. She lay there, waiting for the slaughtered beast to breathe. His mouth was ajar, stained with another dragon's blood. When no life came, Silverwing edged forward and slid her nose beneath Vermithor's battered wing. She lifted it, as if to make him fly.
Three times.
He did not fly.
Essos - The Red Waste:
Daario's knuckles dragged in the dirt. They bled into the Red Waste, adding flavor to the first hints of vampiric sand. The mountains butted right to the dunes with black faces of melted glass as though forged in the depths of the world and thrown toward the light. He could see the sun peek over them, and a faint breath of salt teased a memory of the sea.
He lifted his head and found himself slung over a donkey's back. Daario was strapped to it with lengths of leather. Now that he was awake, his body burned at the arrangement. The khalasar that held him was one of the united, now broken away. They were keeping to the shadow of the mountain, probably taking him to the Ghiscari Strait and then onto a ship bound for Slaver's Bay.
Fine. He had friends on the sea as he did in the sand. For now he'd sleep and wait.
Daario winked at one of the Dothraki women that walked beside him. She hissed something vile and spat at him. No change there.
Essos - The Great Grass Sea:
The young dragon stepped aside, lifting his paw from Jorah's chest and tilting his head back, letting a flame erupt from his throat and into the sky. He looked over to his mother proudly and chirped, as only a dragon could. Rhaegal and Viserion parted and allowed Dany to rush forward.
She knelt on the rock beside her bear, running soft, white hands over him, searching for claw and tooth marks. Drogon had not hurt him as far as she could tell.
"He—was only—playing," Jorah lied. He had to gasp heavily between every breath. His chest felt as though it still had the full weight of a dragon on it. "It's okay—tell Drogon—it's okay."
Her warm hands rested on his face a moment more before she turned around to pet her dragon. They soon lost interest and started snapping playfully at each other until one spied a lone sheep in the valley and soared off. The other two raced toward the edge of the cliff. Dany and Jorah ducked as they took flight and followed.
"I'm sorry," Daenerys said, returning to sit beside Jorah. He was sitting, one hand on his chest and the other on the rock. "I don't know what's gotten into him. He's—"
"Still young," Jorah answered for her. He tried not to pay too much attention to his freshly cured skin. The rest of the bandages were quickly torn away and cast aside. "They'll never be tame, my queen."
She sighed. "The old kings tamed dragons," she replied. "Some are wild, others are born. Ser Darry always said it was magic that made them tame."
Jorah could see words unsaid on her lips. "You think differently?"
Daenerys was watching her dragons hunt the lamb. "Trust."
Jorah had to earn that word before he'd use it again. They sat in silence for a while, considering the growing pyramid of Meereen. Its echo was laid to ruin in Old Ghis. Meereen was a pale mirror where a lost empire rippled in and out of focus before the—
"Daenerys?" Jorah lurched forward, catching the silver queen as she crumbled to the ground. She trembled, eyes rolling back and mutterings spilling from her purple lips. The dragon dreamed.
*~*~*
The wall of Meereen blocked all other sins from view. For two days he'd carried her over the mountains and grasslands, back to the city of blood. The silver queen slept throughout, dreaming in what the old maesters called a 'dragon dream.' Though many claimed to have them, only a few dreamers had ever lived in the world. It was the true madness. In dragon dreams were visions of the past or future—not necessarily the truth.
She shifted in his arms, murmuring something else. He focused on the wall. Its vile, marble harpies were as much a part of it as the clay. Jorah was beyond the reach of exhaustion. His injuries were torn asunder, yet he kept on. The door. The city. Another step. Breathe again. Forward.
Then the cool shade of the wall fell over him, and he felt his legs tremble. He pressed forward—through the gates. The city swarmed ahead, and he knew he couldn't risk the vile mass. Instead he took a stone passage to the right, one that descended into the guard pits where the Unsullied patrolled. They escorted him through the maze of catacombs until they ended in the dungeons beneath the pyramid.
Jorah, now with a dozen loyal soldiers in tow, rose from the depths into the palace and fell to his knees—startling Missandei. The bear's arms unfolded, and the dragon queen rolled from his hold onto the floor. Jorah slumped, unconscious beside her.
*~*~*
Silver wings. Snow falling on forests with red leaves and bowing trees. Their faces howled. Knees bent and flesh laid beneath. A scramble of stone walls and, beside, a forest of steaming pools amidst the carpet of ice. A dragon, white as Valyrian steel, descends a tunnel beneath the castle.
"Khaleesi?" Missandei placed another cool cloth on Daenerys' fiery skin.
The heat grows. Ice walls cry. Something else stirs. An eye of ice and lightning blue.
Daenerys startled, clutching Missandei's wrist sharply. She pulled away from the bedcovers and clutched her chest. The thudding of her heart made her think of spears clashing on shields and the march of war. She shivered and looked around, confused by the moonlight against her silk curtains and the candles shaking by her bed. Their fire leaned toward her.
"Be still—lay back," Missandei insisted, but could not move the queen. "You had a dream. Now you're home."
This isn't home, Daenerys thought, and it wasn't a dream.
*~*~*
Mormont thought he must have died. The feel of soft bedding, smoky air, and the distant wash of a sea could only be the veils of life pulling back to the abyss. It was dark. He mourned the stars for a moment before his eyes opened and he saw the ornately tiled ceiling, garish and patterned with a thousand angry harpies stabbing spears into dragons. Meereen...
"Seven fucking gods..."
The Lannister imp set his half-empty goblet down and shuffled forward in the chair beside the bed as though he'd been camped there for a while. "Oh good. You're feeling better then?"
Jorah turned his head and saw the very last person he wished to. "Make that all the fucking gods—and the Andals too." He did a cursory check of his limbs. Most everything was present and aching. He could feel the effects of narcotics wearing off and promptly wondered who he had to belt the shit out of to get some more.
No one, apparently, as Tyrion picked up a smoldering tray and held it under Jorah's nose. The smoke filled his lungs, and soon he was calm again, numbness returning to his body. He shuffled up and rested against the pillows, noting the clean bandages strapped around his lower chest. His clothes were gone—probably burned, considering the state of them.
"The Queen?" Jorah asked, his eyes closed for a moment.
"Doing better than you," Tyrion replied, taking a few heavy breaths of the smoke himself before setting it down. "She has a few scratches but nothing of note. The stories she's told—those are of great interest. I can't help but notice that you've returned short..."
Jorah pinched the skin on the bridge of his nose, making a bruise there worse. "Daario will show up—he has a habit of it."
"Not if he's dead."
That brought Jorah to the edge of a laugh. "I'm not that lucky."
"Don't let the queen hear you say that," Tyrion warned. "She'll be wanting to see you," he added. "Though if I were you, I'd leave it a few days." The implication is that his already compromised looks were tarnished further by black marks.
Jorah opened his eyes. Tyrion looked different as well. Life in the royal court suited him—as did the wine. He'd shaved, washed, and had the tailors make more suitable clothes from white and gold cloth. He'd been very careful to avoid even a hint of the Lannister red. He was no fool. "You're not stationed at my bedside to counsel me on the queen's good graces..."
"It would do you no harm," Tyrion started but stopped as the bear's eyes turned dangerous. "No. I'm here about Hizdahr zo Loraq and his nest of harpies."
Jorah pointed to the wine. "Pass me some of that first."
Instead of reaching for the wine, Tyrion turned to the door and nodded. Still in a haze, Jorah realized that there was another person in the room, who now approached carrying a tray with a whole jug of wine and two more glasses.
"I didn't realize my room had an open invitation." He complained but didn't refuse the wine from the bald man. It took him a moment to remember why he recognized him without the dirty veneer of blonde hair. "Bloody hell, is that you, Varys?"
If Varys was impressed, he didn't show it. The tray was set down, and he chose to stand, his hands vanishing into his gaping sleeves as was his way. "I'm afraid the years have not been as kind to me as they have to you."
Jorah narrowed his eyes, unsure if that was a slight. He shifted his gaze between Tyrion and Varys several times before breaking out into rasping laughter that hurt his chest. "I always knew you had fangs, Varys, but I never imagined you had balls too."
"I did not kill Tywin Lannister," Varys replied dryly.
"No—of course not. Not a speck of blood on you."
Varys was calm. "Whatever you may think, I didn't arrange for anyone to kill Daenerys Targaryen either—not seriously. I trust you found the wine merchant suitably conspicuous?"
"Why are you helping?" Tyrion, Jorah could understand, but what did Varys want with a Targaryen queen on the Iron Throne?
The bald man sighed heavily. He answered the same as he had to the foolish Stark king. "For the realm."
Several swigs of wine later, and Jorah was ready to listen. He inspected his arm while Varys talked. It showed no trace of the dragon scale—only a couple of nicks where Drogon clipped him with his fangs. God, he loved those bloody dragons, even if they did want to eat him half the time. He wondered where they were—hopefully safe in the valley, picking off Dothraki riders.
"Well?" Tyrion prompted when Mormont gave no reply to their request.
He winced at the stitches on his chest and shifted, sitting up straighter to look down at the Lannister. "You've changed your tune. What happened to wishing me halfway around the world—now you want me at the queen's side?"
Tyrion realized that was fair enough. "Fate keeps dragging you back to her side. Man argues with fate at his own expense, and I have no money to pay."
*~*~*
The silver queen perched on her throne. She wore blue silk from Qarth, but her handmaidens had embroidered dancing dragons on every inch. Each one had a ruby sewn in for an eye that caught the candlelight. In defiance, the neckline was deliberately low to show the full scope of the cut to her throat.
"And who is this?" she asked, as her new advisor brought a strange, pale, bald man in tow. He had the look of Westeros about him. Already she was wary. There were as many friends as there were enemies in that land, and she knew not who to trust. Trust. What trust was there in the world for a queen? There was only risk.
"A friend," Tyrion vaulted the steps to her throne and bowed respectfully. He knew to flatter royalty, though this queen waved off his efforts and peered past him at Varys. Interesting. "Meet the man your knight whispered to—the man who kept you alive as a child."
"The Spider?"
"Varys..." Varys introduced himself, bowing only lightly, which seemed to please her more. "Your Grace has grown from a child to a queen in the years since I last saw you."
"We've met?"
"Once. Briefly."
Grey Worm and Missandei shifted beside the queen. Daenerys tapped her nails on the stone throne. It was no iron chair. If she knew the depth of violence that had sat where she did now, she'd be less comfortable. The second throne made for her late husband was gone as if it had never been.
"When? I do not remember your face from Pentos."
"You would not. Silver Queen, this corner of the world is my home. South of the free cities, west of here in the warm, wild waters of the Summer Sea, is an island. I was birthed in its city, Lys, and taken for a slave. Targaryen blood runs strong in its people after they were conquered. The streets are all silver-haired and ever more beautiful creatures with eyes like yours.
"Before I was taken to King's Landing to serve the Lannister court, I saw two young siblings play in the gardens under the watchful eye of conspiring men. Any layman can recognize a true Targaryen."
The vague memory of a garden by the sea lurked somewhere in her heart. She'd been there in dreams.