#firesqueen

It wouldn’t bring Missandei her justice. And it wouldn’t help their Queen.

Jorah, whose wounds were still healing for the most part from the Battle of Winterfell, grit his teeth hard and forced his gaze down to a pale and disappointed Tyrion. “I wouldn’t see her just yet,” Jorah warned him. “She’ll believe you were the cause of her death.”

“Perhaps I was,” Tyrion replied quietly and continued on his way to the camp.

Jorah glanced at Grey Worm. “Let’s bring her home, lēkia.” Grey Worm said nothing save to march forward, his spear pierced into the ground. Together, they crossed no man’s land until they came up to the gates. Jorah felt the stares upon him--practically heard the tightening of leather and plucking of bows--but they knelt to their work all the same. 

It was an awkward affair. The two carefully carried her body back to camp. A tent was cleared to place her. Jorah had to steel his stomach and heart while they laid her gently on the ground. He gripped Grey Worm’s shoulder before leaving, but then departed to give him peace to grieve alone. He needed to see the Queen. 

It took him a brief moment to remember why Missandei wasn’t standing outside of Daenerys’ tent. The answer came a second later and made him feel all the more ill. Briefly, he lingered outside of the tent. He didn’t want to just burst in. Jorah was acutely aware of pushing that careful boundary too far between them ever since Qarth. Clearing his throat, he called, “Khaleesi, I must speak with you.” 

A pause, another pause, and then he bit his lip and entered her tent. Once he was there, however, words escaped him. Gripping the hilt of his sword habitually, he chewed his lip before finally reporting, “Grey Worm is with her now.” 

Cautiously, he approached her further. “Khaleesi,” he breathed, “we must store it away. The anger. The desire for revenge. It can fuel our strength for the battle that is to come but we mustn’t allow it to take hold of our mind. I beg you to grieve. Now. You can be strong again tomorrow.”

“No, I agree,”  He said, following behind her with his hands clasped behind his back.  “The last thing anyone should want in a leader is for them to be reactionary.”  Basing reactions off of surges of emotion could be damaging far more often than it was helpful.  He can still remember what Master Yoda said, 

‘But how am I to know the good side from the bad?’

You will know when you are calm. At peace.  Passive.

It was often still a lesson that he had to fight to integrate into his life, but he was trying to be better.  Sometimes doing nothing was as much a way of taking action as doing something. 

His expression was solemn as it was severe as Unsullied soldiers led him from the receiving rooms and into the inner sanctum of the Great Pyramid where black and red banners emblazoned with dragons flew instead of the enormity of the Golden Harpy. They were right not to trust him, even if his repute as the Black Priest had been rightfully earned. His sorcerous ability was nearing a mythic tale, and it was at this place that the Vishanti themselves demanded he sojourn. Genuflecting on one knee before her, eyes trained upon the first stair, so did the sorcerer greet the queen.

“Daenerys,” he breathed in some relief and then quickly realized his mistake. “My Queen,” he corrected himself, sinking into his bed. “You’re alive.” He was alive. How had that happened? The last that he recalled of the fight, he had been on his back and bleeding out. The dead had fallen to the ground in nothing more than dust and bones. But he had been . . . .drifting.

Now, here he was. With his Queen beside him. Looking down at himself, he found that he was still half-clothed. The upper part of his body, however, was practically covered in bandages and poultices. Groaning, he stopped moving. That only made it worse. He could feel the stitches stretching with his movements. Letting his head fall back on his pillow, he closed his eyes tightly for a moment. 

“We survived then,” he murmured, his voice hoarse and raspier than normal. “I am glad to see you well, Khaleesi.” A small smile, rare, lifts his lips. “Were you injured in the fighting?” He knew she had been behind him but she had also taken up a blade . . . helped defend him. “I saw you with that blade,” he mused. “You’d have some skill if you let me train you.” His smile transitions into a smirk. Daenerys was not one for violence. Her repulsion at the fighting pits had been proof enough of that. 

Despite his relief to find himself and her alive, Jorah knew the list was coming. Swallowing, he moved his gaze to the ceiling and asked for it. “Who did we lose?”

Limping back to the fireplace, he collapsed into the chair and let himself relax for the first time in almost 24 hours. The Battle of Winterfell had gone poorly. The Night King had been unreachable. Yet they  had been truly lost when he had raised his arms and brought their own dead back to life to fight against them. Those in the crypt had been among the first to be killed. Jorah could hear their cries still.

As far as he knew, all had fallen. Jon, Tyrion, Missandei, Grey Worm, his cousin, the Wildlings, the Dothraki. Everyone. A few might have escaped like they did . . . but the number was likely small. Jorah had escaped with his Queen only through sheer luck. Drogon had fallen to the ground and forced her to fall off. The dragon had bravely defended her until Jorah arrived and pulled her away . . . the dead had swarmed upon Drogon and killed him along with Rhaegal.

In the chaos of the night, Jorah had managed to find a horse and without even looking back, he had grabbed Daenerys and they rode off away from the battle. The only left to do there was to die. There wasn’t any cowardice in knowing when a battle was lost and choosing to live. 

During the battle, however, he had taken a few wounds. Those he had yet to treat. He’d been too anxious to get them away. They’d rode all through the blizzarding day until they had found this place. Now, here they were, a Queen and a knight. In the thick blanket of winter, it almost felt like they were the last two souls left alive. 

Despite his own pain, his heart hurt for her. She had lost her remaining children. Missandei and Grey Worm’s passing, too, was keenly felt. Hopelessness edged at his heart, but he held it bay. A soldier knew all too well that once one started to allow that in, one was as good as dead. So, he concentrated on fixing himself up. The ties of his armor were loosened and fell to the ground. 

Wincing at the pain the movements caused, he slowly moved to the floor right beside the fire and pulled out a dagger, heating it in the fire. A glance was given to Daenerys. She had been quiet during their journey here. “We’ll find a way, Khaleesi,” he told her, his voice quiet. “If my time spent following you has taught me anything, it’s that you’re the bringer of miracles as much as you are the breaker of chains.” 

While it was true that years spent in each other’s company had allowed them to forge an ability to communicate without words, he still believed much of his own feelings were lost in translation. It was easy, after all, to tell someone that one was in love with them. It was not so easy to tell them to what degree one loved them. At least not in a way that sounded overused and inauthentic. Men pledged their hearts to Daenerys every day. She had an army of hearts at her command. 

The kiss to his jaw is treasured for its simple affection. Another gift that she can never truly understand its depth of meaning for him. “You are my greatest friend, Khaleesi. And I will never devalue that friendship.” His eyes were on their joined hands, his thumb lightly brushing over the top of hers. 

“But I fear something in me does not translate to your heart.” His gaze lifts to hers. “And it never will. So, your friendship, and your trust, will be my kiss and my caress, and I shall love you always.” And the admission is as difficult to give now as it was in Meereen and as it was in Vaes Dothrak. “But I must find a wife. I cannot allow Bear Island to pass to another family’s hands. It belongs to House Mormont. I ask that you give me leave. A few months or so to find myself a woman who doesn’t mind a husband who’s in love with another woman that he can’t have.” 

           she had thought the dragon queen would be more frightening! that teeth would snap like iron at her throat, that there would be fire and blood in the eyes that turned on the daughter of walder frey, but there is none. there is a kindness in those eyes instead, one roslin knows without knowing, as any soft and frightened thing might know the difference between hunter and protector. (it is because of her, roslin thinks, that she is free at last : she and edmure and their child, free of the lions that had hemmed them in with claws and teeth and heavy doors and threats....) “it....it has not always been so, your grace,” she says. “at least....not as i have known.” and though she is not frightened, not exactly, still her voice is soft, near quiet as a whisper. (she has never met a targaryen before, never seen a dragon ‘til this day!) “still, i - - - whether you had reason or no, i....i thank you, truly.” 

Prince of Egypt starter meme | accepting