#forest of qohor

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Daenerys III

They crossed the rolling hills of Norvos, past terraced farms and small villages where the townsfolk watched anxiously from atop white stucco walls.

They forded three wide placid rivers and a fourth that was swift and narrow and treacherous, camped beside a high blue waterfall, skirted the tumbled ruins of a vast dead city where ghosts were said to moan among blackened marble columns.

They raced down Valyrian roads a thousand years old and straight as a Dothraki arrow.

For half a moon, they rode through the Forest of Qohor, where the leaves made a golden canopy high above them, and the trunks of the trees were as wide as city gates.

There were great elk in that wood, and spotted tigers, and lemurs with silver fur and huge purple eyes, but all fled before the approach of the khalasar and Dany got no glimpse of them.

[jozor-johai]

I noticed a little subplot happening in the background of ADWD, and I’m wondering if anyone has any theories on where this is going. I have my own theory, which I'll explain in full at the end, but is essentially this: I think that GRRM is placing these Dothraki khalasars strategically along the Rhoyne and telling us about them in ADWD so that if Dany commands the loyalty of the entire Dothraki in TWOW, she'll already have loyal armies in place right by the Free Cities, rather than having to wait transport troops anywhere—even though the Dothraki aren't a threat now, the Dothraki will be in place to attack the Free Cities while the Free Cities have sent all their armies to fight Dany's forces at Meereen.

I'll explain my reasoning, and where I think GRRM is putting the pieces into place here—under the cut, since it's a slightly long post with maps.

We first hear of Dothraki along the Rhoyne in ADWD Tyrion III:

“Griff means to strike downriver the instant we are back. News has been coming upriver, none of it good. Dothraki have been seen north of Dagger Lake, outriders from old Motho’s khalasar, and Khal Zekko is not far behind him, moving through the Forest of Qohor.” The fat man made a rude noise. “Zekko visits Qohor every three or four years. The Qohorik give him a sack of gold and he turns east again. As for Motho, his men are near as old as he is, and there are fewer every year. The threat is—” “—Khal Pono,” Haldon finished. “Motho and Zekko flee from him, if the tales are true. The last reports had Pono near the headwaters of the Selhoru with a khalasar of thirty thousand. Griff does not want to risk being caught up in the crossing if Pono should decide to risk the Rhoyne.”

As a reminder, Dagger Lake is where the Rhoyne in the east meets the Qhoyne in the west to make the full-force Rhoyne that we know and love.

Illyrio dismisses any reason to be concerned with these particular Dothraki, and perhaps he is right. But we do get our first preview into the concerns of Khal Pono, and the premise of Dothraki along the Rhoyne. Are they doing to be placated by gifts, like Illyrio says? Or is something different afoot?

Next we get an update in Tyrion VI, by Selhorys.

Haldon Halfmaester explained. “On the way down from the Sorrows to Selhorys, we thrice glimpsed riders moving south along the river’s eastern shore. Dothraki. Once they were so close we could hear the bells tinkling in their braids, and sometimes at night their fires could be seen beyond the eastern hills. We passed warships as well, Volantene river galleys crammed with slave soldiers. The triarchs fear an attack upon Selhorys, plainly.”

Another reminder for geography, Selhorys is significantly south from Dagger Lake. Like, further than King’s Landing is from the Trident. Once again, we have this concern: will Khal Pono cross the Rhoyne for Selhorys?

That concern is brought up again in Tyrion VI:

“Three,” Qavo allowed, “against thrice three thousand enemies. Grazdan mo Eraz was not the only envoy sent out from the Yellow City. When the Wise Masters move against Meereen, the legions of New Ghis will fight beside them. Tolosi. Elyrians. Even the Dothraki.” “You have Dothraki outside your own gates,” Haldon said. “Khal Pono.” Qavo waved a pale hand in dismissal. “The horselords come, we give them gifts, the horselords go.” He moved his catapult again, closed his hand around Tyrion’s alabaster dragon, removed it from the board.

As predicted by Haldon in Tyrion III, here is Khal Pono across from Selhorys. We hear that Qavo is unconcerned with Khal Pono, despite Haldon’s concerns.

This might be a bit of a meta opinion, but whenever someone is as flippant as Qavo is being here, expect them to be wrong. They definitely aren’t going to go away with gifts, Qavo is totally jinxing it—that’s my prediction.

Then we get another update later on, in The Lost Lord:

Haldon’s horses did not please him. “Were these the best that you could find?” he complained to the Halfmaester. “They were,” said Haldon, in an irritated tone, “and you had best not ask what they cost us. With Dothraki across the river, half the populace of Volon Therys has decided they would sooner be elsewhere, so horseflesh grows more expensive every day.”

By this point, they’re in Volon Therys, which is only barely outside of Volantis—think roughly the distance between King’s Landing and Duskendale, for comparison. And here, too, there are Dothraki on the other side of the river. Are these the same Dothraki, are they traveling south at the same pace as Tyrion/JonCon? Or is this yet another khalasar? We haven’t heard any update from Qohor, and this is the first time that we’ve unexpectedly encountered a khalasar—are they here to meet with the Volantenes about Meereen, like Dany’s advisors fear? Or are they here for another reason? Is it possible that Illyrio and Qavo are wrong?

The last update we get is in ADWD Victarion, when he captures a ship from Myr heading for New Ghis and Yunkai:

Sailing out of Myr, the Dove brought them no fresh news of Meereen or Daenerys, only stale reports of Dothraki horsemen along the Rhoyne, the Golden Company upon the march, and others things Victarion already knew.

Unfortunately, this is stale news for both Victarion and we the readers—this is like a snapshot back to Tyrion II/III, when the Golden Company broke its contract and started marching east, and when we first heard about the Dothraki on the Rhoyne in my first quote.

However, despite this being a snapshot back in time to old news, I wonder about GRRM’s choice to include this again so close to end of the book—is this a reminder for the readers about these Dothraki on the Rhoyne? We’ve learned why the Golden Company marching ended up being important, could this passage from Victarion be a reminder of these tidbits of news because they will continue to matter moving forward?

I am doubly interested because it’s in this same book, in the very midst of all this talk of Dothraki on the Rhoyne, that we hear the tale of a previous time the Dothraki came. This is back in ADWD Tyrion IV, between the reports of Motho and Zekko on Dagger Lake and before the talk with Qavo about Pono. I’ve bolded the relevant sections, because it’s long, but left the rest for context.

“The war left the Disputed Lands a waste, and freed Lys and Myr from the yoke. The tigers suffered other defeats as well. The fleet they sent to reclaim Valyria vanished in the Smoking Sea. Qohor and Norvos broke their power on the Rhoyne when the fire galleys fought on Dagger Lake. Out of the east came the Dothraki, driving smallfolk from their hovels and nobles from their estates, until only grass and ruins remained from the forest of Qohor to the headwaters of the Selhoru. After a century of war, Volantis found herself broken, bankrupt, and depopulated. It was then that the elephants rose up. They have held sway ever since. Some years the tigers elect a triarch, and some years they do not, but never more than one, so the elephants have ruled the city for three hundred years.”

Maybe this wasn’t just to set the stage for the Volantene elections, but to remind us that the Dothraki can come out of the east to wreak havoc…. when the Free Cities are weak. And boy, is Volantis looking undefended right now: the Golden Company is gone to Westeros, other sellsword companies have gone to Meereen, the Volantenes have sent their fleets to Meereen.

Before I continue, here’s a map of the locations of the Dothraki khalasars along the Rhoyne:

Why we should care

We can be almost certain that Dany has to return to Vaes Dothrak to visit the Dosh Khaleen. Though we don’t know for sure if Khal Jhaqo’s forces are going to outpower Dany and Drogon, Dany is already envisioning the future where she returns to Vaes Dothrak when she sees Jhaqo’s outrider at the end of ADWD:

One rider, and alone. A scout. He was one who rode before the khalasar to find the game and the good green grass, and sniff out foes wherever they might hide. If he found her there, he would kill her, rape her, or enslave her. At best, he would send her back to the crones of the dosh khaleen, where good khaleesi were supposed to go when their khals had died.

Of course, we ought to already have known this from Dany’s vision in the House of the Undying:

Beneath the Mother of Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed.

If Dany was truly seeing her future—and I believe she was—then we know we will inevitably be seeing her return to Vaes Dothrak to accept the homage of the Dosh Khaleen.

However, this creates a bigger problem: we need Dany to get to Westeros, and potentially have time to also reach both Volantis and Pentos (though whether or not Dany will actually go either of those places is purely speculation, however well-founded). Vaes Dothrak is in the entirely opposite direction from where she is now—that would be heading east, away from Westeros, not closer to her end goal.

For some readers, this isn’t a concern: we might trust Quaithe, who reminds Dany that:

To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.

Some readers, though, wonder about the time and ability for TWOW to contain this storyline within its time. GRRM is realistic about how long travel time takes, which is great for the realism, but presents immense logistic problems.

Dany doesn’t need to worry about the time it takes to travel long distances as mucha as she used to—if she can begin to control Drogon, she can fly around at will. However, that’s only her; if Dany does gain the allegiance of the Dothraki at Vaes Dothrak, how can she actually leverage that in a meaningful way when they’re constrained to horseback? While the AGOT timeline is largely unclear, we can use Dany’s pregnancy to at least be sure it takes months to get from one side of the Dothraki Sea (in Dany III) to Vaes Dothrak (in Dany IV). Does Dany have months to mobilize Dothraki from one side of the Sea to the other?

With the Dothraki along the Rhoyne, though, she doesn’t need to wait for anyone to ride across the sea. Conveniently, they’re already there. If there’s some way to send a message that the Dosh Khaleen have decreed that the Dothraki will follow Dany, that she is the Stallion Who Mounts the World, then she has a ready-made army just waiting for her word to cross the Rhoyne after all, and take the Free Cities. Then Dany can fly over there on her own and just meet them.

I know we’re all looking forward to Dany taking Volantis, so I don’t want to propose something too contrary, but how about this: sicne we’ve been hearing all through ADWD that there are a ton of Dothraki already in place, conveniently for story purposes, ready to accept their regular gifts… or perhaps ready to act if, for example, word came that the Stallion Who Mounts The World has come after all. That might speed things up a bit. We know Volantis is only weakly defended, we know there are Dothraki outside of Selhorys, Qohor, and Volon Therys. Dany has spent five books searching for home and finding one among the people she’s freed. Maybe this is how she makes sure it’s the Volantene slavers who don’t have a home to go back to this time.

[istumpysk]

OPERATION ICEBERG: THE TIER LIST

THEORY:

Curtain of Light

TIER:

Fanfiction: These "theories" are nothing short of delusional fan-crafted fantasies, embarrassingly disconnected from any shred of textual reality.

[Tier list overview]

EVIDENCE:

Oh boy!

First, let's outline the theory.

Please note, like any other fan theory, there are always minor differences of opinion. So, we'll cover the basics that most people seem to agree on.

Daenerys, Jon, and Tyrion are the three heads of the dragon.

To defeat the Others, they will each mount a dragon and travel as far north as possible, beyond a curtain of light, where they will encounter a Lovecraftian, apocalyptic dimension filled with all kinds of monsters.

While they are beyond this curtain of light, they will engage in life-affirming activities in the face of death. Some believe this could manifest as Tyrion learning to love himself, childbirth, or a sexual encounter between Jon and Daenerys.

They will then sacrifice themselves and their dragons to defeat the Others. Presumably, much will go up in flames.

Apparently, this epitomizes the theme of the human heart in conflict with itself and will serve as the conclusion of the story.

Now, for the evidence...

Oops, there isn't any.

If you've ever had the privilege of reading someone discuss this theory, you'll have noticed a glaring lack of textual support. Nevertheless, I'll do my best to piece together a coherent argument for why this could happen.

(Honestly, I'm a bit bitter that I'm putting in more effort to prove this theory than anyone else has.)

What does it mean when something is Lovecraftian?

To borrow from dictionary.com, 'Lovecraftian' pertains to elements reminiscent of the works of fantasy and horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, especially those that depict monstrous, misshapen beings from other dimensions or universes.

George R. R. Martin, a fan of literature, incorporates numerous Lovecraftian references in his A Song of Ice and Fire series and its associated works.

Examples include:

Leng (Island): Inspired by Lovecraft's Plateau of Leng.

Sarnath (City): Likely inspired by the city of Sarnath in Lovecraft's "The Doom that Came to Sarnath."

Ib (Island/Civilization): Possibly a nod to Ib from "The Doom that Came to Sarnath."

K'dath in the Grey Waste: Inspired by Lovecraft's Kadath in the Cold Waste.

Church/Cult of Starry Wisdom: A probable reference to the same cult in Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark."

Deep Ones: Likely inspired by the aquatic creatures in Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth."

"What's dead may never die": Possibly inspired by Lovecraft's phrase "That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange eons even death may die."

The Drowned God: Possibly a nod to Lovecraft's Cthulhu.

Dagon: An Ironborn-associated name, also an ancient being in Lovecraft's lore.

The Black Goat of Qohor: Possibly a reference to Lovecraft's Shub-Niggurath, the "Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young."

N'Ghai and Nefer: Likely inspired by Lovecraft's N'Kai, an underground realm associated with Tsathoggua.

Are you noticing a pattern? These nods to Lovecraft are mostly found in peripheral settings, with minor association to the Ironborn. George tends to make a lot of references to all kinds of literature in a similar fashion.

I'd hesitate to jump to the conclusion that this implies the existence of a parallel universe with otherworldly monsters, accessible via a portal in the far north. But since this is appearing in the evidence section, I guess we'll do that anyway.

Moving on.

The words "curtain of light" appear in a Bran chapter. One time. In only this chapter.

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. - Bran III, AGOT

Melisandre also references curtains, though they are clearly different curtains than Bran's curtains. Whatever, it's fine.

Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky. - Melisandre I, ADWD

x

The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. - Melisandre I, ADWD

There is a place called the Land of Always Winter. It's like the Arctic.

The icy trenches rose around them, knee high, then waist high, then higher than their heads. They were in the heart of Winterfell with the castle all around them, but no sign of it could be seen. They might have easily been lost amidst the Land of Always Winter, a thousand leagues beyond the Wall. - Theon I, ADWD

x

Yet no matter the truths of their arts, the children were led by their greenseers, and there is no doubt that they could once be found from the Lands of Always Winter to the shores of the Summer Sea. - The World of Ice and Fire—Ancient History: The Dawn Age

x

What is commonly accepted is that the Age of Heroes began with the Pact and extended through the thousands of years in which the First Men and the children lived in peace with one another. With so much land ceded to them, the First Men at last had room to increase. From the Land of Always Winter to the shores of the Summer Sea, the First Men ruled from their ringforts. - The World of Ice and Fire—Ancient History: The Age of Heroes

The Others are believed to originate from the Land of Always Winter, where, according to legend, you can also find spooky ice spiders.

However, I should mention, a detail that might be easily missed in the books is that they are currently at Hardhome and continue to press south towards the Wall.

Yet there are other tales—harder to credit and yet more central to the old histories—about creatures known as the Others. According to these tales, they came from the frozen Land of Always Winter, bringing the cold and darkness with them as they sought to extinguish all light and warmth. The tales go on to say they rode monstrous ice spiders and the horses of the dead, resurrected to serve them, just as they resurrected dead men to fight on their behalf. - The World of Ice and Fire—Ancient History: The Long Night

In 2012, George confirmed that future books would explore further and further north. No shit, you don't say. I wonder if Bran's journey through history, where we learn more about the origins of the Others, has anything to do with that.

"And what lies really north in my books—we haven't explored that yet, but we will in the last two books." - George R. R. Martin

Bran uses the common metaphor "the heart of _____ (winter)" in the same passage that the curtain of light appears. Later, in another book, Daenerys enters the House of the Undying, where she encounters blue figures reminiscent of the Others. There, she finds a literal blue heart that appears to be their life force. Drogon eats it. Together, these things might suggest that there is a literal blue heart beyond a portal that needs to be set on fire to defeat the Others.

Also, another time, Theon stands in the middle of Winterfell and uses the same "the heart of" metaphor (common phrase found throughout the series). Shortly after, he references the Land of Always Winter, so I thought I would throw it in to be generous.

He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. - Bran III, AGOT

x

They were in the heart of Winterfell with the castle all around them, but no sign of it could be seen. They might have easily been lost amidst the Land of Always Winter, a thousand leagues beyond the Wall. - Theon I, ADWD

x

A long stone table filled this room. Above it floated a human heart, swollen and blue with corruption, yet still alive. It beat, a deep ponderous throb of sound, and each pulse sent out a wash of indigo light. The figures around the table were no more than blue shadows. As Dany walked to the empty chair at the foot of the table, they did not stir, nor speak, nor turn to face her. There was no sound but the slow, deep beat of the rotting heart. [...] Through the indigo murk, she could make out the wizened features of the Undying One to her right, an old old man, wrinkled and hairless. His flesh was a ripe violet-blue, his lips and nails bluer still, so dark they were almost black. Even the whites of his eyes were blue. They stared unseeing at the ancient woman on the opposite side of the table, whose gown of pale silk had rotted on her body. One withered breast was left bare in the Qartheen manner, to show a pointed blue nipple hard as leather. She is not breathing. Dany listened to the silence. None of them are breathing, and they do not move, and those eyes see nothing. Could it be that the Undying Ones were dead? [...] Then indigo turned to orange, and whispers turned to screams. Her heart was pounding, racing, the hands and mouths were gone, heat washed over her skin, and Dany blinked at a sudden glare. Perched above her, the dragon spread his wings and tore at the terrible dark heart, ripping the rotten flesh to ribbons, and when his head snapped forward, fire flew from his open jaws, bright and hot. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

x

Only its eyes lived. Bright blue, just as Jon said. They shone like frozen stars. 

[...]

When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. - Samwell I, ASOS

If you cherry-pick through the text and remove all context, you might be able to piece together a few sentences suggesting that life and love will defeat the Others and that a great self-sacrifice is imminent.

The man looked over at the woman. "The things I do for love," he said with loathing. - Bran II, AGOT

x

We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy. - Jon VIII, AGOT

x

"Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same." - Sansa IV, ACOK

x

"You're mine," she whispered. "Mine, as I'm yours. And if we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we'll live." - Jon V, ASOS

x

Someone threw a stone, and when Dany looked, her shoulder was torn and bloody. "No," she wept, "no, please, stop it, it's too high, the price is too high." More stones came flying. - Daenerys VIII, AGOT

x

"You are a boy of fourteen," Benjen said. "Not a man, not yet. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up." "I don't care about that!" Jon said hotly. "You might, if you knew what it meant," Benjen said. "If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son." - Jon I, AGOT

Daenerys is convinced that there will be three heads of the dragon, and let me tell you, that girl's expectations are always fulfilled.

"If you were grown," she told Drogon, scratching him between the horns, "I'd fly you over the walls and melt that harpy down to slag." But it would be years before her dragons were large enough to ride. And when they are, who shall ride them? The dragon has three heads, but I have only one. She thought of Daario. If ever there was a man who could rape a woman with his eyes . . . - Daenerys V, ASOS

If the author leads you to believe that something will happen, it must be true.

Lastly, I should mention that there are vague references suggesting that George has written other stories with events and themes similar to this proposed ending. However, I can't verify these claims, and unsurprisingly, the works in question are never cited.

Well, that was it.

Say what you will about the "Daario is Euron" theorists, but at least they attempt to back up their crazy idea with actual text from the books.

COUNTER-EVIDENCE:

To put it bluntly, this theory has no basis—no textual support, no historical parallels, no evidence in the companion books, no prophetic visions, no dreams, no myths, no legends, no similarities to the television show, and no foreshadowing to speak of. It is entirely made up, with only a few words from the text as its foundation.

Does that sound like George R. R. Martin to you?

That said, now that I’ve realized his three-fold revelation strategy, I see it in play almost every time. The first, subtle hint for the really astute readers, followed later by the more blatant hint for the less attentive, followed by just spelling it out for everyone else. It’s a brilliant strategy, and highly effective. - Anne Groell, George R. R. Martin's editor

A Song of Ice and Fire is about the people of Westeros putting aside their petty differences and uniting against two existential threats: ice, represented by the Others, and fire, represented by Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons. It's not a story about fire defeating ice.

Well, of course, the two outlying ones — the things going on north of the Wall, and then there is Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons — are of course the ice and fire of the title, "A Song of Ice and Fire." The central stuff — the stuff that's happening in the middle, in King's Landing, the capital of the seven kingdoms — is much more based on historical events, historical fiction. It's loosely drawn from the Wars of the Roses and some of the other conflicts around the 100 Years' War, although, of course, with a fantasy twist. You know, one of the dynamics I started with, there was the sense of people being so consumed by their petty struggles for power within the seven kingdoms, within King's Landing — who's going to be king? Who's going to be on the Small Council? Who's going to determine the policies? — that they're blind to the much greater and more dangerous threats that are happening far away on the periphery of their kingdoms. - George R. R. Martin

x

Ice and fire of course are also opposites, they're a duality and there's a lot in my books that are about duality. Certainly the religion of Melisandre, one of the most important characters, I think is basically a dualist religion with the premise that there are two gods. It's somewhat based on Zoroastrianism, and a little bit based on Catharism, Albigenses heresy who I know had some roots here in Spain once upon a time, before they were all killed. The idea of a world divided between good and evil, war between the two, which is so basic to so many fantasy starting with Tolkien, but much more so in the case of Tolkien imitators, was something that I wanted to recast and think about and maybe subvert a little. But I'm still using kind of the language of it, and some of the symbols associated with it. So all of these are grist for the mill, it's not something as simple as saying ice is this and fire is that. They're both many things. And one of the most important things is that both of them, ice and fire will kill you dead. So they're both dangerous in their own ways, hate, love, desire, coldness, they can both be deadly. - George R. R. Martin

x

While the lion of Lannister and the direwolf of Stark snarl and scrap, however, a second and greater threat takes shape across the narrow sea, where the Dothraki horselords mass their barbarian hordes for a great invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, led by the fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the Targaryen dragonlords. The Dothraki invasion will be the central story of my second volume, A Dance with Dragons. The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call "life." - The Original Outline

x

I have tried to make it explicit in the novels that the dragons are destructive forces, and Dany (Daenerys Targaryen) has found that out as she tried to rule the city of Meereen and be queen there.

She has the power to destroy, she can wipe out entire cities, and we certainly see that in 'Fire and Blood,' we see the dragons wiping out entire armies, wiping out towns and cities, destroying them, but that doesn't necessarily enable you to rule — it just enables you to destroy. - George R. R. Martin

In the established lore of A Song of Ice and Fire, dragons can't cross the Wall and dislike cold and wet weather. How exactly will they get to this Lovecraftian Land of Always Winter, and how will they be of any use in that climate?

The men of the Night's Watch were as thunderstruck by the queen's dragon as the people of White Harbor had been, though the queen herself noted that Silverwing "does not like this Wall." Though it was summer and the Wall was weeping, the chill of the ice could still be felt whenever the wind blew, and every gust would make the dragon hiss and snap. "Thrice I flew Silverwing high above Castle Black, and thrice I tried to take her north beyond the Wall," Alysanne wrote to Jaehaerys, "but every time she veered back south again and refused to go. Never before has she refused to take me where I wished to go. I laughed about it when I came down again, so the black brothers would not realize anything was amiss, but it troubled me then and it troubles me still." - Fire & Blood: Jaehaerys and Alysanne—Their Triumphs and Tragedies

x

Autumn was well advanced when the Prince of Dragonstone came to Winterfell. The snows lay deep upon the ground, a cold wind was howling from the north, and Lord Stark was in the midst of his preparations for the coming winter, yet he gave Jacaerys a warm welcome. Snow and ice and cold made Vermax ill-tempered, it is said, so the prince did not linger long amongst the northmen, but many a curious tale came out of that short sojourn. - Fire & Blood: the Dying of the Dragons—A Son for a Son

x

The big man looked out toward the terrace. "I knew it would rain," he said in a gloomy tone. "My bones were aching last night. They always ache before it rains. The dragons won't like this. Fire and water don't mix, and that's a fact. You get a good cookfire lit, blazing away nice, then it starts to piss down rain and next thing your wood is sodden and your flames are dead." - The Dragontamer, ADWD

x

He saw no sign of dragons, but he had not expected to. The dragons did not like the rain. - The Queen's Hand, ADWD

x

(bonus, for laughs:)

"The things…Mother have mercy, I do not know how to speak of them…they were…worms with faces…snakes with hands…twisting, slimy, unspeakable things that seemed to writhe and pulse and squirm as they came bursting from her [Aerea Targaryen] flesh. Some were no bigger than my little finger, but one at least was as long as my arm…oh, Warrior protect me, the sounds they made…" "They died, though. I must remember that, cling to that. Whatever they might have been, they were creatures of heat and fire, and they did not love the ice, oh no. One after another they thrashed and writhed and died before my eyes, thank the Seven. I will not presume to give them names…they were horrors." - Fire & Blood: Jaehaerys and Alysanne—Their Triumphs and Tragedies

House Targaryen and their dragons played no role in the previous Long Night.

How the Long Night came to an end is a matter of legend, as all such matters of the distant past have become. In the North, they tell of a last hero who sought out the intercession of the children of the forest, his companions abandoning him or dying one by one as they faced ravenous giants, cold servants, and the Others themselves. Alone he finally reached the children, despite the efforts of the white walkers, and all the tales agree this was a turning point. Thanks to the children, the first men of the Night's Watch banded together and were able to fight—and win—the Battle for the Dawn: the last battle that broke the endless winter and sent the Others fleeing to the icy north. Now, six thousand years later (or eight thousand as True History puts forward), the Wall made to defend the realms of men is still manned by the sworn brothers of the Night's Watch, and neither the Others nor the children have been seen in many centuries. - The World of Ice and Fire—Ancient History: The Long Night

x

The Targaryens were of pure Valyrian blood, dragonlords of ancient lineage. Twelve years before the Doom of Valyria (114 BC), Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer and moved with all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children to Dragonstone, a bleak island citadel beneath a smoking mountain in the narrow sea. - The World of Ice and Fire—The Reign of the Dragons: The Conquest

Bran's curtain of light is simply a reference to the aurora borealis. For the love of christ, it's not a portal to another dimension.

North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. - Bran III, AGOT

x

Sailors, by nature a gullible and superstitious lot, as fond of their fancies as singers, tell many tales of these frigid northern waters. They speak of queer lights shimmering in the sky, where the demon mother of the ice giants dances eternally through the night, seeking to lure men northward to their doom. - The World of Ice and Fire—Beyond the Free Cities: The Shivering Sea

Speaking of Bran, why isn't he central to this theory? Didn't that sentence appear in his chapter? What is Arya up to? Where is Sansa? Why are the Starks, who are the central characters of this series, taking a backseat in their own conflict, which is unfolding in their own backyard?

(Not to mention the Night's Watch, the wildlings, the northerners, and the children of the forest—you know, the people who are actually integral to this storyline.)

Yeah, the children were always at the heart of this. The Stark children, in particular, were always very central. Bran is the first viewpoint character that we meet, and then we meet Jon and Sansa and Arya and the rest of them. It was always my intention to do that. - George R. R. Martin

x

Whenever I propose analogies like that, fans jump in with their own ideas, but it depends on what team you root for. To me, the Starks are heroes, so they would be the Giants. - George R. R. Martin

It's going to be a pact facilitated by Bran.

What is commonly accepted is that the Age of Heroes began with the Pact and extended through the thousands of years in which the First Men and the children lived in peace with one another. - The World of Ice and Fire—Ancient History: The Age of Heroes

x

Regardless, the children of the forest fought as fiercely as the First Men to defend their lives. Inexorably, the war ground on across generations, until at last the children understood that they could not win. The First Men, perhaps tired of war, also wished to see an end to the fighting. The wisest of both races prevailed, and the chief heroes and rulers of both sides met upon the isle in the Gods Eye to form the Pact. - The World of Ice and Fire—Ancient History: The Coming of First Men

x

According to these tales, the return of the sun came only when a hero convinced Mother Rhoyne's many children—lesser gods such as the Crab King and the Old Man of the River—to put aside their bickering and join together to sing a secret song that brought back the day. - The World of Ice and Fire—Ancient History: The Long Night

x

How the Long Night came to an end is a matter of legend, as all such matters of the distant past have become. In the North, they tell of a last hero who sought out the intercession of the children of the forest, his companions abandoning him or dying one by one as they faced ravenous giants, cold servants, and the Others themselves. Alone he finally reached the children, despite the efforts of the white walkers, and all the tales agree this was a turning point. Thanks to the children, the first men of the Night's Watch banded together and were able to fight—and win—the Battle for the Dawn: the last battle that broke the endless winter and sent the Others fleeing to the icy north. - The World of Ice and Fire—Ancient History: The Long Night

Tyrion Lannister is not a Targaryen; he is not one of the three heads of the dragon. He is the malevolent, vindictive son of Tywin Lannister. He rapes women, he kills women, he marries child hostages to acquire their castles, he will be complicit in the death of potentially hundreds of thousands of people, and he isn't getting anything remotely resembling a heroic ending.

Jaime kissed her cheek. "He left a son." "Aye, he did. That is what I fear the most, in truth." That was a queer remark. "Why should you fear?" "Jaime," she said, tugging on his ear, "sweetling, I have known you since you were a babe at Joanna's breast. You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there's some of Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak . . . but Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you. I said so once to your father's face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years." - Jaime V, AFFC

Daenerys and her dragons represent one of the two principal threats in the narrative. Azor Ahai is a misinterpreted prophecy that is intended as a warning, not as the foretelling of a hero.

Since the first book, her sole objective has been to rule foreign lands seized through force. She exploits slaves, consistently engages in brutal acts of violence, and leaves devastation wherever she sets foot. She will intentionally burn King's Landing to the ground, and then she'll be stabbed to death.

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words. "Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass. - Daenerys X, ADWD

The idea that Daenerys, Jon, and Tyrion will love themselves or each other, either physically or emotionally, and then collectively sacrifice themselves, is the dumbest climax anyone has ever conceived. You forfeit the right to ever complain about the show if this is what you thought should happen.

Finally, please remember that, by default, the original creators of this theory are always wrong about everything.

STUMPY'S THOUGHTS:

You might be asking yourselves, "How do we distinguish between joke and fanfiction theories?"

I'll tell you. Both are equally absurd, but the fanfiction tier has the unique quality of making you feel like you're reading a story written by a fanfic writer who's in denial about their aspirations to write fanfic.

VOTE:

I welcome discussions. Feel free to reblog, respond, or challenge my perspective—I won't be offended by any of it.

Please note, if "no" is the eventual winner, or if it's competitive, a second poll will be conducted to determine the proper location.*

*won't be necessary for this theory.

NEXT THEORY:

Varys has Tyrek Lannister

[keaganz]

Khalasars Blessing

Ship: pre-Steddie/CW: Blood, ingeries, violence/Tags: Game Of Thrones inspired, A/B/O, Alpha Eddie Munson, Omega Steve Harrington, Feral Steve Harrington, age difference, First meeting, Khaleesi Steve Harrington, Khal Eddie Munson, Clueless Eddie Munson, Terrified Eddie Munson, Kidnapping, Steve Harrington has a blood kink, is it considered rude to Kidnap your mate and force them to adjust and live by your customs? It's Game Of Thrones code, it's not a happy frolic in the park.

Brief glossary of terms used;

Khal - Dothraki warlord.

Khaleesi - The wife of the khal.

Khalasar - Dothraki clan or tribe, led by a khal.

Ko - Kos are lieutenants of a khal, commanding subdivisions of a khalasar.

Dothrakhqoyi ( "Bloodrider") - a Dothraki warrior that has pledged his life to the service of a khal.

Sweep/Swipe - swinging your sword in a wide circle at your opponent’s head or at their shins

Empty Fade - Leaping backwards as if to fade but immediately leaping forwards again

Hilt - the generic name for the entire part of the sword near your hands, the part that is not the blade

Lunge - leaping forwards while leaving the feet in the same orientation.

Slope - moving diagonally backwards back and left

Chapter 2

The first winter he and his uncle spend living within the horde is rough, to say the least. While they do get treated better than the slaves, no one bothers to teach them Dothraki. They will just point and talk. Eddie gets a crash course in riding and fighting together with the young pups that are just old enough to learn. He figures out quickly that the guys his age make fun of him constantly. He learns from the slaves that the omega boy's name is Steve and that he is to be the next Khaleesi and leader of this group. The oldest slave recalled when he was born and how the whole khalasars had a huge celebration and travelled back to Vaes Dothrak after just being there to show the blessing they got. He learns that they only travel to the great city every few summers and sometimes stay away even longer. That first winter, he only catches a few glimpses of Steve, and every time, he can't help reaching out to touch his long healed neck. When his rut happens, he's sent away with a guard to keep an eye on him. He doesn't get why he isn't allowed to choose like the others. An unmated alpha gets the choice to spend their rutt with a female omega or a beta of either gender or leave to deal with it alone. But with each subsequent rutt, he gets sent away to deal with it.

His first duel takes place after two winters, he isn't sure what he did to warrant one, and he's terrified as he faces his opponent. He is sure that Steve's protection is the only reason they wait until he's better trained. He narrowly gets the upper hand by being able to think on his feet and using an old injury to slow him down. From then on, he starts getting some more respect and even makes two friends. They help him with training and teach him basic Dothraki, and he teaches them the CommonTounge. After his third winter, he started winning more duels, and his riding skills improved greatly, it's still obvious that he's not a born rider but he's managed to saddle train his own mount. The next three winters pass relatively the same, the only big change is that he gets to see Steve more in passing, he even gets to ride three horses behind him.

Life is altogether pretty peaceful and follows a somewhat of a rhythm and structure. But that disappears when they make it to a favoured pasture near the Forest of Qohor and another somewhat friendly khalasars is already there. The Khals come to the decision to share and combine their strength to raid the closest free city. Eddie does stand out with his more slender build and curly hair that has a problem staying braided. Nothing really happens the first two weeks, apart from some funny looks and bullying. Eddie can feel something is off when he wakes up, he can tell he's not the only one. There is a tension in the air making him incredible on edge. It's gone midday when an alpha from the other khalasar approaches him “Lamb-man, I challenge you. You are undeserving of the blessings favour, and I will prove it.” All of his previous duels, scrapping and brawling have taken place where they stand, with maybe a few onlookers, but his opponent insists they do it publicly and in the middle of the camp ground.

As he approaches the large fire pit that's been cleared to host the fight he picks up the scent of an omega on the cusp of their first heat. The smell is so sickly sweet it's bordering on rancid, but it makes his nostrils flair, his mouth fill with saliva, and his fangs drop nicking his bottom lip. He feels light headed as his blood quickly rushes to his dick, making it kick up uncomfortably. He swivels his head around trying to figure out who it is. He quickly zeros in on Steve standing with their current Khaleesi. He can't help letting his eyes roam over what skin he can see before their eyes lock. Even from their distance he can see the sheen of sweat making his skin glow, the rosy glow to his cheeks, but most striking is the glazed look in eyes as they lock. He can feel his breath being punched out of him making him stumble over his own feet. A snicker right next to him breaks the spell he's under and quickly wipes his mouth with his forearm as he swallows. “That explains why everyone is on edge, and why he wants an audience. If I wasn't aware that the blessing wishes to have you mount him, I would be convinced he wants you dead, with how he's looking at you” Eddie let's out a humourless chuff. “I'm still not convinced that he doesn't. I was sure I was about to get killed when he found him” Gareth snickers and hits him on the back “I have plans to become your Ko and Dothrakhqoyi, now go Lamb-man prove your Khaleesi choose well” He give Eddie a hard, but friendly push into the pit.

Eddie only half listens to the uninspiring drivel the other alpha is spouting out like he's rallying his khalasars to war. He scanned the gathered crowd for a glimpse of his uncle, his uncle gave him a tight smile and a small nod when their eyes meet. He realises the gravity of this pivotal moment, the only reason they are alive and thriving, instead of the merely surviving they were, is all because of Steve. If he loses, but survives, they could still be killed because Steve wouldn't want a disgraced Dothraka, nee Lamb-man as a Khal. Even if he did, his khalasars may not accept it and have him killed either way and have Steve choose a different alpha. If he wins, their survival still isn't guaranteed, while the chances of the current Khal killing them is small, if Steve chooses a different alpha. Wayne's survival is slightly more likely because of his leather tanning skills and rudimental blacksmithing skills. He has also found a mate with a sweet omega and fathered two healthy boy pups. Once the implications of their Khals words about him six winters had dawned on him, he had done his best to become the best warrior and rider he could, anything to be considered valuable. He gets drawn back to the presence and notices that Steves looking at his opponent. Eddie can't help smirking at his curled lips and small fangs on full display. He can imagine hearing his growling from where he stands.

Eddie whips around and can narrowly jump aside when the alpha charges him. He should have paid more attention to him instead of getting lost in his head and omegas eyes. He hisses loudly when he gets nicked by the other's arakhs as he pulls out his own and blocks most of the hit with it. His opponent turns out to be very skilled as he doesn't telegraph his moves as much, but he relies heavily on the usage of empty fades, slopes and sweeping at his feet. It's hard for Eddie to get a good read of him as he pushed into the defensive position. He fades, parries and pivots to the best of his abilities but he can't completely avoid getting further scratches and cuts. As the fight drags on and he gradually starts tiring he's only managed a few good lunges and thrusts, one that makes contact, leaving him with a gash across his face, he realises that he's wholly unmatch in brute strength and skill. It makes his confidence wane and miscalculate a fade, resulting in him tripping and rolling on the floor evading the arakhs getting thrust at him from above. With a lot of difficulty he manages to get himself up right and on his feet again.

The heady nearly rancid sweet smell grows thicker, nearly choking him, as it grows stronger. He wheezes through a coughing fit and hears the other alpha having the same issue. He hears a distinctive omegan growl rumbling lower than the dim of the crowd around him and chuffs out an answering rumble of his own, low and steady. Steve being so close and growling catches the other alpha off guard. It's not a sound many people are accustomed with. Omegas are best known for their chirping, trilling and purring sounds. Sounds meant to sooth, please, excite, and signal distress, cry for help. Only few can produce a soft growl, fewer still one that rivals an alphas in intensity. He doesn't care if others would call it deceitful or dishonorable but he uses this distraction to lunge at his opponent thrusting his arakhs upwards into the meat of his left shoulder. His arakhs snaps in half due to the force of it hitting his shoulder blade. Time seems to slow down and stop as the crowd abruptly quiets down around him and his senses and arms are suddenly filled with a trilling and chirping omega.

Nothing else exists but the scent filling his lungs as he heavily pants, greedily taking his fill of it, the nearly unbearable heat radiating against his fatigued and bleeding body, soothing and scorching him. His vision focuses as hands frame his face and tilt his head to the side baring his throat and neck. Hyped up on adrenaline and pre-heat pheromones, his instincts win out, he curls his lip up flashing his fangs in warning as he reaches up and grabs the intricate braid by its base yanking the omegas head back. “Settle ‘mega!” Eddie watches transfixed on Steve's flushed face, instead of bowing his head in submission he lets his hands slide down Eddie's face, across his throat and down his chest. He hisses sharply as clever fingers prod and poke shallow cut, the omega withdraws his hand and brings it up to mouth, smearing Eddie's blood around before licking his fingers clean.

~ Steve pov~

Steve was so pleased with himself at finding his Khal that the stern talking he had gotten from the Khaleesi and subsequently his mother didn't dampen his spirit. He doesn't understand why people are upset about him choosing a Lamb-man over a Dothrak alpha. He just knows deep in his bones that the boy he chose is destined to become a great warrior, and everything can be learned.

Over the next few summers he watches the boy, whose name turns out to be Eddie, from the shadows. Every chance he gets to catch a glimpse of him he grabs with both hands. He employs lower classed people to keep him informed of his progress and integration within the khalasar. When he learns of him winning his first duel, Steve's heart sores and he feels vindicated in his unwavering faith. He takes his own training more seriously, wanting to be able to keep up with him. He wants to be raiding next to him, sharing in the spoils and spilt blood. As his name day come and go his dreams start turning more dark and explicit, gone is the innocent childish notation of what a mating entails. The innocent sharing of a bed, hand holding and chaste kisses are replaced by filthy rutting in the moonlight and bloody kisses that leave his core throbbing and his underthings soaked in slik.

He's just a few days after his fifteenth name day when he wakes with his lower stomach cramping and he feels feverishly. He whines pitifully as he rolls over on to his side. His whine wakes his bed companion, a slightly older omega “ What is wrong Steve? Did you dream off your alpha lamb again and wake up alone?” She snickers rolling closer but quickly sits up with a gasp “ Oh! Steve, it's happening! You're about to go through your first heat!” She checks the bedding under him looking for blood stains. Steve snarls at her for jostling him about “ I feel horrible, I'm hot, sweaty, my stomach feels like a stampede of horses running around and like I wet myself. I don't want this” She ignores his hissing and gently stokes his forehead before helping him sit up “ You do, it means that you can finally let your Lamb stake his claim and your body is telling you it's ready to give him many pups” Steve groans as he slowly stands up and nearly falls back down. She steads him “Don't worry, your lamb will make it all better. We just need to wash up and make you presentable” Steve doesn't normally let others move him around, but his pre-heat is making him sluggish and docile. He allows her and a few other omegas to ritually wash and dress him. He patiently sits half dazed as they brush out his hair and rebraid it using sweet smelling oils and adorned it with small flowers. He gets forced to eat some dried meat and berries.

Just after midday a commotion alerts them that something big is about to happen. A woman pokes her head into the tent he's currently resting in “a Ko from the other khalasar has officially challenged the Lamb-man to a duel for the right to claim the blessing” His eyes snap open at that and snarls. He ungracefully stumbles out of the tent knocking into someone before being helped to stand straight. He watches unfocused as the fire pit gets cleared. He ignores the challenging Ko as he posters and vies for his attention. He makes his way unsteadily towards his Khal and Khaleesi to stand with them. He tries his best to focus on what's going on around him but that disappears when Eddie walks up. His breath hitches and he can feel a glob of slik pouring out of him as their eyes meet. He ignores the khal shifting uncomfortably next to him and the multiple others discreetly either adjusting themselves or covering their noses. His cheeks flush and his breathing becomes shallow, but the intense cramping has lessened some as they look at each other. His attention gets pulled away from his alpha by the Ko calling out his name and making some speech. He curls his lip and flashes his small omegan fangs, showing his displeasure.

Steve snarls as the Ko attacks Eddie without warning and nicks him. It takes him a Herculean effort to focus on the fight, each time Eddie gets hit, his lips curl and he snarls. As the fight progresses he strains against the hold his Khaleesi has on him and he can feel her losing her grip on him. When Eddie stumbles and falls to the ground, he rips himself from her grip and pushes himself forewords through the crowd. The members of his khalasar all move aside quickly to let him pass, sensing the fury radiating from the omega. Steve stops at the edge of the pit and growls loudly, hearing Eddie answering chuff makes his knees wobble as more slik coats his underthings. The throbbing in his core intensifies as he watches Eddie cry out as he lunges and stabs the Ko in his right shoulder. As Eddie steps back his arakhs snapping, Steve can't control himself and launches at his alpha and presses up as close as he can, chirping and trilling his pleasure. He cradles the alphas face tenderly and goes to tilt his head again. Unlike in their childhood Eddie stops him this time by grabbing his braid and yanking his head back. He isn't ready to submit just yet, so he drags his hands down his body until he finds one of his wounds and collects the blood. He maintains eye contact as he brings bloody hands to face, smearing the blood around his lips before licking them clean.

[blue-mint-winter]

Reading TWOIAF - the regions section:

Each region has a description with some legends and history from before the Conquest, so it feels like they could have been placed earlier in the book. The history is in general rather repetitive, first the settling by First Men, some mentions of children of the forest and giants, then Andal invasion and recorded history. The wars are also very repetitive and it could be to show how they were done normally, perhaps to contrast with what happens in the main series.

My favourite regional sections were the Vale and Iron Islands in Westeros, then Free Cities - Qohor, Lorath and Braavos sound interesting.

There's a lot about marriage alliances and mixing blood between different species, like mentions of humans having children with giants or children of the forest or even sea creatures (Deep Ones). Interestingly, humans are unable to crossbreed with Ibbenese and natives of Sothoryos, which could mean they're completely different species. By A 1000 Worlds' logic First Men and then Andals were in the beginning base humans, then started mixing with other human mutations and that's how they gained psychic abilities. Btw, human/children of the forest hybrids could explain why the histories speak about kings that ruled for hundreds of years, they'd inherit longevity from children of the forest. Valyrian dragonriders were defiitely another mutation, bred selectively. Maybe this is the true explanation of Maegor, he was too Valyrian and not enough human and lost the ability to have children with humans.

The main mystery of the book seems to be the ancient race that built various old structures all around the world, like Seastone Chair, fortress at the base of Hightower, mazes in Lorath, cities of Yeen and Asshai. The widespread locations and lack of equally ancient roads suggest either a spacefaring civilization, human or alien (and the parts about worshipping a stone that fell from the sky could support this theory, as well as the legends of Yi-Ti and the emperor going back to the sky) or an ancient dragonriding civilization. Both of those would have the ability to fly around the world without needing any roads and to make the indestructible structures from black oily stone.

It's also interesting that the practice of voting and electing a leader is ancient and crops up all around the world, but fell out of use in most places. But it hints that it originated with the mysterious ancient race (human space colonists?).

From the description it seems the Free Cities and Essos in general are more advanced than Westeros, bigger, more populous, wealthier. They develop various crafts. Economically, Westeros just doesn't compete, they have raw resources - food, timber, mines... and people. Essos runs on slave trade with Dothraki supplying the slaves they catch, however that resource is drying up as those terrains are getting depopulated. The Essosi invasion in Westeros seems imminent if they want to catch more slaves. Then when you look at Dany's marriage to Drogo, the whole puzzle comes together - in exchange for his crown, Viserys was selling his subjects into slavery.

Braavos is probably the best place to live in freedom, but Pentos is a good choice because weather is better.

Ice dragons above the Shivering Sea - that sounds really cool.

Asshai and Yeen - both ancient cities, made from black oily stone, nothing can grow there, no one can be born there. It's clear that they're toxic and polluted, even after thousands of years. The ancient wars were hardcore or it's the stone itself that's toxic.

Sarnor rhymes with Arnor, looks like another homage to Tolkien - a northern, ruined kingdom.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

For anyone who actually wants to know more about Jaehaelor Mataeryon, "a Valyrian dragonlord and botanist", you can find details here (yes the article is titled "shrubbery", you did not read that wrong) and here. Jaehaelor managed to survive the Doom of Valyria because he was a great big plant nerd on a research trip:

Elsewhere on the continent of Essos were dragonlords, spending time away from their homelands. Some were on patrols, and some to exact punishment upon anyone who dared deny the power of Valyria. Yet one other, whose name has come down to us, was away to take stock of the foliage, plants, and teal mosses known throughout the resplendent forests of Qohor. Jaehaelor Mataeryon, a freeborn landowner and gardener by trade and passion, was at work collecting samples when the earth shook and the sky turned red. As the days passed and news travelled, it became clear that Jaehaelor’s home, family, and people had been destroyed. Not knowing if he were the last of the dragonriders, Jaehaelor packed his bags and flew to the southeasternmost of the free cities, Valyria’s first daughter in Volantis. It was there, if tales can be believed, where he spent the remainder of his life scratching everything he could remember of his gardens on sheets of parchment so long they rivaled the broad stone highways of his people.

And as the article says, it's not known who wrote the original English text, but IMO a good amount of the wording screams GRRM. Just doing a little bit of tertiary character nonsense like he does...

edit: found out the original english was written by Ti Mikkel, GRRM's assistant. *nod* makes perfect sense to me.

if you think youre a hotd lore scholar and do not know the tale of jahaelor mataeryon you're a phony sorry i am officially gatekeeping

[esther-dot]

Show creators did injustice by not properly showing that how Dany created havoc in Essos. They promoted it as she was ridding slavery and killing bad people looking badass. But in books it's more than that. Like the whole Asaptor is hell, slavery returned in Yunkai and we have seen how she is doing as queen in Meereen. Her burning of Dothraki temple is shown as badass in show which will be terrifying in books. Hell they show her burning of Mirri and birthing of Dragons as power move.

I think they did that deliberately because they didn’t want the audience to know where Dany’s trajectory was going. It’s a hell of a thing to choose not to tell the story because you don’t want the audience to realize what the story is too soon, but that is what they did. Not sure how they convinced themselves that was a good idea, but they did. 😬

I guess many of us underestimated how anti war and anti violence Martin is. I definitely did! There is a widespread belief that violence is the solution to certain issues, and it seems that Martin is questioning that idea by showing the limitations of force as a power to bring good or lasting change. That’s a nuanced discussion and flies against some people’s firm political/moral stances. It’s hard to translate that convo to a different medium, but I agree with you that doing so would mean a show critical of Dany. IMO Martin reveals his sentiments repeatedly throughout the series, and we just have to connect the dots:

"Volantis is the oldest of the Nine Free Cities, first daughter of Valyria," the lad replied, in a bored tone. "After the Doom it pleased the Volantenes to consider themselves the heirs of the Freehold and rightful rulers of the world, but they were divided as to how dominion might best be achieved. The Old Blood favored the sword, while the merchants and moneylenders advocated trade. As they contended for rule of the city, the factions became known as the tigers and elephants, respectively.                 

"The tigers held sway for almost a century after the Doom of Valyria. For a time they were successful. A Volantene fleet took Lys and a Volantene army captured Myr, and for two generations all three cities were ruled from within the Black Walls. That ended when the tigers tried to swallow Tyrosh. Pentos came into the war on the Tyroshi side, along with the Westerosi Storm King. Braavos provided a Lyseni exile with a hundred warships, Aegon Targaryen flew forth from Dragonstone on the Black Dread, and Myr and Lys rose up in rebellion. The war left the Disputed Lands a waste, and freed Lys and Myr from the yoke. The tigers suffered other defeats as well. The fleet they sent to reclaim Valyria vanished in the Smoking Sea. Qohor and Norvos broke their power on the Rhoyne when the fire galleys fought on Dagger Lake. Out of the east came the Dothraki, driving smallfolk from their hovels and nobles from their estates, until only grass and ruins remained from the forest of Qohor to the headwaters of the Selhoru. After a century of war, Volantis found herself broken, bankrupt, and depopulated. It was then that the elephants rose up. They have held sway ever since. Some years the tigers elect a triarch, and some years they do not, but never more than one, so the elephants have ruled the city for three hundred years."

"Just so," said Haldon. "And the present triarchs?"         

"Malaquo is a tiger, Nyessos and Doniphos are elephants."                 

"And what lesson can we draw from Volantene history?"

"If you want to conquer the world, you best have dragons."

(ADWD, Tyrion IV)

This idea is talked about in various ways, in various POVs, and Martin seems pretty consistent in his idea that if possible, peace, even at great sacrifice, is better, and means other than war must be used. In entertainment, violence is usually the means by which the good guys win, so it would take a lot of dedication to the theme for writers/showrunners to refuse to glorify violence and instead represent it negatively. They should have, but commercially, I understand why they weren’t going to do that. Whenever they do a remake, I think new showrunners would be wise to approach this very differently and allow the horror of war to be felt. D&D couldn’t do that and keep people thinking this was going to end up happily for Dany though.

[ficsilike-reblogged]

Sweetest of Exiles - Three

A/N: We have reached the end, my loves. As always, all my love to anyone and anyone who read/liked/reblogged and commented on previous chapters. I love you all very much. I allude to a few things that actually happen in ASoIaF lore, so if you have any questions, please just ask!

Pairing: Oberyn Martell x F!Reader (no Y/N), Oberyn Martell x Pero Tovar, Pero Tovar x F!Reader, Ellaria Sand x Oberyn Martell

Warnings for this Chapter: Too much backstory, angst, a threesome, oral (male receiving, female receiving), my uncontrollable need for a happy ending.

Word Count: 6.3k (I need to be stopped)

(banner by my darling @starlight-starwrites​) 

Or read on Ao3 here!

CHAPTER THREE: The Blessed

The sight of Qohor on the horizon almost put tears in her eyes.

She rested her head on her folded arms in the window of the carriage, and watched it grow closer and closer. Home. She was finally home.

But her eyes drifted to the prince and her mercenary as they led the small group toward the city gates. They were quite the pair. And, at least for a few stolen moments, they were all hers.

Most of Oberyn’s company had stayed in Myr, now newly employed by Orestes who had been catapulted to near-royalty status with his wild tales of how his household put down a foreign threat. If his ego had been bruised by her refusing his last-minute proposal, hastily given at the gates of the city and just as easily rejected, he did not show it as he waved them off with a small smile.

Orestes would be fine—she knew it. But his life no longer involved her, no matter his attempts to keep her at his side. No, her future remained unclear. To her, anyway. Her god had not permitted her visions of her own life—perhaps that was for the best.

Again, her eyes drifted to the pair of Oberyn and Pero. And what a pair they were—handsome and startlingly similar in so many ways but different in so many others. While she had been blessed by her god, she considered herself doubly blessed simply for having this pair of men in her life.

The large gates opened and she pulled in a hearty lungful of air, tasting the familiar spices and letting the hint of burnt and cut wood tickle her nose. Nothing compared. And now she had smelt different cities, seen and tasted what they had to offer—she knew nothing could compare. And while she could travel again, she knew that no other place would replace her home.

She called for the carriage to slow to a stop in front of a familiar stone-sided bazaar stall. It was hardly the most eye-catching stall on the cobbled road but it was her favorite. She opened the door before the carriage was completely stopped and she leapt out, pushing by a few possible buyers, and found her father waiting for her with open arms.

His familiar and wonderful arms wrapped around her and he murmured her name into her ear, the word tinged with relief and love. “I shall not have you leave my sight for as long as there is breath in my lungs, my darling.”

“And I shall agree to that, papa.” She pulled back just enough to press a kiss to his grizzled cheek. She turned at the sound of two more people entering the stall and smiled. “Lord Ollo, may I present Prince Oberyn Nymeros Martell—and, of course, you remember Pero Tovar.”

She felt her father stiffen, just for a moment, before he stepped in front of her and greeted the two men. Interesting.

**

She tried to tell herself that it did not hurt when Pero turned away from her after supper, telling her father he wanted to retrace his childhood footsteps with Oberyn. She tried to tell herself that it did not hurt when he was not in the room her father provided for him when she went to speak to him in the middle of the night. She tried to tell herself that it did not hurt when he did not even blink when she presented him with a blue rose and asked if he remembered that day in the forest.

She told herself it did not hurt. But it did.

At least Oberyn was still able to make her smile. He always kissed her goodnight (whether he visited her bedchambers or not) and pulled her into a dance in the cobbled streets when a handful of bards broke into song on a crowded street when she had been showing the prince around the expansive city. “He does not know what he does, Petal. Give him time.”

And perhaps she was being childish, hoping that Pero seeing his old home would bring back his smiles and his affinity for her company, too. But she only nodded at Oberyn’s suggestion and let him lead her in another dance before they set off toward another part of the city, promising him the best spiced hippocras this side of the Narrow Sea. The threat of the zealots had been dealt with—she should be happy. She survived. Her father’s secrets were safe, too.

But when it was quiet on her fifth night back in her own rooms, she knew she could not wait any longer. After pulling on her dressing gown, she sought out her father in his chambers—unsurprised to see him whittling at a chunk of wood instead of sleeping with the late hour. He had not kept regular sleeping hours since her mother had disappeared.

“You should be sleeping, my darling.”

“As should you, papa.” She settled into the cushioned chair beside his working table with a sigh. “Has Pero spoken with you?”

Her father looked at her for a moment before setting down his tools and the bit of wood that was starting to look like a serpent. “He has been cordial, as he always has been. Possibly a bit more unpolished than he had been as a boy—but that was to be expected. It is not often that one meets a well-mannered sellsword.” He almost smiled but it did not last. “I know he has been…different.”

“Has he told you why he left?” She asked, needing to know. Surely her father knew. Right?

But Ollo’s mouth set in a familiar, hard line and he looked away from her. “I had to do it, darling.”

She felt her face crumple at his words. “What do you mean? You were the reason-”

“I sent him away. It was for the best.”

“But…why? Why did you send him away?”

Her father stared at her, lips still set in a firm line before a long breath. “Do you not remember… the day your mother left. You, my darling, hurt Pero. Nearly took his eye.”

“No! No, I…” the words died on her tongue as she tried, tried so hard to remember the day her mother left. Her lady mother had pressed the blue rose petals to her skin and then she had escaped to the forest with Pero, not knowing that would be the last time she would look upon her mother’s face. He had been so sweet. So full of smiles. So different from the hardened man who still held her heart.

She watched the petals float away with the wind and felt something warm slide down her spine—it reminded her of her mother’s calming touch, soothing her when night terrors would keep her awake.

“Petal,” Pero whispered. And she knew it was for her, a name just for her.

But then the gentle warmth turned to a scorching heat and her vision turned dark.

The next thing she remembered was waking on the forest floor, a gentle sprinkling of dew on her cheeks and Pero nowhere to be found.

“I doubt he remembers anything,” her father said as he shook his head. “He stumbled in, face covered in blood. He muttered something about petals and then slumped over on the floor.” He paused. “Just before he completely lost consciousness, he murmured your name and how your eyes had gone white.” Her father paused again. “I knew then what had happened. It had happened with your mother, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your mother’s gift, like yours, needed control. She needed to control it or it would control her. Her control slipped. Just once.”

“What happened?” She sat forward in her chair, needing to know what he had seen.

“It looked like someone, something else had inhabited her skin. Only for a moment. She held out a hand and then I felt the room shake. Like the world was trying to break itself open. And then she took a breath and the shaking stopped.”

“Is that all?”

Her father’s mouth once again set in a familiar firm line. “My darling girl, she leveled two dozen trees—cracked them from the trunks without leaving the room. And after she came back to herself, she told me that she had no idea what had transpired. All she remembered was darkness and a sensation akin to sticking her hand in my forge’s fire. And while she had sworn she had not ever done that before, I remembered it happening. It was the night you were born. The entire city shook—I know it—screaming with you as you entered the world.”

She felt her face fall.

“You toppled part of the city with your first breaths, my darling.” Ollo reached out to gently grasp his daughter’s hands and squeezed. “Your mother was always very careful with teaching you about control.”

“Yes, I remember that.” And she did. Her mother had been adamant to sit her down every day to teach her when to realize something was spiraling, her control was slipping—anything like that. And she had always thought she had learned those lessons. But apparently not.

“Something within you, reached out grabbed at whatever living thing was closest to you—needing blood to flourish. It just happened to be Pero.”

Tears stung her eyes and she looked away from her father, not wanting him to see anymore of her shame. “So you sent him away. To protect him.”

“To protect you both. I knew you would never forgive yourself if you had hurt him again—or taken his life. And I knew he would have willingly given anything to you without thought. I had to separate you to keep you both alive—at least until I was sure you could protect yourself.” He shook his head. “I considered it another small blessing that neither one of you remembered what had transpired. Your memories would not be tainted.” Ollo looked like he wanted to say more but was trying to read her face before he continued. He must have seen her heartbreak, because with a final, defeated sigh, he spoke again. “Your mother left because your power was growing—evolving far faster than she had ever seen or heard, even within her own bloodline. She needed to know why. She wanted to do everything in her power to make sure her daughter, her most prized creation, was safe and protected. Even if it was from yourself.”

“But she never returned,” she said. “She never came back.”

Ollo nodded. “But you are old enough now—you have been old enough for quite some time, actually, but I did not want to admit that to myself—to know what happened to her.” He stood and left the room, returning a few moments later with a roll of parchment. A broken golden seal was stamped on it, curled horns and crossed swords. It was her family’s crest. The parchment felt brittle under her fingers as she took it from her father and she carefully unfurled it.

Within the first handful of words, she had to press the back of her hand to her mouth to keep the cry at bay. Her mother—her fierce, beautiful, powerful mother—had set off toward Asshai in search of answers. Answers as to why her little daughter could do such unimaginable things with ease. Why her magic was growing at a rate not thought of in centuries. But she did not find answers. What she found instead, were a group of zealots, also demanding answers from their bloodthirsty god. And their god had required blood, magical blood, and Valyrian Steel. While Daeryssa had evaded them for a moment, she wrote in her missive that she knew her time was limited. After all, she had seen it.

My dear Ollo, I only wish to have been able to look upon your sweet face again and watch our daughter grow strong and beautiful. I am sorry, my love. I know I will see you again in the next life.

With a shaking hand, she handed the parchment back to her father and he quietly slipped away to hide the bit of paper again. She stared out the window, watching the trees sway in the breeze. “I have ruined your life. Pero’s life. Mother’s life. What good is this gift if it only breeds heartbreak?”

Her father’s roughened hands suddenly reached out to grab hers, the familiar scratchy warmth of his hold nearly made tears come to her eyes. “You, my darling, are powerful. Never forget that—and what you are capable of is not a burden or only capable of destruction. You are the heir to your mother’s blood. To her power—the power her family has carried for centuries. Before the Doom. Before the Dragons—and after. And your mother loved you—loves you still, as I do. What she did for you, I know she would have done a thousand times over if it meant you lived, if it meant you smiled.”

She shook her head, feeling the first tears slip down her cheeks. “But I-”

“No, darling. No. You are powerful. You are blessed. Never think to forsake it. He leads us down a path we must follow. I am just sorry that this road has been so cruel to you and Pero. You deserve kindness. Both of you.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, like he used to do when she was little and had crawled into his lap to watch him work. “I will speak with Pero. But I believe you should as well.” He patted her cheek and gently wiped her tears away. “But first, you must sleep, darling.”

**

“Keep your eyes closed, Petal,” Oberyn hummed into her ear.

She could only laugh and do as she was told, letting Oberyn tug her forward with a gentle grip on her hands.

Oberyn had taken to Qohor easily—and he was fond of almost everything he could find within the city and its famed forest. But she knew the prince missed home, missed Dorne, and his family fiercely. So, she let him do whatever he wanted, let him show her whatever treasure he had discovered and would delight in it with him—even if she had grown up with those little treats, trinkets, and experiences he found so amusing. She would deny him nothing. She only cared to have him smile.

But today, she could not discern what path he was leading her on—and that was a feat in and of itself. A root catching her foot made her stumble but Oberyn quickly righted her footing and kissed her hands with a laugh. “Careful, Petal. I will not have you hurting yourself.”

She only held his hands tighter and let him continue to lead her forward to some unknown destination. But, soon enough, he pulled her to a stop with a laugh.

“Open your eyes, Petal. We are here.”

She did as she was told and had to blink against the sunlight as it streamed through the thick canopy of the forest. Moss-covered stone and soft grass gave way to large, ancient trunks of trees. Truly, it could have been anywhere in the forest—a forest she had grown up in and loved since she could walk on her own—but this place, this one place of sunshine, was magical.

But maybe it was the fact that Pero was nervously pacing on the edge of a finely women blanket that was stacked with a bit of food and an abundance of wine. Pero had shed his usual armor and was left in his worn, gray tunic and linen breeches. He looked…soft and nervous.

“I almost thought you would have left us with crumbs, Tovar. I am surprised there is still food left.”

Tovar’s pacing ceased and he frowned but his dark eyes quickly flitted to her before his shoulders dropped. “You’re here.”

She felt herself smiling at that, the thought that he did not think she would come if he was present was funny. But she bit back her laugh. “Of course I’m here. I don’t believe either one of us can tell our prince ‘no’ under any circumstances.”

“It is part of my charm,” Oberyn said with a wink in her direction before gently pushing her toward the blanket. “Come now, Petal. Our Pero has managed to raid the best taverns and alehouse to bring us the best feast imaginable.”

As she settled on the blanket, she held out a hand toward Pero who still stood stock-still at the edge. Perhaps she could have brushed aside another rejection, but she hoped she would not have to—after all, he had been the one to set this fete up. For her. For them.

And all her worries were washed away when he placed his calloused hand in hers and let her tug him onto the blanket at her side. “What would you suggest first, Pero? It all looks delicious.”

And so, the three of them settled in, partaking in the admittedly delicious foods and wines Pero had procured and soon they were laughing and speaking and smiling as if there had never been any hurt or confusion between them. And perhaps, one day it could always be like that. But the alcohol continued to flow and each of them, she knew, were starting to feel it and their tongues loosened with each new sip. Inhibitions slipped. Laughs grew louder. And she let herself fall against Pero’s side as Oberyn regaled them with a tale about evading Yronwood’s guards on his way to visit his lady-wife’s chambers. Pero easily adjusted her, letting her rest against his muscular thigh and his fingers trailed, almost absentmindedly, down and across the exposed skin of her collarbone as he would snicker at Oberyn’s stories. “You are a braggart, princeling.”

And perhaps she would have also poked fun at Oberyn if she hadn’t been so transfixed with Pero’s gentle touch. Her eyes fluttered close in a wine-fueled haze, letting herself truly enjoy the easy touch of the man she had loved for most of her life.

“I am a Prince of Dorne!” Oberyn cheered.

“Did you have me haul this out here like a poor pack mule so you could tell us these ridiculous stories?”

Oberyn hmphed and almost glared at Pero but a teasing smile softened the expression. “I had a plan. You two are impossible. I could not sit idly by while you both sulk and cry like children. I love you both. You love each other. You just need a bit of guidance.” He waved a hand at the blanket and discarded bottles.

She looked up at Pero to see him looking down at her, fingers paused their ministrations on her skin.

“Of course, not everything will be fixed with a bit of wine,” said Oberyn, ever the expert. “But it is good to let yourself feel something.” Oberyn leaned forward, smile growing, and stole the last bit of overpriced but delicious hippocras from the jug she had been clutching to her side. “Love is simply the best thing to feel. And if anyone in this world deserves to feel it, it is you two.”

“We love you too, Oberyn,” she said, knowing it was true. And Pero hummed his agreement.

“Of course,” he replied with a smirk. “I am easy to love.”

With that strange admission, they continued to drink and eat. But now, touches started to linger. Gazes grew heated. And then Oberyn kissed her as she sat nearly in Pero’s lap. She felt him smile against her mouth before he stole another kiss and sat back on his heels with a wink. But his heated gaze quickly turned to Pero. “Kiss her, Pero. Kiss her as if your life depends on it. And perhaps it does.”

Pero’s hands were warm and calloused as they gently framed her face. She could have sworn his fingers were shaking before she pushed forward to press her lips against his. And he tasted…like paradise.

it would be impossible to know when the laces were starting to be undone, or who slipped their tunic off first. But soon they were bare and hands were grasping and touching and groping.

The haze of the wine and the euphoria of their touch had her gasping and moaning—even before Oberyn’s talented fingers found their way between her thighs. And then Pero’s hand was joining as his mouth dragged down the column of her throat. She bucked up into their touch, only earning a hand pressing down against her stomach and a familiar chuckle in her ear. “Patience, Petal. We will take care of you.”

“But I…” her breath stuttered. “I want to take care you, too.”

Pero carefully pulled his hand back and swatted at Oberyn until he could press her down into the blanket, warm hands pushing her legs apart before leaning down to lick against her pussy and Oberyn devoured the moan she let out.

It did not take long for her to scream in ecstasy against the prince’s mouth—she had never come so fast.

In a daze, she turned her head and took Oberyn’s cock into her mouth, bobbing her head down as much as she was able, and his answering groans were near music to her ears. But soon—too soon—his hands were gently pulling her off of him and licked into her mouth as Pero finally stopped licking at her, and trailed a line of kisses up her stomach to lathe attention at her breasts.

“Can you take us both, Petal?”

She could only nod against Oberyn’s mouth at his question—she would do anything either of them asked.

And carefully, with a bit of reverence in each of their touches, the pair positioned her between them on her knees. Pero was at her front, Oberyn at her back. And she shuttered as something cool was dripped down her back.

It was all in a haze, how they moved to keep her comfortable but still rob the air from her lungs. And she was so full—so deliciously full. Four hands cradled her softly as she adjusted and words of encouragement were whispered against her neck or kisses pressed to her cheeks. It was all so…beautifully stimulating. So wonderfully filled.

And then they began to move.

They were everywhere at once, devouring every sense she had. All of it, all of her, belonged to them in that moment. And she loved it. Loved the slow and harsh thrusts they gave. Loved the slide of their tongues against hers or the sting of their teeth against her skin.

She felt a tightness in her core that she had never before experienced, and she gasped into Pero’s mouth as his hips continued to thrust and Oberyn matched his tempo.

“You’re doing so well, Petal.” Oberyn bit out a curse against her throat. “You feel like heaven.”

“Oh please,” she breathed out, “please-please-please.” She did not know what she was begging for, but the pair readily gave it. Moving their hips in tandem, they dragged her higher and higher until tears were pricking at her eyes and she screamed with her release, feeling the coil snap and bite. It was soon followed by a beautiful, heady warmth and her men groaning into her skin and biting at her neck.

“You’re so beautiful,” Pero whispered against her sweat-slick skin. “So beautiful.”

“And so are you, Pero. You’re beautiful,” she hummed in return. She turned her head and managed to steal a kiss against Oberyn’s panting mouth. “And you are, too, my prince.”

And again, carefully and with veneration, they pulled away from her and let her rest against the rumpled blanket. A cold cloth was pressed between her thighs, cleaning her up as kisses upon kisses were pressed against her heated skin and her slick, smiling lips.

“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,” Pero chanted. “My beautiful Petal.”

**

Oberyn was quiet. That in and of itself was strange—but the rigidity of his posture was even stranger. A small strip of parchment was crumpled in his hand. Something was wrong.

Carefully, slowly, she approached him and slipped her fingers around his, taking the parchment from his grasp. The horror she read in such few lines had her cupping a hand over her mouth to hide her gasp. His sister, her babies, his uncle—all of them gone in brutal ways. And now the men responsible were ruling the Seven Kingdoms.

“I must go back to Westeros,” was all Oberyn said.

She only nodded. She would never deny him his wrath.

And so, their time together came to a close. She had known it was coming, and Pero seemed to know it, too. When he learned of Oberyn’s decision to leave, he only nodded and held her as she cried. He was fond of holding her, it seemed. Even when he did not speak. And she did wish for him to speak—she still had questions that needed answers—but she had to be content with this for now.

He continued to hold her, arms wrapped around her waist, as they met Oberyn at the city gates to see him off. The gift she had brought was heavy in her arms as she watched Oberyn tie his packs to the horse. Tears gathered in her eyes as she held the gift up toward her prince and he took the wrapped package with a nod and untied it carefully. The spear glinted in the sunlight and the wooden handle was carved with a snake, its open maw biting at the metal. It was Valyrian Steel, forged and constructed only for him. “A gift for you. A token of my and my father’s thanks for all you have done.”

She smiled as Oberyn took the spear and twirled it just once, before nodding, the barest trace of a smile on his lips. She considered it a small victory, seeing him smile once more. Just before he left, she pressed a kiss to Oberyn’s lips and then Pero did the same.

“Be safe, my prince.”

The Prince of Dorne only nodded. “I will see you again, my friends. I promise you that.” And then…he was gone.

**

It took some time for her to find Pero in the bazaar. He had taken to working with her father, learning the trade and secret art behind Valyrian Steel. While he still scared some of the Qohorik people, he was gentle with the little ones who wandered away from their mothers and into her father’s stall. His sword had been retired in all but oath. And he seemed to become even more pensive and quiet after Oberyn’s departure. And it almost broke her heart all over again. But she was tired of being hurt. And she wanted answers. So, on the third night after Oberyn left, she slipped into his chambers.

She kneeled on his featherbed and smiled when he startled awake and reached for a blade she knew was hiding beneath his pillow. She pulled it from his grasp and set it aside as he blinked against the dim candlelight of his room.

“Tell me, Pero. Tell me why you left me all those years ago. I cannot bear it any longer. If you must leave me again, leave me as Oberyn did, please give me a reason. That is all I ask. You know you have my heart, I only wish to know yours.”

Pero frowned. “You’ve chosen quite the hour for this question, Petal. Could it not have waited until morning?” But he continued on without waiting for her answer, but his dark eyes fell to the blankets across his waist. “My family’s name had been tarnished by my father’s deeds. What more would having a woodcutter as a son do? It was not as if I could marry and help my family’s prospects. The least I could do was give them a bit of coin to survive. So, I came here and found work with your family. And then…” his dark eyes finally raised to meet hers. “My priorities changed. I only ever wanted to prove myself to you, to your father, to know I was worthy to be at your side. But then I was sent away. Like a little beggar. I knew then that I had been deceiving myself in thinking that I could ever call you mine.”

“But I am. I am yours. I always have been and always will be—even if you send me away and curse my name. I am yours. It was my fault you were sent away. You did nothing wrong. My father adores you. Mother loved you. This was my doing. I…hurt you, Pero. My father sent you away to keep you alive. I did not have control.” She reached up and placed her hand against his cheek, thumb catching the end of the scar below his eye. “Your blood—it called to me. I did not, could not control it. And I hurt you. Father suspects you do not remember it.”

Pero shook his head but she did not remove her hand from his face, unable to part from his warmth again.

“I have only the faintest memory of it and, truthfully, it may be only shaped by my father’s account of the incident. But it was my fault. It was me. If anything had been different, if I had been better, you could have stayed.” Tears once again stung at her eyes. “Can you ever forgive me?”

He was quiet for a moment before, ever so quietly, he said, “there is nothing to forgive. We have both wasted enough time, wouldn’t you agree?”

She could only nod before a happy sob wrenched its way out of her throat and she threw her arms around him, pressing her lips against his over and over again, uncaring of his rumbling laughter. His grip tightened, nearly to the point of pain, before she was lifted off her feet and spun around.

They were suddenly ten years younger and without a care in the world.

“I love you, Petal,” he whispered against her mouth.

“I love you, too.”

She had Pero in her hands again. And she would never let him go.

**

Years passed. And while the pair did take a handful of travels outside Qohor, they always returned to Qohor and the city’s comforting forest and dark stone. When the smallest Tovar came screaming into the world exactly a year after they said their quiet vows in the familiar shadow of the forest, they all decided that their travels would not take them from their home until they knew that their child, a precocious little boy who loved to sit on his grandfather’s lap and watch him work when he was not tugging on his mother’s skirts for attention, could fend for himself.

Another two years passed and another babe was born. This time, they had a little girl. Pero—just as he had been with their son—was smitten the moment he set eyes on their dark hair and gentle eyes. Like her mother, the little one inherited the gift.

She felt tears coming to her eyes when Pero rolled toward her in their overstuffed featherbed and grasped her hands. “I swear to you, our little girl will not suffer as we did. Our boy will know only happiness. On my life, on my blood, I swear it.”

She leaned forward and kissed him, knowing his words to be true.

Her gift flourished with Pero at her side and her children’s laughter ringing in her ears. There was peace in her life, for the most part.

Ravens from Dorne came often. Oberyn was keen on retaining his friendship with the pair and they were always happy to receive his missives and send a lengthy letter back in return. There was a certain anger in most of his letters now, or sadness. Even when he spoke of his love, Ellaria, or announced the birth of his daughter Elia, she and Pero knew he was still grieving. He would always grieve. The prince’s heart was too big to truly heal.

The latest raven arrived on a cold morning, its wings dotted with dew. She stroked under the bird’s neck and it flapped its wings in thanks before flying off after she untied the small bit of parchment from around its leg.

She unfurled it with a sigh, recognizing the handwriting instantly. As soon as she was finished reading it, she found Pero in the small forge outside their home and handed it over. She watched him read it before throwing the paper into the fire, its contents meant to be a secret.

Pero held the sword he was forging into a tub of water and looked at her over the rising steam. “We must go to Braavos.”

The children were happy to spend time alone with their grandfather but did cling to their mother’s skirts and father’s trousers before they left and Pero kept turning back on his horse to look at them as they waved at their parents.

“They will be fine, my love,” she said with a smile, blowing a final kiss toward her precious children.

“I know,” Pero grumbled. “But I still do not like it.”

She reached out and grasped her husband’s hand and squeezed. “We will return before they can even start to miss us. But our prince needs us. He would do the same if it were us asking.”

And thankfully, the trip from Qohor to Braavos was less than exciting and they arrived the day Oberyn’s boat was set to appear, too. They knew that Oberyn had come to Braavos on business he spoke of in code in the missive. Meetings with a Pentoshi Magistrate by the name of Illyrio Mopatis. A marriage pact. A secret alliance. It was all so clandestine. She only hoped Oberyn would not suffer any more than he already had.

But they settled into their rooms and then dashed toward the port. The orange and golden sails of a foreign ship were a delight to see—as was Oberyn walking down a gangplank, dressed in a fine golden robe. His dark eyes spotted them and he raised a hand in greeting, smile splitting his face as he walked toward them.

She smiled as she noticed the beautiful woman on Oberyn’s arm, her belly gently swelling with child. The woman she had seen—she was even more beautiful than her mind could have conjured.

“My friends, this is my paramour, Ellaria Sand. My love,” Oberyn started, stretching out his arm toward her and Pero, “these are my two dear friends. Pero Tovar and his lady-wife-”

“You must call me Petal,” she said, stepping forward to grasp Ellaria’s hands. “I feel as if we are friends already.”

Ellaria smiled and squeezed her hands. “I feel the same. Oberyn has told me much about his adventures at your side.”

Pero let Oberyn pull him into a hug in greeting before the four of them walked further into the city, knowing they had time before Oberyn was to meet with the magistrate. They spoke of their time apart, telling each other what they had missed. Ellaria easily proved herself to be a fierce friend and she found herself whispering into Ellaria’s ear like they were just girls again while Pero and Oberyn challenged each other to a drinking game.

It was all so…easy. It almost made her forget the reason behind Oberyn’s presence in the city.

A sudden hiss of pain caught her attention and she turned to see Oberyn shaking his hand, a broken chalice on the table in front of him. Without thought, she reached out and grasped his bloodied hand, staunching the blood with her fingers.

“Petal…” Ellaria’s words faded as she pulled back to see Oberyn’s hand already starting to heal.

Oberyn huffed out a laugh and kissed her bloodied fingers in thanks. “You are still to kind and talented for your own good, Petal.”

She glanced at the Ellaria and winked, “I know your prince told you about me. Don’t be scared.” Almost unconsciously, she wiped her hands clear of his blood on the strip of linen she had been using as a napkin during their meal. Almost clear. As she took a bite of her food and licked her finger clean.

She froze.

“Petal?” Pero whispered, his hand finding hers under the table.

“Beware the fallen mountain. It will rise again,” she said, hearing her voice but not recognizing it. And as soon as it started, the gift released its grip on her and she felt something cold slide down her spine.

Oberyn and Ellaria were staring at her, eyes wide, from across the table and Pero’s hand was gripping hers tightly. “What does that mean?” Ellaria asked.

She could only shake her head. “I do not know. Only time will tell.”

**

Oberyn seemed hopeful when he told them goodbye. And Ellaria was smiling, still cradling her growing bump as she held both of them close and told them she would send a raven when the newest Sand Snake was welcomed into the world.

They were good people. She knew it.

She leaned against Pero with a sigh, smiling when his arm wrapped around her waist as they watched the boat disappear on the horizon.

“Will we see them again?”

“I know we will,” she answered as she turned to press a kiss against her husband’s cheek. “The world is not done with Oberyn Martell nor Ellaria Sand. I can feel it.”

She felt his smile as he turned his face against hers, pressing his lips to her temple. “Let us go home, then, Petal.” And he kissed her again.

A/N: thanks for taking this adventure with me. I love you all. 

beautiful people who asked to be tagged:  @huliabitch @heatherbel @corrupt-fvcker @justanotherblonde23 @din-damn-djarin @mikariell95​

[witchqueenvisenya]

this chapter is soooooo

'what sort of magician are you?” “A thirsty one”'

'“Can you free me from this pit?” “I could … but will I?'

'the forest is the abbatoir of the gods.'

'There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.'

'No one knows what Stannis has been doing on Dragonstone, but I will wager you that he’s gathered more swords than seashells.'

'are you in league with Littlefinger?” “I would sooner wed the Black Goat of Qohor.'

'If that’s true, Lord Eddard, tell me … why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?'

.....................aaaaaaand CUT

getting lost in my asoiaf bookset pdf on this unholy tuesday morning like where was i???? which pov????? who got killed??? which sex scene was it exactly that made me go ewwwwwwwwww HELP

[disneyprincessbuffyannesummers]

i want to thank @enchantingemiliaclarke for the screencaps.

because this caps would've been so hard to find otherwise on kissgoodbye.net (even though i do love that site, it's just the ads)

i have also used this quote before.

I also have no idea where the quote come from.

❮Though she walked through a green kingdom, it was not the deep rich green of summer. Even here autumn made its presence felt, and winter would not be far behind. The grass was paler than she remembered, a wan and sickly green on the verge of going yellow. After that would come brown. The grass was dying. Daenerys Targaryen was no stranger to the Dothraki sea, the great ocean of grass that stretched from the forest of Qohor to the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. She had seen it first when she was still a girl, newly wed to Khal Drogo and on her way to Vaes Dothrak to be presented to the crones of the dosh khaleen. The sight of all that grass stretching out before her had taken her breath away. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and I was full of hope. Ser Jorah had been with her then, her gruff old bear. She'd had Irri and Jhiqui and Doreah to care for her, her sun-and-stars to hold her in the night, his child growing inside her. Rhaego. I was going to name him Rhaego, and the dosh khaleen said he would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Not since those half-remembered days in Braavos when she lived in the house with the red door had she been as happy. But in the Red Waste, all her joy had turned to ashes. Her sun-and-stars had fallen from his horse, the maegi Mirri Maz Duur had murdered Rhaego in her womb, and Dany had smothered the empty shell of Khal Drogo with her own two hands. Afterward Drogo's great khalasar had shattered. named Ko Pono himself Khal Pono and took many riders with him, and many slaves as well. Ko Jhaqo named himself Khal Jhaqo and rode off with even more. Mago, his bloodrider, raped and murdered Eroeh, a girl Daenerys had once saved from him. Only the birth of her dragons amidst the fire and smoke of Khal Drogo's funeral pyre had spared Dany herself from being dragged back to Vaes Dothrak to live out the remainder of her days amongst the crones of the dosh khaleen.❯

-AdwD:Dany10-

[jaehaerysiitargaryen]

Below you will find the details of the North’s planned trade route after securing a loan with the Iron Bank and setting up plans for trading to branch out their reach.  Note; All plans are subject to change due to plotting. 

Braavos; The first place of the east where Theon will set up a trade route to improve the conditions of the North. The Iron Bank and The North have worked out a 5 year repayment plan with the bank that comes with discounts in regards to tariffs and items the North trades in.    -. timber (namely ironwood)    -. sentinel and soldier pine tree sap    -. wool    -. fur    -. hides    -. Braavosi trade; oysters, eels, crabs, crawfish, clams, rays, and many sorts of fish.

Lorath; they have a preference of trading with near neighbors, there is an exception being granted due to the relationship with the Winter King and the Iron Bank.    -. Lorathi trades; salt cod, walrus tusks, sealskins, and whale oil. They have powerful textile merchants specialize in rich velvet which they trade for steel.    -. The North; timber, tree sap, wool, fur, and hides

Norvos; involved in trade with Lorath and rarely the seven Kingdoms, Theon will use his connections with the Iron Bank and Lorath to gain access to trade in Norvos.    -. Norvoshi trades; tapestries (known trades according to the wiki)    -. The North; furs, hides, and wool

Pentos; a major trading port and with the changes during the dance Theon has worked out new plans.    -. Pentoshi trade; Spices, peppers, and amber wine    -. The North; ironwood, hides, and dragonglass

Myr; is the most advanced of the free cities famed for its arts and learning. Because the people of Myr have no history of seeking slaves from the north Theon will continue this trade relationship.    -. Myrish trade; carpets, lace, glass and lenses, myrish eyes (telescopes), and the heal herb myrish fire    -. The North; dragonglass, ironwood, and hides

Tyrosh and Lys; There is NO TRADING with Tyrosh or Lys and they cannot dock at Northern ports because of their involvement in the slave trade. Theon is especially offended by Tyroshi sailing beyond the wall in search of wildlings to enslave. Wildlings or no, Theon believes no man should live as a slave.

Qohor; The forest of qohor is the principal source of wealth for the city.     -. qohor trade; silver, tin, and amber     -.  the north; copper ( once discovered ) and ironwood

There are currently no trades officially set up beyond Qohor. Theon is hoping to use other connections to extend the reach of Northern trade and connections. While it's rare there are trading caravans that travel further out.

Selhorys, Valysar, and Volon Therys; Three "towns" larger than King's Landing are vital to Theon's goals of making the north economically sound he wants to take advantage of the timber trade by offering their ironwood, oak, and the sap from sentinel and soldier pine trees. The sap will turn out to be a huge export as it can be used for starting fires and is used in the many lanterns used in these towns.

Because VOLANTIS is so close to Volon Therys, there are some caravaners who will make this journey versus going back to Myr.

This is a dangerous trade route. Those who travel to Qohor, Selhorys, Valysar, Volon Therys, and Volantis are paid handsomely for the risk they take on for the North.

NOTE: I know that Myr and Volantis are in the slave trade as well but, the slavers of Myr and Volantis have never come to the North looking for slaves. And that's where Theon is coming from concerning getting involved with places knee deep in slavery.

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ADWD: Tyrion III (Chapter 8)

Once again I'll be examining Aegon Blackfyre evidence, and letting you decide.

"Did you hear that, Haldon? The little man wants to fight with us!"

His companion was older, clean-shaved, with a lined ascetic face. His hair had been pulled back and tied in a knot behind his head.

[...]

The man called Haldon studied Tyrion with cool grey eyes before turning back to Illyrio. 

[...]

"So he does. I am Haldon, the healer in our little band of brothers. Some call me Halfmaester. My companion is Ser Duck."

Haldon the Halfmaester is Aegon's healer/tutor.

If I'm supposed to be reminded of Qhorin Halfhand, it worked.

Jon knew Qhorin Halfhand the instant he saw him, though they had never met. The big ranger was half a legend in the Watch; a man of slow words and swift action, tall and straight as a spear, long-limbed and solemn. Unlike his men, he was clean-shaven. His hair fell from beneath his helm in a heavy braid touched with hoarfrost, and the blacks he wore were so faded they might have been greys. - Jon V, ACOK

x

Qhorin's shrewd grey eyes seemed to see right through him. - Jon VII, ACOK

+.+.+

The man called Haldon studied Tyrion with cool grey eyes before turning back to Illyrio. "You have some chests for us?"

[...]

"How fares our lad?" asked Illyrio as the chests were being secured. Tyrion counted six, oaken chests with iron hasps. 

[...]

"There is a gift for the boy in one of the chests. Some candied ginger. He was always fond of it." 

Get ready for baseless chest drama.

+.+.+

"How fares our lad?" asked Illyrio as the chests were being secured. 

[...]

"There is a gift for the boy in one of the chests. Some candied ginger. He was always fond of it." Illyrio sounded oddly sad. "I thought I might continue on to Ghoyan Drohe with you. A farewell feast before you start downriver …"

"We have no time for feasts, my lord," said Haldon. "Griff means to strike downriver the instant we are back. News has been coming upriver, none of it good. Dothraki have been seen north of Dagger Lake, outriders from old Motho's khalasar, and Khal Zekko is not far behind him, moving through the Forest of Qohor."

The fat man made a rude noise. "Zekko visits Qohor every three or four years. The Qohorik give him a sack of gold and he turns east again. As for Motho, his men are near as old as he is, and there are fewer every year. The threat is—"

"—Khal Pono," Haldon finished. 

Illyrio's sounding sad, and getting agitated when he can't see Aegon.

Many would tell you that means Aegon is Illyrio's son. Others might say that's not abnormal, given Illyrio helped raise the boy.

+.+.+

"So he does. I am Haldon, the healer in our little band of brothers. Some call me Halfmaester. My companion is Ser Duck."

"Ser Rolly," said the big man. "Rolly Duckfield. Any knight can make a knight, and Griff made me. And you, dwarf?"

Oops.

Ser Rolly Duckfield (Duck) is a knight in Aegon's service, and he just stupidly announced to Tyrion that Griff is also a knight.

+.+.+

Illyrio spoke up quickly. "Yollo, he is called."

Yollo? Yollo sounds like something you might name a monkey.

I KNEW IT.

"Perhaps your silver queen would like a monkey," said Gerris. - The Merchant's Man, ADWD

+.+.+

Worse, it was a Pentoshi name, and any fool could see that Tyrion was no Pentoshi. "In Pentos I am Yollo," he said quickly, to make what amends he could, "but my mother named me Hugor Hill."

"Are you a little king or a little bastard?" asked Haldon.

Tyrion realized he would do well to be careful around Haldon Halfmaester. "Every dwarf is a bastard in his father's eyes."

Hugor was the first King of the Andals.

Hill is the surname given to bastards in the Westerlands.

Have you made any connection to another character? A king or a bastard? Maybe both? :)

+.+.+

"No doubt. Well, Hugor Hill, answer me this. How did Serwyn of the Mirror Shield slay the dragon Urrax?"

"He approached behind his shield. Urrax saw only his own reflection until Serwyn had plunged his spear through his eye."

Haldon was unimpressed. "Even Duck knows that tale. Can you tell me the name of the knight who tried the same ploy with Vhagar during the Dance of the Dragons?"

Tyrion grinned. "Ser Byron Swann. He was roasted for his trouble … only the dragon was Syrax, not Vhagar."

Please don't tell me some poor schmuck will try this a third time.

+.+.+

"I fear that you're mistaken. In The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, Maester Munkun writes—"

"—that it was Vhagar. Grand Maester Munkun errs. Ser Byron's squire saw his master die, and wrote his daughter of the manner of it. His account says it was Syrax, Rhaenyra's she-dragon, which makes more sense than Munken's version. Swann was the son of a marcher lord, and Storm's End was for Aegon. Vhagar was ridden by Prince Aemond, Aegon's brother. Why should Swann want to slay her?"

Tyrion's pretending to be a bastard from the Westerlands, but he can't help showing off his giant brain.

Hard for me to not see Daenerys vs. Aegon hints here. Should I also be thinking about Balon or Donnel Swann? I couldn't tell you.

+.+.+

Haldon pursed his lips. "Try not to tumble off the horse. If you do, best waddle back to Pentos. Our shy maid will not wait for man nor dwarf."

"Shy maids are my favorite sort. Aside from wanton ones. Tell me, where do whores go?"

Please die.

+.+.+

"Do I look like a man who frequents whores?"

Duck laughed derisively. "He don't dare. Lemore would make him pray for pardon, the lad would want to come along, and Griff might cut his cock off and stuff it down his throat."

Aegon, you tramp! Lol

+.+.+

"Good fortune," Illyrio called after them. "Tell the boy I am sorry that I will not be with him for his wedding. I will rejoin you in Westeros. That I swear, by my sweet Serra's hands."

I question why a man would skip his own son's wedding.

The hands are still weird.

+.+.+

The last that Tyrion Lannister saw of Illyrio Mopatis, the magister was standing by his litter in his brocade robes, his massive shoulders slumped. As his figure dwindled in their dust, the lord of cheese looked almost small.

Still upset.

+.+.+

This time Duck laughed, and Haldon said, "What a droll little fellow you are, Yollo. They say that the Shrouded Lord will grant a boon to any man who can make him laugh. Perhaps His Grey Grace will choose you to ornament his stony court."

Duck glanced at his companion uneasily. "It's not good to jape of that one, not when we're so near the Rhoyne. He hears."

"Wisdom from a duck," said Haldon. "I beg your pardon, Yollo. You need not look so pale, I was only playing with you. The Prince of Sorrows does not bestow his grey kiss lightly."

His grey kiss. The thought made his flesh crawl. Death had lost its terror for Tyrion Lannister, but greyscale was another matter. The Shrouded Lord is just a legend, he told himself, no more real than the ghost of Lann the Clever that some claim haunts Casterly Rock. Even so, he held his tongue.

There's a first time for everything.

The Shrouded Lord spreads greyscale through his grey kiss, unless you can make him laugh. All of this was probably foreshadowing, but the scene was cut.

Someday I will die, and I hope you're right and it's thirty years from now. When that happens, maybe my heirs will decide to publish a book of fragments and deleted chapters, and you'll all get to read about Tyrion's meeting with the Shrouded Lord. It's a swell, spooky, evocative chapter, but you won't read it in DANCE. It took me down a road I decided I did not want to travel, so I went back and ripped it out. So, unless I change my mind again, it's going the way of the draft of LORD OF THE RINGS where Tolkien has Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin reach the Prancing Pony and meet... a weatherbeaten old hobbit ranger named "Trotter." - George R. R. Martin

Instead of the above, we got this:

He dreamt of his lord father and the Shrouded Lord. He dreamt that they were one and the same, and when his father wrapped stone arms around him and bent to give him his grey kiss, he woke with his mouth dry and rusty with the taste of blood and his heart hammering in his chest.

"Our dead dwarf has returned to us," Haldon said. - Tyrion VI, ADWD

It's been theorized that Tyrion was supposed to "encounter" the Shrouded Lord when he's pulled into the river by stone men, while travelling through the Sorrows.

I guess Tyrion made him laugh, and escaped greyscale? Apparently Jon Connington isn't as witty.

+.+.+

"Those chests we brought you," he said as they were chewing. "Gold for the Golden Company, I thought at first, until I saw Ser Rolly hoist a chest onto one shoulder. If it were full of coin, he could never have lifted it so easily."

"It's just armor," said Duck, with a shrug.

"Clothing as well," Haldon broke in. "Court clothes, for all our party. Fine woolens, velvets, silken cloaks. One does not come before a queen looking shabby … nor empty-handed. The magister has been kind enough to provide us with suitable gifts."

This isn't important, but let me talk anyway.

A ton of people believe the Valyrian sword Blackfyre and Targaryen banners are in these chests.

The sword theory comes from a draft of this chapter, that was read before release.

Haldon interrupts him by saying they already know this because Bennaro has seen it in his fires and that the Golden Company makes for Volantis. That is why Griff needs them to make haste. Illyrio says there is no need for haste. Haldon says Griff believes there is need for haste. Haldon eyes Tyrion and then begins to speak in another language. Tyrion cannot tell what it is but think it might be Volantene. He catches a few words that come close to High Valyrian. The words he catches are, queen, dragon, and sword. - Tyrion III, ADWD (Draft)

Queen, dragon, sword.

Tyrion catches the word sword, so people jumped to the conclusion that Haldon is referring to Blackfyre.

Anyone paying attention should know what sword is being referenced.

The Volantene waved a hand. "In Volantis, thousands of slaves and freedmen crowd the temple plaza every night to hear Benerro shriek of bleeding stars and a sword of fire that will cleanse the world. He has been preaching that Volantis will surely burn if the triarchs take up arms against the silver queen." - Tyrion VI, ADWD

It's Daenerys's sword of fire, Drogon. Queen, dragon, sword.

They also believe candied ginger is code for Blackfyre because of the following exchange:

There is a gift for the boy in one of the chests. Some candied ginger. - Tyrion III, ADWD

x

"Time to raise some bruises. Swords today, I think."

"Swords?" Young Griff grinned. "Swords will be sweet." - Tyrion IV, ADWD

Lol, okay.

The Golden Company might have Blackfyre, but this is not evidence for it. As for the banners? Total guesswork.

+.+.+

"If it is useful occupation you require, useful occupation you shall have," his father then said. So to mark his manhood, Tyrion was given charge of all the drains and cisterns within Casterly Rock. Perhaps he hoped I'd fall into one. But Tywin had been disappointed in that. The drains never drained half so well as when he had charge of them.

Tyrion will repeat this information again.

David and Dan couldn't even remember Samwell was a point of view character, so I doubt they'd remember this.

I have to believe it wasn't a show invention. Tyrion will eventually weaponize that knowledge of Casterly Rock.

+.+.+

After the animals had been tended to, the riders shared a simple supper of salt pork and cold white beans, washed down with ale.

x

I need a cup of wine, to wash the taste of Tywin from my mouth. A skin of wine would serve me even better.

Tyrion's been mostly cut off this entire chapter, but he's still an alcoholic.

+.+.+

The city was no more impressive. Ghoyan Drohe had never been large, Tyrion recalled from his histories, but it had been a fair place, green and flowering, a city of canals and fountains. Until the war. Until the dragons came. A thousand years later, the canals were choked with reeds and mud, and pools of stagnant water gave birth to swarms of flies. The broken stones of temples and palaces were sinking back into the earth, and gnarled old willows grew thick along the riverbanks.

Something something dragons plant no trees.

+.+.+

"Duck!" came a shout. "Haldon!" Tyrion craned his head to one side, and saw a boy standing on the roof of a low wooden building, waving a wide-brimmed straw hat. He was a lithe and well-made youth, with a lanky build and a shock of dark blue hair. The dwarf put his age at fifteen, sixteen, or near enough to make no matter.

Apparently the wide-brimmed straw hat is an Egg reference? Shrug.

Aegon shares some similarities with Illyrio's statue.

A naked boy stood on the water, poised to duel with a bravo's blade in hand. He was lithe and handsome, no older than sixteen, with straight blond hair that brushed his shoulders. So lifelike did he seem that it took the dwarf a long moment to realize he was made of painted marble, though his sword shimmered like true steel. - Tyrion I, ADWD

Of course Rhaegar's son should be older than sixteen, so that might also be a red flag.

However, Tyrion has never been the best judge.

Tyrion sighed. "You are remarkably polite for a bastard, Snow. What you see is a dwarf. You are what, twelve?"

"Fourteen," the boy said.- Tyrion II, ADWD

+.+.+

The roof the boy was standing on turned out to be the cabin of the Shy Maid, an old ramshackle single-masted poleboat. She had a broad beam and a shallow draft, ideal for making her way up the smallest of streams and crabwalking over sandbars. A homely maid, thought Tyrion, but sometimes the ugliest ones are the hungriest once abed.

Why are you still alive?

+.+.+

An older couple with a Rhoynish cast to their features stood close beside the tiller, whilst a handsome septa in a soft white robe stepped through the cabin door and pushed a lock of dark brown hair from her eyes.

[...]

I do not like his eyes, Tyrion reflected, when the sellsword [Griff] sat down across from him in the dimness of the boat's interior, with a scarred plank table and a tallow candle between them. They were ice blue, pale, cold. The dwarf misliked pale eyes. Lord Tywin's eyes had been pale green and flecked with gold.

We'll cover Septa Lemore in another chapter, but it's important to note Tyrion never states the colour of her eyes. That's unlike Tyrion.

+.+.+

Tyrion turned to Young Griff and gave the lad his most disarming smile. "Blue hair may serve you well in Tyrosh, but in Westeros children will throw stones at you and girls will laugh in your face."

The lad was taken aback. "My mother was a lady of Tyrosh. I dye my hair in memory of her."

The sun's son.

+.+.+

He watched the sellsword read. That he could read said something all by itself. How many sellswords could boast of that? He hardly moves his lips at all, Tyrion reflected.

Who's better at hiding their identity, Jon Connington or Sansa Stark?

+.+.+

"Tywin Lannister dead? At your hand?"

"At my finger. This one." Tyrion held it up for Griff to admire. "Lord Tywin was sitting on a privy, so I put a crossbow bolt through his bowels to see if he really did shit gold. He didn't. A pity, I could have used some gold. I also slew my mother, somewhat earlier. Oh, and my nephew Joffrey, I poisoned him at his wedding feast and watched him choke to death. Did the cheesemonger leave that part out? I mean to add my brother and sister to the list before I'm done, if it please your queen."

"Please her? Has Illyrio taken leave of his senses? Why does he imagine that Her Grace would welcome the service of a self-confessed kingslayer and betrayer?"

A fair question, thought Tyrion, but what he said was, "The king I slew was sitting on her throne, and all those I betrayed were lions, so it seems to me that I have already done the queen good service."

Because she's an idiot?

His brother's smile curdled like sour milk. "Tyrion, my sweet brother," he said darkly, "there are times when you give me cause to wonder whose side you are on."

Tyrion's mouth was full of bread and fish. He took a swallow of strong black beer to wash it all down, and grinned up wolfishly at Jaime. "Why, Jaime, my sweet brother," he said, "you wound me. You know how much I love my family." - Tyrion I, AGOT

Oh Daenerys, you silly girl, a blind man could see what's coming from a mile away.

+.+.+

"There is blood between Targaryen and Lannister. Why would you support the cause of Queen Daenerys?"

"For gold and glory," the dwarf said cheerfully. "Oh, and hate. If you had ever met my sister, you would understand."

Would you betray her for gold?

For Casterly Rock?

For your golden siblings?

+.+.+

"I understand hate well enough." From the way Griff said the word, Tyrion knew that much was true. He has supped on hate himself, this one. It has warmed him in the night for years.

"Then we have that in common, ser."

"I am no knight."

Not only a liar, but a bad one. That was clumsy and stupid, my lord. "And yet Ser Duck says you knighted him."

Why tell him you know what's going on?

Tyrion's the type of guy who would include his IQ score on an online dating profile.

+.+.+

"Some might wonder that a duck can talk at all. No matter, Griff. You are no knight and I am Hugor Hill, a little monster. Your little monster, if you like. You have my word, all that I desire is to be leal servant of your dragon queen."

I didn't like that Tyrion came immediately after that Bran passage.

I hate it even more now.

"A monster," Bran said.

The ranger looked at Bran as if the rest of them did not exist. "Your monster, Brandon Stark." - Bran I, ADWD

+.+.+

"And how do you propose to serve her?"

"With my tongue."

+.+.+

"I can tell Her Grace how my sweet sister thinks, if you call it thinking. I can tell her captains the best way to defeat my brother, Jaime, in battle. I know which lords are brave and which are craven, which are loyal and which are venal. I can deliver allies to her. And I know much and more of dragons, as your halfmaester will tell you. I'm amusing too, and I don't eat much. Consider me your own true imp."

I can't stop laughing. The most despised man in all of Westeros just said that.

What allies will you be delivering, demon monkey?

+.+.+

Griff weighed that for a moment. "Understand this, dwarf. You are the last and least of our company. Hold your tongue and do as you are told, or you will soon wish you had."

+.+.+

Yes, Father, Tyrion almost said. "As you say, my lord."

"I am no lord."

Liar. "It was a courtesy, my friend."

Oh my goodness, he's so smart. So clever. So cunning.

+.+.+

"What if we should find the queen and discover that this talk of dragons was just some sailor's drunken fancy? This wide world is full of such mad tales. Grumkins and snarks, ghosts and ghouls, mermaids, rock goblins, winged horses, winged pigs … winged lions."

You mean a GRIFFin?

Almost like naming yourself after your house's sigil is the dumbest idea in the world.

+.+.+

Griff stared at him, frowning. "I have given you fair warning, Lannister. Guard your tongue or lose it. Kingdoms are at hazard here. Our lives, our names, our honor. This is no game we're playing for your amusement."

Of course it is, thought Tyrion. The game of thrones. "As you say, Captain," he murmured, bowing once again.

Title drop!

Final thoughts:

I wouldn't say I believe Tyrion will lose his tongue, but I'm definitely giving it more consideration than I was two books ago.

One thing I keep returning to is that George likes to deprive Lannisters of the things they value most. For Jaime, it's his sword hand. For Cersei, it's her children/beauty (depending on your point of view).

For Tyrion, it would be his tongue. . . I don't know.

38 down, 11 to go. :(

-> return to menu <-

[branwendaughterofllyr]

SO, lemur theory is actually not an entirely bad one but the way it’s used is what drives me up the wall.

It comes from these lemurs that live in the forests of Qohor and are mentioned in AGOT Daenerys III when she rides through it

“For half a moon, they rode through the Forest of Qohor, where the leaves made a golden canopy high above them, and the trunks of the trees were as wide as city gates. There were great elk in that wood, and spotted tigers, and lemurs with silver fur and huge purple eyes, but all fled before the approach of the khalasar and Dany got no glimpse of them.”

They are further elaborated on in TWOIAF

“Like many northerly forests, it contains elk and deer in great numbers, along with wolves, tree cats, boars of truly monstrous size, spotted bears, and even a species of lemur—a creature known from the Summer Isles and Sothoryos, but otherwise rarely seen farther north. These lemurs are said to have silver-white fur and purple eyes, and are sometimes called Little Valyrians.”

The lemur theory goes on to point out that the name “lemur” is derived from the Latin term “lemures” which refers to a type of malevolent spirit AND that the native people of Madagascar have legends about lemurs being the ghosts of their ancestors. Put these two points together, and the Little Valyrians are actually literally inhabited by the ghosts of dead Valyrians.

But the way that this idea gets used by the fandom is that this part of the proof presented for the Valyrians having performed blood magic and sacrifice in order to create their bind with dragons, by sacrificing a Valyrian to place their spirit inside the dragon, making the human and dragons descended from the dead Valyrian-dragon combination literal kin.

Because they clearly did it with the lemurs.

It certainly is A Way to come to the conclusion that the Valyrians probably did some kind of human sacrifice to bind themselves to their dragons.

The ASOIAF fandom really does always pick the most complicated ways to get from point A to point B

[izvozvi]

a proud and quarrelsome people, the sarnori were seldom ever united under a single ruler, but their kingdoms dominated the western grasslands, from the forest of qohor to the eastern shores of the vanished silver sea, and fifty leagues beyond. their gleaming cities were strewn across the grasslands like jewels across a green velvet mantle, shining beneath the light of sun and stars. the greatest of these cities was sarnath of the tall towers, where the high king dwelt in his fabled palace with a thousand rooms.

— the world of ice and fire

asoiaf meme: cultures | the sarnori

[aliveanddrunkonsunlight]

Date tag - January 28

January 28 - Angst with Confessions

Author’s Note: So one of my weird, obsessive interests is war correspondents. I’ve read lots of books by them and lots of articles, including this amazing one about female war correspondents. There really was a “reporter hotel” outside Baghdad during the various wars in Iraq, which is oft cited as being a place that is falling apart and may suffer from rubble from bombings and blackouts, but offered an array of black market booze for the reporters. I really admire war and conflict correspondents, so I hope I don’t make light of the harrowing situations they put themselves through in order to do their jobs well. Also, this was oddly inspired by a convo with @theunpaidcritic about reporter!AUs for JB.

Slightly NSFW.

***

“Fuck, Hyle, how many times do I have to tell you? Your job is to send our editor the photos we choose together. Not your favorites.” 

Jaime looks across the crowded hotel ballroom, where Brienne’s usually calm voice is raised above the normal level of ruckus of the room. At any given time, the Orange Coast Hotel, is a temporary home to numerous reporters and photographers from across the known world who cover the war raging in the Disputed Lands and beyond. 

The nearby conflict has not left the hotel unharmed, and at any given time, there are bombings and blackouts. Correspondents hunker down in the ballroom, swearing over stories or taking calls on their various phones, both the slim mobiles if there’s service available, and the chunky satellite phones when in an emergency, which for them means a deadline. 

Brienne sorts out whatever issue she’s having with her colleague after more raised voices and wild hand gestures, before she huffs across the room and sits down next to him. “I don’t know why you put up with him,” he says calmly. 

“He has a lot of conflict experience,” she sighs, her voice a near grumble. 

“But you don’t get along. In this line of work, you need someone who has your back, and not just with your editor.” 

Brienne narrows her eyes at him and takes a swig from Jaime’s half finished glass of whiskey. “It’s only a six week assignment. I’ll make do.” 

The first time he met Brienne, he called her too innocent to be a war correspondent. She’d been green, he hadn’t been wrong about that, but she found her footing quickly. Brienne scarcely backed down--not from her editors or a story--and over the years, their admiration for each other had only grown. Reporting on conflict and trauma made you bond quickly, and sometimes in unhealthy ways, with your colleagues. “You could come work with me,” he offers easily. 

“I already want to kill Hyle,” she grouses, running a hand through her hair. “You think that wouldn’t apply to you?” 

Jaime chuckles. “Probably doubly so.” 

She allows a small smile at that. “Where’s Dacey?” 

“Off on a world tour,” he shrugs, but catches Brienne’s worried gaze. “She’s having a tough time, after what happened in Qohor. So she’s taking a break. A long one.” 

“So you’re out here by yourself?” He sent in his photos an hour ago, but prefers to stay in the midst of the fray rather than return to the quiet of his room. He nods. “That isn’t safe, Jaime.” Her hand falls to his knee and he tries not to think of all the times they’d turned to each other for comfort. This godsforsaken place. 

“It’s alright,” he replies, a little too cavalierly. Brienne’s blue eyes slice through him, practiced and observant. 

*

It’s practically a rite of passage at the Orange Coast Hotel: reporters and photographers drinking heavily and then winding up in each other’s rooms. Some of those nights have destroyed long distance relationships, a few marriages, but never, as far as she knows, anyone’s career. War reporters are far too proficient at being damaged. They might fuck a colleague, but their moral obligation is to tell the story, to let people know of the world’s horrors and injustices, to challenge them not to look away. 

So when Jaime shows up at Brienne’s room after midnight, she’s hardly surprised. He steps into her arms without so much as a hello and then her hands are undoing his belt, and fuck, she’s forgotten how fun it is. It feels wrong to say she missed this, but it rises up on her tongue all the same, Jaime kissing her in reply. He fucks her, Brienne bent over, her hands against the wall. When she drags him to bed, they slow things down, the closest to loving she’s ever had. 

Afterwards, he falls asleep, his soft snores keeping her company as she lies awake, wondering what it would be like to work together. Jaime is the best in his field, and has been since before she graduated. Brienne never told him that when she was still in university, he came to give a lecture on war photography. All the other girls were swooning over his brooding nature, his devil may care smile, but she thought he was full of himself, and he proved her right the first time they met in a conflict zone. Never meet your idols, she remembers thinking, and now, she sleeps beside him, trying to puzzle together when she may have fallen in love with him. 

In the morning, she’s surprised to find him there with coffee, orange juice, and toast brought up from the bar downstairs. His camera bag is by the door. “You don’t even carry a suitcase now?” she teases, starting to reach over him for a piece of toast, but he snags her wrist and to her surprise, pulls her down onto his lap, kissing her. “Jaime, is everything okay?” They’ve never done this. The morning after. At most, they would give each other a nod or wave in the hotel lobby, one or both of them with bags under their eyes. 

“I have to go to the Painted Mountains for a couple weeks,” he tells her, voice gravelly and still thick from sleep. “But when I get back we should talk about this.” 

Brienne blinks, thinking she’s dreaming it. “About what?” 

“You and I,” he chuckles, his green eyes twinkling. 

“Working together?” she asks, confused. 

“Brienne.” He says, exasperated, but he’s laughing, and then leaning in for another kiss, longer this time. Oh. Her hand tentatively traces his cheek, skin weathered from the time spent outdoors in the desert sun, her fingertips burning over his scruff. 

When they pull apart, Brienne nearly laughs, she’s scarcely felt this happy. “Why now?” They’ve been doing this for years. 

“Why not now?” he replies, not giving much away, but understanding slowly dawns on his face. She wants a real answer. “Because I miss you when you’re gone.” 

A warmth pulses through her, realizing the kernel of truth in what she said last night. Brienne doesn’t just miss the sex, their connection. She misses him, she misses them, when they’re apart, each off on assignment. “I miss you, too.” He wraps his arms around her then, Brienne resting her chin on the top of his head. “You’re coming back here in two weeks?” Jaime nods. 

*

She and Hyle return to the hotel after a long day. Covered in dust and mud and possibly blood, all she wants is to take a shower, but Brienne stops in the middle of the lobby when she sees Catelyn Tully at the hotel front desk, looking frazzled. Her heart rate picks up. Why would Jaime’s editor be here if he’s not due back for another week? It’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other, but Brienne steps over to where the older woman is standing. “Catelyn, what are you doing here?” 

“Oh, Brienne, thank gods. I’m trying to find someone to take me to Slaver’s Bay. Jaime is in the hospital there.” Everything happens in slow motion after that. Catelyn must lead her over to one of the lobby’s couches, because that’s where she finally returns to herself, a stiff drink in her hand. “You didn’t hear?” She shakes her head. “There was an ambush in Khyzai Pass. He was with the company under attack.” 

“Khyzai Pass?” It was incredibly dangerous, much more so than the Painted Forest. 

“I didn’t know either,” the older woman says, her tone somber. “I wouldn’t have let him go.” 

Jaime’s sudden need for clarification about their relationship takes on a new meaning and Brienne curses herself for being so stupid. “I should have realized.” The whole area is in such tumult that for years, Slaver’s Bay has been cut off from most means of transportation. The only way they might be able to reach Jaime is by boat, but traversing the straits of Valyria would take days. “Did you talk to the hospital?” 

Catelyn nods, her face pale. “They said he was stable, but he’d lost a lot of blood. He...his hand got hurt. There may be nerve damage.” 

She nods, her throat thick with emotion, tears welling up in her eyes. If he couldn’t take photos, Jaime wouldn’t want to live. An urgency rises up in her chest. “We have to get to him.” 

A shadow falls across the two of them, and Brienne looks up to find Sandor Clegane looming. “I can take you there.” 

They spend the next two days in an armored Jeep, barely stopping, but Clegane is true to his word, they breeze through checkpoints, and Brienne can barely thank him before she’s racing through the hospital corridors, a name echoing in each heartbeat. Jaime Jaime Jaime. 

[aboveallarescuer]

Dany and Jorah’s relationship

This is a list of all the passages from the books featuring key moments in Dany and Jorah's relationship.

Thanks to that show, a lot of people misunderstand Jorah's character and the nature of his relationship with Dany. 

In the books, he is a predator trying to groom a teenager who is three times younger than he is. In order to do so, he undermines her authority, tries to make her distrust other men and violates her boundaries several times (e.g. forcing a kiss on her, looking at her breasts, etc).

In the show, he's a Good Guy who we are meant to empathize with; as Benioff describes, "part of Jorah's tragedy is that he was in love with a woman who couldn't love him back".

That change is pretty disgusting, and look how it shaped the general audience's opinion:

I think Dany is ultimately selfish and unfeeling. I'm not sure she actually ever loved Jon at all, and her affection for Ser Jorah Mormont strikes me as more utilitarian than compassionate. Dany is concerned with herself and her dragons and little more. If she doesn't back Jon despite his superior claim to the Iron Throne, that's all the proof I need that she is rotten to the core. (x)

~

What would Jorah (Iain Glen) think of Dany's turn? Would he love her still? Would he have been able to do the deed? In a sense, I wish it had been him instead of Jon. Jorah has loved her for so much longer. But he died defending his queen, and perhaps he would have forgiven her even this atrocity. (x)

~

Her charm, beauty and overall skill in luring people to her cause, whether genuine or not, has always been about creating a facade, someone you wouldn't mind seeing win even if they lose the plot and go crazy. And everyone Dany's recruited along the way has been nothing more than a pawn.

Just look at how she sent away her lover, Daario Naharis, for fear he'd stunt her march on the throne, or exiled Jorah for being a spy. (x)

~

28 Reasons Jorah Mormont Was The Best Man In Westeros (x)

Thankfully, for all his faults, I think GRRM is framing the story the way it should be:

“Will Jorah ever get out of the friendzone?” (side-eyeing the person who asked this). GRRM: “I would not bet on it.” (x)

I really want to get a tattoo of this response, lol.

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

Daenerys Targaryen was no stranger to the Dothraki sea, the great ocean of grass that stretched from the forest of Qohor to the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. She had seen it first when she was still a girl, newly wed to Khal Drogo and on her way to Vaes Dothrak to be presented to the crones of the dosh khaleen. The sight of all that grass stretching out before her had taken her breath away. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and I was full of hope. Ser Jorah had been with her then, her gruff old bear. She’d had Irri and Jhiqui and Doreah to care for her, her sun-and-stars to hold her in the night, his child growing inside her. Rhaego. I was going to name him Rhaego, and the dosh khaleen said he would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Not since those half-remembered days in Braavos when she lived in the house with the red door had she been as happy.

~

Meereen would always be the Harpy’s city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you.

The voice was no more than a whisper, yet somehow Dany felt that he was walking just behind her. My bear, she thought, my old sweet bear, who loved me and betrayed me. She had missed him so. She wanted to see his ugly face, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against his chest, but she knew that if she turned around Ser Jorah would be gone. “I am dreaming,” she said. “A waking dream, a walking dream. I am alone and lost.”

Lost, because you lingered, in a place that you were never meant to be, murmured Ser Jorah, as softly as the wind. Alone, because you sent me from your side.

“You betrayed me. You informed on me, for gold.”

For home. Home was all I ever wanted. “And me. You wanted me.” Dany had seen it in his eyes.

I did, the grass whispered, sadly. “You kissed me. I never said you could, but you did. You sold me to my enemies, but you meant it when you kissed me.”

I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen.

“I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march.” Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. “I had to take Meereen to feed my people.”

You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. “To be a queen.”

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. “It is such a long way,” she complained. “I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl.”

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

“Fire and Blood,” Daenerys told the swaying grass.

A stone turned under her foot. She stumbled to one knee and cried out in pain, hoping against hope that her bear would gather her up and help her to her feet. When she turned her head to look for him, all she saw was trickling brown water ... and the grass, still moving slightly.

 ADWD Daenerys IX

Dany had once eaten a stallion’s heart to give strength to her unborn son … but that had not saved Rhaego when the maegi murdered him in her womb. Three treasons shall you know. She was the first, Jorah was the second, Brown Ben Plumm the third. Was she done with betrayals?

 ADWD Daenerys VI

Three treasons will you know. Once for gold and once for blood and once for love. Was Plumm the third treason, or the second? And what did that make Ser Jorah, her gruff old bear? Would she never have a friend that she could trust? What good are prophecies if you cannot make sense of them? If I marry Hizdahr before the sun comes up, will all these armies melt away like morning dew and let me rule in peace?

 ADWD Daenerys V

Afterward, Ser Barristan told her that her brother Rhaegar would have been proud of her. Dany remembered the words Ser Jorah had spoken at Astapor: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.

~

Daario should be here, and my bloodriders, she thought. If there is to be a battle, the blood of my blood should be with me. She missed Ser Jorah Mormont too. He lied to me, informed on me, but he loved me too, and he always gave good counsel.

 ADWD Daenerys III

“Barristan the Old, did you say? Your bear knight was younger, and devoted to you.”

“I do not wish to speak of Jorah Mormont.”

“To be sure. The man was coarse and hairy.”

~

“You heard Xaro make his offer?”

“I did, Your Grace.” The old knight took pains not to look at her bare breast as he spoke to her.

Ser Jorah would not turn his eyes away. He loved me as a woman, where Ser Barristan loves me only as his queen. Mormont had been an informer, reporting to her enemies in Westeros, yet he had given her good counsel too.

 ADWD Daenerys I

Dragons are fire made flesh. She had read that in one of the books Ser Jorah had given her as a wedding gift.

~

The Undying of Qarth had told her she would be thrice betrayed. Mirri Maz Duur had been the first, Ser Jorah the second. Would Reznak be the third? The Shavepate? Daario? Or will it be someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei?

 A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed, and danger. Ser Jorah had warned her of that. He’d warned her of so many things ... he’d ... No, I will not think of Jorah Mormont. Let him keep a little longer.

~

Dany shifted uncomfortably on the ebony bench. She dreaded what must come next, yet she knew she had put it off too long already. Yunkai and Astapor, threats of war, marriage proposals, the march west looming over all ... I need my knights. I need their swords, and I need their counsel. Yet the thought of seeing Jorah Mormont again made her feel as if she’d swallowed a spoonful of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing round her belly. I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I must have fire in my eyes when I face them, not tears.

~

Ser Jorah cleared his throat. “Khaleesi ...”

She had missed his voice so much, but she had to be stern. “Be quiet. I will tell you when to speak.”

~

“I will admit you helped win me this city ...”

Ser Jorah’s mouth tightened. “We won you this city. We sewer rats.”

“Be quiet,” she said again ... though there was truth to what he said.

[...]“You helped win this city,” she repeated stubbornly. “And you have served me well in the past. Ser Barristan saved me from the Titan’s Bastard, and from the Sorrowful Man in Qarth. Ser Jorah saved me from the poisoner in Vaes Dothrak, and again from Drogo’s bloodriders after my sun-and-stars had died.” So many people wanted her dead, sometimes she lost count. “And yet you lied, deceived me, betrayed me.”

[...] The other will be harder. When Ser Barristan was done, she turned to Jorah Mormont. “And now you, ser. Tell me true.”

The big man’s neck was red; whether from anger or shame she did not know. “I have tried to tell you true, half a hundred times. I told you Arstan was more than he seemed. I warned you that Xaro and Pyat Pree were not to be trusted. I warned you—”

“You warned me against everyone except yourself.” His insolence angered her. He should be humbler. He should beg for my forgiveness. “Trust no one but Jorah Mormont, you said ... and all the time you were the Spider’s creature!”

“I am no man’s creature. I took the eunuch’s gold, yes. I learned some ciphers and wrote some letters, but that was all—”

“All? You spied on me and sold me to my enemies!”

“For a time.” He said it grudgingly. “I stopped.”

“When? When did you stop?”


“I made one report from Qarth, but—”

“From Qarth?” Dany had been hoping it had ended much earlier. “What did you write from Qarth? That you were my man now, that you wanted no more of their schemes?” Ser Jorah could not meet her eyes. “When Khal Drogo died, you asked me to go with you to Yi Ti and the Jade Sea. Was that your wish or Robert’s?”

“That was to protect you,” he insisted. “To keep you away from them. I knew what snakes they were ...”

“Snakes? And what are you, ser?” Something unspeakable occurred to her. “You told them I was carrying Drogo’s child ...”

“Khaleesi ...”

“Do not think to deny it, ser,” Ser Barristan said sharply. “I was there when the eunuch told the council, and Robert decreed that Her Grace and her child must die. You were the source, ser. There was even talk that you might do the deed, for a pardon.”

“A lie.” Ser Jorah’s face darkened. “I would never ... Daenerys, it was me who stopped you from drinking the wine.”

“Yes. And how was it you knew the wine was poisoned?”

“I ... I but suspected ... the caravan brought a letter from Varys, he warned me there would be attempts. He wanted you watched, yes, but not harmed.” He went to his knees. “If I had not told them someone else would have. You know that.”

“I know you betrayed me.” She touched her belly, where her son Rhaego had perished. “I know a poisoner tried to kill my son, because of you. That’s what I know.”


“No ... no.” He shook his head. “I never meant ... forgive me. You have to forgive me.”

“Have to?” It was too late. He should have begun by begging forgiveness. She could not pardon him as she’d intended. She had dragged the wineseller behind her horse until there was nothing left of him. Didn’t the man who brought him deserve the same? This is Jorah, my fierce bear, the right arm that never failed me. I would be dead without him, but ... “I can’t forgive you,” she said. “I can’t.”

“You forgave the old man ...”

“He lied to me about his name. You sold my secrets to the men who killed my father and stole my brother’s throne.”

“I protected you. I fought for you. Killed for you.”

Kissed me, she thought, betrayed me.

“I went down into the sewers like a rat. For you.”

It might have been kinder if you’d died there. Dany said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“Daenerys,” he said, “I have loved you.”

And there it was. Three treasons will you know. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love. “The gods do nothing without a purpose, they say. You did not die in battle, so it must be they still have some use for you. But I don’t. I will not have you near me. You are banished, ser. Go back to your masters in King’s Landing and collect your pardon, if you can. Or to Astapor. No doubt the butcher king needs knights.”

“No.” He reached for her. “Daenerys, please, hear me ...”

She slapped his hand away. “Do not ever presume to touch me again, or to speak my name. You have until dawn to collect your things and leave this city. If you’re found in Meereen past break of day, I will have Strong Belwas twist your head off. I will. Believe that.” She turned her back on him, her skirts swirling. I cannot bear to see his face. “Remove this liar from my sight,” she commanded. I must not weep. I must not. If I weep I will forgive him. Strong Belwas seized Ser Jorah by the arm and dragged him out. When Dany glanced back, the knight was walking as if drunk, stumbling and slow. She looked away until she heard the doors open and close. Then she sank back onto the ebony bench. He’s gone, then. My father and my mother, my brothers, Ser Willem Darry, Drogo who was my sun-and-stars, his son who died inside me, and now Ser Jorah ...

“The queen has a good heart,” Daario purred through his deep purple whiskers, “but that one is more dangerous than all the Oznaks and Meros rolled up in one.” His strong hands caressed the hilts of his matched blades, those wanton golden women. “You need not even say the word, my radiance. Only give the tiniest nod, and your Daario shall fetch you back his ugly head.”

“Leave him be. The scales are balanced now. Let him go home.” Dany pictured Jorah moving amongst old gnarled oaks and tall pines, past flowering thornbushes, grey stones bearded with moss, and little creeks running icy down steep hillsides. She saw him entering a hall built of huge logs, where dogs slept by the hearth and the smell of meat and mead hung thick in the smoky air.

~

She found herself reading the same passage half a dozen times. Ser Jorah gave me this book as a bride’s gift, the day I wed Khal Drogo. But Daario is right, I shouldn’t have banished him. I should have kept him, or I should have killed him. She played at being a queen, yet sometimes she still felt like a scared little girl. Viserys always said what a dolt I was. Was he truly mad? She closed the book. She could still recall Ser Jorah, if she wished. Or send Daario to kill him.

~

Distant torches glimmered red and yellow where her sentries walked their rounds, and here and there she saw the faint glow of lanterns bobbing down an alley. Perhaps one was Ser Jorah, leading his horse slowly toward the gate. Farewell, old bear. Farewell, betrayer.

 ASOS Daenerys V

The eunuch wrenched the blade loose and parted the hero’s head from his body with three savage blows to the neck. He held it up high for the Meereenese to see, then flung it toward the city gates and let it bounce and roll across the sand.

“So much for the hero of Meereen,” said Daario, laughing.

“A victory without meaning,” Ser Jorah cautioned. “We will not win Meereen by killing its defenders one at a time.”

“No,” Dany agreed, “but I’m pleased we killed this one.”

~

“...Already we’ve had reports of sickness in the camps, fever and brownleg and three cases of the bloody flux. There will be more if we remain. The slaves are weak from the march.”

“Freedmen,” Dany corrected. “They are slaves no longer.”

~

“Then what do you advise, Ser Jorah?”

“You will not like it.”


“I would hear it all the same.”

“As you wish. I say, let this city be. You cannot free every slave in the world, Khaleesi. Your war is in Westeros.”

“I have not forgotten Westeros.” Dany dreamt of it some nights, this fabled land that she had never seen. “If I let Meereen’s old brick walls defeat me so easily, though, how will I ever take the great stone castles of Westeros?”

“As Aegon did,” Ser Jorah said, “with fire. By the time we reach the Seven Kingdoms, your dragons will be grown. And we will have siege towers and trebuchets as well, all the things we lack here ... but the way across the Lands of the Long Summer is long and grueling, and there are dangers we cannot know. You stopped at Astapor to buy an army, not to start a war. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, my queen. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and march west for Pentos.”

“Defeated?” said Dany, bristling.

~

“Ser Jorah, you say we have no food left. If I march west, how can I feed my freedmen?”

“You can’t. I am sorry, Khaleesi. They must feed themselves or starve. Many and more will die along the march, yes. That will be hard, but there is no way to save them. We need to put this scorched earth well behind us.”

~

And Daario Naharis made her laugh, which Ser Jorah never did.

Dany tried to imagine what it would be like if she allowed Daario to kiss her, the way Jorah had kissed her on the ship. [...] Could I love Daario? What would it mean, if I took him into my bed? Would that make him one of the heads of the dragon? Ser Jorah would be angry, she knew, but he was the one who’d said she had to take two husbands. Perhaps I should marry them both and be done with it.

~

“I had a look at the river wall,” Ser Jorah started. “It’s a few feet higher than the others, and just as strong. And the Meereenese have a dozen fire hulks tied up beneath the ramparts—”

She cut him off. “You might have warned me that the Titan’s Bastard had escaped.”

He frowned. “I saw no need to frighten you, Your Grace. I have offered a reward for his head—”

“Pay it to Whitebeard. Mero has been with us all the way from Yunkai. He shaved his beard off and lost himself amongst the freedmen, waiting for a chance for vengeance. Arstan killed him.”

Ser Jorah gave the old man a long look. “A squire with a stick slew Mero of Braavos, is that the way of it?”

“A stick,” Dany confirmed, “but no longer a squire. Ser Jorah, it’s my wish that Arstan be knighted.”

“No.”


The loud refusal was surprise enough. Stranger still, it came from both men at once.

Ser Jorah drew his sword. “The Titan’s Bastard was a nasty piece of work. And good at killing. Who are you, old man?”

“A better knight than you, ser,” Arstan said coldly.

Knight? Dany was confused. “You said you were a squire.”

 [...] “I have told you no lies, my queen. Yet there are truths I have withheld, and for that and all my other sins I can only beg your forgiveness.”

“What truths have you withheld?” Dany did not like this. “You will tell me. Now.”

He bowed his head. “At Qarth, when you asked my name, I said I was called Arstan. That much was true. Many men had called me by that name while Belwas and I were making our way east to find you. But it is not my true name.”

She was more confused than angry. He has played me false, just as Jorah warned me, yet he saved my life just now.

Ser Jorah flushed red. “Mero shaved his beard, but you grew one, didn’t you? No wonder you looked so bloody familiar ...”

“You know him?” Dany asked the exile knight, lost.

“I saw him perhaps a dozen times ... from afar most often, standing with his brothers or riding in some tourney. But every man in the Seven Kingdoms knew Barristan the Bold.” He laid the point of his sword against the old man’s neck. “Khaleesi, before you kneels Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who betrayed your House to serve the Usurper Robert Baratheon.”

The old knight did not so much as blink. “The crow calls the raven black, and you speak of betrayal.”

“Why are you here?” Dany demanded of him. “If Robert sent you to kill me, why did you save my life?” He served the Usurper. He betrayed Rhaegar’s memory, and abandoned Viserys to live and die in exile. Yet if he wanted me dead, he need only have stood
aside ... “I want the whole truth now, on your honor as a knight. Are you the Usurper’s man, or mine?”

“Yours, if you will have me.” Ser Barristan had tears in his eyes. “I took Robert’s pardon, aye. I served him in Kingsguard and council. Served with the Kingslayer and others near as bad, who soiled the white cloak I wore. Nothing will excuse that. I might be serving in King’s Landing still if the vile boy upon the Iron Throne had not cast me aside, it shames me to admit. But when he took the cloak that the White Bull had draped about my shoulders, and sent men to kill me that selfsame day, it was as though he’d ripped a caul off my eyes. That was when I knew I must find my true king, and die in his service—”

“I can grant that wish,” Ser Jorah said darkly.

“Quiet,” said Dany. “I’ll hear him out.”

“It may be that I must die a traitor’s death,” Ser Barristan said. “If so, I should not die alone. Before I took Robert’s pardon I fought against him on the Trident. You were on the other side of that battle, Mormont, were you not?” He did not wait for an answer. “Your Grace, I am sorry I misled you. It was the only way to keep the Lannisters from learning that I had joined you. You are watched, as your brother was. Lord Varys reported every move Viserys made, for years. Whilst I sat on the small council, I heard a hundred such reports. And since the day you wed Khal Drogo, there has been an informer by your side selling your secrets, trading whispers to the Spider for gold and promises.”

He cannot mean ... “You are mistaken.” Dany looked at Jorah Mormont. “Tell him he’s mistaken. There’s no informer. Ser Jorah, tell him. We crossed the Dothraki sea together, and the red waste ...” Her heart fluttered like a bird in a trap. “Tell him, Jorah. Tell him how he got it wrong.”

“The Others take you, Selmy.” Ser Jorah flung his longsword to the carpet. “Khaleesi, it was only at the start, before I came to know you ... before I came to love ...”

“Do not say that word!” She backed away from him. “How could you? What did the Usurper promise you? Gold, was it gold?” The Undying had said she would be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love. “Tell me what you were promised?”

“Varys said ... I might go home.” He bowed his head.

I was going to take you home! Her dragons sensed her fury. Viserion roared, and smoke rose grey from his snout. Drogon beat the air with black wings, and Rhaegal twisted his head back and belched flame. I should say the word and burn the two of them. Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe? “Are all the knights of Westeros so false as you two? Get out, before my dragons roast you both. What does roast liar smell like? As foul as Brown Ben’s sewers? Go!”

Ser Barristan rose stiff and slow. For the first time, he looked his age. “Where shall we go, Your Grace?”

“To hell, to serve King Robert.” Dany felt hot tears on her cheeks. Drogon screamed, lashing his tail back and forth. “The Others can have you both.” Go, go away forever, both of you, the next time I see your faces I’ll have your traitors’ heads off. She could not say the words, though. They betrayed me. But they saved me. But they lied. “You go ...” My bear, my fierce strong bear, what will I do without him? And the old man, my brother’s friend. “You go ... go ...” Where?

And then she knew.

 ASOS Daenerys IV

Yet Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged.

~

“I will like the taste of your tongue, I think.”

She could sense Ser Jorah’s anger. My black bear does not like this talk of kissing.

~

“To be sure, I am only a young girl and know little of war. What do you think, my lords?”

“I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen’s sister,” Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

“Aye,” said Arstan Whitebeard, “and a queen as well.”

~

“My sword is yours. My life is yours. My love is yours. My blood, my body, my songs, you own them all. I live and die at your command, fair queen.”

“Then live,” Dany said, “and fight for me tonight.”

“That would not be wise, my queen.” Ser Jorah gave Daario a cold, hard stare. “Keep this one here under guard until the battle’s fought and won.”

She considered a moment, then shook her head. “If he can give us the Stormcrows, surprise is certain.”

“And if he betrays you, surprise is lost.”

~

Ser Jorah Mormont lingered. “Your Grace,” he said, too bluntly, “that was a mistake. We know nothing of this man—”

“We know that he is a great fighter.”

“A great talker, you mean.”

“He brings us the Stormcrows.” And he has blue eyes.

“Five hundred sellswords of uncertain loyalty.”

“All loyalties are uncertain in such times as these,” Dany reminded him. And I shall be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love.

“Daenerys, I am thrice your age,” Ser Jorah said. “I have seen how false men are. Very few are worthy of trust, and Daario Naharis is not one of them. Even his beard wears false colors.”

That angered her. “Whilst you have an honest beard, is that what you are telling me? You are the only man I should ever trust?”

He stiffened. “I did not say that.”

“You say it every day. Pyat Pree’s a liar, Xaro’s a schemer, Belwas a braggart, Arstan an assassin ... do you think I’m still some virgin girl, that I cannot hear the words behind the words?”

“Your Grace—”

She bulled over him. “You have been a better friend to me than any I have known, a better brother than Viserys ever was. You are the first of my Queensguard, the commander of my army, my most valued counselor, my good right hand. I honor and respect and cherish you—but I do not desire you, Jorah Mormont, and I am weary of your trying to push every other man in the world away from me, so I must needs rely on you and you alone. It will not serve, and it will not make me love you any better.”

Mormont had flushed red when she first began, but by the time Dany was done his face was pale again. He stood still as stone. “If my queen commands,” he said, curt and cold.

Dany was warm enough for both of them. “She does,” she said. “She commands. Now go see to your Unsullied, ser. You have a battle to fight and win.”

When he was gone, Dany threw herself down on her pillows beside her dragons. She had not meant to be so sharp with Ser Jorah, but his endless suspicion had finally woken her dragon.

He will forgive me, she told herself. I am his liege. Dany found herself wondering whether he was right about Daario. She felt very lonely all of a sudden. Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. “You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.”

 ASOS Daenerys III

Afterward she called her bloodriders to her cabin, with Ser Jorah. They were the only ones she truly trusted.

[...] Ser Jorah soon joined her by the rail. He is never far, Dany thought. He knows my moods too well.

“Khaleesi. You ought to be asleep. Tomorrow will be hot and hard, I promise you. You’ll need your strength.”


“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him. “The Lhazareen girl?”

“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her fate.”

“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.

“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”


“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.”


Ser Jorah had no answer. He only smiled, and touched her hair, so lightly. It was enough.

 ASOS Daenerys II

“They might be adequate to my needs,” Dany answered. It had been Ser Jorah’s suggestion that she speak only Dothraki and the Common Tongue while in Astapor. My bear is more clever than he looks.

~

Ser Jorah Mormont she had left aboard Balerion to guard her people and her dragons.

~

She made herself smile. “I have my own bear on Balerion,” she told the translator, “and he may well eat me if I do not return to him.”

“See,” said Kraznys when her words were translated. “It is not the woman who decides, it is this man she runs to. As ever!”

~

“Then leave this place before your heart turns to brick as well. Sail this very night, on the evening tide.”

Would that I could, thought Dany. “When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.”

“Ser Jorah was a slaver himself, Your Grace,” the old man reminded her. “There are sellswords in Pentos and Myr and Tyrosh you can hire. A man who kills for coin has no honor, but at least they are no slaves. Find your army there, I beg you.”

~

He has a good face, and great strength to him, Dany thought. She could not understand why Ser Jorah mistrusted the old man so. Could he be jealous that I have found another man to talk to? Unbidden, her thoughts went back to the night on Balerion when the exile knight had kissed her. He should never have done that. He is thrice my age, and of too low a birth for me, and I never gave him leave. No true knight would ever kiss a queen without her leave. She had taken care never to be alone with Ser Jorah after that, keeping her handmaids with her aboard ship, and sometimes her bloodriders. He wants to kiss me again, I see it in his eyes.

What Dany wanted she could not begin to say, but Jorah’s kiss had woken something in her, something that been sleeping since Khal Drogo died. Lying abed in her narrow bunk, she found herself wondering how it would be to have a man squeezed in beside her in place of her handmaid, and the thought was more exciting than it should have been. Sometimes she would close her eyes and dream of him, but it was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow.

~

Ser Jorah Mormont stood waiting for her. “Your Grace,” he said, bowing his head. “The slavers have come and gone. Three of them, with a dozen scribes and as many slaves to lift and fetch. They crawled over every foot of our holds and made note of all we had.” He walked her aft. “How many men do they have for sale?”

“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.”

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” If you were my true knight, you would never have kissed me, or looked at my breasts the way you did, or ...

“As Your Grace commands. I shall tell Captain Groleo to make ready to sail on the evening tide, for some sty less vile.”

“No,” said Dany. Groleo watched them from the forecastle, and his crew was watching too. Whitebeard, her bloodriders, Jhiqui, every one had stopped what they were doing at the sound of the slap. “I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” And with that she left him, and went below.

~

There was a soft step behind her. “Khaleesi.” His voice. “Might I speak frankly?”

Dany did not turn. She could not bear to look at him just now. If she did, she might well slap him again. Or cry. Or kiss him. And never know which was right and which was wrong and which was madness. “Say what you will, ser.”

“When Aegon the Dragon stepped ashore in Westeros, the kings of Vale and Rock and Reach did not rush to hand him their crowns. If you mean to sit his Iron Throne, you must win it as he did, with steel and dragonfire. And that will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.”

Blood and fire, thought Dany. The words of House Targaryen. She had known them all her life. “The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eight thousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangled dogs.”

“Your Grace,” said Jorah Mormont, “I saw King’s Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they’ll kill are those you want dead. And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall.”

The Usurper’s dogs. “Yes.” Dany gazed off at the soft colored lights and let the cool salt breeze caress her. “You speak of sacking cities. Answer me this, ser—why have the Dothraki never sacked this city?” She pointed. “Look at the walls. You can see where they’ve begun to crumble. There, and there. Do you see any guards on those towers? I don’t. Are they hiding, ser? I saw these sons of the harpy today, all their proud highborn warriors. They dressed in linen skirts, and the fiercest thing about them was their hair. Even a modest khalasar could crack this Astapor like a nut and spill out the rotted meat inside. So tell me, why is that ugly harpy not sitting beside the godsway in Vaes Dothrak among the other stolen gods?”

“You have a dragon’s eye, Khaleesi, that’s plain to see.”

“I wanted an answer, not a compliment.”

“There are two reasons. Astapor’s brave defenders are so much chaff, it’s true. Old names and fat purses who dress up as Ghiscari scourges to pretend they still rule a vast empire. Every one is a high officer. On feastdays they fight mock wars in the pits to demonstrate what brilliant commanders they are, but it’s the eunuchs who do the dying. All the same, any enemy wanting to sack Astapor would have to know that they’d be facing Unsullied. The slavers would turn out the whole garrison in the city’s defense. The Dothraki have not ridden against Unsullied since they left their braids at the gates of Qohor.”

“And the second reason?” Dany asked.

“Who would attack Astapor?” Ser Jorah asked. “Meereen and Yunkai are rivals but not enemies, the Doom destroyed Valyria, the folk of the eastern hinterlands are all Ghiscari, and beyond the hills lies Lhazar. The Lamb Men, as your Dothraki call them, a notably unwarlike people.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but north of the slave cities is the Dothraki sea, and two dozen mighty khals who like nothing more than sacking cities and carrying off their people into slavery.”

“Carrying them off where? What good are slaves once you’ve killed the slavers? Valyria is no more, Qarth lies beyond the red waste, and the Nine Free Cities are thousands of leagues to the west. And you may be sure the sons of the harpy give lavishly to every passing khal, just as the magisters do in Pentos and Norvos and Myr. They know that if they feast the horselords and give them gifts, they will soon ride on. It’s cheaper than fighting, and a deal more certain.”

Cheaper than fighting, Dany thought. Yes, it might be. If only it could be that easy for her. How pleasant it would be to sail to King’s Landing with her dragons, and pay the boy Joffrey a chest of gold to make him go away.

“Khaleesi?” Ser Jorah prompted, when she had been silent for a long time. He touched her elbow lightly.

Dany shrugged him off. “Viserys would have bought as many Unsullied as he had the coin for. But you once said I was like Rhaegar ...”

“I remember, Daenerys.”

“Your Grace,” she corrected. “Prince Rhaegar led free men into battle, not slaves. Whitebeard said he dubbed his squires himself, and made many other knights as well.”

“There was no higher honor than to receive your knighthood from the Prince of Dragonstone.”

“Tell me, then—when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? ‘Go forth and kill the weak’? Or ‘Go forth and defend them’? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar’s cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?” Dany turned to Mormont, crossed her arms, and waited for an answer.

“My queen,” the big man said slowly, “all you say is true. But Rhaegar lost on the Trident. He lost the battle, he lost the war, he lost the kingdom, and he lost his life. His blood swirled downriver with the rubies from his breastplate, and Robert the Usurper rode over his corpse to steal the Iron Throne. Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.”

 ASOS Daenerys I

Yet even so, it was noted that none of the pit dragons ever reached the size of their ancestors. The maesters say it was because of the walls around them, and the great dome above their heads.”

“If walls could keep us small, peasants would all be tiny and kings as large as giants,” said Ser Jorah. “I’ve seen huge men born in hovels, and dwarfs who dwelt in castles.”

“Men are men,” Whitebeard replied. “Dragons are dragons.”

Ser Jorah snorted his disdain. “How profound.” The exile knight had no love for the old man, he’d made that plain from the first.

~

“A warrior without peer ... those are fine words, Your Grace, but words win no battles.”

“Swords win battles,” Ser Jorah said bluntly. “And Prince Rhaegar knew how to use one.”


~

“...A change in the wind may bring the gift of victory.” He glanced at Ser Jorah. “Or a lady’s favor knotted round an arm.”

Mormont’s face darkened. “Be careful what you say, old man.”

Arstan had seen Ser Jorah fight at Lannisport, Dany knew, in the tourney Mormont had won with a lady’s favor knotted round his arm. He had won the lady too; Lynesse of House Hightower, his second wife, highborn and beautiful ... but she had ruined him, and abandoned him, and the memory of her was bitter to him now. “Be gentle, my knight.” She put a hand on Jorah’s arm. “Arstan had no wish to give offense, I’m certain.”

~

Ser Jorah watched with a frown on his blunt honest face. Mormont was big and burly, strong of jaw and thick of shoulder. Not a handsome man by any means, but as true a friend as Dany had ever known. “You would be wise to take that old man’s words well salted,” he told her when Whitebeard was out of earshot.

~

“Sit, good ser, and tell me what is troubling you.”

“Three things.” Ser Jorah sat. “Strong Belwas. This Arstan Whitebeard. And Illyrio Mopatis, who sent them.”

Again? Dany pulled the coverlet higher and tugged one end over her shoulder. “And why is that?”

“The warlocks in Qarth told you that you would be betrayed three times,” the exile knight reminded her, as Viserion and Rhaegal began to snap and claw at each other.

“Once for blood and once for gold and once for love.” Dany was not like to forget. “Mirri Maz Duur was the first.”

“Which means two traitors yet remain ... and now these two appear. I find that troubling, yes. Never forget, Robert offered a lordship to the man who slays you.”

Dany leaned forward and yanked Viserion’s tail, to pull him off his green brother. Her blanket fell away from her chest as she moved. She grabbed it hastily and covered herself again. “The Usurper is dead,” she said.

“But his son rules in his place.” Ser Jorah lifted his gaze, and his dark eyes met her own. “A dutiful son pays his father’s debts. Even blood debts.”

“This boy Joffrey might want me dead ... if he recalls that I’m alive. What has that to do with Belwas and Arstan Whitebeard? The old man does not even wear a sword. You’ve seen that.”

“Aye. And I have seen how deftly he handles that staff of his. Recall how he killed that manticore in Qarth? It might as easily have been your throat he crushed.”

“Might have been, but was not,” she pointed out. “It was a stinging manticore meant to slay me. He saved my life.”

“Khaleesi, has it occurred to you that Whitebeard and Belwas might have been in league with the assassin? It might all have been a ploy to win your trust.”

Her sudden laughter made Drogon hiss, and sent Viserion flapping to his perch above the porthole. “The ploy worked well.”

The exile knight did not return her smile. “These are Illyrio’s ships, Illyrio’s captains, Illyrio’s sailors ... and Strong Belwas and Arstan are his men as well, not yours.”

“Magister Illyrio has protected me in the past. Strong Belwas says that he wept when he heard my brother was dead.”

“Yes,” said Mormont, “but did he weep for Viserys, or for the plans he had made with him?”

“His plans need not change. Magister Illyrio is a friend to House Targaryen, and wealthy ...”

“He was not born wealthy. In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness. The warlocks said the second treason would be for gold. What does Illyrio Mopatis love more than gold?”

“His skin.” Across the cabin Drogon stirred restlessly, steam rising from his snout. “Mirri Maz Duur betrayed me. I burned her for it.”

“Mirri Maz Duur was in your power. In Pentos, you shall be in Illyrio’s power. It is not the same. I know the magister as well as you. He is a devious man, and clever—”

“I need clever men about me if I am to win the Iron Throne.”

Ser Jorah snorted. “That wineseller who tried to poison you was a clever man as well. Clever men hatch ambitious schemes.”

Dany drew her legs up beneath the blanket. “You will protect me. You, and my bloodriders.”

“Four men? Khaleesi, you believe you know Illyrio Mopatis, very well. Yet you insist on surrounding yourself with men you do not know, like this puffed-up eunuch and the world’s oldest squire. Take a lesson from Pyat Pree and Xaro Xhoan Daxos.”

He means well, Dany reminded herself. He does all he does for love. “It seems to me that a queen who trusts no one is as foolish as a queen who trusts everyone. Every man I take into my service is a risk, I understand that, but how am I to win the Seven Kingdoms without such risks? Am I to conquer Westeros with one exile knight and three Dothraki bloodriders?”

His jaw set stubbornly. “Your path is dangerous, I will not deny that. But if you blindly trust in every liar and schemer who crosses it, you will end as your brothers did.”

His obstinacy made her angry. He treats me like some child. “Strong Belwas could not scheme his way to breakfast. And what lies has Arstan Whitebeard told me?”

“He is not what he pretends to be. He speaks to you more boldly than any squire would dare.”

“He spoke frankly at my command. He knew my brother.”

“A great many men knew your brother. Your Grace, in Westeros the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard sits on the small council, and serves the king with his wits as well as his steel. If I am the first of your Queensguard, I pray you, hear me out. I have a plan to put to you.”

“What plan? Tell me.”


“Illyrio Mopatis wants you back in Pentos, under his roof. Very well, go to him ... but in your own time, and not alone. Let us see how loyal and obedient these new subjects of yours truly are. Command Groleo to change course for Slaver’s Bay.”

Dany was not certain she liked the sound of that at all. Everything she’d ever heard of the flesh marts in the great slave cities of Yunkai, Meereen, and Astapor was dire and frightening. “What is there for me in Slaver’s Bay?”

“An army,” said Ser Jorah. “If Strong Belwas is so much to your liking you can buy hundreds more like him out of the fighting pits of Meereen ... but it is Astapor I’d set my sails for. In Astapor you can buy Unsullied.”

“The slaves in the spiked bronze hats?” Dany had seen Unsullied guards in the Free Cities, posted at the gates of magisters, archons, and dynasts. “Why should I want Unsullied? They don’t even ride horses, and most of them are fat.”

“The Unsullied you may have seen in Pentos and Myr were household guards. That’s soft service, and eunuchs tend to plumpness in any case. Food is the only vice allowed them. To judge all Unsullied by a few old household slaves is like judging all squires by Arstan Whitebeard, Your Grace. Do you know the tale of the Three Thousand of Qohor?”

“No.” The coverlet slipped off Dany’s shoulder, and she tugged it back into place.

“It was four hundred years ago or more, when the Dothraki first rode out of the east, sacking and burning every town and city in their path. The khal who led them was named Temmo. His khalasar was not so big as Drogo’s, but it was big enough. Fifty thousand, at the least. Half of them braided warriors with bells ringing in their hair.

“The Qohorik knew he was coming. They strengthened their walls, doubled the size of their own guard, and hired two free companies besides, the Bright Banners and the Second Sons. And almost as an afterthought, they sent a man to Astapor to buy three thousand Unsullied. It was a long march back to Qohor, however, and as they approached they saw the smoke and dust and heard the distant din of battle.

“By the time the Unsullied reached the city the sun had set. Crows and wolves were feasting beneath the walls on what remained of the Qohorik heavy horse. The Bright Banners and Second Sons had fled, as sellswords are wont to do in the face of hopeless odds. With dark falling, the Dothraki had retired to their own camps to drink and dance and feast, but none doubted that they would return on the morrow to smash the city gates, storm the walls, and rape, loot, and slave as they pleased.

“But when dawn broke and Temmo and his bloodriders led their khalasar out of camp, they found three thousand Unsullied drawn up before the gates with the Black Goat standard flying over their heads. So small a force could easily have been flanked, but you know Dothraki. These were men on foot, and men on foot are fit only to be ridden down.

“The Dothraki charged. The Unsullied locked their shields, lowered their spears, and stood firm. Against twenty thousand screamers with bells in their hair, they stood firm.

“Eighteen times the Dothraki charged, and broke themselves on those shields and spears like waves on a rocky shore. Thrice Temmo sent his archers wheeling past and arrows fell like rain upon the Three Thousand, but the Unsullied merely lifted their shields above their heads until the squall had passed. In the end only six hundred of them remained ... but more than twelve thousand Dothraki lay dead upon that field, including Khal Temmo, his bloodriders, his kos, and all his sons. On the morning of the fourth day, the new khal led the survivors past the city gates in a stately procession. One by one, each man cut off his braid and threw it down before the feet of the Three Thousand.

“Since that day, the city guard of Qohor has been made up solely of Unsullied, every one of whom carries a tall spear from which hangs a braid of human hair.

“That is what you will find in Astapor, Your Grace. Put ashore there, and continue on to Pentos overland. It will take longer, yes ... but when you break bread with Magister Illyrio, you will have a thousand swords behind you, not just four.”

There is wisdom in this, yes, Dany thought, but ... “How am I to buy a thousand slave soldiers? All I have of value is the crown the Tourmaline Brotherhood gave me.”

“Dragons will be as great a wonder in Astapor as they were in Qarth. It may be that the slavers will shower you with gifts, as the Qartheen did. If not ... these ships carry more than your Dothraki and their horses. They took on trade goods at Qarth, I’ve been through the holds and seen for myself. Bolts of silk and bales of tiger skin, amber and jade carvings, saffron, myrrh ... slaves are cheap, Your Grace. Tiger skins are costly.”

“Those are Illyrio’s tiger skins,” she objected.
“And Illyrio is a friend to House Targaryen.”
“All the more reason not to steal his goods.”
“What use are wealthy friends if they will not put their wealth at your disposal, my queen? If Magister Illyrio would deny you, he is only Xaro Xhoan Daxos with four chins. And if he is sincere in his devotion to your cause, he will not begrudge you three shiploads of trade goods. What better use for his tiger skins than to buy you the beginnings of an army?”

That’s true. Dany felt a rising excitement. “There will be dangers on such a long march ...”

“There are dangers at sea as well. Corsairs and pirates hunt the southern route, and north of Valyria the Smoking Sea is demon- haunted. The next storm could sink or scatter us, a kraken could pull us under ... or we might find ourselves becalmed again, and die of thirst as we wait for the wind to rise. A march will have different dangers, my queen, but none greater.”

“What if Captain Groleo refuses to change course, though? And Arstan, Strong Belwas, what will they do?”

Ser Jorah stood. “Perhaps it’s time you found that out.”

“Yes,” she decided. “I’ll do it!” Dany threw back the coverlets and hopped from the bunk. “I’ll see the captain at once, command him to set course for Astapor.” She bent over her chest, threw open the lid, and seized the first garment to hand, a pair of loose sandsilk trousers. “Hand me my medallion belt,” she commanded Jorah as she pulled the sandsilk up over her hips. “And my vest—” she started to say, turning. Ser Jorah slid his arms around her.
“Oh,” was all Dany had time to say as he pulled her close and pressed his lips down on hers. He smelled of sweat and salt and leather, and the iron studs on his jerkin dug into her naked breasts as he crushed her hard against him. One hand held her by the shoulder while the other slid down her spine to the small of her back, and her mouth opened for his tongue, though she never told it to. His beard is scratchy, she thought, but his mouth is sweet. The Dothraki wore no beards, only long mustaches, and only Khal Drogo had ever kissed her before. He should not be doing this. I am his queen, not his woman.

It was a long kiss, though how long Dany could not have said. When it ended, Ser Jorah let go of her, and she took a quick step backward. “You ... you should not have ...”

“I should not have waited so long,” he finished for her. “I should have kissed you in Qarth, in Vaes Tolorru. I should have kissed you in the red waste, every night and every day. You were made to be kissed, often and well.” His eyes were on her breasts.

Dany covered them with her hands, before her nipples could betray her. “I ... that was not fitting. I am your queen.”

“My queen,” he said, “and the bravest, sweetest, and most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Daenerys—”

“Your Grace!”

“Your Grace,” he conceded, “the dragon has three heads, remember? You have wondered at that, ever since you heard it from the warlocks in the House of Dust. Well, here’s your meaning: Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar, ridden by Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya. The three-headed dragon of House Targaryen—three dragons, and three riders.”

“Yes,” said Dany, “but my brothers are dead.”

“Rhaenys and Visenya were Aegon’s wives as well as his sisters. You have no brothers, but you can take husbands. And I tell you truly, Daenerys, there is no man in all the world who will ever be half so true to you as me.”

 A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

Ser Jorah would sooner have tucked her inside her palanquin, safely hidden behind silken curtains, but she refused him. She had reclined too long on satin cushions, letting oxen bear her hither and yon. At least when she rode she felt as though she was getting somewhere.

~

But where am I to go? Ser Jorah proposed that they journey farther east, away from her enemies in the Seven Kingdoms. Her bloodriders would sooner have returned to their great grass sea, even if it meant braving the red waste again. Dany herself had toyed with the idea of settling in Vaes Tolorro until her dragons grew great and strong. But her heart was full of doubts. Each of these felt wrong, somehow ... and even when she decided where to go, the question of how she would get there remained troublesome.

~

“The dragon has three heads,” she sighed. “Do you know what that means, Jorah?”

“Your Grace? The sigil of House Targaryen is a three-headed dragon, red on black.”

“I know that. But there are no three-headed dragons.”

“The three heads were Aegon and his sisters.”

“Visenya and Rhaenys,” she recalled. “I am descended from Aegon and Rhaenys through their son Aenys and their grandson Jaehaerys.”

“Blue lips speak only lies, isn’t that what Xaro told you? Why do you care what the warlocks whispered? All they wanted was to suck the life from you, you know that now.”

“Perhaps,” she said reluctantly. “Yet the things I saw ...”
“A dead man in the prow of a ship, a blue rose, a banquet of blood ... what does any of it mean, Khaleesi? A mummer’s dragon, you said. What is a mummer’s dragon, pray?”
“A cloth dragon on poles,” Dany explained. “Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight.”

Ser Jorah frowned.

Dany could not let it go. “His is the song of ice and fire, my brother said. I’m certain it was my brother. Not Viserys, Rhaegar. He had a harp with silver strings.”

Ser Jorah’s frown deepened until his eyebrows came together. “Prince Rhaegar played such a harp,” he conceded. “You saw him?”

She nodded. “There was a woman in a bed with a babe at her breast. My brother said the babe was the prince that was promised and told her to name him Aegon.”

“Prince Aegon was Rhaegar’s heir by Elia of Dorne,” Ser Jorah said. “But if he was this prince that was promised, the promise was broken along with his skull when the Lannisters dashed his head against a wall.”

“I remember,” Dany said sadly. “They murdered Rhaegar’s daughter as well, the little princess. Rhaenys, she was named, like Aegon’s sister. There was no Visenya, but he said the dragon has three heads. What is the song of ice and fire?”

“It’s no song I’ve ever heard.”

“I went to the warlocks hoping for answers, but instead they’ve left me with a hundred new questions.”

 ACOK Daenerys IV

“What power can they have if they live in that?”

~

Ser Jorah Mormont gave the merchant prince a sour look. “Your Grace, remember Mirri Maz Duur.”

“I do,” Dany said, suddenly decided. “I remember that she had knowledge. And she was only a maegi.”

~

Ser Jorah Mormont knelt beside Dany in the cool green grass and put his arm around her shoulder.

 ACOK Daenerys III

Ser Jorah she had left behind today, to guard her other dragons; the exile knight had been opposed to this folly from the start. He distrusts everyone, she reflected, and perhaps for good reason.

~

Xaro’s flowery protestations of passion amused her, but his manner was at odds with his words. While Ser Jorah had scarcely been able to keep his eyes from her bare breast when he’d helped her into the palanquin, Xaro hardly deigned to notice it, even in these close confines.

~

Ser Jorah Mormont came to her as the sun was going down. “The Pureborn refused you?”

“As you said they would. Come, sit, give me your counsel.” [...]

“You will get no help in this city, Khaleesi.” Ser Jorah took an onion between thumb and forefinger. “Each day I am more convinced of that than the day before. The Pureborn see no farther than the walls of Qarth, and Xaro ...”

“He asked me to marry him again.”

“Yes, and I know why.” When the knight frowned, his heavy black brows joined together above his deep-set eyes.

“He dreams of me, day and night.” She laughed.


“Forgive me, my queen, but it is your dragons he dreams of.”

“Xaro assures me that in Qarth, man and woman each retain their own property after they are wed. The dragons are mine.” She smiled as Drogon came hopping and flapping across the marble floor to crawl up on the cushion beside her.

“He tells it true as far as it goes, but there’s one thing he failed to mention. The Qartheen have a curious wedding custom, my queen. On the day of their union, a wife may ask a token of love from her husband. Whatsoever she desires of his worldly goods, he must grant. And he may ask the same of her. One thing only may be asked, but whatever is named may not be denied.”

“One thing,” she repeated. “And it may not be denied?”

“With one dragon, Xaro Xhoan Daxos would rule this city, but one ship will further our cause but little.”

Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men. “We passed through the bazaar on our way back from the Hall of a Thousand Thrones,” she told Ser Jorah. “Quaithe was there.” She told him of the firemage and the fiery ladder, and what the woman in the red mask had told her.

“I would be glad to leave this city, if truth be told,” the knight said when she was done. “But not for Asshai.”

“Where, then?”

“East,” he said.

“I am half a world away from my kingdom even here. If I go any farther east I may never find my way home to Westeros.”

“If you go west, you risk your life.”

“House Targaryen has friends in the Free Cities,” she reminded him. “Truer friends than Xaro or the Pureborn.”

“If you mean Illyrio Mopatis, I wonder. For sufficient gold, Illyrio would sell you as quickly as he would a slave.”

“My brother and I were guests in Illyrio’s manse for half a year. If he meant to sell us, he could have done it then.”

“He did sell you,” Ser Jorah said. “To Khal Drogo.”

Dany flushed. He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. “Illyrio protected us from the Usurper’s knives, and he believed in my brother’s cause.”

“Illyrio believes in no cause but Illyrio. Gluttons are greedy men as a rule, and magisters are devious. Illyrio Mopatis is both. What do you truly know of him?”

“I know that he gave me my dragon eggs.”

He snorted. “If he’d known they were like to hatch, he would have sat on them himself.”

That made her smile despite herself. “Oh, I have no doubt of that, ser. I know Illyrio better than you think. I was a child when I left his manse in Pentos to wed my sun-and-stars, but I was neither deaf nor blind. And I am no child now.”

“Even if Illyrio is the friend you think him,” the knight said stubbornly, “he is not powerful enough to enthrone you by himself, no more than he could your brother.”

“He is rich,” she said. “Not so rich as Xaro, perhaps, but rich enough to hire ships for me, and men as well.”

“Sellswords have their uses,” Ser Jorah admitted, “but you will not win your father’s throne with sweepings from the Free Cities. Nothing knits a broken realm together so quick as an invading army on its soil.”

“I am their rightful queen,” Dany protested.

“You are a stranger who means to land on their shores with an army of outlanders who cannot even speak the Common Tongue. The lords of Westeros do not know you, and have every reason to fear and mistrust you. You must win them over before you sail. A few at least.”

“And how am I to do that, if I go east as you counsel?”

He ate an olive and spit out the pit into his palm. “I do not know, Your Grace,” he admitted, “but I do know that the longer you remain in one place, the easier it will be for your enemies to find you. The name Targaryen still frightens them, so much so that they sent a man to murder you when they heard you were with child. What will they do when they learn of your dragons?”

 ACOK Daenerys II

My great bear, Dany thought. I am his queen, but I will always be his cub as well, and he will always guard me. It made her feel safe, but sad as well. She wished she could love him better than she did.

~

“Ser Jorah, find the docks and see what manner of ships lay at anchor. It has been half a year since I last heard tidings from the Seven Kingdoms.[”] [...]

The knight frowned. [...] “My place is here at your side.”

“Jhogo can guard me as well.[”] [...]

Reluctantly, the exile nodded. “As you say, my queen.”

~

“Khaleesi,” the knight said when they were alone, “I should not speak so freely of your plans, if I were you. This man will spread the tale wherever he goes now.”

“Let him,” she said. “Let the whole world know my purpose. The Usurper is dead, what does it matter?”

“Not every sailor’s tale is true,” Ser Jorah cautioned, “and even if Robert be truly dead, his son rules in his place. This changes nothing, truly.”

“This changes everything.”

~

“The high lords have always fought. Tell me who’s won and I’ll tell you what it means. Khaleesi, the Seven Kingdoms are not going to fall into your hands like so many ripe peaches. You will need a fleet, gold, armies, alliances—”

“All this I know.” She took his hands in hers and looked up into his dark suspicious eyes.

Sometimes he thinks of me as a child he must protect, and sometimes as a woman he would like to bed, but does he ever truly see me as his queen? “I am not the frightened girl you met in Pentos. I have counted only fifteen name days, true ... but I am as old as the crones in the dosh khaleen and as young as my dragons, Jorah. I have borne a child, burned a khal, and crossed the red waste and the Dothraki sea. Mine is the blood of the dragon.”

“As was your brother’s,” he said stubbornly.

“I am not Viserys.”

“No,” he admitted. “There is more of Rhaegar in you, I think, but even Rhaegar could be slain. Robert proved that on the Trident, with no more than a warhammer. Even dragons can die.”

“Dragons die.” She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. “But so do dragonslayers.”

ACOK Daenerys I

The knight’s face was grey and exhausted. The wound he had taken to his hip the night he fought Khal Drogo’s bloodriders had never fully healed; she could see how he grimaced when he mounted his horse, and he seemed to slump in his saddle as they rode. “Perhaps we are doomed if we press on . . . but I know for a certainty that we are doomed if we turn back.”

Dany kissed him lightly on the cheek. It heartened her to see him smile. I must be strong for him as well, she thought grimly. A knight he may be, but I am the blood of the dragon.

~

“There are ghosts everywhere,” Ser Jorah said softly. “We carry them with us wherever we go.”

Yes, she thought. Viserys, Khal Drogo, my son Rhaego, they are with me always. “Tell me the name of your ghost, Jorah. You know all of mine.”

His face grew very still. “Her name was Lynesse.” “Your wife?”

“My second wife.”

It pains him to speak of her, Dany saw, but she wanted to know the truth. “Is that all you would say of her?” The lion pelt slid off one shoulder and she tugged it back into place. “Was she beautiful?”

“Very beautiful.” Ser Jorah lifted his eyes from her shoulder to her face. “The first time I beheld her, I thought she was a goddess come to earth, the Maid herself made flesh. Her birth was far above my own. She was the youngest daughter of Lord Leyton Hightower of Oldtown. The White Bull who commanded your father’s Kingsguard was her great-uncle. The Hightowers are an ancient family, very rich and very proud.”

“And loyal,” Dany said. “I remember, Viserys said the Hightowers were among those who stayed true to my father.”

“That’s so,” he admitted.

“Did your fathers make the match?”

“No,” he said. “Our marriage . . . that makes a long tale and a dull one, Your Grace. I would not trouble you with it.”

“I have nowhere to go,” she said. “Please.”

“As my queen commands.” Ser Jorah frowned. “My home . . . you must understand that to understand the rest. Bear Island is beautiful, but remote. Imagine old gnarled oaks and tall pines, flowering thornbushes, grey stones bearded with moss, little creeks running icy down steep hillsides. The hall of the Mormonts is built of huge logs and surrounded by an earthen palisade. Aside from a few crofters, my people live along the coasts and fish the seas. The island lies far to the north, and our winters are more terrible than you can imagine, Khaleesi.”

“Still, the island suited me well enough, and I never lacked for women. I had my share of fishwives and crofter’s daughters, before and after I was wed. I married young, to a bride of my father’s choosing, a Glover of Deepwood Motte. Ten years we were wed, or near enough as makes no matter. She was a plain-faced woman, but not unkind. I suppose I came to love her after a fashion, though our relations were dutiful rather than passionate. Three times she miscarried while trying to give me an heir. The last time she never recovered. She died not long after.”

Dany put her hand on his and gave his fingers a squeeze. “I am sorry for you, truly.”

Ser Jorah nodded. “By then my father had taken the black, so I was Lord of Bear Island in my own right. I had no lack of marriage offers, but before I could reach a decision Lord Balon Greyjoy rose in rebellion against the Usurper, and Ned Stark called his banners to help his friend Robert. The final battle was on Pyke. When Robert’s stonethrowers opened a breach in King Balon’s wall, a priest from Myr was the first man through, but I was not far behind. For that I won my knighthood.”

“To celebrate his victory, Robert ordained that a tourney should be held outside Lannisport. It was there I saw Lynesse, a maid half my age. She had come up from Oldtown with her father to see her brothers joust. I could not take my eyes off her. In a fit of madness, I begged her favor to wear in the tourney, never dreaming she would grant my request, yet she did.”

“I fight as well as any man, Khaleesi, but I have never been a tourney knight. Yet with Lynesse’s favor knotted round my arm, I was a different man. I won joust after joust. Lord Jason Mallister fell before me, and Bronze Yohn Royce. Ser Ryman Frey, his brother Ser Hosteen, Lord Whent, Strongboar, even Ser Boros Blount of the Kingsguard, I unhorsed them all. In the last match, I broke nine lances against Jaime Lannister to no result, and King Robert gave me the champion’s laurel. I crowned Lynesse queen of love and beauty, and that very night went to her father and asked for her hand. I was drunk, as much on glory as on wine. By rights I should have gotten a contemptuous refusal, but Lord Leyton accepted my offer. We were married there in Lannisport, and for a fortnight I was the happiest man in the wide world.”

“Only a fortnight?” asked Dany. Even I was given more happiness than that, with Drogo who was my sun-and-stars.

“A fortnight was how long it took us to sail from Lannisport back to Bear Island. My home was a great disappointment to Lynesse. It was too cold, too damp, too far away, my castle no more than a wooden longhall. We had no masques, no mummer shows, no balls or fairs. Seasons might pass without a singer ever coming to play for us, and there’s not a goldsmith on the island. Even meals became a trial. My cook knew little beyond his roasts and stews, and Lynesse soon lost her taste for fish and venison.”

“I lived for her smiles, so I sent all the way to Oldtown for a new cook, and brought a harper from Lannisport. Goldsmiths, jewelers, dressmakers, whatever she wanted I found for her, but it was never enough. Bear Island is rich in bears and trees, and poor in aught else. I built a fine ship for her and we sailed to Lannisport and Oldtown for festivals and fairs, and once even to Braavos, where I borrowed heavily from the moneylenders. It was as a tourney champion that I had won her hand and heart, so I entered other tourneys for her sake, but the magic was gone. I never distinguished myself again, and each defeat meant the loss of another charger and another suit of jousting armor, which must needs be ransomed or replaced. The cost could not be borne. Finally I insisted we return home, but there matters soon grew even worse than before. I could no longer pay the cook and the harper, and Lynesse grew wild when I spoke of pawning her jewels.”

“The rest . . . I did things it shames me to speak of. For gold. So Lynesse might keep her jewels, her harper, and her cook. In the end it cost me all. When I heard that Eddard Stark was coming to Bear Island, I was so lost to honor that rather than stay and face his judgment, I took her with me into exile. Nothing mattered but our love, I told myself. We fled to Lys, where I sold my ship for gold to keep us.”

His voice was thick with grief, and Dany was reluctant to press him any further, yet she had to know how it ended. “Did she die there?” she asked him gently.

“Only to me,” he said. “In half a year my gold was gone, and I was obliged to take service as a sellsword. While I was fighting Braavosi on the Rhoyne, Lynesse moved into the manse of a merchant prince named Tregar Ormollen. They say she is his chief concubine now, and even his wife goes in fear of her.”

Dany was horrified. “Do you hate her?”

“Almost as much as I love her,” Ser Jorah answered. “Pray excuse me, my queen. I find I am very tired.”

She gave him leave to go, but as he was lifting the flap of her tent, she could not stop herself calling after him with one last question. “What did she look like, your Lady Lynesse?”

Ser Jorah smiled sadly. “Why, she looked a bit like you, Daenerys.” He bowed low. “Sleep well, my queen.”

Dany shivered, and pulled the lionskin tight about her. She looked like me. It explained much that she had not truly understood. He wants me, she realized. He loves me as he loved her, not as a knight loves his queen but as a man loves a woman. She tried to imagine herself in Ser Jorah’s arms, kissing him, pleasuring him, letting him enter her. It was no good. When she closed her eyes, his face kept changing into Drogo’s.

[...] She had heard the longing in Ser Jorah’s voice when he spoke of his Bear Island. He can never have me, but one day I can give him back his home and honor. That much I can do for him.

 A Game of Thrones

AGOT Daenerys X

“Princess ...” he began.

“Why do you call me that?” Dany challenged him. “My brother Viserys was your king, was he not?”

“He was, my lady.”

“Viserys is dead. I am his heir, the last blood of House Targaryen. Whatever was his is mine now.”

“My ... queen,” Ser Jorah said, going to one knee. “My sword that was his is yours, Daenerys. And my heart as well, that never belonged to your brother. I am only a knight, and I have nothing to offer you but exile, but I beg you, hear me. Let Khal Drogo go. You shall not be alone. I promise you, no man shall take you to Vaes Dothrak unless you wish to go. You need not join the dosh khaleen. Come east with me. Yi Ti, Qarth, the Jade Sea, Asshai by the Shadow. We will see all the wonders yet unseen, and drink what wines the gods see fit to serve us. Please, Khaleesi. I know what you intend. Do not. Do not.”

“I must,” Dany told him. She touched his face, fondly, sadly. “You do not understand.”

“I understand that you loved him,” Ser Jorah said in a voice thick with despair. “I loved my lady wife once, yet I did not die with her. You are my queen, my sword is yours, but do not ask me to stand aside as you climb on Drogo’s pyre. I will not watch you burn.”

“Is that what you fear?” Dany kissed him lightly on his broad forehead. “I am not such a child as that, sweet ser.”

“You do not mean to die with him? You swear it, my queen?”

“I swear it,” she said in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms that by rights were hers.

~

She nodded, as calmly as if she had not heard his answer, and turned to the last of her champions. “Ser Jorah Mormont,” she said, “first and greatest of my knights, I have no bride gift to give you, but I swear to you, one day you shall have from my hands a longsword like none the world has ever seen, dragon-forged and made of Valyrian steel. And I would ask for your oath as well.”

“You have it, my queen,” Ser Jorah said, kneeling to lay his sword at her feet. “I vow to serve you, to obey you, to die for you if need be.”

“Whatever may come?”

“Whatever may come.”

“I shall hold you to that oath. I pray you never regret the giving of it.” Dany lifted him to his feet. Stretching on her toes to reach his lips, she kissed the knight gently and said, “You are the first of my Queensguard.”

~

“Ser Jorah, take this maegi and bind her to the pyre.”

“To the ... my queen, no, hear me ...”

“Do as I say.” Still he hesitated, until her anger flared. “You swore to obey me, whatever might come. Rakharo, help him.”

~

Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. [...] She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don’t you see? Don’t you SEE?

~

When the fire died at last and the ground became cool enough to walk upon, Ser Jorah Mormont found her amidst the ashes, surrounded by blackened logs and bits of glowing ember and the burnt bones of man and woman and stallion. She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful hair all crisped away ... yet she was unhurt.

The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin. When it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals.

Wordless, the knight fell to his knees. The men of her khas came up behind him. Jhogo was the first to lay his arakh at her feet. “Blood of my blood,” he murmured, pushing his face to the smoking earth. “Blood of my blood,” she heard Aggo echo. “Blood of my blood,” Rakharo shouted.

And after them came her handmaids, and then the others, all the Dothraki, men and women and children, and Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and forever, hers as they had never been Drogo’s.

 AGOT Daenerys IX

Ser Jorah Mormont lifted her in his arms and carried her back to her sleeping silks, while she struggled feebly against him. Over his shoulder she saw her three handmaids, Jhogo with his little wisp of mustache, and the flat broad face of Mirri Maz Duur. “I must,” she tried to tell them, “I have to ...”

“ ... sleep, Princess,” Ser Jorah said.

“No,” Dany said. “Please. Please.”

“Yes.” He covered her with silk, though she was burning. “Sleep and grow strong again, Khaleesi. Come back to us.”

~

“I want Ser Jorah,” she said, standing.

~

Ser Jorah and Mirri Maz Duur entered a few moments later, and found Dany standing over the other dragon’s eggs, the two still in their chest. It seemed to her that they felt as hot as the one she had slept with, which was passing strange. “Ser Jorah, come here,” she said. She took his hand and placed it on the black egg with the scarlet swirls. “What do you feel?”

“Shell, hard as rock.” The knight was wary. “Scales.”

“Heat?”

“No. Cold stone.” He took his hand away. “Princess, are you well? Should you be up, weak as you are?”

“Weak? I am strong, Jorah.” To please him, she reclined on a pile of cushions. “Tell me how my child died.”

“He never lived, my princess. The women say ...” He faltered, and Dany saw how the flesh hung loose on him, and the way he limped when he moved.

“Tell me. Tell me what the women say.”
He turned his face away. His eyes were haunted. “They say the child was ...”

She waited, but Ser Jorah could not say it. His face grew dark with shame. He looked half a corpse himself.

“Monstrous,” Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. “Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.”

Darkness, Dany thought. The terrible darkness sweeping up behind to devour her. If she looked back she was lost. “My son was alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into this tent,” she said. “I could feel him kicking, fighting to be born.”

“That may be as it may be,” answered Mirri Maz Duur, “yet the creature that came forth from your womb was as I said. Death was in that tent, Khaleesi.”

“Only shadows,” Ser Jorah husked, but Dany could hear the doubt in his voice. “I saw, maegi. I saw you, alone, dancing with the shadows. “

“The grave casts long shadows, Iron Lord,” Mirri said. “Long and dark, and in the end no light can hold them back.”

Ser Jorah had killed her son, Dany knew. He had done what he did for love and loyalty, yet he had carried her into a place no living man should go and fed her baby to the darkness. He knew it too; the grey face, the hollow eyes, the limp. “The shadows have touched you too, Ser Jorah,” she told him. The knight made no reply. Dany turned to the godswife. “You warned me that only death could pay for life. I thought you meant the horse.”

“No,” Mirri Maz Duur said. “That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price.”

Had she? Had she? If I look back I am lost. “The price was paid,” Dany said. “The horse, my child, Quaro and Qotho, Haggo and Cohollo. The price was paid and paid and paid.” She rose from her cushions. “Where is Khal Drogo? Show him to me, godswife, maegi, bloodmage, whatever you are. Show me Khal Drogo. Show me what I bought with my son’s life.”

“As you command, Khaleesi,” the old woman said. “Come, I will take you to him.” Dany was weaker than she knew. Ser Jorah slipped an arm around her and helped her stand. “Time enough for this later, my princess,” he said quietly.

“I would see him now, Ser Jorah.”

 AGOT Daenerys VIII

“Khaleesi,” he said, “the Andal is come, and begs leave to enter.”

“The Andal” was what the Dothraki called Ser Jorah. “Yes,” she said, rising clumsily, “send him in.” She trusted the knight. He would know what to do if anyone did.

Ser Jorah Mormont ducked through the door flap and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. In the fierce heat of the south, he wore loose trousers of mottled sandsilk and open-toed riding sandals that laced up to his knee. His scabbard hung from a twisted horsehair belt. Under a bleached white vest, he was bare-chested, skin reddened by the sun. “Talk goes from mouth to ear, all over the khalasar,” he said. “It is said Khal Drogo fell from his horse.”

“Help him,” Dany pleaded. “For the love you say you bear me, help him now.”

The knight knelt beside her. He looked at Drogo long and hard, and then at Dany. “Send your maids away.”

Wordlessly, her throat tight with fear, Dany made a gesture. Irri herded the other girls from the tent.

When they were alone, Ser Jorah drew his dagger. Deftly, with a delicacy surprising in such a big man, he began to scrape away the black leaves and dried blue mud from Drogo’s chest. The plaster had caked hard as the mud walls of the Lamb Men, and like those walls it cracked easily. Ser Jorah broke the dry mud with his knife, pried the chunks from the flesh, peeled off the leaves one by one. A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. The leaves were crusted with blood and pus, Drogo’s breast black and glistening with corruption.

“No,” Dany whispered as tears ran down her cheeks. “No, please, gods hear me, no.”

Khal Drogo thrashed, fighting some unseen enemy. Black blood ran slow and thick from his open wound.


“Your khal is good as dead, Princess.”

“No, he can’t die, he mustn’t, it was only a cut.” Dany took his large callused hand in her own small ones, and held it tight between them. “I will not let him die ...”

Ser Jorah gave a bitter laugh. “Khaleesi or queen, that command is beyond your power. Save your tears, child. Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now. We do not have time for grief. We must go, and quickly, before he dies.”

Dany was lost. “Go? Where should we go?”

“Asshai, I would say. It lies far to the south, at the end of the known world, yet men say it is a great port. We will find a ship to take us back to Pentos. It will be a hard journey, make no mistake. Do you trust your khas? Will they come with us?”

“Khal Drogo commanded them to keep me safe,” Dany replied uncertainly, “but if he dies ...” She touched the swell of her belly. “I don’t understand. Why should we flee? I am khaleesi. I carry Drogo’s heir. He will be khal after Drogo ...”

Ser Jorah frowned. “Princess, hear me. The Dothraki will not follow a suckling babe. Drogo’s strength was what they bowed to, and only that. When he is gone, Jhaqo and Pono and the other kos will fight for his place, and this khalasar will devour itself. The winner will want no more rivals. The boy will be taken from your breast the moment he is born. They will give him to the dogs ...”

Dany hugged herself. “But why?” she cried plaintively. “Why should they kill a little baby?”

“He is Drogo’s son, and the crones say he will be the stallion who mounts the world. It was prophesied. Better to kill the child than to risk his fury when he grows to manhood.”

The child kicked inside her, as if he had heard. Dany remembered the story Viserys had told her, of what the Usurper’s dogs had done to Rhaegar’s children. His son had been a babe as well, yet they had ripped him from his mother’s breast and dashed his head against a wall. That was the way of men. “They must not hurt my son!” she cried. “I will order my khas to keep him safe, and Drogo’s bloodriders will—”

Ser Jorah held her by the shoulders. “A bloodrider dies with his khal. You know that, child. They will take you to Vaes Dothrak, to the crones, that is the last duty they owe him in life ... when it is done, they will join Drogo in the night lands.”

Dany did not want to go back to Vaes Dothrak and live the rest of her life among those terrible old women, yet she knew that the knight spoke the truth. Drogo had been more than her sun-and-stars; he had been the shield that kept her safe. “I will not leave him,” she said stubbornly, miserably. She took his hand again. “I will not.”

~

“No? You say me no? Better you should pray that we do not stake you out beside your maegi. You did this, as much as the other.”

Ser Jorah stepped between them, loosening his longsword in its scabbard. “Rein in your tongue, bloodrider. The princess is still your khaleesi.”

~

She saw Ser Jorah Mormont, wearing mail and leather now, sweat beading on his broad, balding forehead. He pushed his way through the Dothraki to Dany’s side. When he saw the scarlet footprints her boots had left on the ground, the color seemed to drain from his face. “What have you done, you little fool?” he asked hoarsely.

“I had to save him.”

“We could have fled,” he said. “I would have seen you safe to Asshai, Princess. There was no need ...”

“Am I truly your princess?” she asked him.

“You know you are, gods save us both.”


“Then help me now.”


Ser Jorah grimaced. “Would that I knew how.”

~

An arm went under her waist, and then Ser Jorah was lifting her off her feet. His face was sticky with blood, and Dany saw that half his ear was gone. She convulsed in his arms as the pain took her again, and heard the knight shouting for her handmaids to help him.

[...] “Come here. Fetch the birthing women.”

“They will not come. They say she is accursed.”


“They’ll come or I’ll have their heads.”


 AGOT Daenerys VII

Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver’s Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne.

“I’ve told the khal he ought to make for Meereen,” Ser Jorah said. “They’ll pay a better price than he’d get from a slaving caravan. Illyrio writes that they had a plague last year, so the brothels are paying double for healthy young girls, and triple for boys under ten. If enough children survive the journey, the gold will buy us all the ships we need, and hire men to sail them.”

Behind them, the girl being raped made a heartrending sound, a long sobbing wail that went on and on and on. Dany’s hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver’s head. “Make them stop,” she commanded Ser Jorah.

“Khaleesi?” The knight sounded perplexed.


[...] Jorah Mormont spurred his horse closer. “Princess,” he said, “you have a gentle heart, but you do not understand. This is how it has always been. Those men have shed blood for the khal. Now they claim their reward.”

[...] “I will not have her harmed,” Dany said. “I claim her. Do as I command you, or Khal Drogo will know the reason why.”

[...] The knight gave her a curious look. “You are your brother’s sister, in truth.”

“Viserys?” She did not understand.

“No,” he answered. “Rhaegar.” He galloped off.

~

Each time Dany reined up, sent her khas to make an end to it, and claimed the victim as slave. One of them, a thick-bodied, flat-nosed woman of forty years, blessed Dany haltingly in the Common Tongue, but from the others she got only flat black stares. They were suspicious of her, she realized with sadness; afraid that she had saved them for some worse fate.

“You cannot claim them all, child,” Ser Jorah said, the fourth time they stopped, while the warriors of her khas herded her new slaves behind her.

“I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.” Across the city, a building collapsed in a great gout of fire and smoke, and she heard distant screams and the wailing of frightened children.

 AGOT Daenerys VI

“My princess. How may I serve you?”

“You must talk to my lord husband,” Dany said. “Drogo says the stallion who mounts the world will have all the lands of the earth to rule, and no need to cross the poison water. He talks of leading his khalasar east after Rhaego is born, to plunder the lands around the Jade Sea.”

The knight looked thoughtful. “The khal has never seen the Seven Kingdoms,” he said. “They are nothing to him. If he thinks of them at all, no doubt he thinks of islands, a few small cities clinging to rocks in the manner of Lorath or Lys, surrounded by stormy seas. The riches of the east must seem a more tempting prospect.”

“But he must ride west,” Dany said, despairing. “Please, help me make him understand.” She had never seen the Seven Kingdoms either, no more than Drogo, yet she felt as though she knew them from all the tales her brother had told her. Viserys had promised her a thousand times that he would take her back one day, but he was dead now and his promises had died with him.

“The Dothraki do things in their own time, for their own reasons,” the knight answered. “Have patience, Princess. Do not make your brother’s mistake. We will go home, I promise you.”

Home? The word made her feel sad. Ser Jorah had his Bear Island, but what was home to her? A few tales, names recited as solemnly as the words of a prayer, the fading memory of a red door ... was Vaes Dothrak to be her home forever? When she looked at the crones of the dosh khaleen, was she looking at her future?

Ser Jorah must have seen the sadness on her face. “A great caravan arrived during the night, Khaleesi. Four hundred horses, from Pentos by way of Norvos and Qohor, under the command of Merchant Captain Byan Votyris. Illyrio may have sent a letter. Would you care to visit the Western Market?”

Dany stirred. “Yes,” she said. “I would like that.”

~

“If you would pardon me for a time, I will seek out the captain and see if he has letters for us.”

“Very well. I’ll help you find him.”

“There is no need for you to trouble yourself.” Ser Jorah glanced away impatiently. “Enjoy the market. I will rejoin you when my business is concluded.”

Curious, Dany thought as she watched him stride off through the throngs. She didn’t see why she should not go with him. Perhaps Ser Jorah meant to find a woman after he met with the merchant captain. Whores frequently traveled with the caravans, she knew, and some men were queerly shy about their couplings. She gave a shrug.

~

She did not realize that Ser Jorah had returned until she heard the knight say, “No.” His voice was strange, brusque. “Aggo, put down that cask.”

Aggo looked at Dany. She gave a hesitant nod. “Ser Jorah, is something wrong?”

“I have a thirst. Open it, wineseller.”

The merchant frowned. “The wine is for the khaleesi, not for the likes of you, ser.”

Ser Jorah moved closer to the stall. “If you don’t open it, I’ll crack it open with your head.” He carried no weapons here in the sacred city, save his hands—yet his hands were enough, big, hard, dangerous, his knuckles covered with coarse dark hairs. The wineseller hesitated a moment, then took up his hammer and knocked the plug from the cask.

“Pour,” Ser Jorah commanded. The four young warriors of Dany’s khas arrayed themselves behind him, frowning, watching with their dark, almond-shaped eyes.

“It would be a crime to drink this rich a wine without letting it breathe.” The wineseller had not put his hammer down.

Jhogo reached for the whip coiled at his belt, but Dany stopped him with a light touch on the arm. “Do as Ser Jorah says,” she said. People were stopping to watch.

The man gave her a quick, sullen glance. “As the princess commands.” He had to set aside his hammer to lift the cask. He filled two thimble-sized tasting cups, pouring so deftly he did not spill a drop.

Ser Jorah lifted a cup and sniffed at the wine, frowning.

“Sweet, isn’t it?” the wineseller said, smiling. “Can you smell the fruit, ser? The perfume of the Arbor. Taste it, my lord, and tell me it isn’t the finest, richest wine that’s ever touched your tongue.” Ser Jorah offered him the cup. “You taste it first.”

“Me?” The man laughed. “I am not worthy of this vintage, my lord. And it’s a poor wine merchant who drinks up his own wares.” His smile was amiable, yet she could see the sheen of sweat on his brow.

“You will drink,” Dany said, cold as ice. “Empty the cup, or I will tell them to hold you down while Ser Jorah pours the whole cask down your throat.”

The wineseller shrugged, reached for the cup ... and grabbed the cask instead, flinging it at her with both hands. Ser Jorah bulled into her, knocking her out of the way. The cask bounced off his shoulder and smashed open on the ground. Dany stumbled and lost her feet. “No,” she screamed, thrusting her hands out to break her fall ... and Doreah caught her by the arm and wrenched her backward, so she landed on her legs and not her belly.

The trader vaulted over the stall, darting between Aggo and Rakharo. Quaro reached for an arakh that was not there as the blond man slammed him aside. He raced down the aisle. Dany heard the snap of Jhogo’s whip, saw the leather lick out and coil around the wineseller’s leg. The man sprawled face first in the dirt.

A dozen caravan guards had come running. With them was the master himself, Merchant Captain Byan Votyris, a diminutive Norvoshi with skin like old leather and a bristling blue mustachio that swept up to his ears. He seemed to know what had happened without a word being spoken. “Take this one away to await the pleasure of the khal,” he commanded, gesturing at the man on the ground. Two guards hauled the wineseller to his feet. “His goods I gift to you as well, Princess,” the merchant captain went on. “Small token of regret, that one of mine would do this thing.”

Doreah and Jhiqui helped Dany back to her feet. The poisoned wine was leaking from the broken cask into the dirt. “How did you know?” she asked Ser Jorah, trembling. “How?”

“I did not know, Khaleesi, not until the man refused to drink, but once I read Magister Illyrio’s letter, I feared.” His dark eyes swept over the faces of the strangers in the market. “Come. Best not to talk of it here.”

 AGOT Daenerys V

“Where is my brother?” Dany asked. “He ought to have come by now, for the feast.”

“I saw His Grace this morning,” he told her. “He told me he was going to the Western Market, in search of wine.”

“Wine?” Dany said doubtfully. Viserys could not abide the taste of the fermented mare’s milk the Dothraki drank, she knew that, and he was oft at the bazaars these days, drinking with the traders who came in the great caravans from east and west. He seemed to find their company more congenial than hers.

“Wine,” Ser Jorah confirmed, “and he has some thought to recruit men for his army from the sellswords who guard the caravans.” A serving girl laid a blood pie in front of him, and he attacked it with both hands.

“Is that wise?” she asked. “He has no gold to pay soldiers. What if he’s betrayed?” Caravan guards were seldom troubled much by thoughts of honor, and the Usurper in King’s Landing would pay well for her brother’s head. “You ought to have gone with him, to keep him safe. You are his sworn sword.”

“We are in Vaes Dothrak,” he reminded her. “No one may carry a blade here or shed a man’s blood.” “Yet men die,” she said. “Jhogo told me. Some of the traders have eunuchs with them, huge men who strangle thieves with wisps of silk. That way no blood is shed and the gods are not angered.” “Then let us hope your brother will be wise enough not to steal anything.” Ser Jorah wiped the grease off his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned close over the table. “He had planned to take your dragon’s eggs, until I warned him that I’d cut off his hand if he so much as touched them.”

For a moment Dany was so shocked she had no words. “My eggs ... but they’re mine, Magister Illyrio gave them to me, a bride gift, why would Viserys want ... they’re only stones ...”

“The same could be said of rubies and diamonds and fire opals, Princess ... and dragon’s eggs are rarer by far. Those traders he’s been drinking with would sell their own manhoods for even one of those stones, and with all three Viserys could buy as many sellswords as he might need.”

Dany had not known, had not even suspected. “Then ... he should have them. He does not need to steal them. He had only to ask. He is my brother ... and my true king.”

“He is your brother,” Ser Jorah acknowledged.

“You do not understand, ser,” she said. “My mother died giving me birth, and my father and my brother Rhaegar even before that. I would never have known so much as their names if Viserys had not been there to tell me. He was the only one left. The only one. He is all I have.” “Once,” said Ser Jorah. “No longer, Khaleesi. You belong to the Dothraki now. In your womb rides the stallion who mounts the world.”

~

Ser Jorah had made his way to Dany’s side. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Turn away, my princess, I beg you.”

“No.” She folded her arms across the swell of her belly, protectively.

 AGOT Daenerys IV

After the day in the grass when she had left him to walk back to the khalasar, the Dothraki had laughingly called him Khal Rhae Mhar, the Sorefoot King. Khal Drogo had offered him a place in a cart the next day, and Viserys had accepted. In his stubborn ignorance, he had not even known he was being mocked; the carts were for eunuchs, cripples, women giving birth, the very young and the very old. That won him yet another name: Khal Rhaggat, the Cart King. Her brother had thought it was the khal’s way of apologizing for the wrong Dany had done him. She had begged Ser Jorah not to tell him the truth, lest he be shamed. The knight had replied that the king could well do with a bit of shame ... yet he had done as she bid.

~

“I pray that my sun-and-stars will not keep him waiting too long,” she told Ser Jorah when her brother was out of earshot.

The knight looked after Viserys doubtfully. “Your brother should have bided his time in Pentos. There is no place for him in a khalasar. Illyrio tried to warn him.”

“He will go as soon as he has his ten thousand. My lord husband promised a golden crown.”

Ser Jorah grunted. “Yes, Khaleesi, but ... the Dothraki look on these things differently than we do in the west. I have told him as much, as Illyrio told him, but your brother does not listen. The horselords are no traders. Viserys thinks he sold you, and now he wants his price. Yet Khal Drogo would say he had you as a gift. He will give Viserys a gift in return, yes ... in his own time. You do not demand a gift, not of a khal. You do not demand anything of a khal.”

“It is not right to make him wait.” Dany did not know why she was defending her brother, yet she was. “Viserys says he could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers.” Ser Jorah snorted. “Viserys could not sweep a stable with ten thousand brooms.”

Dany could not pretend to surprise at the disdain in his tone. “What ... what if it were not Viserys?” she asked. “If it were someone else who led them? Someone stronger? Could the Dothraki truly conquer the Seven Kingdoms?”

Ser Jorah’s face grew thoughtful as their horses trod together down the godsway. “When I first went into exile, I looked at the Dothraki and saw half-naked barbarians, as wild as their horses. If you had asked me then, Princess, I should have told you that a thousand good knights would have no trouble putting to flight a hundred times as many Dothraki.”

“But if I asked you now?”

“Now,” the knight said, “I am less certain. They are better riders than any knight, utterly fearless, and their bows outrange ours. In the Seven Kingdoms, most archers fight on foot, from behind a shieldwall or a barricade of sharpened stakes. The Dothraki fire from horseback, charging or retreating, it makes no matter, they are full as deadly ... and there are so many of them, my lady. Your lord husband alone counts forty thousand mounted warriors in his khalasar.”

“Is that truly so many?”

“Your brother Rhaegar brought as many men to the Trident,” Ser Jorah admitted, “but of that number, no more than a tenth were knights. The rest were archers, freeriders, and foot soldiers armed with spears and pikes. When Rhaegar fell, many threw down their weapons and fled the field. How long do you imagine such a rabble would stand against the charge of forty thousand screamers howling for blood? How well would boiled leather jerkins and mailed shirts protect them when the arrows fall like rain?”

“Not long,” she said, “not well.”

He nodded. “Mind you, Princess, if the lords of the Seven Kingdoms have the wit the gods gave a goose, it will never come to that. The riders have no taste for siegecraft. I doubt they could take even the weakest castle in the Seven Kingdoms, but if Robert Baratheon were fool enough to give them battle ...”

“Is he?” Dany asked. “A fool, I mean?”

Ser Jorah considered that for a moment. “Robert should have been born Dothraki,” he said at last. “Your khal would tell you that only a coward hides behind stone walls instead of facing his enemy with a blade in hand. The Usurper would agree. He is a strong man, brave ... and rash enough to meet a Dothraki horde in the open field. But the men around him, well, their pipers play a different tune. His brother Stannis, Lord Tywin Lannister, Eddard Stark ...” He spat.

“You hate this Lord Stark,” Dany said.

“He took from me all I loved, for the sake of a few lice-ridden poachers and his precious honor,” Ser Jorah said bitterly. From his tone, she could tell the loss still pained him. He changed the subject quickly. “There,” he announced, pointing. “Vaes Dothrak. The city of the horselords.” ~

“Your brother had part of the truth,” Ser Jorah admitted. “The Dothraki do not build. A thousand years ago, to make a house, they would dig a hole in the earth and cover it with a woven grass roof. The buildings you see were made by slaves brought here from lands they’ve plundered, and they built each after the fashion of their own peoples.” Most of the halls, even the largest, seemed deserted. “Where are the people who live here?” Dany asked. The bazaar had been full of running children and men shouting, but elsewhere she had seen only a few eunuchs going about their business.

“Only the crones of the dosh khaleen dwell permanently in the sacred city, them and their slaves and servants,” Ser Jorah replied, “yet Vaes Dothrak is large enough to house every man of every khalasar, should all the khals return to the Mother at once. The crones have prophesied that one day that will come to pass, and so Vaes Dothrak must be ready to embrace all its children.”

~

As each rider swung down from his saddle, he unbelted his arakh and handed it to a waiting slave, and any other weapons he carried as well. Even Khal Drogo himself was not exempt. Ser Jorah had explained that it was forbidden to carry a blade in Vaes Dothrak, or to shed a free man’s blood. Even warring khalasars put aside their feuds and shared meat and mead together when they were in sight of the Mother of Mountains. In this place, the crones of the dosh khaleen had decreed, all Dothraki were one blood, one khalasar, one herd.

 AGOT Daenerys III

 “I warned him what would happen, my lady,” Ser Jorah Mormont said. “I told him to stay on the ridge, as you commanded.”

“I know you did,” Dany replied, watching Viserys. He lay on the ground, sucking in air noisily, red-faced and sobbing. He was a pitiful thing. He had always been a pitiful thing. Why had she never seen that before? There was a hollow place inside her where her fear had been.

“Take his horse,” Dany commanded Ser Jorah. Viserys gaped at her. He could not believe what he was hearing; nor could Dany quite believe what she was saying. Yet the words came. “Let my brother walk behind us back to the khalasar.” Among the Dothraki, the man who does not ride was no man at all, the lowest of the low, without honor or pride. “Let everyone see him as he is.”

“No!” Viserys screamed. He turned to Ser Jorah, pleading in the Common Tongue with words the horsemen would not understand. “Hit her, Mormont. Hurt her. Your king commands it. Kill these Dothraki dogs and teach her.”

The exile knight looked from Dany to her brother; she barefoot, with dirt between her toes and oil in her hair, he with his silks and steel. Dany could see the decision on his face. “He shall walk, Khaleesi,�� he said. He took her brother’s horse in hand while Dany remounted her silver. Viserys gaped at him, and sat down in the dirt. He kept his silence, but he would not move, and his eyes were full of poison as they rode away. Soon he was lost in the tall grass. When they could not see him anymore, Dany grew afraid. “Will he find his way back?” she asked Ser Jorah as they rode.

“Even a man as blind as your brother should be able to follow our trail,” he replied.

“He is proud. He may be too shamed to come back.”

Jorah laughed. “Where else should he go? If he cannot find the khalasar, the khalasar will most surely find him. It is hard to drown in the Dothraki sea, child.”

Dany saw the truth of that. The khalasar was like a city on the march, but it did not march blindly. Always scouts ranged far ahead of the main column, alert for any sign of game or prey or enemies, while outriders guarded their flanks. They missed nothing, not here, in this land, the place where they had come from. These plains were a part of them ... and of her, now.

“I hit him,” she said, wonder in her voice. Now that it was over, it seemed like some strange dream that she had dreamed. “Ser Jorah, do you think ... he’ll be so angry when he gets back ... She shivered. “I woke the dragon, didn’t I?”

Ser Jorah snorted. “Can you wake the dead, girl? Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, and he died on the Trident. Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake.”

His blunt words startled her. It seemed as though all the things she had always believed were suddenly called into question. “You ... you swore him your sword ...”

“That I did, girl,” Ser Jorah said. “And if your brother is the shadow of a snake, what does that make his servants?” His voice was bitter.

“He is still the true king. He is ...”

Jorah pulled up his horse and looked at her. “Truth now. Would you want to see Viserys sit a throne?” Dany thought about that. “He would not be a very good king, would he?”

“There have been worse ... but not many.” The knight gave his heels to his mount and started off again.

Dany rode close beside him. “Still,” she said, “the common people are waiting for him. Magister Illyrio says they are sewing dragon banners and praying for Viserys to return from across the narrow sea to free them.”

“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends,” Ser Jorah told her. “It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace.” He gave a shrug. “They never are.”

Dany rode along quietly for a time, working his words like a puzzle box. It went against everything that Viserys had ever told her to think that the people could care so little whether a true king or a usurper reigned over them. Yet the more she thought on Jorah’s words, the more they rang of truth.

“What do you pray for, Ser Jorah?” she asked him.

“Home,” he said. His voice was thick with longing.

“I pray for home too,” she told him, believing it.

Ser Jorah laughed. “Look around you then, Khaleesi.”

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King’s Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind’s eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind’s eye, all the doors were red.

“My brother will never take back the Seven Kingdoms,” Dany said. She had known that for a long time, she realized. She had known it all her life. Only she had never let herself say the words, even in a whisper, but now she said them for Jorah Mormont and all the world to hear.

Ser Jorah gave her a measuring look. “You think not.”

“He could not lead an army even if my lord husband gave him one,” Dany said. “He has no coin and the only knight who follows him reviles him as less than a snake. The Dothraki make mock of his weakness. He will never take us home.”

“Wise child.” The knight smiled.

“I am no child,” she told him fiercely. Her heels pressed into the sides of her mount, rousing the silver to a gallop. Faster and faster she raced, leaving Jorah and Irri and the others far behind, the warm wind in her hair and the setting sun red on her face. By the time she reached the khalasar, it was dusk.

 AGOT Daenerys II

“Best we get Princess Daenerys wedded quickly before they hand half the wealth of Pentos away to sellswords and bravos,” Ser Jorah Mormont jested. The exile had offered her brother his sword the night Dany had been sold to Kbal Drogo; Viserys had accepted eagerly. Mormont had been their constant companion ever since.

~

Ser Jorah Mormont apologized for his gift. “It is a small thing, my princess, but all a poor exile could afford,” he said as he laid a small stack of old books before her. They were histories and songs of the Seven Kingdoms, she saw, written in the Common Tongue. She thanked him with all her heart.

~

Dany sat there uncertain for a moment. No one had told her about this part. “What should I do?” she asked Illyrio.

It was Ser Jorah Mormont who answered. “Take the reins and ride. You need not go far.”

 AGOT Daenerys I

“Those three are Drogo’s bloodriders, there,” he said. “By the pillar is Khal Moro, with his son Rhogoro. The man with the green beard is brother to the Archon of Tyrosh, and the man behind him is Ser Jorah Mormont.”

The last name caught Daenerys. “A knight?”

“No less.” Illyrio smiled through his beard. “Anointed with the seven oils by the High Septon himself.”

“What is he doing here?” she blurted.

“The Usurper wanted his head,” Illyrio told them. “Some trifling affront. He sold some poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night’s Watch. Absurd law. A man should be able to do as he likes with his own chattel.”

“I shall wish to speak with Ser Jorah before the night is done,” her brother said. Dany found herself looking at the knight curiously. He was an older man, past forty and balding, but still strong and fit. Instead of silks and cottons, he wore wool and leather. His tunic was a dark green, embroidered with the likeness of a black bear standing on two legs.

She was still looking at this strange man from the homeland she had never known when Magister Illyrio placed a moist hand on her bare shoulder.