Arrival At Winterfell
With the tiniest roll of her eyes, she turned her back on him, refusing to let him see how upset she was.
“They hate me, Jon. Your family hates me.”
“No, they don’t hate you, they just don’t know you. They don’t trust you. But they will, just give them time. After all, I felt the same way a few months ago, as did you.”
Daenerys spun back around, her hands clasped to avoid wringing them. “Fine, Arya may not hate me, and Bran…is a little hard to read. But the same cannot be said for the Lady of Winterfell. There’s no mistaking her.”
Jon opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it when he saw her daring arched eyebrow and realised there was probably some truth to what she said. So he tried a different route. “If it makes you feel any better, she hasn’t liked me much most of our lives either. I think she’s always loved me in her own way, but she’s never really liked me. Probably has something to do with her mother.” He looked at the floor, memories of the dearly departed Catelyn Stark flittering through his head, none of them pleasant.
She stepped towards him carefully, lately it felt like every move between them had to be thought and re-thought a dozen times before acted on lest one makes a move the other isn’t ready to reciprocate. But at that moment she didn’t care, they hadn’t spoken much on the subject, but Dany knew his father’s wife was a sore spot for him. After all, she had no great love for those who made her feel like an outsider in her own home either. She placed a small, delicate hand on his callused ones.
Jon looked up and met her eyes, she didn’t speak any words of comfort, nor did he need them, her touch was enough, the gentle smile on her face was enough. He shook his head slightly as if shaking off the reverie and let a playful grin begin to form on his face.
“Besides,” he began to say with a glint in his coal-stone eyes. “There’s only one opinion that really matters to me and he seemed to take to you quite nicely.”
Dany cocked her head to the side and furrowed her thick brows in confusion, then broke out into a bemused smile when realisation hit her.
“Are you talking about Ghost?”
Jon didn’t say anything, he just bit his lip slightly like a cheeky schoolboy making a joke. She loved this side of him, it surfaced so rarely, usually buried under layers of brooding, but when it did it made her heart glow.
“I’ll admit, the fact that he didn’t immediately try to bite my arm off was more of a relief than it should have been.” Dany walked towards the fire in the corner of the room, it had been hours since it was lit and was now barely burning. “Imagine, ‘The Dragon Queen’…bested by a little wolf.”
His eyebrows shot up. “‘Little wolf’?”
The tiniest giggle escaped her lips, reminding Jon how young she truly was at heart, there weren’t many moments like this. “You know what I mean, the animals I deal with are usually –”
“Alright, fair enough. He’s no dragon. But in these parts, he is still considered quite formidable.” Dany could’ve sworn there was something in his voice that sounded offended, but he did a good job of covering it up.
“That he definitely is. A worthy adversary if he chose to be.” She nodded to herself absentmindedly, apparently it was enough to put him at ease.
He walked up behind her and they watched the flames together, dancing and circling each other.
“It wouldn’t hurt you at all, would it?”
The corner of her mouth perked up, she had been waiting a while for Jon to ask her about this, she was starting to wonder if he ever would.
“Not at all.”
“What does it feel like, Daenerys? To walk through fire?” He had been holding this back since the day they met, he’d only heard tales of her walking through flames unscathed, and of course there was the ‘Unburnt’ in her title, but he’d never actually addressed it with her. He just took her word for it.
“Like warmth.” Then, perceiving what that probably sounded like, she backtracked. “Not ‘fire’ kind of warmth, more like…what I’ve always imagined a mother’s smile feels like. A proud father’s hug. The love of a new-born child. It’s the safest feeling in the world. It won’t help you understand it, but it’s the same as when I’m on Drogon’s back, soaring through the skies. I feel invincible.”
They both took a deep breath in, gazing wistfully at the fire, anything to keep them from staring at each other longingly.
“It sounds incredible.”
Daenerys nodded slowly, sadly. “Almost makes up for the fact that I’ll never have anything to compare it to. A mother’s smile, a father’s hug,” her voice broke ever so slightly, “my child’s love.”
Without thinking, he took her hand, squeezing it gently and rubbing his thumb along her pale skin. Boundaries didn’t matter to him, not now, not when the woman he was so desperately in love with was hurting.
“You are the most loved woman I have ever met, My Queen. Trust me, I speak from a place of authority.” Jon, realising what he had just said, cleared his throat self-consciously.
She took a small step back until they were aligned and rested her head against his shoulder. And there they stood, not saying a word, watching the fire die out, relishing the seconds, the minutes, the hours, when they didn’t have to pretend to be stronger than they were.
