The Riverlands is a beautiful place, filled with verdant plains and greener forests. The rivers that it is named for seem to run endlessly through it - broad blue brushstrokes cut across a canvas of green. It was once the home of his mother and where she had grown up, and for all intents and purposes it is far more beautiful than the gray monotony of the North. Yet to Robb, it is dreary and dreadful, and no matter how brightly the sun shines or breathtaking the landscape, it will never be anything more than a bad memory.
It was in the Riverlands where they had received news that Theon Greyjoy had betrayed him and taken Winterfell; the home where they had grown up together as brothers. It was in the Riverlands where they were told that Theon had murdered his actual brothers and burnt his home to the ground. And it was in the Riverlands where he had found out his father had been murdered; executed by the bastard Joffrey Baratheon.
He can still remember the day as though it were only yesterday: the skies overcast with dark clouds that held the promise of rain, the chill in the air that nipped at his skin that almost reminded him of home. He remembers the way the birds had been singing from their perches in the trees, the way his mother had smiled when they had broken their fast together that same morning.
And then they received a raven with a scroll tied to its ankle. Dark wings, dark words. Perhaps he should have known, then.
He can still remember the way his heart seemed to shatter in his chest as he read the words inked on the parchment, the ache in his arm as he swung his sword against a tree again and again. Remembers how his vision blurred and he could not even see past his own tears.
But most of all, he remembers the tears in his own mother’s eyes and how she had tried to hide them. How she had tried to stay strong for him, promised him that they would save his sisters and then they would kill them all.
The next few turns of the moon had left Robb with a single-minded purpose of revenge that left room for little else in his mind. He ate little and slept even less, for he was too focused on when and where the next battle would take place. His mind filled with the intricacies of war and battle that seemed to be as much a part of him now as Grey Wind was. So when he had seen the familiar sights of red eyes and fur as white as summer snows, accompanied by a rider all in black - he had thought it nothing more than a vision at first. A trick of the mind, conjured up by the lack of sleep or perhaps even his grief stricken heart that longed for the family that remained to him. Yet there were differences to the figures before him, notable changes that were too dissimilar from the images of his memory to be anything but real.
And the words that had left his lips in what felt to be both a lifetime ago and only yesterday echoed through his mind:
The next time I see you, you’ll be all in black.
And the words rang true now. Jon was dressed all in black, with his dark hair wild about his head and a pained look in his gray eyes. Their father’s eyes.
Ghost was bigger than when Robb had last seen him, though not as big as Grey Wind. Robb hadn’t realized just how much he missed Jon until they were wrapped in each other’s arms, greeting each other as though no time had passed at all.
It was a balm to each of them, the death of their father bringing them closer together than they ever had been before.
Robb learned that Jon had left Castle Black as soon as he received word of their father’s death, despite already having said his vows and knowing the cost of desertion. But Robb was the King of the North and the Trident, and Jon was his brother even if his surname was Snow. He pardoned him, much to his mother’s chagrin, and for the few moons that Jon was by his side again, he didn’t feel so alone or so consumed by his grief.
Of course good things never lasted for long – bad things come in threes – and that adage proved true when they received word that Theon had betrayed him and seized Winterfell for his own, turning Bran and Rickon into prisoners in their own home.
Roose Bolton had tried to convince him that he would send his bastard to retake it, but Robb had politely refused him. Jon had offered to go, and who did Robb trust more than him? His mother hadn’t liked it, but she had liked Jon being around Robb and being forced to tolerate his presence even less.
So it was that Jon went back North with a number of men, but had arrived too late. Theon and his Ironborn were gone, and Winterfell was left in ruin. Worse still were the burned bodies he had found of two children that were roughly the size and shape of their brothers.
Robb didn’t truly believe it was them. In his wolf dreams, he could still sense Summer and Shaggy Dog far off in the North, further North than Ghost was then. If their wolves were still alive, then his brothers had to be as well.
When he informed his mother of what Jon had found, she had screamed and raged that it was somehow Jon’s fault. That Jon was the reason her youngest boys were dead. Robb had tried to console her, for they were Jon’s brothers too and that he would have Theon’s head for what he had done. But all his mother could do was sob and blame him for ever trusting Theon and Jon in the first place.
Robb wrote to Jon to have him send men to search for any trace of Theon and to hold Winterfell until he could return. After all, there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, and even though Jon was a Snow, he still had the blood of the Starks running through his veins.
His mother had done her best to appear strong in public, to hide her tears from his men. Though Robb was sure that no one would blame her for them, she had lost much and more in the last year that no wife or mother should ever have had to. In private, when it was just the two of them, she made no effort to hide them from him. It was then that he became her strength, when before she had always been his.
The sight that greets him now is altogether different as they stand in the castle that had once been her home. Now, his mother does not pretend to be strong any longer. Her cheeks are still wet from her tears though she is no longer crying - her lashes still wet and her eyes red. There is silver in her hair where before there was only red. Her figure has thinned some, and he knows that she has not been eating well. His mother looks to be a broken woman, appearing older than her years.
His heart aches for her, and yet there is nothing he can do. He cannot bring his father back, he cannot be the one to put Winterfell back together or bring his brothers back safely. Everyone believes them to be dead too, though Robb still holds onto the hope that they are out there somewhere - alive.
Nor can he return Lord Hoster Tully to the land of the living so his mother might say goodbye.
It is his first time really seeing Riverrun - the halls where his mother had been born and grown and played. Where his parents had met and married in Riverrun’s Godswood before King Robert’s Rebellion. The place where he had been born as well, though he holds no memory of this place. Yet they are here now to lay his grandfather to rest, to say goodbye to a man that he cannot recall.
Every day this war goes on, Robb feels as though he is running on ice; his body moving yet making no forward motion. He has won every battle he has fought, yet he is still losing the war. His purpose had died the day the Lannisters cut off his father’s head, and every morning it feels as though another tragedy awaits them - to sink its claws into them and tear into their flesh until nothing remains but their bones.
The only happy memory that the Riverlands holds for him is when he was reunited with Jon for that brief period, but even that feels so far away and is dulled by all the tragedy and heartache that seems to hound his steps like crows over carrion.
The day was overcast, much like it had been when they received word of his father’s death, though then the clouds had been so dark they’d been almost black. As though the Gods themselves raged and mourned the loss of the honorable Lord Eddard Stark. Now, the clouds are more gray in color, and though they cover the sun in its entirety, the glow from it can still be seen.
Lord Hoster Tully, Lord of Riverrun and Lord Paramount of the Trident, is laid to rest in a boat dressed in his finest silks with the banner of House Tully laid over him. His armor, shield, hunting horn, and a wooden sword is added to the boat along with him. Robb, with the help of Lord Jonos Bracken, Lord Tytos Blackwood, Lord Karyl Vance, Lord Jason Mallister, Ser Marq Piper, and Lord Walder Frey's son Lothar, set the boat down the Red Fork like so many Tullys before him.
His uncle Edmure tried three times to set the boat alight with a flaming arrow, before his great uncle, Brynden - also known as the Blackfish - took the bow from his nephew and successfully set the boat alight.
They watched silently from the docks as the boat was consumed by flames and made its way down the Red Fork, Lord Hoster’s family and bannerman bidding him a final farewell.
Robb’s own eyes are dry, though his face remains solemn. He had never known his grandfather, though he mourned his loss nonetheless. It is for the sake of his mother that his heart aches now, for the loss of a father after she has already suffered the loss of a husband and the supposed loss of two sons. Her daughters far away and out of reach, and Robb himself is the only child that remains to her. All that remains of the husband she has lost.
He doesn’t sleep much that night. Instead, he stays awake to watch over his mother as she sleeps fitfully through the night. Watches as she tosses and turns in her bed, her eyes red and cheeks tear-stained even in her sleep. Will the Gods not allow her even this small peace? Will they continue to cause her grief even in sleep? Hound her steps with loss in dreams just as they do in her waking hours?
The final thought that echoes through his mind before sleep tugs at him where he sits at his mother’s bedside is this: When will the Gods see fit to grant us peace?
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It is often said that among every tragedy and loss there remains a silver lining, and the saying proves to be true once more through a message borne to him on raven wings.
King’s Landing has fallen to His Grace, Stannis Baratheon. The Usurper Joffrey Baratheon died a traitor’s death. Cersei Lannister and her other bastard son are dead, all of their heads set to rot on spikes.
It feels like the first time Robb has smiled in years, though he wishes he had been the one to take Joffrey’s head. To part it from his body with his own sword, like the bastard had ordered done to his father - too craven to do it himself.
There is more to the scroll he has received, but for now all he can focus on is the sheer relief and happiness those words bring him.
Robb’s feet bring him to where Jaime Lannister is caged, Grey Wind at his side and the scroll still clasped in his hand. To see the Golden Lion now: laid low and covered in his own filth, left to rot in the mud and watched over by the very same Northmen his family sought to make an enemy of… it feels good.
When the Kingslayer looks up to see who has deigned to visit him, his green eyes are still just as bright as the day he was defeated and imprisoned. When he sees that it is Robb who has come to visit him, that self-satisfied smirk takes up his face once more. And Robb meets it with one of his own - can’t wait to see it shatter and fall.
“Ah, the King of the North!” Jaime cries, his smile smug and tone mocking. “What is it that brings you to see me today? Has my father worn you down? Has he finally gotten you to realize that you have no hope of winning this war?”
Robb can’t help but laugh, lip curled up in a sneer. If only you knew what I am about to tell you,he thinks. Then you would not be so smug. “I’ve come with news, Lannister. To deliver to you the fates of your sister and your bastard sons.” He leans forward then, grasps one of the bars that encage Tywin Lannister’s favorite son. “I thought you might like to know, Kingslayer. But, if you’d rather continue to make mock of me, go ahead.”
It pleases him more than anything to see that flash of fear in the Kingslayer’s eyes - that hint of doubt. Grey Wind’s hackles rise as a rumble emanates from the direwolf, lips snarling up as yellow eyes land on the Lannister - a mirror to a moment not too long ago, when Jaime Lannister had mocked him for being a boy, only for Robb to remind him that he was only mocking himself, for he was the one who had been beaten by a boy.
When a moment of silence passes between them without any word from Ser Jaime, Robb finally speaks up. “Stannis Baratheon has taken King’s Landing. Your sister and your bastard sons are dead.” His words echo the words inked on the raven scroll, though he leaves out that their heads were left to rot on spikes above the city gates. Because even for as much as Robb hates the Lannisters, believes that everything that befell Joffrey, his mother, and his brother was more than deserved… He still recognizes that they meant something to the man before him. And perhaps the more gruesome details of that letter are better left out.
Still, as Robb witnesses an array of emotion cross over Jaime Lannister’s face - watches as that smug grin and self-satisfied air that always seems to hang about him - shatter and crumble before him … he cannot help the sick sense of pride that claws at his chest. That sense of righteousness, that finally the Gods have seen fit to punish his enemies.
Robb doesn’t linger before the Kingslayer for long. After all, he has many duties to attend to. Joffrey Baratheon may be dead, but Tywin Lannister still lingers to the West. The war that Robb started to rescue his father from the dungeons of the Red Keep, that then turned into a war for vengeance against the boy-king who had taken his head is not over.
Robb knows that Tywin Lannister will not stop just because his daughter and grandsons are dead. But, Robb still holds Tywin’s favorite son prisoner, and that perhaps lends him some advantage. And now King’s Landing is beneath the rule of Stannis Baratheon, the false king Joffrey Baratheon firmly crushed beneath his heel.
It is only when he returns to the keep proper that Robb gets the chance to read the scroll in its entirety:
To the Usurper, Robb Stark
King’s Landing has fallen to His Grace, Stannis Baratheon. The Usurper Joffrey Baratheon died a traitor’s death. Cersei Lannister and her other bastard son are dead, all of their heads set to rot on spikes.
Come to King’s Landing and bend the knee to His Grace, and you shall be shown mercy and allowed to keep your father’s title of Warden of the North.
If you do not, and continue to call yourself King in the North and rebel against the Crown, you will be met with the same fate that was visited upon Joffrey Baratheon.
Robb scowls as his eyes trail over the last words inked on the scroll, brows furrowing in contemplation. Of course, it all seems so easy when spelled out in such a way. The purpose of vengeance that his war has become has been all but carried out - even if it was not by his hand. He should be able to just go home, resume his place as Lord of Winterfell and rest. After all, it isn’t as though he wanted to be named King in the North. His bannermen declared him as such, told him that he was the only King they meant to bend their knee to.
Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? Lord Umber had said. It was the dragons we bowed to, and now the dragons are dead!
Yet how can he turn his back on them now? He may not have wanted it, but he had accepted it all the same. Were he to bend the knee to Stannis now, it would be as though he were betraying them. So even though such a thing might be easier, he cannot.
He has to go on fighting, until Tywin Lannister is defeated and until the North is recognized as a free and independent kingdom, unfettered by the shackles of the Iron Throne.
One of my mutuals on Twitter got me to write this, and I'm honestly pretty proud of it. Season 8 was shit, but I did my best with what we were given.
CW: for grief, miscarriage, grief about miscarriage, aunt/nephew incest (they're Targaryens and it's Game of Thrones, this is pretty self explanatory lol), light smut
If any of these are triggering to you, please don't read!
Follow me on Twitter where I post art and snippets of other things I write! X
≪ ◦ ❖ ◦ ≫
She could feel him pulling away from her, ever since he found out what they really were to one another. It hadn’t mattered to her, why should it? She was a Targaryen — he was too, though he hadn’t grown up as one — their ancestors wed brother and sister to one another for centuries, what Jon and Daenerys were to one another was innocent compared to that. Yet it hurt, Gods, did it hurt. Because she could still see how much he wanted her, how much he wanted things to go back to the way they were before he knew they were related, and yet he wouldn’t allow himself to. Couldn’t forget.
She could feel herself tearing at the seams because of it. In this foreign place that should have been home, yet never had been. She saw the way people looked at her, the way they looked at her people: disdain in their eyes, curses on their tongues just waiting to be spoken. It didn’t matter that she was here to save them. It didn’t matter that she was putting her own war on hold for them, that she had brought her armies and her dragons — they would never see her as their savior. To them, she was a foreigner who had brought an army of savages to their lands. Someone who would use her dragons and armies to subjugate them, just like Aegon and his sisters did before her.
Yet that was never what she wanted. Wasn’t who she was. But how could they know that? How could she get them to see? She sought to free them from a tyrant who would use their lives against her, to build a new order just like she had done in Slaver’s Bay. She sought to free people from their chains, to give them the freedom to make their own choices.
Breaker of chains. Mother of Dragons. Daenerys Stormborn.
That was who she had been in Essos. Who she was at her core. Yet here in Westeros, here in the place that her ancestors had made their home but which had never been hers, the people whom she sought to rule only saw her as another tyrant. Someone who would put them in chains and rule over them with an iron fist.
Master. Mother of Monsters. The Mad King’s daughter.Yet none of that mattered to her. She would earn their love here, just like she had done in Essos. She would show them that she would be a good queen. They would learn to see her for what she was, just like Jon had told her they would.
And yet what did any of that matter if she lost the one person who meant more to her than any of that? The person who had made it all worth it. She couldn’t understand why the two of them being related mattered. When she found out that he was her brother’s son, she’d been overjoyed. Because finally, finally, she wasn’t alone. She was no longer the last Targaryen, she had him. And Gods, for it to be him!
The only other Targaryen she had ever known had been her brother Viserys, but he had been cruel and weak. And then she had heard what people had said of her father, the things that Viserys had said were lies, made up by the supporters of the Usurper. Barristan told her the truth of it though, they weren’t lies. None of them had been, her father had truly been mad. And Daenerys had done her best every day to make sure that she didn’t end up like her father, that the rumors of her being the Mad King’s daughter were unfounded.
Then there were the tales of her elder brother Rhaegar, and her mother as well. All of them Targaryens, and all of them gone. All except her.
And then it turned out that the man she loved was her brother’s son — the brother she had never known but desperately wished that she had — hidden away in the North as Ned Stark’s bastard for all these years. She wasn’t alone any longer, she had him. Sometimes when she looked at him, she wondered if he held any of her brother’s features. Wondered if he took after Rhaegar in some of the things he did, and thought that if her brother were alive today that he would be proud of the child he had made with Lyanna Stark.
So why couldn’t he see that, too? Why couldn’t he have her as she had him? Instead he clung to some foolish Northern belief, or perhaps it was something that had been instilled in him as a child that he never grew out of.
When she left Essos for Westeros, she had thought things would finally fall into place. She thought that after having spent her entire life in Essos, she would finally come home . And then she would be one step closer to taking back her birthright. And it had, at least at first. Only for it to all fall apart.
First, her allies had started to fall one by one. Then she had discovered that there was a greater enemy lingering in the North, an army of dead men that would see every life snuffed out and rule over a night that would never end. And she had brought her dragons Beyond the Wall on the word of a man whom she thought she could build something with, and had lost her dragon for it. Her child.
Viserion who had always been the sweetest of her three, who had always wanted to stay perched on her shoulder even after he had long outgrown it. Who had basked in the sun curled up at her side all throughout Slaver’s Bay, trilling and purring as she absentmindedly stroked his pale, heated scales.
Yet if she hadn’t lost him then she wouldn’t have seen. Wouldn’t have seen the danger the Army of the Dead posed to Westeros — the place she hoped to rule one day.
It was Jon who had shown her that. Jon was the entire reason why she was here in the North at all, because she loved him and because it was right.
And while she had been overjoyed when she found out that he was her brother’s son, she knew that it must stay between them. That if anyone else knew, it would destroy them. No matter how many times he proclaimed her as his queen, no matter how many times he bent the knee.
And then he had told his sisters anyway, and everything she had predicted had come to pass.
And now he stood before her as she sat beside the fire, the room dark aside from the flicker of the flames. At least he had the decency to look guilty.
“What did I say would happen if you told your sister?” Dany said, her voice sharp as though she were scolding a child. If only, if only.
Jon shook his head, his eyes closed. Gods, he looked exhausted . As though the entire weight of the world was on his shoulders, and she could see that it was wearing on him. “I don’t want it, and that’s what I told him.” He looked up at her then, as though afraid of what she might say.
“She betrayed your trust. She killed Varys as much as I did. This was a victory for her.” Dany swallowed, the rigors of the past few weeks catching up with her, tears hot behind her eyes though she wouldn’t let them fall. “And now she knows what happens when people hear the truth about you.”
She was tired, too. What she wouldn’t give to throw it all away and escape, to fly atop Drogon through the skies, with Jon on Rhaegal at her side. To find a place somewhere far away where they could just be.
Yet that wasn’t possible, not for her and not for him. They still had the war against Cersei to win. She wanted to break the wheel, to build a better world for the people who would come after her. It wasn’t about her, it never had been.
And yet, and yet.
It would all be so much easier if he ignored the misguided notion that their relation was wrong. It would be so much easier to just unite in marriage so that their claims to the Iron Throne would be one, and the realm wouldn’t fracture into a dozen pieces over which one of them should sit the Iron Throne and rule over Westeros once Cersei was defeated.
“Far more people in Westeros love you than love me.” She was breaking apart at the seams before the only man she had loved since Drogo. Perhaps even more than that . Her voice was starting to break with grief, with longing. For all that she had lost. “I don’t have love here. I only have fear.”
But that wasn’t even the worst part.
Jon looked up at her then, something burning behind those grey eyes that she wanted to say was longing. Longing for her. “I love you.” And the way he said it, she wanted to believe him.
“And you will always be my queen.”
Daenerys stood then, stepping towards him and closing the distance between them. Looking into his eyes as she spoke, deeply. Reverently.
“Is that all I am to you? Your queen? ” The last words come out in a whisper, her breath fanning against his lips. She leans in to kiss him then, to feel him against her because she needs him now more than anything. And for a blissful, fleeting moment, their lips seal against one another and it almost feels as though things are back to the way they should be. The way they’re meant to be. They get lost in each other again, in the feeling of their mouths moving against the other, their bodies pressing against each other. His hands around her waist and her hands on his face.
And then the moment is gone and he’s pulling away, his breath shaky and body tense. She can see the pain in his eyes as he does — the longing. Yet he pulls away anyway, and she can feel her heart break in her chest.
Perhaps that should make it better — the regret on his face — but it doesn’t. If anything, it only makes it worse because he doesn’t even have the decency to say anything. No I’m sorry, no empty words meant to reassure her, nothing. Instead he just stands there, with that look in his eyes that says so much more than any words ever could, and at the same time, not enough. She steps away from him and turns back towards the fire, tears filling her eyes as her hand drops to her belly. For a long moment all that can be heard is the crackling of the fire and the shakiness of their breaths, the both of them standing there in uncomfortable silence, unsure of what to say. It’s Dany who breaks it.
“Perhaps you were right.” When she speaks this time her words are stilted and sharp, all emotion having fled her voice though the tears in her eyes betray her tone. It’s a good thing he can’t see them, then.
He looks up, confused. “What?”
Her hand is still on her stomach, resting over the place where their child should have been. “About the witch. That she wasn’t a reliable source of information.” Her hand drops back to her side, after all there is nothing in her womb anymore. Nothing for her to cradle and protect any longer. Gone, just like Rhaego. Just like Viserion. A single tear rolls down her cheek and falls somewhere on the floor, forgotten. She turns to him then, unshed tears still gathered on her lash line.
She can see it on his face as he tries to piece it together, what it is exactly that she said and the implications of it. Until at last she sees realization dawn in his eyes, several more emotions flitting across his face. Confusion, hope, fear, guilt. He takes a step towards her, a hand reaching out before he stops himself short once again.
Dany clenches her jaw and fists her hands at her sides. “Though perhaps not.” This time, there’s a tremble in her voice, even though she tries to keep it even. She’s breaking .
Jon’s brows furrow, his head tilting to the side in confusion. He can guess what she means, but he doesn’t want to believe it. Needs to hear her say it.
“I lost it, Jon.” She pauses, swallowing down a sob. “I lost our babe.” The last words come out in a whisper, breathy and choked. It takes everything within her not to fall apart right then, despite how much she wants to — how much she needs to. If only for Jon to hold her again as she sobs, comforts her and whispering words of reassurance in her ear.
She looks down to the floor then, unable to look him in the eye anymore as he comes to the realization that she was pregnant. She was pregnant with his child and she lost it. She can’t bear it anymore, can no longer be the strong Queen she had always portrayed herself as.
Suddenly she feels a girl again, broken and alone in a place she doesn’t know. When Viserys had sold her to the Dothraki, before she had come to love the husband she had been sold to. Before she had lost Rhaego and before her dragons were born. She had been so lost then, and she felt the same now.
If I look back, I am lost.
A broken sob echoes throughout the room, and belatedly Daenerys realizes that it came from her. She’s shaking now, and she sinks down to the floor and wraps her arms around her knees as her body becomes wracked with sobs. For everything she had lost . How much more would she have to endure?
She doesn’t expect Jon to do anything, but he kneels down beside her and places a large hand on her back, and uses his other arm to gather her to him. He presses his face into her hair and shushes her, his hand rubbing circles on her back.
“ Dany, I…” When he speaks his voice breaks, and his words are cut off with a sob of his own. His eyes are shut tightly as he presses his face into her hair, breathing her in. Gods, he missed her. And Gods, how stupid he had been.
He takes her face in his hands and eases her head up gently so they can look one another in the eye, and the sight of her face wet with tears, crumpled in grief , it’s like a knife in the heart all over again.
He leans in and presses his forehead against her, his own brows furrowed in anguish. “ Dany, I am so sorry .” He whispers against her lips, her name a prayer on his tongue.
And he is, he is . He’d been a fool before, and only now can he see it. Now that the woman he loves is crying before him, the proud Dragon Queen on her knees and reduced to tears. All of it was his fault. She had come North for him. Lost her dragon because of him. And conceived and lost a child, because of him.
He closes his eyes to try and stop his own tears from falling, but it’s a futile gesture. Daenerys is still gasping through her sobs, struggling to suck in a breath deep enough to fill her lungs as they continue to wrack her body. Jon brings one hand to cup the back of her head, the other pressing a bit harder on her cheek.
He waits a moment for her breathing to come back down to a somewhat normal pace, and for her to look up at him once more. There are still tears pooled in her beautiful violet eyes, dark lashes still wet with them.
“ I love you. ” He breathes, and his words are full of reverence when he speaks them. And he means them. Gods, does he mean them. He had never felt this way about anyone, not even Ygritte. When he found out that Daenerys was his aunt he had pulled away. Because he thought it was wrong , and he was afraid of what people would think of him. Of them.
But suddenly, with this news that she has just given him, none of that matters anymore. For who is he, without her? What does any of it matter, without her? This beautiful, strong woman with her silver hair and violet eyes. He wouldn’t be surprised if someone told her they had pulled her straight from one of the songs.
And out of all the people in the world, she had chosen him. And he, like a fool, was ready to throw it all away because she was his aunt.
If it was wrong, then the Gods could punish him in one of the Seven Hells after he dies. But first he’ll live. And he’ll do it with Daenerys by his side, if she’ll have him.
Her bottom lip is trembling as she looks up at him, tears still streaming down her face and he can feel his heart break, too.
He isn’t sure what else he can say — what else he should say. He’d never been good with words, but he speaks anyway, letting them pour straight from his heart. Each word that falls from his lips matches every beat of his heart.
“And I swear to you, that I will love you. From this day, until my last day.” He kisses her forehead, his hand coming up to thumb some of the tears away. “I’ll never leave you again, I swear it.” His voice is barely more than a whisper — a breath, an oath, a promise.
They come together then, breaths shaky and mingling. They can taste the salt of their tears as they kiss, and they pour every word and promise that has been left unspoken into it.
I’m sorry. I love you. I am yours, and you are mine. I will spend the rest of my days by your side.
When their bodies come together this time, it’s nothing like the desperate, needy thing it was on the ship. This time, it’s slow and reverent. They take their time undressing one another, stripping each other to their barest selves. They take the time to memorize each new inch of skin that is exposed to them, every dip, curve, and line.
When Dany’s flat stomach becomes exposed to him, Jon caresses it with his hand, his thumb smoothing circles right above her navel. An unspoken apology.
He wonders then, just how long she kept the loss of their child to herself. Wonders how long she knew she was with child before she lost it. How big did their child grow? What would they have been like?
It’s something he’ll never know, and he’ll spend the rest of his life making it up to her.
Then he leans in to place a long, lingering kiss to her belly, this time a promise. Another, we’ll make another.
You’ll never be alone again. He swears, spells out each letter with his tongue in between her thighs.
This time, the tears that fall from her eyes aren’t from grief, but from pleasure. Her head is thrown back, silver-gold hair pooled around her head in a halo, glimmering in the firelight. Jon would say that she was one of the Gods herself, the way she looked in that moment.
He eats her out like a man starved, there isn’t an inch of her cunt that he doesn’t lavish with his lips and teeth and tongue. He doesn’t stop until she’s come twice and she’s pulling away from over-sensitivity, breathless — his name a mantra on her lips.
He comes up to kiss her, and she can taste herself on his lips and tongue, his beard still slick with her release. He sheathes himself inside her in a single thrust, her cunt opening up and welcoming him eagerly.
Her walls clench and flutter around him, the remnants of her last orgasm drawn out by his cock thrusting lazily inside her.
Both of their mouths are opened in wordless screams, their breaths mingling, every inch of their bodies pressed up against each other— so there is not a single part of them that is not touching the other. They consume one another thoroughly and completely, until they don’t know where one of them ends and the other begins.
They kiss and mark every inch of skin that is exposed to them, everywhere they can reach from the position they are in.
Their eyes meet then, in the darkness of the room illuminated only by the flickering of flames in the hearth. And in their eyes they say everything that their mouths cannot, everything their bodies cannot. And then they’re coming together, Jon spilling himself deep inside her and each of them silently prays that it’ll take root and her womb will quicken once more.
And when Cersei is defeated, Jon and Daenerys take the Iron Throne and rule over the Seven Kingdoms as King and Queen, Ice and Fire united as one. It should be no surprise then, that their silent prayers are answered and they welcome the daughter each of them has always wanted. A little girl with silver hair and grey eyes, the best of both of her parents.
Hey, It’s been awhile. I know that a lot of you follow me for Outlander content and Outlander fanfiction, but honestly my head hasn’t been there for awhile. I do miss all of the fics I had ongoing for that fandom, but it just doesn’t hold the same space in my heart as it used to. Hopefully, one day I will come back to writing those fics, but for now I’m moving on from it.
For the past few years, I’ve been heavily hyperfixating on ASoIaF and the universe that George RR Martin has created, especially Daenerys Targaryen and House Targaryen. I can’t count the number of other fics I’ve read, art I’ve seen, and people I’ve interacted with in this fandom. I’ve done and still do A LOT of ASoIaF RP on Discord and that’s where all of my writing has been. And now with House of the Dragon out, that obsession has only increased. So, writing a fanfic for this fandom and this universe has been something I’ve wanted to do for a few years now, especially for Robb and Daenerys (because I ship them even though I know they’re a super rare pair and it’ll never happen in canon, I think they’d be great for each other, idc.) I still have absolutely NO IDEA where I am going to go with this fic, but I’ll figure it out as I go along, hopefully.
So, without further ado, I hope you all enjoy the read :)
(BTW, I haven’t really been active on tumblr at all lately, but I’m super active on Twitter if anyone wants to follow me over there! I post art there too! Check it out here)
≪ ◦ ❖ ◦ ≫
Daenerys wants nothing more than to go home. Sometimes, she imagines what Dragonstone is like, remembers the tales her brother told her of the place she was born that she could not ever hope to remember. A place where dragons had hatched and lived and died. Where her ancestors came before the Doom of Valyria and made their home before Aegon and his sisters looked west and conquered the Seven Kingdoms. Before they built the Red Keep in King’s Landing at the mouth of Blackwater Bay and ruled for nearly three centuries. Yet Dragonstone had never been home to her, not really – despite how much she tried to cling to the idea of that being true.
Before, home to her had always been the house in Braavos with the red door and the lemon tree outside her window. Of evenings spent looking out at the sea and the breeze carding through her hair. Of Viserys spinning tales of home and comforting her when she had bad dreams before he had gone mad.
Yet when Dany dreams she does not see the house with the red door or her lemon tree. She does not see the black sand beaches or the smoking Dragonmont on Dragonstone. She doesn't even see the tall grasses of the Dothraki sea. No, when Dany dreams she is transported to another world altogether: a land of hills and moors covered in white with a gray sky above it. She dreams of tall trees with leaves like needles, of a chill in the air that nips at her skin despite her heat – and the only sound that can be heard is the howling of wolves. And for some reason, this strange place felt more like home to her than the house with the red door and her lemon tree ever had.
≪ ◦ ❖ ◦ ≫
Robb wants nothing more than to go home. Back to Winterfell with its warm halls and familiar faces. Back to where everything was familiar and carefree and safe. He wants to leave this war that even though he is winning, the end of it seems to forever be just outside of his grasp. With each day that passes, he is unsure that he will ever get to see Winterfell again. Will never be able to visit the Godswood where his father would sit beneath the bone-white bark of the Weirwood tree and sharpen Ice. Where Grey Wind and the rest of the direwolves had raced and hunted and grew. Where he might never get to visit the crypts of the Lords and Kings of Winterfell that came before him – never get to see his father’s likeness carved among them.
He does not know if his brothers or Arya are alive, doesn’t know how much longer Sansa will be safe in the grasp of the Lannisters in King’s Landing. Yet when he dreams and finds himself looking at the world through Grey Wind’s eyes, sometimes he can still feel the pull of Summer and Shaggy Dog far off in the North, where Ghost is, too. There’s another wolf that is closer, whom he knows must be Nymeria. When he wakes, he tries to hold onto that feeling – convinces himself that if their wolves are out there, then Bran and Rickon and Arya are still alive, too – somewhere, out of reach.
Sometimes when he dreams there’s something else too, something he cannot name or place. Something that smells of fire and ash and brimstone, of heat. He feels a pull towards that too, somewhere far off and across the sea to the east that is perhaps even stronger than that of the other direwolves. And when Robb wakes, the only word that he can put to that feeling that even comes close to describing it, is home.
Hey, It’s been awhile. I know that a lot of you follow me for Outlander content and Outlander fanfiction, but honestly my head hasn’t been there for awhile. I do miss all of the fics I had ongoing for that fandom, but it just doesn’t hold the same space in my heart as it used to. Hopefully, one day I will come back to writing those fics, but for now I’m moving on from it.
For the past few years, I’ve been heavily hyperfixating on ASoIaF and the universe that George RR Martin has created, especially Daenerys Targaryen and House Targaryen. I can’t count the number of other fics I’ve read, art I’ve seen, and people I’ve interacted with in this fandom. I’ve done and still do A LOT of ASoIaF RP on Discord and that’s where all of my writing has been. And now with House of the Dragon out, that obsession has only increased. So, writing a fanfic for this fandom and this universe has been something I’ve wanted to do for a few years now, especially for Robb and Daenerys (because I ship them even though I know they’re a super rare pair and it’ll never happen in canon, I think they’d be great for each other, idc.) I still have absolutely NO IDEA where I am going to go with this fic, but I’ll figure it out as I go along, hopefully.
So, without further ado, I hope you all enjoy the read :)
(BTW, I haven’t really been active on tumblr at all lately, but I’m super active on Twitter if anyone wants to follow me over there! I post art there too! Check it out here)
≪ ◦ ❖ ◦ ≫
Daenerys wants nothing more than to go home. Sometimes, she imagines what Dragonstone is like, remembers the tales her brother told her of the place she was born that she could not ever hope to remember. A place where dragons had hatched and lived and died. Where her ancestors came before the Doom of Valyria and made their home before Aegon and his sisters looked west and conquered the Seven Kingdoms. Before they built the Red Keep in King’s Landing at the mouth of Blackwater Bay and ruled for nearly three centuries. Yet Dragonstone had never been home to her, not really – despite how much she tried to cling to the idea of that being true.
Before, home to her had always been the house in Braavos with the red door and the lemon tree outside her window. Of evenings spent looking out at the sea and the breeze carding through her hair. Of Viserys spinning tales of home and comforting her when she had bad dreams before he had gone mad.
Yet when Dany dreams she does not see the house with the red door or her lemon tree. She does not see the black sand beaches or the smoking Dragonmont on Dragonstone. She doesn't even see the tall grasses of the Dothraki sea. No, when Dany dreams she is transported to another world altogether: a land of hills and moors covered in white with a gray sky above it. She dreams of tall trees with leaves like needles, of a chill in the air that nips at her skin despite her heat – and the only sound that can be heard is the howling of wolves. And for some reason, this strange place felt more like home to her than the house with the red door and her lemon tree ever had.
≪ ◦ ❖ ◦ ≫
Robb wants nothing more than to go home. Back to Winterfell with its warm halls and familiar faces. Back to where everything was familiar and carefree and safe. He wants to leave this war that even though he is winning, the end of it seems to forever be just outside of his grasp. With each day that passes, he is unsure that he will ever get to see Winterfell again. Will never be able to visit the Godswood where his father would sit beneath the bone-white bark of the Weirwood tree and sharpen Ice. Where Grey Wind and the rest of the direwolves had raced and hunted and grew. Where he might never get to visit the crypts of the Lords and Kings of Winterfell that came before him – never get to see his father’s likeness carved among them.
He does not know if his brothers or Arya are alive, doesn’t know how much longer Sansa will be safe in the grasp of the Lannisters in King’s Landing. Yet when he dreams and finds himself looking at the world through Grey Wind’s eyes, sometimes he can still feel the pull of Summer and Shaggy Dog far off in the North, where Ghost is, too. There’s another wolf that is closer, whom he knows must be Nymeria. When he wakes, he tries to hold onto that feeling – convinces himself that if their wolves are out there, then Bran and Rickon and Arya are still alive, too – somewhere, out of reach.
Sometimes when he dreams there’s something else too, something he cannot name or place. Something that smells of fire and ash and brimstone, of heat. He feels a pull towards that too, somewhere far off and across the sea to the east that is perhaps even stronger than that of the other direwolves. And when Robb wakes, the only word that he can put to that feeling that even comes close to describing it, is home.
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